Explorations of Interactions showcases research in media and arts technology driven by three error-prone calls to human action: Interact. Reflect. Create.
Interact. Common Roots glances at interaction in human communities through an augmented apartment block in which neighbors can remotely care for other households’ plants. The piece explores whether our existing, individualistic city life is an erroneous one. Emojikken also examines inter-human connection, testing if the recently emerged pictorial language of emojis can provide a universality to communications that is failed by existing language structures.
Reflect. Aural Fabric augments a map with audio recorded from those locations, questioning whether our visual recording of space is an incorrect – or at least incomplete – way of documenting locations. Similarly, Kulaktan kulağa uses what is (at first glance) just a box of old photographs to examine the western-centric lens of the internet by humanizing machine translation errors, while Cembalo Scrivano .2 plays with the relationship between typed records and their linked experience.
Create. The Tesseract strives to reduce sonic errors by providing a unique tactile music creation interface programmed to maximize creation and minimize displeasing notes, while Μαζί, a pleasantly soft, tactile instrument, critiques our obsession with plastic-and-glass hardware. Finally, the ChandeLIA challenges both perceptions of what is considered an instrument and the correct use of an object, by repurposing a disused chandelier as an augmented musical instrument.
The EPSRC+AHRC Media and Arts Technology Centre for Doctoral Training at Queen Mary University of London, UK, provides a bridge between academic research, digital technologies, and creative industries. We aim to produce an elite community of graduates who are excellent in technical and scientific research, creativity, building and using software and hardware, and are prepared to contribute to the world’s digital economy.
Cembalo Scrivano .2
Giacomo Lepri (IT), Fabio Morreale (IT)
The Cembalo Scrivano .2 is an interactive audiovisual installation based on an augmented typewriter.
ChandeLIA
Lia Mice (AU)
The ChandeLIA is a unique suspended musical instrument that explores special gesture mapping and microtonality.
Common Roots
Sophie McDonald (GB)
Common Roots is a system of shared plant-watering between homes that promotes meeting neighbors in a communal garden over a cup of tea.
Emojikken
Jacktionman (GB)
Emojikken is an interactive installation that invites visitors to converse using only emoji, testing if the symbols can form the basis of a universal language.
Aural Fabric
Alessia Milo (IT)
Aural Fabric is an interactive textile map that reveals one possible sonic character of the area of Greenwich, as captured during a group soundwalk.
Kulaktan kulağa
Betül Aksu (TR)
Kulaktan kulağa is an interactive installation inviting people to pass around the stories of found images.
Μαζί
Antonella Nonnis (IT)
Μαζί from the Greek “together,” is a tactile instrument that entices the audience to interact with its inviting texture and soft appearance.
Tesseract
Jon Pigrem (GB)
The Tesseract is an interactive music box that uses generative techniques to sequence the playback of pre-recorded elements of a musical corpus.
Text and Iles
Sophie Skach (AT), Naa Teki Lebar (AT)
Text and Iles, an interactive installation, consists of two capacitive knitted jumpers that react to being touched.
Unspoken Word
Jorge del Bosque (MX), Lizzie Wilson (UK)
Unspoken Word is an installation that explores the hidden codes and signals inside spoken language.
Credits:
EPSRC+AHRC Media and Arts Technology Centre for Doctoral Training (EP/L01632X/1)
Queen Mary University of London
