DNA, this little monster

Following up on my post about the obsession for the future of human identification via DNA, interaction designers interrogate the influence of DNA analysis on dating. How will dating change when DNA analysis can reveal the presence of undesirable genes?


Doll Illustrations by Abake

Evidence Dolls, created by Fiona Raby, are hypothetical products sold in a fictional shopping mall called Bioland.

The Dolls were commissioned by the Pompidou Centre for the D-Day exhibition in 2005. The project consists of one hundred specially designed dolls used to provoke discussion amongst a group of young single women about the impact of genetic technology on their lifestyle. The Dolls come in three versions based on penis size (small, medium and large). A black indelible marker allows women to note down interesting characteristics of their lover. Hair, toenail clippings, saliva, and sperm can be collected and stored in the penis drawer. Four single women told us about their lovers -- past, present and imagined, and speculated on the implications of DNA on dating in the future.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Helvetica has gone wild

Can Helvetica drop? Someone had to imagine it. Dropclock does it via a motion clock screensaver. Every minute of real time is numerically expressed with heavy helvetica dropping into water in slow motion. Thank you fat-man-collective!

Video



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Personal Genome Card

The future of human identification

Daniel Gross and Joris Maltha visualization designers at Catalog Tree conceived a personal genome card, a tribute to Gattaca where a genetically inferior man assumes the identity of a superior one!


Design for a personal DNA card, commissioned by SEED magazine, New York. A fingerprint is generated from the 13 core loci as used by the FBI for human identification. In collaboration with Lutz Issler (line script).

Anticipating a future in which we can learn to read our genome like a book, Seed commissioned Catalogtree to design a Personal Genome Card: a place where an individual's genetic information could be easily referenced. To use Catalogtree's card, the bearer would speak into a small microphone and ask a yes-or-no question. The card would analyze the remotely stored genome to come up with an answer. It would then change color: Red signifies a pure "yes," yellow means "no," and colors in between show varying levels of uncertainty. As we get better at interpreting the human genome, Catalogtree notes, more questions will be answered with a higher degree of confidence.

The front of the card bears a unique visual pattern derived from the 13 chromosomal loci, or chromosomal positions, used in genetic profiling. The profiling process exploits short tandem repeats — variations in the number of times a short sequence of base pairs is repeated in a person's DNA. Two unrelated humans usually have a different number of repeats at a given locus. This structure is translated to a series of circles; different diameters are used for different bases. The circles are dropped into a container, and a line is drawn through their centers, creating an individualized drawing on every card.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

Body Mnemonics

Media Lab just had an Open House and my adviser offered me to present in the auditorium my latest research! I was so thrilled. I also demoed Picture This! during the Open House.

I had fascinating discussions with sponsors, very engaging, challenging and all of it relevant to our common explorations for new interactions design with current technologies. Researching on gesture interfaces, and new meaning for gesture interaction, i.e gestures that have a meaning to retrieve or interact with data, I regularly refer to Body Mnemonics project by Jussi Angesleva, who was researcher with me at the mythical Media Lab Europe in Ireland.



I realized I never blogged about this work; it is a really cool project, and pioneer in its vision.

Body mnemonics is a meta tool for portable devices that enhances their usability, shifts the interaction to the periphery of our concentration and makes them more responsive to our cultural background on the basis of three principles: proprioceptic sense, body image, and the "method of loci" mnemonic device.

Joelle Bitton (also MLE ex-fellow) showing her data storage locations!

Using inertial sensing a portable device's movements in 3D space can be tracked, analysed and referenced to the posture of the user. This enables a user to store and access information on his or her own body space. For example, online banking information could be accessed by moving the device to your back pocket. Similarly, your music archive could be located at your ear.

More on the web site !


Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Whisper of eight turned on pistol grip megaphones.

Whisper by Miguel Monroy

The pistol grip megaphones are usually qualified by their "power". Loud and noisy, they are a sign of emergency. Here, Miguel Monroy renders them soft, almost whispering. They are located carefully, adjacent to one another so that the feedback of the same pistols homogenize the overall sound.
Listen to the piece ->here <-. Beautiful piece.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Absolut

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.


Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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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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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 ...





Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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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.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Dynamic composition

By Saiman Chow

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