Art.CHI 2017

Interactive Media Works

A CHI2017 Exhibition

Wayfinding

Wayfinding

Wayfinding is a participatory installation that serves as a poetic reference to the design concept that describes the ways in which people navigate from place to place. The installation is comprised of a set of four electromechanical sculptures that operate in subsequent harmony and discord based on participant and environmental impulses. Each sculpture, positioned at a cardinal direction, operates independently by way of a motor that strikes tensed bungee cables containing a glass orb with a glass marble. In effect, both movement and sound ensue and the sequence and speed at which the motors fire is continuously manipulated by proximity sensors that poll the environment and mine through data collected throughout the installation's exhibition history. Through the installation's symbolic embodiment of a compass, the work seeks to reflect on the socio-technological forces that guide our direction in life.

Raphael Arar
Designer & Researcher, IBM Research, Adjunct Faculty, San Jose State University - CADRE Laboratory for New Media