Mobility

source: highlike

Work: Foreboded by the previous World Expositions, the visitors to the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai found themselves in the crossfire between massive LED screens and countless high definition projections surrounding them. To counteract this trend, Mobility deliberately avoided the typical media surfaces and opted instead for the poetic allure of a kinetic installation. Mobility opened the “Physical Mobility” section in a pavilion dedicated to the concerns of handicapped people. Visible from afar, Mobility provided a visually strong metaphor and put visitors in a positive mood for the subject mobility despite handicap. The work commissioned by Otto Bock HealthCare referenced a form of communication that has almost been consigned to oblivion: the use of a mirror and sunlight to exchange information over long distances. The installation spans a corridor of 7-metres width. On the left wall one hundred prosthetic hands arranged in a matrix revolve around their own vertical axis, the movements being controlled by motors. The mirrors they hold reflect the beam of a strong light across the space and onto the opposite wall. What initially seems like an asynchronous, chaotic pattern of movement soon reveals itself as a complex, computational choreography: at first the hundred light spots move around a central point, akin to the celestial dynamics of the planets or the flight pattern of a swarm of insects and creating the impression of a three-dimensional space. Then suddenly this organic oscillation converges to form a Chinese character denoting movement and action. Mobility is part of the permanent exhibition at the Ars Electronic Center in Linz, Austria.
Photographer: ART+COM
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source: artcom

Foreboded by the previous World Expositions, the visitors to the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai found themselves in the crossfire between massive LED screens and countless high definition projections surrounding them. To counteract this trend, Mobility deliberately avoided the typical media surfaces and opted instead for the poetic allure of a kinetic installation. Mobility opened the “Physical Mobility” section in a pavilion dedicated to the concerns of handicapped people. Visible from afar, Mobility provided a visually strong metaphor and put visitors in a positive mood for the subject mobility despite handicap.

The work commissioned by Otto Bock HealthCare referenced a form of communication that has almost been consigned to oblivion: the use of a mirror and sunlight to exchange information over long distances.

The installation spans a corridor of 7-metres width. On the left wall one hundred prosthetic hands arranged in a matrix revolve around their own vertical axis, the movements being controlled by motors. The mirrors they hold reflect the beam of a strong light across the space and onto the opposite wall.

What initially seems like an asynchronous, chaotic pattern of movement soon reveals itself as a complex, computational choreography: at first the hundred light spots move around a central point, akin to the celestial dynamics of the planets or the flight pattern of a swarm of insects and creating the impression of a three-dimensional space. Then suddenly this organic oscillation converges to form a Chinese character denoting movement and action.

Mobility is part of the permanent exhibition at the Ars Electronic Center in Linz, Austria.
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source: artcom

By the mid-1980s an interdisciplinary group of designers, architects and artists coming from various departments of the Berlin University of the Arts and hackers from the ChaosComputerClub foresaw that the upcoming digital technology was not only a tool, but potentially a (mass) medium. Therefore ART+COM was founded as an non-profit organisation to explore the new mediums applied possibilities in the fields of art, design, science and technology.

In 1994 when ART+COM received commissions of commercial projects the organisation became officially a company with limited liability. Since 1998 the design studio is owned mainly by its employees, board members as well as the former organisation members.

From the very beginning ART+COM has pioneered the development of this medium, and has conceived and realized communication

formats, design principles and technologies that have become pervasive concepts in today’s world. Ranging from artistic installations and design-focused projects to technological innovations and inventions, ART+COM’s work includes different kinds of formats: Autoactive, reactive and interactive objects and installations, media-based environments and architectures.

Although often very complex, the projects are always driven by the content and not by the technology. Despite having grown and professionalised its operations, ART+COM remains dedicated to its original cause from nearly 25 years ago: to design innovative and original projects to pave the way for the future of media-based communications.