INTERACTIVE PROJECTS PROVIDE UNIQUE GALLERY EXPERIENCE AT MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION
First Collaboration between MIT Media Lab and The Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art and the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology collaborate for the first time to create two interactive projects for The Un-Private House, which opens July 1, 1999. The exhibition, organized by Terence Riley, Chief Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, examines twenty-six contemporary homes that reflect the recent transformation of the private house in response to evolving architectural theory and changing ways of living.
Ten students led by Professor Neil Gershenfeld, head of the Media Lab’s Physics and Media Group and a Co-director of its Things That Think industrial research consortium, developed the projects with Museum staff: Mr. Riley; Andrew Davies, Production Manager, Department of Exhibition Design and Production; Paul Neibuhr, Director, Information Systems; and Greg van Alstyne, Design Manager, Department of New Media.
Two elements—an interactive table and welcome mat—are designed to give visitors a more personalized gallery experience, to allow further exploration of the projects, and to encourage discussion among visitors. Their fusion of technology and design echoes one of the main themes of the exhibition.
“Rather than individual monitors, we wanted an interactive experience that was shared by exhibition visitors, that was social rather than private,” says Mr. Riley.
Dr. Gershenfeld says, “The exquisite design sensibility of The Museum of Modern Art presented an ideal context for us to explore the creation of technologies to merge the best attributes of the digital and the physical worlds. Terry challenged us to develop the means for visitors to navigate through the rich body of electronic information supporting the exhibition while remaining connected to the compelling visual and social space of the gallery, unlike the isolation that would be imposed by using conventional computers.”
The interactive table is located in the center of the galleries, and takes visitors on a virtual tour of the twenty-six architectural projects. Though at first sight the surface appears bare, sensors under the table respond to the movement of visitors’ hands above it—a cue for projected images and text to appear. The table itself is designed by David Schaefer of Furniture Co.; new media company Nearlife, Inc. were consulted on the table. It is eight feet in diameter with a rotating circular center section five feet in diameter. Eight seats are spaced evenly around the table, and each “place setting” and the central turntable is illuminated by video projectors concealed in a drop ceiling overhead.
Twenty-six disclike objects, or “coasters,” each three-and-one-half inches in diameter, are arranged on the outer edge of the rotating central section. When a visitor selects a coaster and places it on the table, the floor plan of the architectural project it represents appears in a full-color projection on the table’s surface. Sensors beneath the table send out a signal that creates an electromagnetic, touch-sensitive field around selected areas of the projection, making them responsive to touch. These “hotspots” reveal diagrams and floor plans, as well as photographs of the homes. The projected images are displayed via the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, and written in Dynamic Hypertext Mark-up Language (DHTML) to enable animated images and visual transitions. A door in a floor-plan diagram swings open, for example, next to footage of the interior space, allowing visitors to experience the homes as three-dimensional structures. Texts written by Mr. Riley, the architects, and the clients accompany the photographs. Visitors may browse this material by touching the hotspots (approximately six per project).
Visitors have the option to send an image to the center of the table in a larger format for all the table’s participants to view. This feature is designed to provoke discussion and comparison of the projects. Beginning July 15, a subsite devoted to the exhibition will be available via the Museum Web site at www.moma.org/exhibitions/un-privatehouse/. It will feature many of the photographs, floor plans, drawings, and other visuals on display at the exhibition’s interactive table.
The second project in the exhibition is an interactive welcome mat. When a visitor steps on the “mat”––a four-foot-by-six-foot area projected on the gallery floor––a camera locates and tracks his or her movements. The camera relays this tracking information to a projector overhead. A software program, written specifically for this project, triggers the projector to make the mat respond––giving the appearance that it is following or drawn to the individual passing over it. The mat will warp toward any presence detected within its boundaries. Once the visitor steps off the mat, it quickly returns to its original state.
Several devices were created specifically for these two projects: “penny tag” readers that determine the identity of the coasters by analyzing low-cost embedded electromagnetic materials; “tau-fish” electrostatic sensors that measure minute electrostatic charges on a visitor’s hand in order to track its movements on the table; a responsive “vision system” for the interactive welcome mat; and the “Filament” lightweight Internet node, which puts all these devices directly onto MoMA’s network. All are components for future use in residential, commercial, and industrial spaces.
The MIT Media Lab, founded in 1980, provides a unique environment to explore basic research and applications, without regard to traditional divisions among disciplines. Presently, the mission of the lab is to focus on “how bits meet atoms”––how electronic information overlaps with the everyday physical world.
The exhibition is made possible by The Lily Auchincloss Fund for Contemporary Architecture, and is the first in a series of five exhibitions to be supported by this program. The interactive environment of the exhibition was jointly developed by the MIT Media Lab and The Museum of Modern Art and generously supported by Max Palevsky. Generous support for the installation design is provided by Furniture Co. The accompanying publication is made possible by Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown. The symposium is made possible by Philips Electronics. Additional funding is provided by an anonymous donor, NEC Technologies, the Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Nearlife, Inc., and the Consulate General of The Netherlands in New York.
