Designed and led by Ralph Borland (ITP, New York; Michaelis Fine Art, UCT) the workshop was attended by a group of WSOA Digital Arts students and interested Fine Arts students.
Physical computing makes use of sensors, mechanical and electronic devices, and computers to activate objects or environments in the physical world, making interactive artworks, installations and performance devices.
In this 3-day (2 – 4 April) workshop held in the Interactive Media Design Lab at WSOA Digital Arts, the students explored examples of physical computing work by contemporary artists, and learnt some of the possibilities for tracking information from the physical world through various sensors. They also looked at particular software which can be used to manipulate audio and video. A large part of the the workshop was devoted to building simple circuits which could be used towards workshop plans for an artwork, performance tool, or other physical computing project of the students’ own design.
