reorient / reconfigurable house

The Reconfigurable House is an environment constructed from thousands of low tech components that can be “rewired” by visitors. The project is a critique of ubiquitous computing “smart homes”, which are based on the idea that technology should be invisible to prevent DIY.

Smart homes actually aren’t very smart simply because they are pre-wired according to algorithms and decisions made by designers of the systems, rather than the people who occupy the houses.

In contrast to such homes, which are not able to adapt structurally over time, the many sensors and actuators of Reconfigurable House can be reconnected endlessly as people change their minds so that the House can take on completely new behaviors.

Exhibitions
2008
Reconfigurable House 2, B33, Hasselt, Belgium
2007
Reorient – The Grand Baldachin, Instituthongrois, Paris, France
Reconfigurable House, NTT/ICC, Tokyo, Japan
2006
Venice Biennale of Architecture, Hungarian Pavilion

Credits

RECONFIGURABLE HOUSE TEAM

USMAN HAQUE (UK), AI HASEGAWA (JP), BARBARA JASINOWICZ (PL), GABOR PAPP (HU), BENGT SJOLEN (SE), ADAM SOMLAI-FISCHER (HU), TAMAS SZAKAL (HU)
Project website

Reorient team
Anna Baróthy, Balázs Bodó, Attila Bujdosó, Panni Dávidházy, Pierre Földes, Krisztián Kelner, Ida Kiss, Gergely Kovács, Melinda Matúz, Attila Nemes, Anita Pozna, Gergely Salát, Adam Somlai-Fischer, Barbara Sterk, Tamás Szakál, Samu Szemerey, Zsuzsanna Szvetelszky.

Project website

Aleph

Aleph is an experimental public display, that is using the spaces, people and objects it faces as a palette to display messages from hidden viewpoints. When looking at a small mirror, it reflects a fraction of the space around us, when looking at a mirror façade, it reflects most things around us, containing segments that are dark or bright, red or green. But if we build a matrix of small mirrors, which can adjust their tilt according to the site they are facing, we can create a display that uses the ever changing flux of the place to show images from certain points in space.

project website

Exhibitions
2008
Venice Biennale of Architecture, International Selection, Venice, Italy

2007
Picture House – Belsay Hall, Belsay, UK

by Bengt Sjölén and Adam Somlai Fischer 

The name comes from a fictional point of singularity by Jorge Luis Borges:

Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping or confusion.

"Under the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brightness. At first I thought it was spinning; then I realized that the movement was an illusion produced by the dizzying spectacles inside it. The Aleph was probably two or three centimeters in diameter, but universal space was contained within it, with no diminution in size. Each thing (the glass surface of a mirror, let us say) was infinite things, because I could clearly see it from every point in the cosmos. I saw the populous sea, saw dawn and dusk, saw the multitudes of the Americas, saw a silvery spiderweb at the center of a black pyramid, saw a broken labyrinth (it was London), saw endless eyes, all very close, studying themselves in me as though in a mirror, saw all the mirrors on the planet (and none of them reflecting me), saw in a rear courtyard on Calle Soler the same tiles I'd seen twenty years before in the entryway of a house on Fray Bentos, saw clusters of grapes, snow, tobacco, veins of metal, water vapor, saw convex equatorial deserts and their every grain of sand...."

The Aleph, Jorge Luis Borges (source: wikipedia.org)

Ping genius loci / distributed projection structure

Distributed Projection Structure is an architecture prototype where physical matter is animated by algorithmic light. Testing the limits of architectural constructions reaching the precision and resolution of media as well as how much media can become actual, and directly interact with our bodies.

Project website

Genius Loci stands for the spirit of the place, a common phrase in architecture for the poetic context, for the cultural reading of a site. Ping, the most basic command in computer networking, is a sort of greeting among computers, if I ping an address, it replies, so we know we can communicate. Ping Genius Loci(PGL) is an architectural installation trying to build a network into the poetics of the place.

PGL is built up from 300 radio networked, solar powered, self sustainable intelligent analogue pixels, that are placed on a 20 by 20 meters grid. These pixels function in the bright sunshine, and are interfacing the people walking in the grid.

Project website

Brainmirror

BrainMirror is an interactive experience where the image of the visitors brain appears mixed with his/her mirror image, using natural head movement as an interface to explore volumetric visuals of the human brain.

by Bengt Sjolen, Adam Somlai-Fischer, Danil Lundback

Exhibitions
According to our built in visitor counter Brainmirror has been used by more than than a million visitors so far.

2007 09/20 – 2007 12/18 World Culture Forum 2007, Monterrey, Mexico
2007 02/02 – 2007 05/02 ISPO 2007 with POC, München, Germany
2006 21/06 – 2006 27/08 Ludwig Múzeum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, Hungary
2006 09/09 – 2006 09/09 Lindingö Stadshus, Lidingö, Sweden
2006 09/01 – 2006 20/01 Stockholm Academic Forum, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden
2006 05/04 – 2006 08/04 Folkets hus, Stockholm, Sweden
2005 24/11 – 2005 24/11 Competence Development Fund, City Hall, Stockholm, Sweden

2005 23/09 – 2005 23/09 Researcher’s Night, LAVA, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden
2005 22/10 – 2005 13/11 Trondheim Matchmaking, Senter før Samtidskunst, Trondheim, Norway
2005 12/09 – 2005 16/09 Swedish Research Council, Stockholm, Sweden
2005 10/12 – 2005 22/12 Designåret, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden

As part of the Behold the Brain touring exhibition

2005 25/02 – 2005 25/04 Universeum, Göteborg, Sweden
2005 17/05 – 2005 31/07 Malmö Museum, Malmö, Sweden
2005 29/08 – 2005 25/10 Kalmar Slott, Kalmar, Sweden
2005 06/11 – 2006 05/02 Regionmuseet Kristianstad, Kristianstad,
2006 18/02 – 2006 20/08 Arbetets Museum, Norrköping, Sweden
2006 03/09 – 2006 22/10 Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden
2006 03/11 – 2007 04/02 Upplandsmuseet, Uppsala, Sweden
2007 20/02 – 2007 02/09 Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden
2007 14/09 – 2007 12/02 Technichus, Härnösand, Sweden