Absolut Quartet ad, shot by Laurent Seroussi and designed by TBWA.
Jeff did it again. We followed his adventures right after he won the competition. Now he completed the proposal and currently exhibits his spectacular robotic work. Music and vodka works in pair and this time beautiful mechanics come into play. Jeff Liebermann and Dan Paluska worked together on Absolut Quartet.
Closeup of some of the 100 custom electronics boards fabricated, one for every note.
Absolut Quartet, a commission for the Absolut Visionaries project, is a music making machine like no other. The audience becomes part of the performance, while watching something that appears impossible. You can log in to ABSOLUTMACHINES.COM for a chance to interact with the machine. You will enter a 4-8 second theme, and the machine will generate, in real-time, a unique musical piece based on the input melody you have provided.
The marimba shooting mechanisms and closeup of the wine players. Photo by Sesse Lind.
You will see this melody played by three instruments. The main instrument is a ballistic marimba, which launches rubber balls roughly 2m into the air, precisely aimed to bounce off of 42 chromatic wooden keys. The second instrument is an array of 35 custom-tuned wine glasses, played by robotic fingers. Finally, an array of 9 ethnic percussion instruments rounds out the ensemble.
Video
Untitled Sound Objects (Installations 2005-2008) by Pe Lang + Zimoun from Pe Lang + Zimoun on Vimeo.
Don't forget to check the sound machines by Pe Lang and Zimoun, and by Festo.
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Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Absolut
April fool, the USB pregnancy Test
Jonah sent me this April fool! So happy first of April to you all!!! I'd love hanging tiny fishes in your back, but because we are on a blog here, I will just propose this very nice High Tech Pregnancy Test! What can the digital do with my no-tech data? Like a little fish in the water, this pregnancy test can be plug in to your ipod. Wait, no. Your iChat! so you can update your friends instantly about your status. Be careful to select the right end of the test, other than that it is pretty straightforward.
The power from your USB port starts the electrospray ionization process, creating a spectrograph of the various masses for your analysis (...) The mass spectrometry software on the device comes with several sequenced hormones, including hCG (human Chorionic Gonadotropin), hCG-H (hyperglycosylated hCG - for detection before your first missed period), and LH (luteinizing hormone - for detection of your most fertile days). We like the fact that it does all three (...) While most home tests can detect a level of 15-50 mIU/mL of hCG, the enhanced methodology of the USB Pregnancy Test Kit can detect 5-50 mIU/mL, and will show you the exact concentration via its friendly onscreen interface. In addition, the LCD display on the device itself will light up and show you the symbol of a baby, no baby, or multiples and your Estimated Delivery Date based on the concentration of hCG, hCG-H, and LH in your urine - ThinkGeek
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure.............................................................................................
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Low tech color calendar
Designed by Oscar Diaz and discovered by the awesome Cuarto Derecha, numbers and patterns in a calendar gradually get colored as time goes by. Is the ink really pumped by the paper or is it a design concept? I don't know. However it is very nice, the ink seems to physically travel through the paper spongy material ...
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Sunday, March 30, 2008
Pepper ghost mannequins
Created for the Musée de la mode et du textile, Paris 1998, Radi Designers created a beautiful exhibition design that integrates 98's technologies such as projections of portraits. The exhibition consisted in a retrospective on graduates work from FIAMH (Festival International des Arts et de la Mode, Hyères) where moving heads animate mannequins and produce ghost like pictures.
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Dynamic composition
By Saiman Chow
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Friday, March 28, 2008
SMS pictures on a frame
For last Christmas my sister offered my grand ma a photo frame on which she can display digital pictures via usb upload/connection. It is a pretty cool idea, but my grand ma needs to constantly plug a usb key if she wants to update her pictures. Also she prefers the beauty of printed pictures rather than pictures on a "TV like frame".
It is interesting to see how printed pictures are important. They have a specific meaning. It is not about what the pictures represent, it is about holding the pictures in the hand, turn them and draw notes in the back, sliding them in a book, bringing it from places to places. During the war, my grand father used to send my grand ma pictures with his beautiful poems written in the back. They served a specific function with a letter.
Now that these digital frames invades the mass market, I wander what is left from the entire spectrum of photo-human relationship. I consider them being something that have little to do with the traditional picture. They conveniently randomly select pictures and display them.
The Vivien photoradio: They send picture emails. You get picture postcards.
One idea that I recently found, from interaction designer John Kestner who gave a talk today at Media Lab, is the photo digital frame that receives pictures from SMS. The designer repackaged the printer into a photo frame and its display is the out tray of the printer.
Vivien translates between generations. Vivien prints pictures with messages on the back from family and friends, placing them right into a photo frame. It is warmer and easier to maintain than current printers and requires no computer, receiving emails with pictures, subscribed photostreams and SMS messages through Wi-Fi.
On can print messages in the back of the picture."A Standalone device that receives picture emails, photocasts, and SMS messages from family and friends, and prints picture postcards into a photo frame." It is a good idea because it invites for a new relationship to the picture frame, here it creates a message with a surprise! Of course there should be some kind of filtering mechanism for spam SMS pictures.
Vivien photoradio also comes with Clark that provides a quick Internet connection to users without one. Nearby Vivien photoradios will begin receiving content!
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure.............................................................................................
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Pipe furniture
It is so refreshing to discover good design work. Sometimes I miss my design school where creativity was combined to elegance. I love this set for the toilet: their shape ironically becomes their function: a pipe! This toilet set is designed by Thomas Kral.
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
For the next generation of e-baby
Do not forget me designed by Tomas Kral consists both of a brace for the cherished robotic dog Eibo, and a harness to show him the external world! This seems perfect for the next generation of e-baby, designed to provide convenience for the completely mental!
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Monday, March 24, 2008
Interactive touch sensitive surface
Flux
Flux designed by Media Interaction Lab, is an interactive touch sensitive surface that can be used either as an interactive table and/or as a digital whiteboard. The surface is based on a rear-projection screen providing both multi-touch and multiple pen interaction with individual identification.
Flux’s application interface is automatically optimized for the intended use depending on its orientation. Flux can be used as a sketch board, a discussion table or a white-board. Transformation between different orientations is single handedly achieved easily and elegantly. Rear projection, in conjunction with FTIR and Anoto pen tracking allows multi user, multi modal interaction in every configuration.
Flux has the following novel features:
* transition between multiple hardware/user configurations
* Optimized user interface based on the configuration and hence intended use
* Breakthrough multi modal input possibilities with independent, simultaneous hand and pen tracking
* Completely separate, individual and simultaneous interaction facilitated with pen(user) recognition
The authors of Flux claim that the system provides unmatched flexibility and capability in setup, use and user input and that it will set the path for a new generation of interactive surfaces!
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