Project 2 – Interactive Object

A significant change in the prevailing technoculture is the increased ubiquity of sensing technology. A trip through an airport restroom provides the opportunity for the body to trigger no fewer than 3 sensors: toilet flush, faucet on/off, paper towel dispenser. Local libraries have begun embedding RFID tags in books to track checkin/out. As a venue for artistic intervention, the opportunities afforded by these sensors for a different range of haptics have been employed by a wide range of artists. Technically speaking, sensors creates a new kind of input to the computer, and give the computer a kind of physical awareness.. Metaphorically speaking, these sensing technologies allow a new experience of the poetics of the interface. Jim Campbell proposes one definition of computer art with the following diagram:

For your project, take an non-standard type of input, and convert it into an non-standard kind of output. Consider the poetics of the mode of interaction with the computer. Consider the poetics of the type of data to be converted.

Due: March 20, 5:00 PM