Isabella- Looking Outwards- 02

Harp Cave
by Steven Stavropoulos


The Harp Cave is an interactive installation which consists of a sheet-covered enclosure lined with harp strings that are attached to piezoelectric vibration sensors. These sensors trigger an Arduino, which activates sounds from Max Studio, which then activates visuals in Processing.
I highly admire this piece, due to its immersive nature, as well as it being quite multifaceted. It has an element of sound and visual, along with spacial since it is something that encapsulates the viewer/participant. These pieces of art always seem to grab my attention more so than others, since the nature of the interaction is not as ephemeral as simply viewing an object, or walking through a space. Being involved in a piece and immersing yourself within it leaves a more concentrated after-effect.

Generative Canvas
by Robin Jeanney


The Generative Canvas is an interactive painting experience, where the participant utilizes their personality and movement to paint lines and circles on a projected surface. The painting creates shapes of a certain size depending on how much the participant moves around and shouts. While I enjoy the premise of this piece, I was disappointed while watching the documentation. The “painting” was not very fluid and painting-like, and the shapes would just pop up into space. Relying on the fluctuating nature of the human element, this piece should reciprocate natural tendencies, but comes off as a little stiff.

Justification
by Ann-Katrin Krenz


This is an two-part installation, consisting of a scale which displays the emotional state of a twitter trend, in terms of the most basic of emotions; happy and sad. The second is a machine which manipulates the scale’s system. The ‘parasite’ has a desire to balance the emotions of the scale, and taps into twitter and sends himself emotional tweets in order to reach some equilibrium.
This interaction of machine and social network for the pure satisfaction of the machine surprised me. The machine has been given emotions, and the means of which it can deal with these emotions. Much like humans, the machine is constantly seeking to resolve unevenness, and since given the means to do so, it tries to find peace while the host wavers back and forth between states.

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