The Central Park Recreation Center is a community oriented LEED Gold Certified building in a newly constructed neighborhood. Commissioned to sit in the entrance hall of this new building, ThoughtBalloons is an interactive artwork that playfully inserts software generated text-based dialog over seated people’s heads.

About 17’ wide by 2’ deep by 8’ high, it’s rectangular enclosure is made of a welded steel frame skinned with plywood and shiny black back-painted glass. Functioning as a bench with a sort of proscenium like frame, the piece offers an ideal place to wait for a friend or for your ride home.

Someone who has never been to this community center before might just sit on the bench and think nothing of it. Anyone walking by however, would see thought balloons appearing over the seated person’s head, seemingly able to read their mind. The seated person becomes an unknowing participant in the piece. When someone else sits on the bench the thoughts change to dialog bubbles and develop into a sustained conversation on a particular topic.

It was very important to make the content of this piece more than just entertaining. To that end workshops were run with a wide range of community members in order to collect both general subject matter, and specific quotable content for the piece. Often the dialog is seemingly nonsensical to an outsider of the community while being deeply relevant to a resident. Inside jokes, local information and community history... In this way the piece is tied to the place in which it resides.

The position of people’s heads is determined through custom software and the use of a motion sensing infrared camera apparatus mounted over head and facing the piece to gain a complete view. This allows the balloons to follow peoples heads as they move about the bench. The sensor is connected to a computer concealed inside the enclosure which also drives 4 large NEC flat panel displays.