As part of the Digital Urban Living project we have launched input.refleXx.dk and refleXx.dk.

A redesign of InteractiveSpaces.net has been launched with a beautiful design by Stine Sandahl.

I have designed a new website for Geiger Records. Visit it at www.geigerrecords.dk.

Last week the iPhone application MediaKiosk I have been working on in cooperation with Raphael Dobers was finally accepted into the App Store. MediaKiosk is an application created for viewing video and audio podcasts on an iPod/iPhone for use in exhibitions or other public settings. It has already been used in a few exhibitions e.g. Bright Green.

Here is a quick runthrough of the application features:

• Loading a list of podcasts with presentation settings from a user-specified xml-file for easy deployment to multiple devices.
• Caching media from podcasts locally on the device makes it ideal in settings where network is not available.
• Streaming on a wifi connection is also possible.
• Lock application to a single podcast with a pincode.
• Run a single media file from a podcast in kiosk mode with controls limited to rewind, pause/play and done.
• Remember last played media for easy startup.

And last but not least a few screenshots:

The website for the application can be found here: http://www.interactivespaces.net/mediakiosk and the application can be downloaded here: http://itunes.apple.com/dk/app/mediakiosk/id352741530?mt=8.

A website for the DIS2010 conference has been launched at http://www.dis2010.org.

This month we launched a new version of the Geiger page. The frontpage has been redesigned and now put more focus on the features on the page like articles, contests etc. We have also attempted to make it more visually appealing with much larger images than before. The redesign also reprioritize content by e.g. placing the concert calendar up front to make it easy for visitors to spot upcoming concerts. There are several other changes throughout the page as well.

At some point we will probably make some more radical changes to the layout of the page as launch new features. I expect this to happen when the server is upgraded so it is able to run the latest version of CMIS which requires PHP5.

Visit the page here: www.geiger.dk.

This month I upgraded the Nordes.org to the latest version of CMIS and implemented a new theme that was also used by the new conference system the Nordes has set up.

Visit the page here: www.nordes.org.

Kunsten.nu was launched today replacing Aarhus.nu.

Kunsten.nu is a new website that will cover art in all of Denmark and abroad as well. It will also feature a new debate section.

The new site builds on the infrastructure developed for Aarhus.nu which is now closed. The content published on the Aarhus.nu website will still be available on the new site though.

Last week the redesigned Aarhus.nu website was launched after more than a year's development.

Back in 2006 I was asked if I could help the art portal Aarhus.nu to build a new website using my CMIS content management system. Aarhus.nu was at the time being maintained with Adobe Dreamweaver which was a cumbersome task for the editors of the site. They were interested a better way to publish articles and other content on the website so we started developing a new system.

After several months of development we decided the website was ready to launch. It is built on top of the new development version of CMIS. It has custom modules for publishing articles, managing advertisements and mailinglists. Over the coming months we will be fixing bugs and probably start development of a calendar module.

I am very happy with the outcome both visually and technically. The development proces has led to many improvements to the CMIS core and I can't wait to release the new version of CMIS soon.

Visit the site at www.aarhus.nu.

November 30th 2007, at 7 PM, Center for Interactive Spaces received the "red dot: best of the best award" for the Wisdom Well (Vidensbrønden) design concept, in the red dot design museum, Singapore.

The Red Dot Press Announcement says: "For its excellent and particularly innovative design, the "Wisdom Well" concept by Center for Interactive Spaces has received the red dot: best of the best award. One of the highest distinctions received by a concept in the red dot award: design concept, the red dot: best of the best indicates that the Wisdom Well is the best of its category - Education. It is awarded by a jury of experts only to top class concepts that are pioneering in their field. From the absolute record number of 884 submitted design concepts for assessment by the experts, a total of 18 top design concepts have received the ‘red dot: best of the best' for their outstanding and innovative design. They come from China, Denmark, Germany, Korea, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Taiwan. The festive awards presentation will take place on November 30th 2007 in the red dot design museum, Singapore."

The Wisdom Well is developed by researchers at Center for Interactive Spaces associated Aarhus University, Aarhus School of Architecture, and the Alexandra Institute in Århus in collaboration with Arkitema, Søren Jensen A/S, Dansk Data Display and Århus Municipality. The project is funded through Århus Municipality with support from Oticon Fonden, Boligfonden Kuben and NCC A/S. The background research was initiated in the ISIS Katrinebjerg iSchool project. See pictures from the Award ceremonial in Singapore.

Friday last week I attended the opening of the Mariko Mori exhibition Oneness at ARoS in Aarhus.

I was invited because a few people including me from Interactive Spaces had contributed to the exhibition. Together with ARoS, Zentropa Interaction and DIEM we did three rooms showing some of the inspirations behind Mariko Mori's work. The rooms are located next to "Boy" on the bottom floor. I have worked on two of the rooms.

The first room shows inspirations behind the Esoteric Cosmos exhibition using an interactive floor based on camera tracking. There are four images also present in the exhibition showing water, fire, water and air. When the viewer interacts with the installations the images and text for the inspirations will slowly appear on the floor while sound by Wayne Siegel starts to play. You can view a picture of the floor below.

The other installation is related to the Oneness installations. This is also an interactive floor but it is based on six pressure sensors placed in the floor in a circle. When viewers stand on a sensor a piece of an image will appear. When all six pressure sensors are pressed sound intensity will increase and a little surprise will appear.

The implementation process has been quite hectic for me since I had the IXP deadline just a week before but the installations seem to work well and run quite stable. Over the next few weeks we will be improving the installations based on some of the observations we have made the first few days.

The opening was also attended by the Danish Crown Prince Frederik, the japanese ambassadeur and the major of Aarhus. More than 1400 guests were invited for the official opening while special VIP guests (including me and some of my co-workers) were invited to preview the installation, watch a performance by Mariko Mori and have dinner afterwards.

The IXP prototypes were tested wednesday to friday this week.

After a rather hectic development process we managed to get the IXP prototypes up and running for three days at Kattegatcenteret in Grenå.

We made a few changes based on observations from the last testing period. The main features we added was the ability to create mutant fish and a dedicated station for releasing fish into the ocean. We also added more colors and names to the fish displayed in the hydroscopes to make it easier to recognize fish released into the ocean.

From what I have heard the changes were well received and the setup worked fine. I couldn't really participate in the evaluation since I am busy working in the Mariko Mori exhibition at the ARoS art museum in Aarhus.

The IXP project officially ended on september 1st so this test was the last event in the project. You can read more about our experiences with the prototypes here.

An article about the prototypes has been accepted at the DUX07 conference.

UPDATE Christian Dindler from the project has posted some pictures from the evaluation on Flickr here.

I found some time in my otherwise busy schedule to create a small website for Lyd+Litteratur (Sound+Litterature). The occasion was a new music release in the Lyd+Litterature series called Hjertets abe sparker sig fri by the electronic duo Schweppenhäuser/Thomsen and the poet Morten Søndergaard. The release party was held last thursday so they wanted a website quite quickly.

The website is based on the upcoming release of CMIS with blog, news and mailinglist modules installed. The theme is a variation of what I expect will become the default theme in CMIS.

Website for the new record label Waste of Ammo launched.

I have done a small website for a new danish record label called Waste of Ammo. The label is started by Steffen I know from Geiger.

Visit the website at www.wasteofammo.dk.

Tuesday and Wednesday this week I attended a two-day workshop at ARoS about the upcoming exhibition with the japanese artist Mariko Mori.

Me and a few other people at Interactive Spaces will be contributing some of our expertice in the creation of four interactive rooms exhibiting some of the inspirations behind Mariko Mori's art. The exhibition will start in the middle of october.

Read more about Mariko Mori on Wikipedia.