Digit

Last week I took Poly on the train up to Manchester so she could be exhibited as part of the Future Everything festival. Future Everything previously known as Future Sonic is a an award winning festival showcasing art, music and debate around the themes of technology and innovation. After a couple of weeks hiding out in the R+D cupboard building the big Poly it was a great opportunity to exhibit Poly in a different space and to see how people would interact with her. For the festival we collaborated with the Manchester magazine ThingsHappen who were interested in the way the city was perceived by the people that lived there. They supplied us with a number of Manchester themed questions to ask Poly and for Poly to visualise, although many visitors also added their own questions. We also streamed the live video on the Poly site from Manchester so that even people voting online could move the Poly exhibit and watch her move in the space. With around 200 people visiting the exhibition each day and interacting with the artworks, as well as people voting online, Poly was definitely put to the test and stormed through her Manchester themed questions, “Is the Hacienda dead?” – “Yes”. “Should the Oxford Street Odeon be knocked down” – “No”. The results of these questions can now be seen on the ask-poly website in the archive section and I think are still being asked on the live section. It was a great festival and many thanks to the organisers for having us up there and for being so helpful.

I did also manage to check out some of the other artworks and talks at the festival and here’s a quick roundup of some of the great stuff I saw. Firstly an amazing piece of work that won the Future Everything award was the eyewriter project. This is a collaborative project involving amongst others the Open Frameworks team and the Graffiti Research Lab. Basically the project looks at empowering writers and artists with paralysis to still be creative by using a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus and software. This allows them to draw and create using only their eyes. Wow.

Some great kinetic sound sculptures were shown in the basement of the Palace Hotel. Sarah Farmer’s Organised Sound where a power drill powered the mdf and wine glasses xylophone was awesome.

Also loved kimchi and chips – Journey Box. This was an old wooden medicine box that depending on what part of it you opened created a different experience (with light and sound) each time. Amazing model making of a miniature city. Another project the Bicycle Built for 2,000 project was a collaboration between Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey. Check out the website. Also saw great talks on the future of sound, art and open source projects by Last fm, wow design and tinker London. … ok that’s it for now… phew.

Posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 under R&D.
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