Michael Morua - Julio Obelleiro

Research Report
by Michael Morua
Soda
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Team of artists, developers and entrepreneurs.
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Soda Creative Ltd is a UK-based design group
founded in 1996, which combines an arts and
research practice with a broad range of commercial
activities.
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Soda develops creative tools that help communities
work, play and learn together.
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Clients include NESTA, Amnesty International,
BBC, Egg, and Channel 4
Soda are
Soda are
 Fiddian Warman Managing Director
Associates
 Alexander Kohlhofer Designer and web entrepreneur
 David Muth Artist, Musician, Educator
 David Steven Researcher, writer and strategist.
 Ed Burton Artist Programmer
 Emma Quinn Curator
 Jonathan Jones Morris Programmer and artist
 Julian Saunderson Philosopher
 Matt Gould learning and partnerships consultant
 Paul Dyson Agile Practitioner
 Paul Munden Legal & business advisor
 Peter McOwan Professor of Computer Science
 Tim Diggins Programmer, designer
Sodaplay (2000)
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Java based physics engine
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By altering physical properties like gravity, friction, and speed, curiously
anthropomorphic models can be made to walk, climb, wriggle, jiggle, or collapse into a
writhing heap.
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First version created by Ed Burton around 1990, however he did not release it and
never intended it be used by the general public
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May 1998, Ed Burton joined Soda, writes the first Java version of the Constructor,
mostly as a fun way to teach himself Java. The Soda team experimented with the
program, creating the twelve basic models that are now presented as examples.
Existed on their website but was not advertised.
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By 2001, popularity of the program has grown thanks to word of mouth. Soda
unleasheds new features, such as the ability to save users creations. Soon after this,
a forum was created in order to support the fan base and encourage discussion of
models and construction techniques.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/edburton/253310610/in/photostream/
Sodaplay
Sodaconstructor - construction kit for interactive creations using masses and springs.
By altering physical properties like gravity, friction, and speed, curiously
anthropomorphic models can be made to walk, climb, wriggle, jiggle, or collapse into a
writhing heap.
http://sodaplay.com/creators/soda/items/constructor
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Users can play with other users creations
http://sodaplay.com/play
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Sodazoo- List of the best user created creations
http://archive.sodaplay.com/zoo/
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Sodarace- Users can race their models against each other
http://sodarace.net/
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Moovl- Similar as sodaconstructor but targeted for kids. Site contains excercises and
activities teachers can use to let students create their own models.
http://www.moovl.co.uk/
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Energy Ring
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(2004)
Installation piece that echoes ideas about future energy
provision
Created by Casson Mann, Soda
40 meter long, white LED screen, wrapped to form a ring of
dynamic white light
32,000 LEDs
One of the many installations in the Energy Gallery of the
London Science Museum
Ring displays answers to questions about energy entered at
one of the four touch-screen terminals
Questions include whether we should have energy-free days,
or what flavor electricity might be
Augmented reality view of the ring on touch screens terminals
allows visitors to ‘zap’ the ring, causing a small explosion and
lightning flashes.
Energy Ring
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKT2pBXs9aY
Energy (2004)
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An Arts Council Creative Partnerships funded 30 meter tall
external light installation at Stoke Newington School, London
The Creative Partnerships program brings creative workers
such as artists, architects and scientists into schools to work
with teachers to inspire young people and help them learn
Comprises 45 custom LED panels each 600mm square
distributed over a surface of the school’s boiler house chimney
Each panel contains two independently controllable energy
related iconographic images designed by children and laid out
in colored LEDs
Soda’s software uses data from videos shot by the children as
the control mechanism for the LED panels, thus allowing the
school to easily change the behavior of the artwork
Energy
irrepressible.info (2006)
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Created for Amnesty International UK
Campaign to raise awareness concerning internet
censorship
Allowing people to actively participate and take
action against online repression
Users place badge at the bottom of their website
Badge shows excerpts from censored sites around
the world
It links back to irrepressible.info where more info is
provided about the censored site in question and the
campaign itself
4 Luv (2003)
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Site-specific artwork by Siobhán Hapaska and Fiddian for Loch Lommond
and the Trossachs National Park
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Synthesizes the enormously popular text message with the long held
practice of carving love messages onto trees
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Encased SMS pagers mounted on trees at selected sites throughout the
National Park. These pagers receive text messages of up to 160 characters
written by the public from mobile phones and displays them on their inbuilt
screen.
Ed V Zach (2005)
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Collaboration between Ed Burton and Zach Leiberman.
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Created for the Generative X exhibition of computational aesthetics as part
of onedotzero at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2005.
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Two computers observe each others screen and take it in turns to draw the
others output.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyVTCTmPeuk
MASH (2009)
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Multimedia Aggregation & Streaming Hyperscreen is Soda’s
customisable software that takes social media text, still and
video imagery and creates stunning, ever changing digital
collages in real time
Based off their work on the project GAS
Dynamically display content around products, services and
events on screens large and small in realtime
MASH can be used as a:
• dynamic, painterly mood-wall for POS, foyers, public spaces
• creative back-channel for conferences, exhibitions or events
• distributed corporate ‘social media barometer’ for
workspaces
• innovative ‘digital out of home’ campaign content generator
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVkhbXsyUNY
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1heeNnPmjI
Soda
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Full list of projects can be found at
http://soda.co.uk/projects