萧子文
エリック·シウ
Touchy
file festival
Touchy is a human camera – a wearable device that literally transforms a human being into a functioning camera. The individual who is wearing the device is constantly “blinded” unless someone touches his/her skin. The touch causes the shutters in front of the eyepieces to open and restores the wearer’s vision. When physical contact is maintained for 10 seconds, the camera takes a “Touch-Snap” (i.e., a photo that is taken by Touchy), which is displayed on the device’s LCD.

Mindar
Революция машин уже пришла в религию – по крайней мере, в Японии. Буддийский храм в городе Киото решил изменить свои практики, чтобы стать ближе к людям, и установил там робота. Твоя роль? Объявляйте проповеди верующим. Робот Миндар ростом почти шесть футов имеет женский голос и был создан в честь буддийского божества милосердия Каннон. Руки, лицо и плечи корпуса робота покрыты силиконом (имитирующим человеческую кожу). Это все. Все остальное состоит из открытых металлических шестерен.

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Mindar

A revolução da máquina já entrou na religião – pelo menos no Japão. Um templo budista na cidade de Kyoto decidiu mudar suas práticas para se aproximar das pessoas e instalou ali um robô. Qual é o seu papel? Anuncie sermões aos crentes. Com quase um metro e oitenta de altura, o robô Mindar tem uma voz feminina e foi criado em homenagem à divindade budista da misericórdia Kannon. Os braços, rosto e ombros do corpo do robô são cobertos com silicone (imitando a pele humana). É tudo. Todo o resto consiste em engrenagens de metal expostas.

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Mindar

The machine revolution has already entered religion – at least in Japan. A Buddhist temple in the city of Kyoto decided to change its practices in order to become closer to people, and installed a robot there. What is your role? Announce sermons to believers. Almost six feet tall, the robot Mindar has a female voice and was created in honor of the Buddhist deity of mercy Kannon. The arms, face and shoulders of the robot body are covered with silicone (imitating human skin). It’s all. Everything else consists of exposed metal gears.

This research used stigmergy behaviour, another example of agency-based systems, which could be programmed to be highly adaptive to local data. What is most intriguing and attractive in this case, is contrasting organic aesthetics emerging from algorithms like stigmergy, with its plant like formations, and the hyper-rationalisation and genericity of voxelised geometry. Different resolutions were introduced in the facade panels, by using an octree algorithm. The result is a building skin that from afar looks like a plant, but in close up has almost Minecraft-like aesthetics coming from a multi-resolution voxel field. Organic stigmergy (stígma + ergon) partly plays a role in the distribution of data through the facade field, rather than generating geometry. It leaves its imprint in the density of geometry

ELECTRIC SKIN

The Electric Skin explores the possibility of creating a wearable that extends the functionality of the skin to sense electromagnetic fields (mostly within the radio spectrum) and translate that information into touch sensation. The wearable consists of two main functional parts: 1) A matrix of omnidirectional antennas that act as sensors and probes and 2) corresponding electrodes that stimulate the skin of the wearer. Through this artificial “skin” or “exoskeleton”, the wearable changes our experience, perception, and understanding of space and movement, and in doing so, our interactions. The project speculates on the possible co-evolution of man and technology and draws attention to the role of environmental influence on our own bodily development and behavior.

Prismverse
Hong-kong based design studio, XEX, presents ‘prismverse’, an interactive diamond-themed installation in shanghai. The installation was completed for american skincare brand, Dr. jart+, to serve as an experiential pavilion for their ‘instant V7 toning light’ at raffles city mall. The immersive installation is inspired by light rays traveling through a diamond. With a 10 meter-long LED floor and the complex geometrical tessellated mirror wall, the highly illuminated interior becomes a metaphor for the instant tone-up effect of the skin product.

Parades & Changes
Parades & Changes, replays is a full scale re-creation of the masterpiece Parades & Changes, a major 1965 work of American postmodern dance legend Anna Halprin. The provocative Parades & Changes, Halprin’s first “collective creation” dynamited the codes dominating dance by exposing the process of performance: improvising around several “scores,” dancers dress and undress, inventing gestures and vanishing naked in rolls of skin colored paper. This “ceremony of trust,” as it was named by Halprin, seeks to utilize dance as a medium for being together: her prolific composition addresses the process, the place, the action, and the performer as both unique and corresponding entities.