In yesterday’s Independent I came across a sweet article about interactive advertising that has been installed in a bus stop on Oxford Street. The advert uses facial recognition to play a separate message to men and women when they stand in front of the bus stop. Whilst this is still relatively basic it does add an element of interaction and person specific advertising. The bus stop also has an audio jack so you can plug your headphones into it. This, I think, is where it gets really exciting.
To access the audio experience the passer-by has to physically interact with the bus stop and insert their jack into the port. Imagine if buildings, street furniture, advertising hoardings over an entire city could have bespoke messages within that play for each individual. Or door handles and kerb stones that are touch sensitive and are activated in various ways tailored to the user type.
The bus stop example is like something out of Minority Report and uses technology which is rapidly developing by the Japanese company NEC.
Here are some other cool examples of interactive city elements:
This is the awesome Mr Underwood Sonic-Graffiti piece that appeared in Digbeth as part of Supersonic Festival in 2011. The work was a series of pieces that had to be discovered scattered all over Digbeth. Once they were found they could be activated by pressing buttons and sound recorded from local workshops was played through speakers or through headphones that had to be inserted. Absolutely Awesome, gutted I missed it. Check out the links for videos and blog and stuff.
http://www.mrunderwood.co.uk/news/sonic-graffiti/
http://sonicgraffiti.mrunderwood.co.uk/culture_show.html
