This thing is crazy.

It’s basically a huge interactive kinetic sculpture. It moves and ripples and generally acts very un-wall like. I’d very much like to see this in person one day. Here is an except from the site:

This project was developed for a competition for an interactive art-work for the foyer of The Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre. The piece is a facetted metallic surface that has potential to deform physically in response to electronic stimuli from the environment (movement, sound, light,etc). Driven by a bed of 896 pneumatic pistons, the dynamic ‘terrains’ are generated as real-time calculations.

The piece marks the transition from autoplastic (determinate) to alloplastic (interactive, indeterminate) space, a new species of reciprocal architecture.

Mmmm… 896 pneumatic pistons

Here is a very low quality movie of it in action.

…Wow.

So I’ve just now found out that they’ve commercialized this thing and you can buy them (or rent maybe?) at this site. The fact that Coke and the McDonalds are using these things has somehow cheapened this whole experience for me. No, really. I’m more cynical and bitter now than I was when I began to write this post. Especially since the mass production of this thing has somehow resulted in a movie of it in action that is of no better quality. At least this one is on youtube.