Anthros
Rich Gilbank
Anthros is a responsive environment where a number of 'tentacles' react to the presence of people. By applying theories of 'emergence', or 'swarm logic', a number of individually responsive agents simulate what appears to be sentience, thereby making one anthropomorphize their surroundings.
The nodes and movements of people through the space are tracked by a camera mounted on the ceiling, which uses custom-written software to determine where people are relative to the tentacles. This creates the illusion that the nodes are reacting on their own, as no sensing system is distinctly visible. People will believe that the objects are responding intelligently to their presence. Our ability to find human faces and behaviour in the most abstract scenes and situations is a strong and unique characteristic of humanity. Why shouldn't we utilize this tool to make even our most synthetic constructions more personal?
In making Anthros, I wanted to focus on an intrinsically human characteristic–the tendency to seek out other people, even in the most abstract of circumstances. When we look up at the clouds or down into a bowl of soup, our minds naturally try to match patterns to human faces and behaviour. Even at the most primitive level, it seems we desire to seek out others, and finding them provides a comforting feeling that we aren't alone.
Despite this, man-made structures are still in their infancy. For ages we've adapted ourselves to our surroundings, but we are now becoming aware that we can in fact design our surroundings to conform to our wants and needs. By providing visible agency to an environment, I'm attempting to abandon traditional paradigms of architectonic design and thought processes in order to make a more human-centric environment.