karsten schmidt digital identity for decode exhibition at victoria and albert museum

decode: digital design sensations exhibition victoria & albert museum, london december 8th, 2009 to april 11th, 210

the victoria & albert museum‘s upcoming decode: digital design sensations exhibition will show the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small screen based graphics to large-scale installations. the show explores three themes. first – code as a raw material looks at how code can be programmed to create constant fluid and ever changing objects. second is interactivity,which will investigate designs where the viewer directly influences the work, allowing patrons to interact and contribute to the development of the works which border on design and performance. the final theme is the network. the works here comment on and utilise the digital traces left behind by everyday communications(i.e. blogs in social media communities to satellite tracked GPS systems.it takes a look at how advanced technologies and the internet have enabled new types of social interaction and media for self expression.

mirror all images courtesy of toxi – karsten schmidt

the victoria and albert museum has commissioned artist karsten schmidt to design a malleable, digital identity for the decode exhibition, by providing it as an open source code.

the identity application is fully interactive and can be controlled via mouse, keyboard and a graphical user interface. the application lets you manipulate most parameters in real time to create a variety of different looks. one does not need to be an expert code to do this. karsten has provided a detailed user guide for changing the parameters via the user interface and has also given pointers on how to make changes to the code itself.

during december onwards, the V&A will run a public ‘recode’ competition to create new versions & remixes of the original codebase/outputs. you are given the opportunity to recode karsten’s work and create your own original artwork. if your work is accepted it might even become the new decode identity. the public is invited to remix & recode the original piece and submit their versions to be shown on digital screens throughout the london underground.

go here to participate and submit your work for inclusion in the V&A’s digital gallery. the project has been released under the GPLv3 license on google code.

iceflame, rose