Decode: Digital Design Sensations
A fantastic new exhibition on at the V&A that presents a range of new and innovative digital technologies that are becoming the tools of the artists and designers of today. It's full of weird and wonderful pieces of design and technology that either you can interact with or just admire as a beautiful piece of work in itself.
The entrance passageway of the exhibition is lined with fibre-optic 'plants' that light up as you walk past them (A little like those plants in Avatar)
One of my favourite pieces was by a designer called Karsten Schmidt. It was a visual representation of the condition Synaesthesia in which the senses in an individual are confused and sound for example will be converted into something visual or vice versa. It was so interesting to watch the image rotate and swirl around the screen to the beat of an ambient song playing in the background.
'Tree' by Simon Heijdens had me completely baffled; there was an image of a tree projected onto a wall, apparently swaying in accordance with the wind outside the museum. That I could understand. What I couldn't understand was that whenever you went near the tree, it 'dropped' projected leaves onto the floor around you... that you could actually move and kick with your feet!
The most popular pieces seemed to be the 'Video Grid' and 'Body Paint'. The 'Video Grid' was a grid of 1 second videos recorded by members of the public right there in the exhibition space to create a miscellany of images that were on a loop. One guy
decided he wanted to take up the whole top line of the grid and just run from left to right in each 1 second clip so it looked like he
was running across the whole top line of the grid.
It was hilarious!
An interactive exhibitions like this seems to bring out the inner child in people (not that it takes much for me to regress to a completely excitable child-like state); adults and teenagers alike were jumping up and down creating their very own 'Body Paint' masterpiece, pulling funny faces for the video grid or making amusing noises at a screen just to watch an image distort and flourish.
What better way to make technology fun and exciting than making the audience a part of it?
Definitely worth a look: especially if you want an excuse to run, jump, and make strange noises/faces for an hour or so without being judged.
Images from: http://www.vam.ac.uk/
