• CollectionWall

    Interactive installation at Marchivum, Mannheim, 2022

    The Collection Wall, an immersive interactive image archive, is part of the exhibition »What does this have to do with me?« at Marchivum, the Mannheim City Archive.

    Visitors can playfully explore a collection of more than 5,000 individual images, galleries and films from Mannheim’s post-war decades up to the present. The images are arranged according to the themes of democracy, memory and diversity. The four large-format touchscreens in 4K resolution offer visitors an immersive experience. The application uses Particular, a GPU accelerated particle system, which I recently released on GitHub.

    The application was developed on behalf of finke.media, the UI design was done in collaboration with Studio S/M/L.

    The exhibition aims to convey an understanding that our free democratic basic order cannot be taken for granted, but must always be defended against anti-democratic tendencies by all of us.

    Concept/exhibition design: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Tatwerk/finke.media, prjktr, Stacey Spiegel

    Curators: Karen Strobel, Sebastian Steinert, Stacey Spiegel, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Nieß, Dr. Christian Groh, Dr. Marco Brenneisen

    Project management: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Nieß with support by Silvia Köhler

    Work:
    UI design, frontend development in JavaScript/WebGL/three.js

  • Dinner at the White House

    Interactive installation at The Kennedy Center, Washington DC, 2022

    The interactive exhibit ›Dinner at the White House‹ at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC, introduces visitors to dinners hosted by the Kennedy White House, which featured prominent artists, writers, musicians, and cultural figures. A series of touchscreens allows visitors to learn about the historic guests and to propose which contemporary guests they would invite today. Quotes from the invitees appear on the surface of the table suggesting the themes and connections between them.

    The table is part of the permanent exhibition ›Art and Ideals: President John F. Kennedy‹, which has been designed by creative director Abbott Miller of Pentagram in collaboration with architects KieranTimberlake, consulting curator Ileen Gallagher and an advisory committee of five leading U.S. historians.

    The installation was developed on behalf of TheGreenEyl. I collaborated on the UI design and developed the backend and frontend software. Art direction and project management: Richard The, content and design: Ardak MukanovaJiangnan NicholeRozi Zhu, sound design: Marian Mentrup.

    Work
    UI design, back- and frontend development in JavaScript/WebGL/three.js

  • Kurt Weill Cosmos

    Interactive network visualization at Kurt Weill Centre, Dessau, 2019

    The interactive visual archive ›Kurt Weill Cosmos‹ is part of the new permanent exhibition at the Kurt Weill Centre in Dessau, located in the Bauhaus Masters’ House of Feininger/Moholy-Nagy.

    Visitors can explore the interrelations of people, places and works and discover unexpected connections and relationships while listening to referenced tracks on the audio guide. Slideshows of record covers, stage design and photos provide further insights into the life of Kurt Weill.

    The Visual Archive

    Coding: Markus Lerner
    UI design: Kilian Krug and Markus Lerner
    Exhibition design: Plural Severin Wucher and Frank Übler
    Curation: Prof. Dr. Andreas Eichhorn
    Media planning: asignum Sven Schneider
    Construction/carpentry: neubauen.design Anne Schulz, Sebastian Bockrandt
    Director of Kurt Weill Centre: Joachim Landgraf
    Building/architecture: Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau / Bruno Fioretti Marquez, 2010-2014

    Services
    UI design, JavaScript/React.js/d3.js programming, backend development in Node.js/MySQL

  • Database of Hopes

    Touchscreen terminals and 4K infinity mirror display at futurium Berlin, 2019

    The ›Wünschespeicher‹ or ›Database of Hopes‹ was developed for the permanent exhibition at Futurium Berlin.

    The interactive installation featuring four touchscreen terminals and a large scale 4K infinity mirror display allows visitors to enter their wishes about the future. An AI automatically checks for similarities and assigns the wishes to categories.

    The frontend and backend were developed on behalf of ART+COM, who designed and produced the installation.

    Services
    JavaScript/React.js/WebGL/three.js programming, backend development in Node.js/MySQL.

  • The Emirati National House

    Interactive map of the United Arab Emirates, 2016

    A high-resolution interactive multitouch map was developed for the National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates at the 15th international architecture exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.

    It provides insights into the geography and landscape of the UAE, as well as the diversity in typology of the Emirati National House, also know as the Sha’abi (folk) housing model, applied across the Emirates.

    Multiple visitors simultaneously are able to zoom in to neighborhoods to examine their qualities and view photographs documenting the unique features of the Sha’abi houses. An overview map, where the currently selected map areas are indicated, provides general orientation within the country.

    The Emirate National house was introduced in the 1970s to settle transient population and provide modern amenities. Architecturally it was based on a courtyard housing typology derived from traditional precedents. As the resident’s needs evolved, a series of changes took place: functional ones likes the addition of rooms, enlargement of living spaces and the raising of enclosure walls to ensure privacy as well as aesthetic or symbolic ones: replacing entrance doorways and repainting outer walls. These modifications resulted in visual diversity, moving away from a monotonous appearance.

    The exhibition curated by Prof. Yasser Elsheshtawy, intents to move the urban housing discourse in the UAE to one that is grounded in the every day life of its citizens.

    The exhibition is open to the public from May 28 until November 27, 2016.

    Update: The interactive map is on display again as part of the exhibition ›Untold Stories Retold‹ at Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi, from 07 March until 24 June 2018.

    nationalpavilionuae.org
    labiennale.org

    Work:

    Concept & UI design, hardware planning (65” 4K NEC multitouch display), software development in ReactJS and OpenLayers

  • Hersbruck/Happurg

    Interactive multitouch table at the Hersbruck/Happburg documentation site, 2016

    The second largest satellite camp of the Floss­en­bürg concentration camp was located in the town of Hersbruck, where 9,000 prisoners from all over Europe were held captive between July 1944 and April 1945. They were forced to dig a tunnel system in the Houbirg mountain for an armament factory in the nearby town of Happurg. Due to the extreme conditions in the camp and during the labor, around 4,000 prisoners died in Hersbruck and Happurg.

    The Hersbruck/Happburg documentation site consists of two exhibition modules pointing to each other: a media installation in Hersbruck at the former location of the camp and an open air exhibition module in Happurg at the former place of forced labor: the prisoners were forced to commute 4.5 km by foot between these two locations all year round.

    The Hersbruck installation features a projection of a 360° panoramic video of the surroundings of Hersbruck focussing on historically relevant places. A large multitouch table displaying the names of all the 9,000 known prisoners was designed and developed by Markus Lerner in collaboration with Bertron Schwarz Frey, who created the exhibition architecture for both locations. By touching the highlighted names, multiple visitors can simultaneously explore 90 representative biographies of prisoners from various countries featuring stories, animated quotes and images.

    Further information
    Press Release by the Bavarian State Parliament
    Announcement by the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial

    Locations
    Hersbruck module: Badstr. 145, 91217 Hersbruck
    Happurg module: Südring/An der Hunnenschlucht, 91230 Happurg

    Work
    Screen design, Java/OpenGL/shader programming, software edge blending across multiple screens, Kinect tracking, test setup

  • Wortarbeit

    Multi-touchscreen installation at Grimmwelt Kassel, Germany, 2015

    Words are not static. They don’t have fixed meanings. Language is constantly evolving and will continue to.

    The famous German Dictionary (1838–1854/1961) by the Brothers Grimm attempts to create a “natural history of words” by focussing on associations and connections between the words rather than their abstract definitions.

    Located in the newly opened Grimmwelt Kassel, Germany, “Wortarbeit” attempts to capture the visitors’ associations with words, in reference to the work of the Brothers Grimm. Within a predefined set of formulas (word connections), one word has to be explained by another word entered by the visitor. The results is a chain that grows endlessly word by word.

    While one touchscreen is waiting for input, the visitors can explore the existing chain of words in various views on the other screens: chronologically, alphabetically, by popularity and through the semantic net, which reveals the complexity of the definitions entered by the visitors.

    Visitors can also extend an independent chain of words in english.

    The installation was designed and developed in collaboration with TheGreenEyl, Berlin, media planning by Stefan Helling.

    Work
    Screen Design, Java/OpenGL/Shader programming, multi-screen synchronisation

    Photos
    Markus Lerner

  • Micro – Macro

    Interactive wall projection at ZEISS headquarters, Oberkochen, 2014

    An interactive installation was developed for the ZEISS Museum of Optics in Oberkochen. It allows visitors to explore the known orders of magnitude in an interactive way.
    A continuous zoom leads from the Planck length (1,616199 × 10−35 m) via atoms, microorganisms, everyday objects, countries, planets galaxies up to the size of the currently observable universe (2,80 × 1026 m).

    The user controls the zoom via the distance from the projection surface: zoom-in by getting closer, zoom-out by stepping back. The speed of the zoom can be accelerated or reduced by using the hands additionally.

    The project was realized in collaboration with TheGreenEyl (Concept, Art Direction, Production).

    Work
    Screen Design, Java/OpenGL/Shader programming, Kinect tracking

  • Mendelssohn-Effektorium

    Virtual orchestra for the Mendelssohn-Haus Leipzig, 2014

    The Mendelssohn-Effektorium is a virtual orchestra at the Mendelssohn-Haus in Leipzig. It was developed and produced by WHITEvoid. Markus Lerner was commissioned for the Screen Design and OpenGL software development.

    13 speakers with vertical displays are arranged behind a conductor’s stand, each one representing a different group of instruments or choir voices. Visitors can select one of the works of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy at the stand and conduct the virtual orchestra or choir by moving the coductor’s baton. The speed of the recordings is then adjusted in real-time. Voice groups can be controlled individually and different room situations can be set. The installation also allows one to compare modern and historical instruments.

    The vertical screens can display the names of the voices, the sound level or an artistic interpretation of the voice groups influenced by the volume and character of each instrument/voice.

    The idea for the Effektorium originated in the cooperation between Studio Bertron Schwarz Frey and WHITEvoid. Sound production and programming by Aconica.

    Work
    Screen Design, Java/OpenGL/Shader programming, Leap Motion tracking and OSC network control

  • Interactive journey in time

    Interactive table at the Museum of Hamburg History, 2012

    A part of the new exhbition »The harbour – a key stimulus«, the interactive table leads through 1300 years of Hamburg history. The square table with 3.5 sqm surface area enables visitors to explore the development of the city from the Middle Ages until today.

    A mechanical time wheel is used to navigate through the 11 periods. In each era, the most important changes in urban development as well as significant historical events are geographically displayed on the map, for example the North Sea flood of 1962 or the construction of the Speicherstadt. The bilingual content windows appear on different sides of the table, which enables several visitors to explore information independently. The programming was done on behalf of ART+COM (Concept, design and production).

    Interactive table at »Taktgeber Hafen«
    Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte
    Holstenwall 24
    20355 Hamburg

    Work
    Java, OpenGL/OpenAL, GLSL shader programming, software edge blending

    Technology

      • Graphics PC for the real-time display
      • 2 WUXGA (1920×1200 px) projectors
      • Touch sensitive table surface (ART+COM)
      • Acoustic shakers

    Photos: Eva Offenberg, Markus Lerner