Generative sensory space to activate the creativity of all exhibition visitors

Visitors create and shape an immersive space of color, light, form, texture, movement and sound with every body movement. The classic relationship between viewer and exhibit is completely reversed, which is why every visitor suddenly finds themselves at the center of a creative process. All actions influence each other, which makes the design process a shared experience.

In addition to the individual reception of works during the tour, visitors are once again confronted with all stylistic periods in the “Sensory Landscapes”, only this time the focus is on the creative thinking and production process. While the atmosphere of the room continues to fill and intensify through ever new stylistic elements, radical changes or gradual transitions ensure a new beginning time and again. Each incipient style creates space for new inventions, which the visitor can explore in his active role as designer with his senses of sight, hearing, movement and balance. The range of epochs opens with the ornamental sweep of Art Nouveau and ends in the open space of expectation of the present. In the midst of a fragmented flood of images that is constantly fed and updated via links to global art and design forums on the Internet, visitors themselves choose which path they want to follow. When he moves towards an interesting fragment of a picture, a new space opens up through which his thoughts take shape for all those present. The change in style periods makes it clear that every creative act of design begins with a new departure that prompts us to abandon familiar patterns of thought and behavior. Without the will to change and active action, the “sensory landscapes” fade and become part of the individual memory.

Experimental laboratory for the playful mediation of design processes

The seamless 360° projection, generated entirely using mathematical codes, which captures every movement in space and translates it into audiovisual structures, can be seen for the first time worldwide in an artistic application. The “Sensory Landscapes” are the new experimental laboratory of the “Grassimuseum”, where contemporary art is created and can be accompanied in the research process. Younger target groups experience the museum as a place where connections between the past and present of applied art and design can be experienced and explored in a playful way. The computer-generated seating elements can be moved freely around the room and combined to form islands. Their crystalline form has no clear reference planes, which reinforces the feeling of disorientation and impairs the sense of balance. The white cube forms the interface in which every random or action-motivated movement immediately takes shape. The modern generative technology, consisting of the graphic development environment “vvvv”, a 360° projection matrix, an 8-channel audio system and interactive motion sensors from infrared spotlights and video cameras, remains almost invisible. All behavioral states are permanently evaluated by a data stream-oriented programming language and broken down into defined design parameters. Hundreds of nodes form a style matrix that evolves every moment and is still open to creative ideas. Chance thus becomes a constant source of ideas and motivation. Digital impulses are translated into shapes, colors, patterns, movements and sounds and projected into the white cube, whose boundaries, proportions, dimensionality and atmosphere are constantly being generated anew. No two pictures are the same. Everything is variation and shape-seeking change.

The interactive spatial installation “Sensory Landscapes” was developed in collaboration with the Grassi Museum by a team led by Axel Buether. The team includes Sebastian Huber, Johannes Timpernagel, Robert Pohle and Isabella Kolata as well as Marko Ritter, Jakob Korn and Ingolf Heinsch.

“Art Nouveau to the present day”

Permanent exhibition at the Grassimuseum, from March 4, 2012
GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts
Johannisplatz 5–11
04103 Leipzig
Hours: Tue–Sun, including holidays, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.

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TV report, radio interview, press review and further downloads

Der Beitrag Media art installation Sensory landscapes erschien zuerst auf Farbpsychologie.

Contents:

In this course, we explored the theme of balance in the color and light phenomena
of the environment in a creative and illustrative way. At the beginning, we examined the relationships between our sense of balance and the weight ratios, as well as the relationships of movement and direction in visual space. The course culminated in the creation of a balanced installation using colored materials, colored objects, or light objects, etc., whose instability and transition back to a stable state were captured photographically or on film and presented for viewing.

Processing time: compact workshop, 5 working days

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/38350842[/vimeo]

Morphoses – Lei Song, Matthias Ritzmann and Chang-Chin Hwang

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/38350841[/vimeo]

67° – Agnieszka Partyka, Christian Beckerand Bastian Müller

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/38350839[/vimeo]

In the mirror – Dennis Hafner and Anette Funke

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/38350843[/vimeo]

Umbrella – Paul Evermann, Katharina Schwarze and Sabine Schmidt

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/38350837[/vimeo]

Filming – Christian Schlender, Claudia Wörndle and Nikola Stoynov

Exercise 1 In balance

The balance system of our own body, the balance that we find in lying and standing to the center of gravity, forms the basis for the representation of the horizon and vertical within the environmental phenomena of color and light.

Lying down and the horizon

Study the lying body in balance and vary the positions of the body in relation to the reference plane of the topography or the world of objects. Try out how you can lie balanced in a relaxed state without having to make any effort to maintain this position. Document your observations from one perspective by capturing the body as a picture horizon and letting it span the space between below and above or heaven and earth. Then look for the horizon in the phenomena of the environment. Document everything that you feel is lying down or in a horizontal position and examine the images for parallels to the body sensation of lying down. Then move away from the representational and show us the horizon in the reduction of the image content to the boundary between the structures and textures of the environment of color and light.

Standing and the vertical

Now change the center of gravity to the standing body, which rises up against the effect of gravity until it reaches a vertical equilibrium position. In your observations and experiments, proceed in the same way as in part A of the task, with the focus on the upright or vertical phenomena that divide the image into different sides, like your body.

Exercise 2 Off balance

The human organ of balance, which consists of three fluid-filled semicircular canals, is located in the inner ear. It is sensitive to any change in the position of our body in relation to gravity, as well as to changes in the speed of movement, acceleration and deceleration. The experiences that we acquire through the organ of balance are related to the visual experiences from the changes in the color and light structures of the environment.

Falling and falling

Observe how the fall and drop movement of your camera (observer) or the surrounding situation with the aperture open (long exposure) affects the experience of the visual space. Investigate the difference between translational (rectilinear) and rotational movements. During the rotation movement, you turn around your own axis with the camera and observe the shifts in color and light conditions in the visual space until you lose your balance and fall. In the translational movement, you are the stationary observer, past whom the color and light phenomena of the surrounding space pass. Demonstrate the effects of acceleration and deceleration, gravity and sinking, falling and tumbling using the example of your own body and objects such as solid, liquid or gaseous substances. Create photo series or short films and experiment with unusual movement situations that result in the loss or regaining of balance.

Raising and climbing

Proceed as in the first part of this task, but now investigate the shifts in balance that are necessary for bodies to rise and fall. Pay attention to the phenomena of lightness and floating states in the image space and finally reduce the representational information in the visual space of your photos and film recordings until the representation of the phenomena is achieved and the distraction of unnecessary image content is reduced to a minimum.

Exercise 3 Color weight

Lightness and heaviness

Relate the experience of the strain on your muscle and joint system during body movement to the appearance of your visual habitat. Look for things whose appearance of color and light you perceive as light or heavy. Why does something look light or heavy? Find clues for the color and light effects that refer to the weight of things. Pay particular attention to which surface properties particularly shape the character of the gravity. Organize your images into categories on the subject of color weight.

Balance

Find structures whose state of equilibrium is clearly expressed. (e.g. trees, flowers, grasses etc.) When documenting your observations, concentrate on the appearance of color and light. Pay particular attention to the change in surfaces depending on the choice of perspective and lighting situation and, if possible, use a macro lens or a strong zoom.

Exercise 4 Off balance

Color balance – Installation

Develop and design a color and light installation that initially appears to be in balance and then visibly loses its equilibrium and becomes unbalanced. Think about a test setup, the camera position, the lighting and try out different test sequences. Pay particular attention to the transition from balance to the collapse of the visual situation.

Focus on the color and light effect

Concentrate on the color and light effect of the installation and refrain from revealing the mystery of the physical facts. Design a system that loses its initial state of equilibrium, then collapses due to accelerations and decelerations, rotating or linear, and ends in another state of stability. Do not focus on the representational nature of the situation, but show the transition between two states of equilibrium through the changes in color and light conditions in the visual space.

Further literature on the multisensory perception of visual and vestibular information

Der Beitrag Color balance – multisensory experiments on spatial perception erschien zuerst auf Farbpsychologie.