A couple weeks ago, I watched Bret Victor’s updated introduction to DynamicLand and it reminded me that I have been meaning to explore a set of ideas that I think are connected, but I’m just not quite sure how.

These are the themes that I want to explore in order to find connection:

• How can the affordances of projection be used with paper and computation for personal and group knowledge work?
• What are the constraints and possibilities of an institutional library compared to one’s own personal library?
• There are certain group activities are well-understood as good for generating ideas, like group brainstorming with post-it notes. Are there tools that can help us narrow down choices and priorities?
• When should work be developed on a wall? When should work be developed on a table? When should we use paper? When should we use a computer?

Maybe I will be able to find points of connection between these ideas, maybe not. But the only to know for sure, is to try.

And with that, I am going start with a list of projects with projection.

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Johnny Lee’s Wii Powered Smartboard

In 2008, Johnny Lee shared how, for the cost of a $40 Wii controller, you can recreate a $4000 smart board.

It is now 2024. The Wii has been discontinued and SmartBoards are still available for sale.

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Bret Victor’s Bookshelf

I’ve written about Bret Victor’s Bookshelf (and its deficiencies) before.

In the video example above, I would like to direct the viewer not to the choice of what books he is using in his example, but to the choices that was made in determining how the contents of each book are displayed and explored.

How would the experience be different if the contents of a book were displayed on a table? How different would the experience be if the entire contents of a book were projected on the floor?

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The St. Louis Map Room

The St. Louis Map Room was a project from data artist, Jep Throp.

A vacant school’s gymnasium in St. Louis provided a forum for this exploration. In it, over the course of a month, 29 groups came in to make 100 square foot maps of their neighborhoods and communities. They were aided by robots and projection, but primarily drew huge maps by hand speak to their lived experience of their city.

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Community groups mapped hand-collected bicycle traffic data, community gardens, churches, magnet schools, and food banks. Groups of students mapped their schools, how they got there, and where it was or wasn’t safe. If mapping is a source of power, each mapper claimed some of it by making maps of their community that reflected them as they are, or that communicated what they’d like them to be.

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Once a map was drawn, we projected onto it civic data collected from St. Louis: everything from bus lines to poverty levels to historical red-lining maps. Normally these data are difficult, if not impossible, to access without deep technical knowhow. The mappers were surprised to see their experiences confirmed – or challenged – by data that were invisible to them before. And when they perused the maps that other groups had done before them, they got to experience their city through the eyes of their neighbors.

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Projection Games

In 2015, a gamejam at DynamicLand resulted with the prototype of Laser Socks.

In 2016, on a rainy day in Aarhus, Denmark, my cousin and I took our bored kids to DOKK1, where they were able to play indoor projected soccer.

I don’t know which design company was responsible for this exhibit, but I have seen Montreal’s Moment Factory provide a similar Arcade Experience for adults.

The Moment Factory is behind a great many cultural experiences of places and events that have been greatly augmented and enhanced by sound and projected images.

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Projection Mapping

I didn’t know that Projection Mapping was a thing that could be done outside of large agencies like Moment Factory, until TikTok served me this video of a person turning their kitchen floor into a lit up dance floor using software called TouchDesigner.

Later, I discovered that fabric artists and craftspeople were using projection mapping software to calibrate their images so they can place patterns directly onto fabric for cutting, which skips the annoying process of cutting out patterns on paper to be pinned to fabric.

Large Video Screens Are Expensive

Does anyone know of a library that has used a projector with built-in Chromecast to make a large dynamic display for library promotion purposes?

I’ve seen it used for protests and vigils on campuses such as at Ottawa.

If so, please let me know in the comments! Thank you!

The TU Delft Library Collection Wall

My initial reaction to the TU Delft Library Collection Wall, is noticing that the word ‘wall’ is key.

The library is a projection onto a flat space called a wall.

You can interact with The Wall. But even if can you take it back to your desk to read and annotate, it is not worth mentioning.