Category Archives: Digital Art

Book: Live Visuals – History, Theory, Practice

Edited by: Steve Gibson, Stefan Arisona, Donna Leishman and Atau Tanaka, 2022

From the publisher:

This volume surveys the key histories, theories and practice of artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, architects and technologists that have worked and continue to work with visual material in real time.

Covering a wide historical period from Pythagoras’s mathematics of music and colour in ancient Greece, to Castel’s ocular harpsichord in the 18th century, to the visual music of the mid-20th century, to the liquid light shows of the 1960s and finally to the virtual reality and projection mapping of the present moment, Live Visuals is both an overarching history of real-time visuals and audio-visual art and a crucial source for understanding the various theories about audio-visual synchronization. With the inclusion of an overview of various forms of contemporary practice in Live Visuals culture – from VJing to immersive environments, architecture to design – Live Visuals also presents the key ideas of practitioners who work with the visual in a live context.

This book will appeal to a wide range of scholars, students, artists, designers and enthusiasts. It will particularly interest VJs, DJs, electronic musicians, filmmakers, interaction designers and technologists.

Read more on the publishers site: https://www.routledge.com/Live-Visuals-History-Theory-Practice/Gibson-Arisona-Leishman-Tanaka/p/book/9781032252681

CityEngine 3D Building Models of Berlin Mitte

This github project contains a Esri CityEngine model with ground plane, streets, parcels and 3D models of Berlin Mitte (2x2km) based on the open data provided by Berlin’s Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Wohnen (https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/).

According to the copyright of the source data (see link above) you may use and modify this project as you like, but commercial use is prohibited.

The CityEngine project was originally created for a participatory urban planning application “Enabling DEMO:POLIS”, exhibited at the Berlin Academy of Arts in 2016. The source code for the application is available freely as well (see https://robotized.arisona.ch/enabling-demopolis/ for more information).

Compared to the source data, the 3D models in the CityEngine project have been cleaned up with great care (removing duplicate faces, fixing normals, merging vertices etc.). Thus, the model can easily be used for visualization, urban planning scenarios, etc.

Available at github: https://github.com/arisona/berlin_3d

Lego Ableton Push Stand

Here’s a little fun my son Romeo and I had during school holidays: A Lego stand for Ableton push. Inspired by the awesome Lego DJ Booth recently posted here. Our brick collection’s a bit more limited tough.

Amazingly, the Push perfectly fits into the Lego raster. Coincidence, Ableton engineers / designers?

Next step, make it height adjustable, etc. – and – use it!

Lego Push Lego Push Lego Push

Enabling DEMO:POLIS

“Enabling DEMO:POLIS” is a participatory urban planning installation, presented as part of the DEMO:POLIS exhibition at the Berlin Akademie der Künste (http://www.adk.de/demopolis – 11.3.2016 – 29.5.2016). The installation engages the public in the design of open space and consists of six terminals that run a custom, interactive software application.

The software leads the user through a number of typical urban design tools (space allocation, streets, buildings, landscape, etc.) and concludes with a fly-through through the generated 3D scenario, in this case, the Rathausforum / Alexanderplatz area in Berlin.

The following video demonstrates a full cycle of a possible design.

Contact

Stefan Arisona – https://robotized.arisona.ch

Open Source

Source code, data and a binary build are available at: http://github.com/arisona

Credits

Concept: Stefan Arisona, Ruth Conroy Dalton, Christoph Hölscher, Wilfried Wang

Data & Coding: Stefan Arisona, Simon Schubiger, Zeng Wei

Support: Akademie der Künste Berlin, FHNW Switzerland (Institute of 4D Technologies), ETH Zürich (Future Cities Laboratory and Chair of Cognitive Science), Northumbria University (Architecture and Built Environment).

Data & Software Workflow

Enabling DEMO:POLIS builds on Open Data, in particular the publicly available 3D models of central Berlin provided by the Staatssenat für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt (http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/stadtmodelle/)

The original 3D models were initially imported into Autodesk AutoCAD for layer selection and coordinate system adjustments, then imported into Autodesk Maya for data cleaning and corrections. In a final step the data was imported into Esri CityEngine for final data adjustments & cleaning, merging, labelling, etc. The data was then exported as OBJs. The software application is written in Java, based on the 3D graphics library/engine ether. As indicated above, all source code and data is available as open source.

The Wild Jewels

Exhibition at the Institute for the Future (IFTF), Palo Alto, 21 September 2015 – 15 April 2016 as part of the Apocalypse Exhibition by Catherine Young
Pre-opening at swissnex San Francisco, 19 September 2015

Stefan Arisona, Simon Schubiger, Ika Arisona
In collaboration with Catherine Young

The Wild Jewels explore the possibilities of data-driven wearable technology that responds to future environmental scenarios. The pieces make use of data provided by millions of sensors and mobile phones that permanently collect data of the momentary state of a city; and in addition expand the scale to include solar activity data collected from observatories and probes in space.

The collection is inspired by large data analysis and collaboration facilities such as the Value Lab Asia, and it demonstrates typical modes of interaction with data: visualizing, filtering, projecting and connecting in a different context. Thereby, the pieces freely re-interpret and embody these modes, and bring them to a small, personal scale. The functional aspect is combined with precious materials and traditional jewelry and accessory designs, ultimately to be worn as pretty artworks.

Raumwetter (Space Weather Orb)

Raumwetter is a necklace that visualizes the beauty of space weather: The sun permanently releases streams of hot gas into space – the solar wind. A solar flare may blast millions of tons of matter into space, turning the wind into a storm reaching speeds of up to 2 million miles per hour. Luckily, on earth we are protected. Earth’s magnetic field redirects most charged solar particles to flow around the planet. However, space based technology (GPS), communication systems and power grids may be at risk. Thus, Raumwetter also has the capability to warn you of intense solar events.

The Wild Jewels: Raumwetter

Raumwetter: Machine-cut acrylic; “patate di mare”; gold wire; transparent acrylic sphere, lit with pico-projector from inside.

Giftschleuse (Poison Gate Cuff)

On Earth, 780 million people do not have access to clean water, and in the near future, availability of water is expected to decrease in many regions. Giftschleuse is a water filtering bangle that can be worn at all times. It provides instant, clean water. Similarly to an exo-skeleton, it is an exo-organ that provides additional functions to the human body in situations where our own organism cannot deal with conditions such as polluted water. In addition, it maps areas of clean water and shares the data with other water-seekers nearby.

The Wild Jewels: Giftschleuse

Giftschleuse: Machine cut brass, silicon pipes, coloured cooling liquid, electrical pumps.

Durchblick (Clear Vision Goggles)

Besides correcting your seeing capabilities and protecting your eyes from strong light, Durchblick is a multifunctional display device that allows you to project the invisible into your visual perception: Depending on its configuration, it provides hints about wireless communication networks, radiation, dust and more. These are the shades for a hotter planet!

The Wild Jewels: Durchblick

Durchblick: Machine-cut brass, acrylic glasses, motorised clock-work driving the shades.

Übergesund (Super Health Glove)

Übergesund is decorated glove and a social health device that builds spontaneous data networks with other wearers. It will inform you if somebody near you needs help, and it forwards such alerts to others around who might be able to help. In densely populated areas, such as in cities, Übergesund provides a decentralized health-network that allows for community-sourced services that are available at a high response time.

The Wild Jewels: Übergesund

Übergesund: Cut, turned and brushed steel; gold wire; silicon LED strings; custom-programmed smart watch LCD display.

This work was supported by: ETH Zürich (ETH Global & Future Cities Laboratory), FHNW (Institute of 4D Technologies), Institute for the Future, swissnex San Francisco, Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco.

House of Futures Poster

The Fine Jewels

More infos on the Apocalypse Project: http://apocalypse.cc

Journal of Professional Communication: “Art/Science Hybrids”

Special Issue on Art/Science Hybrids. Journal of Professional Communication (JPC), Volume 3, Issue 2, 2013
http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/jpc/

A collection of papers originally presented at Digital Art Weeks 2013 Singapore (DAW)
http://www.digitalartweeks.ethz.ch/

Editor in chief: Alex Sévigny, McMaster University

Guest editors: Steve Gibson, Faculty of Art, Design and Social Science, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK and Stefan Müller Arisona, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW / Future Cities Laboratory, ETH Zurich

The rise of new transdisciplinary practices in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries is striking. The gulf between art and science that has widened since the Enlightenment has now been challenged by a wide body of scholars, artists, designers and scientists. This special issue explores the concerns of emergent transdisciplinary research that seeks to re-unite the arts and sciences.

Table of Contents

Editorials

Preface to the JPC special issue on Art/Science Hybrids. Alex Sévigny

Art Into science/science into art. Steve Gibson

Iterative Emergence of Art/Science Hybrids. Stefan Müller Arisona, Pascal Mueller, Simon Schubiger, and Matthias Specht

Commentary

Augmenting science through art. Matthias Berger

Next nature: ‘nature caused by people’. Sue Thomas

Interview

Interview with George Legrady, chair of the media arts & technology program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Stefan Müller Arisona

Research Articles

Art-science and verbal articulation in hyper-visual techno-culture. F. Scott Taylor

Theoretical aesthetics. Adam Tindale

Mapping art to systems thinking. Paul Goodfellow

The superhero and the DJ: Science meets design. Mikael Lindstrom, Farvash Razavi, and Nandi Novell

Social commentary through the transdisciplinary practice of audio-visual performance. Léon McCarthy

The digitization of music and the accessibility of the artist. Marius Carboni

Live programming for robotic fabrication. Jason Lim

Title: Art/Science Hybrids
Editor: Alex Sévigny
Guest Editors: Steve Gibson and Stefan Müller Arisona
Journal: Journal of Profession Communication
Year: 2013
Volume: 3(2)
Link: http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/jpc/

Multi-Projector-Mapper (MPM): Open-Source 3D Projection Mapping Software Framework

The multi-projector-mapper (MPM) is an open-source software framework for 3D projection mapping using multiple projectors. It contains a basic rendering infrastructure, and interactive tools for projector calibration. For calibration, the method given in Oliver Bimber and Ramesh Raskar’s book Spatial Augmented Reality, Appendix A, is used. Continue reading