Narrative Spaces: bridging architecture and entertainment via interactive technology (original) (raw)

2002, 6th International Conference on Generative Art, Milan, …

Our society's modalities of communication are rapidly changing. Large panel displays and screens are be ing installed in many public spaces, ranging from open plazas, to shopping malls, to private houses, to theater stages, classrooms, and museums. In parallel, wearable computers are transforming our technological landscape by reshaping the heavy, bulky desktop computer into a lightweight, portable device that is accessible to people at any time. Computation and sensing are moving from computers and devices into the environment itself. The space around us is instrumented with sensors and displays, and it tends to reflect a diffused need to combine together the information space with our physical space. This combination of large public and miniature personal digital displays together with distributed computing and sensing intelligence offers unprecedented opportunities to merge the virtual and the real, the information landscape of the Internet with the urban landscape of the city, to transform digital animated media in storytellers, in public installations and through personal wearable technology. This paper describes technological platforms built at the MIT Media Lab, through 1994-2002, that contribute to defining new trends in architecture that merge virtual and real spaces, and are reshaping the way we live and experience the museum, the house, the theater, and the modern city. 1. A new architecture for the information society Architecture is no longer simply the play of masses in light. It now embraces the pla y of digital information in space. William J. Mitchell, Dean of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning, in: e-topia, pg. 41 Our daily lives are characterized by our constant access-to and processing-of a large quantity and variety of information. In the last decade, t he rapid diffusion of the information superhighways, the amazing progress in performance and processing power of today's computers, paralleled by a drop of their cost , has determined a profound transformation of western world societies. In addition to being transmitted by the traditional media, such as television, radio, the newspaper, the book, the telephone, the mail, information is conveyed to us in electronic form by the home or office computer, public billboards, private hand-held PDAs, cellular phones, and soon even by our wrist-worn watch and clothes. The potential offered by the rapid and efficient exchange of data, globally, between individuals and organizations, delineates new social, economic, and cultural models based on the exchange of knowledge. The information society is defined by the primary role of information, such that power and growth are associated to our ability to receive, store, process, and transmit information instantaneously.