When art and technology come together, the union can create a magical experience and some really unbelievable things. This is what happened when Microsoft’s creative and technical team came together and built ‘the Cube’. The Cube debuts at Decibel Festival, a celebration that brings new media, art and electronic music together. The Decibel festival took place in Seattle’s in this week.
The Cube is a 4-foot tall square structure that has five sides. This giant structure is a three-dimensional object that has the ability to create virtual space and offers real life interaction. To make it interactive, it has been powered by four Kinects, five CPUs and five projectors. Interactive connected dance experience that it offers is created by the Stimulant’s Kinects.
Simply put, The Cube is a highly interactive structure that responses to your dance movements; because it is created for interactive dance experience. To interact with this structure you need to stand in front of its any side. The Kinects in it can read the movements of up to three people. The best part is, each of these participants can see movements of the other two participants. So, in other words, The Cube serves as a portal that virtually connects people who are physically separated.
Michael Megalli, senior director of brand strategy at Microsoft mentions about the Cube:
“The Cube is a canvas for a new kind of creative expression. It’s an appliance that creates public space.”
He believes that the Cube can open up endless opportunities in the world of technological innovation.
Rick Barraza, senior technical advisor at Microsoft calls the Cube as the example of evolving culture in Microsoft. He says,
“It’s about evolutionary innovation versus revolutionary innovation. We won’t reach that next level until we encourage creativity. The Cube is part of that. We’re saying to agencies, ‘Here is our product. Here is our software stack. It’s open to you to play with.’”
The Cube seems like the beginning of a new era in the world of technology. It will be interesting to see what happens next in this line.
