For some minds, the forest is a landscape of enjoyment or pleasure, a place that triggers emotions never found in our stressful urban environment. What’s the magic? Is it the blend of sounds just above audible levels, mixed with the surprise element of sounds that could send a shiver done our spines or instantly wake us from the hibernation mode of our minds? Is it the smell of the fresh air, the flowery fields, the stale smell of the bark of a decaying tree, or the year old grass of the meadows gently letting its dewy nightgown fall? It might be all of these; it might be none of them. The most probable conclusion is that it is up to the investigator, the observer, the life living the environment.

What this project is about is capturing some of the essences just described, move the environment closer to the urban man. It’s an urban forest! Shaped to create a place for people to experience, to interact, to communicate, to relax, to annoy, to find new excitements, enemies or friends. Unshaped to its content, uncontrolled, free of interpretation, and able to have its own language depending on the setting it is located in and the users interacting with it. While being a forest it is also an instrument, able to play the sounds of the surrounding environment. Each tree triggers different sounds according to how they are being touched, and every tree is one part of a big instrument which sounds have been given to it through the users themselves.

Each tree of the forest is a gigantic microphone and recorder. The users are free to take a tree with them, collect sounds of the environment around the forest to add to the sounds of the instrument. The sounds could then be played in sequences added by previous users or played through wandering the forest touching the objects.

The URBANforest is an installation meant to dissolve the border between urban and nature, or make people rethink the possibilities of their man made environment. By using abstract forms of treelike objects found in our urban environment we aim to find a way to open up peoples minds for the landscape that surrounds them every day. What is an urban forest? Is it the smell, the lights, the steel, the traffic and ever increasing number of people in motion?

What kind of objects might be found in a place like this? Above the crowns are swaying gently holding the vital leaves to our communication society. How could we make the urban forest reflect the life living it, as much as a real forest does?

People interact and relate to music in different ways. But where do you store your music and how do you play it? Hip to be square is a concept for a navigation system that questions these questions and answers them with an alternative music player. The context in where it is to be placed is in a room like a peace of furniture. It is not a small gadget you carry around, it is like a piece of furniture for storing your music collection.

The music player has no display or visual buttons. By inserting a cube into the grid a song will play and when a new cube is inserted the song changes to a new one corresponding to that particular combination. This action challenges the user to build up a combination of cubes in the grind. The goal is to make the user more engaged in the interaction in a more physical way then the conventional way of navigating by just pushing a button.

We chose to make the player in wood because it gives more of a natural feeling. Wood also gives a crafted touch and removes the high tech feeling. All technical devices and the two speakers are placed inside the frame. Everything that is visible is made of wood. We made half circles around all holes so the cubs easily can be removed and moved around. The cubs are all 1000 cubic centimeters big and in solid wood. If you drop them they will not break.

This project aims to explore the way people act and interact with other people’s secrets. It is not to be discarded as a source of gossip, although there is a fine line between the terms gossip and secrets. This is merely an attempt to play with curiosity.

Curiosity is not always considered to be a good quality, especially when it concerns other people’s private lives. Just think about how many people frown upon Reality TV shows and, upon how some of us can have an interest in those people who are “only looking for attention”... But even though we deny it, the secret truth is that gossip and other people’s lives intrigue and fascinate many of us.

Someone has said that a third of all conversations are nothing but gossip. Is that true, or is it just: gossip? This project explores how people react and interact when exposed to the secrets of strangers.

Put one hand on the Bible, and lean forward to the microphone. Tell your secret quietly, and let your hand go. Your secret is kept, and you are free to enjoy the secrets of others. Enter the curved pathway, and follow the stars. The velvety, curved walls twinkle seductively. Subtle voices murmur quietly, whispers and twinkling lights make you come closer and lean one ear to the soft, inviting wall. When listening carefully, a secret is revealed. Voices from strangers are surrounding every inch of the room, at the same time; your own mind starts to play tricks on you while trembling through the darkness.

Why would someone endeavour this? How long can you stay in there? What if ones voice is recognized? How many secrets are there inside the walls? Might one be chocked? Just how curious are you?

Predator? is an installation letting the visitors interact with a virtual predator using their whole bodies. Visitors can move around inside the installation area and the predator hunts them. The predator changes its behavior depending on the behavior of the visitors. It protects its home corner and if anybody gets to close it catches and eats them. A caught visitor disappears from the visualization. The more visitors the predator catches the larger he gets, but he also shrinks with time.

We want Predator? to be a trigger for visitors to collaborate. Without collaboration between visitors the predator will be the stronger part of the interaction. But when people start to interact between each other they become the stronger part and can then trick the predator. The fact that the predator is only present in a virtual space is also a part of the installation. What we have realized when observing visitors interacting with the predator is that they easily find ways to beat the predator when collaborating. What we hope is that when they stop watching the virtual world and come back to the real world, they will see the other visitors and reflect on the differences and similarities of the two worlds. We believe this an important and interesting experience.

This installation invites people to collaborate to create music together. By shaking a maraca (a South American rhythm instrument), samples of percussion instruments are played back through a sound system. To encourage people to play together, different maracas trigger different instruments.

In today's increasingly urban society, many people are feeling isolated and lonely. Paradoxically, when more people are living in a smaller space, less contact seems to be made between strangers. In the city It is no longer considered normal to say hello to someone in street, or to ask a neighbor for a lacking ingredient. Samba Meeting is a reaction to this sad condition. By engaging the participants in music, a powerful uniting force, it is meant to act as a catalyst to a new aquaintance or friendship.

The drawing sphere is just what it sounds like. It is a physical sphere that you can use to draw a continuous line on a projected surface.

It is a Physical/Digital combination of a Drawing board. You have the surface to draw on in digital form, though you use a physical object, in this case a sphere, as the medium to draw with.

The background story of this sphere is the fact of combining an old tradition of drawing simple things with a line with today’s modern digital evolution. Thus trying to bring out the inner child of anyone who tries it out, we want this to be an experience that you remember in the form of a fun and enjoyable play toy that combines both the old and new traditions.

Do you ever have one of those days? One of those days when you try to leave for work, but you can't find your keys? Then you find your keys and you can't find your cellphone? Then you get halfway to work only to realize you forgot something so crucial as your wallet, you have to go back home to get it? Then you get to work and realize it's a holiday and none of the aggravation you just experienced was even necessary?

Those kinds of days can be maddening and, once you're thrown off your game, it seems like you're off for the rest of the day. Well, the solution may be the Punch Simulator.

The Punch Simulator project is a way to visualize acceleration and to let the user see how hard he or she can hit something.

The PS consist of a "hit ball", a ball on a stick that is attached to the floor, and a projection on the wall showing the face of a man. When you hit the ball you get to see different movie clips. The clips always shows the man being hit, but he can get a little slapped or he can get a real punch in the face depending on how hard you hit the "hit ball".

In everyday life, we are dependant on each other when it comes to a lot of issues. Getting hold of food and drink, medical treatment, a helping hand as we grow old... But also when it comes to more critical situations, like car accidents, natural disasters, war – whether or not you receive first aid decides if you will survive.

To make a positive contribution in a life and death situation is among the coolest things one can experience. There is a true beauty that lies within it. Also, we must not forget other contributions where we do not see the concrete results. Giving blood to a blood central is one such thing. This installation tries to visualize some, just some, of the love and energy our bodies hold. Give life to the projection by letting your heart share its rhytm and power...