Abstracts

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PANEL: SOCIAL MEDIA ARCHITECTURE
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PSD-BANK MÜNSTER:
A MEDIA FACADE IN THE SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT OF THE CITY
By Christoph Kronhagel, ag4

Establishing a media facade in a city that is as rooted in its proud architectural history as Münster is an adventure that demands from the developer not only a special feeling for media design but also in-
depth involvement in management and communication processes. A fundamental requirement for a media facade in such a sensitive environment is a kind of media technology that can be integrated into the architecture in an extremely discreet and yet transparent fashion.
With this comes the question of what one wants to achieve with the facade in terms of communication. First, the client must be convinced that he/she will never receive permission from the City to feature direct advertising on the facade nor would it make sense in the context of the given location. Then an editorial conference must be held with city representatives, architects of the new building and the client in order to work out a uniform baseline for the facade display programming. At this point, existing fears concerning the unknown new medium must inevitably be allayed. Finally, a concept must be drafted to bring together the diverse interests.
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INTERACTION REFRAMED
By Ruairi Glynn, interactivearchitecture.org

The socially constructed environments of web 2.0 are not entirely bottom up emergent nor top down in their design. The designers of new online social media construct frameworks upon which occupation and re-engineering of these virtual architectures is encouraged. This social mobility closely parallels models of interaction articulated in the drawings and maquettes of a number of prolific 1950 ́s & 60 ́s Social Architects including Price, Constant & Friedman.
Habitation, learning, adaptation, conversation, collaboration, evolution and diversification are all characteristic of these architects approach to a built environment of social interaction. As an Artist, Researcher, and Educator at Central Saint Martin College and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, I have been exploring technological extensions of these principles. Through built interactive installations such as my recent piece “Performative Ecologies”, I have been looking at how social models of interaction can influence how we build contemporary interactive architecture and in particular how technology itself can become an active social participant in our future built environment.
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MEGAPHONE – YOUR PHONE IS YOUR CONTROLLER
By Jury Hahn, MegaPhone

In this talk, Jury Hahn from MegaPhone will discuss using cellphones as game controllers to interact with large public displays, and how it affects users behaviour in public spaces. MegaPhone uses the simplest possible interaction method available on a cell phone: a phone call. By making a phone call to a regular phone number, users can interact with games on screen using key presses and voice. Jury will discuss a variety of real world case-study applications, and the user experience challenges involved in making powerful massively multiplayer onscreen experiences with relatively simple controls in the outdoor environment. She will also discuss the way MegaPhone creates ad hoc social connection between strangers through gameplay. Come play MegaPhone and don’t forget to turn on your phone before the session starts!
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PANEL: CULTURE, ECONOMY AND PUBLIC SPACE
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VISIONS OF THE DIGITAL CITY
By Ela Kagel, ID-Media

The way a city functions is strongly linked with its underlying network infrastructure. Cities in the past often went through major transformations due to the development of new streets, canals, highways or electric capacities. The cities of today are being shaped by high-speed communication networks, which led to the transformation of traditional buildings, streets and neighborhoods, and likewise influenced the use of public facilities. The idea of the digital city comes with the development of backbone infrastructure, enabling new
public communication systems based on wireless networks and urban media. Such perspectives require strategic support in order to sustain regional digital media economies. Apart from this, there are also political aspects to reflect upon: To what extent is the digital city a public space? Which parts of the city and its public services are free? And, one of the overriding questions: Are today’s citizens media-savvy enough to handle all the contents und public messages they are exposed to? In my presentation, I would like to focus on the visions of the digital city, its promises and risks, and the transformation processes of today’s metropolises.
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MEDIA FACADES AND URBAN SCREENS
A NEW STAGE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUAL AND MASS COMMUNICATION
By Eva Emenlauer-Blömers, Landesinitiative Projekt Zukunft

We are facing a new historical stage in the development of media and information and communication. Media facades, urban screenings, digital signage, public-TV, Out-of-home-TV are all different forms and realisations of a new dimension of individual and mass communication. This new development will succeed only when the production technology can be paid, the users will accept the new screenings and this acceptance can be measured.
Media facades and urban screenings are media. Therefore, they are dependant on content. Art is content and – to be successful – it has to be accepted by the users/ recipients.
Media facades and urban screens are financed like all media are financed. Advertising is one part of the refinancing system. Media-Mix, hybrid applications and interactive content open new ways for financing.
Media Facades and urban screenings are “Always-and-everywhere-TV”.
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PANEL: PERCEPTION AND BEHAVIOUR FACING URBAN MEDIA

INTERACTIVE DISPLAYS: PERCEPTION, AWARENESS, AND INTERACTION
By Daniel Michelis, University of the Arts, Berlin

Based on my earlier work and research, this presentation will give an overview of the perception, awareness and look into details of the interaction process with public displays and show exemplary scenarios.
For example, by dividing the space into the ambient, notification and interactive zones, content can be adapted to each phase. In the ambient zone, content is of a more general nature (directions, general information) and does not require a user to be present. It is only slightly or not at all interactive and serves as advertising on a dynamic surface. Public Displays can also provide direct interaction, including calling up local information. As a viewer approaches, the surface or once their presence is registered, interactive content is displayed, which provides personal detailed information (e.g. details and information via text message). Dividing the process of interaction into to separate phases enables us to focus on “fluid transitions between phases, and [...] support sharing by several users each within their own interaction phase.” (Streitz et al. 2003).
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OUT-OF-HOME- DISPLAYS: MEDIA @ WORK
By Ursula Stadler, University of Applied Sciences and Arts – School of Business, Luzerns

The 20th-century mass media has witnessed the gradual decline of verbocentric storytelling in favor of the image, the spectacle and, more recently, the digital and media technology. Concomitantly, the place has gradually superseded as the initiator of communication by the strategist, the performer or the creators of a media spectacle. Furthermore, the physical place has evaporated from communication strategies both as initiator of communication and distributor of its messages.
However, after many years of a media praxis (commercial communication praxis) that has denied the location/ environment value in marketing and brand communication, there has been a reevaluation of such absolute rejection from strategies. The power of environments to heighten sensory perception and refine the mental processes of audience reception has now been recognised and many contemporary brand strategies show a renewed ability to use the singularity of an architectural place phenomenologically and reconstitute their performative effectiveness.
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THE LIGHT AND VIDEO CONVERGENCE – HOW MERGE OF LIGHT, GRAPHICS AND
IMAGES MAY CHANGE PERCEPTIONS OF MEDIA EXPOSURE IN PUBLIC SPACES
by Odd Arne Blindheim, Wide Media Group, a Philips Concept Partner.

Traditions are challenged when technology merge with visual expressions. What used to be the norm is challenged by a new paradigm – the merge of light and video imagery. Public space lighting have up till recently been a component of security and guidance, neatly planned in by public traffic planners and engineers. Now ‐ art, entertainment, ambience and user sustainability at public spaces are adding new dimensions and visions ‐ brought alive by architects, designers and artists. Philips, as a global leader in lighting is taking this serious on. Design, concept development and employment of new technologies are a vital part of business development – and concept partners are assisting development of new solution the support these emerging markets. Often referred to as “media facades” – what we call “Architectural Media Solutions” – are compared with traditional screens of advertising and commercial exposure. Our approach to this market is very subtle – using art, design expressions, cityscape development and property enhancements as key driving forces. At the same time ‐ promoting smart energy use, technology that are sustainable and have low power consumption, make projects in this field attractive for public spaces, property owners and developers and authorities. A series of sample installations / solutions will be presented.

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PANEL: DYNAMIC ORNAMENT TOWARDS A NEW ICONOGRAPHY?
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SOLAR DISPLAY: A SELF-POWERED MEDIA FACADE
By Laurent MIGNONNEAU, Michael SHAMIYEH, Christa SOMMERER

Interface Cultures, University of Art and Industrial Design
Artists who are creating interactive systems and artistic interface designs have begun to look for new display formats. Modern architecture allows building facades to become membranes for the display of interactive digital content. The interactive media facade called Wissensgewächs is a visually growing facade that reflects the visitors attention and interest and entices them into a 6×6x6 meters glass house building, which hosts an exchange library. The intention of Wissensgewächs is to arouse the passerby’s attention and move physically closer and be rewarded by a series of increasingly complex images displayed on the 16 interactive screens surrounding the building.
In May 2008 Laurent Mignonneau, Christa Sommerer and architect Michael Shamiyeh have filed for a patent for an interactive self-sustainable media façade, called Solar Display. It provides a novel, modular, self-powered, environmentally friendly, and non-intrusive display possibility for media content on large building facades. Solar Display will be installed at the main façade of the University of Art and Industrial Design building in Linz, Austria in 2008/2009.
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LIVING SURFACES – ARCHITECTURAL MEMBRANES
By Christopher Bauder, WHITEvoid interactive art & design;

Architecture and (Media) Design are art forms that exist independently from one another. Over the last few years they have been growing together. They are entering into symbiotic dependencies and stimulations. Facades and whole buildings are covered in enormous LED screens, so called media skins, which has become a must for every new landmark building or skyscraper. Now that many buildings are turned into bright screens at nighttime, the demand for daylight set-ups is rising. Our solution to the full daylight approach is the FLARE facade system.
FLARE is a pneumatic building facade. Its system consists of a number of tiltable metal flake bodies. An infinite array of flakes can be mounted on any building or wall surface in a modular system of multiplied 4×4 FLARE units. Each metal flake reflects the bright sky or sunlight when in vertical standby position. When the flake is tilted downwards by a computer controlled pneumatic piston, its face is shaded from the skylight and this way appears as a dark pixel. By reflecting ambient or direct sunlight the individual flakes of the FLARE system act like pixels formed by natural light. A computer, to form any kind of surface animation, controls the system. Sensor systems inside and outside the building communicate the buildings activity directly to the FLARE system, which acts as the buildings lateral line.
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«ARCHITEKTUREN DES AUGENBLICKS»
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL VIEW ON THE MEDIALIZATION OF URBAN SPACE
by Andrea Gleiniger, Zurich Hochschule der Künste.

Even Lewis Mumford, the American architecture critic and historian of the city, must have been aware of the phenomenon of simulation when in 1961 he described modern medialized urban space not as a real but an illusory space and a shadow world «… of paper and celluloid and adroitly manipulated lights». Mumford conjured the metropolis as a world of glass, cellophane, pliofilm, as a form of fundamental cultural (self-)deception, one that has degenerated into a world of mere appearances consisting of distracting maneuvers and substitute worlds: city as show business and as a platonic cave. A few years later Guy Debord provides with Society of the Spectacle provocative arguments from a highly social critical and cultural point of view. When American architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown took the ‹main street› and the strip of Las Vegas seriously, in terms of urban planning, nothing could have been more misleading. For here was the quintessential experience of being totally overwhelmed and alienated by an environment dominated and guided exclusively by commercial interests and mediatized artificiality. In short: total simulation. With the mediatization of urban space, which took place in the 20th century on the basis of electrification, and the visualisation technologies and strategies emerging from it, it was on one hand the metaphor of the Platonic cave, which underwent a new and thoroughly vivid interpretation.
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ALEPH – REORGANISING VISIONS
By Bengt Sjölén and Adam Somlai-Fischer
www.aether.hu/aleph

Aleph is an experimental public display that is using the spaces, people and objects it faces as a palette to display messages from hidden viewpoints. When looking at a small mirror, it reflects a fraction of the space around us, when looking at a mirror façade, it reflects most things around us, containing segments that are dark or bright, red or green. But if we build a matrix of small mirrors, which can adjust their tilt according to the site they are facing, we can create a display that uses the changing flux of the place to show images from certain points in space.
Aleph is not comprehensible from all viewpoints, just from specific ones, asking visitors to explore the space, or providing surprising flashes in a public setup that can stay around the edge of comprehension. We can for example limit this point to the height of a child, so whenever she or he looks at the mirror, drawings emerge from the reflections of the clouds, drawings that appear only for them, that adults will not be able to see.
The first built prototype got commissioned for the Belsay hall contemporary arts program in the UK supported by English Heritage and DOTT uk, curated by Judith King, and Juha Huuskonen. It was also featured at the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture in the international selection of experimental architecture.
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PROJECT PRESENTATION
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MONUMENTAL PIXEL SHIFT
By Marc Largent, Magic Monkey

Monumental Pixel Shift will provide an overview of Magic Monkey’s monumental communication designs & installations since 1995, from early architectural lighting & video integration to recent environmental integration.
Some of the featured projects will be the world’s first RGB architectural interactive matrix (a.k.a. media façade) and one of the world’s largest environmental lighting & video integration for the 32nd America’s Cup in Valencia, Spain.
And as a bonus, a sneak preview of the magical LED forest for the upcoming 2008 Brussels Grand Place Christmas event.
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CHROMATOPHORIC ARCHITECTURE
By Dr. M. Hank Häusler, UTS Sydney

This presentation is about the significance of space and architecture in designing voxel based media
system. Forms and images can be represented in three-dimensional formats, or voxels realised through a 3D light point matrix. These new developments in display technology can undoubtedly influence architecture. Whereas spatial expressions till present were determined by physical attributes of a building material, voxel displays will shift these boarders.
Voxel based media system using a matrix of RGB LEDs to create voxels, a volume element representing a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. By activating more than one voxel, a surface generated out of light-points can be established. Having surface generated by light-points an intangible surface, these surfaces are consequently able to shift to new attributes, such as: Dynamic relief, multi-layered surface, decay function, privileged perspective, movement and speed and design process. The presentation shows recent developments of three-dimensional displays. It will present contemporary projects to point out the difference of conventional architecture and discuss the significance of space and architecture when designing a 3D display system in a voxel façade form.
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THE AMOUNT OF LIGHT
By Mr. Stefan Hofmann, Licht Kunst Licht AG

Light as a complex phenomenon requires sites that trigger sensations beyond visual perception. In view of the fabric of space and light, I strive to reduce scenery where light can take centre stage, making its volume, consistency and effects highly visible. The objective is to create architectural spaces where light can be displayed; present it not only as a functional necessity but instead, call attention to its inherent quality of being experienced.
To Walk the Limits. Our ancient fables taught us that the power of the void is simplicity. Made of violent risks and subtle balances: simplicity, which is constructed, given rhythm and elaborated. The deserted place is not simply a place with nothing at all. To yield the visual clarity of absence, it requires the minimum symbolic alliance, or of its fiction. To visualise the unlimited requires minimal approach to architecture, that is, the art of joints, of partitions and edges. All that implies a kind of dialectic, a play of contradictions, which meet their limits, condensed or displaced or all that at once, rhythmically.
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PERKINS ROWE TOWN SQUARE
By Mr. Sakchin Bessette

Moment Factory designed an immersive public multimedia environment to help establish a new kind of urban destination within of a mix-use real estate project. The chosen approach for this public space was a vast choreography synchronising and harmonising video, light, sound and special effects creating an ever-changing visual symphony. 3 LED screens are used to connect the community and enhance urban living. Architectural video projection, cover the façade of the Town Hall with various shows and ambient worlds. The overall theme of the project is “Celebrating Louisiana’s heritage in a contemporary way”. Integrating architecture, media, entertainment, and technology to build stronger communities.