Jason Bruges, connectivity and interaction
From his London studio at Green Mews, Jason Bruges and his team design and produce interactive installations to get people to connect and engage with spaces through attractive and innovative experiences.
By Esther Torelló
¿How would you define the work of Jason Bruges Studio? Art, design, ephemeral architecture?
Well, I would say it is a hybrid of all three disciplines. Our projects come from works made by art foundations, museums, galleries, public or private authorities or companies that request us to work for specific places, usually for large public or semi-public spaces. But the multidisciplinary team of the studio also performs other types of projects such as an advertisement for the TV, an exhibition, or develop something related to the experience of the visitors and obviously the briefing or definition of the needs goes sometimes more towards the design and others towards the art. And ephemeral architecture is a topic that potentially crosses both.
Jason Bruges Studio Back to Front
Light plays a central role in all of them. How do you help them create interesting interactive experiences?
Our work is multisensory, uses matter and space and obviously a large part of it is light. As an architect trained as a designer and artist, I use light in everything we do because it is closely linked to the things we see, yet the materiality and texture are also incredibly important, so I never look at the light like a piece in herself. Very often it is embodied by a system or technology that produces it and that will give a style and create something with a certain type of platform. You should not divorce how light is produced, what type of sound it emits, how it responds to something temporarily, how it works, and how it works from a narrative point of view. We have worked in collaboration with people who take into account the taste, the smell, and sometimes also the sound. Light adapts in multisensory environments and that is the reason why many of the works we produce use media based on it.
Jason Bruges Studio Back to Front
What technologies do they use to carry out their work? Do you work with solutions available in the market or design your own technology or software?
All ideas are derived from narrative and concept, but we investigate and develop materials and material assemblies, so we often look for existing technologies but subverting them and using them in ways they were not designed for. In the Mirror, Mirror work we did for the Victoria & Albert Museum we worked with electronic signage but subverting it to create video pixels. We worked with the type of light tubes that were used in the old scanners, with tubes CCFL in miniature, We have played with all kinds of industrial mats for LED lenses that are used on billboards but also for road signs. Therefore, it is technology available but "reinvented". And then there are other things, like the reflective technology we've been playing for jobs like the Digital Fountain, the York University subway station, the University of Oregon, or the work we're currently developing in Toronto. It is about developing different types of liquid crystal composites with which to work, so that everything revolves around reflected light and there is no light emitted. It is an unusual way of working that forces you to be very attentive to the environment, where the light comes from and what happens with ambient light. I guess we are always developing new forms, new typologies of work, new media, which could stipulate what types of technology people want to see depending on the effects we are trying to achieve. This is another of the differences between artistic commissions and design commissions.
Dichroic Blossom
What factors do you consider when designing interactive installations?
Generally the facilities sit in an environment with which they are going to interact, to observe, to play with it, so potentially it will become part of their daily life, so the narrative, aspirations on how that narrative unfolds And how people interact is something we consider through the creation of storyboards, the creation of interactive prototypes and numerous tests. It is a continuous process that starts from the moment we receive a briefing and we start thinking about it until the installation is delivered on site and we start up to check how it works and how people interact with it.
Dichroic Blossom
One of his most recent assignments was made by the Tate Modern and consisted in designing a pioneering digital art project. What can you tell us about it?
The task for the Tate Modern was to create a highly innovative digital arts project that would transform the visitor experience and foster interaction and creative exchanges through a variety of digital interventions within the gallery space. Bloomberg Connects enables Tate Modern visitors to become commentators, critics, contributors and co-creators. They are invited to exchange ideas, images and experiences, create their own interpretations of works of art and interact with artists, The museum and the one with the other using the digital space as a new canvas for creativity and conversation. The touch screen with a palette of brushes and colors allows the visitor to create their own work and see it projected large-scale on the wall or send their work to the Flickr of the Tate. In addition, seventy-five screens integrated in the existing architecture of the building and distributed throughout the circulation areas give them the possibility of sharing comments about the works exposed or interacting with different surfaces connected with motion sensors. It has been an interesting exercise in design, narrative and interactive design. The touch screen with a palette of brushes and colors allows the visitor to create their own work and see it projected large-scale on the wall or send their work to the Flickr of the Tate. In addition, seventy-five screens integrated in the existing architecture of the building and distributed throughout the circulation areas give them the possibility of sharing comments about the works exposed or interacting with different surfaces connected with motion sensors. It has been an interesting exercise in design, narrative and interactive design. The touch screen with a palette of brushes and colors allows the visitor to create their own work and see it projected large-scale on the wall or send their work to the Flickr of the Tate. In addition, seventy-five screens integrated in the existing architecture of the building and distributed throughout the circulation areas give them the possibility of sharing comments about the works exposed or interacting with different surfaces connected with motion sensors. It has been an interesting exercise in design, narrative and interactive design. Seventy-five screens integrated in the existing architecture of the building and distributed throughout the circulation areas gives them the possibility of sharing comments on the works exposed or interacting with different surfaces connected with motion sensors. It has been an interesting exercise in design, narrative and interactive design. Seventy-five screens integrated in the existing architecture of the building and distributed throughout the circulation areas gives them the possibility of sharing comments on the works exposed or interacting with different surfaces connected with motion sensors. It has been an interesting exercise in design, narrative and interactive design.
Dichroic Blossom
Creating a project like the one that comments should involve many professionals from different disciplines. Well, it's all teamwork. The study staff consists of seventeen members working full time, ranging from architects of different experiences to programmers, software developers and people with different levels of electronic experience. I myself have experience in many different things, it is very difficult to describe what I do, I have worked as an interaction designer, as an architect, as an exhibition designer, well, you could say that I am an artist, a business owner and an entrepreneur.
Dichroic Blossom
Do you have lighting designers on your computer?
Yes, we have them, and in fact I myself qualify as a lighting designer, although not in the field of more conventional lighting design if not in the field of product design and technology. We collaborate when necessary with freelance lighting designers who have previously worked in the studio, especially to design sculptural and artistic elements. We also collaborate with other types of specialists in electronics, in software, in sets; We have contacts with people from different doctorates who make up the great team of Jason Bruges, although they are not here every day, besides the project directors and obviously a great administrative team. Currently we have around thirty projects in progress.
Bloomberg Connects
Do you think that you have achieved your own style that makes your works recognizable?
Very often people see a job and ask me, is it yours? Sometimes it is and sometimes it is not, because in addition to us there are six or seven studies that have been created from the people who have worked at Jason Bruges Studio, it is still an opportunity to see the work of someone thinking that Could be ours. And of course we also have fellows doing some similar things, but I think what is going to stand out from our work is the source. It is very architectural and in the world of hybrid digital architecture we are creating some of the biggest projects, in this sense there are not many people to be confused.
Bloomberg Connects
From ephemeral installations to permanent works how do you avoid clichés and not be repetitive?
Well, there is something positive about repeating certain topics in terms of technology and information and how we do things, so there may be a lot of methodology that is repeated, but I think since the works are specific to a place they are novel Being in a new city, a new culture. You come with new ideas and obviously the team is not static and you incorporate new people who also bring new ideas. I have no problem with not repeating myself because every site we observe brings new ideas, in fact in some subjects we are trying to be a little more interactive in terms of exploration and research creating more sophisticated versions of things we have done before.
Coke
…Light adapts in multisensory environments and that is the reason why many of the works we produce use media based on it.
Is connectivity the key word of our time?
Yes, I think connectivity only exists as a sort of default. People connect to work through digital media, blog, tweet our observations, film and interact. Obviously we get a lot of connectivity so within the narrative design you can encourage interaction and explore ways for people to get involved when creating complex urban pieces. We do this through consulting and through planning processes. Very often we carry out tests and prototypes, like now for a project that we have in the London area of Shoreditch, to make a whole series of digital billboards, And we have already done some tests with a workshop in the Victoria Albert Museum.Lo we have opened to a wide area of people, connected to many people, which is still a form of connectivity.We can certainly connect with our works. In fact, we have physical connections to many of our parts.
Coke
I guess people react better if there is interaction in the piece. Yes, true, if people understand, in the most elementary sense, if there is an answer within a system, which is the basic level of creating a chain reaction in the system based on their presence, people love it, They are passionate about digital mirrors. I'm going to show you a new job that we just finished in Toronto that applies this to another level, based on a collaboration agreement and in which you need many people to make something happen. This is something innate, something related to looking around us and understanding the world around us, to enjoy the living things, be it food or another person. I guess that looking for life in people and things is something human, I had not thought about it before.
Coke
What was it like working for the London Olympics?
Well, we're still working for the Olympics, in three pieces for the legacy of the Olympic Park. One is the bridge that we have already completed and is being remodeled at the moment to adapt to the new panorama that will exist around it. We have another piece that is an underpass, a pedestrian bridge, called Fast Faster Fastest , a piece that allows you to test and measure yourself with athletes like Bolt and others who have achieved amazing records, which will again work for the World Cup Of Rugby. The third,Streamline , is based on swimming and speed swimmers achieve and develops on a bridge over the train tracks in the south of the Olympic Park. When people pass the bridge it is lit with an imaginary water surface. This work illustrates the speed of the winners in the 2012 Games.
Digital Fountain
Three pieces, not bad at all.
In addition to these three pieces you can include the Digital Fountain, a public art facility commissioned for the new Westfield urban development in Stratford that was placed there because of its proximity to the Olympic Stadium. We also made a temporary installation for visitors to the Coca Cola Pavilion. It was an extraordinary work, totally new and innovative but undoubtedly the most difficult because we had to create a show in a short period of time to show it worldwide and to stand out among many others. To these it adds a sixth piece Mirror Mirror , for the gardens of Lancaster House, a mansion next to the Buckingham Palace where the British government showed the creativity of the United Kingdom during the Olympic Games.
Digital Fountain
To be chosen as one of the best creative in the UK should be a real pride. Yes, we were in the right place, at the right time and doing the right kind of work when the Olympic Games were held. The assignments were done individually and I must admit that I do not know many others who had so many opportunities to contribute in their organization or in designing pieces for their legacy.
