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Amsterdam Light Festival

Students of MediaLAB Amsterdam pitched a project idea for the Amsterdam Light Festival BeamLab pitch this fall, to present a projection mapping project on the Mozes and Aaronkerk on Amsterdam’s Waterloo square. The idea for The Dark Side of Amsterdam was one of the 7 chosen concepts that were allowed to present during Amsterdam Light Festival in collaboration with BeamSystems.

The Dark Side of Amsterdam is an interactive installation that was presented for 3 days on the market square. Passersby and visitors were asked to reflect on their sins. Users would then choose custom made glow-in-the-dark glasses that corresponded with their worst sin, and were asked to enter ‘the confession booth’ where a semi-anonymous long exposure portrait was taken. The portraits were projected onto the church instantly, accompanied by visuals that depict a sin, such as brothels and sex club signs to go with the sin ‘lust’. 410 people visited the installation and lust is (still?) Amsterdam’s most favourite sin.

The Dark Side of Amsterdam won the audience award at Beamlab #32

Contact person: Gijs Gootjes or Loes Bogers

Games 4 Health

Sedentary behavior is a common problem in today’s society, relating to several health issues. Desk jobs often cause employees to sit behind their computer for hours on end, without getting the active breaks that they need. To turn this around, the LumiMate was developed. It is an ambient interactive LED screen, connected to a sensor in the chair, that suggests the employee to take a break. Using the principle of intrinsic motivation and autonomy, the light does not force employees to take a break, but is merely an indication for how low long the employee has been seated. Game modes have been included for a more social interaction.

Contact person: project coach Marco van Hout

Women’s Safety (India)

Sexual harassment in India is a complex social issue. Seven out of ten women have experienced sexual harassment, but ninety per cent of those cases are not reported, according to an online survey done by a national Indian newspaper. This in turn contributes to a big gap of data on the issue, rendering it invisible and thereby deepening the silence around it.

How to break this vicious cycle?

Convers[t]ation is an electronic panel, which could be installed in public transport hubs where women can quickly and anonymously report cases of sexual harassment. The data collected by the panel will flow into a transparent repository, from where it will be fed back via summary reports to institutions and via data visualizations on a big public screen to the general public.

Thus, we aim to facilitate reporting, and collect data on sexual harassment. By encouraging women to share their experience, we hope to spark conversations around it and break the stifling silences that surround this critical issue.

Project Coach: Sruthi Krishnan at Fields of View, Bangalore

Contact person MediaLAB: Loes Bogers