Last Friday I organized a trip to the V & A for their Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition, for our Friday’s Value Session.

We are currently getting involved in more digital projects, looking at i-phone applications and things, and I thought it would be interesting to see if the exhibition could help us find out more about the possibilities of the digital world.

Decode: Digital Design Sensations showcases the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small, screen-based, graphics to large-scale interactive installations.

The exhibition features both existing works and new commissions created especially for the exhibition.

Decode is a collaboration between the V&A and onedotzero, a contemporary arts organisation operating internationally with a remit to promote innovation across all forms of moving image and interactive arts.

The exhibition explores three themes:

Code presents pieces that use computer code to create new works and looks at how code can be programmed to create constantly fluid and ever-changing works.

In this piece Aaron Koblin, an artist specializing in data visualisation, created an interactive version of House of Cards, on display in the exhibition, where the face would move in synchronicity with your hands.

Interactivity looks at works that are directly influenced by the viewer. Visitors will be invited to interact with and contribute to the development of the exhibits.

This was probably the funnest part of the exhibition with all sorts of different things to interact with,

The one above was one of my favourites, Daniel Rozin trained as an industrial and interactive designer. He creates interactive installations and sculptures that have the ability to change and respond to the presence of a viewer. Although computers are often used, they are seldom visible. Mirrors and the mediated perception of the self are central themes in his work.

This one was really interesting, when you walked past it the metal plates would rotate to create a shadow of where you were standing, and we tried to figure out how it worked, but are still not entirely sure!

For this one you had to create pools of light in a pile of black sand, and in those pools of light grew these wierd cell-like creatures, it was quite fascinating to watch.

It was created by Everyware, a creative computing group formed by Hyunwoo Bang (b. 1978, South Korea) and Yunsil Heo (b. 1979, South Korea).

We had a lot of fun with a video recording installation in this area too.

Ross Phillips is an interaction designer and Creative Technical Director at SHOWstudio, He created a screen with 20 different 3 second long videos playing that people at the exhibition recorded.

We did our own, with quite humorous results.

Network, was the final theme,

Network focuses on works that comment on and utilise the digital traces left behind by everyday communications and looks at how advanced technologies and the internet have enabled new types of social interaction and mediums of self-expression.

The above piece was created by Aaron Koblin, an artist specialising in data visualisation, and this piece demonstrated flight paths that were being tracked.

The Exhibition is on from: 8 December 2009–11 April 2010

Although the exhibition wasn’t huge, we still had a good time and I recommend you head down then and see for yourself!!

Click here for more information about the Exhibition….