Interface Art

As mentioned in previous posts, developers like to push the boundaries of interfaces and create (not always useful) innovative and fun ways of changing a user's interactive experience.

An excellent source for these sorts of developments can be found on PixelSumo (http://www.pixelsumo.com).

"Pixelsumo is a blog about play, exploring the boundaries of interaction design, video games, toys and playgrounds." - PixelSumo's About page

PixelSumo attend conventions and write articles on the 'strange' interfaces they find, and provide documentation about them. (corrected, thanks for the comment chriso!)

One of the most interesting and relevant posts made on this website can be found in the "Physical Computing" section of the blog. In here they get to grips with using an Arduino (http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/arduino) at an Arduino workshop. It is interesting to find out that Arduino technology is popular amongst the people 'in-the-know' in the industry and they also feel it is a great platform to create artistic interfaces on.

Some of the other works that have some sort of relevance to the project I am developing are:

Beatbox by Andy Huntington (http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/beatbox-andy-huntington)

Beatbox is a simple device that has a number of different boxes that record their own beat or rhythm. A user taps one of the boxes in a rhythm, and then presses play on that box. The box then loops the rhythm just entered in the form of jumps. Each box can be given a different rhythm, and placed on different surfaces to produce different sounds. A video of it in action can be found on Andy Huntington's website.

I feel this is relevant to what I will be developing for a project because it shows how physical interfaces can react to (not necessarily kinetically) and change according to user interaction.

Opto-isolator by Golan Levin (http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/golan-levin-bitforms)

Opto-isolator is a piece of work that reacts to a user's eye movements. It was designed around the question “What if artworks could know how we were looking at them? And, given this knowledge, how might they respond to us?”. The work has a single eye that follows the user's eyes and even blinks and looks away when you stare at it too long. For pictures and a video of it working go to the Flong website.

I feel this can be related to my chosen project because it is another example of how it is important how interfaces react to the user's interactions.

Absolut Quartet by Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman (http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/absolut-machines)

Absolut Quartet is a kind of 'robotic' set of percussion instruments that explores different ways of creating the percussive sounds.

"...the main component is a marimba played by an array of rubber balls shot by robotic cannons. Imagine the visual effect of balls flying almost six feet in the air before hitting the marimba keys with perfect precision. When a chord is played, several balls will be launched simultaneously. As they pass the top of their trajectory, their brief pause highlights the imminent notes.

The second timbre is based on “the finger on the wine glass trick”. The series of glasses, turned to various pitches, are all spinning at the same time - and they are played by small “robotic fingers”. The “Wino” will be able to play almost 40 notes at a time. The final sound source will be an array of robotic percussive instruments.

The mechanical movement of the machine will be obvious, but the cutting-edge technology, or the brain of the machine, is hidden. The degree of artificial intelligence will make the machine be perceived as highly creative, responding differently depending on the input it receives from its users".

See Absolut Quartet in action on Youtube here.

This piece of work is relevant to my project development because it shows how musical instrument interaction and playing can continue to be developed, even in the original unsynthesized versions.

Volume by United Visual Artists and one point six (http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/volume-uva)

Volume is a development that uses numerous posts to sense users and changes according to their proximity. The LEDs on posts and the sounds emitted would also change according to how the users moved through the work.

Pictures and a video of Volume can be seen on the United Visual Artists website.

Volume is another example of how actual interfaces can change depending on their input (rather then just giving an output), an idea that would be good to bring over into my project.

After researching into these works I feel I know what is needed to make a 'good' interface. This is to keep in mind that an interface needs to give appropriate amounts of output according to input, and to not focus on just one of these aspects.