The Portal at Wired NEXTFest is the first section you enter after getting through the hordes of people waiting in line for a ticket. The portal has three cool projects I will share with you – The Pixile, the Laser harp, and the 3D Display Cubes.

The Pixile project from Australian Eness have really evolved since being display at the Nordic EXceptional Trendshop 2005 where only three inflated spheres where used. The new installation uses an awesome array of different inflated spheres where viewers can interact with the Pixile by moving and rotating the objects in real-time, the Pixile can also respond to the users body movements, sounds and even wind in the air.

Link: Eness

The Laser harp by Jen Lewin, Blue Ink Studio is playing with the relationship between the physical and the digital, the virtual and the real. The “Laser Harps” is an immersive instrument and installation using movement and laser light to trigger sound. On her website she explains: “The use of light instead of a physical string plays with our perception of space and matter. What is physically not there (the virtual string), responds as if it wereâ€?.

Link: Laser Harp

The 3D display Cubes and its maker James Clar of James Clar & Associates have also evolved their technology and project since I saw it last during NEXTFest 2005. The 3D display cube was then an interactive project but now James have create a series of 9 3D Cubes interlinked for an awesome rotating display of text.

Link: James Clar & Associates