work by diffus

Presentation of Diffus 2009

Title: Date:

D I F F U S

Place:

w w w . d i f f u s . d k

Copenhagen 1/24

design - research - interactivity - tangibility

D I F F U S


! Who are we?

Diffus: is a five year old interdisciplinary art

and design company. The goal of DIFFUS is

to work with a combined practical and

theoretical approach toward informationtechnology, art, design, architecture and NewMedia.

Michel Guglielmi: Architect and teacher at

the Danish School of Design. Michel has acomprehensive experience with interactive

systems and design perspectives.

Hanne-Louise Johannesen: Art historian

with several years of teaching and researchexperience within the field of visual culture

and New Media. Hanne-Louise brings an

aesthetic, cultural as well as sociological view

into the projects.

Title: Date: Place:

2/24Presentation of Diffus Copenhagen2009

D I F F U S


! What we do

Projects: We have created a number of projects and

project proposals. All with practical as well as theoreticaldimensions. All the projects include digital media and

tangibility.

Workshops: The ideas from the projects is also focal

points for our workshops. We have arranged workshopsin collaboration primarily with Danish School of Design

and Visual Culture at University of Copenhagen.

Products: Through projects and workshops weconstantly look for new product ideas. The product are

more likely to be larger interactive systems than

singularly design objects.

Research: In order to secure theoretical depth in relationto the practise based projects, and at the same time

investigate practical aspects within theoretical problems,

we write articles and conference papers about our work.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Project proposal: East England Landmark 2004

The East England Landmark project was created in order to meet the guidelines of an ideas

competition initiated by the new region East England. As many other countries, England has gonethrough a comprehensive structural change, with the result that many small municipalities merged

and became larger regions. The competition asked for solutions that created affinity and coherence

within the new circumstances.

In stead of creating a single landmark for the whole region, our solution was to construct a mytholo-

gical magic fiction in order to provide common affinity for the people who would be affected by theproject. All the elements of the project we connected to this constructed myth about an ancient

population called Draugemits (palindrome for timeguard) who lived in East England ever since Great

Britain, according to the mythology, was little and only existed of the area of East England

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Project proposal: East England Landmark 2004

While visiting one of the approximately 100 caves spread throughout the region, it is possible to feel

the presence of other visitors in other caves through sound, light and temperature. The traces of theDraugemits are visible, but as time they are invisible themselves.

... If all the Draugemits some day disappear the time will stand still, because then nobody will drag

the time along in through the lungs and out again....

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Project proposal: The New Denmark 2006

In January 2007 Denmark went through a

structural reform, which had a substantialconsequence for the municipal composition.

Inspired by our own East EnglandLandmark project and the public frustrations

and alienation toward the plans, we createda space for democratic storytelling about

old and new municipal borders and events.

The idea was to create a memory archive,that at the same time - in order not to

become nothing but nostalgia- could look

ahead and become memories of the future.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Project proposal: The New Denmark 2006

Cairns are positioned in strategic suitable places around Denmark where old and new municipal

borders cross each other. The cairns of old days worked as marker of roads and guidelines. Thecairns of The New Denmark project mark histories and work as storytelling guidelines.

Equipped with audio guides you can navigate the countryside and when you meet a cairn

information and memories about the specific place is transmitted to you. Faced with a cairn it is also

possible to contribute with your own story.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Project proposal: Sofa Shelter 2006

The Sofa Shelter project is meant for a busy metropolis somewhere in the world. To large and

comfortable chairs are placed by a central bus shelter. Through GPS the sofa chairs and theapproaching bus are connected and if two waiting passengers choose to sit down in the sofa chairs

sound is transmitted from the bus and mixes with the sound around the bus stop.

The chairs also change colour when a bus approach, and return to the starting point when the bus

leaves the bus shelter again. This happens with the help of thermocromic print on textile and heattransporting threads that can be regulated according to the position of the bus.

The general idea with the project is to create a sort of intimity by the bus shelter and at the same

time point toward the space inside the bus that the waiting passengers will become a part of. Thisway we create a connection between where you are and where you are going to be.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Projekt proposal: Konfuse Bar, 2008.

The idea is to play with the

expectations you have when youmeet interactive technologies.

We have a skilled familiarity with

many interactive technology to

an extend that we take them for

granted.

Konfuse Bar is meant as a

teasing but polite installation, that

is able to challange the guests of

the bar.

Presentation of Diffus

Title: Date: Place:

Copenhagen 9/24

Behind the bar desk there will be a cabinet filled with bottles, from where the bartender collects the

drinks that the guests order. Every bottle casts a shadow on the translucent glass cabinet door.

The shadows will be brought to live when the cabinet is closed. This is possible because the

shadows that at first seem real is made as a computer animation.

2009

D I F F U S


! Project: Angel, Copenhagen 2004Angel was a public space intervention where the public

got the chance to become an Angel. The projectcontained a pair of angel wings placed on a pedestal in

a public space.!The presence of the wings triggered the

curiosity of the people passing by. !Some eventually

wrapped themselves into the soft and silky wings.

When this happened, they BECAME an angel andEXPERIENCED what angels do: !Hearing surrounding

peoples thoughts! ! (via inbuilt speakers). ! Sounds and

thoughts got louder when people came closer and then

seemed to vanish again, when they passed by.

A real time effect was obtained by an automatic

distance evaluation system using camera and

recognition technology. A poetic illusion of the “human

angel” immersed in to an unearthly reality, listening withkindness and sympathy to the thoughts of the

surrounding people with hopes and fears, anxiety and

desperation. Much like in Wim Wenders film Wings ofDesire (1987), where angels are walking among

people, listening to their inner thoughts, able to touchtheir fears and anxieties.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Project: Costume Choreography (!!), Copenhagen 2007

!! is a performance where the choreography of the costumes have a leading role. The costumesbecame protagonists rather than "only# supporting other elements of the performance. With the use of

electric leading material, light, heat and sensor based circuits of information it is possible to make

costumes and scenography central actors in the scenic space. !! was a research of the relationbetween one of our oldest technologies; textiles and one of the newest; sensor technology.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Project: Costume Choreography (!!), Copenhagen 2007

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Projekt: Cypherdusa, October 2007

A dancer in an interactive costume investigate the relations between movement, costume, light, sound andspace. Cypherdusa is a combination of Cypher, that refers to an algorithm for crypting language - this meanscomplex coding though operation, and the mythological figure Medusa, who can petrify someone with hergaze. The mixture of dance, costume and space becomes a thematic story about the relation between manand machine and the costume appears as a sort of membrane with it!s own meaning.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Project: A fantastic tale - Karen Blixen Museum, Aug 22nd - Nov 9th.

Title: Date: Place:

14/24Presentation of Diffus Copenhagen

In August 2008 the Boganis

room in the Karen BlixenMuseum in Rungsted, Denmark

will be transformed to an

interactive installation.

The installation will be a poeticspace playing with contrast of

intimity and extravagance and

visual and auditive text. It will be

a space clear in the outer form

and fluent and unpredictable inthe inner. Just like Karen

Blixen#s stories.

2009

D I F F U S


! Project: A fantastic tale - Karen Blixen Museum, Aug 22nd - Nov 9th.

Title: Date: Place:

15/24Presentation of Diffus Copenhagen

The installation circles around an over dimensioned book (1,5 x 2 m) where the action of thevisitors mix with the staging of Karen Blixen, her stories and the role of the "Storyteller#.

2009

D I F F U S


! Project: Costume Choreography II, Istanbul November 2008

Presentation of Diffus

Title: Date: Place:

Copenhagen 16/24

As a continuum of our own Costume Choreography

and as a result of a fruitful workshop connected to the

art and technology festival a-m-b-e-r (www.a-m-b-e-

r.net) we created a performance with textiles,

interaction, movements, light and sound.

2009

D I F F U S


! Project: Interaktive Sample Book, 2009

Title: Date: Place:

17/24

A sample book is a series of samples on a given material put together as a book (as the one youcan borrow if you are choosing new wallpaper). In other words, it is displaying material that can

illustrate what kind of materials you are working with. It is our desire to create a sample book

that can demonstrate a range of possibilities within what you might call interactive textiles.

Sample 1: Dynamic light transfer - solar cells, conductive thread, LED, optical fibres and arduinolilypad.

Presentation of Diffus Copenhagen2009

D I F F U S


! Project: Interactive Sample Book (ISB), 2009

Title: Date: Place:

18/24

ISB consists of 5 textile pages all showing a distinctive aesthetic and interactive functionality.The 5 pages are as different from each other as possible, and shows something relative to the

technology used. The senses are stimulated by the individual pages and their inputs and outputs

vary in that way from page to page. All pages are subtle, aesthetic and surprising. The goal is to

inspire!

Sample 2: Touch generated shape change - pressure sensor, conductive thread, shape memoryalloys and arduino lilypad.


D I F F U S


! Project: Cafe Pantopia, 2009-10

Title: Date: Place:

19/24

Imagine that you enter a cafe. Here you will meet not only local customers but you also have the opportunity to meetpeople who are far away from where you are. Here you can chat with a friend sitting in the other end of the NorthAtlantic enjoying a cup of coffee,together or you can play a board game, as you were in the same room. Well, it is onlya video connection, but the entire interior and frame of the experience creates a social situation as if you were in thecafe together.

You can order coffeeand food for oneanother, drink from thesame kind of cups, hearthe same music and ingeneral have a commonexperience. You mayinclude others in yourconversation, alldepending on who isentering the cafe andwhat kind of newcontexts may arise.

Diffus is connected the project as consultant and provider of design solutions.


D I F F U S


! Project: Cafe Pantopia, 2009-10

Præsentation af Diffus

Title: Date: Place:

København 20/242009

Cafe Pantopia seeks to create a common meeting place for people associated with the North-

Atlantic countries: Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark. Cafe Pantopia will thereby

support the creation, maintenance and restoration of human relationships across the North Atlantic.Technologies like e-mail, chat and video telephone already support this kind of contact, but many

people enjoy the informal atmosphere at a cafe. Cafe Pantopia supports both close contact despite

the distance and the intimate and casual city life.

Diffus is preparing the design

solutions for the project,

especially the connection table

that makes it possible and

natural to talk together acrossthe North Atlantic.

Read more about the project at:

www.cafe-pantopia.net

D I F F U S


! Workshop: Interactive textiles, sound and space 2007.

The workshop Interactive textiles, sound and space

gathered students from The School of Design,

Musicology and Visual Culture University of

Copenhagen and Interactive Sound Institute,

University of Lund

One of the results was the interactive installation

The Blob. A pressure sensor was placed in a pillow

in a sofa. When seated in the sofa a swelling slowly

appeared and grew in the ceiling made of latex.

The swelling disappeared when the person raised

again. For the installation there was created a

soundscape supporting the rather strange and

slightly spooky feeling in the installation.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Workshop: Tangible Media Bar - December 2007.

The workshop Tangible Media

Bar, culminated in an event in

December 2007. The result

was a party called Enteract.

The main theme was a

fragmented bar made of three

woollen sculptures with

intertwined illuminating wires.

Light and sound reacted when

the guests took a drink from

the sculptures. The project

became thereby a ‘common

creation’ made by the guests.

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


! Referencer: Material tests - interactive textiles

Title: Date: Place:


D I F F U S


24/24

! Work-in-progress and workshop pictures:

1) Interactive Tablecloth: Tablecloth with thermo chromic ink reacting on spilled liquid 2) The Blob: Latex-ceiling and water pump pumping

water into the latex ceiling when seated in the sofa 3) Power wallpaper: when power is switched on flowers ‘grow’ on the wall paper 4+5)

Interactive textiles workshop: Test with electroluminiscent wires 6-9) Costume Choreography: textile and light tests.

Title: Date: Place:


work by diffus

Documents