Urban Echo is the collective name of a series of ongoing research into interactive sound and video installations. Images above are specifically a version in Copenhagen, Denmark during 2007 where the work is integrated with the architecture.

The project has appeared in many forms…ranging from intimate outdoor video sculpture to large interactive public façades. Urban Echo aims to collect and creatively represent the thoughts and imaginings of city-dwellers.

In each installation, participants send their thoughts and questions via SMS and voicemail. The responses are the then projected and added to a dynamic spatialized audio composition.

Mobile Expressions are experiments for:

expressive interfaces for public use of mobile phones.

The Walking Radar (image above and video below) is an add on device for a mobile phone to alert the user of objects while they are moving through a space and occupied with on screen content such as texting, using web services or playing a game.

Internet Pajama (concept image above of doll / teddy bear used in work) is a:

wearable system aimed at promoting physical interaction in remote communication between parent and child. This system enables parent and child to hug one another through a novel hugging interface device and a wearable, hug reproducing jacket connected through the Internet. The hugging device is a small, mobile doll with embedded pressure sensing circuit that is able to sense varying levels of human force. This device sends hug signals to a haptic jacket that simulates the feeling of being hugged to the wearer. It features high fidelity, air pockets actuating to reproduce hug, heating elements to produce warmth that accompanies hug and color changing display to indicate distance of separation and to display emoticons.

Related work, Hug Shirt, Lovejacket and Hugjackets, interactive pillows and Herenorthere.org’s Pillow, Slumber Light, Tobi Schneidler’s networked furniture and World Bench.

Seen at twenty1f.com.

The Observational Soundscape (above left and right, video below) is a series of sound installation works by Zach Poff and N.B. Aldrich which consists of custom software, a video camera and microphones. Together these convert:

the activity of a space into a continually changing soundscape whose form and content reflect the visual and aural phenomena observed in the area. Every detected change in the physical space impacts the piece in some way: sometimes generating audio material and sometimes creating structural variation.

The software translates the trends of color, density and motion from the video camera into the timing, pitch, and spatial characteristics of an audio environment. In some versions of the installation there are microphones which allow ambient sounds to become part of the material used by the instrument. The result is broadcast through 4 speakers in the space.

Above: The Observational Soundscape II: Cooper

The videos above and below show differing layouts of the installation and as a result differing results on screen. Above the space captured on camera is a corridor which only allows movement in two directions causing the onscreen imagery and sounds created to be almost bi-polar, opposites, and play on aspects such as approaching and retreating mapping to sound levels raising and lowering. Below the space captured is a foyer or possibly intersection between different spaces so the flow of movement between these space and through the installation space is more varied resulting in potentially more varied audio and visuals. In a sense the installation functions as both an immediate audio-visual experience for the users of the space (and as a result the installation) but also over time a means of mapping the spaces patterns of use.

Above: The Observational Soundscape III: Bates

Atom (image above, video below) and Electric Mo0ns, two aspects of the same developed interactive system, are a stunning performance and installation created by Christopher Bauder, Till Beckmann, Holger Pecht and Robert Henke. In Atom a:

Performance for a matrix of 64 gas balloons, lights, and sound.

A room is filled with deep, evolving noises from a four-channel sound system. An eight-by-eight array of white, self-illuminated spheres floats in space like the atoms of a complex molecule.

Through variable positioning and illumination of each atom, a dynamic display sculpture comes into being, composed of physical objects, patterns of light, and synchronous rhythmic and textural sonic events. Change, sound, and movement converge into a larger form.

The height of the helium balloons is adjusted with a computer-controlled cable, whilst the internal illumination is accomplished using dimmable super-bright LEDs, creating a pixel in a warped 8×8 spatial matrix.

In Electric Mo0ns there are:

A hundred white balloons in a completely darkened room are floating in space like the atoms of a molecule. They are moving up and down slowly and gracefully. The balloons appear as floating three-dimensional pixels arranged in a 10×10 grid…The interactive balloon ballet is built out of both synchronized movement and lighting. A screen-based interface commands the balloon ballet to move in sync to a chosen musical piece. The user can control the movement and lighting of each balloon independently. Morphing 3D shapes and patterns are blended with an overlay of supporting or counteracting light animations.

Within each version there is what looks like a max/msp interface (or something similar such as pd) controlling arrays of pulleys and led’s (image above, left and right). This type of artwork as installation or performance, a network of objects which perform / react / connect to each other or to a central point features quite heavily in new media art at the moment such as the work of David Rokeby, Nabaz’mob and Dialtones Telesymphony, the work of Ken Rinaldo, HC Gilje, Moody Mushroom Floor, Ping Genius Loci etc.