Cool Hunting

Scott Snibbe DVD
Second to actually experiencing Snibbe's interactive installations is watching his recent DVD anthology that has several examples of how people react to the work. Expressions of delight and wonder are common as onlookers discover the playful conceits that drive the pieces, like in Blow Up, small transmitter fans that "amplify" viewers' breath to a wall of large fans that creates a wind field pattern....

Dielectric
Fabian Winkler has created an interactive installation piece called Dielectric. Inspired by the buzzing of powerlines, Winkler has created a structure that is a hybrid of powerlines and a traditional hammock. A sensor measures the changes of the electromagnet field. When a person approaches, she or he disrupts the electromagnetic field causing arcing, which is when electricity jumps across space to make a connection...

SimpleTEXT
Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Tim Redfern have created SimpleTEXT, a cool installation / performance piece that uses text messages from the audience to create an audio-visual performance. From their site: SimpleTEXT is a collaborative audio/visual public performance that relies on audience participation through input from their mobile phones. The project focuses on connecting people in shared spaces by attempting to merge distributed devices with creative...

I Want You To Want Me Video
"I Want You To Want Me," an interactive piece on the subject of online dating and relationships by perennial CH fave Jonathan Harris and his collaborator Sep Kamvar, and one of the standouts commissioned for MoMA's recent Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit, is the subject of this m ss ng p eces produced video. For anyone who missed the show at MoMA, the short...

Reed Barrow: Monument to an Amaranth
Another experiment in reinventing the screen, New York-based sculptor Reed Barrow's LED chandelier, dubbed "Monument to an Amaranth," functions as a 360 degree display, playing a 12-minute video loop of abstract imagery. The teched-out fixture is a departure from Reed's other recent work, which tends toward absurd cultural interpretations (like a life-size werewolf sleeping in the web of a phosphorescent dream-catcher). Monument also has...

Marcus Tremonto: Lightworks
Working with light and illusion, NYC-based artist Marcus Tremonto further blurs that permeable line between art and design with his current exhibition, Lightworks, at Philips de Pury. The result of three years of work, the show of 16 sculptural forms, tables and lamps draws on both Tremento's "Fantasma" (ghost in Italian) and "Stitch" series which use electroluminescent material to evoke everything from traditional chandeliers to...