Interactive Playground

The exhibition, which combines esthetic, educational and social functions, uses both hidden electronics and elements for the children to handle. Objects derived from popular toys, but expanding on their forms and functions – textures from the natural world, which are absent from standard computer interaction – and pre-arranged three-dimensional immersive environments let the children directly and personally explore the concept of art, as if replicating the original sensory and conceptual cognition of the world. This kind of cognition is fundamental in the process of shaping a child’s relationship with his or her environment in the early stages of development.

Interactive Playground is an exhibition aimed at children of interactive media installationsarranged in a form of art laboratory of senses. The Interactive Playground is the project produced by WRO Art Centre from Wroclaw.

The Interactive Playground has been experienced by over a hundred thousand viewers in major Polish art galleries and museums, among others, at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Gdansk Science and Technology Park, Centre for Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Torun, Biennale Children’s Art in Poznan, National Museum in Szczecin. 

Arsenal Gallery, as the municipal art gallery, wishes to present such a unique exhibition in Bialystok.

We are convinced that this exhibition will become a wonderful place to spend time together, in a creative way and in a family surrounding. It’s a pioneering project both in the technological sense and in the way the pieces interact with the public. The set of installations, which is constantly expanding to include new components, creates an immersive experience and lets viewers generate images and sounds on large screens in real time, by playing. The exhibition combines esthetic, educational and social functions.

The exhibition includes following presentations:
 
1. PAINTING WITH LIGHT

As the children play with luminous toys, their movements are recognized by the motion-detection system and, in real time, special software transforms the data into abstract images and sounds. The sizes, forms and colors of the images displayed on the screen correspond with the positions of the toys set in motion by users. The installation can be implemented on up to three screens.
 
2. TEXTURES

A motion-detection system records the movements of hands touching one of five natural surfaces – stones, water, steam, tree bark and grass – activating a big-screen projection of sight and sound with photograph-based animations of the changing natural world. The projections vary depending on the number and sequence of surfaces activated.
 
3. BOPI

An audiovisual installation based on custom-made software permitting multiform playback through an intuitive interface: it’s a kind of audiovisual instrument whose four drum-like cylindrical elements transfer rhythms to sensors that generate colorful animated amoeba-like forms. When playing the drums, users explore basic visual notions such as texture, color and perspective, as well as musical parameters like rhythm, volume and harmony.
 
4. SORCERER

An interactive group game based on Maurice Carême’s magical poem, using animated illustrations drawn by children participating in workshops.
 
5. INTERACTIVE PLATFORM

The installation where children through movement around multicolored squares, create music.
 
6. CINEMA

A program of classic Polish animations, selected by the curators from WRO. The cinema in a form of a chill-out room with the seats of the floor, where children – especially larger groups – can wait for their access to the interactive part of the exhibition or have a rest in the end of the exhibition. At the same time – besides functional qualities – the selected animations constitute
 
7. DOG

Electronic dog guarding the entrance to a playground.