Diorama Table


'Keiko Takahashi Keiko Takahashi

Diorama Table explores new ways of merging interactive images into our daily lives. The invisible technology in Diorama will entertain, help us relax and stimulate the imagination of the person who experiences the piece.The interaction should take place in public areas, bringing together people of different generations to have fun. An entertaining atmosphere will be created when they participate without thoughts and goals. It merges fine art into our daily lives. When the participants place daily objects such as cups, ropes, or candies on the table, paintings of houses, trees or trains appear depending on their shape. If the participants want, they can create a town by putting daily objects on the table. This art gives them a unique experience in which physical objects and fantastic images interact.

Ropes: When participants place ropes on the table and link them, the ropes become a railway track and trains appear on them.The trains decide where they start and stop.They search for the fastest route and travel along the ropes.

When participants make a small circle with a rope, the circle becomes a pond and ducks come and swim there. When participants take away the rope, the pond disappears and the ducks fly away. Chopsticks, forks and spoons: When participants place spoons, forks, chopsticks or other objects with a similar slender shape on the table, automobiles appear and start to move around. Cups or plates: When participants place a cup or a plate on the table, images such as houses, trees and flowers appear around them. A cat is hiding somewhere under a cup or a plate.When a participant takes away a cup or a plate, a sleeping cat wakes up and starts looking for another cup or plate and wanders about on the table.

Small candies, chocolates or breadcrumbs: When participants drop small things like a candy or breadcrumbs on the table, a dog appears and runs to the candy or breadcrumbs and eats them. Diorama Table is designed to entertain and to encourage communication and relaxation in public spaces—in cafés, waiting rooms etc.

http://www.th.jec.ac.jp/~keiko

Project Team: Taku Oizumi, Takahide Mikami, Shinji Sasada (program), Saburo Ubukata (sound)/Japan Electronics College.