Currently showing at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam are three installations from the first five years of Hellicar&Lewis: The Hello Cube, Feedback and Somantics.
Documentary directed by Steven Elbers. In collaboration with Diederick Huijbers, Todd Vanderlin, Marek Bereza and Dr. Wendy Keay-Bright.
Thanks to the openFrameworks community and What Design Can Do festival.
Prints of our posters will be available soon.
We collaborated with Intel as they launched 3rd Generation Intel Core processor to create Triptych. Powered by the latest generation of Ultrabooks and Inspired by Intel, the launch event used immersive installations to bring Intel’s new processors to life.
We teamed up with Blink Art and Protein to produce the installation and launch event in the Vinyl Factory in Soho, London.
Triptych consists of three fully immersive interactions with particle simulation and real time physics, focused key elements of Intel’s new processors: design, power and performance and security. The installation saw people interact with Microsoft’s Kinect motion sensors, hooked up to Intel-powered laptops, creating visuals projected onto giant screens that reacted differently depending on a visitor’s movements.
For example “Security”, representing virus and malware protection, saw a school of piranha-like quadrilaterals dive into the on screen silhouette of who ever was interacting in real time.
We worked with several members of the openFrameworks community and wider development community to make the project happen:
Source code available on GitHub.
Intel Triptych at The Vinyl Factory, London.
The Hello Cube was installed on the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall bridge from Friday March 23rd to Sunday March 25th, 2012, as part of Tate Collectives Infinite Kusama. This was part of Tate’s Yayoi Kusama exhibition programme and innovative new approach to digital interaction for the UK’s largest public art institution.
The Hello Cube is a digital installation that combines interactive software with a physical object in order to create a unique digital experience that integrates online, social media and physical interaction.
The world’s first “Twitterable Object,” visitors could interact directly with physical installation in the Tate’s Turbine Hall and beyond this, anyone could interact remotely anywhere in the world via Twitter.
We worked with several members of the openFrameworks community and wider development community to make the project happen:
Source code available on GitHub.
By tweeting @thehellocube with a series of commands based on Yayoi Kusama’s practice a visitor can generate their own unique work. The Hello Cube responds to a series of scenes, colors, and actions, based on workshops run as part of the development process with young people and galleries across London. The Hello Cube development process was based on young people’s response Yayoi Kusama and Hellicar & Lewis’s own artistic practice.
Tate Audiences & Media team and Tate Collectives teamed up with The Louis Vuitton Young Arts programme and REcreative website with the ambition of finding new ways to engage young people with Kusama’s work and philosophy.
The Hello interaction series began with the earlier openFrameworks development on The Hello Wall
Hello Cube, Tate Modern Turbine Hall.
For TED 2012 at Long Beach, California, Hellicar & Lewis were commissioned to create The Dewar’s Hub. Dewars partnered with TED to sponsor its annual technology conference TED and this year debuted its interactive ‘Dewar’s Hub’.
Hellicar and Lewis collaborated with Nexus Interactive Arts to create an interactive digital installation that linked social media comment and real world TED event conversation, creating a ‘conscious graphic’.
TED attendees and offsite Twitter users could interact with The Hub by tweeting @dewarshub. The installation immediately and continuously updated as the technology conference unfolded, creating a visualisation of the social interactions at TED 2012.
The installation displayed @dewarshub tweets in the midst of a real time visualisation of all the Twitter activity at TED – drawing connections between keywords and tweets in real time. The hub also used Microsoft Kinect to allow real world users to physically change the visualisation.
The Dewar’s Hub was created using Open Frameworks to deliver a real time experience bridging the real world and Twitter.
We worked with several members of the openFrameworks community and wider development community to make the project happen:
Source code available on GitHub.
The Dewar’s Hub, TED 2012.
The Somantics project is a suite of applications that use touch, gesture and camera input to encourage, capture and amplify the interests of young people with Autistic Spectrum Conditions and other related communication difficulties. The overarching goal of Somantics is promote greater self-awareness, confidence and independence.
Interaction with Somantics is repetitious, flowing and highly expresssive. The applications are non-competitive; users discover their own purpose. Somantics functions as a tool for researchers, teachers, parents and practitioners; it is available for use across educational, community and clinical settings.
Somantics is available for the iPad and iPad2. Mac, PC and Linux versions are currently in development. Desktop and laptop machines require a Microsoft Kinect or compatible device to function.
Somantics was a winner of the Making Waves competition sponsored by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Technology Strategy Board, managed by JISC Techdis.
Somantics is co-produced by Dr. Wendy Keay-Bright (UWIC), Joel Gethin Lewis and Pete Hellicar of Hellicar & Lewis, and Interaction DesignerMarek Bereza.
The research and design team also involved working with the designer and researcher Joshua Noble, cognitive psychologist Darren Walker and Head of Creative Curriculum at Ashgrove School in Penarth, Ben Milne.
You can download Somantics for free from the Apple iPad Store.
You can find the source code for Somantics on the Hellicar&Lewis GitHub site.
Tunnel, Somantics
REACKTICKLES
ReacTickles Magic is a suite of applications that use touch, gesture and audio input to encourage interactive communication. The overarching goal of ReacTickles Magic is to allow users to playfully explore the magical possibilities of the system without prior knowledge or skill with technology. The variety of input modes reward any action with a dynamic array of animated shapes and patterns.
Trail, ReacTickles Magic
Tim & Barry, dontwatchthat.tv and H&L put together a great 3 hour show. Streamed live on U-stream, as part of The Create Festival.
Watch highlights at www.dontwatchthat.tv.
Thanks to:
Creative Technology London for being amazing and providing us with some great kit.
Beccy McCray and all at Nexus Interactive Arts.
Bafic for being Bawse.
As part of the Create Festival we were invited with other parts of the Nexus Interactive Arts roster to install work at the Create House. We exhibited Feedback I – a collaboration with Todd Vanderlin. Created in openFrameworks. Feedback I was originally created with the support of the Roundhouse and onedotzero.
A 3D render of our projection surface.
That’s supposed to be Adam Levine.
Shape Construction putting the finishing touches to our full size projection surface, just prior to the event.
The studio set up plan for the projection and interactive system.
A rendered fly through of the studio space.
Various development images of the interactive modes, each designed to deal with a separate interaction with the fans.
On March 22nd, 2011, Hellicar&Lewis teamed up with Nexus Productions, Wieden+Kennedy, Frukt, Lexus PR, Coca-Cola and Maroon 5 to put on a live 24 hour music event.
As well as directing the visual identity of the event, and the narrative flow over the 24 hours, we used openFrameworks to create and deliver an interactive experience for the band in the studio that allowed them to interact with fans Tweets in real time. The event was simultaneously broadcast to the world via the web thanks to Streaming Tank and Akamai. Tomas Leach directed the camera team.
We worked with several members of the OpenFrameworks community to make the project happen:
Coca-Cola’s archive of the event is here.
An interview with Pete and Joel about the project:
A behind the scenes look the gestural projection mapping technology we used:
Our blog post about the project.
As part of Semi-Permanent Hong Kong, we were invited to create a new version of our Feedback installation. Again working in collaboration with Todd Vanderlin, we used a Kinect camera in order to allow three dimensional interaction with the piece. Made with openFrameworks.
For the premiere reception of the film adaptation of the book “Norwegian Wood” by Haruki Murakami in London at the Haunch of Venison Gallery, we created an audio responsive projection. Containing four scenes, the installation references the art direction of the film and the traditional imagery of Japanese seasons.
Full source is available at our GitHub page.
Wood McGrath commissioned us to create a wall based interactive installation based around the theme of Stripes for Uniqlo‘s recent press event in London.
Full source is available on our GitHub page.
As part of the Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes exhibition at the V&A, we were invited to collaborate with the Education Department to create an interactive installation. Building on our previous work with Masks, we produced an interactive mask maker that was audio responsive.
Full source is available at our GitHub page.
We were commissioned by the Tate Britain and APFEL to create a Twitter wall that would allow the public and gallery visitors to comment on the work within the Turner Prize Nominee Exhibition. We searched Twitter in real time to create a stream of public commentary, with another stream to allow curators to promote specific comments and editorialise the Twitterverse’s commentary.
Divide By Zero is an interactive dance performance made in collaboration with with Nina Umniakov, first performed at the Laban School by Catarina Carvalho.
Divide by Zero is completely real-time – all imagery is generated on the fly by custom software using computer vision to capture the body silhouette and movement of a dancer.
Full source code is available at Github.
Rehearsal Video for Divide By Zero.
We were commissioned by i-am beyond to create a bespoke super wide LED VJ installation for the Nokia World 2010 party.
Live performers included Ellie Goulding and DJ Beardyman.
Full source code available on our GitHub site.
As part of Loud Tate, we created an audio reactive VJ app which was activated by a live performance from Jammer.
Full source code available on our GitHub page.
We were invited by onedotzero and the Banff Centre to install Feedback I in the new Kinnear Centre. As well as architectural scale projections on the exterior of the new building we collaborated with Graham Frampton to produce a new bespoke frame for the installation.
A table based interactive installation for the Kaleid Editions Gallery. Supported by Creative Technology London.
Full source is available on our GitHub page.
In May we created a print for exhibition at London’s Outline Editions Gallery. Prints may be purchased through their website. More alternates can be seen below.
Feedback – case study from onedotzero on Vimeo.
Feedback was commissioned by the Roundhouse and onedotzero, as part of Roundhouse CircusFest 2010. It has since been exhibited at the Banff Art Centre in Canada, in St. Petersberg as part of the Yota show and finally as part of the London opening of onedotzero 2010.
Inspired by the Hall of Mirrors often found at Circus and fairgrounds, Feedback takes your digital reflection and distorts it kinetically and in time.
Made in collaboration with Todd Vanderlin.
Full source code is available on our GitHub page.
The Hello Wall was commissioned by Wasted Spaces as part of their Wembley Wall project. See http://www.thehellowall.com for more information and instructions. It has since been exhibited at the Watermans gallery as part of their Unleashed Devices show.
Full source code is available via our GitHub page.
We have just started doing a radio show on London Fields Radio.
Matt is our lovely producer.
You can see our show notes above. Doing the show is part of our “Scare Ourselves with One New Thing Every Month” policy. What will we come up with next month?
Here are all three of us in the booth at Wiltons Cafe, where we record the show. You can find the archive of all the shows on London Fields Radio at their Podcasts page.
Update! You can find the latest shows at the London Fields Radio Mixcloud page.
In February we contributed a print to the “Love and Haiti” exhibition organized by our friends at Darkroom.
The first sketch of the idea by Pete.
Please see the original project post on Mirror, Mirror for more details on the project.
First successful multi-person track.
First successful track with a mask larger than the face itself.
We created a custom drawing tool to allow Pete to generate mask paths for the installation. This is a grab of one of the first paths drawn.
A grab using some of the custom elements that Pete had selected from the V&A archive. It was obvious at this stage that the next step was to add reflected elements, as well as scaling to ensure that the masks generated didn’t get overwhelming in scale.
A grab of a scaling, mirrored mask.
Please see this post for more details on the project. An early render of the installation, when still at the planning stage.
We started to build the installation in West London at Shape Construction‘s space.
Experiments with coating attachment techniques. We ended up using a material reclaimed from car tyres.
Joe, who helped us on the project, testing out the face tracking software.
Pete experimenting with the face tracking, and his laser eyes.
Joe organising mirror pieces at Selfridge’s before moving them into the window area proper.
Rigging and planing in the window itself.
Final squeeze.
At 0900 in the morning, after a very very long night.
Pete and I decided to use WordPress for the new version of our site, after the super minimal previous version.
I spotted that the new version of WordPress gave a new thumbnail feature that I was very keen to utilise:
http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/new-in-wordpress-2-9-post-thumbnail-images/
I was interested in using the Thematic Theme Framework, but also wanted to add custom typography, via the new CSS Fontface feature, beautifully explained in the article linked to below:
http://nicewebtype.com/notes/2009/10/30/how-to-use-css-font-face/
Particularly great is the @font-face kit generator, linked to in the article. As for font conversion, after downloading X11 for OS X, I downloaded the superlative and free font utility, FontForge.
I used this post to learn how to remove the side bar from the site for non-front pages, and the following code to generate the front page:
<?php
/*
Template Name: HellicarAndLewis Front Page
*/
global $options;
foreach ($options as $value) {
if (get_option( $value['id'] ) === FALSE) { $$value['id'] = $value['std']; }
else { $$value['id'] = get_option( $value['id'] ); }
}
?>
<?php get_header() ?>
<div id="container">
<div id="content">
<?php thematic_navigation_above();?>
<?php get_sidebar('index-top') ?>
<?php thematic_above_indexloop() ?>
<?php
$my_query = new WP_Query('category_name=Selected&posts_per_page=-1');
while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); // Start the loop:
// This is just what we decide to show in each post ?>
<div id="post-<?php the_ID() ?>">
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<?php thematic_postheader(); ?>
</a>
<div>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<?php the_post_thumbnail(); // we just called for the thumbnail ?>
</a>
<?php the_excerpt(); // we just called for the excerpt ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<p>Read more...</p>
</a>
</div>
<?php thematic_postfooter(); ?>
</div><!-- .post -->
<?php
endwhile; // loop done, go back up?>
<?php thematic_below_indexloop() ?>
<?php get_sidebar('index-bottom') ?>
<?php thematic_navigation_below();?>
</div><!-- #content -->
</div><!-- #container -->
<?php thematic_sidebar() ?>
<?php get_footer() ?>
And the category pages for Blog and Project posts:
<?php
/*
Template Name: HellicarAndLewis Projects Page
*/
global $options;
foreach ($options as $value) {
if (get_option( $value['id'] ) === FALSE) { $$value['id'] = $value['std']; }
else { $$value['id'] = get_option( $value['id'] ); }
}
?>
<?php get_header() ?>
<div id="container">
<div id="content">
<?php the_post() ?>
<?php thematic_page_title() ?>
<?php rewind_posts() ?>
<?php thematic_navigation_above();?>
<?php
$my_query = new WP_Query('category_name=Project&posts_per_page=-1');
while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); // Start the loop:
// This is just what we decide to show in each post ?>
<div id="post-<?php the_ID() ?>">
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<?php thematic_postheader(); ?>
</a>
<div>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<?php the_post_thumbnail(); // we just called for the thumbnail ?>
</a>
<?php the_excerpt(); // we just called for the excerpt ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<p>Read more...</p>
</a>
</div>
<?php thematic_postfooter(); ?>
</div><!-- .post -->
<?php
endwhile; // loop done, go back up?>
<?php thematic_navigation_below();?>
</div><!-- #content .hfeed -->
</div><!-- #container -->
<?php thematic_sidebar() ?>
<?php get_footer() ?>
Software: YesYesNo
Show Direction and Production: Inside Out Productions
Production: Simon Velvin @ The Church
Projection: The Electric Canvas
Hellicar & Lewis produced, interaction designed and art directed a large scale interactive installation for the rebrand of NZ Telecom at the Ferry Building, Auckland, New Zealand.
Using software created in openFrameworks by YesYesNo, we collaborated to create a series of installations that worked with peoples bodies, hands or even mobile phones.
Taking place over five days, the source code (designed for openFrameworks 0.06) is available here.
Software Development: Shawn Bonkowski and Zach Lieberman.
We were invited by Diesel to create visuals for the London leg of the 2009 Diesel:U:Music Tour.
Using openFrameworks, we created a custom piece of “VJ” software that would allow us to mix live generated graphics and pre-rendered content from the bands, as well as taking live audio input from the performers.
Source code available soon via the Hellicar & Lewis Google Code site.
We were invited by Selfridges to create an installation for their Spring/Summer 2009 sale, entitled “2109” – an ad hoc vision of domestic design utopia in 2109.
Predictions for the future inevitably say more about the time when the predictions were made, rather than the future itself. Our aim was to make the visitors in the street and store to feel like they have stumbled across a shrine to the past from the future. A bizarre place that feels new or alien in some undefinable way. A blend of analogue and digital. A Future Artefact.
People are the future, and we wanted to say that by reflecting people in unexpected and whimsical ways. We didn’t want to make an animated installation, we wanted to make people animate themselves. We made a time machine, a way of looking through time, both digitally and in the true physical sense. Light takes time to travel, so looking at oneself in the mirror can be though of as time travel. We played with this perception of time throughout the life of the installation.
The installation utilised openFrameworks based face tracking technology, to grab peoples faces from the street in real time. These faces were displayed on the screen, digitally affected by our algorithms and the analogue installation of mirrors and other physical devices. The installation was designed to be effective from the exterior and interior of the store, with cameras aimed at both areas, to encourage immediate street based engagement and further investigation in-store. After the installation, the source for the installation was released.
We were invited by the Victoria and Albert Museum‘s Learning & Interpretation department to create an installation to engage people of all ages over their Baroque weekend, in support of the recent Baroque exhibition.
Using the departments existing range of iMacs, we made an installation that would create a spontaneous mask from various Baroque elements from the exhibition.
Users were able to take grabs of their creations, and share them with other visitors.
Created using openFrameworks, the software was Open Sourced (Mac OS X 10.5 or above, iSight camera or other required) after the event, allowing for people all over the world to create their own masks. Indeed, the installation is the first piece of open software to be released by the V&A, in conjunction with Hellicar & Lewis. Source code listing available here.
“Together (Everybody Hertz)” was an installation that we created for b Store London, supported by Casio G-Shock. Inspired by the aesthetics, functionality and purpose of G-Shock, “Together” shows a familiar analogue physical phenomenon in such a way as to prompt further enquiry and experimentation. The installation uses a series of research grade ripple tanks to create a unique triptych of physical systems, each interacting with their surroundings in a different way.
We started to focus on G-Shock being a digital object that was built to respond to an analogue problem. We wanted to investigate vibration and how it could be visualised. We remembered using ripple tanks at school, and thought that they would be a great way of showing interference patterns.
Finding the right tanks was a challenge – we wanted to have a modular system that would make its own functionality clear – a kind of ‘honest object’. Next was to make a series of holders for the watches that would enable them to generate interference in the tanks – discovering the right Perspex that would bear the timepiece correctly, and allow for as free a transition of vibration as possible and also filter light correctly was a process of experimentation and refinement. As well as functioning as stands for the watches, our custom plastic elements evoked water-based insect life such as the Water boatman.
Located at the Northern end of the world famous Saville Row, the installation was viewable by the public from the end of February 2009 through March 2009.
