‘Smoke’ is an interactive window display where your cigarette smoke alters and eventually renders meaningless a recorded solo dance performance.

Group Members

Chris Cummings
Timothy Mohn
Mohit SantRam

Choreography by Zach Morris
Dancer : Marissa Nielson-Pincus

‘Smoke’ is an interactive window display where cigarette smoke transforms a recorded video of a solo dance piece. Designed to be installed in a window outside a dance studio or performance space, Smoke is motivated by and reflects upon the prevalence of smoking in the dance community. Participating in the installation requires that a user smoke a cigarette, but continued transformation of the video eventually renders the image meaningless.

In what social, physical and geographical context would the installation have the greatest impact? How will the subject matter influence the mode of presentation?

Dance Theatre Workshop

The Venue

The intended location of the installation is the lobby of Dance Theatre Workshop on West 19th Street. We chose the location because of the close relationship that exists between people inside and outside the wall of windows that face 19th street. West 19th street also experiences an abundance of foot traffic, as people walk down it to visit nearby Chesea restaurants, galleries and clubs.

Dance Theatre Workshop is also a centerpoint of the dance community, not just a performance space. Because of that, it is an ideal context in which to display this piece.

The sensor evolves

Designing a sensor that communicated it’s function to visitors was a major challenge. What does a device that is meant to have smoke blown at it to control a video look like?
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The bits and pieces

How could we communicate from a sensor on the outside of a window to a display inside? How would we develop the video presentation?
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The piece was originally displayed at ITP’s 2005 Winter Show, in a Waverley Street display window. Read more for user testing observations.
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Group Members
Mouna Andraos
Chris Cummings
Sean Salmon

Turno is a consignment vending machine, an approach to the challenge of creating distributed, location- or interest-specific communities of sellers and buyers. Unlike traditional vending machines that only sell goods, Turno facilitates the transaction of new and used goods between members of a given community. Building on successful market-building models of eBay and other online marketplaces, Turno aims to re-establish a sense of time and place into transactions between remote individuals.

The design proposal includes:

• User Scenarios
• Design Process Description
• Images and Inspiration

View the Proposal (4.5MB swf will open in new window)

While at ITP, Chris was the student manager of NYU’s Rapid Prototyping Service at the Advanced Media Studio. The Rapid Prototyping Service is a drop off service for design, print and art projects in the NYU Fine Arts community. The Service has an ULSX2-660 Laser Cutter as well as a ZCorp Spectrum Z510 3D Printing System.

In addition to developing the service for NYU, Chris also worked on several projects showcasing the capabilities of the studio. Here are some images of projects he designed and built.

The ULS X2-660 60w Laser Cutter is capable of cutting up to 1/2″ plywood or acrylic, but is best suited to cutting softer and thinner materials. The machine can be used to quickly test cut sizes or build early prototypes of a wide variety of fabrication projects.

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Mac Powerbooks and Macbook Pros are wonderful surfaces for laser-etching. Check out some examples of powerbooks that we have put ‘under the knife.’

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The ZCorp Spectrum Z510 3D Printing System is capable of printing 3D solid models in 24-bit color. In the first year of operation, much of our time was spent evaluating the best software and document format in which to accept 3D printing jobs. Here are some preliminary projects that were completed using the machine.

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