Category Archives: p.a.r.e researchers

Lenka Novakova

p.a.r.e researchers

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Lenka Novakova

Reflective Space

‘Reflective Space’ is a working title of a new research project exploring performative elements of an environment, as an ephemeral and poetic landscape where light, sound and movement along with thin water surface form an actual architectural space. Layers and transparencies of ephemeral optical architectures interlaced with movement of bodies are constantly shaping and reshaping the performative nature of the environment. ‘Reflective Space’ attempts to combine three types of Spaces: ‘Cinematic Space,’  ‘Scenographic Space,’ and ‘Corporal Space’ into one performative unity where the technology along with the elements become the extension of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ as spatial performance and environment.  The prototype developed during the P A R E residency in the Black Box is the first step of a new forward looking research of  performative elements for ‘Reflective Space’ (2015-2016). Specific research elements will be also formed in junction with developing scenographies and scenographic studies for ‘Nuclear Sky’ and include creative discussions and experiments with the involved designers and researchers: Joe Browne, Omar Faleh, Cédric Delorme-Bouchard, and Nikolaos Chandolias.Elements developed specifically for the ‘Nuclear Sky’ will appear in scenography which will be further designed exclusively for Title66 Productions, and presented at ‘Theatre Rouge de Conservatoire’ Montreal, Quebec, June 3 – 7, 2014.

 

Valerie Walker

p.a.r.e researchers

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Valerie Walker

Indigo Griots … Solar Memories.. Northern Lights…

Using the power of solar energy stored during the day I will bring the SOUCCS station into the black box and set up video floor projections of the griots stories in Madame Ceci’s garden (a short pov video made during a performance piece in Minneapolis’s historic African American inner city, now near the expanded airport.   Various interactors will come to black box and get a solar power charge, telling the TransFutonic Indigo Griot  I portray,  a story in exchange for the pure solar power.

Exploration of multi-green-screening leading to insertion of 3D medias is something I plan to investigate visually using 3D material I’ve recently created in a 3D stereoscopic video production residency at OBORO this year in collaboration with Allison Moore and OBORO’s media labo.   Storytelling is at the heart of the Solar USB Charrging Culture Station (SOUCCS) project.    By interlacing and exploring the aural and visual connections of our stories, power and the technofascinations of society I will create an immersive piece that explores technology and memories from a multifaceted female perspective..

I plan to invite audio sound artist & composer Stephanie Loveless to collaborate on the audio.  I will also ask Douglas Ewart, Diasporic Griot (included in some of the Minn. video) to take part via his shakuhachi flute compostions on CD (he presents regularly at Banff Center).  I will ask Stephanie Loveless to work with this into her compositions along with other Trans-Atlantic African derived sounds I have been collecting via this research.

David Clark

p.a.r.e researchers

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David Clark

Tonewall

Architectural design values often consider the experience of a space to be primarily visual, and yet from the point of view of the beholder space is a holistic sensory experience. Moreover, while vision allows us to perceive static environments, sound adds a temporal dimension enabling us to experience how a space changes over time. Sound transforms a space into a dynamic experience with respect to both the space and the interaction of bodies within the space.

Tonewall is an interactive architectural form made up of an integrated experience of light and sound. A path of light cuts across and punctuates an otherwise lightless environment, a black box. The interaction in the space begins as bodies intersect the light path. The path can be envisioned as an atonal musical instrument which maps tone to the position of bodies across the room and overtones to the elevation of bodies in the space.
As an experimental interaction, Tonewall highlights the mutual experience of a space both visually and acoustically. While bodies define the visual and acoustic elements of the space, these elements in turn define the movements of the bodies within the space. In addition, both disharmonic and harmonic sound amplifies tensions as they relate to the proximity between bodies within the Tonewall. As bodies come together and connect, separate tones become singular.
Outside the Tonewall, guests within the space are spectators; within the Tonewall they are performers. To enter the light and become visible is to become a part of both the visual and sonic definition of the space. As the performance unfolds, so too does the story and the dynamic definition of the space.

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wEAR

wEAR is an experimental headset which integrates sound isolating ear muffs with a stereo headset and binaural mics. As a platform for acoustic sensorial intervention wEAR provides a means to manipulate how an environment is heard. One possible direction for the hardware would be to develop its potential as a device to empower a wearer with the ability to manipulate their own sonic environment. The wearer would be able to personalize their auditory experience by either highlighting or filtering sonic attributes of natural sound. Beyond this potentially commercial direction for the headset, wEAR can be also be used to formulate specific research questions involving how hearing impacts one’s relationship to an environment. An initial experiment planned for the headset involves fragmenting the experience of sound from that of vision. An accelerometer/gyroscope will be used to translate head motion to how sound is perceived. Both delay and frequency filtration will sever the natural connection between the eye and ear and potentially expose previously hidden details.

 

Omar AL FALEH

p.a.r.e researchers

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Omar AL FALEH

Project: Tessellation

Concept: Omar AL FALEH &Nikolaos Chandolias
Support: Marcello Licitra

ACATUS, the Greek word for the mythological “floating vessel”, is a modular suspended interactive light structure that is responsive to people’s presence and action. When looked at from above, ACATUS is a rigid grid of equal squares, which is the traditional reductionist divisive systems that describe space and place in traditional architectural drawings. However, ACATUS’ grid vertices are vertically displaced to transform the perspective of those who walk under it into a varying geometrical landscape that does not obstruct vision yet influences their behavior and trajectory in space.
This formal geometrical deformation is a reminiscence of the early experimentation in deconstructive architecture where systems (semiotic, symbolic, and representational) are iteratively transformed and complexified. The resulting shapes are a snapshot of this transformation that holds evidence of its origins and futures, thus adding a temporal dimension to the genesis of ACATUS as dynamic responsive architecture that exists across the four dimensions.

ACATUS is designed to respond to different modalities of interaction: presence, motion, and sound levels. The response is rendered on the node level rather than lines, which is a symbolic reference to constellations and star mapping, which was the original path-finding and geo-mapping system, before digital systems were invented.
ACATUS exists on various states that are presence-dependent. When no one is present in the installation, ACATUS cycles between different pre-determined animated behaviors. When presence is detected, response happens on the sonic level and on the motion tracking levels, and rendering the response is responsive to the accumulated input of the multiple users within the space.

 

Project: Memory, Place, Identity

Concept: Sha Xin Wei, David Morris, Omar AL FALEH
Support:David Clark

This project is an experiment in replacing the physicality and permanency of the built environment by a dynamic, ephemeral, and immaterial architecture that is implied by a computationally activated touch sensation.

The potentials of such platforms allows for the dynamic morphology of this implied architecture, with its divisions, scale, and delineations, by the process of manipulating certain ephemeral elements in the space, namely: light sources.

To examine these concepts, a wearable computing device was built to be the interface between the body and space through light sensing and haptic feedback. Subjects were asked to wear a glove-like item which has a small photocell mounted to a prosthetic extension of the glove’s index finger, and a small actuator that is placed under the fingertip of the glove. The glove is connected to a microcontroller unit that handles the computation and signal processing locally and in real time. Once the photocell detects the presence of light (above a certain threshold, to focus on direct light source detection instead of environmental and refracted lights), the small actuator, which is placed on the fingertip, gets activated, therefore giving the haptic sensation of touching a solid object. The sensing process works on discreet on/off modes, which makes the haptic feedback similar to the presence, or lack thereof, of solid objects in real-life.