The interactive art/design project “Talking Doors” studied the door’s poetic power of organizing and provoking various psychological, conceptual and social events in public space. The selected, unique door-related and door-mediated events were exaggerated, deformed and deconstructed in five interactive installations located in the public spaces of central Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania—namely, in the doors of various important public buildings. The project aimed at becoming an analytical door “slaughterhouse” and critical playground.
“Sounding Door”—the door that acts as a musical instrument and a stage at once. The special electronic equipment installed in the front door of the building of Lithuanian Academy of Music enabled composers, musicians and sound designers to sonify the act of opening/closing the door, turning the “users” of the door into performers.
“Democratic Door”—the door that is open to democracy. The degree to which the door of the Vilnius city municipality’s building was open was controlled by a custom-made electronic door operator reading the current value of the so-called “democracy index”. The latter was formed in real time by processing the data obtained through a special online poll that asked web surfers to rate the level of Lithuania’s democratic development on a ten-point scale.
“Counting Door”—the door that keeps track of its “users”. A modified video camera installed in the doorway of the Contemporary Art Center tracked the number of unique visitors with the help of a specially manufactured and programmed face-recognition system. A computer-simulated voice informed each entering visitor how many times the latter had come through the art center’s door.
“Hesitating Door”—the door that is neither closed, nor open, never confident about its position. Controlled by custom made equipment, the door of the All Saints’ Church swung and turned according to an unpredictable pattern and at variable speed.

“Door Events Workshop”—the temporary creative studio dedicated to door “tuning” and organization of door events. The workshop offered its clients the chance to order unique door-related happenings (such as a series of random knocks on the client’s home door), to learn alternative ways to open the door and get an insight into the etiquette of door opening, to buy a specific door sound or even to offer their own door-related service.

Links: http://www.julijonasurbonas.lt/projects/project/talking-doors/

Julijonas Urbonas (LT) is a designer, artist, engineer and PhD student in design interactions at the Royal College of Art. He has worked in amusement-park development since his childhood. Having worked in this field—as an architect, ride designer and head of fairground—he became fascinated by what he calls the bodily-perceived aesthetics of “gravitational theatre”. Most recently this interest has matured into his PhD research under the topic of gravitational aesthetics.