Screens in the Wild 2013, United Kingdom, London and Nottingham
Screens in the Wild: connecting communities
Screens in the Wild has built a series of architectural interfaces in East London and Nottingham neighbourhoods, which use broadcast media and interactive technologies to enhance real world connections, add value to the daily experience of the urban environment, foster community participation and ownership of the urban space. It investigates how media screens located in urban space can be designed to benefit public life, rather than merely transmit commercial content.
The team has installed 4 networked screens nodes connecting two locations in East London (Leytonstone Library and The Mill community hub in Walthamstow), with two locations in Nottingham (Broadway Cinema and New Art Exchange). The aim is to enable user generated content though various forms of participation including the support of situated interactions through video connection between the four different nodes and/or participation through remote connection by connecting the situated interactions with online non spatial forms of content.
Details
Project artist/ concept/ design/ planning : Screens in the Wild is a collaborative project initiated by researchers from the The Bartlett at University College London and the Mixed Reality Lab at University of Nottingham with the main partner, the London Borough of Waltham Forest, working with East London communities.
Facade design : Space Group at University College London at University College London and the Mixed Reality Lab at University of Nottingham
Project co-ordination : UCL
Descriptions
Resolution and transmitting behaviour : The technology consists of four hardware nodes and a set of associated software tools. The hardware nodes are overall general purpose enough to accommodate a variety of approaches of generating applications and experiences enabled through touch and computer vision (webcams). 4 nodes @ standard Windows 7PC is connected to a 46" display, which is mounted in portrait mode and separately networked
Urban situation : Each location is unique in its spatial properties and social conditions, which influence the overall experience
Description of showreel : To date the platform supports two experiences: during day time, user generated photos are displayed using twitter and Instagram. 8 different hashtags are identified, which appear on the screen and allow people to engage with the relevant content. 2) collaborative music experience, where people can participate either in the same location or remotely in generating the final outcome .