The Chronus exhibition is inspiring for me, even though there is only one interactive exhibit and the others are only for appreciation, the meanings these exhibits present are interesting for me. The first exhibit in the exhibition called Artificial Intuition is a machine hanging several tentacles controled by artificial intelligience that can detect the audience around it and approach them to block their way. The interaction it shows is interesting which aligns with what my definition for interaction, that is the users themselves find the way to communicate with the device. The sensor for the device is on the ground to detect where the people are and calculate their cordinate in the space to let the tentacles approach them, where the audience go, they will be on their way. I discover the way to communicate with the machine by standing and moving around it and discover that it will approach me and the tentacles will actually reach me and try to keep me away when I stand still. I can feel that what this device tries to present is related to intuition, and later I actually find out that the exhibit is called Artificial Intuition and is about doubting the relationship between intuition and reasoning. This is very interesting and inspiring for me as I can discover the way of interaction and what the device wants to convey throught the interaction, it not only reflects what I think interaction is, but also gives me the idea that I need to convey something meaningful through the interaction, to make the interaction meaningful and the users can feel it during the process of interaction. The rest of the exhibition are also interesting but not interactive, they all want to convey their own different meaning through the outcomes of algorithms and how they work, they are all profound works that inspire me a lot on how to present my work. One of these exhibits called Rechender Raum really interests me, it is an autonomous system working on itself based on the fed algorithm, as it is said in the description, “it is a full functioinal logic exact neural network”. Its frame is nine-angled, and I can observe how it works from all directions, what is interesting for the device is that, unlike other ordinary machines, the core of the machine, with all the its computing elements, is shifted outwards on the surface, and the inside part of it indicates the results of the tasks. The device presents a strict self-referentiallity and ignorance to the viewer by turning itself inside-out and making its function completely transparent. Compared this to other non-technology based art work, this is absolutely more impressive and direct to me in some way as I can feel it through its motion unlike other art work. Art work conveys things through color, these works convey through motions and patterns, and what they perform can reflect more profound things such as history, senses, something that are much harder for art work to present.
This project is about an interactive LED coffee table, the concept is direct that it is a coffee table and has LEDs and it is interactive, when we put things on the boxes, the LED in the corresponding box will change color. An easy concept, but very useful in daily life to be a perfect decoration at home, and can also change the color settings by using mobile phone application. I think it is a successful interactive project, even though it is easy, but it has a clear goal and can be implied in daily life to be a useful thing, it is practical and also interactive. I love the sense of simpleness and interaction combined with each other, also it is not limited to a certain combination of colors which can be modified by the user. Also the patterns the users put the cups and bowls on the table can make different interesting pictures, it extends the usage of a mere coffee table.
At 3:30 in this video it is about a project about a MIDI controller with 400 keys, it is built up with three keyboards to become a MIDI controller which I think is very interesting and interactive, as all the keys are given different use which offers the user great opportunities to do whatever they want. And the way it is connected is like a bass or guitar to make the experience playing it more interesting. The project is amazing as it has converted the keyboards into a controller and become a MIDI controller, this gives me great inspiration on what I am going to do for my final project which I think is going to be a synthesizer, this provides me to think about the possible way to interact with it. And this definitely is a successful interactive experience as there are much space for the user to do almost anything to compose whatever they want.
The first project shown in the video which is a LED ring, I think it is a project which is less interactive. I think the way how it interacts is controlled by the frequency of sounds, but I think the way it interacts is being meaningless, I can hardly imagine where it can be usefully implied, and the way of interaction from my point of view is too simple and not being that interactive enough, by changing the frequency of sounds can only change the blinking effects of the LEDs which I think is very simple as I am doing almost the same work but I think there can are much more ways to play with the LEDs.
As a conclusion, what I have mentioned above and combined them with the definition of interaction I have given in previous posts, I think what a successful interaction is to make the users themselves to find out the way of interaction, they are the ones to communicate with the device and try to understand it and build up the relation and understanding between themselves with the device based on everything they have. Also the interaction can convey clearly what the project is about and is for, the more clearly the users can understand these ideas, the more successful the project is, the project should not be just fancy, but be meaningful and even profound. Moreover, the users themselves can even discover more ways to interact with the project except what is originally designed for it, this is also one part of the commuincation and understanding, the users themselves add their own definition to it, to make it more meaningful.
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