Saturday, 12 January 2013

Musical Interactive Wall

 

Moment Factory -- which has plenty of experience producing live installations for clients such as Cirque du Soleil, Disney and Nine Inch Nails -- recently installed its first interactive musical wall in the otherwise stark emergency waiting room of CHU Sainte-Justine, a hospital for mothers and children in Montreal.

A light projector displays a rainbow-coloured musical sheet on the wall and motion sensors are set up to catch the path a user traces with their finger, playing the corresponding notes in sequence and displaying colourful representations of the shapes and sounds they create.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-06/06/moment-factory-hospital-installation

Wednesday, 9 January 2013

University of Gothenburg

Helga Björg Jónasardóttir is a design student at University of Gothenburg in the Child Culture Design department in Sweden.  Her piece, playbl, was shown in Milan this year in a group show of fellow students.  Playbl, as pictured, is a multifunctional coffee table that fosters the co-existing needs of adults and children at the same time.
The University of Gothenburg offers a masters program in Child Culture Design.  The following excerpt from the university's website details a brief overview of the program:

Imagine a design specialization where the focus is on the perspective of a child: On children’s play, pedagogy, development, culture, health and above all on the tools of play. On the participation and inlfuence of childen and youth on society. Imagine a design specialization that utilizes the great existing bank of knowledge that has been accumulated in Sweden, in such areas as play, health care, education and communication. In the Fall of 2009 this vision became a reality at HDK- School of Design and Crafts, Universtiy of Gothenburg, with the introduction of the Child Culture Design Programme, CCD, a design programme unlike any other.