Transforming the fire stairs in e-14 into a musical instrument

Playing with the idea of projected shadows to make vertical travel in the stairwell more interesting + interactive.

An idea for elevators with "eyes" and "ears", and stairs with "pets".

Because they are so spatially and temporally circumscribed, elevators have engendered an commonly understood but poorly articulated set of rules for maintaining personal space. An AI system learns these heuristics by observation, and presents elevator riders with a model of their own behavior as a formal diagram of the type used to illustrate ballroom dances.

but it wasn't working..

This project is similar to some of the word aggregate project shown recently. The aesthetic of this project addresses specifically the experience of riding in an elevator, the perfect place for something interesting, but not THAT interesting, as you don't want to hang out in the elevator after you get to your destination. You would be a weirdo in that case... The random assemblage of text acts as both a texture and map of word usage throughout the building across printed materials (flyers, posters, etc.), conversations, and digital mediums. Users can also enter words directly through the display to create ongoing, living, "poetry".

This installation speaks to the culture of the elevator as well as the culture of the Media Lab. The installation is an elevator key pad that changes it's position on the elevator wall throughout the day, making a full revolution in one day (thus the cgange in position is very slow.

The piece considers four aspects of our lives:
(1) Media Lab participants/scholars learn by interacting with their environment
(2) People express personal space very clearly in an elevator
(3) People often live within a temporal routine
(4) Our daily temporal routines are connected to the world at large

I chose the stairs as the focus for an installation to encourage vertical travel in E14. I propose a simple piece that invokes something of the tradition of reactive spatial installation and that will engage people in ascending through the atria on foot.

The Uplifting Scroll
For this assignment, I imagined the elevator as a scroll viewer. The virtual scroll is as tall as the building, and the elevator travels up and down viewing portions of the scroll. Not only would the passengers be allowed to view the scroll through a “window” in the elevator cab, but they would also be allowed to draw on the scroll by interacting with the elevator door.

A Flash demo is included.

An elevator is also called a lift. The scroll can be inspiring and encourage you to use the lift to view it, so I called it the "uplifting scroll".

a video installation for two (or more) glass elevators