Architecture News
HOT AIR and The Last Time You Cried Exhibits on Display at TedX April 10, 2010
Taubman College assistant professor Anca Trandafirescu, designer of HOT AIR, and lecturer Vivian Lee, a collaborator on The Last Time You Cried, will display their projects at the TEDx conference at UM's Biomedical Science Research Building on April 10, 2010. TEDx is an independently organized TED event. The event organizers anticipate 300 guests will attend, the maximum capacity the event can host.
HOT AIR is a temporary installation of a large inflatable, inhabitable monument in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the overthrow of the Romanian government. It was on display Nov. 3-7, 2009, in Timisoara, Romania. The monument is a celebration - a making of an object, space, and series of events - inspired by the improbable and infectious spirit of the '89 uprising that changed the course of history. The lasting legacy, and subject of HOT AIR's memorialization, is the optimistic possibility that emerges from collective action and volatile reformations. HOT AIR is constructed of heat sealed polyethylene plastic sheeting, anchored, and inflated with a small fan. Trandafirescu is also a partner in the firm area.architecture.
The Last Time You Cried, a collaborative installation that asks how computers understand human emotions, uses voice recognition software and other technological filters, to turns stories recorded by participants into poems. The poems, which respond to the prompt, "When was the last time you cried?", can be heard inside the installation's listening booths. As an experiment in using computers to create meaning out of personal and moving human experiences, the project asks: What happens when humans tell their stories to computers? What can computer poems reveal about the sensitive and uniquely human act of crying?
The installation's design takes its cue from these digital processes. The inside of the listening booth is composed from a landscape of soundwaves, forming a spatial topography that both houses and is made out of the audio files. Sponsored by the UM's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the MFA Program in Creative Writing, The Last Time You Cried is a collaboration between Lee and Tung-Hui Hu, assistant professor of English at UM.
Apr 9, 2010
