Demonstrations of Expressive Softwear and Ambient Media

We set the context for three demonstrations by describing the Topological Media Lab's research agenda. We next describe three concrete applications that bundle together some of our responsive ambient media and augmented clothing instruments in illustrative scenarios. The first set of scenarios involves performers wearing ex- pressive clothing instruments walking through a confer- ence or exhibition hall. They act according to heuristics drawn from a phenomenological study of greeting dy- namics, the social dynamics of engagement and disen- gagement in public spaces. We use our study of these dy- namics to guide our design of expressive clothing using wireless sensors, conductive fabrics and on-the-body cir- cuit logic. By walking into different spaces prepared with ambient responsive media, we see how some gestures and instru- ments take on new expressive and social value. These scenarios are studies toward next generation TGarden re- sponsive play spaces (25) based on gesturally parameter- ized media and body-based or fabric-based expressive technologies.