Low Rez - Hi Fi

Temporary installation of Low Rez - High Fi elements in the Cooper Hewitt Museum, as part of the Design Triennial, Design Life Now.

Project Details

• Project Name: Low Rez - Hi Fi
• Client: Abbot Stillman
• Project Type: Interactive Public Installation
• Principal Designer: MY Studio
• Design Team: J. Meejin Yoon, Eric Howeler, Carl Solander, Lisa C. Smith, Meredith Miller
• Date of commencement of project: May 2005
• Date of completion of project: February 2007
• Location of site: 1110 Vermont Ave. Washington DC, U.S.A.
• Electronics Engineer / Fabricator Low Rez: Parallel Development, Will Pickering
• Electronics Engineer / Fabricator Hi Fi: Tiny Gray Matter, Steve Grey
• Sound Artist: Area C, Erik Carlson

Low Rez vitrines on site in Washington DC.

The Project

Low Rez - Hi Fi is an interactive project that activates the sidewalk and engages the pedestrians by creating a new environment that occupies the interface between the public space of Vermont Avenue and the interior of the 1110 Vermont Avenue lobby.

Pixels facing the lobby display the building address, 1110 as a series of streaming digits. The digital shadow behavior can be seen in the screen.

The project consists of a full scale LED matrix in glass vitrines (Lo-Rez) which traces the movements of passersby, and a field of interactive sound poles (Hi-Fi). Organized as a field of pixels/dots which brighten when activated, these interactive light zones create a dynamic display of light that can contain information as well as register movement.

The pixel net. Individual pixels are suspended on 4 wires that both suspend the pixels and address them individually.

Low Rez engages the public by broadcasting digital imagery on the LED pixel net. The net is made up of 8000 LED pixels suspended by tension wires within glass vitrines. The glass vitrines occupy spaces perpendicular to the building facades and align to create a relationship between the inside and the outside. The pixels are custom designed and fabricated to be addressable, meaning that each pixel can be turned on or off individually. Working together the pixels make up a new "screen", capable of carrying a text or image as a video signal.

Hi Fi poles on site in Washington DC.

The LED net has a pixel pitch of 2.4 inches, making it a very low resolution image, but one where the spaces between pixels and the transparency through the screen allows for interactions through the vitrines. Low Rez carries a mix of images that can be controlled remotely. The normative condition displays the building address -- the numbers 1110 -- while a background image scrolls a pattern of ones and zeros. When a viewer approaches the vitrine, a surveillance camera captures their image, adjusts the contrast and sends the signal to the LED net. The "live feed" broadcasts the image on the net, forming a "digital shadow" in real time.

Low Rez vitrines on site in Washington DC. The alignment of vitrines from extends the lobby into the street and vice versa.

Hi Fi invites the public into a field of interactive poles, plays musical notes that respond to the touch, and creates a new kind of public musical instrument. The sound grove consists of a grid of touch sensitive stainless steel poles that emit a series of unique sound samples, composed by Erik Carlson. The networked poles relay sounds and draw the viewer/listener into the field, creating an urban instrument that can be physically inhabited.

Credits

• Text: Courtesy of the architect
• Photographs: Courtesy of the architect
• Compiled and edited by Varun Ajani