Startups
Arts / Philly Tech Week / Technical.ly

Kid Hazo is bringing live motion capture street signs to the Philly Tech Week Signature Event

The mysterious artist — and Philly Tech Week favorite — is one of the winners of our art grant competition.

Sam Cusumano + KidHazo past projects (Courtesy photos)
It proved too difficult a choice for us to make.

Choosing the Philly-based artists whose project best represents a growing trend in the art world, that is: art that comes to life through the use of technology. The judging was just too specialized for the team here at Technical.ly. So we extended the deadline, upped the prizes and tapped the city’s art community leaders to find the best of the best for the Philly Tech Week 2017 presented by Comcast Signature Event.

Here are the submissions that impressed the judges:

Winner: Kid Hazo

Submission:

I would like to create live motion capture street signs. In the humor of my normal work, we’re going to have take a silly street sign design and have it come alive for people to interact with. A booth will be set up for people to dance to and the street sign will have a stick figure image reflecting their dance moves via motion capture. It will be an interactive public installation where people can spectate or join in on the fun. Additionally more animated stand alone signs can be set up on the same street looping previous dance moves recorded by real people. The booth will then be moved into the Signature Event for people at the party to enjoy!

You might remember that Kid Hazo made this Street Fighter mural last year and did the wildly popular “Selfie Zone” contest the year before. This “person” (because who knows who is under that mask — could be a robot) really knows how to make engaging art!

Runner up: Samuel Cusumano

Submission:

I have built a Biodata Sonification system, which detects microcurrent changes in conductivity across the surface of a plant’s leaf, and translates those changes into MIDI Note data which can drive a synthesizer. Plants playing music, in some ways. I have a variety of workshops, kits, and demonstrations which could be made available for Philly Tech Week. I would be happy to provide a demonstration featuring a couple plants and some live generated music. I think it would be really great to do an interactive workshop for building of an ‘Arduino shield’ kit version of my Biodata Sonification system. Or perhaps I could sell kits at the event to attendees for a workshop (breadboards, no soldering). A simple Sonification setup as an example can be quite powerful, and I love talking to the public about perception and communication.

You may remember Cusumano from his work with brainy music outfit Data Garden. He makes music from apples and plants.

Thanks to Philly Mural Arts, The Village of Arts & Humanities, The Institute of Contemporary Art and The Philadelphia Museum of Art for helping us choose the recipients of the Philly Tech Week micro grant funds.

See you at the Signature Event on Friday, May 5!

Get tickets
Engagement

Join the conversation!

Find news, events, jobs and people who share your interests on Technical.ly's open community Slack

Trending

How venture capital is changing, and why it matters

What company leaders need to know about the CTA and required reporting

The ‘Amazon of science stores’ and 30 other vendors strut their stuff for Philly biotech

Why the DOJ chose New Jersey for the Apple antitrust lawsuit

Technically Media