_Hannah Regier
Concept development, Copy writing, Interaction design, Mechanical design and construction, Design production, and Installation
_Jiyeon Song
Concept development, Interaction design, Flash and action-scripting, Content and visual design, and Installation
_Jean Ku
Concept development, Typography and design, flash, Letterpress printing, Installation, anddocumentation website
Interactive Objects and Spaces _instructor: Phil VanAllen
Brief:
Our team built a swing that acted as the controller for a type-based video projection. The theme of the project was Imagination as it relates to reality, creativity and insanity. Swinging forward brought up new words relating to the positive creative side of imagination, swinging backwards brought up words relating to insanity and maladjustment. All the words of a single swinging session stayed on the screen as new words pop up, fading in and out with the motion of continued swinging.
Concept:
The theme of Imagination/Insanity drove the project. We wanted to make a context-driven installation addressing the space of the pavilion at ArtCenter. A student finding herself in the pavilion is likely taking a break from art-making and looking for space, relief and inspiration. The physical act of swinging brings one back to the childhood freedoms of imaginary worlds. We wanted to explore how those unbridled mental experiences play into adult life and specifically the artist's life.
Our swing crosses the indoor/outdoor boundary: it is partially inside, in the open-air Sinclaire Pavilion, making it a bit transgressive compared to the normal outdoor environment for a swing.These tensions: imagination/insanity, indoor/outdoor, physical/digital were the material for our conceptual development.
Physical and functional description :
Our swing was constructed to accommodate a knob as the single sensor driving the interaction. The knob was placed in the end of a shaft that spanned two bearings. The shaft and knob rotated with the swinging action and the brackets holding the bearings hung on a ceiling joist. The brackets were custom machined to fit the joist and engineered to hold a swinging load of up to 300 pounds. The seat was made from a rubber stair tread hung on 1/4-inch braided cable.The type in the projection originated from letterpress prints made at archetype press. We did this to further explore the physical/digital divide. The prints were processed in Photoshop and imported to Flash.
Media :
The type in the projection originated from letterpress prints made at archetype press. We did this to further explore the physical/digital divide. The prints were processed in Photoshop and imported to Flash.
Mechanical point of view:
The words on the screen are controlled by the forward or backward direction of the swing and the height of each pass. Once the swing was installed, we were able to swing and determine the height of normal swinging. We decided on two levels of swinging that would initiate two levels of interactive results. The angles of the swinging heights corresponded to toggles stops marked on the knob. The lower level of interaction corresponds with smaller, white words, and the second level to much larger, colored words.
Interaction :
When you swing forward, you can get new positive words (imagination) and negative words (insanity) fade out. When you swing backward, you can get new negative words (insanity) and positive words fade out. After the swing stops, the words on the screen stay until the next person sits on the swing. We used action script in flash to reset the whole movie. The larger words appear in color and fade to white after one swinging cycle. Each word remains on the screen as new words appear, but those that have been up longer fade over time and recede into the background. The third level of interaction is the continual cross fading, in rhythm with the action of the swing, of the two word sets.
There are 4 movie clips, small imagination words, big imagination words, small insanity words and big insanity words. These 4 movie clips combine to create the image. Two control-clips and two sensor-monitors control one movie clip. One set has a toggling function to go to the next frame to get a new word and another control clip is used for controlling the opacity of the movie clip when people swing either backward or forward.
detail images
Succeed/not succeed/imporvement:
The project was most successful in integrating the action of swinging with the projection cross fades. This simple move made the two aspects of the project seem connected in a strongly visceral way. It also helped the swinger understand that he or she was controlling the other interactions. We found that the words, although they were beautiful, were not really read, so a great deal of the concept was lost in the experience. People mentioned that they felt playful and had fun swinging, but didn't really get that there were two different sets of words. If we did it again and continued to work with words, we would have to try to differentiate the insanity words from the imagination words better. Exploring the addition of sound would also be a direction to try in another round. Lastly, but most importantly, we need to make the swing seat more comfortable.
click here to see more process photos-
