SUBPROJECTS An interactive mobile architecture

Theoretical, academic and scientific research, Technical development and Artistic development.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CASE STUDIES/SUBPROJECTS RELATED TO EXPECTED OUTCOMES AND PROJECT ACTIVITIES

In Relation to the 4 main expected outcomes:

  1. New methodologies, platforms and networks for transdisciplinary research, creation, dissemination and learning. To develop new approaches for the understanding of expression, emotion and cognition – To generate a novel technocultural paradigm for communication and the arts, which foregrounds embodied knowledge and cognition – Academic research outlining a new field for the understanding of cultural diversity, in the domain of non-verbal communication, expression and emotions.
  2. Tools for understanding and raising awareness of cultural diversity.
  3. Tools to foster embodied communication for a sustainable culture.
  4. An interactive mobile architectural structure for outdoor spaces. Laboratory and observatory of diversity.

EXPECTED OUTCOME – An interactive mobile architectural structure for outdoor spaces. Laboratory and observatory of diversity.

  1. Metakinesphere (Reverso) – analogue physical prototype for an interactive architecture.
  2. Metatopia (Reverso) – interactive performative environments for indoors and outdoors based on physical and digital dynamic architetures.
  3. Flexinamics (Reverso) – technique for building ultraportable dynamique structures.
  4. Metadress (Reverso) – analogue physical prototype for an interactive architecture.
  5. Metatope (Reverso) – analogue physical prototype for an interactive architecture.
  6. Metatents (Reverso) – analogue physical prototype for an interactive architecture.
  7. Neural Narratives 1: Phantom Limb (Stocos) –  Dance piece and prototype, connects dance to architectural concepts, music and artifical intelligence, for the development of an interactive mobile architecture.
  8. Neural narratives 2: Polytopya (Stocos) – Dance piece and prototype, experiment with hybrid forms of embodiment in dance for the development of an interactive mobile architecture.
  9. Neural narratives 3: Clinament (Stocos) – Dance piece and prototype, using sensors instead of video tracking systems enhancing the mobility of potential users for the development of an interactive mobile architecture.
  10. Monster (K-Danse) – Dance piece and choreographic study for an interactive mobile architecture.
  11. Errance (K-Danse) – Dance piece and choreographic study for an interactive mobile architecture.
  12. Interperforming environments (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  13. Ambiguous Topologies (TUDelft) – digital prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  14. Reflectego (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  15. Robozoo (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  16. The Living Room (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  17. Synergetic Sound (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  18. Hyperloop (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  19. Textrinium (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  20. Scaringami (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.
  21. Nervion (TUDelft) – prototype an interactive mobile architecture.

Metakinesphere

Reverso – Jaime del Val & Cristian García

Description:
Metakinesphere is an analogue prototype for interactive/intra-active wearable architecture. A wearable structure made of flexible materials and translucent textiles that blurs the limits of the body and its legibility. A metabody, a body-space without recognisable form or function, that physically transforms in an elastic relation to bodily movement, bound by elastics to the “human” body which moves suspended in the relation to the architecture, while projecting its skin on the textiles through cameras placed on the skin and projecting the electronically processed voice. Metakinesphere challenges the reducibility of the body and its movement to any spherical or geometric form (Laban, Parmenides, or Leonardos Vitruvian man). Never acquiring a form, movement unfolds in indeterminate potentials. Hybrid of architecture, wearable and textile, this metabody is enacted as movement, metaformed and performed, an anti-object in permanent amorphogenesis. Alien bride and posthuman cocoon, it is also an hommage to the amorphogeneitc multisensorial performances of dancescientist Loïe Fuller.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Analogue Prototype for the future architecture as well as for wearable technologies –  wearable architecture that physically mutates through movement. Investigation into materials and analogue modules. Investigation in wearable prototypes. Investigation into performatic aspects of architecture and intervention in urban areas.

What has been done:

  • Preliminary research.
  • Experimentation and building of Analogue prototype.
  • Performances.

Results:

  • Prototypes and structures.
  • Performances:
    • performance in Metabody Forum Madrid 2014.
    • performances in Metabody Forum Amsterdam 2014.
    • performance in Metabody Forum Weimar 2015.
    • performance in Metabody Forum USA/Canada 2015.

Metakinesphere (English)
Metakinesfera (Spanish)
 Metakinesphere  summary.
– Metakinesphere – Madrid 2014 –Urban Metaformance.
– Metakinesphere – Madrid 2014 – Indoores Experimental Intervention.
– Metakinesphere – Madrid 2014 – recording by Dieter Vandoren.
– Metakinesphere –Jaime del Val testing Metakinesphere prototype.
– Metakinesphere – Jaime del Val testing Metakinesphere prototypes.
– Metakinesphere – Testing several Metakinesphere prototipes.
– Metakinesphere – Metatent testing.
– Metakinesphere IMF 2014 Amsterdam Metaformance.
– Metakinesphere IMF 2015 Weimar Metaformance.
Metakinesphere/Microsexes/Amorphogenesis in UC Berkeley.
Metakinesphere Performance in Aquatic park pier in San Francisco.
Metakinesphere Performance in Golden Gate Bridge.
Metakinesphere Performance in Alcatraz island.
Metakinesphere metaformance in Campanile 1.
Metakinesphere metaformance in Campanile 2.
Metakinesphere Metaformance in Baker beach.
Metakinesphere Intervention in the steets of Montreal.
Metakinesphere Metaformance Microsexes-Metakinesphere – Greece.
Metakinesphere   Metaformances Microsexos/Metakinesfera – Istanbul.


Metatopia

REVERSO – Jaime del Val and Cristian Garcia
with STEIM, DTR-LAB, KDANSE, DAPLAB, INFOMUS.

Description:
Building of an interactive dynamic architecture and ineteractive enviroments.
METATOPIA/METATOPE is an ultraportable interactive & performative environment for outdoors & indoors spaces that merges emergent physical & digital architectures, with 3D and multisensory immersion, focusing on indeterminacy, unpredictability and open-ended relation to bodies and surrounding environment. METATOPIA is the concept of indeterminate space of plurality, as creative response to control and prediction architectures in Big Data society.

Occupy 2.0 – Hacking Big Data Brother & Hypercontrol Society.

METATOPIA is an interactive multimedia performative environment for outdoor and indoor spaces that involves interactive architecture modules that mutate physically as well as 3D immersive digital environments and spatialised sound that constitute participatory environments for the audience in open urban spaces as well as performative environments for dance.
METATOPIA is an open space of indeterminate behaviours and emergent movements that defies prediction and control in the Big Data Era. In the times of refugees and global surveillance, nomadic and dynamic spaces for plurality and diversity.
METATOPIA is a dynamically evolving, amorphous network of architectural modules whose physicality is constantly mutating in the connection with moving bodies and surroundings, generating an open, unpredictable, indeterminate space, a swarm that disseminates in the city. The modules are based on the novel techniques developed in the European project METABODY, based on flexible and dynamic structures, a concept of wearable architecture that blurs the boundaries of body and environment, an expanded body of emergent behaviours.
METATOPIA proposes a novel format called metaformance, hybrid of installation and performance, in which the audience becomes part of the interactive spaces, mediated and enacted by performers. METATOPIA can be presented in a variety of spatial compositions and scales, from large urban interventions to small intimate performances. Metatopia is a Metaopera and Metagaming platform for urban interventions or homes.

In an apparent future that could be the present a planetary cyberorganism, or hipercyborg, called Big Data Brother, traces, cuantifies and modulates every movement of every human and non-human body and space. There is a diffuse guerilla of Metabody agents that aim at deprogramming the hipercyborg through mobilizing unquantifiable movements, untraceable behaviors, emergent perceptions and illegible affects, towards increasing diversity of bodies and behaviours, infusing indeterminacy into the system. Metatopia is the architectural, kinetic and perceptual laboratory of the Metabody agents, XXI century Quixotes that undo the invisible strata of power disseminating diffuse actions across all spaces, a metapolitics for a potential Occupy 2.0 movement in the era of global surveillance.

Credits:

Metatopia-Metatope-Flexinamics Concept and coordination: Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain).
Metatope building and Flexinamics building techniques: Cristian García and Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain).
Microsexes – concept, visuals and sound: Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain).
Amorphogenesis – concept, visuals and sound: Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain).
Amorphogenesis – 3D visuals programming: Dieter Vandoren (Netherlands) after concept by Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain).
Amorphogenesis – 3D meshes: Jia Rey Chang (TUDelft-Netherlands) after concept by Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain).
Disalignments movements techniques: Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain).
Illegible Affects – concept: Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain).
Illegible Affects – Software for analysis of movement expressive qualities: Casa Paganini-InfoMus Research Ventre, University of Genoa.
Development of embedded sensors, motors and actuating systems: Marije Baalman (STEIM-Netherlands) (hardware and software engineering), Nicoló Merendino (STEIM-Netherlands) (design) and Jaime del Val (Reverso, Spain) (concept).
Collaboration on audience interaction and choreographic strategies: Jean Marc Matos, (K.Danse, France).
Design consultant: Michele Danjoux (Dap-Lab, UK).

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
This is the solution proposed by Reverso for the main outcome of the project: the building of an interactive dynamic architecture that highlights complexity, richness and indeterminacy of embodied interactions, in urban spaces. It goes in fact beyond the initial proposal in presenting a paradigm of contruction and building techniques called flexinamics.

What has been done:

Results:

  • techniques, structures, and performances and environments presented in all forums in 2015.

Metatopia (English).
Metatopia (Spanish).


Flexinamics

REVERSO – Jaime del Val and Cristian Garcia

Description:
FLEXINAMICS/FLEXEGRITY/FLEXISTENCY is the building technique underlying the physical, dynamic, ultraportable, foldable architecture modules, based on flexibility of all components, integrity or consistency of dynamic and flexible relations, and the constant physical dynamism and mutation of the modules, defying the perception of form. FLEXINAMICS is a technique developed in the EU Culture project METABODY. It consist both of bare physical structures connected to bodies, and of embedded systems of micromotors, sensors, speakers, microphones, cameras, microprojectors and other embedded microsystems that give the structures autonomous, distributed and decentralized agency following a swarm-logic.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
This is the technique underlying the solution proposed by Reverso for the main outcome of the project: the building of an interactive dynamic architecture that highlights complexity, richness and indeterminacy of embodied interactions, in urban spaces. It goes in fact beyond the initial proposal in presenting a paradigm of contruction and building techniques called flexinamics.

What has been done:

  • Preliminary research.
  • Building of several prortypes.

Results:

Metatopia (English).
Metatopia (Spanish).


Metadress

Reverso – Jaime del Val & Cristian García

Description:
Prototype for wearable architecture and performance.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Analogue Prototype for the future architecture as well as for wearable technologies –  wearable architecture that physically mutates through movement. Investigation into materials and analogue modules. Investigation in wearable prototypes. Investigation into performatic aspects of architecture and intervention in urban areas.

What has been done:

  • Preliminary research.
  • Experimentation and building of Analogue prototype.
  • Performances.

Results:


Metatope

Reverso – Jaime del Val & Cristian García

Description:
Prototype for wearable architecture and performance.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Analogue Prototype for the future architecture as well as for wearable technologies –  wearable architecture that physically mutates through movement. Investigation into materials and analogue modules. Investigation in wearable prototypes. Investigation into performatic aspects of architecture and intervention in urban areas.

What has been done:

  • Preliminary research.
  • Experimentation and building of Analogue prototype.
  • Performances.

Results:


Metatents

Reverso – Jaime del Val & Cristian García

Description:
Prototype for wearable architecture and performance.
Hacking and recycling industrial materials of tents and goals, testing embodied and kinaesthetic properties and movements, learning from the patterns.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Analogue Prototype for the future architecture as well as for wearable technologies –  wearable architecture that physically mutates through movement. Investigation into materials and analogue modules. Investigation in wearable prototypes. Investigation into performatic aspects of architecture and intervention in urban areas.

What has been done:

  • Preliminary research.
  • Hacking and recycling industrial materials of tents and goals, testing embodied and kinaesthetic properties and movements, learning from the patterns.
  • Experimentation and building of Analogue prototype.
  • Performances.

Results:


Monster

K. Danse (Toulouse, France)
Digital artists: Aurélie Dumaret & Emilie Villemagne
Created with and danced by: Marianne Masson & Mario Sáez
Video shooting: Claude Jeanmart

Description:
A performance combining contemporary dance and visual arts based on a contemporary rewriting of The House of Asterion by Jorge Luis Borges (inspired by the myth of the Minotaur). The performance can be seen from inside or outside.
Choreography and dance performance by K-Danse based on a story by Borges, happening in a labyrinth of projections that provides spatial choreographic and artistic concepts for the development of the project towards the future architecture structure.
Monster is a multi-faceted immersive project, inviting each audience member to discover, feel, experience and travel through… an interactive performance/installation combining choreography, audiovisual arts and digital technology. The scenographic set (a spiraling labyrinth of suspended screens) allows for the question of being in the world/labyrinth to be perceived by the audience. It proposes different configurations depending on the accommodating space: theatrical stage, auditorium, and non-conventional large space. The audience can either be outside or inside the set.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
The future architecture as a living entity needs to be thought in terms of movement, improvisation and choreography. The piece proposed by K-Danse deepens into artistic concepts and choreographic approaches to develop the future architecture while investigating artistic formats that could happen inside the architecture. At the same time, it elaborates artistic work threaded with the concepts proposed by Metabody.

What has been done:

  • The work has been produced and presented by K-Danse in Toulouse through numerous rehearsals and with videos showcased at the Metabody Fora.
  • methodologies for audience participation.
  • interconnection with other partners for the development of the architecture and its artistic form and content.

Results

  • Dance performance.

Monster-3.
Vimeo.
Youtube.
Monster.


Errance K. Danse (Toulouse, France)

Choreographers: Anne Holst & Jean-Marc Matos.
Aurélie Dumaret & Emilie Villemagne, digital artists.
Marianne Masson & Mario Garcia Sáez, dancers-performers.
Computer programming:
Arnaud Courcelle.
Original musical composition:
Emmanuel Mondolfo.

Description:
Based on the multiple meanings of the labyrinth, Errance is a hybrid project which combines both an interactive immersive installation, live dance performance and physical involvement of the audience.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Exploration of new dance formats and modes of audience participation for the future interactive architecture pavilion of METABODY.

What has been done:

  • The work has been produced and presented by K-Danse in Toulouse through numerous rehearsals and with videos showcased at the Metabody Fora.
  • This particular work has informed a close collaboration and artistic convergence with the Amorphogenesis project led by Reverso.
  • methodologies for audience participation
  • interconnection with other partners for the development of the architecture and its artistic form and content.

Results:

  • Dance performance.

Errance.
Errance-2.
Vimeo.
Vimeo.


Neural Narratives 1: Phantom Limb

Instituto Stocos.
Pablo Palacio and Muriel Romero.
ICST-Daniel Bisig (Associated partner).
CHOREOGRAPHY: Muriel Romero.
MUSIC: Pablo Palacio.
INTERACTIVE VISUAL SIMULATION: Daniel Bisig.
PERFORMERS: Alicia Narejos, Verónica Garzón, Begoña Quiñones and Muriel Romero.
LIGHTING: Pablo Palacio.
SCENOGRAPHIC ASSISTANCE: Pablo Batista.

Description:
Prototype and performance. In Phantom Limb we’ll see how artificial neural networks could serve as an interface between real and imagined body parts. In this sense an audiovisual interactive neural body extension has been designed that may enter into different situations of co-determinacy with the physical body, so that both entities establish reciprocally their creative conditions via the simultaneity of their real time dynamic couplings. The project connects dance to architectural concepts, music and artifical intelligence, providing techniques and concepts for the development of the tools and of the future architecture structure.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
The prototype uses mathematical models of mass spring systems, neural networks and stochastic process to develop the visual imagery, sound and choreography, thus bridging between hardcore mathematics and the future architecture, providing tools for generating the future intra-active environment. The virtual extensions of the dancer’s body respond to his or her activities via a combination of reactive and proactive behaviours. The reactive behaviours are based on a physical coupling between the dancer’s body and a simulated mass-spring system that mechanically perpetuates the dancer’s gestures. The pro-active behaviours spontaneously emerge from the internal dynamics of a simulated artificial neural network. These artificial body parts operate as meta instruments which connect the generation of music and imagery to the dancer’s bodies, thus modifying their morphological appearance and expanding their behavioral capabilities. The dancer and the body extensions are represented via identical computational abstractions and thereby can be interrelated via common simulation-based processes which lays the ground for future physical prototypes and connections between natural bodies and robotic pavilion. At the same time the project works on the new movements, behaviours and sensations experiences by dancers. This include the construction of meta-bodies based on the aggregation of limbs and body parts form different bodies.

What has been done:

  • ongoing research, experimentation and rehearsals.
  • . software development, music composition scenographic material developments.

Results:

  • Performance presented at the Metabody Forum in Madrid 2014.
  • Software tools for the simulation of artificial body parts.
  • software for sonification and mapping of artificial body parts.
  • Prototype of a haptic version of the virtual body parts using vibration motors integrated in a sleeve.
  • Bisig, D. and Palacio, P. Phantom Limb – Hybrid Embodiments for Dance, in: Proceedings of the Generative Art Conference. Rome, Italy, 2014.
  • Palacio, P. and Bisig, D. Neural Narratives1: Phantom Limb. Connecting Cognitive Neurosciences, Sound Synthesis, Generative Video and Dance, in: Proceedings of the Congreso Internacional Espacios Sonoros y Audiovisuales. Madrid, Spain, 2015.

Phantom limb.
Vimeo.
Youtube.
PHANTOM_LIMB.


Neural Narratives 2: Polytopya

Instituto Stocos.
CHOREOGRAPHY: Muriel Romero.
MUSIC: Pablo Palacio.
INTERACTIVE VISUAL SIMULATION: Daniel Bisig.
PERFORMERS: Ryan Ocampo, Alicia Narejos y Muriel Romero.
LIGHTING: Pablo Palacio SCENOGRAPHIC ASSISTANCE: Pablo Batista.
PRODUCTION: Muriel Romero y Pablo Palacio.
CO-PRODUCTION: Nu2 and Mercat de las Flors.

Description:
Neural Narratives 2: Polytopya is the second in a series of pieces focusing on creating connections between real body parts, totally synthetic sounds and imagined body parts through artificial neural networks. In this respect, a series of interactive audiovisual bodily extensions are attached to the bodies of the dancers to generate a shared world where both entities (real and virtual) establish their creative conditions reciprocally.
In Polytopya, a term formed from Poly (many), Topos (place) and Utopia (anywhere), the bodies on stage are abstracted and fragmented into a hybrid corporeality that emerges from local interactions between natural physical members and artificial body parts, making it possible to modify the morphological appearance and behavioral capacity of the dancers.
This co-presence is fragmented into a mosaic of ephemeral micro-worlds and micro-identities and is disseminated in a scenario that becomes a laboratory of processes of technogenesis and the progressive virtualization of the human body and stream of consciousness.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
The main goal of the Neural Narratives 2 project is to experiment with hybrid forms of embodiment in dance and extend the software tools and abstractions that underlie this approach to other Metabody objectives such as the interactive pavilion. In this manner the prototype of Phantom Limb was improved with an evolutionary adaptation software tool served to create for each type of mass spring system a repertory of behaviours that are related to the specific movements of a particular dancer. The adaptation mechanism is based on a genetic algorithm that controls the number, topology and parameterization of neurons, sensors and actuators. During each evolutionary run, sensory units that respond to joints in a dancer‘s skeleton were present and the movement of the skeleton was derived from pre-recorded dance sequences. The fitness function combines a quantitative analysis of the overall movements of a body extension and a subjective evaluation of the aesthetic appeal of these movements. These allows the creation of unlimited artificial body parts with novel and inusual behaviors, shapes and amorphogenetic structures .

What has been done:

  • rehearsals, research and public performances in Barcelona and Heidelberg.
  • presentations at Metabody forums in Paris 2015.

Results:

  • Dance performance.
  • Evolutionary adaptation software tool.
  • Mapping and sonification software tools.
  • Bisig, D, Palacio, P. and Romero, M. The Neural Narratives Project – Multimodal virtual body extensions for Metabody, in:  METABODY Journal of Metacultural Critique, Vol. 2. Asociación Transdisciplinar Reverso. Madrid, Spain 2016.
  • Bisig, D and Palacio, P. Neural Narratives – Dance with Virtual Body Extensions, in: Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop On Movement & Computing, Thessaloniki, Greece, submitted.

Vimeo.
POLYTOPYA.


Neural Narratives 3: Clinament

Instituto Stocos: Muriel Romero, Pablo Palacio, Daniel Bisig – Casa Paganini-InfoMus Research Centre, DIBRIS, Univ of Genoa.

Description:
Neural Narratives 3: Clinament is the 3rd part of a project involving artificial intelligence to generate sound and multimedia bodily extensions as artificial body structures whose morphological and behavioural properties are tightly interrelated with a dancer’s body and movements. The morphology, perception and behaviour of the body extensions are mutually constituted via a common grounding in an underlying physical simulation.
The behaviour of the body extensions is conditioned to respond to the idiosyncratic movements of a dancer via a process of evolutionary adaptation. The body extensions are made perceivable via visualization and sonification approaches that expose the simulation based processes. In this part of the project more sophisticated and higher level tracking systems allow to connect expressive features of the dancers with the behavior and morphology of the artificila body parts and further develop the concept and realization of hybrid embodiment.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes: 
This 3rd stage of the projects aims to connect with the Metabody goals using sensors instead of video tracking systems enhancing the mobility of potential users in the future pavilion. These sensors were also the ones coming in standard smartphones thus allowing anyone to experiment the interaction with the virtual audiovisual body parts. The more sophisticated and higher level tracking systems that allow us to measure expressive features such as fluidity, weight, impulsivity or suddenness of movements. This work is conducted in collaboration with the Infomus research group at Casa Paganini in Italy. Progress along these lines will allow us to further develop the concept and realization of hybrid embodiment. In this stage of the Project we used the materilas developed by Reverso as portable  projection surfaces.

What has been done:

    • Rehearsals, research.
    • Presentations at Metabody forum in Madrid 2015.

 

  • Test of video projection on non-planar surfaces (Reverso’s Metakinesphere).

 

Results:

  • Prototype for performance.
  • Visualization software.
  • New mapping and sonification tools.
  • A haptic feedback device that uses four motors placed around the wrist of a dancer. These motors can provide more detailed and in particular directional feedback concerning the activity of the body extensions.
  • Implementation of Laban effort analysis routines as elements of a fitness function in order to create new behaviours for artificial body structures.

Interperforming environments

TU Delft Hyperbody.
MSc2 design studio – Tutors: Ir. Kas Oosterhuis, Dr. Nimish Biloria, Dr. Henriette Bier, Jia Rey Chang, Dieter Vandoren.

Description:
Prototypes for interactive architecture (Physical and digital).
The MSc 2 Design studio conducted at Hyperbody, TU Delft, Netherlands, operates on the premise that bodily motion and non-verbal communication can be understood as interfaces of emotional expression and cognition.

  1. The MSc 2 Design studio conducted at Hyperbody, TU Delft, Netherlands, operates on the premise that bodily motion and non-verbal communication can be understood as interfaces of emotional expression and cognition.
  2. The idea of creating a proactive behavior loop between the body, the physical and ambient space it operates within, as well as the tools and techniques offered by contemporary new media technologies became a central operational logic driving the studio.
  3. The behavioral engagement of the body, with ambient parameters such as sound, light, tactility etc. and the physicality of architectural space, to create an inter-activating spatial system, thus, progressively created new modes of communication and perception within the studio.
  4. The resultant embodied spatial instruments are developed as physical and digital prototypes, which evoke novel modes of interaction, movement and perception.
  5. Rather than developing a subject-object perspective of architectural and interior space, the projects engage with the active creation of subject-subject relations, wherein ambiguity and diffused affordances take centre stage, thus provoking pro-active engagement opportunities for the spatial structures and the user’s alike.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Hyperbody research group at TU Delft is the main architectural partner of the project and thus directly responsible for elaborating prototypes for the final architecture. Research into techniques, materials and their coherent conceptual and artistic development are being undertaken by Hyperbody-TU Delft involving students from the university.

What has been done:
Five different projects were developed by master students at TU Delft.

Results:
The projects Reflectego and Robozoo developed in this framework were presented at the Madrid Forum 2014.

Hyperbody MSc2 Prototypes.
Interperforming environments.


Reflectego

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
The design derives from a kaleidoscopic composition of faceted mirrors, aimed specifically at distorting perception. In the project the user literally becomes the physical object inside a kaleidoscope in which he sees his image scattered and recomposed as a result of his movement patterns. The structure consists of a suspended faceted mirror-surface with embedded proximity sensors, which hovers and physically changes the inclination and directions of its facets in real-time based on the people it can sense below it. The user is thus visually displaced, since his perceptual affinity of seeing him/herself in a mirrored surface is suddenly challenged.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for conceiving real-time interactive ceiling components and its behavioural profile as possible input for for the future architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.
Installation and Presentation in Metabody Forum Madrid 2014.
Installation and Presentation in Dig It, Science event at the TU Delft, Netherlands.

Results: 
Installation and prototype.

Interperforming environments/
Reflectego.


RoboZoo

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
RoboZoo creates an artificial eco-system from an interactive swarm of robots. The robots, conceived as small-scale bots operate as individual agents, with embedded proximity sensors and servo motors, powered by a battery pack. Each bot agent thus has a capacity to sense its context (people and obstacles) and propel itself in different directions via the servo motors attached to structural wheel spokes. The bots and humans, thus inter-activate each other in order to create novel movement patterns of both and in the process constantly redefine space via establishing unspoken ecological dependencies.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for the future architecture.

What has been done:

  • Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.
  • Presentation in Metabody Forum Madrid 2014.
  • Installation and Presentation in Dig It, Science event at the TU Delft, Netherlands.
  • Installation and Presentation in Delft robotics institute: Robo Cafe, 2015, TU Delft, Netherlands.

Results:
Installation and prototype

Interperforming environments/
Robozoo.


The Living Room

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
The Living Room is an artistic installation, which redefines the relationship between humans and their habitat. It intends to overthrow the utilitarian badges attached to space and forces users to rethink, maybe even re-calibrate their perception and interaction with their surroundings. Multiple-affordances were thus embedded within a pneumatic structure, which enabled it to transform into variable spatial landscapes. The multiplicity of form coupled with lighting patterns challenged usability and affordance based pre-conceptions, thus engaging the users to invent and experiment novel modes of habitation

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for the future architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.

Results:
Installation and prototype.

Hyperbody Prototypes.


Synergetic Sound

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
SYNERGETIC SOUND is a facilitator for interactivity between different visitors by detecting their movements and interpreting it through audio output. This installation serves as a means to investigate how sound can enhance a space by allowing visitors to control the virtual environment through the manipulation of tones in order to create varying affects within the space and its effects on the collective.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for ambient interaction (body-sound) in the future architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.

Results:
Installation and prototype.

Hyperbody Prototypes.


In between

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
The project focuses on exploring notions of collective behaviour of human movement rather than an individual response mechanism, as is common in many installations. The idea of working with an in-between tangible and ambient interface, which can be influenced by people on either sides of the construct is thus manifested. This in-between physical prototype works at three different levels: a. Pro-active Global transformation of its morphology to attract others. b. Body virtualization via active representation of a human body’s outline via lighting up components directly interfaced by the body. c. Active local morphing of the components immediately in front of the body. These three behaviours result in a continual transformation of the membrane like interface and produce diverse patterns of morphing accompanied with light variations in real-time. The structural complexity, with embedded actuation nodes and embedded lighting coupled with IR and Proximity sensors result in an inter-performing spatial interface which initiates multi-user game play and thus collective behaviour based spatial augmentation.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for the future architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.

Results:
Installation and prototype.

Hyperbody Prototypes.


Ambiguous Topology

TU Delft Hyperbody
Jia Rey Chang, Dr. Nimish Biloria, Dieter Vandoren.

Description:
Ambiguous topology is an immersive multi-modal spatial installation exploring the tendencies of swarm systems to generate emergent geometric networks as a response to, as well as a trigger, for movement of multiple bodies in space and time.
The installation operates on the subtle fusion of physical and digital media by means of harvesting and impacting the speed and frequency of movement of the participant’s body as a trigger for activating/disturbing a swarm of digital particles in space.
Swarm systems, as a collection of autonomous dynamic particles operate on a tendency model wherein the particles in the immediate vicinity of the physical movement inherit the maximum velocity/charge and are thus displaced from their spatial coordinates to collide and dissipate this gained energy to neighbouring particles.
The velocity/charge is thus differentially distributed throughout the entire particle swarm and has a behavioural attribute of generating geometric topological networks and sound values displaying variable densities of connections throughout the space.
After reaching a critical mass (as regards the charge levels in the entire swarm) the system behaves pro-actively in order to alter/suggest and motivate the user to engage in novel movement in order to react and engage with this changing persona of the swarming networks.
The usage of immersive light and sound projection media in order to visualise this dynamic behavioural scenario renders abstract three dimensional topological nuances within which the body navigates and experiences new states of ambiguity, dis-alignment and proactive behaviour. Technological, human and spatial agency/affordance thus unite into a never-ending looped process of inter-performance through the ambiguous topologies installation.

Ambiguous topologies.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for exploring ambient, fully immersive bodily interaction in the future architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.

Results:
Installation Presented at the Madrid Forum 2014.

Ambiguous topology 07-2014.


HyperLoop

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
The HyperLoop is an attempt to develop the world’s first large-scale real-time intra-active pavilion structure, which pro-actively augments its physical state via real-time information exchange with its environmental, social and technical context. The structure, geometrically takes the form of a loop, which can fully re-configure its skeleton in real-time. The entire loop is a fully dynamic structure, which harnesses generative movement, sound and light as an active mode of interaction with its visitors. The HyperLoop is the very first iteration of the proposed large scale pavilion structure and in its current format is a scaled version, outlining basic tactile properties of the proposed structure.

Tutor team:
Dr. Nimish Biloria (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Dr. C.J.M. Verhoeven (EWI – Electronics Research Laboratory, TU Delft), Gabriel Lopes (Delft center for Systems and Control, TU Delft), Kas Oosterhuis (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Jia Rey Chang (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Veronika Laszlo (Hyperbody, TU Delft).

Students:
Eva Claassen, Mathijs van Hengstum, Roderick Kroes, David de Leeuw.

Collaborators and Sponsors:
Delft Robotics Institute, TU Delft, Netherlands.
EWI – Electronics Research Laboratory, TU Delft.
Delft center for Systems and Control, TU Delft.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for the real-time interactive and evolutionary computing based structural system for the proposed architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.
Presentation in Metabody Forum Madrid 2015.

Results:
Prototype.

The Hyper Loop/


{/S}caring-ami /

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
‘{S}caring-ami ’ is a representation of the fear of the unknown and the misunderstood. It is about the understanding of what love can create and allow you to become. We invite you to engage with {S}caring-ami and unlock the creature’s heart; to break down his fear of love and progressively turn his natural state of defense, to a warm embracing being. Collectively we urge you to show this misunderstood and scared creature the type of love he craves so he can learn to embrace you back. Through dialogue we can break down the walls and build up trust between two unknowns, the user and the creature.

Tutor team:
Dr. Nimish Biloria (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Jia Rey Chang (Hyperbody, TU Delft) , Veronika Laszlo (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Kas Oosterhuis (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Pablo Boquero (Faberarium; founder partner)

Students:
Alessandro Giacomelli, Yizhe Guo, Xiangting meng, Giulio Mariano, Anisa Nachett

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for the future architecture.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for the real-time interactive and evolutionary computing based structural system for the proposed architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.
Presentation in Metabody Forum Madrid 2015.

Results:
Installation and prototype.

Interactivating environments.
scaringami.


Textrinium

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
Textrinium is a Smart Textile based installation, which interacts with its surroundings via tactile response to the proximity and movement patterns of people, colour changing abilities based on the levels of carbon dioxide in the environment and transformative light and sound transmission patterns. The structure embodies integrated sensing and actuation abilities as a part and parcel of the same knitted fabric and is supported by a polymers exoskeleton. Based on a mathematical minimal surface condition: Costa, the current design is topologically a thrice-punctured torus which is deformed until the planer end becomes catenoidal.

Tutor team:
Dr. Nimish Biloria (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Jia Rey Chang (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Veronika Laszlo (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Kas Oosterhuis (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Pablo Boquero (Faberarium founder partner).

Students:
Bob Heester, Dimitra Dritsa, Esther Slagter, Marien Teeuw.

Collaborators (Smart Textiles):
Swedish School of Textiles, University of Boras, Sweden: Dr. Delia Dumitrescu, Dr. Hanna Landin, Marjan Kooroshnia.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for the mobile architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.
Presentation in Metabody Forum Madrid 2015.

Exhibition:
Synthetique, France, 2015

Results:
Installation and protoype.

Interactivating environments.
Textrinium.


Nervion

TU Delft Hyperbody.

Description:
‘NERVION’ finds its inspiration from the human anatomy.  The inherence and collaboration of components is at its most excellent shape. The ultimate relation between the brain, the neural network, the electrical data conversion, the muscle layout and the bone structure in the human body is translated in a digital structure. This experiment is the creation of a digitally driven body with its own emotions and movements. The visual perception of NERVION’s expression is made possible by a division between the analogue and digital forces. The interaction with the human is an overwriting analogue force, while the movement of NERVION is digitally generated.”

Tutor team:
Dr. Nimish Biloria (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Jia Rey Chang (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Veronika Laszlo (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Kas Oosterhuis (Hyperbody, TU Delft), Pablo Boquero (Faberarium, founder partner).

Students:
Calcen Chan, Kubra Yilmaz, Lesle Che, Marek Nosek.

Purpose and relation with Metabody outcomes:
Prototype for the future architecture.

What has been done:
Technical and artistic development in Delft, The Netherlands.
Presentation in Metabody Forum Madrid 2015.

Results:
Installation and protoype

Interactivating environments.
Nervion.