Audiovisual Dance Performance

Audiovisual Dance Performance, presented in March 2015 at UT Austin, , Oscar G. Brockett Theatre. Section where a performer holding a brain computer interface (EEG) and a gyroscope interacts with the visual space and sound in real time. The EEG creates a direct link between the performer who activates and modulate the audiovisual signal in real time by concentration levels of facial expression and additional minimalistic physical movement. With the aid of a gyroscope the visualizations follow the orientation of the body, creating the illusion of infinite space on the floor.

Generative and Interactive Digital Installation

Miguel chevalier's digital arabesques adapt to visitors' movements. Miguel chevalier was influenced by moroccan culture when creating ‘digital arabesques 2015′, a generative and interactive installation shown in association with four french institutes in morocco. the work recreates moroccan artistic traditions with a digital medium, creating massive sensor-controlled carpets of light. multicolored digital scenes compose patterns reminiscent to the art of zelliges, arabesques, mosaics, and the world of mashrabiya–latticework. 

Sophisticated geometrical patterns create a scene that forms and deforms in a living, constantly renewing environment. when viewers interact with the piece they create disturbances–monitored by infrared sensors–that radiate through the patters and form unpredictable compositions.

Walk on Water in a Projection-Mapped Paddy Field

An upcropping of projection mapped screens takes root in teamLab’s interactive installation at this year’s Milan Expo. Staged in the Japanese Pavilion, HARMONY reimagines the symbolic Japanese rice paddy, the age-old foundation of country’s agricultural, as leaf-shaped screens reflecting pools of multicolored light. Installed at different heights throughout the room, the projection-mapped field replies to visitors’ movements with a myriad of dynamic designs, blooming in green swaths of grass and wriggling with silvery schools of fish. “This interactive art installation creates a space where visitors look as if they are wading their way through the ears of rice,” says teamLab on their website. “As they wander around, they can experience a passing of nature that is so characteristic of Japan across the period of a whole year.”

Rise of the Product Managing Designer

The design team at Skillshare does a lot more than just design. We’ve learned that to be as effective as possible we need to break out of our traditional role and own much more of the overall product process.

Not to say that the world does not need product managers, but by equipping our design team with skills like a deep understanding of business, operations, and analytics we’ve been able to create more impactful products at a higher velocity. Below are a few core competencies of a product managing designer.

Understand your company’s business needs and goals.

Product managers tend to have a handle on the big picture. They understand the inner workings of the business, its goals, and the focus of each team.

Without this understanding, it is nearly impossible to judge a good product idea from a bad one. Even worse still, you will be rendered unable to anticipate the repercussions of your decisions unless you consider how it relates to the larger whole.

It is critical for Skillshare’s design team to have a comprehensive understanding of the ecosystem and how each project will affect it. We do this by syncing on strategy with everyone who might have a stake in the game early and often. This happens well in advance of the formal design process. By aligning with the relevant teams, we are quick to understand how our strategy will be helpful or hurtful to them. For example, syncing with the content team on the tools they use to create classes informs what strategies we ultimately push and enables us to move forward confidently.

The Skillshare design team has gotten very good at choosing what strategies to pursue, and perhaps even more importantly, what doesn’t look like it will work, before we ever start designing.

Design doesn’t matter if it never ships.

Product managers are judged on their ability to get things out the door. This means they’re relentless when it comes to minimizing scope and sticking to a schedule in order to maximize their impact. They’re also great at taking a complex strategy and breaking it down into manageable chunks.

Because our product managing designers are responsible for strategy as well as timeline, we rarely design features that would take more than a week to build. That’s not to say we don’t work on big projects. It simply means that we invest upfront in working through how we can break a project down and get smaller pieces out the door (prioritized by impact). We quickly and effectively ship the “must-haves,” but will often deprioritize the “nice-to-haves.” This is a fact of life for a small product team, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives: 1) smaller releases are easier to QA and support, 2) much easier to iterate and 3) reduces product debt with bloated features that no one uses.

This way of working provides a strong sense of accomplishment for the product team. It also helps boost momentum companywide, since progress builds energy and keeps people excited. At Skillshare, we send a companywide email every time something ships out to the site. We believe it’s important to celebrate the wins.

Own the metrics and feedback.

Product managers tend to be an analytical bunch. Once something hits the site, they immediately start assessing its impact to see if the new feature in which they have invested so many resources is working properly.

Product managing designers need to be the same way.

At Skillshare, this means setting the right goals (realistic and measurable) at the start of a project during the strategy and alignment phase. We then loop back around immediately once something has launched and measure its effectiveness. We also keep a close eye on all other feedback sources, such as engaging with angry (or happy) tweeters or gauging user reactions with the help of our support team. Taking initiative to actively monitor results and then being proactive about updates is the only way to make a smart path forward.

This may all sound obvious, but it’s easy to ship work and forget about it. If you don’t actively reflect on your successes and failures, you will never learn what works and what doesn’t.

To dive even deeper into how Skillshare builds product, you may be interested in: Optimize Your Team for Impact over Speed or Golden Rule of Managing Up.

The Secret History of the Apple Watch

Great article about the perspectives and thoughts about the Apple Watch evolution. I am a design nerd so I always love reading articles that have the actual teams and people involved in the process. I think deeply about the projects that I work on if you are working in the Technology field and building out products as I am this one is worth a read.

Brilliant Cube is a kinetic 3D matrix

Brilliant Cube is a kinetic 3D matrix, comprised of 576 clear LED poles moving up and down. The dimension is 6M X 6M X 6M. It is located at Gangnam station crossroads, one of the most crowded spots in Seoul being a new landmark of Gangnam. With the theme of "Live Brilliant" each LED stands for the brilliant moment of our lives, and by the structure this shows the frameworks of our time that implies the social shift of each individual with equal capacity tiered in the same distance and depth. Brilliant Cube, created by a renowned media artist Jin-Yo Mok, in collaboration with Seoul based media artist group: Jonpasang, is not only a kinetic sculpture, but a medium for various messages. This installation is supported by Hyundai Motor Company and Gangnam Gu.

Light Kinetics, in the loop

Light Kinetics is the last interactive installation of Espadaysantacruz a, Madrid based, creative studio. In this piece, light is controlled by a physics simulator creating a astonishing effect. A piezo electric sensor situated in the first bulb captures the force of the tap, generating a light particle that moves along the loop. All the shades of the energy are reflected in the trajectory of the light. The system is powered by Unity 3D that simulates de forces that apply to the virtual corpuscle.

Animated Sculpture That Melts Into Itself

This past weekend, digital-art impresario Takeshi Murata premiered new work at gallery Ratio 3's space at the Frieze art fair. The artist is known for distorting and manipulating videos into chaotic-yet-stunning pieces of colorful geometry, and while his new work, Melter 3-D, is short on color, it is undoubtedly a work of incredible form—especially as it never maintains a consistent one, despite being physical. 

Melter 3-D is by definition a zoetrope, a device that produce the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures, but it's tangible. In other words, the installation is a sculptural animation. The 3D-object itself spins, creating a kinetic effect (with the help of some strobe lights) that makes it look as if it's melting into itself. 

Murata spent months configuring the object on a computer before making a physical incarnation with a master fabricator and mechanical engineers who typically work on high-profile Hollywood CGI projects. The result is truly extraordinary, as the part-animation part-sculpture looks like an alien egg, or something otherwordly. It's as if the orb has a pulse and life of its own that doesn't totally adhere to physics. 

We've seen kinetic sculptures before, but few that look this organic and natural. If we didn't know better, witnessing this sculpture for the first time might inspire a call to Sigourney Weaver. See some photos of the work below: