Masha du Toit

Another speaker on Firday was Jason Bruges – a creator of interactive installations. Here’s a link to his companies site.

There was an example of his work in the foyer of the indaba which amused me very much – its a sort of screen made of black modules, each with a very thin strip light. The lights switch on and off in patterns and its clear the thing is supposed to be responding to its environment as there are cameras embedded in some of the modules. After looking at it for some time and not being able to figure out how it was responding, I peered round the back to see a nest of wires and a rather stressed out looking individual frantically plugging and unplugging.

Later on the thing was working – switching itself on and off in response to people walking by. It was not the most satisfying interactive piece I have seen, but Jason Bruges showed some other, more interesting projects during his talk:

He seems to work a lot with combining light and movement to create intriguing public spaces. There are chandeliers which respond to the presence of bar codes –

building facades which convey the movement that is happening inside them,

[youtube:www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXouJCfDo1w]

Installations that turn wind into light

And an interactive dado rail for a school for severely handicapped children. This last was very charming and I’m disappointed I cannot find images of it.

Here’s another one: A chandelier in the atrium of the law firm of Allen and Overy. Its a grid of lights that fill a huge space, and are controlled by a software system that takes data feeds from a camera on the roof of the building. This means the occupants are connected to the outside world as the chandelier responds to the changing sky outside. Apparently some of the data feeds are of skies from elsewhere in the world.