Category: Thomas Igoe

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Breathe IN/OUT, Float UP/DOWN

Devices that enhance meditative experiences in both remote and physical locations, acknowledging that meditation is a communal, multi-sensory practice.

Eden Chinn, Lucas Wozniak, Mee Ko, Rajshree Saraf,

https://youtu.be/DWl0pBt_lhw

Description

The user wears a belt with a stretch sensor attached, measuring the user’s breath. As the stretch sensor moves with the expansion of the chest, its data is recorded and utilized to manipulate remote and physical objects. There are two variations on this output for our project:

REMOTE/SERVER COMMUNICATION: Different people can wear breath sensors in different locations. Together, their breathing patterns create an output on p5. In our p5 sketch, the breathing is signified by a feather animation moving up and down. Both users' breathing patterns create this change collaboratively.

PHYSICAL INSTALLATION: The stretch sensor allows breath to become a controller that manipulates physical phenomena. An installation of yarn pompoms is suspended from a frame and moves in reaction to the wearer’s inhalation and exhalation.

Zoom link:
https://nyu.zoom.us/j/99001077668

p5 link:
https://editor.p5js.org/mnk2970/sketches/ylgyvcaia

ITPG-GT.2301.00008
Intro to Phys. Comp.
Art,Wearables
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Exquisite Corpse (2020)

A digital take on the Surrealist drawing game…for the age of wearable tech.

Ami Mehta

https://ami-mehta.github.io/ExquisiteCorpse/

Description

Exquisite Corpse (2020) is an interactive installation inspired by the original Surrealist drawing game, Exquisite Corpse, in which players take turns drawing body parts on a sheet of paper, folding it to conceal their contributions, and then passing it to the next person to add to.

In this remixed digital version, users are invited to collectively design an “Exquisite Corpse” for the age of wearable tech using their personal devices (e.g. smartphone and computer). Instead of generating pictures of a head, torso, or legs when the corresponding buttons are tapped, the site displays images of those body parts as transformed by wearables today. The resulting visual juxtapositions can be both amusing and absurd…

ITPG-GT.2301.00005
Intro to Phys. Comp.
Art,Play/Games
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Losing Teeth

An uncanny, interactive dental sculpture that plays and records intimate and disembodied audio of people talking about their anxieties surrounding the body.

Morgan Chen

https://vimeo.com/491468884

Description

Teeth dreams—dreams where your teeth fall out—are a common anxiety dream.

Teeth are strange: they fall out when you’re young, as a sign of growth, and they fall out when you’re old, as a sign of nearing death. Socially, we expect everyone to have every single tooth as a sign of good health. We pay money to get our natural teeth bleached, straightened and aligned—fake teeth if we’re missing a few, or we have weak or imperfect ones. Perhaps this is what makes teeth such a common, shared cultural anxiety dream. Teeth falling out is a sign of death and decay: it is a visible sign to others that something is going wrong with the body.

This interactive dental model plays with the idea of disembodied teeth and audio about body anxiety. In an intimate, confessional style, the project asks how we contend with the experience of having an ever-changing physical body.

ITPG-GT.2301.00008
Intro to Phys. Comp.
Art
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Light Up 2020

An interactive miniature installation that invites people to take a peek at normal people’s daily life under quarantine.

Jingyao Shao, Viola He

https://vimeo.com/489099811

Description

Light Up 2020 is an interactive miniature installation that uses light and projection to explore moments in mundane lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing the silhouette of 4 people living in a neighboring building, the audience is given a flashlight to shine through their windows and reveal the residents in full color, eavesdropping on their conversations, interactions, and observing snippets of their day-to-day life.

We were inspired by our lockdown experiences in populated cities hard-hit by the pandemic — how our daily routines changed as we spent the majority of our days home alone, and how our relationships with our neighbors evolved. We read stories from Wuhan, Milan, New York City and beyond, about people coping with the lockdown through music, art, self-care, cheering for essential workers, and loving balcony exchanges with their neighbors. We hope to create a narrative, present in the form of an interactive installation utilizing paper model, light, and projection, to capture that spirit. We wrote and devised 4 stories with the help of some of our friends at ITP. Some characters come from our minds, some inspired by their own stories, brought to life through their improvisation acting. In this generic 3-story apartment building, you get to take a look at unique personalities, sending care to their loved ones, enjoying songs and movements, despite the unusual circumstances.

There’s also something inherently interesting about watching and being watched that comes with urban living where we can peak at people’s lives through their windows. The interaction of spotlighting through a window is, in turn, a discussion of our voyeuristic curiosity as human beings. Playing around with the scale, this miniature installation also offers an unprecedented intimate storytelling experience.

ITPG-GT.2301.00005
Intro to Phys. Comp.
Art,Narrative/Storytelling
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BankHeist

Pulling off a “Bank Heist” remotely by signing in real-time

Jason Tse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OJlWO6G2lc

Description

BankHeist is a network interface that makes remote signing possible. Imagine you are in a situation that requires you to sign a physical document overseas, possibly for banking or legal purposes, but your tight schedule or cost of travel restricts you from leaving your current location. Especially during a pandemic, it becomes impossible to travel abroad to finish such a task in a safe fashion.

This is where BankHeist comes into play. By gathering the signer and the receiver in the same secure virtual signing room, utilizing Socket.io and Crypto.js, the digital signature/strokes on the signer end will be transferred to the receiver's end. Once the receiver's computer receives the signature data, it will be translated into serial commands which then drives the AxiDraw machine over a USB connection, to essentially turn the digital signals into a physical signature on a piece of paper. When the signing session is being conducted, the receiver and signer will be connected with a video conference call (e.g. Zoom) to prove their physical presents while the signature is being sent over the internet. Not only it eliminates the physical distance restriction, but it also adds an extra layer of security to the entire signature process. It is far more secure than digital signature solutions available in the market, for instance, “DocuSign”, where users can easily replicate a signature, or sign for another person if they have access to the signer's computer.

ITPG-GT.2808.001
Understanding Networks
Tool\\\\Service,Privacy/Security
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Smart Tiles

A letter block board with text-to-speech engine designed for tangible learning.

Brandon Roots

https://vimeo.com/489237628

Description

Smart Tiles is a block board that recognizes wooden letter tiles to generate speech and play games. It operates entirely offline. The project was designed with my 4 year old niece and nephew in mind. They both enjoy playing with educational smartphone apps but I had a hard time finding any really compelling educational tangible toys for learning letters and words. This is my attempt to fill that gap. The letter tiles are designed to be familiar, like the wooden alphabet blocks I had growing up, and CNC milled from eco friendly Green-T Birch plywood. I have pushed to make the technology as “invisible” as possible to bring some magic to the user experience. Both English Braille and print characters are engraved on each block to be inclusive for tangible learners.

ITPG-GT.2845.001, ITPG-GT.2301.00005, ITPG-GT.2048.00002, ITPG-GT.2536.00001
Prototyping Electronic Devices , Intro to Phys. Comp., ICM – Media, Programming from A to Z (Online)
Education,Play/Games
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CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Do you fancy some chocolate?

Chenyan Yu, Jane Meng, Zhiyue Huang

https://youtu.be/CZI2s5pUyp0

Description

With the finals approaching, do you find yourself feeling down or eagerly need some rest? Are you uncousiously tapping your table out of anxiety? Now, we've created a good place to vent your negative emotion, and… Turn these feelings into something sweet, such as chocolate! In our chocolate factory, we take users' tapping pattern as input, do a rough classification of emotion, and generate a chocolate recipe accordingly. Tah-dah! Time for a tea break!

ITPG-GT.2301.00008
Intro to Phys. Comp.
Health,Product Design
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SEEN

I see and I exist, no fears to be naked, no absolutes in black and white.

Zhuolin Wu

https://youtu.be/IeNJmdwtiRI

Description

This is my semester-long project of my Fall 2020 at ITP, which involves a bunch of eye symbols and graphics, expressing the theme: Looking for a witness of life. Inspired by Katy Perry’s 5th studio album , a underestimated pop records that kept me being alive, got me thinking in depth, and stimulating my souls and energy.

I deconstructed, and restructured the storyline and meaning of each track in this album, collected the lyrics that resonated with me, and visualized them in different forms such as Unity animation, video and audio, projection mapping, installation and graphic art. It was not that easy to show the sincerity and intimacy, not even to mention transferring those memories, emotions and feelings, into programming visual language, physical interactions and fabrications.

Those works speak for me, and by that I want to open more potential connections and communications in the future. Not only the connection to the others who can be your side and ride the journey with you, but also to the self.

Aside from the visual composition, I bring more personalities, narratives, and intimacy into it by etching my own monologue into the piece. Visit the project website for more details about SEEN.

ITPG-GT.2301.00008, ITPG-GT.2005.00003, ITPG-GT.2233.00003, ITPG-GT.2002.00005
Intro to Phys. Comp., CL – Visual Language (Online), ICM, CL – Animation
Art,Narrative/Storytelling
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our house: the data that we hold near and dear

Tuning in to other people's houses via unsecured webcams.

Anh Le

https://vimeo.com/489161727

Description

An exploration into the world of found, unsecured surveillance cameras, particularly ones that look into personal spaces, and the implications of viewing these cams and their roles in a socially-distanced world.

ITPG-GT.2301.00008
Intro to Phys. Comp.
Privacy/Security
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Interactive DJ Pillars

Immersive DJ experience with the dancing light art

Wyatt Zhu, Shinnosuke Komiya, Weiwei Zhou

https://vimeo.com/491479341

Description

Standing in the middle of some LED pillars, there will stand a DJ. There is also a DJ control panels are attached to the headphone, the panning of the panels will change the electrical effect of the music, as well as the gradient changing of the LED pillars. We want the main material of the pillar to be half-transparent, with several LEDs at the bottom of the pillars. The device is expected to be played in a fairly dark place. With the glowing of the lights, the light will shine through the half-transparent material and gradually changes over time.

ITPG-GT.2301.00005
Intro to Phys. Comp.
Performance,Music