We often compare ourselves to friends, colleagues, relatives, idols, etc. on a scale of time that’s beyond our comprehension. Full of hope and objectives that are far into the future, we strive to achieve as much as our parents, friends, and heroes.
What do you plan to achieve in the next 5 years? 10 years? 20? How long will you live?

Though there are many unknowns, we share one lifetime as a common measure.

In a Lifetime is a website that visualizes individual achievements and milestones along the scale of one lifetime. Each point along the arc represents a milestone where the top (12th hour) is their moment of birth, the right quadrant (3rd hour) is a quarter through their life, the bottom (6th hour) is half way through their life, and so on. The mapping strips age as a parameter from individuals and scales lifespans to compare achievements of one life with another.

The website collects information about each individual through a publicly accessible interface. Input parameters are, author, date of birth, lifespan, milestone or note, and significance (0-100). Anyone who visits the site can enter information about an individual to be mapped. If one so desires, you can enter your predicted lifespan to compare personal milestones to others.

Some patterns emerge. Significant achievements are made between the half way point and the 3/4 point of their lives. Beyond the 3/4 point, nearly all individuals stop accruing achievements .
Around the half way point in their individual lives, Albert Einstein wrote the General Theory of Relativity, Constantin Brancusi completed the Kiss, Le Corbusier completed Villa Savoye, Leonardo Da Vinci drew the proportions of human figure after Vitruvious.

In a Lifetime was built using javascript, php, and mySQL.
(tested on firefox 3 and safari)

P.Life is a large scale interactive screen designed for the IAC’s 120′ wide video wall. In the world of P.Life, Ps run across the 120′ screen frantically moving material from one house to another. Along the way, Ps exchange pleasantries (based on text message inputs) as they pass by each other, offering a helping hand to those in need. The landscape shifts and jolts based on audio input from the audience, tossing Ps into the air. Playful jumps into midair often end in injury, forcing them to crawl until a fellow P comes by to help out.

Features
Text messaging to create new characters of different sizes and dialogues.
Audio input to influence landscape
Performance backend to influence landscape
Ps move with life-like motion as they walk, jump, fall, run skip, crawl, carry boxes, push boxes, etc.
P.Life is written in OpenFrameworks and uses the Most Pixels Ever library

By Che-Wei Wang and Jiaxin Feng
Live Music by Taylor Levy

photos by wuyingxian

Pixel Sandbox is a live pixel whiteboard. Click on a pixel to change its color and draw something. Together.

Grass Type received an honorable mention for the 2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards. [ADAA pdf]

Grass Type was built with Tim Stutts

FeedBack PlayBack is a dynamic film re-editing and viewing system. The users’ physical state determines the visceral quality of scenes displayed; immediate reactions to the scenes feed back to generate a cinematic crescendo or a lull. We use material that is rigorously narrative, formulaic, and plentiful: the action movie series Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis. A narrative sequence key breaks any given Die Hard movie into narrative elements, corresponding clips were collected from each of the Die Hard movies. Individual clips fall into high, medium, and low action/arousal categories. The user is seated, and places his or her hands on a Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) detection panel (GSR readings are the same kind of data collected in lie detector test). After calibration, the movie begins showing, and clips are displayed depending on the user’s level of arousal and engagement. The narrative sequence is maintained, though the clips are pulled from any of the movies.

In FeedBack PlayBack, the cinematic converges with the physical present, exploiting the power of fiction to manipulate and alter our state of being at the most basic, primal level. We attempt to synchronize the media and viewer– whether towards a static loop or a explosive climax.

Special thanks to Matt Parker, Die Hard movie expert consultant.

Feedbak Playback is by Zannah Marsh and Che-Wei Wang

Download: Hemingwei .06 Beta

Here’s a zip with all the plugins I use along with the theme. some are crucial, some aren’t : plugins.zip

attractor topography applet

This design is inspired by Ken Blackburn’s world record paper airplane.
Tip: Fold the business card airplane with the wings tilted downward. It’ll fly like a dart.