One Hundred and Eight | An interactive Art Installation

Posted on 15/01/2011 by W&V

One Hundred and Eight is an interactive wall-mounted Installation created by the German artist and communication designer Nils Völker. He explores new ways of reproducing and visualizing data and information by creating artworks with the means of physical computing at the intersection of technology and art.

The art installation One Hundred and Eight interacts with the movement of the audience. As soon as a viewer comes close it instantly reacts by drawing back and tentatively following the movements of the observer. As long as he remains in a certain area in front of the installation it dynamically reacts to the viewers motion. Once it does no longer detect someone close it reorganizes itself after a while and gently restarts moving around in its autonomous pattern.

Photos and video: Nils Völker | Nils Völker website

Book | Thoughts on dreams | analogic hyperlinks

Posted on 12/01/2011 by W&V

Maria Fisher is a German artist. For her final project at the University of Augsberg, she was tasked with designing and creating a book on the subject of dreams. She created the book “Traumgedanken” (“Thoughts on dreams”) with threaded, analogical hyperlinks woven into the pages of the book, connecting key words of the various philosophical, literary, psychological and scientific theories of dreams. The goal of the project was to create a book that not only informed, but also captured the same elusive and temporal quality of the dream state.

This is why it is designed as a model of a dream about dreaming. Analogue to a dream, where pieces of reality are assembled to build a story, it brings different text excerpts together. On five pages there are illustrations made out of thread. Their shape and colour relies on the key words on the opposite page. This way an abstract image of the dream about dreaming is generated.

Traumgedanken is a fascinating piece of conceptual design and writing.