B.Light Design

Matt Richardson and I worked together on a project called Duality for Intel and Mashable. Mashable paired creators, equipped them with Intel-powered devices and gave them 16 days to build something special. We created an internet-connected change dish.

The dish can alert users with a subtle signal that you can program with a reminder for when you’re on the way out the door or just coming home.

It was a quick deadline, but a great project to work on. Thanks Matt, Lauren, Tony, and the rest of the film crew.

For more info, click here. If you share it out, please do so with the hashtag #Duality.

I had the pleasure to work on a great sound installation called Phloq with Paul Geluso and Suzanne Thorpe.

The installation is at St Cornelius Chapel on Governors Island (http://govisland.com/html/visit/directions.shtml). And will be viewable every Saturday & Sunday, Jun 15 through Jul 14 (noon to 6pm).

At St. Cornelius Chapel on Governors Island, Phloq is a multichannel work composed to evoke the sensorial experience of a flock of birds taking off. Via its physical diffusion, Phloq creates a provocative space that allows the listener to suspend their ties to previously known aural reference points, releasing them to a new sensorial interaction. Phloq’s content addresses issues of communication and interference, referencing the swirling mass of information we encounter on a daily basis. This event is part of 2013 New York Electronic Art Festival, in partnership with River To River Festival and Trinity Wall Street.

More Info

I will be showing a new piece, Awww Snap!, at the ITP Spring Show. Come one come all.

Monday May 20 from 5 - 9 PM
Tuesday May 21 from 4 - 8 PM

ITP
721 Broadway, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10003

Starting May 23rd, I will be working every Thursday this summer in the Mad Museum Open Studios.

I will be making lamps and other turned objects from a lathe that looks down on Columbus Circle. Going to be a great summer.

I’m incredibly excited, Mobile Homes has been selected for inclusion in MoMA Design Store’s Destination: NYC Collection.

MoMA Design Store launches the eleventh event in the Destination: Design series, Destination: NYC – Made in the USA. The collection features approximately 200 lifestyle products by New York designers including home accessories, furniture, paper goods and jewelry. All products are designed in one of the five boroughs of New York City and manufactured in the United States. Muted colors, graffiti art and pop culture iconography are a few elements of New York’s culture that will be celebrated in the product collection.

May 15–Aug 1.
More details can be found here.

Robbie Tilton and Mehan Jayasuriya did a phenomenal job on their Airplane Simulation.

As an interesting exercise teams had to create an interface and then hand it off to be built by another team. Peter Darche and I created the original interface for an airplane simulation using only your body (see below), and the guys took it and turned it up to 11.

In Robbie’s words: Airplane simulation is a webGL game that gives a user the ability to fly an airplane with their body. As a user moves his/her arms and torso around they have full access to roll, pitch, and yaw the plane. The game uses Processing to access Kinect data and then sends it to a node.js server. On the client-side – we’re using chrome to render a webGL canvas using the Three.js library where the movement of the plane is adjusted based on the socket data coming in from the Kinect.

Side note: Pill Popper came out of this same exercise.

The quality isn’t the best, but here is the first (and only) performance of The Icebox Cometh. I worked with Alex Olivier on the puppet show, she did a fantastic job.

We showed Bird on a Wire at the ITP Winter Show. This time there was no display window, but there was still a physical space to project it on. We placed the birds on acoustic tiles on a curved wall. I really like how this turned out. Great job Christie, Inessah, and Matt.

A great project I’ve been a part of, BIRD ON A WIRE, will be on display from Oct 26 - 29. Opening reception is Oct 26th, 8:00PM, come one come all.

‘Bird on a Wire’ is a projected interactive display created for a pair of storefront windows at the corner Mercer St. and Washington Pl. in Manhattan. By calling a number a passerby can set birds perched on telephone wires into motion while listening to their flocking sounds on a cellphone.

Each bird is individually mapped to the space’s physical set design and the animation is triggered when the birds receive a call to the designated number. The installation transforms a traditional storefront into a literal call to action - engaging pedestrians into a playful two way interaction.

Created by: Ben Light, Christie Leece, Inessah Selditz, and Matt Richardson, four Master’s students at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) for Pop-Up Window Displays class taught by Gabe Barcia-Colombo.

Opening: October 26th at 8pm. On view nightly through the 29th.

POP UP WINDOWS CLASS INSTALLATION TIMELAPSE from Gabriel Barcia-Colombo on Vimeo.

Come see the windows in person 10/26 at 8pm 283 Mercer.