Try Me is an electronic t-shirt that tweets the meaning of hugs @bomboniahugs.
Hugs are a very popular gesture. We hug to say ‘Hi!’, we hug to mean ‘It's been nice to meet you’ and we also hug to express much more: ‘I’d really love to see you again’, ‘Mmmm you smell so good’ or ‘Who cares if tomorrow never comes’ and we can give those different meanings in a very subtle way just by holding the hug a little longer. Try Me measures that time, figures out the meaning of the hug and sends updates to my account in Twitter.
Try Me has been awarded the Editor's Choice Blue Ribbon at Maker Faire NYC 2010. It's been invited to the International Symposium of Wearable Computers in Seoul 2010, Tokyo University's MetaPerception Group / Ishikawa-Oku Lab and showcased at different venues in NYC like the Gizmodo Show '09, the ITP Spring Show '09, the Media Lounge Show '09, at the Saint Valentine's Chocolate and I in 2010 and at 3LD Art Space in 2011.
Special thanks to Rory Nugent, Rodrigo de Benito and Anaid Ortigosa.
Role: Fragrance designer and installation maker.
~ miss me ~ is inspired by the infamous Whale 52, that sings at the frequency of around 52 hertz, while all the other whales communicate using frequencies that range between 15 and 25. Whale 52, first traced in 1994 by US submarines, known as the loneliest whale, is believed to be the only one of his species.
~ miss me ~ is the fragrance of the journey from an exceptional loneliness to a magnificent freedom. Panty-less and meticulously handcrafted, Miss Me is an exclusive dark and serene bouquet with a final pinch in the soul created in the Summer-y nights of New York City, 2012.
~ miss me ~ is presented sprayed in fans. Fans are used individually and the scent would flow towards the user rather than the other way around, in a wrapping fashion that acts as a shield. As a Spaniard I am very familiar with the use of fans. For the presentation of the fragrance, I’ve made an installation with a video recording of the Mediterranean sea at night under the moonlight [the recording was made just across Dalí's house in Spain] and modified its saturation according to the frequency variations of the actual sings of Whale 52 so while we can’t hear it we would see the color of the reflexion of the moonlight change.
When a fan is picked up, the video of the ocean fades to a video of the shadow of a woman -myself- dancing in the daytime, as a ritual that expresses freedom and maximum joy.
Main ingredients: walk in the woods, leather, fig, pink peppercorn, jasmine and terrific enthusiasm.
Product: Interactive video installation.
Year: 2009.
BYOB stands for Bring Your Own Books and it is an installation where you bring your books and throw them against a wall to see the letters come out, splash and fall to the ground.
For some people it is a great release, for others it represents the transition from the physical book to the digital one. Other visitors just can't throw a book.
Shows: Studio IMC (NYC, 2009), Media Lounge (NYC, 2009) and Maker Faire NY (2010).
In collaboration with Alberto García-Saenz.
Product: Video installation.
Year: 2009.
I Want You is an interactive video installation where images are projected onto a blob of smoke and vanish as a visitor gets too close.
I am a very impulsive person and move like a butterfly driven by desires. I wanted to leave the visitor facing that smoke to suggest a pause to re-evaluate the situation before next desire kicks in.
Special thanks to Kirsten Kay Thoen, Ben Barton, Gypsy, Raquel D. Cepero, Alessandra Zeca, Idoya Noain, Bárbara Celis, Angel Chevrest and Rodrigo de Benito.
Product: Interactive web-based installation.
Year: 2009.
URL: https://twitter.com/confessionbot
Shows: ITP Winter Show 2009.
21st Century Confession Booth is a service for anyone to anonymously unload the burden of a sin or secret.
Confessions could be dropped off by entering them on the web at confessionbot.com, by calling 718-406-0483, or by finding one of our public confession microphones. Messages were anonymously transcribed and posted to our Confession Booth account on Twitter.
Behind the scenes, the phone system is using quicktate.com’s API to transcribe speech to text and a custom PHP script to deliver the confession to Twitter.
– Who do you have a crush on?
– Did you lie today?
– Who do you secretly hate?
– What’s the dirtiest thing you’ve ever done?
Specially interesting is the random inaccuracy of some transcriptions, giving a poetic flavor to possibly boring confessions.
In collaboration with Che-Wei Wang.
Product: Interactive web based storytelling app.
Year: 2009.
URL: icantstopthinkingofyoutoo.com
Fictional story told across 2 websites that redirect to one another every 5 seconds.
For one year Che-Wei Wang and I have been adding a sentence 'live' into these 2 websites. The numbers indicate the seconds left before the shift.
In collaboration with Che-Wei Wang.
Product: Interactive lighting installation.
Year: 2008.
Role: Concept, development and fabrication.
In Flower Garden, the intensity of the light bulbs, including the one on the little monitor, flickers in a very slow organic way when a visitor is at a certain distance apart, but as he/she gets closer, the flicker gets faster, the intensity gets brighter and a sound of girls giggling will happen.
