Abstract

This project aims to create interactive media to convey the real time zoo park by combing technologies for retrieving information on the Internet. This project is an ongoing project conducted in a small zoo park called Inokashira Zoo Park in Japan. In this Inokashira Zoo Park, the budget to maintain this park is limited. Therefore they have problems to promote the presence and to extend the service in the zoo. Based on these problems we collaborate on research activities for creating of a new media art stimulating this zoo’s regeneration and platform that it generates new services.

As the first project we realized zoo park media on the web named Inokashira Player (http://being.inokashira-zoo.jp/). Today, information retrieving technologies such as a RSS format are growing as a new framework between human and information on the Internet. This visualizing tool creates real time zoo consisted of the only information on the Internet. This information architecture is generated automatically by using the weather news source, visitors blog articles and each animal information (Google Images) on the Internet. The most important point is to focus on the unique keyword of “Inokashira Zoo” for acquiring real information from the Internet. So this Inokashira Player enables the link between physical space and information on the Internet. Users can enjoy the virtual zoo visualized this information. Inohashira Park Zoo, on the other hand, uses this visualizing application everyday for managing animals’ conditions and improving the services.
As conventional ways the zoo park had provided event information to people unilaterally. This project realized the sustainable media to create an effective circulation to improve the presence by emerging the real from the information on the virtual space.
Project URL : http://being.inokashira-zoo.jp/

• Hide Ogawa & Horst Hoetner, Ars Electronica Futurelab, Linz, Austria
• Yuichi Tamagawa &Taizo Zushi, h.o, Tokyo, Japan

Full text (PDF) p.  355-356