Playing FLICKR v2.0
All text from Playing FLICKR v2.0 site.
The diners in bar/restaurant/club 11 will be subjected to the wrath of fellow visitors SMSing whatever keyword they want to the installation that pulls photos from the online community flickr and projects them onto Restaurant 11’s huge panoramic screens.
The Installation has three image/tag channels that are projected side by side.
Combinations of words sent by the players gain new meaning when projected with their assoiciated images. For each keyword, the installation creates a loop of recent images from Flickr and keeps displaying them till the next words are sent by the spectators. The word that found the image is superimposed on the image the authors’ Flickr name and the title of the photo. The diners in Restaurant 11 can use their mobile phones to submit a keyword of their choice, which will later appear on the surrounding screens with corresponding photographs so that while they dine the backdrop of the restaurant will be adapted to their personal wishes.
Playing Flicker is a concept of Willem Velthoven. The software is developed by Cuno de Boer at Mediamatic Atelier. To find the phone number to SMS to, and see the installation, visit club/restaurant 11 on the Oosterdokskade 5, 11th floor, and having a look at the menu for further instructions. The installation is open daily from 8pm to 10 pm.
I thought this was a pretty interesting application of the FLICKR photo database. At the very least, it’s a nice change from the giant, electronic billboards that seem to dominate some areas of our visual (and mental?) landscape. (Yonge/Dundas comes to mind…)Also worth checking out is Mediamatic, the cultural institution which is responsible for Playing FLICKR v2.0. Their website can be found here.David H.