Arte Digital

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MediaVIZ

Read project description in English

Descripción en español

MediaViz es una visualización de relaciones entre medios, artes y tecnologías.

Cada esfera simboliza un desarrollo prominente en la evolución de medios digitales, interactivos y visuales. El color está asociado al uso que una fuente hace de las tecnologías computacionales. El tamaño está relacionado con la cantidad de artes que combina. La ubicación de cada esfera refleja su momento de aparición en orden cronológico.

Los datos han sido recopilados a partir de etiquetas en redes y aplicaciones sociales. La realización ha sido semi-dinámica. Por un lado, empleamos el software Processing para generar fondos y datos más representativos. Por otro lado, Adobe Illustrator permite detallar el diseño de la información y crear la versión final.

MediaViz puede ser visto como un mapa no exhaustivo de áreas de desarrollo e interés en donde se emplea el arte y la tecnología.

Concepción y realización : Everardo Reyes García, 2010

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This image is the second of a series of screenshots from the same Structure Synth document. The general intention of our project is to map and create images inspired -and theoretically framed- by visual metaphors of social sciences.

In this example, we propose to explore how our notion of "zoomable media" behave.

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This image is a screenshot of a Structure Synth production. The intention is to map and create images from visual metaphors. In this example, we propose to explore how our notion of "zoomable media" behave.

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Color Attraction is a single piece of artwork that displays 17 spheres of three different colors and several sizes. The spheres start at a random position and then simulate to paste to the border of the application -in other words, to the app frame. Spheres slowly follow each other, one by one. After a couple of hours they all gather accordingly to their color. The intention is to simulate that spheres attract each other for the same color. This artwork was produced with the Processing environment.

Color Attraction is designed to run indefinitely. When all spheres have finally formed color groups, the remaining sphere restarts the process all over again, i.e. the last sphere will refuse to group and will attract the grouped spheres to gather into another place of the border frame.

This piece of art has been exhibited publicly in scholar contexts. A simple session can run for hours. Spectators usually contemplate it for minutes, mentioning that spheres evoke sentiments of membership ; of oblivion ; of absence. It is interesting to note that simple shapes with simple behavior may provoke unlimited semiosis in people. How do users remember a past travel or the desire to go on vacation from the slow movement of spheres ? We believe that it is because we identify ourselves with the process of movement, not with the media that conveys the action.

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BeaTanz es una obra interactiva a través de signos visuales y auditivos. La idea es proponer a usuarios y espectadores tres interfaces diferentes que se relacionan entre sí, pero que al mismo tiempo pueden ser independientes. Del lado de los usuarios, se controlan y activan cuadros que cambian de color y generan sonidos. Del lado del espectador, se observan las manipulaciones de los usuarios y se observa una tercera interfaz que se modifica dinámicamente según las acciones de los otras interfaces. Mientras los usuarios manipulan el sistema, no establecen comunicación visual entre ellos. Es mediante el sonido que se produce una interactividad intuitiva. De esta manera, se observan esquemas participativos entre usuarios. Los resultados visuales finales, que sólo pueden ser apreciados por los espectadores, pueden ser considerados como visualizaciones de los tonos musicales y de la participación colectiva entre usuarios y espectadores.

BeaTanz fue instalada públicamente en el Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Toluca el 16 de junio de 2009 como prototipo.

Hecha en conjunto con Carlos Zermeño. Más info en : http://brooom.org/beatanz/

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The project TR • 33 aims at responding to the premise : In a digital world, is it possible to get inspiration from natural objects in order to explore new ways of interactivity with technical objects ? TR • 33 is an artistic installation that proposes to users an innovative form to interact with multimedia hand-held devices. The natural world is used as a metaphor to stylize a fractal generated tree that is retro-projected in the installation. Users experience the action of “engraving their trace in an object”, in this case, the tree’s trunk or branches.

It seems that the ubiquity of portable multimedia devices has converted their use and dependence into something natural, almost imperative for social and cultural interaction. But what happens when the traces of all users are assembled into a same discourse ? We are now entering the domain of what we call ‘collective cinema’, a mode of creation that demands social participation to embrace its content.

Three interactive phases were explored. First, the installation was mounted at a public space. Users discovered it inside their regular environment and thus it arouses some expectation and curiosity. The installation is 6m. long, 2.4 m. height and 3 m. width. Users are attracted to come into the space by means of the fractal tree projection, once inside they notice hand-held devices hanged and stored in leaf-like cases. When users grab leafs, Blackberries are in video mode and only the button to start recording is available to activate.

In a second phase, a day after video recording, the installation is used as sound environment. For this matter, every one of the six Blackberries reproduces different sounds, all of them synchronized to convey the sensation of listening to music or orchestration. It would be like listening posts hanged in a forest. Indeed, some users evoked the sentiment of listening to the sound of trees. This phase is transitory to the last one.

The third phase is contemplative. It shows random montage of movie clips recorded from the first phase. These clips are projected as superposed sequences to the fractal tree image, as if they would be leafs. Meanwhile hanged Blackberries still act as sound emitters for the installation.

During our sessions, we could observe some interesting actions performed by users. The total amount of recorded clips was 95, involving subjective sightseeing of objects and persons, from daylight to early evening. We noticed that recurrent users started playing roles in front of devices ; some others came back with other users to be recorded. As the daylight went off, the interaction changed and users started recording full messages to save the nature or dedicating love messages to distant persons.

This mode of interaction with multimedia hand-held devices refreshes the idea of virtualization. Users stop focusing on technical possibilities and start thinking of them as extensions of memory. Every time a user understands that her message will be transmitted to other receivers in different contexts and time, they explore the idea of augmenting communication.

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Exhibited at :

 Common Ground Exhibition. Haun Tie Art Museum, Beijing, China. Nov. 5 – 15, 2008.

 The Celebrated Artists Collection. Common Ground. Santa Monica, EUA, 2008. Online : http://www.commonground2008.com/slideshow/celebratedartists.html

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Environment issues urge to be observed from different perspectives in order to promote consciousness about contemporary and future panoramas regarding our planet Earth. The convergence of art and technology is a groundbreaking domain where artists may express with their creations by taking into account possibilities of digital media. In that manner, there are emerging forms in the way we exhibit, distribute, receive, and preserve digital artworks. For us, digital art –its development and criticism included– goes beyond a mere experimentation with symbolic and numerical materials ; it opens a wide range of possibilities for representation.

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