Monument (If it bleeds, it leads), an installation by Caleb M. Larsen, comments on the media’s fixation with tragedy.
A computer program continuously scans the headlines of 4,500 news sources, looking for people who have been reported killed. Each time it finds an article, an algorithm determines the number of deaths, and instructs a ceiling-mounted mechanism built from Legos to drop one yellow BB per person. During the course of the installation, BBs will accumulate on the floor, contributing to an ever-growing constellation, ultimately forming a sort of monument. Conflicts and wars dramatically affect the activity seen in the piece. At times hundreds of pellets fire off in rapid succession, while other times a lone BB falls to the ground.
The paradox is that viewers of the installation might find themselves secretly waiting for someone to be killed only so that he can watch a little yellow ball bounce around on the floor. On the same note, there exists a certain reassurance when the piece displays little activity.
More candy-based installations:
The SnackFax, by Christopher Kucinski, Britta Riley and Tikva Morowati, is an educational toy that teleports any 3D shape that children make in cyberspace into multicolored layers of a real, edible tasty treat.
Images by Tom Igoe and Tikva Morowati
There are two interfaces: the joystick & button arcade-style one allows younger kids to develop fluency with color and spacial relationships, the software interface teach older kids visual communication and procedural thinking skills.
Movie demo, Make has a video report and more images.
Edible Interface (image on the right), by Erin Elliott, has participants suck on lollipops embedded with sensors to control robotic babies in a race. Sensors transmit each sloppy stroke to a laptop that controls the movements of robotic babies (via + video.)
The Unsweet Candies (blog of the project), by Min Lee and Jane Oh, are lit candy jars filled with different colored candies. When the viewer opens one of the lids, the preprogrammed microcontroller inside starts off the lights, motors, vibrators and the solenoids.
Dan Maynes-Aminzade‘s BeanCounter, a low-resolution gustatory display made of six rods filled with jellybeans of different flavours.