Balance

Balance is an interactive art installation for the permanent exhibition of the Deutscher Zukunftspreis at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. It is part of the installation for the 2009 prize winners Dr. Frank Misselwitz M.D., Dr. Dagmar Kubitza M.D., Dr. Elisabeth Perzborn D.Sc., from Bayer Schering Pharma AG, who won the prize for identifying the agent Rivaroxaban which reduces the risk of thrombosis. An explanation, short movie and more information about the importance and impact of their research can be found at the Deutscher Zukunftspreis Website.

The exhibition tells the story of 10 of the awarded projects using different media terminals and provides information on the goals of the Federal President's Award for Innovation and Technology underscoring its special role. It is a cooperative project developed by the Office of the Federal Presidency of Germany, the Deutsches Museum and the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Endowment Association for German Research). The award first opened in 2006, with a design lead by Christoph Held from heldstudio in Berlin.

As part of our collaboration with an extension of the exhibition concept, we developed an interactive, kinetic sound sculpture representing the idea of balance. Visitors are invited to either disturb the natural flow of the sculpture or to bring it back to balance and a harmonious state. The sculpture can be controlled by touching the wall-embedded multi-touch surface which was realized by capturing the surface from below with a PS3 EyeToy camera. The work uses blob detection and Community Core Vision softwares which subsequently send the multitouch commands to our application via TUIO protocol.

More information can be found at the following resources.

German Future Prize
Press Release about the installation
The Deutsches Museum