Meeting with Alex @ Fablab, Amsterdam

Last week Jean-michel and I had a meeting with Alex of the Waag Society. He already had some ideas about an installation at the Waag, so we swapped some ideas.

JM and I are still in a very early stage in our concepting, which is a good thing Alex said. That is because we're still open to new ideas.
Our main idea is to make an interactive installation in/on/at/around the Waag building at the Nieuw-Markt in Amsterdam. In our minds we see an abstract storytelling reaching into the history of the building and it's surroundings. The imagery we want to create is of an abstract nature, in which we want to tell our story more atmospherically then in a concrete visual manner.
When it comes to interactivity through a narrative perspective, we want our users to interact with the building in stead of one or more persona's in our telling. So in other words the building itself is our main character.

To obtain some funding from the Waag Society, there must be some link made to the Foundation. Main purpose in that is making the audience aware that the Waag building houses the Waag Society Foundation. At the same time, we must try to illustrate or explain what it is that the Society does. In what manner this must be done is at this point not yet clear.
Alex coined the idea of a touch-screen next to the intrance for more information for the users.

Some things that came up where:
- Directional audio using a special dish, mounted on top of the Waag somewhere above the entrance of the Society.
- A projection using an household beamer (projector for those who think a beamer is a merely a car) from inside of the building, projecting on 3 windows above the front entrance (where the restaurant is).
- A touch screen next to the entrance of the Society.
- Speakers underneath the entrance of the Society, place in the cellars.
- Projection on the side of the building. For this we at least need a 4000+ ANSI Lumen projector. And we need permission of the City of Amsterdam, which might be a problem, since these things take ages to obtain.

For myself the last part (the big projectioin) is the main part. So we must also keep in mind other locations for our installation (it may even be somewhere inside).
We also must have a little talk with some of the members of the Society responsible for the fundings, to see how we can help each other, and to get a clearer picture of what is possible, especially regarding to bigger projection on the side of the building.


Furthermore... I spoke to Charles (a 4th grader Image Media Technology) whose himself is planning to do something with projection and videomapping (projecting on objects taking in account the shapes of these objects). He already did some research on the subject and is willing to share this information with us.
I also spoke to Laura (a 4th grader Digital Video Designer), who is willing to help us with some of the concepting and visualisation parts. I'm having a meet with her this thursday.
Finnaly I got an email by Ravian (4th grader Sound Design). He was looking for projects in which he could help out on the audio parts. I told him we could really use his help. Later on I ran into him and told him about the directional audio thing, which grabbed his attention. So we'll see how that will go.
And I think I could probably get Maurits (another 4th grader Image Media Technology) to help us shooting, compositing and colorcorrecting in exchange for some programming or the like (or maybe even a couple of beers).

So next on my schedule is to dive in to the history of the Waag building. And this Thursday a talk with Laura.