Time & Interaction from a Playful Master
19 March 2012
| webrtc
Author joe
WebRTC inspiration #1 - Kenichi Okada
Time is Kenichi Okada’s main theme throughout his installations, objects and experiences; video his main platform for expression. As an interactive designer his main brief is to instigate human engagement.
He does this time and time again with elegance, visual poetry and a dedication to play.
Watch Time Scanner now.
One line of live video is scanned to create a rolling painting of real pixels. Drawn-in instinctively to the real-time canvas, one at first pokes and nods with inhibition, then bops with active animation before bounding uncontrollably with glee. The beauty of our own form, processed, is undeniable. Okada knows this and provides a platform for us to smile.
Scroll through Time Stopper, Peeping Hole, Animal Superpowers & Delay Chair at www.kenichiokada.com for hours of inspiration.
Such simple effectiveness isn’t easy. MAX/MSP master and RCA MA Design Interactions graduate has given Okada space to whittle down the human to human connection needed to create such engaging video installations. His work doesn’t fully depend on hi-end tech either. Emotoscope is a handmade, handheld, hand-wound video effect - taking back the viewer to a real-world view of the past. Technology that mimics technology that mimics technology. Clever stuff. Post-Royal College he was snapped up by Sony’s Interaction Development Centre, with his insatiable appetite for play seeing him exhibit internationally all the time.
This is not WebRTC. (I would love to see Kenichi’s play with WebRTC). This is Interactive Design at it’s finest. As always, an idea that is so simple it’s barely there, yet triggers innate human response that deems it addictive as hell.
But it inspires the use of video, technology and design. And this is where WebRTC comes in. This Saturday we will have the opportunity to make some mind-bending A/V experiences. Maybe they will also be playfully poetic.
Protothon WebRTC will be streamed-live from Google HQ, Stockholm. Keep up to date via facebook, twitter and protothon.com to find out where.