We have been awarded Arts Council of England funding to develop new covid-secure pieces for our Microworld project.
Currently half of our interactives involve touch-screens so we need to look at alternative technologies which involve less touching. We’ve split this research into 4 broad areas:
1) Kinect interaction
2) Audio interaction
3) Floor based interaction
4) Smartphone interaction
We’ve used Kinect a lot before as it is an intuitive and robust tool. People love seeing and playing with their silhouettes. We want to use Kinect to trigger more complex interactions. We’ll be inspired by the pioneering work in artificial realities by Myron Krueger (Videoplace 80s-90s).
Audio sensors can be used to trigger calls and responses between artworks and audiences. We’re surrounded by the sounds of nature (In Margate you’re never far from a flock of seagulls) and we want to bring more generative audio into Microworld.
We’re working with Matt Mappleston to explore electronic sensors for floor based interaction. Buttons, switches, mats, touch pads. How can we create rich engagements with simple on/off signals?
Finally, we’re looking at how to use Smartphone apps to control interactive art works through wifi. How can this be made seamless, secure, and localised within a space? We have started to adapt the Seapeople project which we developed over 2020 as a way to test this technology. We’ll be getting some assistance from Sean Clark in this area.
We’re also talking to Lumen Art Projects and Marine Studios, learning from their considerable experience in design for museums and exhibitions.
We’re working on this through to early April 2021. We’ll post progress reports and demos on social media as we go along. The finished works will be added into the Microworld offer.
To learn more about Microworld visit our dedicated website: microworld.art
.
