Research+Portfolio

Million Story Building Project (2009)

Million Story Building is an experiment in ambient storytelling that takes place throughout the new School of Cinematic Arts Building.  MSB is experienced through the use of a custom iPhone application that allows the building itself to communicate with users about current activity in the building, sensor data, and inhabitant interaction with the building, including movie tagging activity and QR code scanning.  The building has its own Twitter stream and Flickr page that feeds into the iPhone application, which it uses to tweet about building activity and collect photos from inhabitants by inviting them to participate in daily photo collection missions.  The application offers users a set of tools for directly interfacing with the building, using a 2d barcode reader, the camera, a built in pedometer and a digital story archive, and a media library. As building inhabitants engage more frequently with the building, the building begins to build a relationship with its inhabitants and asks for help in learning about itself, its inhabitants, and the outside world.

MSB White Paper PDF

MSB Demo Video

Million Story Building Demo Video from Jen Stein on Vimeo.

[Mobile and Environmental Media Lab: Principle Investigator, Prof. Scott Fisher; Research Assistant and Project Manager, Jen Stein; MEML Team: Marientina Gotsis, Andreas Kratky, Peter Pruess, Jen Stein, Jeff Watson;  iPhone Programming: Will Carter]