Symbolic Table Inspirators 01
We are standing on the shoulders of giants
Symbolic table is a new and unique RFID tool for cultural use. It is based on proven technology (RFID) and on Prior Art. There are 2 projects, one from 1988 and one from 1992, that together were my inspiration to start the Symbolic Table project.
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Imaginary Museum of Revolution -
A little statue is placed on a sensor that recognises it so it can trigger matching AV streams.
with:
The first was the Imaginary Museum of Revolution by Tjebbe van Tijen en Jeffrey Shaw. In Mediamatic vol 2, issue 4 of june 1988, we published their plan for this enormous multi media exhibition of 200 revolutionary moments in modern history. The plan was a competition entry for Parc La Villette in Paris. It contained all kinds of fancy interactive video (using Laser Disk(!) and life size roproductions of revolution monuments.
The thing that I liked the most however were the vending machines (sponsored by Wurlizer). The vending machines contained little toy reproductions of the monuments. For a couple of french francs, you'd buy a statue and take it into the exhibition. The laserdisk machines would have sensors to read the code and play the appropriate AV material to your statuette. This idea to use a meaningful object as your key to the exhibit immediately got stuck in my mind! A brilliant way of avoiding the unattractive area of interactive screens, pointing devices, buttons and what have you to communicate with a machine.
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Imaginary Museum of Revolution -
Page from Mediamatic vol2, issue 4 (june 1988) showing the Vending Machine for the statuettes that drive the interactive experience in the imaginary museum.
