Pixelsumo is a blog about interaction, with an emphasis on play, installation, video game culture, playgrounds and toys. Written by Chris O'Shea.
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Posted July 21st 2010 under Jobs
If you have a job position or opportunity available, post here.
Summary…
Interactive Immersive Media Computer Graphics/Game Engineer at Snibbe Interactive
Fine Collection of Curious Sound Objects
Posted July 8th 2010 under Instruments, Sound
Fine Collection of Curious Sound Objects, created by Georg Reil and Kathy Scheuring, are described as…
“The arrangement includes six exceptional exhibits from the world of sounds and acoustics. At first sight looking trivial, each object incorporates a very unique ability.
The magical character of each object is accompanied with a little story, almost completely concealing the existence of technical components such as speakers or sensors. Only small connection ports as well as the uniform black finishing point to their unusual abilities.
In form and functionality all these exhibits pursue John Maeda’s „Simplicity“. They are enjoying to use, they are surprising and one wants to explore and investigate them.”
I particularly enjoyed the coffee grinder (shown top), allowing you to scrub through the sounds, the echo bag and the bucket that collects sounds that you pour out. Reminds me a little of Audio Shaker.
Privates
Posted June 30th 2010 under Games
Sorry I am a bit slow posting this one, but I am really behind on my to-blog list.
British TV station Channel 4 has never shied away from being controversial, and thankfully they are putting money and energy into video game development too.
Enter the recently announced Privates, a game by Zombie Cow Studios for Channel 4, aiming to educate teenagers on safe sex…. “a funky little game about tiny little condom-hatted marines going right up peoples’ rude areas and shooting all the nasty chompy things that tend to live there if you’ve been carelessly putting bits of yourself in silly places”.
Blimey.
“Where pregnant, waddling teenagers take up the full width of the pavement with their oversized triplet pushchairs, unaware that their rampant, perpetual humping has filled them to the brim with all manner of grotty infections.
Privates is a platform twin-stick shooter in which you lead a teeny-tiny gang of condom-hatted marines as they delve into peoples’ vaginas and bottoms and blast away at all manner of oozy, shouty monsters. It’s rude, funny, bitingly satirical and technically pretty accurate if you don’t count the tiny people or the germs with teeth.”
Will it stop teenagers having sex, or educate them on STDs? Who knows. But you could argue that whilst they are busy playing the game, they at least aren’t spending their time having sex ;) The style of game is definitely more suited towards boys. Sort of Earth Worm Jim meets Inner Space. Maybe they will remember the smelly monsters later.
I’m glad this is being made and look forward to having a play on it.
Watch this video, making sure your sound is on, but not too loud :)
Inspired by Hand from Above?
Posted June 25th 2010 under Me
Hand from Above is a piece I made last year for an outdoor screen, where a giant hand picks up people from a crowd, and flicks them off the screen (it also squashes them, tickles them).
Today I have been sent this advertising in Time Square, where a giant super model picks up people from the crowd and throws them out of the screen.
Watch video…
Create by ad agency Space150 for Forever21.
Good to see what can be achieved with a better production budget, such a using video for the animation, higher resolution camera and massive screen. There are a few other things it does like take a snapshot Polaroid and picking people out carrying a yellow Forever21 bag.
I’m not by any means suggesting that the creators have seen Hand from Above, but it certainly feels familiar. Maybe inspired by? What do you think?
[update]
There had been a heated discussion on Vimeo comments about this and I have now posted my response…
http://vimeo.com/12855619
The Fast Lane
Posted June 24th 2010 under Playgrounds, Urban Space
Following on from their successful Fun Theory campaign, Volkswagen create more playful interventions in the name of viral advertising.
An idea that I’ve seen discussed many times before but not put into practice, VW put a slide into an underground train station in Berlin, giving people a fast way down, as this video shows…
As Carsten Holler says in this post, “The slides changed the daily routine of those who experienced them, altering their modes of traveling and their conception of social appropriateness. In the midst of a public space, traveling down a slide like a child in a playground, one loses all sense of control, exactly what one fears in a collective environment”
The 2nd I enjoyed as much, turning a normal elevator into a space rocket…
The third attaches a skateboard to a shopping trolley for potentially dangerous fun…
Analogue Tape Glove
Posted June 10th 2010 under Sound, Tangible
Back in 2006 I wrote about Tape, an commission by Someth;ng for our Cybersonica exhibition. There is something authentic about playing in an easy way with real audio tape, rather than software and digital interfaces.
So I was happy to see Analogue Tape Glove from collective Signal to Noise.
Instead of moving the tape over a play head, the tape is fixed stationary to a wall. As a participant, you wear a glove that has the playhead on your finger trip, allowing you to drag your finger over the tape to play the audio.
(video)
Feelings are facts
Posted June 10th 2010 under Installations, Light
One of my favorite installations that I’ve experienced is Blind Light by Antony Gormley. The feeling is quite hard to describe, but you had to be there. Disorientating, claustrophobic, exciting, playful, wet, confusing. All from a glass box filled with fog. Forget all this digital stuff.
Another massive favorite of mine was the Weather Project by Olafur Eliasson at the Tate Modern.
So, when I saw this on Designboom (where I borrowed these pics from), I wished I was in Beijing to experience it.
Feelings are facts is an installation by Olafur Eliasson & Ma Yansong, at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, “which challenges our everyday patterns of spatial orientation. vision functions as our primary default sense for navigation, but within this installation, insecurity is induced on visitors initially, reducing visibility, suggesting the need to invent new models for perception.”
(video)
Reactable Live
Posted June 10th 2010 under AudioVisual, Instruments, Sound
Hopefully you know the Reactable as they have been setting the bench-mark for tangible musical interfaces or years, with many people using their fiducial reacTivision tracking system.
Now the team in Barcelona have turned their research product into a limited run portable consumer item, aimed at musicians who want to use this live, aptly named Reactable Live.
The first 20 units (priced 9700 euros) have gone, but if you are interested you can join the waiting list
What is included
* Reactable Live! Core Component
* Table structure with projection surface
* Set of 25 musical blocks
What you need
* An Intel MacBook Pro or MacBook with a FireWire port
* A VGA or HDMI video adapter
Why do I post this? Well, I find it interesting to see something developing from a research project, into a museum, performance tool for the likes of Bjork, then finally a commercial product that has been well thought out and self contained. These videos show some of the production process, embedded below.
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