I’m a bit late with this announcement due to the holidays, but I’m very happy to see that an ex-student of mine, Karl D. D. Willis won the Interactive Design Prize in the 2007 Tokyo Type Directors Club Awards with his Light Tracer work. He joins a pretty heavy-hitting alumni of winners over the years.
Karl and I had some pretty lengthy and healthy debates about Light Tracer in terms of play versus interactivity, technology versus exhibition, etc. and it’s great to have seen it develop and be exposed to larger audiences. Interesting too to see different crowds use it in different ways - in club environments people work out the interface very quickly it seems and use their phones and iPods to create traces. In more ‘gallery’ based environments people are, well, more well-behaved, which perhaps is less exciting.
If you are in Germany at the end of the month you can see Light Tracer at Transmediale in Berlin. You can also view all Karl’s documentation (including videos) on the Light Tracer website.