On June 26th, a consortium involving Interactive Spaces/The Alexandra Institute was granted 3,7 mill. Dkr. for the project "Mobile Probes". The aim with the project is to digitalize the probes-method on a mobile platform, and through this find new ways to make the process more efficient and useable. Interactive Spaces/The Alexandra Institute will be participating as experts on the cultural probe method, contributing with knowledge and experiences on working with user-oriented design within the focus area of the institute.  

An Interactive Spaces research paper has been accepted for the ACM Multimedia 2008, Interactive Arts Program, October 27 to November 1, 2008, Vancouver, BC, Canada. The paper is entitled "Interactive Spatial Multimedia for Communication of Art in the Physical Museum Space" by Karen Johanne Kortbek and Kaj Grønbæk. The acceptance rate at the conference was 17%.

Two Interactive Spaces research papers have recently been accepted for the NordiCHI conference in Lund, Sweden, October 20-22, 2008: "Designing for Participation in Public Knowledge Institutions" by Peter Dalsgaard, Christian Dindler and Eva Eriksson; and "Communicating Art through Interactive Technology: New Approaches for Interaction Design in Art Museums" by Karen Johanne Kortbek and Kaj Grønbæk. Of a total of 139 full papers submitted only 42 were selected for the conference.

Two Interactive Spaces research papers have recently been accepted for the Hypertext 2008 conference in Pittsburgh, US, June 19-21, 2008: "User-defined Structural Searches in MediaWiki" by Johannes Albertsen and Niels Olof Bouvin; "Social Web Applications in the City: A Lightweight Infrastructure for Urban Computing" by Frank Allan Hansen and Kaj Grønbæk.

Wednesday May 7th, several Interactive Spaces projects were described in the DR1 programme "Morning with Nis Boesdal". Nis Boesdal made a portrait of PhD student Karen Johanne Kortbek. The clip can be found on DR1.

On March 6th, a Consortium involving Interactive Spaces/The Alexandra Institute won the bidding on a large project with the objective to develop interactive experiences for the Copenhagen Fortress Complex (Københavns Befæstning). The aim is to revitalize the huge Fortress Complex as a world class tourist attraction. The Consortium is lead by Bysted PR and Die Asta Experience and the total budget is 25 mill. Dkr. This makes the project among the largest interactive experiences projects in Denmark. The project is funded by Realdania, Skov og Naturstyrelsen, and Kulturarvsstyrelsen. Interactive Spaces/The Alexandra Institute will be a main provider of knowledge and technologies for development of location based information services and interactive buildings creating novel types of interactive experiences.

Peter Gall Krogh has been appointed the new Innovation Manager for Interactive Spaces in the Alexandra Institute from February 1st 2008. Peter will become responsible for development of Technical Services in the area of Interactive Spaces as well as management of the increasing consultancy project portfolio that are generated by the research activities in Center for Interactive Spaces. Peter will still maintain the role as the Center's liasson to the Aarhus School of Architecture.

Interactive Spaces is hosting the first international Workshop on Interactive and Adaptive Furniture. The Workshop takes place in Aarhus from January 20th - 22nd, with participation from a wide range of internationally recognized research environments. for further info please refer to: http://www.interactivespaces.net/imagine/

The workshop aims to establish a forum for dialogue between people from interaction design, social science, computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence, architecture, design, smart textiles, furniture design, art and people from other areas; that are interested in contributing to and/or provoking possible future domestic interiors.

We focus on furniture for the home, and how interactivity and adaptivity can bring about new types of furniture, new types of robots and new types of interaction design. For instance, we envision a future in which we interact with our home furniture using multiple modalities (speech, vision, touch, smell, etc.) and that furniture potentially changes and shape over time according to our needs and moods.

November 30th 2007, at 7 PM, Center for Interactive Spaces received the "red dot: best of the best award" for the Wisdom Well (Vidensbrønden) design concept, in the red dot design museum, Singapore. The Wisdom Well is developed by researchers at Center for Interactive Spaces associated Aarhus University, Aarhus School of Architecture, and the Alexandra Institute in Århus in collaboration with Arkitema, Søren Jensen A/S, Dansk Data Display and Århus Municipality. The project is funded through Århus Municipality with support from Oticon Fonden, Boligfonden Kuben and NCC A/S. The background research was initiated in the ISIS Katrinebjerg iSchool project. See pictures from the Award ceremonial in Singapore.

The Red Dot Press Announcement says: "For its excellent and particularly innovative design, the "Wisdom Well" concept by Center for Interactive Spaces has received the red dot: best of the best award. One of the highest distinctions received by a concept in the red dot award: design concept, the red dot: best of the best indicates that the Wisdom Well is the best of its category - Education. It is awarded by a jury of experts only to top class concepts that are pioneering in their field. From the absolute record number of 884 submitted design concepts for assessment by the experts, a total of 18 top design concepts have received the ‘red dot: best of the best' for their outstanding and innovative design. They come from China, Denmark, Germany, Korea, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Taiwan. The festive awards presentation will take place on November 30th 2007 in the red dot design museum, Singapore."

See pictures from the Award ceremonial in Singapore.

On October 12th, the exhibition with the Japanese artist Mariko Mori called "Oneness" opened at the ARoS art museum in Aarhus. His Royal Highness Crown Prince Frederik, the Japanese ambassador and the mayor of Aarhus attended the opening. Center for Interactive Spaces/The Alexandra Institute Ltd. has developed interactive sound installations with the artist's speak as well as three interactive contemplation rooms exhibiting some of the inspirational material behind Mariko Mori's work. The sound installations and the contemplation rooms were designed in collaboration with ARoS, Zentropa Interaction, DIEM and TEKNE. Click "more" to read about the rooms and watch pictures.

Inside the exhibition 25 silver circles are located at the floor next to the art works. When the user stands inside the circle a recording with the artist's speak is played back.

The contemplation rooms are placed at the end of the exhibition and exhibits some of the inspirational material behind some of Mariko Mori's work.

Room 1

The installation in the first room called "Buddhism" ("Buddhisme") uses camera tracking to detect when users approach a circle projected on the floor. Inside the circle four circles are presented displaying the four elements from the piece Esoteric Cosmos. The works represents fire, water, air and earth. When the user stands in front of one of the circles sound starts to play inspired by the element selected and an image of one of the inspirations behind the works are displayed. After a few seconds background information about the inspiration appears.

Room 2

In the second room called "The Spirit From the Past" ("Ånden fra fortiden") the user navigates through some banners with inspirational material behind the work Kumano printed on them. The user arrives at three listening posts in the wall where the user can hear and read inspirational material behind Tom na h-ui. The atmosphere in the room is influenced by a forest ambience sound and changing light.

Room 3

There are two installations in the third room "Cohesion Across Time and Space" ("Samhørighed på tværs af tid og rum"). An installation inspired by the UFO and an installation inspired by Oneness.

The Oneness installation is a floor with built-in pressure sensors and a projection of an alien in the middle. When a user stands on one of the pressure sensors the aliens disappers and one sixth of an inspirational picture behind Oneness is displayed. When the entire image has been revealed the sound intensity increases and after a while another one of Mariko Mori's aliens appears.

The UFO installation is a staircase with built-in pressure sensors. Above the staircase is a screen displaying inspirational material behind the UFO when a user climbe the stairs. The user can scroll the material by walking up or down the stairs. When multiple users stand on the staircase at the same time the screen is split and multiple images are displayed.

So far the installations have been running well except for minor glitches and have been well received by the audience.

Photos by Karen Johanne Kortbek.

Researchers from Center for Interactive Spaces are part of a new research project with Terma A/S, The Danish Agricultural Advisory Service, National Centre (DAAS), Systematic Software Engineering A/S, and the Alexandra Institute entitled "A platform for Galileo based pervasive positioning". The Platform has a total budget of 48 mio dkr and receives 25 mio dkr. in support from the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation. Press articles in Danish are found e.g. in Engineeting Weekly.

The semacode based mobile platform developed in the Center for Interactive Spaces was used as the basis for the AudioMove drama “Korridor”. Korridor was written and performed by the theater Katapult during the 2007 Århus Festuge. In the play the audience was equipped with mobile phones and headsets and sent out into the streets of Aarhus where they would scan tags, listen to the play, receive sms messages and phone calls and encounter real life actors. The play received nice reviews in the press. Mikkel Ottow from MetroXpress gave if 5 out of 6 stars and wrote:
“An interactive masterpiece: The play demonstrated a well-working, simple and impressive interactive technology which have not been seen in Denmark before.”

Links:

Korridor

MetroXpress

DR2 TV: Smagsdommerne

During the 2007 Aarhus Festival (Aarhus Festuge) which ran from August 31st to September 9th, the Center for Interactive Spaces demonstrated a mobile blogging system based around 2D-barcodes. The mobile system supported information from the Aarhus Festival’s CMS to be linked to visual tags placed at specific places in the city of Aarhus, so users could receive updated, location-based information on their mobile phones simply by scanning the tags. Each tag also had an associated Weblog so users could easily leave their impression or photos and videos on the tag or read blog entries from other users. The blog functionality was built into the mobile application so everything could be done while in the city. Links within.

During the 2007 Aarhus Festival (Aarhus Festuge) which ran from August 31st to September 9th, the Center for Interactive Spaces demonstrated a mobile blogging system based around Semacodes tags (http://semacode.org). Semacodes are 2D-barcodes that support URLs to be encoded in visual patterns which can be scanned and decoded directly from mobile phones.

The mobile system supported information from the Aarhus Festival’s CMS to be linked to visual tags placed at specific places in the city of Aarhus, so users could receive updated, location-based information on their mobile phones simply by scanning the tags. Furthermore, each tag had an associated blog so users could easily leave their impression or photos and videos on the tag or read blog entries from other users. The blog functionality was built into the mobile application so everything could be done while in the city.

The mobile application was developed for Java Microedition (JME) and was supported by hundreds of different mobile handsets from different manufactures.

For further information see:
http://www.interactivespaces.net/mobile/festuge2007

http://www.aarhusfestuge.com (link 1)

http://www.aarhusfestuge.com (link 2)

http://www.aarhusfestuge.com (link 3)

On July 4th Peter Krogh and Christian Dindler gave a talk at a Colloquium at the National Liberal Club in London on the recently developed prototypes in the IXP project. For further information on the prototypes please click here. The colloquium was organized by the research group Work, Interaction and Technology at King’s College London under the title: Enhancing the object: creating new forms of engagement in museums and galleries.

Researchers from Center for Interactive Spaces are part of a new research project with Bang & Olufsen and the Alexandra Institute entitled "Mobile Home Center". The project has a total budget of 20 mio dkr and receives 10 mio dkr. in support from the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation. Press articles in Danish are found e.g. in Jyllands Posten.