Johanna Manz – visual and digital design

Exhibition "Riesig im Meer"

cooperation project

Research, exhibition design, interaction design
4. Semester / October 2018 - February 2019
with Susanne Büchele and Lea Kramer

In cooperation with the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History we explained visitors the story behind fish schools.

Through an interactive user interface, we created a experience within the exhibition "Riesig im Meer", which was adapted on a touchdisplay exhibited from October 2019 until July 2021.
--> check out the virtual exhibition here .

<-- Our project process startet with researching on the topic, understanding the users and developing ideas on how the content needs to be shown. After several ideation loops, we decided to build an interactive table.

Visitors can experience the field of schooling through the interactive table. The behaviour rules are explained through a interactive swarm and animationvideos show how swarmintelligence works and what role the lateral-line organ has. To get the connection to real life, visitors can also see film content of a fishswarm in action. -->

The exhibit is divided into four parts. To give the visitors a better understanding, we choose for each topic a certain visual language and possibility of interaction.

We devided the work among us. Even though I also worked a bit on the animation, I mainly focused on the technical parts and the project management. The technical part is basically building the table, including working with Arduino, Code, Sound, 3D-objects and print.

To reach all visitors, we made the exhibit more attractive by giving the opportunity to interact. In the menupoint „behaviour rules“, visitors see a fishswarm in action. The fish are created by moving, overlaid, transparent circles. The whole animation works through a coded html, java script and p5 surface. For this, we had support from the technical expert, Benjamin Thompson. He build us the skeletal structure and we decided designed the visual appearance. -->

With the regulators, the visitors can influence the factors alignment, separation and cohesion. These are the behaviour rules all fish in a schooling have to obey. The parameters are explained through icons and audio from the speaker. Therefore I had the chance to challenge myself and communicate not only by visuallizing, but also by giving it a voice. Our intention for the visitors is to learn by interacting and observing. -->

<-- In this project we did not have a touchdisplay, which is why we also had to deal with the actual object. Through several stages of prototyping and usertesting, we found the right form for this function.

With a simple Arduino board, slodering some cables and using sliders and buttons, the visitors at the exhibition were able to interact. -->