Category: Projects

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Deliberate Negligence

This project explores the strategic positioning of suicide barriers in the NYUAD campus.

Luize Rieksta, Maria Calderon, Will Mlekush

https://vimeo.com/419241270

Description

For this piece, we drew inspiration from Alex Villar’s “Temporary Occupations”, which shows how the infrastructure and architecture of a space enforce movement and determine spatial codes. We decided to adapt Villar’s concept to our campus and its infrastructure, more specifically – the suicide barriers that NYUAD implemented after the transition to the Saadiyat campus. This adaptation focuses Villar’s concept on the social issue of suicide. Positioning ourselves in the vulnerable spaces between these barriers, we interrogate such responsive spatial interventions, asking questions of purpose, effectiveness, and agency. 

Why place suicide barriers in some areas and not others? There are notable gaps near the Torch Club and around various sets of stairs on campus. There are also gaps on the high walls behind the Campus Center, an area of low pedestrian traffic. Surveillance cameras were also placed around most of the non-barred areas. What benefit comes from these cameras’ placement? How do these barriers contribute to dealing with suicide? What constitutes an effective intervention? How does the presence of these barriers affect the behaviors of residents and visitors?

IM Abu Dhabi
IM-UH.1013
Understanding Interactive Media – Critical Questions & Theories
Performance,Art
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Climate Glitch

“Climate Glitch” is a photography series representing the climate change in three different locations.

Jana Pocuchova, Luize Rieksta, Amy Kang

https://vimeo.com/418923239

Description

“Climate Glitch” displays three series of glitched photos, in which each series depicts different natural environments—in Latvia, Slovakia, and South Korea—that are being destroyed by human society.

Each photo for the different locations is glitched twice using a sound software Audacity. The first glitch is done through an effect called “delay” and the second through “reverse”. “Delay” refers to how people delay taking action to preserve the environment and “reverse” signifies people’s attempt to reverse back the harm they have done to it. The first glitch of “delay” inevitably damages/distorts the environment, and the second glitch, or the attempt to “reverse” it, makes it worse. With this depiction of the glitched photos, we hope to alarm the audience about the destruction that humans bring to nature, often regardless of whether it is intended to harm or help the environment, if done perfunctorily.

We represented climate change-related topics from our home environments: deforestation in Slovakia, temperature rise in Latvia and pollution from tourism in Korea. However, our glitch algorithm is not just applicable to one image. The fact it can be repeated on any image is an extension of the algorithm itself, which connects to the point that climate change is a topic concerning everyone.

IM Abu Dhabi
IM-UH.1013
Understanding Interactive Media – Critical Questions & Theories
Art
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Communications lab projects

Project done for communications lab

Max Blinov

https://mab1312.nyuadim.com

Description

1. 30MFF (30 minute film festival). We were supposed to do a video of our choice within 30 minutes

2. Comic. A comic about the pandemic (where it all began)

3. Audio project. Here we were supposed to implement a website that includes user interaction and sound.

4. Video project (TBD)

IM Abu Dhabi
IM-UH.1011
Communications Lab
Sound,Art
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Hometown Sun

Light Clock shining a long-distance warm sun light into a cold room.

Atchareeya Name Jattuporn

https://youtu.be/eZP6P2C_1vU

Description

Hometown Sun is a light clock resemble the moving of the sun in my home country. In this fixture, There are both work light and accent light, the top light that recreated the sun from home, and the bottom part that provides the light for work.

For almost a year, I am away from home and having a long-distance relationship with the people I love. Bangkok and New York are 12 hours apart which means when the sun sets in Bangkok, the sun in New York just rises. I miss waking up and experiencing the same sunrise with my family. Therefore apart from countless video calls, I would like to find a new way to fulfill the gap between time and space with this Hometown Sun. In the long lonely night here, knowing at least how high the sun is rising in my hometown gives me warmth and energy to fight for another night 🙂

IMA/ITP New York
ITPG-GT.2133.001
Light and Interactivity
Art
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PandemicSim

A simulation demonstrating the benefits of social distancing during a pandemic

d

https://youtu.be/YQt4y0cIees

Description

My project consists of 100 little balls on a screen, plus a user interface. One of those balls is “infected”, the other 99 are “healthy”. Each ball moves in a random direction but fixed velocity. An infected ball can recover after a certain number of seconds. When a healthy ball bumps into an infected one, it becomes infected. As can be expected, the “infection” spreads exponentially.

What excites me about this project is that the concept is quite simple, but it produces delightful and interesting results out of a system that is too complex to orchestrate yourself sequentially. You could never tell those 100 balls what to do every frame. Instead, you tell them how to behave, and then watch the magic happen. Maybe the “infected ball” won't touch any others, and it'll end right there when it “recovers”. Maybe they'll all become infected. Maybe half will. Most of the time, however, you'll see a logistic curve in the cumulative number of infections, mirroring what happens in real life.

The project is meant to visually demonstrate the benefits of social distancing in a post-Covid-19 world. It was inspired by an article from the Washington Post that showed a very similar model, except without the ability to change the settings of the simulation. I wanted to create something visually pleasing and modern looking that would embody the reasoning behind social distancing as a way of slowing the spread of the virus.

I added the ability to change the population size and death rate to make the simulator representative of pandemics in general. The default setting is at the estimated Covid-19 death rate of 2%. I also added an automatic peak finder that would show in the graph where the peak of the simulation outbreak occurred. This helps demonstrate the stark difference between the social distancing and business as usual models.

IM Abu Dhabi
IM-UH.1010
Introduction to Interactive Media
Art,Play/Games
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Location$$

Location$$ is a web-based social experiment that is designed to simulate awareness for mass surveillance, it provides creepiness and unease once you agree to share your location.

Dan Qi Qian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xyYkWTobWk&feature=youtu.be

Description

Location$$ is a multiplayer web-based experience designed for providing creepiness and unease once you agree to share your location.

Location$$ starts with a simple dialogue box, which is the first thing showing up every time a new application is installed, asking our permission to get access to location data in exchange for customized services normally with vague or incomplete prompts. We all know once we agree, our data is updated in every few seconds, aggregated, shared and sold to help advertisers or even hedge funds. Mass location surveillance has morphed into a data collection and analysis machine as smartphones have become ubiquitous and technology more accurate. Each anonymous location sharing could become personal location analysis, revealing the most intimate part of your personal life.

The site gives you street view based on your location, when you click on others’ mouse, their street view replaces yours and ] location name stays. When other people click, they’ll leave some trails too, which means once it's shared, everyone knows.

Besides, open questions exists that for example, in this global pandemic, mass location surveillance is taken in action to maintain social health. People turn on location data because it makes things functional. What attitudes we should hold for location surveillance? What if location sharing and analysis become fully transparent?

IMA/ITP New York
ITPG-GT.2469.001
Veillance
Privacy/Security
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Escape Room Flashlight

Use this flashlight to play Escape Room

Linda Li

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EOU984ezTk

Description

“Escape Room” is a video game consisting of a controller which looks like a flashlight, allowing players to navigate multiple virtual rooms on screen. A player is locked in a room when the game starts. Only when the player collects all the clues from the room can proceed to the next room to escape the rooms in the end. Built with Arduino and Processing, players interact with the game using the two knobs and a button on the flashlight controller, replacing the conventional mode of playing a game. Clues will show up when both intensity value and halo size value are a correct range. To help users make correct adjustments, there are hints on the upper left corner suggesting whether the two values are in correct range or not. In addition, this game uses images and theme music from Harry Potter to create a more immersive experience. Hope you have a pleasant journey.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.101.4
Interaction Lab
Play/Games
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Music Interaction Game

Click mouse or press keyboard to interact with the game.

Linda Li

https://youtu.be/_5mpz8SGahg

Description

“Music Interaction Game”is a music game consisting of keyboard interaction and background music. By pressing any key on the keyboard, user can hit notes on the screen and get a certain number of scores. To start the game, users can click the “START” button on the upper left corner. This button will trigger background music. There will be notes floating on staves at the bottom as long as the music starts to play. Different from other music games, this game is totally for entertainment and relaxation, which means it’s much easier for users to attain a higher score. Hope this game can release your pressure and provide you a pleasant experience.

IMA/IMB Shanghai
INTM-SHU.135.1
Creative Coding Lab
Music,Play/Games
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Boxing with Aries

Boxing with Aries is an immersive experience in Unity that invites players to a dark and eerie world where they will have to navigate through their internal conflict of peace and war, of hope and sorrow.

Nhi Pham Le Yen, Neyva Hernandez, Vince Nguyen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zgEZgupZCw

Description

Boxing with Aries welcomes the player with an inviting big red punching bag placed in the center of a gloom, obscure, and desolate ground that is actively contrast by a sky filled with grids of smaller punching bags seemingly blending with bloody clouds streaks: what could go wrong, what other ominous thing that could happen here?

Unknowingly to the players, dozens of doves fly out from the punching bag whenever it is punched. That is simply not how punching a bag works in real life. The act of punching something is supposed to be a violent act: how could this make sense with such a symbol of peace, how could such two antipodes co-exist in the same world, let alone in the same interaction. Taken back by the unexpected interactions, the players then face their internal struggle of interpreting such encounters: whether to keep punching or to stop the violent act, whether to spread peace by setting the doves free or to let hope die out by chasing the doves away…

The project comprised of five main components:
– The player, a.k.a the boxer (with colliders and animation scripts)
– The big punching bag (with colliders and scripts to generate doves)
– The doves and their associated animation (random speed, random direction…)
– The grid of smaller punching bags
– The environment (diffused ground, red streaks of clouds, and particle system volumetric fog)

IM Abu Dhabi
IM-UH.3311
Alternate Realities
VR/AR
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Purell Wonderland

Purell Wonderland is an organic virtual place designed for making fun of social or behavioral responses to coronavirus.

Dan Qi Qian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az2XIGQRQ7A&feature=youtu.be

Description

Purell Wonderland is designed in a time when quarantine first started, and our social behavior was just being deployed to assuage fears, understand risk, improve public health and implement social distancing strategies.

For the designer herself, she got bored for staying at her room in the first 2 weeks in the quarantine, and was touched by new-born flowers once she went out for a walk. She believes we all have some connections with the nature and that matters.

That's why she designed a place where provides exposure to a virtual nature and humor to help ease coronavirus anxiety. The landscape is shaped with graphical lines into the look of hand sanitizer, an essential object in current social environment, but it's hard to recognize until you reach to a higher place.

IMA/ITP New York
ITPG-GT.2177.001
Synthetic Architectures
VR\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\AR,Play/Games
NYU Tisch School of the Arts provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations should be made at least two weeks before the date of the event when possible. You can request accommodations at tisch.nyu.edu/accommodation