This week, here in LA, was SIGRRAPH 2010 — the annual conference on computer graphics and interactive technologies. The two parts of the event I find most interesting are the emerging technologies and art gallery exhibitions — and there was a lot of thought-provoking stuff being shown. Most was a bit rough around the edges, or research without a clear purpose yet, but it was inspirational. And it’s great to see designers, researchers and technologists…
 
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This is interesting… Microsoft is working on another cool way of looking at map and street imagery. Unlike traditional street view interfaces where you look at the street through panoramic bubbles (which can be a little disorienting), Street Slide arranges everything as a flat, continuous, photo. When I first saw it, I thought of some Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on The Sunset Strip (1966). Street Slide gives you a great slide-scroller view of streets. Plus……
 
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I love music visualization and explorations of synesthesia. MOCA’s 2005 amazing exhibition Visual Music, highlighted a wide (and deep) range of work tracing the development of music in the visual arts. For example, one of the show’s featured artists John Whitney (who’s son, by the way, was one my earliest employers), created amazing work which stands among of the pinnacles of early computer animation. There are lots and lots of other fantastic examples (and I’ll…
 
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With the fashion for full Flash websites slowly fading into history (or is it just that websites load faster now?), I was excited to discover Pretty Loaded. Launched in January 2009, the site is an archive, or museum, of one of the artifacts of those big Flash sites… the preloader, or “loading” screen. Once upon a time, in a land of sputtering dial-up connections, websites took ages to load. Folks yearned for the 100% mark….
 
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I remember a CD-ROM project from the 90s that was unlike almost else appearing at the time. An ambient fluid flow of images and film, mixed with a unusual collection of audio, it created the feeling of moving through an urban environment. You had only the vaguest feeling of control of it all — almost as if you were being pulled through the city. It was a dream-like kind of experience. The project was “Urban…
 
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Today, the source code to MacPaint was officially donated to the Computer History Museum and made available to the public. MacPaint was declared as “the best program ever written” at an event celebrating the Macintosh’s 20th anniversary, by Stanford University computer science professor Don Knuth. Written by Bill Atkinson, MacPaint was beautifully simple, like much early Mac software — but also full of innovations. Features like the lasso (with the marching ants), and its ability…
 
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Wow that was fast. Yesterday marked the end of a remarkable Old Spice viral Internet campaign. Over the course of just two days, July 13 and 14, Wieden+Kennedy created about 185 YouTube videos as responses to queries and posts on Twitter for the Old Spice man. It was a fascinating take on interactivity. The team at W+K filtered through the Twitter posts and then, for each one that they selected, they’d write, film and post…
 
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Way back in 2006, at the Wired NextFest, Saturn sponsored a “green” exhibit, highlighting their hybrid technology. It was a 4,000 square-foot installation featuring a life-sized, interactive holographic people, CAD projections onto vehicles, and a interactive/reactive wall with user-generated content. I first learned of the project when I was judging the Communication Arts 2007 Interactive Annual and said it was beautiful and poetic. It may not have had deep interaction, but that was ok for…
 
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All of John Maeda‘s work is amazing and inspiring, but I find his series of Reactive Books to be among the most engaging and thought-provoking. Created between 1994 and 1999, each book explored the use of a different input: microphone, mouse, time, keyboard, and video. At a time when interactive media was trying to be more and more, the simplicity and focus of these pieces set them apart. Their visual simplicity allowed you to really…
 
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The websites for Wrangler Europe’s Blue Bell collection may not be revolutionary, but they have a simple and delightful interaction. When I saw the first, a couple months ago, I thought it was super-cool. And, with the launch of an update this week, I figured I now have permission to do a post. Designed by Kokokaka, the sites reveal their content through a series of simple chapter pages. On each page you’re able to control…
 
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