‘Equilibrium Morphologies’ investigates how complex articulated membrane structures can be erected and tensioned through emergent behaviours of interacting forces and explore multiple states of equilibrium.

Surrogate is a body of work centred around issues of reproductive technology and bodily autonomy comprised of a series of physical and performative inputs and outputs to engage and provoke conversations about the topic.

In this interview with Nils-Thomas Økland from AIR Sandnes, Kataria dives into how this traditional practice inspired him to create an audio-visual performance.

Anima is an interactive installation that facilitates a musical jam session between humans and machines. Operating much like a sequencer, Anima uses open-source AI algorithms to generate musical sequences.

Created by Lingdong Huang at the Future Sketches Group (MIT Media Lab), “Semi-Realistic Rotary Experiences” is a set of experiments exploring augmentation of real life physical gestures of rotating things.

Fantastic Smartphones, alternative accessories, interactive installations and machine performances highlight the excesses relating to our use of these devices. By imagining innovative ways of interacting with our smartphones or by delegating our repetitive actions to machines, this exhibition takes a critical look at a society that has become addicted to an object that seems to have become indispensable : the “smart” phone.

Created by panGenerator, “Icons” is an exhibition exploring our shared cultural “imaginarium” of digital gestures, symbols, and artefacts, dragging them out onto a physical space, enabling audiences a direct, tactile confrontation and – also literally – a different visual perspective.

Four projects by students at ECAL (Media Interaction Design) explore the possibilities of VR. From alternative interfaces and public space to architectural interface and what its like to experience the environment of yellow ants.

Created by panGenerator, “Apparatum” is a custom made apparatus with digital interface that emits purely analogue sound. It is inspired by the heritage of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio – one of the first studios in the world producing electroacoustic music.

Created by Felix Ros, ‘Scribble’ is a haptic interface designed for autonomous cars that lets the driver draw their way through traffic. They draw a path and the car will follow, not letting them drive but pilot the car, helping the car when in need. Scribble is powered by an Arduino DUE that is controlled over a serial connection by a GUI made in openFrameworks.

Created by Tore Knudsen, ‘Pour Reception’ is a playful radio that uses machine learning and tangible computing to challenge our cultural understanding of what an interface is and can be. Two glasses of water are turned into a digital material for the user to explore and appropriate.

Created by Stella Speziali at ECAL, Tangibles Worlds explores the effects of tactile experience as a catalyst for full immersion in VR. It proposes a “black box” interface, an alt-plysical-universe to the VR experience, extending the immersion beyond visual and sound.

Created by the Responsive Environments team at the MIT Media Lab, the ‘FabricKeyboard’ explores the concept of stretchable fabric “sensate media” as a musical instrument. The work is a response to the current developments of textile sensors, stretchable nature of knitted fabrics, and vast growth of new digital music instruments.

Created by artist Philip Schütte in collaboration with Random Studio, SUN is an interactive installation that turns one of nature’s most mediated phenomenas – the rising and setting of the sun – into a playful sensory experience.

Powered by a dizzying array of parametric meta-controls, VIDEOGAMO’s ‘party console’ DOBOTONE invites (up to) four players to cycle through a strange and fiercely competitive selection of lo-fi videogames.

Untethered is a new VR serial drama created by Numinous Games that has players step into the shoes of a radio DJ and talk your way through a broadcast and an unfolding mystery.

At its best, creative inquiry offers intellectual nourishment, empowerment and solace. At the end of 2016, we need all of those, which is why remembering – and celebrating – the outstanding work done this year is all the more important. Over the past twelve months we’ve added more than 100 projects to our archive – and with your help we’ve selected the favourite ones!

Created by Mylene Dreyer, Incontroller is a game designed where the difficulty level in the game increases in the controller while the software remains the same.

Created by Pedro Lopes, Doğa Yüksel, François Guimbretière, and Patrick Baudisch at the Hasso Plattner Institut, Muscle-Plotter is an assistive interface that allows hand-drawn computation using EMS muscles actuation.

Created by Alexia Léchot at ECAL, Deltu is a delta robot with a personality that interacts with humans using two iPads. Created using arm technology normally found in 3d printers, Deltu uses three different applications on the iPad Alexia built for it, using symmetry as an interpretation, a mirror and a reflexion of our own image.

Created by Mylène Dreyer at ECAL, Scribb is a computer game in which the physical area scanned by the mouse is an integral part of the interaction. The player must draw black areas, detected by the mouse, to be able to evolve in the game, simultaneously managing the position of the mouse and the surface on which it is placed.

On the quest for new tangible interfaces Martin Hertig experimented with Zippers. The result is Zippy, a guitar bag transformed to a simple, but functional guitar.

Created by Moscow based duo Stain, MIMPI (mobile interactive multiparametric image) is an experiment combining abstract generative image and simple multiuser interactivity.

Designed by Robin Baumgarten, Line Wobbler is a one-dimensional arcade game that emerges from the combination of a unique ‘wobble’ controller and an LED strip.

Developed by the team at MIT Media Lab’s Responsive Environments group, SensorTape is a sensor network in a form factor of a tape that allows users to create large sensor networks.

Developed at the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group, Reality Editor allows users to merge digital and physical realities into a unified experience.

Created by the MIT Media Lab’ Tangible Media Group, bioLogic project explores opportunities around developing new forms of interface using biology.

Created by Felix Heibeck, Basheer Tome and Clark Della Silva with supervision from Hiroshi Ishii at the MIT’s Tangible Media Group, uniMorph is an enabling technology for rapid digital fabrication of customized thin-film shape-changing interfaces.

Created by Nicolas Nahornyj at ECAL, Lazy Pen is an attempt to combine the practical side of computer-based word processing with the emotional aspect of one’s handwriting. The tool allows the user to distort the typeface as they write, using the moving palettes placed beneath their palms.

Conditional_Lover is a bot that unlike its counterparts that live hidden in servers, has a physical appearance with a task to automate your Tinder using its “eyes” and “fingers”. It does this by analysing photos on your phone (webcam) and then selects or rejects it (prongs) based on an algorithm that combines your preferred age, golden ratio, smile, glasses, ethnicity etc.