Urban Spirits is a game to promote eco-friendly, creative and aggregative behavior in the context of an urban neighborhood. The game makes innovative use of Smart City sensors and urban spaces, particularly interactive street furnitures and digital facades. Individual users can interact through both smartphones and physical interaction with urban furnitures. In addition, Urban Spirits receives through environmental sensors the actual situation of urban district, using the data received it dynamically changes the game environment.
The story and the game itself are based on the metaphore of the “Urban Spirits”. The purpose of the game is to tame the little spirits through the interaction with the urban surrounding. Each interaction is a little challenge-exercise aimed to fortify the participants sense of social community involvement, creativity and conscious eco-logic behaviours.
The street furniture of the square will be enriched with interactive stations. Each station is a lair of little spirits. Participants are encouraged to explore urban design to tame the spirits: the trees, the street lamps and the benches are lairs to explore, to play and to interact, and to enter into a dialogue with the urban fabric and the spirit of the neighborhood.
Will be implemented three different types of urban games, one for each type of energy of the spirits: creative, ecological and social. The proposed interactive street furniture and of which we will make a working prototype during the workshop, consists of:
In addition to small spirits, there is a great spirit in the neighborhood who lives in the digital facade. Like a as a thermometer that measures the state of the district. Inside him are combined on the one hand the data coming form the little spirits, and on the other the overall state of environmental pollution / noise in the neighborhood. On the one hand the great spirit shows the evolution of the energies of the urban spirits that inhabit the neighborhood, their dens, the number of spirits adopted, the different messages that I send the players via twitter. On the other hand through the use of sensors smart city are monitored environmental data (air, noise, light pollution, etc. ..) the area around the facade Digital Plaza de las Letras. The state of total pollution in the neighborhood will affect the activity of spirits. At a glance looking at the main facade able to understand the overall state of the game and the players who are participating and have participated and the ecological status of the entire neighborhood.
we are looking for collaboration on graphics programming (mainly focused on advanced opengl with shader), visual artists (illustrator, 2D artworks), someone that can help us in integrating animations (flash / after effect or, better, some open source alternatives) on our system, support by interaction designers for physical computing.
we seek a collaboration to document all the work (making of + presentation) with video and photographic material, support the creation of interactive animations. Furthermore you will have the opportunity to learn something of interfaces based on Arduino and sensors.
A plus could be invole some mobile app ninja for geo-taggig / aumented reality on a mobile user interface, in order to create an APP with a map of the district in which extend the functionality of the game with activities around the urban area.
If you are interested and excited much as we do to participate in this project, please join us following this link:
http://medialab-prado.es/article/colaboradores_interfaces_solidas
+ Giovanni M. Zaccaria Interactive Media/Creative Technologies
BSc in Biomedical Engineering and MSc in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media at UPF (Barcelona). He participated in research projects at PoliMI's Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab and at UPF's Music Technology Group. He was selected for an artistic residency at MediaEstruch. He has a wide perspective on how to pursue an interactive project with interdisciplinary teams.
+ Alberto Massa IT Engineer/Research Dev on Computer Vision
BSc in Computer Science applied in Communication, currently working at Humboldt University (Berlin). He has collaborated with artists for interactive installation, creative coding (Processing, oF, Cinder) and physical computing (Arduino, micros, motors). He is actively involved in Open Tech School. He also loves digital fabrication.
+ Barbara Fiume Creative Director/Illustrator
Someone once asked her if she really lived in the tummy of a giant ladybird. She studied Graphic Design and Illustration at the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome and Creativity in Advertising at Elisava in Barcelona. She loves: gummy bears, Quentin Blake´s illustrations, Klimt´s paintings, the ice cream van, blueberries, coffee stains, fakirs and peacock feathers.
We are excited to have the possibility of working on a project that nestles among the architectural elements of the district, encouraging people to develop a more conscious and ecologic behaviour through a fun activity, such as playing a game. Our expectations are focused on the realization of a functional prototype. More than that, we are excited to have the possibility of proving our skills, challenging ourselves from a technical and social point of view, trying to find a solution able to blend social and urban context. We love the idea of working in such an innovative and technologically advanced space such as MediaLab Prado, collaborating with a professional and expert team of artists, designers and technologists.
(Update) Many thanks to Javier Villarroel (Creative Coding, Physical Computing), Clara Ceita (Video, Animation), Nicolas Bustos Torrente (Web Design, Handcrafting) and their invaluable help in developing the prototype. Many Thanks also to the Medialab's supervisors Gorka Cortázar, Guillermo Casado, Sergio Galán for their helpful and wise advices and also for the professional vision and passion that you all transmit in doing your job. Many thanks to Nerea Calvillo and her valuable advices. Finally many thanks to Monica Cachafeiro and the Medialab staff for the support and the great experience. Thank you all for the wonderful time spent together.