The message, not the mediator
Urbanscreen, with their installation/projection in Hamburg’s Galerie der Gegenwart have pulled of a very nice example of the technology passively supporting the content - that is, the content stays main event. The effect they produce - an impressive, building-sized, animated trompe l’oeil does what it should do: it amazes passersby with the content and the effect. “How’d they do that?” is less a question - and that’s the way it should be. Anyone can tell it’s a projector; that’s irrelevant. And it’s not even interactive.
So many interaction designers miss this key point: it’s not about the technology. It’s about the experience. The problem with a great deal of contemporary “interactive” installation work is that people become fixated on the how, not the what, which misses the point entirely. People need to be focused on your message and not on how you made it happen.
