Urban Drift 2002
Interactive, Generative CD-Rom Documentation
Concept, Camera, Design and Development
"Urban Drift is a transcultural platform for new tendencies in Architecture, Design and Urbanism."
The architecture platform Urban Drift 2002 was: a 2-day symposium, nightspaces for screenings, presentations and countless workspaces throughout Berlin.
The CD-Rom contains all spectrums of the 2-day event.
There is an archive of texts by all speakers and participants, which is designed very informative.
The generative part consists of documentary video, short ambient video clips and a textual layer. the informative videos are represented by "drifting" rectangles in the middle of the screen. in the beginning these move very smoothly. once clicked on, the clip starts playing. after viewing the clip three things change: graphical artifacts of the rectangle remain "burnt" on the screen. the rectangles move slightly quicker than before and have decreased in size. one line of type appears describing the just seen video clip in a playful, almost dadaesque way.
after viewing some clips the rectangles are so fast and so small that clicking is impossible. the user has to click on an artifact (of which there are many after viewing several clips).
the artifact discloses "another" view of the event: peripheral views, absolutely un-informative but beautiful, visually interesting short ambient video clips.
after having visited one of these "chill-out-areas" the rectangles have increased in size again and drift slowly and smoothly across the screen, but the descriptive line remains as an individual history of the visit.
this generative behaviour plays with the behaviour of people on such big conferences (with a vast topical spectrum): after having listened to some lectures not everything is remembered, information mixes in memory and can not be absorbed as good anymore. visitors need to take a break (which were also provided in the event) and have to stop concentrating...
