tbd _ Vitra - co-playing.
20??. Vitra Design Museum / Van Bo Le-Mentzel. The goal of the 'Co-Playing' workshop was to create new ideas/spaces and concepts for a co-playing generation. It is basically about creating a space for the young and the old.
tbd - Theresa, Kostiantyn and I asked ourselves how we could playfully discover new possibilities by collaborating. The challenge was to create a place where the creativity of children and adults could be challenged in a playful way and where they could pursue their respective interests together. It was very important to us to create a connection to the surrounding population through individual design possibilities of the place. The result was a place where several generations can carry out a wide variety of activities through flexible modules. This ranges from simple games over meetings and conferences to overnight accommodation for people in need.
Credit: Sonja Heim
tbd _ It works! Controlling pitch, beat and volume with our arms and legs.
Working with a Kinect & Processing was a fun & enriching challenge.
Getting the concept down on paper.
Having people from different creative fields in one team was great. We were able to approach ideas from different perspectives and merge them into one concept.
Translating the idea into code.
By watching many tutorials and tweaking some excisting open source sketches we eventually managed to write a working code of our concept in Processing.
Adjusting each parameter.
During an iterative process we tested the construct consisting of a Kinect V1 and a sketch in Processing, defined and adjusted all necessary parameters for the interaction.
Having a fun time.
After transferring our concept from paper to a physical experience we had a great time playing and being the conductor for a piano and drums. Just by moving our bodies.
What I've learned.
Working with a Kinect and Processing for the first time can be a frustrating task, especially if you consider the lack of expertise in that field and only having a few days to execute. Through the help of my team mates and watching many tutorials I was able to get a better understanding of programming and how to change existing code or ad new features. I also learned that programming is a great tool to ideate and try different versions of an application immediately on the spot by just tweaking some lines. Going from initially rather complex ideas to a simple solution helped us to eventually deliver a working prototype in a short period of time.