People in China, as well as users online, can navigate through the same grid of columns that senses the users’ location with sound and light.
The physical display, developed by Ball State faculty and students, is in a gallery of the China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing until the end of November. The project took about three months to produce, coming out of an earlier project that went through different versions.
“You walk through a grid of 16 sculptural forms that are interactive, and it senses your proximity to them through a camera mounted on the ceiling,” said John Fillwalk, director of the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts. “Based on your activity, you’re generating changes in color and light from the columns.”
With the color changes, sound effects also are used in the project, called Displaced Resonance.
“The sound gets transformed, and it depends on your distance to the column,” said Michael Pounds, associate professor of music theory and composition. “When you get close to the column, you hear the sound play back, and then you get closer and the sound becomes more pitched in tone because of the filtering process.”
In addition to the physical aspect, the display is available for people throughout the world to access online.
“People who visit it online can walk around through the use of an avatar,” Fillwalk said. “As they move, if you’re in the real version, you can see their interactions represented, too.”
Students who were involved in the project used their areas of expertise to help develop the in-depth technology aspects needed for the design.
“Coming from the architecture department, you work with a lot of other architects, but this pulls in people from the other fields,” said Matthew Wolak, a second-year graduate student in architecture. “It’s nice to get a perspective from someone outside your major. I think that’s the best thing, to get that more well-rounded design process when people have different skills.”
The connected technology is part of the importance for people in China as well as in the virtual world.
“I think it’s important that people who come in — and witness it and interact with it — probably get to experience a kind of art that they haven’t had experience with before,” Pounds said.
The program is even designed for a meeting to take place between the two worlds.
“If a virtual and physical person meet in a certain location, you get a different response,” Fillwalk said. “The whole column glows bright white.”
Despite some difficulties with the project, it was a learning process for Wolak.
“We don’t get a lot of chances to design and build things we like in school,” he said. “We design other things, but the idea of seeing it go from initial concept design to [a] finished, built piece installed in a gallery — that is one thing in its own.”
There are no plans at this time to have the exhibit at Ball State, but after its time in China, the project is expected to enter into national and international festivals. The overall idea is connecting people through the lights and sounds used throughout the display.
“It’s really kind of a sensory experience that hopefully allows people to slow down and pause,” Fillwalk said. “It’s really about this kind of connection to others that are kind of unknown, but yet you’re aware of their presence.”
