Interactive Design – Takes the Spotlight at the 2010 Winter Olympics part 2
As I mentioned in my last post, I was initially not the biggest fan of the 2010 olympic games coming to Vancouver. I had considered fleeing the city and the throngs of people that I knew would be roaming the streets.
But as a Vancouver Web Design Student and a new media enthusiast I am now hitting the streets to take in the sites right along side everyone else.
The second installation that I want to feature in my Robot Salmon 2010 Interactive Media commentary, is the digital wall that Switch Interactive created.
Technology advances, Switch Interactive walks us through an amazing experience (an Ian Smith photo)
The ” Digital Gateway” is one of the world’s longest interactive walls. You can find it downtown, beside the recently facelifted skating rink at Robson Square.
The animated presentations on the wall are randomly created by the spectators, or as us web designers would call them, “the users”. The motion from the crowd triggers sensors that detect how many people are nearby and how fast they are walking.
The Digital Gateway was created by Vancouver’s very own Switch Interactive. They are a small, independent studio that won the $600,000 contract to create the digital wall. The government deemed this interactive project worthy and lucky for us funded one of our local firms. Switch Interactive also did some interesting work for the BC Pavilion – but I will save that for another posting!
Catherine Winckler, partner and creative director of Switch describes the project “We looked at it as a new way for architecture, as well as a new opportunity to do things with walls that will relate to people. We can tailor the wall, it can be easily programmed within 24 hours to have a completely different ambience… we can change the mood, we can change the stories.”
Apparently this type of technology could even one day in the near future be applied to your umbrella so that you could display different images and information as you walked and have strangers interact with you unknowingly as they passed you on the street… could you imagine how amazing that would be? I could talk for ever about the user experience of that product!!!! I would be thrilled to never see a black, gloomy umbrella again!
There are already You tube videos up of the wall, I am sure they are inspiring Interactive Designers around the globe – the possibilities for this technology seem endless and I am sure we will witness an influx of interactive art and advertising over the next decade that will put Tom Cruise and Minority Report to shame.
read more about this in this Vancouver Sun article
Check out the info on other Code Live events and installations around Vancouver
If seeing all of this amazing Interactive Design and Interactive Media has got you thinking that you would love to get involved in this field of work check out my program at Capilano University Interactive Design
Interesting, (at least the bits I could make out easily). I am color blind (deuteranopia in my case). I mainly use Opera browser (not sure if that makes a difference), and a great deal of your webpage is tricky for me to make out. I know that it is not your problem really, nevertheless it would be great if you would bear in mind the color blind when doing the next site design.
Hi Colin,
We try hard to keep in mind the visually impaired by making the site as voice reader friendly as possible but I never really thought about color blindness. Would you be interested in doing an interview for us so we can share some tips for other web designers about how to make website more accessible to the colour blind?