Aegis Hyposurface - IMTS Chicago

At this years International Manufactoring Trade Show (IMTS) from 6th till 13th of September in Chicago Marc Goulthorpe and his team are showing the Aegis Hyposurface. Dienststelle was commissioned to make a realtime sound interface for it.

The Aegis Hyposurface is an elastic architectural surface made up of small metal plates that are controlled pneumatically and react in real time to electronic stimuli from the environment (movement, sound, light, etc). Driven by 896 pneumatic pistons, the dynamic ‘terrains’ are generated as real-time calculations. The Aegis Hyposurface effectively links information systems with physical form to produce dynamically variable, tactile ‘informatic’ surfaces. Aegis is perhaps the world’s first such dynamic screen. Any digital input (microphone, keyboard, movement sensor) can trigger any physical output (a wave or pattern or word.)

The Hyposurface was shown to a bigger audience the first time at the CoCreate Booth at CeBit 2001. Michael Dodt recommended me to Marc for the programming of a realtime sound interface. At that time a large international multi-disciplinary team of about 15 people were involved in the project. MaxMSP was used to take the sound of three microphones and evoke corresponding patterns on the surface.

6 September 2006 | Installation, Sound | Comments