For artists who want to get their work known — and sold — a static frame hanging on the wall of a gallery just doesn’t cut it anymore. Whey let a potential admirer — or customer — just walk by your work when there are now autonomous picture frames that can track and follow someone walking by, ensuring your work is always perfectly in their line of site?
The Eye Catcher frame and supporting system was developed by researchers at the Interactive Architecture Lab at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Using a tiny camera hidden behind a pin-sized hole in the piece’s wooden frame, it’s able to track the position of someone walking by and automatically reposition itself so it stays close to them and doesn’t go unnoticed. And instead of good old-fashioned magic, the frame moves about with the assistance of magnets, and a robot arm hidden behind a fake wall.
Even the art inside the frame is interactive. It’s a ferrofluid solution that uses moving magnets to change its shape and position to match the movement of the eyes and the facial expressions of someone who stops to examine the piece closer. It’s akin to the Louvre upgrading the Mona Lisa with moving eyes and a changing smile, except that this creation won’t outrage the art world. [Interactive Architecture via Panja Göbel (Twitter)]