Hill House Totems
Materials: LoPys, NeoPixels, Paints, Acrylic spheres, Wicker
A data-driven museum visitor experience at the Hill House was designed for the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) that maintains the Hill House as a museum. The NTS was seeking a new ‘interpretation’ to try at the Hill House, to help visitors learn about the Blackie family’s publishing business, about the Glasgow Style, and about the people who collaborated on designing the Hill House.
“As a memory device, the ghost-like 'totem' is referential: it works both as an icon, since it reproduces in part the shape of the commemorated building, and as an index denoting an absent object, like smoke denotes fire. ”
Using the data on objects from the NTS database, we designed three different data-driven totems for visitors to carry along their journey through the house. The totems visualise the presence of Mackintosh, MacDonald and Blackie, three main contributors to the Hill House.
The totems detect a visitor’s proximity to an object and, by extension, the object’s creator. A totem flashes with increasing speed while it gets closer to an object associated with the person represented by the totem as if the creator is breathing and getting excited about his/her work.
As a result, the immaterial, historical memory of people who created objects in the Hill House becomes visible and tangible, creating a playful and intriguing journey.
In collaboration with Allie Turner, Chiao Jung Lo, Lucy Havens and Yuting Yan
Full research and design process
Materials: LoPys, NeoPixels, Paints, Acrylic spheres, Wicker
A data-driven museum visitor experience at the Hill House was designed for the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) that maintains the Hill House as a museum. The NTS was seeking a new ‘interpretation’ to try at the Hill House, to help visitors learn about the Blackie family’s publishing business, about the Glasgow Style, and about the people who collaborated on designing the Hill House.
“As a memory device, the ghost-like 'totem' is referential: it works both as an icon, since it reproduces in part the shape of the commemorated building, and as an index denoting an absent object, like smoke denotes fire. ”
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Charney qtd. in Martin, L. (2014)
Using the data on objects from the NTS database, we designed three different data-driven totems for visitors to carry along their journey through the house. The totems visualise the presence of Mackintosh, MacDonald and Blackie, three main contributors to the Hill House.
The totems detect a visitor’s proximity to an object and, by extension, the object’s creator. A totem flashes with increasing speed while it gets closer to an object associated with the person represented by the totem as if the creator is breathing and getting excited about his/her work.
As a result, the immaterial, historical memory of people who created objects in the Hill House becomes visible and tangible, creating a playful and intriguing journey.
In collaboration with Allie Turner, Chiao Jung Lo, Lucy Havens and Yuting Yan
Full research and design process
Always a beginner, always a learner.