An interactive installation letting users to play with the keywords of Digicorp. The installation connected and educated the brand digicorp’s values with its audience in a novel fun manner.
Event: 10th Anniversary of Digicorp
Venue: Courtyard Marriott
Space: Reception Area
Every space is associated with certain interactions. The project explores artifacts and interface for interactions of such space. The integration of computation and media into physical objects and spaces results in an augmentation: contextualized, intelligent digital content manifest in the environment, thus enabling real objects and places to communicate with people, creating experiences that retain the best of both domains.
The interface is seen only as a simulacrum of reality, integrated into surrounding reality. Thus interface for such space and experience was designed bearing in mind that interface has to be clean, minimal, and support people attention and curiosity. Persons experiencing naturally interactive artifacts are not necessarily active or willing users, they can just be passing by and enjoy passively the encounter, the interface includes a basic reactive behavior for this situation.
Explorations:
Process of Designing and Progress is shown in video below
During our course CPHOA we studied kinetic arts. The creations of artist Reuben Margolin were extremely inspirational. Drawing inspiration from his work we made a wave based on rotation of cams and crank shaft. The artifact invited people to interact and people were delighted by the interaction. We took the concept further.
We used reflecting surface on the rods and projected light on the reflecting surface as a result beautiful reflections were seen on the wall. The rotation itself presented with beautiful patterns. The pattern could be altered by modifying space on the rod allowing desired pattern to be reflected on the wall. Thus we thought of an installation which would show a symbol/ message during its rotation at one particular time and will be lost in next instance in random pattern which would reappear again. This would offer engagement and surprise. This can also guide a person to the artifact if projected far.
From the day we are born we explore and learn various kinds of knowledge; we use them and create ideas. Out of all such ideas there are some ideas which are truly innovative and revolutionize the world. Such ideas are the ones which are the result of out of box thinking, which comes sometimes unexpected or has serendipity involved. They are spontaneous and have eureka moment.
“Around me a storm is brewing
I can sense it in the air
The clouds are dark and menacing
I can’t help but stop and stare…”
Our largely capitalist society propels production and industrialisation at an disturbing rate. Rampant consumption is evident in most of the so called ‘developed’ nations. Desire for mass produced goods is manufactured carefully and systematically.
The inequalities that result from following a capitalistic system are blatant and obvious. The system encourages “free market, competition and the profit motive”, creating illusions in the minds of the poor that they have an equal chance to get a piece of their pie , so long as they work hard all their lives.
The people who work in the assembly line never really have the opportunities and comforts that the rich can afford. Why then do these people never revolt, or never question the system? It is a hypnotic belief that they have been ingrained with, to live life the best way they can and God will provide, the system will provide. The richer get richer all the time, widening the economic gaps between the classes of people. More than 90 percent of the world’s power and money lies with only the top 1 percent of the people.
The rich use all sorts of means to cloud the judgement of the masses. They use mass media, the idea of freedom /patriotism and even religion to maintain their own status quo. This system and economy has moved from being purely capitalism to a concept called “plutonomy”( coined by Citicorp). According to the minimum wage regulation, wages are kept low for almost all of the population while the rest minute percentage is allowed to meet overwhelming profits.
The major industries of the world, the banks and the political powers all seek to control that 90 percent of the wealth. Sometimes fear of war and economic meltdowns is used with great finesse to pump money into the hands of the powerful. The only thing for the tycoons to fear is the power in the common man’s hand to vote.
The song that we chose was made to represent the inequality of a different kind, the one dependent on the colour of a person’s skin. Before the civil war broke out in America, African- Americans were subject to much humiliation, discrimination and prejudice. The way the English subjugated the Indians is a mirror of that , back home. Today, we condemn nations and people who are openly racially biased. How different is one form of injustice from another , though? Economic inequality is still the normal way of the world. The suppression of a certain segment of people has always been the means to gain power and wealth. The video has tried to link and show these inequalities, sometimes contrasting the way of life that the rich strive to protect, and the poor can only dream of.
Louis Armstrong was one of the first African-Americans to be accepted in music and popular culture. To his communities dismay, however , he rarely ever publicly politicized his race. Maybe he knew that such a step would spell doom for his career.
The song, “ What a wonderful world”, was first recorded by Armstrong and released as a single in 1968. Intended as an antidote for the increasingly racially and politically charged climate of everyday life in the United States, the song also has a hopeful, optimistic tone with regard to the future, with reference to babies being born into the world and having much to look forward to. However it is interesting to note that the song never really gained popularity in the US, majorly because the head of ABC did not promote it. The song though, was in the top ten charts in the UK for a long time.
The use of the song in an ironic manner has been noticed in countless films and TV series in the past. Most viewers will be familiar with it in some context or the other. This remediation of the song is our version of a ‘reality’ about the planet that we want to represent. The videos have been sourced from the large library that the internet offers.
Technically, the pace and the lilting quality of the song is apt for slow fades and cuts, as well as slow motion within the video. We have tried to place the cuts of the videos according to the gaps in between the lyrics. The content of the video itself is chosen as a direct disparity to the poetry of the song. Hence the remediation works at two levels. One, at the level of the content being ironic in contrast to the content of the song; and two at the level of the rhythm and pace of the cuts, fades and the videos themselves. The overall feel of the video is very directly ironic and sarcastic in nature. Hypermediation has been tried in the form of multiple overlays of videos , transitions and dissolves.
Why we chose to name the video “withering..” is because we felt that the system of society that propels consumption of goods, leading to industrialisation, which is largely controlled by a chosen few in power, is bound to breed unhappiness and maybe even revolt.
Sandip Chauhan
Manasi Agarwal
Lakshya Srivastava
“As medical technology, pharmaceuticals are not only products of human culture, but producers of it” Van der Geest, Whyte & Hardon
There seems to be large population today for which it has become a culture to find solution in pill for every petty problem. With ever changing lifestyle and mass branding, the psychology towards consuming drugs has increased. Drugs consumption is harmful and self prescription is dangerous. On closely looking at many problems I arrived at conclusion that the regulation of drugs in India needs large reform. Most commentators agree that the state should intervene to prevent untrammeled market forces leading to citizens’ suffering, because adequate information about the costs and benefits of different pharmaceuticals is inaccessible to most users.
To address this issue Parakh was made. In this system all the medicines will have QR code provided default by the manufacturers. This will ensure tracking of each medicine. When the code is scanned information relevant to the consumer will be revealed. The medium of mobile phone adds immediacy and ease to use Parakh.
Issues
1. Inaccessible information about medicine
2. Cost of similar drugs
3. Self prescription
4. Access to the drugs which should be regulated
5. Prescription without qualification
6. Interactions with other drugs, food and alcohol
7. No/ low visibility of essential information
8. Unethical promotion and strategies
9. Ethical promotion and the restriction of incentives to prescribers and pharmacists
10. Local-language labeling and information sheets
11. Eliminating harmful, ineffective and irrational combinations of drugs
12. Pharmaco-vigilance
Information relevant to the consumer:
1. Expiry date and manufacturing date
2. Content
3. Allergy the medication can cause
4. Side effects
5. Interaction with other drugs , food and alcohol
6. Similar medicines with same formulation with cost and ratings
Also certain features that I believe that might be helpful:
1. User generated rating, reviews and experience
2. Ease of lodging complaints in event of spurious drugs
3. Forum to discuss
Working:
• Scanning QR code will reveal the information
• Parakh is a vade mecum, the information which a user requires instantly after scanning is given on first screen. This includes expiry date, notification about the drug if it should be consumed by prescription only, known allergy/allergies.
• The system also provides information about the content of the medicine, its interaction with other drugs, food, alcohol and side- effects.
• Similar drugs category provides cost, ratings and brands which sell the same drugs.
• To make customers proactive, a section is provided where customer can lodge a complaint directly to drug regulatory bodies like FDA.
• User reviews and ratings data will also be shown.
• Language problem can be solved by providing information about the content in all regional language. The information is accessed from database stored on cloud. Thus a community of well informed and aware nation can be established.
Rotoreliefs:
Rotoreliefs were originally cardboard discs with spiral patterns printed on them, made to be watched whirling on record players. They produce an illusion of volume, depth and motion created by moving 2-D image. Duchamp got that idea after producing Anemic Cinema, an optical-illusion film, in 1925.In Class of Composition Processing and History of Arts (CPHOA) we studied various artists. Marcel Duchamp was one of them. The whirling disc of Duchamp called “Rotoreliefs” almost produced hypnotic effect. Taking inspiration from these discs we had to come up with our own patterns of disc.The following are single image which when rotated/ Whirled produce illusion of volume, depth and motion.
Please click on image first and then use slider to increase or decrease speed.
It may take few moments to load.
Spiral Green:
Exploring ellipse, colours, rotation and opacity I came up with composition bellow. Made in Processing.
Exploring equations for spirals, colours, rotation and line I came up with this composition in Processing.
You need to allow Java Plugin to run if your web browser asks for. Once click on the block that contains the composition and press key form “0” to “9” to see the variation in speed.
Laughter is the best medicine.
Laughter is the most essential human emotion. Based on this we have designed an application that appeals to users of all kinds. Aptly called “Lol Application” , this application makes the mobile a part of our happy moments, as the mobile laughs at our jokes! On enabling the application, it detects human laughter of one or many people and starts laughing as well! The application runs up to three seconds after the laughter in the environment has subsided.
The application is easy to use & appeals to people of all ages & temperament.
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