As asked by Mark last Monday, here’s some research on Perry Hoberman, in particular, his Bar Code Hotel art exhibit.

From Perry Hoberman’s own site.

Bar Code Hotel recycles the ubiquitous symbols found on every consumer product to create an multi-user interface to an unruly virtual environment. The installation makes use of a number of strategies to create a casual, social, multi-person interface. The public simultaneously influences and interacts with computer-generated objects in an oversized three-dimensional projection, scanning and transmitting printed bar code information instantaneously into the computer system. The objects, each corresponding to a different user, exist as semi-autonomous agents that are only partially under the control of their human collaborators.

Each guest who checks into the Bar Code Hotel dons a pair of 3D glasses and picks up a bar code wand, a lightweight pen with the ability to scan and transmit printed bar code information instantaneously into the computer system. Because each wand can be distinguished by the system as a separate input device, each guest can have their own consistent identity and personality in the computer-generated world. And since the interface is the room itself, guests can interact not only with the computer-generated world, but with each other as well. Bar code technology provides a virtually unlimited series of low-maintenance sensing devices (constrained only by available physical space), mapping every square inch of the room’s surface into the virtual realm of the computer.

The projected environment consists of a number of computer-generated objects, each one corresponding to a different guest. These objects are brought into being by scanning unique bar codes that are printed on white cubes that are dispersed throughout the room. Once brought into existence, objects exist as semi-autonomous agents that are only partially under the control of their human collaborators. They also respond to other objects, and to their environment. They emit a variety of sounds in the course of their actions and interactions. They have their own behaviors and personalities; they have their own life spans (on the order of a few minutes); they age and (eventually) die

Guests can scan any bar code within reach at any time. Each bar code is labeled (verbally or graphically), letting the user know what action will result. Each time a guest scans a bar code, contact is re-established between that guest and their object. However, between these moments of human contact, objects are on their own. This allows for a number of possible styles of interaction. Guests can choose to stay in constant touch with their object, scanning in directives almost continuously. Or they may decide to exert a more remote influence, watching to see what happens, occasionally offering a bit of “advice” to their object.

This piece of work sounds very interesting, and definitely ahead of it’s time. The idea of a room which you can enter, and then create an interactive artifact which changes are you interact with the room is very appealing. The fact that the generated artifacts are only ever partially under human control have some interesting connotations considering the nature of barcodes, subtly hinting at the fact that consumers are never in as much control over products as they’d like to be.