Vending Machine was created in April of 2009 and is a humorous commentary on the economic recession. Harrison reprogrammed an old vending machine to “only release packets of crisps when news relating to the recession [made] the headlines on the BBC News RSS feed”.  A monitor installed alongside the vending machine displays the incoming news feeds for the audience to see.  I enjoyed that the typical user interface of the vending machine was over ridden by Harrison’s program which gives the machine an odd comical life of its own. I thought the idea of integrating programming into an everyday object made for an interesting piece.

Impress was created by Silke Hilsing and is a soft interactive display surface that response to touch. Hilsing uses the depression created in the surface when touched to add another layer of interaction than the usual “touch screen”.  In her video she demonstrates the Impress being used as an application for 3D modeling and to make music. The Impress is built by sandwiching force sensors between two pieces of foam and then covering them with an elastic piece of fabric. A projector and camera are mounted above the screen to enable the users interaction. I found this project interesting because its construction is feasible to recreate for future projects. It is a fun and unique interface that I believe will encourage users interaction due to its tactile property.

Murmur Study – Christopher Baker

This installation explores the phenomenon of micro-blogging. The piece collects tweets and Facebook updates in real-time and continuously prints them out, creating an accumulated pile of the short messages people thought interesting enough to share on the internet. Using Processing and Arduino-controlled printers, Murmur Study is an elegant and physical reminder of the massive amount of information available on the web, while simultaneously exposing the narcissistic and social nature of humans. The piece is simple yet very effective. I think Baker could take if farther, for example by printing out every single Facebook status and tweets from all over the world, having printers on every wall of the room, and letting the paper flood the entire room.

Virtual Gravity – Silke Hilsing

In this interactive piece, Silke Hilsing tries to determine the physical weight of electronic data. This weight is not determined by the amount of data or literally what the actual data weighs, but is instead determined by its calculated importance. Weight is correlated to internet presence: how much the word is searched on search engines, etc… Hilsing created a sort of electronic balance, where participants can select different words and see which one is heavier (i.e. is more socially relevant). While the concept is really interesting, I feel like its execution is not quite up to par. I feel like the reaction it provides isn’t quite visceral enough, maybe because the medium itself still feels too electronic and Hilsing hasn’t quite fully translated the data into a more tangible, physical format.

Quintetto – Quiet Ensemble

A series of five tanks, each with a goldfish, emits sounds that are correlated to the position of the fish in the tank. This simple  artwork is an engaging doorway into a different mode of perception. An interesting aspect of the piece is the mix of nature and technology, where organic bodies and electronic bodies collaborate unconciously. I like how the technology was used as a medium to further explore a relatively mundane, natural occurrence and elevates it to an artwork.

Jamie Beck is a photographer based in NYC who in collaboration with animator Kevin Burg produced animated gifs. Although an animated gif is not necessarily a very advanced thing to do, the way these pictures are animated is really good and it gives them a feeling of an in-between still picture and a movie. It is very similar to the paintings that you see in the Hogwarts school in Harry Potter. The website where the collection of these pictures can be found is cinemagraph.com. Looking at the picture for the first time, you see everything still and then suddenly you see a slight change in the picture which makes you feel surprised.

I saw this a couple of years ago and I found it really interesting. Although it is not real, it is designed to seem like it is. Genpets are supposed to be genetically engineered pets which are hibernating until you buy them and open their package. In reality, they are actually “robots” although they are not autonomous. There are a couple of videos online where you can see them moving inside of their boxes. This pets are also supposed to have different personalities and actually depending on the color of the package’s top, you can get for example an athletic and energetic genpet if you get the package with the red top. The artist is called Adam Brandejs and his website is http://www.brandejs.ca

What I found really interesting about this piece, more than the shapes it created, is the size of the display and the effect that has on the work. Being a computer program, if the resolution is very good, it should be scalable to any size. Seeing the person walking in the video, it is interesting to me the feeling that the color combination and the shapes drawn in that size create on the person. To me, watching it in my computer monitor, it was a very immersive experience. I imagine how it would feel if you put those same images in a spherical screen and place a person inside of it. I think for a while, being in that place makes you feel transported to a different universe. That idea of completely immersive art I find fascinating.