Interactive window installation at Benetton

The United Colors of Benetton does churn out lively and fashionable numbers, and in order to make sure your attention is piqued the next time you walk past Fabrica, Benetton’s research center in Italy, the company has decided to install Toccata, an interactive on-screen installation that was designed by Angelo Semeraro. This immersive display will toy with the idea of messing around with the forces of a physical environment. As for the application itself, it was developed with the help of openframeworks and the 2 dimensional physics simulator engine Box2d, resulting in a digital textile which will move and twirl about each time someone walks past the Benetton’s window.

Basically, any person (or a dog that is large enough, I guess), the digital textile on display will reacts to movement accordingly, changing its form while offering the masses a perception of modifying the equilibrium of the environment. I wonder what happens when this display is experimented with a car zipping by at top speed, will it fly up like a skirt?

Edwin Kee
Categories: General