Nanika Limited

Julia Hero 1

nanika_admin — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 15:50:47 +0000

Julia Hero 2

nanika_admin — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 15:52:03 +0000

Brain Magazine Cover / Julia

nanika_admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:43:23 +0000

Nanika was asked to design the June cover of Brain magazine, around the theme “Happy Creation”

We interpreted this as, how do we make ourselves as happy as possible while creating it?

I personally (Andreas) have been experimenting a bit with working in different locations like cafes and outside in the park, I find it makes it easier for me to get into ’the creative zone’ and I’m also interested in the idea of being productive on an iPad.

By iPad we don’t specifically mean the Apple iPad, but this new generation of touch devices in general. The multitouch-on-a-tablet format is a super interesting step forward of the kind we haven’t seen for a while.

So there was this vision of being able to do the whole thing start to finish from a cafe or a bar on an iPad, for the final creation process to feel a bit futuristic.

This is obviously more of a performance art approach to it all as there is a lot of work to be done to be able to get to that moment when you can sit down at a cafe for a few hours and produce good imagery!

So we set out to make an iOS app that somehow could produce really beautiful imagery at print resolutions, ideally it would run on a phone as well so that we could make/explore images whenever a moment was free.

A lot of the projects that we work on involve creating a system that produces images, motion, reaction and exposing the various parameters in the system in such a way that other people can bring their skills and experience to the project and change the system. Being surprised by something you made and know intimately is a great feeling.

The process would be to use this App to make/look for a beautiful image, then take the image into Photoshop Touch to do framing and colour correction. Photoshop Touch on iPad supports images up to 4096×4096 now, so that’s fortunate.

As we were thinking about what do and generally looking around for inspiration and knowledge to use we came across this lovely piece of open source code by Tom Beddard describing a 3D fractal called a Mandelbulb and we knew there would be a lot of beautiful images in there to explore.

A few days later we had an early version of an application that let us explore the shape, the first time it running on a phone was very exciting, we were really living the theme “Happy Creation”.

Julia is available for download at: http://appstore.com/nanika/julia

Kasabian Hero

nanika_admin — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 12:40:10 +0000

Kasabian Tour 2011 Interactives

nanika_admin — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:54:10 +0000

A project done in conjunction with Silent Studios and art directed by Aitor Throup.

The Kasabian 2011 tour saw a mix of high-end 2D/3D animation, visual effects and live action. Using custom written software the visual properties changed in real-time in response to the music or the live filming of the band, while leaving room for the all important human touch by the operator responding to the live show, enhancing the visuals on the fly.

“It was like watching the best telly you’ve ever seen — a massive concave screen with spectacular graphics reacting to the thumping bass and guitar riffs. Hats off to the team behind it. They’ve come up with something truly original.” – The Sun

Lamp North Prototype

nanika_admin — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:12:24 +0000

North is based around the simple idea that wherever you are in the world, there is always another place out there that is important to you and you have a relationship with.

It visualises this relationship by giving out more light the more directly it points towards this location, the (magnetic) north pole in the case in the case of this lamp, but idea is that a future version will allow you to specify the lat/long coordinates of a place in the world, where a loved one lives or the place you were born, to use as it’s point of reference.

Hyundai i40 Light Reveal

nanika_admin — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:35:31 +0000

Hyundai i40 Light Reveal by Hi-ReS! and Nanika.

A live event that ran for 7 days prior to the unveiling of the new Hyundai i40 in Geneva.

Users could assume control over a light-rig composed of 200 lights over the Internet and use it to reveal parts of the, then still secret, design of the car with the result streamed back by 3 cameras from the studio in Germany.

Nanika’s custom software allowed realtime control over the light rig which plugged into the website created by Hi-ReS! where users could draw strokes on a virtual model of the light rig and then see the results played through the streaming cameras.

Engineering by Schokopro.

Behind the scenes direction and editing by Ben Unwin.

Music composed in-house by Florian @ Hi-ReS!

Avery Hero

nanika_admin — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 13:41:51 +0000

Diesel Show Hero

nanika_admin — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 12:43:01 +0000

Wind Hero

nanika_admin — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 10:45:56 +0000

Hana Hero

nanika_admin — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 10:44:59 +0000

Exile (iPad)

nanika_admin — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 17:22:26 +0000

Working with our friends at Champagne Valentine to create an interactive music video for Helen Gifford’s chamber opera Exile on the iPad.

Available now free of charge on iTunes.

Programming by Nanika, Design and Art Direction by Champagne Valentine.

John Lewis Harmony

nanika_admin — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:22:50 +0000

Control software for the John Lewis Harmony project.

To promote John Lewis’ range of lighting products Adam & Eve and Upset Media created a house that featured lights from the current in-store range.

Nanika was tasked with writing software to interpret any incoming sound and convert it into a lightshow to be played out on the houses lighting system.

The software, written in C++ and using OpenFrameworks, had a number of different sound responsive scenes that we designed that then in turn instructed DMX-dimmers which had control over the 100 domestic light fixtures, making them synchronized to the music.

Different sound reactive scenes were randomly selected with each new song, but an operator had facilities to choose from these scenes should he feel a particular particular scene would suit a particular song better.

A screen capture of the control software:
(The screen capture affects the sound synchronization a little bit)

As timescales were tight and noone would see the software outside of the team it did not receive too much design TLC.

Avery Perfumes

nanika_admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:25:51 +0000

Soundscape and interactive screens for perfume retailer Avery.

Aside from installing screens with interactive capabilities Nanika wrote custom software to be able to utilize off the shelf and inexpensive hardware to create a bird-themed 3d soundscape to enhance Avery’s overall concept of birds.

Concept and Design Lilian Driessen.
All photography copyright Intertrade Europe (UK) Ltd 2010

BFA Virtual Chandelier

nanika_admin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:24:18 +0000

Virtual Chandelier for the British Fashion Awards 2009.

Nanika was tasked by Inca Productions to create a virtual chandelier to be displayed at the British Fashion Awards on a Musion holographic system.

The final sequence was captured by shooing light at a Swarovski chandelier to capture the natural properties of the crystals. Everything is captured in camera and no effects are applied apart from some minor color correction.

The above movie and the images does not show the final piece but rather outtakes from the light tests.

Website update

nanika_admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:20:32 +0000

This site is not getting nearly as much love as it should and is in dire need of a re-design.

The process of putting up a project or a work-in-progress on the site at the moment is a bit long winded and means it gets pushed further and further down the todo list with so much other stuff going on!

This is a remider to ourselves as much as anything, that we need to put a new website high on the todo-list as soon as we can

BBC Blast

nanika_admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:51:52 +0000

This has been up for a few days now, but we’ve been too busy with other things to post it.

Nanika did some work on this project for Fallon, specifically we worked on some of the software to allow the computers in the room to take realtime commands from the Internet and send them to the Machines/Robots.

We also ended up writing a custom piece of software so we could automate a DSLR shooting into a curved lens and unwrapping that into a cylinder the Flash interface could use.

It’s open from 12AM to 12PM, unfortunately only available to people in the UK as it is a BBC project.

http://www.blastgetcreative.co.uk/

BBC Blast

nanika_admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:22:09 +0000

Client: Harmonypark Year: 2009

A project by Fallon for BBC Blast, which saw 4 machines brought into the Topolski studio at London’s Southbank Centre for 4 weeks and control over them given over to the public.

Nanika worked on interfacing between the web system and the physical machines in the space, provided camera expertise and wrote various pieces of custom software, among others code that would allows us to automate a DSLR camera to shoot into a curved lens every 5 minutes and unwrapping the resulting image into a format the Flash interface could use, to give the website a 360 degree time lapse of the space.

Concept by Fallon, design and frontend build by Acne, backend by Harmonypark.

Renaissance Man/Woman Wanted.

nanika_admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:52:08 +0000

Nanika are looking to add a permanent member to their team.

You need to be comfortable with both design and programming (C%2B%2B or Java), the exact mix we are looking for depends on the person, but you need to be comfortable enough with programming that you can take a project from start to finish yourself if need be, including design, programming, hardware research and acquisition and on-site setup.

- You are the type of person that constantly has a couple of personal projects on the go and you are addicted to seeing your ideas materialize.

- You are addicted to learning new things, you will dive in to any field.

- You have an eye for detail and the drive to go the extra mile to take a project to the next level.

- We’ll be spending a lot of time together, so you have excellent social and communications skills.

- You are already comfortable in either C%2B%2B and OpenGL (perhaps through OpenFrameworks) or Java/Processing.

- Experience with computer vision is a big plus (You have at least heard of OpenCV).

- Flash programming skills and a superficial knowledge of back-end programming won’t hurt.

- Some Arduino and general electronics experience could come in handy.

Salary will be fair, but nothing astronomical.

Preferably you are already based in London.

Please email links/documentation of your work to info .:at:. nanikawa.com.

For All Seasons (iPhone)

nanika_admin — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:35:17 +0000

Nanika’s first iPhone project is a port of Andreas’ 2005 piece For All Seasons, released back then for the PC and Mac.

This project was done mostly to gain some familiarity with the iPhone platform, keep an eye out for more bespoke iPhone projects from Nanika in the future.

For All Seasons is an attempt to use interactivity as part of helping to explain a memory and the emotions that are attached to that memory to somebody else.

For All Seasons (iPhone) is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

App Store link.

The original piece is available for download at:
http://www.hahakid.net/forallseasons/forallseasons.html

Diesel S/S 09 Show Visuals

nanika_admin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:01:44 +0000

Client: Diesel Year: 2008

Nanika created the interactive visuals of the Diesel Spring/Summer 09 New York fashion show.

Mixing prerecorded video with visuals created in real time which were generated by the movements of the models. Harnessing the models movement to create a fusion of subtle and natural animation with a futuristic and technological visual style, in line with the theme of the collection.

Silhouettes of the exiting models were formed of thousands of dancing light particles. Abstract landscapes referenced the motion of the models, captured by tapping into the existing 3 camera set up used to document the show itself.

Art Direction by Diesel Creative Team

Fashion show produced by Inca Productions

Show music mix by Star Studded Studios

On site editing by Ryan Uzilevski and Javier Perez-Karam

Bacardi Glass Designer

nanika_admin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:00:10 +0000

Software to let visitors of the Bombay Sapphire Bar and at trade shows design their own glasses through a playful interface.

The software reads the outline of the users hand when placed into a light-box and lathes the contour to create the shape of a glass, when done the user can enter their e-mail address and send a picture of the glass to themselves or a friend.

Diesel Interactive Shop Window

nanika_admin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:55:49 +0000

We designed some playful interactive toys for Diesel Italy to run in the window of their new store in Milan while it is being built.
Optimized programming allows us to address 5 individual screens from one standard PC (4 projectors + 1 LCD).

Hardware setup by Think and Make It in Italy.

Flash on the Beach

nanika_admin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:29:11 +0000

I’m going to be giving a presentation at Flash on the Beach in Brighton, Sept 28th to Oct 1st,

http://www.flashonthebeach.com/

I’ve heard great things about it, everyone always says they had a lot of fun, looking forward to it!

OFFF Lisbon 2008

nanika_admin — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:29:13 +0000

I had the great pleasure of attending this years OFFF in Lisbon, a blast as usual, met an insane amount of talented prople as always.

I was fortunate enough to have “Hana” on display there as well, you can check out some pictures of that on my Flickr:

http://flickr.com/photos/hahakid/

nanika_admin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:30:24 +0000

As usual, updating the site ends up last on the to-do list.

We’ve been quite busy the last couple of months. We’ve created software for Nokia to render movies of some of the interactive work we have made for them, for deployment in countries where SMS is prohibitively expensive and to support some of the languages we didn’t get around to last time.

Currently we are creating an interactive window display for the Diesel store in Milan, a small Phase 1 of that should be installed in the next weeks or so and as usual there are a few things in the pipeline that are kinda sorta confirmed, but I don’t want to jinx it.

The D&AD nominations should be public any day now, I took part in the jury for “Digital Installations”, it was excellent fun and, as I imagine is the case every year, there was some great work on display.

Hana

nanika_admin — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:40:46 +0000

A self-funded project, Hana is about giving something back to the computers that help me do my work every day.
I wanted to give them a new experience and the furthest I could think of from a computer was a flower, so I decided to create them a piece of software that would help them dream about flowers.
The idea is that no part of process of creating the flowers is hidden from the computer, no bitmaps are used and as few human decisions are hardwired into the software as possible.
If the computer had the capability, it should be able to think and feel it’s way through as much of the creation of the flowers as possible.

Hana is available for iOS here.

OSX Screensaver available here: nanikawa.com/downloads/hana/HanaScreenSaver.zip
White 2nd gen Macbook and upwards supported.

Toca Me 2008

nanika_admin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:58:07 +0000

Thank you so much to the Toca Me crew, I had an absolutely amazing time and so did everyone I spoke to.

The presentations gave me a lot of food for thought, the diversity of them was very well thought out, and I met some wonderfully talented people I hope to see a lot more of in the future.

One thing I think I forgot to mention in my talk, I did rush through it a little bit due to nervousness, was that you can download “For All Seasons” from

http://www.hahakid.net

I haven’t quite decided what to do with “Hana” yet.

Long overdue pre-update.

nanika_admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:54:42 +0000

When we made this website, for some reason ease-to-update kind ended up last on the list, big mistake.

We’re gathering documentation on the work we did last year for Wieden+Kennedy/Nokia on the “Meet Your City” campaign and we’re about to finish a self funded project called “Hana”, so that should be online soon.

Also we’d like to feature more of the fun R&D that we do, which might take a redesign of the site, so we’ll see how that goes.

If you are in Munich on the 23rd of Feb, we’ll be doing a presentation at the TOCA ME design conference and we’ll be at OFFF Lisbon May 8th onwards!

Wired Nextfest

nanika_admin — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:18:44 +0000

We’ve been fortunate enough to have been chosen by Wired Magazine to exhibit at their annual Nextfest Event, September 13th to 16th 2007 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

If you want to come and say hello we will be in the Future of Communication pavilion showing Wind and SwimmingMessageSystem.

Nanika Lightbox Prototype

nanika_admin — Wed, 30 May 2007 09:41:38 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we reached a milestone in a project we are calling the “Nanika Lightbox”, we’ll think of a new name soon.

The aim of the project is to build a platform for us that we can use to sell digital artworks in the future. We want to make it easy to own and display digital artworks/toys and essentially remove the computer from the perspective of the owner, apart from the odd remote control panel for the pieces where customisation makes sense.

We’ve got a prototype now and we’ve started writing the framework we will build our future “lightbox” work on, the prototype box can be seen below running an old piece called “TimeVideo”. If you might be interested in owning one get in touch.

Internship 2007

nanika_admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:32:17 +0000

Hello.

Nanika is around a year old now and we are getting to the point where it makes sense to take on an intern, we like our expansion real nice and slow.

We are looking for someone with strong design skills, a good eye for the devilish details, great ideas for interactive work and lots of enthusiasm.

Knowledge of the various Adobe packages and platform independence are a given, a bit of 3D experience wouldn’t hurt.

Strong Google skills are a must.

You will have at least dabbled in Flash programming or Processing, good Java or C++ skills would be a dream come true.

If you also happen to be good with electronics I think we should probably swap places.

You’ll be working with our small team of 2 ( 1, 0.5, 0.5 ) from the Hi-ReS! London office on various in-house things and whatever projects we happen to have on at the time, some very interesting stuff coming up.

If you are interested send your application to:

info ((at)) nanikawa.com

with “Internship 07″ in the subject line.

Fashion has a new face.

nanika_admin — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 12:08:57 +0000

We’ve just finished a small project for Channel 4 UK to promote their upcoming show “Ugly Betty”.

It uses face detection technology to superimpose the new face of fashion onto people viewing the installation, we should have some documentation up, ehrm, “shortly”.

Ugly Betty

nanika_admin — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:29:48 +0000

The TV show “Ugly Betty” takes place in the superficial world of high fashion and beauty, so for our installation in the Channel 4 Uk building we created a Magic Mirror that transforms whoever looks into it into the shows central character using face tracing technology.

Think “Being John Malkovich”.

Fiiinally!

nanika_admin — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 12:17:25 +0000

Our new site is in place, took a bit longer than expected (doesn’t everything?).

We’ll be adding more content over the next couple of days, mostly old projects, but we should have documentation done for some new ones fairly soon.

About

nanika_admin — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:54:35 +0000

Nanika is a company founded with the aim to explore interaction between man and machine beyond traditional input and output.

Contact:

8-9 Rivington Place

London EC2A 3BA | England

Dial England 44 (0) 207 729 3090

info@nanikawa.com

Showreel 2005

nanika_admin — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 15:37:52 +0000

Hero Images

nanika_admin — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 15:37:30 +0000

EveryGallery

nanika_admin — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 07:40:59 +0000

A piece for Nokia’s Flagship Store project, which sees high-end retail experiences opened in shopping capitals around the world.

EveryGallery uses the Nokia Flagship stores as a gallery space, blending the traditional with the contemporary, emulating the picture frames of a traditional gallery, but filling it with the work of the virtual artist while it is being painted.

The AV system in a Nokia Flagship store consist of anything from 28 to 42 high-resolution LCD screens with up to 18 of them placed next to each other acting as a single canvas, depending on the layout of the particular store.
Therefore the piece is implemented as an application that accepts a folder of images as content that it proceeds to render as a set of movies suited for the unusually wide canvas, allowing easy updates with new and relevant content.

LiquidCanvas

nanika_admin — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 07:38:59 +0000

A piece for Nokia’s Flagship Store project, which sees high-end retail experiences opened in shopping capitals around the world.

LiquidCanvas is a piece built to create an ambient background for the stores.
It uses selected images and melts them together with flowers and butterflies to create never ending organic forms and colours.

SeeMyStore

nanika_admin — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:40:29 +0000

A piece for Nokia’s Flagship Store project, which sees high-end retail experiences opened in shopping capitals around the world.
The Nokia Flagship stores are all designed around a very impressive AV system, consisting of anything up to 42 high resolution LCD screens, arranged in groups of up to 18 in a row, with floor to ceiling LED panels able to change into any colour. Needless to say it’s a fun canvas to work with.

What we wanted to do with this piece was to give people visiting or simply passing by the store at night control over this canvas.

The piece is interactive via SMS, allowing people to request colours or abstract scenes consisting of motion and colour via their messages.

The system always precedes an action with the command responsible for it and constantly gives examples.

The observant user will quickly discover that he or she can combine colours with scene names to change colours for the scene and enter custom colours via RGB, giving him or her a lot of control over the lightshow.

SwimmingMessageSystem

nanika_admin — Wed, 10 May 2006 15:39:02 +0000

A piece for Nokia’s Flagship Store project, which sees high-end retail experiences opened in shopping capitals around the world.

One of the overarching concepts with all our work for the Nokia Flagship stores has been to take peoples own content and make something beautiful for them out if it. SwimmingMessageSystem is interactive via SMS. People can send messages to the piece that then brings the words of their message to life as typographic fish.

The piece is implemented as real time software running on anything from 24 to 42 screens depending on the store layout, providing a seamless canvas.

Wind

nanika_admin — Wed, 10 May 2006 06:31:29 +0000

A piece for Nokia’s Flagship Store project, which sees high-end retail experiences opened in shopping capitals around the world.
One of the overarching concepts with all our work for the Nokia Flagship stores has been to take peoples own content and make something beautiful for them out if it.

This piece, together with SwimmingMessageSystem, is an attempt to bring a bit of nature into the store, the concept of this particular piece being a wind blowing through the store taking messages submitted by users via SMS and flying them across the different landscapes.

In it’s original incarnation the landscape is something like a magic forest, but the idea is to also make versions specific to the locations that stores open up, like the wheat field below for the Chicago store.

The piece is implemented as real time software running on anything from 24 to 42 screens, depending on the store layout, providing a seamless canvas.

Motion Wall

nanika_admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:19:16 +0000

We were hired by Projector to take part in the Interactive Interior project for the Sony-owned high-end fashion and gadget store Beyes in the exclusive Omotesando Hills shopping centre in Tokyo.

The store is equipped with a projection system that acts as an interactive wallpaper in the store, cycling daily through the different pieces by the contributing designers.
“Motion Wall” takes its inspiration from whatever it is that makes fire or smoke so fascinating and relaxing to watch.

It uses the motion in front of the screen to generate a never ending swirl of colors, letting visitors participate or simply enjoy what is created by the motion of passers-by.