The latest installation from Christopher Bauder and Till Beckmann of w-h-i-t-e-v-o-i-d interaction design Berlin is a study of software bugs and how to utilize the unexpected behaviors they cause in an inspirational manner – hence encouraging user actions that eventually trigger a software bug.
The installation also explores the ability to guide real life ants with just the shadow of your finger, so the digital bugs projected onto the abstract ant-hill object, which are rarely moving unless you interrupts their digital sunbathing, can be guide around with shadows from the users.
By guiding the ants on the ant-hill to the highest peak the bug creates a bug sort of speaks to trigger a random variation in the software that alters the attributes of the ant and the looks of the projected image on the ant-hill – hereby creating something uncontrolled and unexpected for the user.
The technology for this installation is a real world three dimensional “ant-hill� look-a-like where pre-distorted digital maps are projected onto for making the imagery seem to stick to the surface of the object, and infrared cameras for tracking the users’ silhouettes to navigate the ants around the hill. More details about how the pre-distort video output to real objects work can be found in the link below.
The two Germans are also the creators of installations such as Tone Ladder, Electic Moons and the Midi Gun.
You can read more about the installation and watch the video on their website.