"The Wishing Tree Project" for NZ school pupils

Brazilian professor Paulo Teles is bringing his Interactive Sensorial Installation Art and Technology Workshop to New Zealand this month and will be working with a group of students and art and technology teachers from Somerville Intermediate School in Auckland.

The workshop involves using recycled materials to produce an interactive “Wishing Tree” – a multimedia interpretation of Oriental legends about a tree that has the power to fulfil the wishes attached to it.

The “trees” are built from recycled materials chosen by the teachers and students. The wishes are expressed in texts, drawings and speech.

They’re attached, projected and rendered interactive to the audience’s gestures and motion through an environment mapped with ultrasonic sensors provided by Dr Teles, a professor with the Multimedia, Media and Social Communication Department within the Art Institute at the University of Campinas in Brazil.

He conceived this project and in the past couple of years has taken it to a number of countries around the world. The Somerville workshop will be the only New Zealand opportunity.

The way the project works is best demonstrated by the short YouTube video.

I am looking for funds to pay for the two return tickets for Dr Teles and his technical assistant, artist/sculptor Zay Pereira. The hours these two men are putting into the Wishing Tree project in New Zealand will be unpaid. They are coming as volunteers.