Studio resident Tim Kindberg of matter 2 media recently launched roundness.org, a website for devotees of 'round content': media and things that are either round-framed, viewed in the round, or both.  For example, have you ever visited a camera obscura like the one in Bristol, and stood around it with others, looking at the magical image of the outside projected from above? Not only have you left the world of rectangular screens behind you to see the panorama in a perfect circle, also the image is viewed from a more social perspective: it has become a conversation piece.
 
The Studio is no stranger to roundness. From nudesine's AlphaSphere to Tim's own Video Turntable, round design not only shifts the capabilities of interactive objects towards new functionality, it also changes the way we encounter music, images, films, and whatever other content is played.

 
We are far from alone in our round inclinations. Take, for example, the documentary A Million Times by FOS and Frederik Jacobi, recently exhibited at the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, as part of the CPH:DOX festival.

This film is projected precisely onto a circular screen mounted on the wall. The circular frame makes explicit the fact that the film, which is about 'reconstructed landscapes', is viewed through a 'scope' -- both in the optical sense, as in a telescope, and in the more abstract sense of an area of interest.
  

The motivation behind roundness.org is to build a focus for the community of practitioners of roundness. New round hardware. Innovative round projection and interaction software. Round media. A new aesthetics of roundness. Please get involved.