john rothenberg


	WetSpace Gestural Physics Modeling Detailed Documentation: XX Quicktime Movie: 71 Mb Hardware Images: 01 02 03 04 Software Screenshots: 01 02 03 04 05		Hardware and Software Fall 2006 WetSpace is an attempt to create a dynamic, gesture based, architectural modeling software. In WetSpace, the design process is a performative act, where the user engages with a set of forces and flows in order to model space. In order to more fully link the body to the software, I developed an Intertial Momentum Unit (IMU) to be used as a three dimensional input device. The real-time translation and rotation of the device is streamed wirelessly to the modeling software, allowing the user to control the design process with this data.


	Video Beam ICA Boston Quicktime Movies: 24 Mb 21 Mb Images: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07		Lobby Installation Winter 2006 I was hired as part of Small Design Firm to design and program the dynamic video signage in the lobby of the new Institute of Contemporary Arts, Boston. The signage elements are automatically generated from the Institute's online calendar of events and the sign determines which content to display based on the current time and the day's programming. The sign is composed of six 45" LCD screens and functions as one continuous display surface.


	They're Live Fringe Exhibitions Quicktime Movie: 18 Mb Installation Images: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08		Mutlimedia Installation Summer 2006 This remix of live television, built as part of my work with sosolimited, is a computer program that looks at the television signal as a stream of text, searching for products. It responds to this incoming feed by translating the Closed Captions into its own pseudo-language of brand names, and presents this revised content through dynamic typograpy and illustration. The goal is to turn all of the television signal into one continuous, semi-legible commercial. This piece was exhibited as part of Computing Culture's group show at Fringe Exhibitions in Los Angeles.


	darkWatch Computing Culture Group Images: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10		Mobile Hardware Device Fall 2005 darkWatch is a mobile communication device that takes the form of a watch but displays dark or secret intervals of time. Embedded in a silicon rubber is an LED display that modulates according to an interval of time set by the user. The device is intended to communicate forbidden information in a semi-public, encoded form. I designed the circuitry, programmed the device, and fabricated it by hand. darkWatch can be seen at the Seamless computational couture show, Feb 1 at the Museum of Science, Boston


	reConstitution sosolimited Quicktime Movies: 01 Live Images: 01 02 03 04 Hi Res Screencaps: 01 02 03 04 05		Live Performance Series Fall 2004 sosolimited is an audiovisual collective composed of Eric Gunther, Justin Manor, Timon Botez and myself. With an emphasis on live performance, we write custom software to manipulate the NTSC signal in real time. For the 2004 presidential debates, we presented an analytical remix in three dimensions to live audiences at the Art Interactive and MIT Media Lab. We used the information contained in the video signal and closed captions as the foundation for a number of aesthetic and informational modes, each focusing on a different aspect of the debate.


	Nobel Peace Center Small Design Firm Images: 01 02 03 04 05		Interactive Installation Summer 2005 Small Design Firm was selected to help design and implement four large interactive installations for the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway. Each piece required us to write original graphics software and design custom electronics. In the Nobel Chamber, the signature interactive, I was responsible for the design of LED driver and Sonar presence sensing hardware as well as the programming of interactive graphics displayed on the portrait screens. The project was a collaboration between Small Design Firm, Timon Botez, Paul Amble, and Adjaye/Associates.


	Duration Density and Evolutionary Form Thesis: pdf Design Sketches: Java Applets 01 02 03 04 Surface: 01		MIT Undergraduate Thesis Spring 2002 My undergraduate thesis includes research into nonlinearity as a challenge to the dominant understanding of the relationship between artificial and natural. From this research, the concept of duration is proposed as a new way of viewing the distinction between the natural and artificial. The thesis looks to ideas of adaptation and evolution as well as biological models of systems exhibiting these properties. Computation is used to model design sketches based on adaptive and genetic algorithms. Finally, a design experiment incorporates all of these ideas in an evolutionary architectural surface.


	Audio/Viscera designlab Siemens mobile Images: 01 02 03 04 04 Press: pdf		Research and Installation Spring 2003 This work aims to explore ways in which sound can be treated as an architectural material. This theme is presented through an installation in which a user interacts with a virtual soundscape through their physical motion. The user wears a helmet containing wireless headphones, and their motion through the exhibition space is tracked by a custom computer vision system. This motion determines the sound they will hear in the headphones and it serves the secondary purpose of redefining the soundscape.


	Illuminated Manuscript Documenta 11 Images: 01 02 03 04		Interactive Installation Summer 2002 A commissioned woek by David Small and Small Design Firm work for Documenta11 in Kassel, Germany, the Illuminated Manuscript explores the communicative possibilities of spatialized language in the electronic media. Combining physical interfaces with purely typographical information in a virtual environment, this piece explored new types of reading in tune with human perceptual abilities. I programmed a number of typographic spreads for the piece, each one a study a specific human interaction with an aspect of book layout.


	Transcription of Sound sosolimited Images: 01 02 03 04		Live Performance Fall 2003 Justin Manor spent the summer of 2003 as artist-in-residence at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria. As the summer wound down he invited us to join him for an audio visual performance at ARS 2003. "The Transcription of Sound" was the sosolimited's ambitious attempt to visualise the essence of sound through typography. Our premise was that if sound can be represented phonetically then music can be transcribed. This was the starting point for much of our subsequent work on the synchronization of sound, moving image, and type.