Ryota Kuwakubo’s Nicodama is a project that – to put it simply – puts blinky eyes on inanimate objects as a means of giving them personality. From the placard at the Ars Electronica Center: “Nicodama” combines findings from the field of behavioral biology (ethology) with technology and Japanese philosophy. The “Nicodamas” communicate with each other […]
Category Archives: animation
paper windows
This is an old idea, but it remains relevant because of its elegance in treating the windows desktop as a physical space with paper windows: you can fold back the corners of any sheet to move items between various layers. It is a navigation technique called ‘Fold ‘n’ Drop;’ I saw Pierre Dragicevic present it […]
Also posted in 2d, 3d, interaction, visualization
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paper 2.0
Humble paper – cheap, flexible, renewable – is becoming a medium of choice for ubiquitous computing through the popularization of augmented reality tags that can be read by cell phone and computer cameras everywhere. Above is a very elaborate simulation software running on a tangible interface – all controlled by printed paper. The videos shows […]
Also posted in augmented reality, interaction, materials, visualization
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zoom interface
Sometimes the best interfaces are the simplest: take this touch screen interface for the NTT ICC (Tokyo) entitled Micro Presence by Kenji Kohiyama, masahiko Morita, Tatsuya Saito and Shuheu Wemler from Keio University. Having photographed insects at super-high resolution, the best way to engage visitors was to show the insects real size and allow anyone […]
Also posted in 2d, art, universal design, visualization
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magical things
Goro Motai pointed me to the work of Camille Scherer, an interaction designer who has the most elegant vision for augmented reality I’ve ever seen. Instead of designing objects for machines to read, she imbues meaningful things with added information in a harmonious way – giving you the feeling that the things around you all […]
Also posted in 2d, art, augmented reality
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bad fences
Norman McLaren’s 1952 animation ‘Neighbours’ (Voisins) won the Academy Award for best short documentary – despite its violence and crude animation. He intended it as a statement against war and violence, although the entire film could not be shown whole until anti-Vietnam War sentiment created an atmosphere where it could be shown as above. Interestingly, […]
Also posted in art, conviviality
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slow death
Sam Taylor-Wood’s 2001 ‘still life’ (above) and 2002 ‘a little death’ (below) are stunning examples of time-lapse animation composed as seventeenth-century paintings of plenty. The rotting fruit and flesh represent the excesses of excess in an excessively beautiful grotesque. I am very happy that they finally exist on Youtube for us all to see.
Also posted in food, livingbreathing, supply chain
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