Echologue is a new type of public media that functions as a social catalyst in public spaces and urban environments. It is made of a double-sided foldable display architecture that can be customized for individual or public interaction. By bending the tiles into different geometries, users can reverse the flow of the graphics and provide input for the content.
Echologue is used as public interface for sensing and displaying socio-cultural characteristics of a place based on its sonic features. It is built to reflect its surroundings like a smart mirror, highlight the salient details and patterns in the environment and contribute to our understanding of the perception of social places. This interface senses ambient sound, records deliberate user input and displays a visualization of the activity in that space as its output. The design explores the utility of sound for envisioning new social, cultural and entertainment uses of public places and help us shape our relationships with each other with new social interfaces embedded in urban settings.
Exhibition
Pixelspaces 07 *OnField*, Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria, September 5-11, 2007.
Selected Review
Birkhäuser (PDF)
Publications
Telhan, Orkan. "Materials with Computational Experience and Style." To appear in Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, A Special Issue on Material Computing, Forthcoming 2010.