| | Posted by Sloan
Yesterday, during my hour break between Nutcracker shows, I finally got to go to NYU’s ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program) Winter Show, where the students display their work. (I’ve wanted to go for a long time, but performances have made it impossible in the past).

There was so much interesting stuff there it was a bit overwhelming. Also overwhelming is the feeling that I wish I could play around and make some of this stuff too! Maybe someday
Our friend Dens, who’s responsible for an awesome little program called dodgeball, studied there and is now one of their esteemed teachers.

Above is a photo of me using this wand thing to create pretty designs on the screen in front of me. Below, Doug tries it out.

The set up looked just like the set-up with the red lights that Tony had in his black suit with the little white balls (check out his profile page).

The wand has sensors on either end and their position in space determines what is happening on the screen.

Here is a wall of paper disks with black and white patterns printed on them. There is a tiny camera embedded in the wall which makes it possible for the wall to read the light and shadow of what’s in front of it, and mimic it by rotating the disks to reveal the corresponding lighter or darker parts.

This one was really neat… an interactive dollhouse that told the darker versions of well-known fairy tales. (example: hansel and gretel was actually a story relating to a common form of infanticide, where parents who could not afford to feed their children, would abandon them in the woods.)

As you turned the page of the story book, a different room in the dollhouse would light up, sometimes with moving parts inside. There were tiny video camera’s inside the house that showed the interior perspective of the rooms on the screen to the left of the house.

Above, video of individual people, projected into glass jars.
This was SO cool looking, and a bit creepy. I think there were seven different-shaped jars with seven “trapped” people, each with a unique look and personality.

There was also a sensor built into the table that the jars were on. When you, or your hand, got too close to the jars, the little people would start getting angry and try to shoo you away, each in their own individual way.

And finally…
A solar powered bikini.
Makes it possible to have endless hours of tunes from your ipod or other electronic device while lounging on the beach.
Functional - yes.
Comfortable - probably not.