Truth Dare Double Dare

Makers at Next Berlin 2012

admin — Wed, 09 May 2012 05:32:34 +0000

Like last year, Jeremy was invited to curate a panel and speak at Next Berlin, “The leading European conference for the digital industry.” This year the theme was Post-Digital and had a great line-up of speakers. For Jeremy’s panel, he chose Makers as his topic and was fortunate to have Kyle McDonald and Kate Hartman join him on stage to flesh out the topic.

Photo via Next Berlin

Making Things Talk

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:15:31 +0000

This past Monday, we hosted an introduction to electronic basics using Arduino for Franziska’s course at the University of Applied Arts – Hamburg and Jeremy’s class at the Miami Ad School Europe. We were supported by microelectronics student Jörn Sandner who illustrated and explained the finer points of fundamental electronics.

Learning with 20 + students was quite a challenge but we are happy to say that by the end of the day, they were all able to control a servo with a pot. Next step, we’ll be supported by our Makers & Co. partner Sven Kräuter for some further making goodness.

If you are interested in learning more or attending a workshop give us a shout-out.

Freunde von Freunden

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:29:54 +0000

Right before our month long sabbatical in the Rocky Mountains, our friends from Freunde von Freunden contacted us to see if they could film their first interview in Hamburg. What followed was a delightful day with Frede and Kaspar talking and showing them our work and favorite locations around the city.

Mirror, Mirror

admin — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:37:05 +0000

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall
Come experience how cameras translate movement into narrative installations.

Vernissage Thursday, March 15th at 19:00
Open Friday, March 16th – Sunday, March 18th (14:00 – 19:00)

Further information here.

Hello World

admin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:23:46 +0000

Hello World.

If you program, you know this is the genesis of your first program. It is also the subject of three documentaries on three programming languages (Processing, OpenFrameworks and Pure data) widely used by artists not to mention by us as well

Object Oriented Play

admin — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:50:09 +0000

Is it possible to have children learn programming at a much earlier age than they did yesterday?

Currently, there is software such as Logo, Scratch and Alice for those that are fluent with the WIMP interaction model. Not too long ago, when children wanted to interact with a moving image, they looked for a mouse. Now, they want to interact directly with the content just like they do on touchscreen devices which is best illustrated in this video of a baby and it’s interaction with an iPad and then a magazine. While the iPad offers immediate feedback, the quality is still graphical in nature. The key to learning at a much earlier age is tactile feedback.

And so like a lot of things today, it started with a tweet:

@sven_kr @filtercake @railscamp_hh I see rails for kids being physical blocks that one would arrange to write code…OOP made tactile

The goal is to explore physical computing (with haptic feedback built-in) as the environment to enable children to learn the fundamentals of programming. The outcome will be a working prototype(s) that clearly demonstrates the potential of object oriented play to children and their parents.

Further links:
Coding for Kids (an overview)

Image of wooden letters via Marc Böttler’s Klotz Type Experiment

Steve Jobs RIP

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:31:48 +0000

May the legacy that is ~~Apple~~ Steve Jobs outlive the tools he made for the rest of us.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

Cinekid

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:04:04 +0000

The bachelor project Inksphere by Pascal Melcer, Felix Riedel, Jason Wilmans, Christian Hüning, and Malte Eckhoff will be exhibited from October 12th – 21st at the Cinekid in Amsterdam.

Inksphere was developed in the “Interactive Media Facades/ Action Painting” course lead by Prof. Franziska Hübler (design) and Prof. Dr. Birgit Wendholt, Prof. Dr. Gunter Klemke and Prof. Dr. Kai von Luck (computer science).

Find out more about Inksphere
Design Made in Germany
Kinect Hacks
Frequency

Facial Gestures

admin — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:23:08 +0000

This weekend we took FaceOSC (from artist Kyle McDonald) along with a servo and created a new input/output device.

This built upon the work of Lizzie Malcom and her FaceOSC twitter experiment which Sven Krauter and I demonstrated at the Agile Design Camp.

Float

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:16:09 +0000

Am 22. Juli 2010 wurde im historischen Gängeviertel in Hamburg die interaktive Ausstellung “float” erfolgreich eröffnet. Die zahlreichen Besucher hatten die Gelegenheit die spannenden Installationen vom Donnerstag den 22. Juli bis 05. August zu erleben.

Im Mittelpunkt der Ausstellung stand die Sensibilisierung für das Ungreifbare, das Unsichtbare, dass durch verschiedene Sensoren sichtbar und formbar gemacht wurde. Die Arbeiten bewegen sich zwischen Technik und künstlerischer Formgebung, sie experimentieren mit der Wirkung projizierter Form auf zweidimensionaler Fläche.

Hier stand man nicht als passiver Beobachter sondern wurde selbst ein Teil aktiv-Arbeiten, was die Ausstellung zu einem ganz besonderen und einzigartigen Erlebnis machte.

Ein Kooperationsprojekt der Departments Design und Informatik mit Clara Bosch, Gesa Hansen, Erik Herrmann, Marco Johns, Fee Keller, Marissa Kimmel, Adriane Künne, Christoph Lohse, Jascha Nitzschmann, Fabian Puller, Paul Zürker betreut von Prof. Franziska Hübler, Prof. Gunter Klemke, Prof. Kai von Luck, Prof. Birgit Wendholt und mit Unterstützung der Zentralwerkstatt.