Telepod

In one of the older posts, the Telepod was introduced. It is essentially a hemispherical pod on three legs, that allows for the park visitor - or anyone who is within its vicinity when it is placed in any part of the city - to experience media content that is immersive, and shown on the internal surface of its hemispherical top.

While the experience may be likened to being beneath a miniature Imax theatre, the means of information display is different. Conventional Imax theatres can accommodate for custom projectors due to their sheer size; the Telepod, which has limited standing room beneath (good for two or three heads), employs OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology instead. Using OLEDs removes the need for a projector, and allows for the projection surface to be malleable onto the hemispherical surface.

Projection/screen diagram of an Imax theatre, image courtesy of How Stuff Works.

The original intention of the Telepod were twofold:

1 As temporal shelters on the surface of the LA State Historic Park, where casual visitors can passively engage in media playback, on the park surface.

2 To allow for different parts of the city to experience the media content that is based in the LA State Historic Park. Thus, content that is generated (and stored in the downtown repository) can be played, via cable internet (or wi-fi where applicable), on the screens of these pods.

Their relatively simple structure and ease of portability allows for their distribution across the city, at news-stands, public parks, public libraries, bus stands and other spaces of temporal transit. This creates for multiple dialogues between the central park and points of the city extraneous to the park itself.

The media experience in the park, as such, extends beyond the physical boundaries of the park itself. This, at some level, bolsters the thesis intention of experiencing the city as an entity that goes beyond the bounds of physical infrastructure.