Trends in Digital Art : Installations and Subjective Cognition

1. Easily Installable and Incorporable Large-Scale Displays for Public Art Exhibition - Munehiko Sato

The use of large visual displays in public space has become increasing popular. However, it is still difficult to install new displays in already existing buildings because of the large and rigid hardware associated with such displays. A flexible light weight and easily installable display was developed and a three month long exhibit was done with this display. The display is about 300(m^2) and located at the ceiling of an airport terminal building. The system of the display will be reported as well as the artwork on it: "Constellation of Departure" which visualize departing airplanes with shining stars.

About the Speaker : Munehiko Sato is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS), Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. His research interests include embodiment and enhanced human interface particularly in the real world, and multi-modal interface. He received his B.E. degree in Engineering Synthesis and M.E. degree in Information Science and Technology from the University of Tokyo in 2006 and 2009, respectively; he also studied at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Helsinki University of Technology as an exchange student in 2006-2007 academic year.

2. Methods for transmitting subjective cognition to others - Sho Sakurai

It seems that the world shines at the time of bright feeling, and it takes on gray at the time of gloomy feeling. The environmental cognition changes depending on an individual mood and feelings, and it is hard to convey it in the linguistic expression. I study methods to transmit such a personal subjective cognition by intuitive expression, and to share it with others. At first, I used Manga as a method for that purpose, Manga can visually express actual persons or places, and personal subjective experiences such as mood, emotion and time, entirely.

However, persons who can draw Manga are limited due to problems such as ability for construction or expression. Therefore I built an interface to quasi-extract a personal mood state from human living body information (vocal information) and share it by presenting sky graphics that correspond to the mood state. As a result, the methods let many people feel that they could share an individual subjective cognition with others.

About the Speaker : Sho SAKURAI is a Ph. D. student at Hirose Tanikawa Lab (Cyber Interface Lab), Department of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Graduate School of Engineering , The University of Tokyo. Her interest includes human emotions & memories, media art / Interactive art, Manga, lifelog, VR / AR / MR, various arts and contents and devices. She received a BA degree in social and Information studies from Gumma University. She received a MA degree in interdisciplinary informatics from the University of Tokyo.