Technisches Museum Wien - 12.10
Interactive Installation
The Installation
In 2020, I had the opportunity to develop an interactive installation for the Vienna Museum of Technology, working alongside Lucas Dikany and Markus Kautz.
This installation offers numerous insights into the intricate workings of the largest steam engine ever constructed in Austria. These explanations are projected onto the engine's original blueprint. This blueprint, a 1:1 scale representation, is displayed on a wall adjacent to the actual steam engine. Spanning 16 by 6 meters, it is lit by two projectors, each emitting 10,000 lumens. The explanation of the steam engine can be started by the push of a button in German and English
The Interaction
Besides the pre-rendered explanations, our mapping installation interacts with a neighboring installation, a miniature model of the train. This second installation, based on Arduino, communicates with the main installation. The media triggering and manipulation are all managed in Touchdesigner and have been running seamlessly for over 4 years.
Visitors can engage with the installation by shoveling fake coal into a miniature train abstraction, which sets the projected steam engine into motion. The more "coal" shoveled, the faster the train moves, with pressure rising accordingly. We made every effort to mimic the movement speeds of the engine parts as accurately as possible, aiming to illustrate the impressive velocities involved.