ART BOX CITY is produced by a pool of brands headed by the university spin off SPAZI COMUNI (Rome, IT). Designed by Pino Brugellis, it sees the collaboration among others of EXTRAVEGA, TARGETTI, OLOMEDIA and for the acoustic design of LORENZO BRUSCI / Sound and Experience Design together with the B&C Speakers acoustic consultancy.

Art Box City is conceived to provide public and institutional information along with the ability to offer a dynamic and media space for urban meetings and public confrontations.

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ART BOX CITY è una macchina urbana, una piattaforma hardware e software progettata per lo svolgimento di due distinte attività:

1. La diffusione di contenuti culturali e informativi ai cittadini che avranno a disposizione uno “strumento” dai molteplici utilizzi: fruizione e download di contenuti audio-video e testuali; servizi informativi sul lavoro, sulle attività dei municipi e sulle manifestazioni artistico culturali in città; inserimento – previa vidimazione in tempo reale – di autoproduzioni.

2. La raccolta, la sintetizzazione e l’analisi dati sullo spazio urbano di posizionamento del box. Tale attività è resa possibili da un Software innovativo (SW_ABC_1) programmato grazie al lavoro congiunto di ricercatori di sociologia, psicologia sociale, metodologi, statistici e informatici.

La fisionomia esteriore è quella di un Box Urbano, una “macchina” che non richiede nessuno sforzo per essere utilizzata, che favorisce la socializzazione e la trasmissione artistica e culturale anche in modo distratto, inventando modi informali di comunicare.

A Sonorous Forest Roundabout. 2007 (3d rendering art by Giuseppe Vultaggio).

Lorenzo Brusci, sound and experience designer - Krakow (PL) Berlin (D)
Giuseppe Vultaggio, architect (IT)
Andrea Leonardi, architect (IT)
Gianluca Vultaggio, engeneer (IT)
Giovanni Cerrone, communication, organization and accounting (IT/US)

Object:
Project for Cornerstone - CA, USA

Title:
A Sonorous forest roundabout, an experience design made of Sound, Extended Time, alter-behaviors and Natural Space.

General description

- The installation evolves in a circular stance meant to emphasize intimacy with the most common geometrical archetype of public life. Circularity is a basic relationship model, recalling continuity. It is a living metaphor for the process of ricursivity and an invitation to oral communication and human coincidences. The circular design is also intended as an obviously artificial environment, co-naturalistic and fully self-conscious of its abstractive powers. In our sound and experience design, it is a stage through which a deeper emotional investigation of our closest environment is made possible.
- Through 3 main circular environments we attempt to create specific areas of interaction, with nature, with other visitors, with the self.
- The spatial element is designed to focus on extreme environmental immersion, emphasized by a sound design that allows introspection, discovery and inter-area surprises.
- The sound and the horticultural imaginary are designed to punctuate and materialize the discovery of an actively perceiving “Self “. This process of discovery is to be set in relation to a wide acception of Nature which technological enhancements and symbolic accents ultimately recalibrate from a naturalistic perception into Sentiment, Emotion, Acquaintance, Knowledge.
- The environmental main theme is time- and sound-induced body postures and gestures, i.e. how the human body reacts to environmental stimuli through pre-designed symbolic suggestions and expressive restrictions. Sound and naturalistic forms are intended to facilitate mental focus and a sense of intimacy, both with the physical world - inviting us to descend, ascend and dissolve into the environment – and with our preconceived notions of sound and natural environment.

Detail

- The installation is contained within a wired circular fence with an overlapping entry, covered in ivy and other greenery.
- The circumference is yet TBD, large enough for multiple users yet intimate and cozy.
- The internal space is covered in grasses or shrubs, preferably a hardy native shrub, that produces a sense of continuity, of organic dissolution amongst the three immersive areas.
- There are three immersion areas that allow visual, tactile and audio experience.
- Each area is a gradation of immersion.

Area 1: the suspended tree and the well

- A suspended tree, rising above a sound well that one can descend and experience as the location of concealed roots to a profound and common iconic identity. [We are open to the idea of building a smaller well that would not be accessible by visitors but would be fully sounding, resounding and responding, with a depth of 10-15 meters].
- The tree is a Gelso pendulo integrated with technologically enhanced prosthetics and made of non-naturalistic materials such as carbon fibers and fiberglass, particularly shaped to embed sound vibrations and install specific wind and pyroelectric sensors.
- The cave-like environment allows depth, isolation, immersion, altered states, scent, intimacy, playfulness. We already have technical construction specifications provided by our engineering partners.
- The cave is dug out to allow a few people (2-3) at a time to inhabit the space and sit comfortably for an extended period.
- The sound design focuses on the memory of vital natural states, albeit transfigured by processing and incorporated in the new environment.
- The top of the well is covered with a light net covered with ivy and allowing air and light to filter.
- The sound system elaborates environmental data captured by sensors, recorded and analyzed by customized interactive software.

Area 2: the 3 ripples

- A series of three ripples or organic rings emerging from the surface, half dug into the soil.
- The ripples allow individual sitting in different postures and are integrated with wide range and tactile sound experiences.
- Materials for the ripples can be concrete or metal boards covered in soft shrubbery (see Lyppia nudiflora).
- The seat inside the ripples is made of wood and pine cortex.
- Visitors are invited to sit inside the circles or lay down in the extension of the interior part.
- The acoustic inside is semi-circular: a 3.1 channels system is embedded in the structure.

Area 3: the dry lake(s)

- The lake is a simple circular area dug into the soil and planted with Tymo and Hieracium approximately two feet deep.
- The border allows sitting and contemplating, sound emanating from the depths of the lake.
- The internal part of the dry lake allows different postures:
laying down will provide a spectacular and intimate modulated vibrating experience.

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hyperroundabout.pdf

the pdf of the final layout.

plan.pdf

the plan of the well

section2.pdf

the section of the well

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A Sonic Working Table and other media furniture issues.
Between comfort and media investigations.

Lorenzo Brusci has invited architect Fabio Schillaci to co-design a Sonic Table and start thinking of a wider meaning of media furniture.
Additional media design and interaction design by Giovanni Conti e Sara Meloni.

here are some visual reflections on the table