This installation, commissioned by BlackBerry®, is comprised of 4 micro environments, corresponding to the 4 BlackBerry® keywords: liberation, innovation, interaction, communication; as a whole, it represents the attempt to build a spatial version of the 'always on' experience, the permanent online connection as the Blackberry device is always connected and relies on e-mail push technology.
The installation wants to establish a connection between the 'physical' and the 'digital': the digital connection makes the 4 physical micro-environments, always connected to the wireless network, dynamic and reactive like a single organism.
During presentation days, visitors are asked to write e-mails related to one of the BlackBerry® keywords; 4 different visual clients, running inside the cubes, turn the texts of the e-mails into a graphic processing. Some keyframes are printed, and can be seen next to the monitors.
On the opposite wall, 4 BlackBerrys also receive the e-mails, enhancing the 'online' environmental character through the lighting and the sounds generated when receiving messages.
The 'engine' of the cubes is manifest, as the electronic components have been assembled on their outer surface.
The thin diaphragm that screens off the outside 'electronic engine' from the image enjoyable from inside the cube, stands as just a settlement of an environment, that even if with its own materiality is perceived as continuous and transparent.
The shift from one cube to another provides a journey through a single fragmented environment, where to experience a borderland: a physical pulsing environment related to the data no-place, the digital no-place.
The running software has been developed using Processing. The application has two status, the first looks like a standard mail client, that constantly checks an XML file containing the last emails sent to one of our mailboxes. The second is an animated typografic representation of simple shapes composed by the content of the emails, which is triggered by users touching a sensor by the screen.
The installation used four effects, of the six developed, representing the emails' metamorphosis according to the four given keywords.
Limiteazero has also handled the artistic direction for bb_write graphic identity.
We chose Proce55ing, designed by Mike Cina of youworkforthem, as official typeface for the logo, for the installation graphic, and for print and online identity.
