Feeling Air: Exploring Aesthetic and Material Qualities of Architectural Inflatables
Feeling Air: A Psychospeculative Inflatable Happening explores material, aesthetic, and somatic qualities of large scale architectural inflatables.
The architecture project studio put together a video showcasing the sensory qualities of the inflatables.
Emotion AI
We aimed to raise awareness, spark critical reflection and ethical discussion, and imagine alternative futures with Emotion ML.
Cross-university collaboration
In fall 2021, this digital media project studio at Georgia Tech collaborated with an architecture project studio at North Carolina State University taught by Assitant Professor Shawn Protz. The architecture project studio focused on creating inflatables made of lightweight plastic sheets, taped or heat sealed together, inflated with fans. Inflatables can produce large pop-up lightweight structures in unusual shapes. Students in the digital media project studio designed creative interactions with Emotion ML within and around the inflatables.
Duration
August - December 2021
2 Exhibits
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Annual Conference, ReVIEWING 12
Georgia Tech, Clough Commons
My role
Researcher, Interaction designer, Programmer, Communication, interaction facilitator
Tools
Google Vision, Projection Mapping, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Processing, Javascript
NC State University architecture studio
Shawn Protz (Assistant Professor), Jasmyn Byrd, Miguel Castellanos, Alexis Elkins, Jessica Hall, Micah Holdsworth, Lalith Mallikeshwaran Rajagopal Sambasivan, Chris Noel, Oluwarotimi Osiberu, Rushabh Patel, Dylan Scallan, and Abigail Uhrich
Georgia Tech digital media studio
Noura Howell (Assistant Professor), Aditya Anupam, Blaire Bosley, Rachel Donley, Sara Milkes Espinosa, Sanjeev Nayak, Michelle Ramirez, Yiyun Jia, Yunfei Wang
Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center Exhibit
The joint project studio involved digital media students developing an interactive experience with Emotion ML which took place inside the inflatable. The digital media studios took a critical making approach, inviting critical reflection on the growing prevalence of Emotion ML and its use for surveillance. Through our collaboration we explored translucence and surveillance in public space.
The students worked together to create a public art exhibition for the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center 2021 international conference.
Inside / Outside
The exhibit combines inflatable architecture and emotion AI to explore emergent forms of hybrid digital / physical architectures. The exhibit aims to prompt critical reflection on ethical issues and imagine alternatives. In particular, digital surveillance increasingly pervades public space using techniques of emotion AI (built atop existing surveillance camera infrastructure) to profile people in ways that are often harmful and discriminatory. Inspired by John Cage's chance-based compositions and the playful, participatory nature of Happenings, this project explores how emotion AI might support more playful, participatory, and ethical interactions in public space.
Georgia Tech Clough Commons
Students shared a variety of reflections about potential benefits and harms of Emotion AI.