Hug@ree at UCLA Sci|Art NanoLab “Imagine the impossible– exploring Art and Science in Los Angeles”

Hug@ree is an interactive installation that provides a bond between urban beings and the forest. Participants hug a real tree, triggering their registration in the virtual world for further interaction.
The hug to the tree is detetected by a combination of capacitive sensors and recorded by an IP camera. The captured video is sent to a screen where participants can place the video loop of their hug on a tree structure, becoming leaves of a collective experience. || Time lapse of the first days»

Hug@ree is currently at UCLA in the scope of the Summer Institute Sci|Art NanoLab.
This interactive installation is part of the "Guest lecture: Mónica Mendes" presentation of RTiVISS ongoing research as an UCLA Art|Sci artist in residence, at CNSI Auditorium, June 22, 1.30pm. Here is part of the visual documentation»

... and here is the Sci|Art camera perspective ;) »
+ Mónica's hug» and Rita's » and Adam's » and +...

» The online version of the visual outcomes
» Timelapses of the final days
» Photo gallery of the Hug@ree setup, RTiVISS presentation and Art|Sci

Multiple Hug@ree installations around the world will upload their leaves to an online platform, creating a global shared embrace of nature.

FRAMEWORK

Sci|Art NanoLab 2011
The Sci|Art NanoLab is a UCLA course aimed at making connections between cutting edge scientific research, popular culture and contemporary arts.

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Instrumented Tree
"Bidwill Brachychiton" (Sterculia Family),
from Australia
"(…) in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; (...) Because she is my rose." by Saint-Exupéry, in Little Prince

USA > UCLA – University of California, Los Angeles
> CNSI – California NanoSystems Institute
> Court of Sciences > Map & Directions »
Activities Program »
Sci|Art day 3/June22 Flickr set »

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References and Technical specifications
[See Hug@ree main project page »]