http://www.experientia.com/playful Playful learning with new interfaces Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:51:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en At Artissima, the international fair of contemporary art in Torino, visitors are able to use simple hand and arm gestures to browse a visual catalogue of recent art work exhibited at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, an important museum in the city. The technology is based on sophisticated gesture recognition, while ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/gesture-based-interface-at-international-art-fair/ "In their efforts to compete with other and more dynamic providers of information and entertainment, many museums are listening to their visitors more closely than ever before," writes Jennifer Kabat in a long story on the website of the Adobe Design Center. "In some cases museums—famously top-down institutions—are even incorporating ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/the-people-will-be-heard-interactive-technology-in-public-spaces/ Books are great tools to aiding learning and imagination, but is it possible to use technology in such a way that children might actually experience something like the African savannah for themselves? Savannah, a strategy-based adventure game mapping a virtual space onto a real one, was developed with just such ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/creating-the-user-experience-of-an-educational-and-strategy-based-adventure-game/ "The Virtual Museum of Canada must unashamedly create compelling experiences and should experiment with game-like interfaces that are strongly content-based for the born-digital generations." This is one of the core conclusions of the Next Generation report ("experience design" chapter) on the future development of the popular Virtual Museum of Canada website. http://www.experientia.com/playful/compelling-experiences-and-game-like-interfaces-for-the-virtual-museum-of-canada/ “PlayWorks” is the title of a new permanent exhibition at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan aimed at children under 5. "Beneath each image will be a second canvas, a textural and three-dimensional rendering, which a child can touch. And this installation will be just one in a series of interactive ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/childrens-museum-of-manhattan/ Very interesting post by Ulla-Maaria Mutanen on her blog HobbyPrincess on museums and web 2.0: "Some time ago Virtueel Platform organized a workshop called Take Away Museum to discuss new emerging ways to engage people in conversations with exhibited artwork and artifacts. The central question was: what is Web 2.0 for ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/on-museums-and-web-20/ This project by Electroland consists of a luminous field of LED lights embedded into the entry walkway that respond to the presence of visitors; a massive display of lights on the building face that mirror the patterns of the entry; and video displays in the lobby and entry areas. Environmental intelligence ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/enteractive/ This project by Electroland features two glass pedestrian bridges designed as “Interactive Walkways,” each with a field of LED lights embedded in resilient walking surfaces. Sensors detect the presence of people and the system triggers interactive light patterns on the walkway floor. (via we-make-money-not-art and Interactive Architecture) http://www.experientia.com/playful/interactive-walkways/ Nanoscape by artists and researchers Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau is an invisible sculpture that can be sensed via touch. Users wear magnetic ring-interfaces and when moving the hand over the table of the installation, strong magnetic forces, repulsion, attraction and even slight shock can be felt. Wireless magnetic force-feedback interface allows ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/nano-sculpture/ Lightmodulator is a series of projects by architect Nick Rich which work with light and the phenomena of moments in time where light and the materials it lands on or passes through create magical transformations of space. His initial research has been to understand the sun's movement and the changing ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/ray-of-light/ Bitfall is an installation by Julius Popp where water is being used to project images taken from the internet. A computer observes various news websites and chooses thereafter the images to be displayed. 128 nozzles are controlled by synchronised magnetic valves, and the water drops falling to the ground shape ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/bitfall/ This project by Kellee Santiago (founder of thatgamecompany) allows you to control the character using your body. Tilt your arms to turn and raise them to go faster or lower to slow down. It uses the PhaseSpace motion capture set-up, essentially cameras tracking LEDs on the wearers body. It’s great ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/i-am-more-than-my-thumb/ tabulaTouch can sense multiple points of contact on surfaces of different shape and size, where gestures can be recognized and become expressive actions. The first case of study has been tabulaMaps, an application for the collaborative management of digital maps that features the intuitive roto-translation approach; we are planning to integrate ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/tabulatouch/ An electro-kinetic sound installation by the London based collective Someth;ng, Tape uses simple analogue playback to allow users an arena in which to play with self-recorded sound and explore the effects of playback and sound synthesis. Housed in a transparent acrylic panel, Tape allows its user not only to view ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/tape/ Mind Your Head by Philip Marston is a simple and playful installed object which the viewer/participator (by wearing the headphones and walking under and around the suspended light) can audibly experience the invisible electromagnetic frequencies which leak and radiate out of an ordinary fluorescent tube light. The headphones, with an EMF ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/mind-your-head/ Sensing GamePad: Electrostatic Potential Sensing for Enhancing Entertainment Oriented Interactions This project by Dr. Jun Rekimoto, director of Sony's Interaction Laboratory, introduces a novel way to enhance input devices to sense a user's foot motion. By measuring the electrostatic potential of a user, this device can sense the user's footsteps and ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/sensing-gamepad/ X-Ray This installation by All of Us offers visitors an insight into the artist's thinking behind the painting 'A view on the Stour near Deadham' in a fun and engaging process. By walking in front of the projected painting, the visitor casts a virtual shadow over the image, revealing an x-ray ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/all-of-us/ This installation by All of Us was created for the 18th century Norfolk House Music Room, Plink Plonk used mechanical music boxes as playful delicate input devices, producing their own sound output (the tune ‘You are my sunshine’). A visual narrative responded to the turn of each music box, with ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/plinkplonk/ London based Sennep created an interactive dandelion for Transvision 2006. Elegantly simple and playful, this installation allowed users to blow away the seeds of a dandelion clock using a real electric hairdryer. “Blowing it apart is a popular pastime for children. The number of blows required to completely rid the clock ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/dandelion-by-sennep/ Soundgarten by Michael Wolf is a tangible interface that enables children to record, modify and arrange sound samples in a playful way. Designed as a toy, the garden has 19 plug holes that can fit sounds in the form of mushroom objects. Children can use the pre-defined environmental or musical ... http://www.experientia.com/playful/soundgarten/