Baltan worked with 60 students from the Fontys Hogeschool Eindhoven ICT & Lifestyle program on their Art & Technology minor. During this minor they were mentored by Baltan Laboratories and László Kiss, an artist and senior researcher at Kitchen Budapest. Several student groups investigated the impact of the invisible signals, waves and electromagnetic fields that surround us. Other groups created installations dealing with the topic of subtle changes. On June 22, 2012 the students presented their results in the exhibition room at TAC. The following is an overview of the projects.

Group 1 created the installation You’re a Little Star, a dark hallway with surround video-projections. When entering the installation, a projected star appeared. Leaving the hallway, the star was left behind and slowly moved towards the ceiling leaving a visible mark of the visitors’ presence.

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Group 3 visualized the idea of having a certain goal in life, and you have to work (run) to achieve it. They set up this principle in a game-like environment; they made visitors literally run between two computer screens in order to make a very important goal more clear. However, when you got closer to the screen the goal turned blurry, and you had to run back to the other screen to make it clear again. An endless loop…

Group 4 used a tent to create a very dark space with a nearly invisible grid on the floor.  As a visitor walked around in the tent, they heard different music depending on where they were.  The darkness offered anonymity, which invited uninhibited audio experimentation.  Without concerns of being seen, visitors freely ‘played’ the grid as an instrument.  These music sequences generated visual mappings of the visitors’ ‘compositions’. The resulting collection of mappings presents an interesting record of the visitors’ musical experimentation within the installation.

The LEDbike group transformed an ordinary Dutch bike into an eco transportation device. The group aimed to encourage people to use a bike instead of a car. By attaching LEDstrips to the bicycle, their contribution to the environment is made visible: the lights gradually turn from red to green as you reduce Co2.

Group 8 investigated the concept of evolution through little creatures consisting of words. They focused on the attributes of survival and evolution in the characteristics of distinct letters, their behavioral rules, and the difference between strong (trending topics) and weaker words. As the installation was connected to its own twitter feed, a visitor could easily contribute to and influence the entire evolution happening here.

The eyetracking group did research on reading, and exactly what the eye looks at while doing so. They presented a bookstand with a dummy and reading light, which invited the visitor to have a look at the book and an inspiring text would be projected onto its pages. The eye movements of the visitor influenced the text renderings while reading.