Colourful coral around your beer

Anemone :: a social interactive bar installation (teaser) from Michel Jansen on Vimeo.

The past couple of days you could grow coral on the bar of Media Art Café Berlijn in Enschede in the Netherlands.

Students of the University of Twente recently demonstrated the results of their research into "emergent entertainment". An installation consisting of a camera, a beamer and a computer was set up in Media Art Café Berlijn. From July 7th until July 10th an interactive underwater world was projected onto the bar.

By means of the camera the system called Anemone can register what happens on the bar. Around glasses that are placed on the bar a colourful coral reef emerges. This reef starts to attract all kinds of underwater life. With their hands people at the bar can either take care of or disturb the underwater world. Parts that are well taken care of look wonderful and attract even more life. Neglected parts slowly die.

I tried the system without any prior knowledge. After a short period of trial and error it becomes quite clear what the point of the game is.

One of the ideas behind the installation is to stimulate contact between the people at the bar. During the past days the students that developed the system studied how people at the bar used the system. I am curious about their conclusions on what the installation can do for contacts between people around the bar. If I can lay hands on these conclusions I will report on them on this blog.