Tag Archive for "media facade"
Times Square
Temporary office: TKTS Stairs
For one glorious afternoon, my office was the steps of the TKTS booth in Times Square.
Times Square
Times Square screens
I’m not saying I got a ton of work done, but in a somewhat surprisingly, all the screenage became almost like white noise. It wasn’t that hard to tune out.
Times Square
How many screens?
For a while I tried to count all the screens facing/in Times Square, but I quickly gave up and wondered if the task could be crowd sourced? Maybe I could create a job for the Amazon Mechanical Turk to count these pix?
Times Square
Scenic Overlook
For many people, the TKTS steps are a vantage point, like a scenic overlook on the Interstate.
TImes Square
Times Square as backdrop
All the photographing activity made me think about all the “pocket screens” in Times Square. In December 2009, there was an actual count of 364,000 pedestrians in the area. If we assume that 75% of those people are carrying phones or computers with an average screen size of 2″ x 2″, that’s 1,638,000 square inches of screen. Still way less than an acre (about .25 acres), but that’s not even counting all the taxis displays and vehicular GPS devices.
As these devices become increasingly networked, the “power” will not be in the white noise of size but in the magnitude of “connection.”
Times Square
Meeting Bowls, Times Square
Interestingly, when I met with Glenn Weiss, Manager of Public Art and Design for the Times Square Alliance, he said that his experience with the public art program in Times Square is that somewhat counterintuitively anything over 15′ gets lost in the cacophony of the screens. Up to about that height, and a good project will attract spectators about 5 rows deep. Over that, and the project, even a “spectacular” one, often gets lost.
I think you could argue that above a certain height and the “connection” is lost.
Times Square
Forever 21 billboard
Interestingly, the one exception, which perhaps proves the rule, is the Forever 21 billboard, which has a simple set up of a “spy cam” from the billboard pov onto Times Square at street level. In other words, people standing within its penumbra become part of the billboard. Periodically, green screen beauties dance and shake their way onto the (billboard) street with you.
It’s mind numbingly simple interactivity, but there were the crowds gathered 5 deep looking up at the billboard and waving and photographing and paying attention – above 15′.
Times Square
Pavement Politics: Times Square and the Changing Face of New York’s Streets
I attended Pavement Politics: Times Square and the Changing Face of New York’s Streets that evening. Prof. Gwendolyn Wright, Columbia University, gave an excellent mini-history of Times Square. In the day, thousands would visit Times Square to get the latest news.
Times Square
The Great White Way
In a phrase I particularly loved, Wright said that Times Square, whatever it was called at the time, has always been a site of ephemeral, mediated architecture.
Times Square
From an auto-centric policy to a city of great streets
Ethan Kent, Vice President of the Project for Public Spaces, talked about some of the simple but effective “moves,” like making Times Square pedestrian-centric, which are part of a larger goal to think of “traffic” as not only cars.
Times Square
Simple Rules to Make Transportation a Positive Force
• Stop planning for speed/capacity
• Start planning for community-based outcomes
• Think of streets as public space
• Accommodate diverse users
Times Square
Placemaking Planning
Iterative, feedback loop vs. a straight-line process that hopes to discover a use only the end of the process, when it is often too late
It would be great to have some U.S. cities as part of this Connected Cities experiment.
"Hello world, goodbye San Jose," from Christopher Baker, offscript, 300 Santana Row, San Jose, CA Today's question - What is your dream for the future? Commissioned by ZER01 for the 01SJ Biennial
I’m heading home after an amazing 01SJ Biennial. What should I see on the way?
The Yas Hotel by Asymptote Architecture with lighting design by Arup. via Inhabitat
“The Yas Hotel is a wrapped with a sparkling shell composed of more than 5,300 diamond-shaped panels bristling with over 5,000 LED fixtures. The curvilinear field of lights is capable of running color-changing light sequences and can even display low-res three-dimensional videos.”
Medialab-Prado's digital facade in Madrid (Spain)
Open Up
Medialab-Prado
Plaza de las Letras (Alameda, 15)
28014 Madrid, Spain
Phone: +34 914 202 754
Contact: Nerea Garcia
difusion@medialab-prado.es
http://www.medialab-prado.es/article/open_up
Deadline for projects
December 10, 2009
Dates of the workshop
February 9 through 23, 2010
Workshop, HelloWorld!: Contemporary stage creation and new technologies
Yesterday, I had to the opportunity to drop in on Medialab-Prado, the innovative organization in Madrid behind Interactivos?, among many other outstanding programs, which the 01SJ Biennial will collaborate with in September.
5 September 2009
Ars Electronica Center on the bank of the Danube River. Photo: Courtesy City of Linz
It rained Friday in Linz, so it was a good day to go indoors. I headed for the new Ars Electronica Center for my longest visit so far. Day 3 from Bruce Charlesworth at the Ars Electronica Festival.
The new Ars Electronica Center
I guess the lack of information, at least in English, is intended to make the potential client think it is magic that only Easyweb can deploy, and not think about the erasure of message into style, especially when compared to its its pioneering antecedents (which look oddly familiar), or how soon the technology will become commonplace and/or replaced by the next next thing.
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