Raphael Polte

The Würfelwald (literary: dice forest) is an interactive installation. It offers the user full control over the flora and fauna of a typical middle-european forest which they can shape and form to their liking. Every dice stands for different parts of the ecosystem like plants, animals or even weather.

»Würfelwald« won the Animago Award 2013 in the category »best interactive production«.
It was also nominated for the Giebichenstein Design Award 2012 in the category »best project group result«

»Würfelwald« was exhibited at:

YEARLY EXHIBITION of the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle 2012
FMX 2014
NEXT 2014
LONG NIGHT OF COMPUTER GAMES in Leipzig 2014
SPEKTAKEL DIGITAL at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle 2015
EXPONATEX COLOGNE 2015

You can also visit »Würfelwald« at the »FORSTHAUS« in WALDSASSEN, Germany.

Raphael Polte | Marvin Podsendek
Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2012, 6. semester
Mentor: Prof. Anette Scholz, Tom Hanke

Jolly Jousting is an interactive concept for a medieval-style event, in which two valiant knights may duel for honor and glory. These knights, each protected by a helmet and a harness and riding upon their trusty steeds, have to aim their lances to hit the armor of their opponent. Should one hit the opponents harness, one point is given. If the helmet is hit, the brave knight shall receive two points.
The central piece of this concept is the projection. We designed various characters: a royal couple, king and queen, as well as a commentator, who actively engages the crowd and reacts to what is going on in front of him. Also, the commentator interacts with two of our three developers, who are the knights humble squires. They arm the duellists and help them mount their steeds. After a round is finished, they will give the digital commentator information about where each knight was hit. The commentator in return will reward the knights with points. The tournament ends after three successful rounds without draws.
We thoroughly tested our concept at the yearly exhibition of our university, the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, thus the video is only available in German.

Various sounds were taken from the lovely guys and gals over at freesound.org
Irish Folk Music: Howie, Ann Mitchell – Irish Washerwoman (from vimeo.com)
 

»Jolly Jousting« won the »Audience Award« at PLAY15 in Hamburg.
It also was exhibited at this festival.

Raphael Polte | Marvin Podsendek | Elitza Todorova
Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2014, 1. Semester M.A.
Mentor: Prof. Bernd Hanisch, Felix Herbst

For my master thesis I was searching for possibilities to create and modify digital sculptures. I decided to give the experiments a magical theme. In my prototype, swinging a magical wand through the air and touching the brim of a magic hat, will unleashe a spell cloud. Every spell is different in shape, color and speed, depending on the intensity you put into your initial magic movements.

Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2014|15 , 2. semester M.A.
Mentor: Prof. Bernd Hanisch

Treasure Hunter is a game where skill and sense of orientation really matters as it’s a diving simulation with 3-axis controls, you are not usually used to. To manage this, players are given motion controllers. The player operates a deep-sea diving robot, tasked to recover various interesting treasures from a sunken shipwreck.

Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2013|14 , 9. semester
Mentor: Prof. Bernd Hanisch
3D-model „catalan ship“ downloaded from http://abq3d.lsijax.com/civ/boats/Cship.html

This application was designed as an installation for a museum. The visitor briefly slips into the role of an operator, via the original control panel of an »ERs400 Bg197« day-mining excavator, in front of a big beamer projection with powerful sound output. He navigates through the scene and playfully unlocks information about the mining history of the »Geiseltal« in Germany and about the excavator itself.

Raphael Polte | Bastian Kalkbrenner
Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2011 | 12,  5. semester
Mentor: Prof. Bernd Hanisch

The application explains the handling of an old gambling machine produced by the company »Treff« in 1949. Thanks to Tobias Ballmann, who lend me the construction plan, I was able to digitally rebuild the automaton true to the original.

Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2011,  4. semester
Mentor: Prof. Bernd Hanisch

The Carl-Zeiss Akon Ercona camera was meant to be set in motion. After improving our skills in illumination, cinematography and sound, we created this short film within one week. The title »Dreharbeiten« can mean either »turn-works« or simply »filming«.

Raphael Polte | Marvin Podsendek | Andreas Schrader
Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2010, 2. semester
Mentor: Prof. Bernd Hanisch

RGBeats is a game made from music. Levels are generated from a song you put in and will differ in shape. The goal of the game is to collect the right colors in the right moment, to get a highscore before the song ends.

Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2012 | 13,  7. semester
Mentor: Prof. Bernd Hanisch

Within one week we created a sculpture made of regular household garbage, two mirrors and kitchen clutter. If you illuminate it from the right angle, the shadow on the wall can be interpreted as a silhouette of a skyline.

This project was exhibited at the international symposium »Color in Education« in Halle 2010.

Raphael Polte | Nadine Walter | Thi Binh Minh Nguyen
Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2009, 1. semester
Mentor: Prof. Dr. Axel Buether

Entropy is a force of nature nobody can measure. This force can only be visible to us, if we observe states in a relatively motionless system over a long time. I wanted to show the principle of entropy as a metaphysical struggle between order and chaos.

Due to license issues I am not allowed to play the audio, which is of crucial importance to understand the project. In short though: The music cross-fades from a good mood to a bad mood, depending on the development of order to chaos in the game.

Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2010 | 11,  3. semester
Mentor: Manfred Kraft

I developed a short animation film for the Cultural Theme Year »Halle verändert« (literary: Halle changes), and was stylistically constricted to simple geometric shapes.

Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2010, 2. semester
Mentor: Michael Spindler, Prof. Anette Scholz

Our class developed a virtual tour for the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle. Each of us had the freedom to shoot a panorama from a point we desired

Burg Giebichenstein University of Art Halle, 2010 | 11,  3. semester
Mentor: Prof. Uli Kühnle, Karl - Johann Schikora

If you need something done, feel free to drop me some lines.

contact@raphaelpolte.com

Raphael Polte
Aurelienstraße 23
04177 Leipzig
Germany