This year’s Advanced Interaction Research Studio, led by Carlos Gomez, took place on Sunday the 14th of June at the Studio P52 Art Gallery in Barcelona, where the projects remained exhibited. To foment the discussion on the projects presented were IAAC’s Academic Director, Areti Markopoulou, as well as the Academic Coordinator, Silvia Brandi; Roc Parés Burgès, Director of the Master in Digital Arts at the UPF; Alexandre Dubor, IAAC Digital and Robotic Fabrication Expert; and finally Angel Muñoz, creative coder and hardware developer, who also followed the student’s and their project development through out the year.
The exhibition experience started with the presentation of Sound to Polymer 1.0, developed by Hashem Joucka, proposing Electroactive polymers (EAPs) as a tool to adjust the acoustic performance of building interiors by using sound as an input to manipulate the space within, creating an enhanced indoor environmental quality. Orion Campos Gorrao Maoreira’s Touch Media proposal followed, aiming to create a new way of communication using and increasing our sense of touch by creating a wearable tool with an open use, allowing 2 people to communicate through touch and vibrations.
The next 2 projects dealt with waste, from 2 diverse prospectives, and with 2 diverse finalities. The first was MegaWattsMegaWaste by Mahdi Najafi, a data sculpture that have been designed through a “Hacking Nature” process, making the audience and users aware of the huge amount of energy which is being wasted because of internet use. The proposal by Stephanie Farrah and Tanti Wulansari, the Unknown Desolate Transit, attempts to reveal urban and environmental issues: human driven technology is the tool to alter the installation, the user is enlightened by the problems and waste that their personal technology creates where communication between the user, the interface, and the installation creates a platform to heighten awareness while searching for a solution.
Spin your Story, by Deepti Dutt ,was the second last piece displayed, aiming to provoke proposing traditional methods of story telling elaborated with contemporary technology, generating a whole new sensorial experience. Finally the exhibition closed with Jayant Khanuja and Zuna Abdul Majid’s VirtuaLine, a physical environment responding to web based activity. The online world that we all live in now is actually underwater and somewhat invisible, but through this physical installation a space is created out of fiber optics bringing a sense of this unseen world.