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February 08, 2006
Context Awareness Readings
The BBCi Showcase, interactive display seems quite successful. First the user's interface is easy to follow and it seems that the screen on the window definately would attract those people that are passing. It seems that it is the latest trend with broadcast stations to add more interactivity. Whether it be online or offline, like this project by IDEO. In Korea, the latest trend are the DMBs that have recently come out. Digital Multimedia Broadcasting. People would be able to link their cells or portables to the TV stations and watch the programs in real time. This would not limit the user to his environment and location to get constant entertainment, information and news updates.
The Blinkenlights project in Berlin however seems to lack much content and interactivity. Why would one play "pong" on a building. How is the result so rewarding? The random patterns and images that people were able to create seems more appealing. Also, from this project, it seems that the "love message" were the most popular. Then, why would one use a lower res pixelated windows on a building to send a message out to your loved one instead of on a huge billboard screen? If the outputs are just random, how is that different to having windows of the building separately light up?
The Vectorial Elevation project was my favorite out of these three. Lights in the sky at night is almost magical and has the potential to engage everyone out on the streets. I remember when the 911 memorial lights were lit up at the beginning of this year. Even from NYU, the lights could be seen and it made me think back to the time when I was here during the event. It's quite surprising that over a period of 2 weeks. only 522,442 people had visited and interacted with the website to try and change the night skys in Dublin. Perhaps the public wasn't quite ready for such networked, interactive artwork. This definately showcased the coming-together of the virtual and the real-world. Visually and conceptually, I think it was a great networked piece.
Posted by min at February 8, 2006 11:23 PM