An interactive art installation was realised by the Global Information Systems (GlobIS)
research group at ETH Zurich in collaboration with the artist Curt Walter Tannhäuser as part of the 150 year jubilee of ETH Zurich and presented to a wide
public for two and a half weeks in the Welten des Wissens exhibition at Platzspitz Zurich. The Generosa Enterprise
installation provides information about Monte Generoso, a mountain located in the southern part of Switzerland.
The visitors of the exhibition are taken along a journey where they can experience the world of Monte Generoso
combining art, science and interactive paper technology.
Fig. 1: Generosa Enterprise
Information about the worlds of air, water, earth and fauna at Monte Generoso have been collected and stored in a
database in the form of movies, photographs, sound clips and texts as well as pieces of art and scientific research
results. The idea is that users can access information stored in the database by drawing a picture. At the same
time, they create a new artwork consisting of their personal drawing augmented with digital information about the
mountain which is retrieved from the database. Each user is given an empty sheet of paper and a Digital Pen. The
user takes a seat at one of the two workplaces and starts to draw a picture, write some text etc.
Fig. 2: Exhibition space
Although the initial paper seems to be empty, it hides digital information which can be activated by drawing with the
Digital Pen. A virtual grid with a lattice spacing of one centimetre covers the whole page, where each square
centimetre links to a specific piece of information about Monte Generoso in the form of an image, a sound or a
movie. Each time a user "selects" a new square while drawing a picture, the information associated with this specific
square gets activated. The users do not know which information is hidden in specific areas of the drawing sheet and
therefore, have to explore the initially empty page rather than deliberately accessing information about the mountain.
Movies and images are projected directly onto the table, in front of the drawing area, by using over desk projection.
Each workplace is further equipped with a pair of loudspeakers for sound output. The system architecture that was
used for the Generosa Enterprise installation is similar to the EdFest and Lost Cosmonaut architectures. The major
difference is that we did not use the Client Controller but apply active components to directly control all input
and output channels.
Fig. 3: Workplace
The augmentation of the drawing process with digital information about Monte Generoso had different effects on visitors
of the exhibition. Some of them did not look at the projections at all and were just very focussed on drawing their
picture. Other users were inspired by the movies, images and sounds and integrated parts of it into their personal
drawing or started discussing the presented material with other visitors. A key factor for the success and popularity
of the Generosa Enterprise installation was its simple user interface. Everybody knows how to use a pen to draw a
picture on a piece of paper and therefore even people who normally have no access to computers had no problems at
all using the system. The only guided interaction with the non-visible computer takes place when a user has
finished their drawing. There is a field at the bottom of each page where the user can sign their artwork and
finally, a special box that has to be ticked with the Digital Pen. The ticking of the box is the signal for the
computer that the visitor has finished their drawing which is ready for further processing.
Fig. 4: Printer
All captured strokes are used to rebuild a digital version of the original artwork. This line drawing is augmented with any
digital information that was accessed by a specific user while interacting with the system. For each movie or sound,
a small thumbnail was created in advance and stored in the database. These thumbnails are now combined with the
original drawing, leaving traces about the digital information that was accessed. Each time a stroke enters one of the
virtual squares linking to the digital information, the corresponding thumbnail is inserted as a background image. The
final artwork is sent automatically to a printer which is hidden behind one of the booth walls and, a few seconds after a
visitor has finished their drawing, they can collect the printout through a small slot in the wall.
Fig. 5: Transformed drawing
The original drawing together with the augmented printout could be taken home by the visitors. Although a
massive amount of computing power and other technical equipment was necessary for realising the Generosa Enterprise
installation, all computers and other devices, for example the printer, where hidden from the users. They could
interact with latest IT technology and access information about Monte Generoso in a very natural way, namely
using paper and pen.
