Here is a project from Helsinki called Nuage Vert which uses a laser to project a green light outlining the emissions from a power plant to show current power consumption. It’s a brilliant subtle integration of information into light

—AB

A digest of some research that I’ve done that isn’t a lot of new material per se, but rather was gathered by looking back at some of our ideas from the past few days and identifying what is already available.

One of our main ideas from our research in Copenhagen had to do with seating in a public setting. Philips has done some work in this area already with plastic benches with embedded LEDs that react to how long a person is sitting on the bench: http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/rca-philips-glowing-places.html

With regards to interactive walls and “graffiti” there is a lot of work and exploration in this area (with as many videos on YouTube) including work by Adobe, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZCF7JVEFDs; Lenovo, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ltp9nKKzsA&NR=1; many university and research projects; and again, Philips http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/02/paint-led-art-f.html. Philips’ work was installed in a childrens hospital and essentially allowed the kids to draw in a large scale on the wall using light.

For a list of other light related projects by Philips—there are more than a handful on their website:
http://www.lighting.philips.com/in_en/project/index.php?main=gb_en&parent=1&id=in_en_project〈=en

In addition to the videos about “light graffiti” that were shown in class last week, here is a video that by a Japanase group, however this one shows and gives some info about how it is done and the production that goes into creating such a spectacle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAhsTUUs6W4