Ambient Control

The Ambient Control application was a very playful tool to control the light- and audio-set-up of the room. With RGB controls people were able to change the color of the lights. Also there was an animation sequence programmed for the lights which could be altered with various sliders. For the audio Strukt created a simplified step-sequencer that allowed people to add or take away layers of sound. Additionally there was a permanent audio track running built out of 3 layers. Using a 2-dimensional control people were able to individually mix the 3 layers to create a unique audio experience.

Pecha Kucha Presenter

The Campus Tour was accompanied by speakers talking about the topic of energy in more or less abstract ways. Strukt was also granted a 6min 20sec slot in the series of Pecha Kucha talks, which Tanja and Gregor used to present the making-of of the RWE Power Table. The presentation software had 2 modes, one running an autmated slideshow and one granting a manual control of the slides. Slides were either skipped with buttons or gestures. Also the slides were mirrored on a second screen.

DJ- / VJ-Control

For the more entertaining part of the day the audience was invited to select their favorite tunes with a very advanced multi-touch juke box and a fun to use VJ software. While one can skip through the singles of different genres, another user can apply audio effects and filters or rearrange the cue list. Another area of the user interface was dedicated to the visuals shown on the secondary monitor. The user was able to create audio-reactive blobs, change the color of the objects and the room and also move objects around with 3d controls.

Some more impressions from the tour:

The first game Strukt produced is called “Solar Land”. The visitors can place solar panels on a map of Upper Austria, guessing where they would be most efficient according to the altitude of the sun in the area. After all items are placed, the participants can start a simulation of the insolation over the duration of an entire year. The game shows how much energy is produced during that period of time, and the top simulations are listed in a high-score. The results encourage people to discuss their decissions and to play the game once more, using the knowledge they gained to reach a better score.

Also a new adaption of Strukt’s Media Tree software is in use, providing multi-media content about Upper Austria’s rail- and roadways, as well as water and tourism in the region.

Curator Markus Hanzer asked Strukt to create a multitouch installation that offers the possibility to put various signs on a “good” or “evil” side of an interactive tabletop, which was realized using the Struktable. The installation also keeps track of how long the images are on the one or the other side, which at the end of the exhibition will provide a statistic of people’s choices.

Pictures from the opening night on May 20th 2009:

Screenshot of the Multitouch Application

Later on during the night Strukt’s multi-touch club visual set-up once again lit up the venue with mood setting projections.

The visuals were projected onto a cylinder and the wall using 12 projectors.

Live content and realtime data was featured in the visuals, e.g. number of banner clicks, eaten hamburgers or born babies since the beginning of the event.

The main stage of the event, where Strukt was responsible for the background visuals.

The main stage in a closeup.

Styleframes from the visuals generated with vvvv.

Welcome Area
We created 15 animated clips in full HD to welcome the guests to the event, presenting design quotes we picked, and set them in relation to design elements of the new Mercedes-Benz GLK. We used the element of a pencil drawing construction lines and the typeface building the quotes. For this purpose we custom-made the typeface based on the corporate font of Mercedes-Benz.

Exhibition Visuals
With the node-based programming language VVVV we built a letter-universe which functioned as a soothing ambient visual but also created type-matrix pictures and fonts to feature the participants of “The design:project”. The real-time animation was screened on a 20 meter wide 3x-HD projection using only one computer to create the output signals. This system was later on also used to screen content during the award ceremony. For convenience we enabled OSC commands to control the letter-universe with the help of an iPod Touch.

Party Visuals
To heat up the party after the award ceremony we created a sound-reactive visual application, also based on VVVV and shown with the 3x-HD-projection. The controls for the visuals were handled with a 15-inch Stantum multi-touch screen running a custom made interface.

Tagtool
Additionally we worked together with O.M.A. International, who supported us with live-drawings done with their award winning Tagtool.

Since the event in Stuttgart in September 2008 was received very well, we were invited to also bring our work to Milan, Italy, where “The design:project” was also featured in a similar set-up in the beginning of October 2008.