diffus design

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tangibilityinteractivityresearchdesign

About Diffus Projects Proposals Projects Workshops Future

D I F F U S


D I F F U S

DIFFUS: An interdisciplinary art and design company. The goal ofDIFFUS is to work with a combined practical and theoreticalapproach toward information technology, art, design, architec-ture and New Media. DIFFUS has a specific focus on non-screen-based interaction design.

Michel Guglielmi: Architect and teacher at the Danish DesignSchool. Michel has a comprehensive experience with interactivesystems and design perspectives.

Hanne-Louise Johannesen: Art historian with several years ofteaching and research experience within the field of visual cultureand New Media. Hanne-Louise brings an aesthetic, cultural as wellas sociological view into the projects.

About DiffusThe peopleFocus on materialDifferent approaches

Projects Proposals Projects Workshops Future


The mixture of ‘Hard material’ and ‘soft technology’ isa very important focus for DIFFUS. Through differentprojects and experiments we have been working withintegrating computer technology into physical materialslike glass, concrete, plastic and textiles.



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Projects: We have created a number of projects and projectproposals. All with practical as well as theoretical dimensions.All the projects include digital media and tangibility.

Workshops: The ideas from the projects is also focal points forour workshops. We have arranged workshops in collaborationprimarily with Danish School of Design and Visual Culture atUniversity of Copenhagen.

Products: Through projects and workshops we constantly lookfor new product ideas. The product are more likely to be largerinteractive systems than singularly design objects.

Research: In order to secure theoretical depth in relation to thepractise based projects, and at the same time investigatepractical aspects within theoretical problems, we write articlesand conference papers about our work.


The East England Landmark 2004 project was created in order tomeet the guidelines of an ideas competition initiated by the newregion East England. As many other countries, England has gonethrough a comprehensive structural change, with the result thatmany small municipalities merged and became larger regions. Thecompetition asked for solutions that created affinity and coherencewithin the new circumstances.

In stead of creating a single landmark for the whole region, oursolution was to construct a mythological magic fiction in order toprovide common affinity for the people who would be affected bythe project. All the elements of the project we connected to thisconstructed myth about an ancient population called Draugemits(palindrome for timeguard) who lived in East England ever sinceGreat Britain, according to the mythology, was little and onlyexisted of the area of East England.

About Diffus Projects Proposals

East England Landmark, 2004The New Denmark 2006Sofa Shelter, 2006Konfuse Bar, 2008Camera Obscura, 2009Gammel Holtegård, 2010

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While visiting one of the approximately 100 caves spread throughoutthe region, it is possible to feel the presence of other visitors in othercaves through sound, light and temperature. The traces of theDraugemits are visible, but as time they are invisible themselves.

... If all the Draugemits some day disappear the timewill stand still, because then nobody will drag thetime along - in through the lungs and out again....




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In January 2007 Denmark went through a structural reform, whichhad a substantial consequence for the municipal composition.

Inspired by our own East England Landmark project and the publicfrustrations and alienation toward the plans, we created a space fordemocratic storytelling about old and new municipal borders andevents.

The idea was to create a memory archive, that at the same time - inorder not to become nothing but nostalgia - could look ahead andbecome memories of the future.




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Cairns are positioned in strategic suitable places aroundDenmark where old and new municipal borders cross eachother. The cairns of old days worked as marker of roadsand guidelines. The cairns of The New Denmark projectmark histories and work as storytelling guidelines.

Equipped with audio guides you can navigate the country-side and when you meet a cairn information and memoriesabout the specific place is transmitted to you. Faced with acairn it is also possible to contribute with your own story.




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The Sofa Shelter project is planned for a busy metropolis somewhere in the world. To large comfortable chairs are placed by acentral bus shelter. Through GPS the chairs and the approaching bus are connected and if two waiting passengers choose to sitdown in the sofa chairs sound is transmitted from the bus and mixes with the sound around the bus stop.

The chairs also change colour when a bus approach, and return to the starting point when the bus leaves the bus shelter again.This happens with the help of thermo-cromic print on textile and heat transporting threads that can be regulated according to theposition of the bus.

The general idea with the project is to create a sort of intimacy by the bus shelter and at the same time point toward the spaceinside the bus that the waiting passengers will become a part of. This way we create a connection between where you are andwhere you are going to be.




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The idea is to play with the expectations you have when you meetinteractive technologies. We have a skilled familiarity with manyinteractive technology to an extend that we take them for granted.

Konfuse Bar is meant as a teasing but polite installation, that is ableto challenge the guests of the bar.

Behind the bar desk there will be a cabinet filled with bottles, fromwhere the bartender collects the drinks that the guests order. Everybottle casts a shadow on the translucent glass cabinet door. Theshadows will be brought to live when the cabinet is closed. This ispossible because the shadows that at first seem real is made as acomputer animation.





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With optical fibres moulded into concrete in an 8-millimetre‘pixelated’ grid it is possible to make a completely analoguescreen. It is then possible to produce images directly on thesurface of concrete. In other words there is no projection onthe wall, the images comes from within the wall. The opticalfibres will come out of the backside of the concrete walls andwill continue as a huge light cable outside catching street lifeand bring it into the inside of a large scale Camera ObscuraConcrete.





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This project proposal suggest to create an outdoorinteractive installation. The idea is to frame a tree witha glass box using smart glass. Smart glass has the abilityto change from transparent to opaque by usingelectricity. This would be connected to sensortechnology in a way that when you approach the tree ina box the glass becomes opaque. This way you will onlybe able to se the tree from a distance and as spectatoryou will never have the pleasure of fulfilling your desireto see the details.





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The story told at Gl. Holtegaard in their old baroque garden isconnected to the myth of Tantulus who was the son of Zeus and wasuniquely favored among mortals since he was invited to share thefood of the gods. However, he abused the guest-host relationshipand was punished. Tantalus's punishment was to stand in a pool ofwater beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reachedfor the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp.Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before hecould get any.


About Diffus Projects Proposals Projects

Angle, 2004Costume Choreography I, 2007A Fantastic Tale, 2008Costume Choreography II, 2008Pantopia, ongoingClimate Dress, 2009Solar Bag 2010

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Angel was a public space intervention where people got the chanceto become an Angel. A pair of angel wings was placed on a pedestalin a public space. The presence of the wings triggered the curiosityof people passing by. Some eventually wrapped themselves into thesoft and silky wings. When this happened, they BECAME an angel andEXPERIENCED what angels do: Hearing surrounding peoples thoughts!(via inbuilt speakers). Sounds and thoughts got louder when peoplecame closer and then vanished again, when they passed by.

A real time effect was obtained by an automatic distance evaluationsystem using camera and tracking technology. A poetic illusion of a‘human angel immersed in to an unearthly reality, listening withkindness to the thoughts of the surrounding people with hopes,fears, anxiety and desperation. Much like in Wim Wenders film Wingsof Desire (1987), where angels are walking among people, listeningto their inner thoughts, able to touch their fears and anxieties.




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Costume Choreography CC - performed in Copenhagenis a performance where the choreography of the costu-mes have a leading role. The costumes became prota-gonists rather than ‘only’ supporting other elements ofthe performance. With the use of electric leadingmaterial, light, heat and sensor based circuits of infor-mation it is possible to make costumes and scenographycentral actors in the scenic space. CC was a researchof the relation between one of our oldest technologies;textiles and one of the newest; sensor technology.




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The technology CC was basedon a camera tracking systemanalyzing the distances betweenthe three dancers and then givingfeedback to the system aboutlight pattern and soundscape.




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In August 2008 the Boganis room at the Karen Blixen Museum inRungsted, Denmark was transformed to an interactive installation.

The installation was a poetic space playing with contrasts ofintimacy and extravagance and visual and auditive text. It was aspace clear in the outer form and fluent and unpredictable in theinner. Just like Karen Blixen’s stories.

The installation was a explorative space built around the short storyThe Dreamers from Karen Blixens’s debut book Seven Gothic Tales.

The installation circled around an over dimensioned book (1,5 x 2m) where the action of the visitors mix with the staging of KarenBlixen, her stories and the role of the ‘Storyteller’.




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As a continuum of our own CostumeChoreography and as a result of a fruitfulworkshop connected to the art andtechnology festival in Istanbul a-m-b-e-r(www.a-m-b-e-r.net) we created aperformance with textiles, interaction,movements, light and sound.




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Imagine that you enter a cafe. Here you will meet not only localcustomers but you also have the opportunity to meet people whoare far away from where you are. Here you can chat with a friendsitting in the other end of the North Atlantic enjoying a cup ofcoffee, together or you can play a board game, as you were in thesame room. Well, it is only a video connection, but the entireinterior and frame of the experience creates a social situation as ifyou were in the cafe together.

You can order coffee and food for one another, drink from thesame kind of cups, hear the same music and in general have acommon experience. You may include others in your conversation,all depending on who is entering the cafe and what kind of newcontexts may arise.




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Cafe Pantopia seeks to create a common meeting place forpeople associated with the North-Atlantic countries:Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark. CafePantopia will thereby support the creation, maintenanceand restoration of human relationships across the NorthAtlantic. Technologies like e-mail, chat and video telephonealready support this kind of contact, but many people enjoythe informal atmosphere at a cafe. Cafe Pantopia supportsboth close contact despite the distance and the intimateand casual city life.

For more info: www.cafe-pantopia.net




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A dress that tells a story about the surrounding CO2concentration

The climate dress (2009) is an interactive dress that is reacting onthe CO2-changes in the nearby surroundings. The dress senses theCO2 concentration in the air, then accordingly creates diverse lightpatterns by the use of over hundred LEDs – varying from slow,regular light pulsations to short and hectic. The Climate Dress is astatement that, trough an esthetical representation ofenvironmental data, contributes to the ongoing debate aboutenvironmental issues.




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How Haute Couture and interaction design blend

The Climate Dress uses soft conductive thread that has a similarconsistence to the kind of thread used for traditional andindustrial embroidery. This way the embroidery becomes morethan an esthetic element – it has a crucial function conveyingelectricity and computer information, thereby giving "power to thedress". Several microcontrollers are connected to the embroideryvia conductive threads, gathering data from the CO2 sensor andtransforming the information into light patterns.




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Together with Swiss embroidery company Forster Rohner Diffus hasdeveloped a High Fashion and Functional Solar Handbag that isable to recharge your mobile phone and provide you with lightinside the bag. The bag is a self-sustainable system where theenergy for artificial light and mobile power is generated by solarenergy.

In the daytime hours one hundred small solar power stationsdistributed on The Solar Handbag generate enough electricity tocharge a mobile device and a powerful lithium ion battery hiddenin a small compartment. At night or in dark surroundings, openingthe bag activates optical fibres attached to the inside of the bagthat give a diffuse glow and assist in the search for keys, purse orother objects of vital importance.




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Solar cells seem to be an integrated part of tomorrow’s fashion. Sofar they most often are integrated as larger inflexible areas on abag, on the back of a military jacket or on the sleeve of a skiingjacket. With the Solar Bag the idea has been to create an aestheticand functional women’s handbag with individual miniaturized solarelements of high efficiency mono crystalline cell material.

The solar cell material is transformed into beautiful paliettes thatgives the bag an exclusive expression. The shape of the bag tells thestory about the relationship between the sun and moon. The shaperesembles an eclipse where the moon interfere or interact with thesun. The surface is embroidered with an integrated combination ofnormal embroidery and conductive embroidery that is able to conveythe energy harvested for the solar paliettes to the rechargeablebattery.


About Diffus Projects Proposals Projects Workshops

Interactive textiles, sound and spaceTangible media bar

Future

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The workshop Interactive textiles, sound and space gatheredstudents from The School of Design, Musicology and Visual CultureUniversity of Copenhagen and Interactive Sound Institute,University of Lund.

One of the results was the interactive installation The Blob. Apressure sensor was placed in a pillow in a sofa. When seated in thesofa a swelling slowly appeared and grew in the ceiling made oflatex. The swelling disappeared when the person raised again. Forthe installation there was created a soundscape supporting therather strange and slightly spooky feeling in the installation.


About Diffus Projects Proposals Projects Workshops

Interactive textiles, sound and spaceTangible media bar

Future

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The workshop Tangible Media Bar, culminated in an event inDecember 2007. The result was a party called Enteract. The maintheme was a fragmented bar made of three woollen sculptureswith intertwined illuminating wires.

Light and sound reacted when the guests took a drink from thesculptures. The project became thereby a ‘common creation’made by the guests.



The magic shirtKilde

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The magic shirt is a project in its starting phase and works aroundcreating a shirt to children with hemiparesis. Hemiparesis isweakness on one side of the body. Thus, the patient can move theimpaired side, but with reduced muscular strength. Under thiscondition it is important to use the impaired side and the shirt willbe made in a way that it encourage the children to use both sides ofthe body. This is obtained by a combination of sensor technology,conductive embroidery and dynamic and interactive output.

The Magic Shirt is a joint project between specialists of interactivetextiles, the healthcare sector, technicians and interaction designers



The magic shirtKilde

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KILDE is a light and sound object that isdeveloped for professional as well as for privateuse, and can be used for light and soundtherapy. KILDE can vary the light in relation tospectrum and lumens and sound relative tosurroundings and circumstances. Important forthe project is that the light source does notbecome intrusive and will resemble a treatmentdevice. Instead KILDE is an ambient lightingdevice.

KILDE is a joint project including specialists infields of health care, psychology, marketing andresearch and development.

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