+Andscape is an Augmented Reality sandbox with audio, exhibited at the Design Museum in touring exhibition California: Designing Freedom (10 Nov 2017 – 4 Mar 2018). It was produced in co-operation with City of Helsinki (Insights into Early Childhood Education project) and Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.
Digital and computational world is often invisible and beyond tactile exploration, hidden as software code, algorithms, pixels and bites. +Andscape makes it possible to mould digitally augmented material and bring the digital world into our creative grasp.
The installation was executed by me and Jason Selvarajan. I did the coding, audio and interaction design.
+Andscape is based on an open source AR Sandbox code with added audio design and customized visuals. The installation is an extension of an AR sandbox developed in University of California (UC Davis 2015).
The original AR-sandbox project can be found here.
The Other Side is an installation that was created for the student section for Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in 2015. It awarded with the gold medal for the best exposition in the Student Section and the Children’s Audience Award. During the project, I mostly worked on interaction design, Arduino coding, and also did the tracking program for the sound and lights.
Together with Guy Dowsett, the sound designer, we built a system with different sounds for up to ten different people playing with the wall. The audio was reacting to approach, touch, push and connect. Eero Erkamo designed the lights that were activated when someone approached the wall. Some of the armatures were changing brightness depending on the outside light.
I also made a device to shake the wall when it is pushed and approached, but I scrapped it because of the lack of time. The first image is the magnetic attachment to the wall and stepper motor. The second image shows the motor-driver with a clamp to secure it to the wall structure.
Artists involved in the project Anders Karls, Dan Palarie, Eero Erkamo, Guy Dowsett, Heli Salomaa, Ina Saarinen, Joanna Wojciechowicz, Lauren Sever, Mimosa Norja, Niklas Pöllönen, Oscar Eriksson Furunes, Paola Guzman Figueroa, Susanna Suurla and Teo Paaer
Curators Sampo Pyhälä and Sofia Pantouvaki, Aalto University. Kimmo Karjunen, University of the Arts Helsinki, Theatre Academy.
Wire is a tool for creating robotic installations that consists of a software and a hardware. The first version of Wire was developed during 2019-2020 as a part of my masters thesis in New Media.
The Wire software makes it possible to connect many types of software and hardware to CNC machinery, by working as a middleware. In order to control real-time applications, OSC, JSON and MIDI packages are translated to machine understandable commands. Thereafter, the Wire hardware functions as a tool for prototyping large format one-, two- and three-axis CNC-applications. After the Wire machine is mounted, the firmware detects the XY-dimensions automatically, therefore, effectively removing the need for manual calibration. Wire can also control GRBL based CNC machines and control multiple machines at the same time.
To illustrate how Wire functions, the machine was assembled as an audio-reactive robot, that created drawings of the audio environment in my workshop.
I am currently looking for funding to help me make the Wire software and machine building plans free for everyone.
During 2016-2017 I worked on a research project with SOPI at Aalto University. The instrument called NOISA learns how you play, tracks how concentrated you are while playing and then plays with you. I updated the code, interaction, added pressure sensors and rebuilt the internal design.
While good physical health receives more attention, psychological wellbeing is an essential component of a happy existence. An everyday source of psychological wellbeing is the voluntary practice of skilled activities one is good at. Taking musical creation as one such skilled activity, in this work we employ an interaction method to monitor varying levels of engagement of musicians improvising on a desk-top robotic musical interface (a network of intelligent sonic agents).
The system observes the performer and estimates her/his changing level of engagement during the performance , while learning the musical discourse. When engagement levels drop, the musical instrument makes subtle interventions, coherent with the compositional process, until the performer’s engagement levels recover. In a user study, we observed and measured the behaviour of our system as it deals with losses of performer focus provoked by the controlled introduction of external distractors. We also observed that being engaged in our musical creative activity contributed positively to participants’ psychological wellbeing. This approach can be extended to other human activities.
I designed a project proposal for HSL together with SOPI research group. A pulsing heart of Helsinki. The software reads real-time data and maps it to a 3D model, creating the paths of the local traffic in the center of Helsinki. The visualizing also includes other data like for example, a speedometer.
Blindphones
Blindphones is an art installation made by Andrea Mancianti. To this project I was hired to tutor with design, CAD, 3D printing and Arduino. The installation was exhibited at Ars Electronica Festival in September 2018.
While designing a game, I needed to expand the capabilities of a Leap Motion by making the device follow the movement of your hand in a larger canvas. I implemented this by physically moving the leap motion and at the same time as modifying the leap motion input data, depending on the position of the device. The Arduino controlled linear axis is taken from an ink printer.
This followed up with research for making the device react to different kind of hand movements. Below you can see a video where I am grabbing the air above the device and and and moving it. And then pushing it from the sides, making it move before you make contact.
These are prototyping tools aimed at digital manufacturing with Fusion 360. The spur gear generator includes a gear shape simulator that makes it possible to create precise gears with a small amount of teeth.
Feeler is a research project by Eva Durall. I was hired to create the electronics and hardware code for three boxes that interact with the user. The boxes interact with each-other through infrared light when they are snapped together, communicate with a computer through bluetooth and even includes a simple memory game. The software that interacts with the boxes was developed by Regis Barreto Frias and Juaquin Aldunate.
Sculpt Your Music is an interactive art installation where every little change you make modifies the audio environment. This unique instrument synthesizes audio that reacts to the shape of a 3D model.
GLSL Earth is an interactive art installation that uses a midi-controller to control visuals that programmed with GLSL.
GLSL Earth
How do I Look?
How do we perceive our own looks? How do we perceive others? When we get older we do not notice the change because of everyday engagement. How fast do we actually accept our changed appearance?
This is the first design for an art installation that I have been planning for a longer time.
Small changes in human appearance make a huge difference. Before (left) and after (right).
The image above demonstrates before (left side) and after (right side). The software works best in soft lighting because it does not use any face detection, thus giving zero latency displacement on real-time webcam video.
Instahead
A Quartz Composer patch that loads a 3D model and maps pictures to it from Instagram. 2017.
Look at me
Interactive real time visuals where the visuals follow movement and audio input.
Muutosta Ilmassa (Change in the Air) is a game that was exhibited at the Finnish Museum of Natural History (Luomus) in 2015. For this project, I devised a calibration tool to synchronize two projectors and depth cameras. The project was led by Narim Lee.
PlotterInth is a game where you move through an invisible labyrinth by waving your hand. The sound guides you to the right direction. If you go too far astray, you must start from the beginning. By attaching a pen to the controller, you can get an illustration of the path you are taking.
The vertical plotter is implemented with my own code and design.
Maxwell
Trailer for Maxwell The Mechanist, made as a project at Aalto University. 2015.
Sound design by Veli Laamanen
I created the paintings and the main screen for the game.
Lost Boys
Another school project where I did a part of the 3D-modeling, animation and environmental design. 2014.
Meteors
A simple game created while learning Processing coding environment, 2013. The size of the red shield changes with audio input amplitude.
Metro beat is a hacked HSL ticket validator created together with Pouyan Mohseninia and Fernando Visockis. The machine was transformed to a device that can record audio and play it back.
It was exhibited at Itäkeskus metro station in 2015. Arduino code and electronics by me.
Image by Pouyan Mohseninia
Light Vibes
Light Vibes is an installation made at Aalto University together with Leda Vaneva, Tapio Siltanen, and Tuomas Tissari, 2016.
