Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 by Dory
Media Lab Toronto launches with TXTris.
MLT launched tonight with our first installation, TXTris, at CaseCamp6.
The simple concept behind TXTris the interaction of the real and computer generated stuff. A lower-than-low tech 6ft 2-d cardboard model of Toronto’s skyline sits in front of large projection screen.
That’s the physical part. The virtual part is a computer projection of messages that people send in via txt messaging. The messages appear, one at a time, from the top of the projection and slowly fall down the screen. The physical/virtual cross-over happens when the falling letters reach a real cardboard roofline and stop, resting on the roof of a building. The virtual words gradually pile up, getting fractured as some letters fall farther than others to land on the roofs of shorter buildings.
The code is written in Processing; the city is made from Tim Hortons’ boxes gathered on Bloor street. The phone number, that we’re sure to use again, is 416.624.3508.
8 Comments
November 20th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
[…] about Media Lab Toronto launches with TXTris. […]
November 20th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Some video and photos posted over here.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:19 pm
[…] Media Lab Toronto » Blog Archive » Media Lab Toronto launches with TXTris. That’s the physical part. The virtual part is a computer projection of messages that people send in via txt messaging. The messages appear, one at a time, from the top of the projection and slowly fall down the screen. The physical/virtual cross-over ha (tags: medialabtoronto.ca 2007 mes10 dia21 at_tecp processing tetris sms instalation camera_games mobile blog_post) […]
November 21st, 2007 at 6:40 pm
[…] TXTris: People text in messages, which then drop down onto the Toronto skyline, which fragments the words as letters fall to different depths, stacking tetris-style. I’m sure this can be a metaphor for many things, but lets set textual analysis aside and just agree that this is really cool. […]
November 22nd, 2007 at 8:35 am
[…] lab toronto also presented their inaugural project - TXTris, an interactive SMS projection where text messages sink down from the sky onto a hilarious toronto […]
November 24th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
[…] Notes on TXTris’ first installation at CaseCamp6 Toronto, How we built TXTris and photos and video of TXTris in […]
December 9th, 2008 at 10:25 am
[…] the Media Lab Toronto group. I love playing at the crossover between the physical and digital. TXTRis is one of my favourites and TXTRis Mark II is in progress so I’m looking forward to showing […]
December 15th, 2008 at 9:23 am
[…] very pleased to get a chance to display TXTris in a new version. As before the app pulls live content (in this case Twitter messages related to […]
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