HYBE: Hive for Hybrid Environment

IRIS is a unique media canvas with expandable matrix of conventional informative display technology ? a monochrome LCD. Through the phased opening and closing of circular-segmented black liquid crystal, IRIS can control the amount (size) of passing lights mimicking that of eyes, and create various patterns. IRIS is comprised of analogue pixel for visual simplicity and motion of halftone, using ambient light and color as part of its visual aesthetic, not emission of light itself. Linking to the Kinect, IRIS becomes an interactive media canvas which emulates the shape of viewers.

- IRIS reviewed by “Fast Co.Design”
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670870/this-giant-interactive-mirror-turns-viewers-into-pixels
This Giant Interactive Mirror Turns Viewers Into Pixels
Where other signs use blinding LEDs to make their point, this art installation uses nothing but deep blacks.

What is a sign? More and more, it seems to be a blinding color array. Every highway is becoming Las Vegas, filled with blinding, LED billboards demanding your attention for cheap pizza delivery.
Iris, by Korean studio HYBE, is a captivating display that’s instead defined by its minimalism. Rather than creating light, it creates dark, leveraging aging LCD tech to create complex swirling pixel art.
“One day, I happened to keep watching transparent digital clock with black liquid crystal on my desk, appreciating its minimalist aesthetics and movement,” Changmin Han tells Co.Design. “I thought it would be a unique media canvas if I could enlarge it.”
So Han created an LCD grid, a design that had a practical advantage beyond mere aesthetics–it was green. “Many people believe that LED is very green technology with great brightness and low power consumption,” Han explains. “It is true for a single LED module, but is absolutely false belief when it becomes media canvas with thousands of them.”
Internally, Hybe’s LCD design is a lot more like a classic Gameboy than an iPad, relying on ambient light to offer highlights rather than light emitting diodes. Iris’s 3.5-inch squares use an almost immeasurable 90 microWatts. To get an idea of how that sort of energy scales, a similar LCD design measuring 90 feet by 10 feet can operate on a mere laptop battery. Theoretically, Iris could run on, what, a cellphone battery? Even less?
Yet none of this would matter if Iris weren’t so entrancing at its core. Its animation loops are silky smooth. Its Kinect-powered mirror mode is oddly entrancing. And even though we’ve all seen countless LCD clocks, Hybe has managed to put together something that none of us can claim we’ve seen before.
Mark Wilson

HYBE: Hive for Hybrid Environment (HAN ChangMin, RYU SunWoong)

HAN ChingMin
Born in 1970, Seoul, Korea

EDUCATION
2006    M.A, Interactive Digital Media, Ravensboune College, U.K
1994    B.F.A, Graphic Design, School of Visual Arts, U.S.A

RYU SunWoong
Born in 1970, Jeongeup, Korea

EDUCATION
2006    Diploma, Interactive Digital Media, Ravensboune College, U.K
2001    B.A, Kaywon School of Art & Design, Photography, Korea
   
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2014    Media Art: Extension of Sensation, Seongnam Arts Center, Seongnam, Korea
             Daily Reflection: Korea-Japan Media Art Exhibition, Total Museum, Seoul, Korea
2013    Better than Universe: Daegu Media Art ZKM, Daegu Art Factory, Daegu, Korea
             The Aesthetic of Imitation, Ewha Womans University Museum, Seoul, Korea
             Open Creativity, Open World, Seoul Conference on Cyberspace 2013,
             COEX Seoul, Korea
             Art Peace: How to heal your inner peace with art, Kumho Museum,
             Seoul, Korea
2012    Artificial Garden, Nam Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
             Life: A User’s Manual, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul, Korea
             MediaCity Seoul, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
             On the Eve of Tomorrow, Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seoul, Korea