Dissertation

In my dissertation I looked at the history of the graphical user interface (GUI), and how the attribution of human like traits and gestures to the PC has affected humans relationship to personal technologies in today's society.
I looked at how Apple changed the personal computer from a machine mostly used by people with computer literacy into a tool that ordinary non-technical users could access. The Macintosh in 1984 (one of the first computers with a GUI) was the product responsible for this change. The concept for this computer was to hide the technical parts of the machine away from the user, giving it a more familiar and human-like appearance to attract ordinary people who previously felt intimidated by this new technology. Apple's philosophy was "Since computers are so smart, wouldn't it make sense to teach computers about humans, instead of of teaching people about computers?" The design of the Macintosh GUI reflects this philosophy. The interface was given a familiar face that humans could relate to at a more personal and emotional level. This design strategy has continued to influence designs of user interfaces since.
Throughout the dissertation I discussed the negative and positive aspects of the 'computer as human' model drawing upon different theories concerning this, and touching upon anthropomorphism and animism. I also looked at the complexity of HCI alongside evolving technology and the computer industry's struggle in maintaining the trust of their users. Finally I looked at design strategies used in today's personal information devices and the affects on users relationship to personal technology.

One discovery I made was the difficulty the computer industry has had, throughout time, in dealing with the profound amount of new features and content at hand, whilst maintaining the usability needed for people to feel at ease and emotionally engage with the technology. I also discovered how a shift in the understanding of HCI has lead to products that aim to appeal to individual needs. Nowadays products and services aim to provoke feelings of personal importance, attachment and companionship, by providing individuals with user centred, customisable and playful designs. Mobile phones especially is a great example of this trend. I discovered that today's interfaces of personal technologies are designed to entertain an stimulate users senses through playful and theatrical displays to emotionally involve users. Manovich suggests that personal technologies today are designed with a 'form follows emotion' ideology rather than 'form follows function.' This means that the experience and emotional engagement in user interfaces have become as important as the functions they serve.


I enjoyed both the research and writing process of this project. I also enjoyed coming to some new discoveries and conclusions. I didn't enjoy writing the bibliography but I understand it's purpose and importance, and put a lot of effort into getting it right. The hardest thing was probably working out what research was relevant and what wasn't. I had to constantly remind myself of the key theme of the dissertation to avoid drifting away from the title of the dissertation. I tried to focus on making it enjoyable and interesting to read, making the language flow without too much disruption. I found it really satisfying when all the writing started to come together and form some answers and conclusions. Overall I am pleased with what I have achieved.

http://www.oman3d.com/tutorials/flash/portfolio_2_bc/

Where is it all going to end

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMK2B3XQEF_index_0.html

Google Maps Street View

Has anyone else come across this yet? It's quite fascinating you can walk around the streets in different cities in America, almost like you would in a computer game. It's quite realistic as it is based on real photographs. Not bad if you are planning a trip to a city you haven't been to before, but it does seem to have some issues regarding surveillance, try it out yourself under google maps, street view. I believe thay are planning to do it in Europe as well but have peoples faces blurred out. Interesting.

Very true

This quote, in my opinion, sums up exactly why we end up spending hours in front of our computers.

'I feel pressure from a machine that seems itself to be perfect and leaves no one and no other thing but me to blame. It is hard for me to walk away from a not-yet-proofread text on the computer screen. In the electronic writing environment in which making a correction is as simple as striking a delete key, I experience a typographical error not as a mere slip of attention, but as a moral carelessness, for who could be so slovenly as not to take the one or two seconds to make it right? The computer tantalizes me with its holding power—in my case the promise that if I do it right, it will do it right, and right away.'

(TURKLE1993:29-30)

Research for exam project

http://www.henshall.com/blog/archives/000552.html

http://skypejournal.com/blog/2004/02/the_disruptive_nature_of_skype.html

Excitement, Snow, Blogger Challenge, Exam Project, Skype, Virtual Babysitter and much more..

Hello Friends.

I am just having one of those moments that you only get once in a while where everything seems so exciting and every thought and idea you have so perfectly inspiring. So what better time than now to share some of these in my blog.
I have to admit that the excitement may have started when I woke up this morning discovering a thick layer of snow everywhere. You may think that a Scandinavian would be unimpressed and not jump up and down like a little kid, but you would be wrong.
Ideas, ideas, ideas....I can't type fast enough right now.
Firstly I would just like to remind everyone how little time we have left on the course and how nice it would be if we could all squeeze the most out of these blogs during our last few months of studies. I guess I am mostly speaking of myself as I haven't used my blog near enough since Christmas, which seems a shame when I have the opportunity to share thoughts and ideas with people of similar interest. So today I am deciding to make a fresh start blogging as often as I can, so watch it people, especially you Dan Stoneman, I am taking up the blogging challenge of who can blog the most. Anyone else up for the challenge?


Over the weekend I have been thinking about the exam project. Although I have no finalised idea for this project, I do know that I would like to use Skype in some interesting creative way.

Over the past two years Skype ( the free Internet telephony service) has played a major role in my life as it has enabled me to talk and see my family on regular day to day basis. I no longer feel many miles from home and never miss my family as they are right there in front of me on the screen. It amazes me how much a web camera and a free call service can change the nature of a telephone call. I guess I am lucky to have a good relationship with my family, we are all quite relaxed and never have any arguments or complex family dramas, so often I just use Skype as a way of being in their company whilst I am doing other stuff. This would never be the case if you had to pay for you calls and couldn't see the person you was talking to as it would seem pointless holding a telephone to your ear without talking whilst paying for every minute of your call. Well this is not how Skype works, I can now just be another person in the room joining the conversation when and if I want to, just as you would in any ordinary family gathering. I find this really interesting as it is a whole new form of engagement in cyberspace. I have over the past two years been the family member trapped on the screen but fully engaged and able to see the same as the others and join in the conversation when wanting. Having said that there are some limitations, physically I can't join in when everyone is offered a cup of tea or a piece of cake for example. My brother has also on several occasions joked about closing the laptop screen whilst saying "That's enough of you sister". This is quite funny because it is like they have the ultimate control, I am just helplessly trapped inside the monitor.

I have also tried to be a virtual babysitter. My brother clipped his webcam to my four month old niece's cot and told me to look after her whilst he was in the kitchen making some food. He told me to give him a shout if she started looking unhappy.

Now that she is a bit older, about a year and a half, we also have fun using Skype. I see her about once a week and I think she experiences me as her ultimate teletubbie character who sits somewhere behind a whole in the wall and talks to her directly. Much more fun than the TV which doesn't say your name and respond to your actions.

Some links to art projects and articles involving the use of Skype:

http://girlfriend.mediamatic.net/

https://developer.skype.com/wiki/CommunityProjects

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4639824.stm

Organising Information

Over the easter break I went to Berlin for a long weekend. This time I managed to visit the film museum which got me thinking about how curators organise and display different material. There was a lot of information giving a history of how films have evolved from early film pioneers til today's cinema. I was really impressed with the overall presentation of the information. You walked through 10-15 different rooms each completely different but with a feel of consistency and flow. Lots of mirrors and low ceilings gave you a sense of the excitement that would have occurred around the early days of cinema. The rooms were on different levels and throughout the journey you could look down at other people who were ahead of you. Over the past three years curation is something I have become increasingly aware of especially when I had to build an interactive museum guide for brighton musum. I think it is as important how things are displayed, as what they are. Good content can fail miserably if displayed badly. When you are trying to capture an audience, who doesn't know anything before they look at a series of work, you have to find a way of capturing their attention and keeping them engaged throughout. I think this way of thinking should be equally important for the course I am doing as it is the same with websites, books, posters, DVD menus etc.
The Invisible Computer by Donald Norman - A book I've been reading about the complexity of organising information on the computer.

Hove Museum - Film Gallery

Had a little look at Hove Museums Film Gallery. It is small but really interesting, so for those of you interested in films it's worth a look. The museum also has a Local History Gallery which is really good. I discovered that the house I am living in was build around 1878, I didn't expect it to be that old.

Character Animation for D&AD brief - The Cleaner

Been a while since I updated my blog, so here is the latest regarding the D&AD project.

Went with the character animation brief as I enjoy animation and want to be involved with this in the future.

The idea
The idea I am working on is for a 2D character animation portraying an old cleaning lady in her daily routine. The subject being a humoristic take on the habits and rituals we build through repetitive chores, in this case cleaning. The animation will portray the cleaner's personality through body movements, facial expressions and timing of different actions.

The sequence of events that will take place are as follows. The old cleaning lady is walking to work along a busy street in the city. This opening scene will introduce the cleaner by showing her whole body figure, her way of walking and her day to day environment. In the following scene the character enters her work, an old apartment block where she cleans the communal stairs. The sound of a bucket being filled with water leads into the third scene showing the old lady mopping stairs. Her cleaning routine is very methodical, she mops each step five times and before moving onto the next step she takes two deep breaths. This sequence is repeated continuously until a person walks down the stairs messing up the clean floor. The character sighs deeply, shakes her head and starts all over again from the top of the stairs. Half way through she is again interrupted by a second person coming up the stairs. Again she sighs deeply and shakes her head and grumbles this time looking more red faced and frustrated. Once the person has walked past and isn't looking, the cleaner points her mop at the person in a threatening manner. Finally the last scene is showing the cleaner repeating the mopping routine from the top of the stairs.

Small changes such as the cleaners breathing becoming heavier and her face more red, will allude to time passing. The animation will have music at the beginning and end of the animation and sound effects in between.

Sources of inspiration for the idea:
The main inspiration I had for this idea came from an observation I made in Berlin. A big group of us were walking down the stairs from the hotel. The cleaning lady had just mopped all the stairs, I was the last person to walk past her and as I did she just rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. This made me think about the irony of a cleaner having a very structured daily routine that is completely interrupted by people messing up their cleaned surfaces. I think there is something quite funny about the whole idea of cleaning because it is something that seems so insignificant as it usually takes seconds before something is messed up again.

The second source of inspiration was from a job I had in an after school club a few years ago. The cleaner there was an older lady called Murtle, she had cleaned there for over 20 years and had a very funny dry sense of humor. If any of the kids got in her way she would point her mop or broom at them in a threatening manner, which they thought was very funny.

The final source of inspiration for this idea was from an experience I had in France when I was about 11 years old. I was in a public toilet in Avignon and stupidly decided to wash my feet in the sink. A french cleaning lady noticed this and went mad in french. I didn't understand what she was saying but I got the impression she was very angry, understandably.

Generally the idea is very influenced by Sylvain Chomet's animation Belleville Rendez-Vous and Chris Wares comic book Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. Both of these works uses clever techniques in order to portray a characters emotions and expressions without the use of words and dialogue.


















Progress so far:
Have finalissed:
Storyboards
Treatment
Discription of character in detail
Content ready to animate
Music track (provided by a friend)
All sound effects

BERLIN 2008 - Student trip to Transmediale, festival for art and digital culture

The BA Student trip to Berlin (Jan 28th - Feb 3rd) was fantastic. We got back last night and sitting here looking back over the past 7 days, I am wondering were to begin...
The main reason for the trip was to visit the yearly Transmediale Festival which was held in the beautiful building "Haus der Kulturen der Welt" situated by Tiergarten near the centre of Berlin. The festival ran from Tuesday til Sunday and included exhibitions with installations and art pieces, seminars on different subjects related to art and digital culture and showings of films, documentaries, live performances and music.











This years theme was "conspire" and a lot of the conferences and work shown had taken a negative approach to the subject by looking at issues regarding the corporate world in relation to the identity of the individual and a culture as a whole. Below are some descriptions of a few of the seminars I attended which illustrates this.


















CP02:Public Signatures Wed 30 Jan: 4pm (Theatresaal)

Public Signatures was two documentaries about 'Culture Jamming' and 'unauthorized street-art'.
The first documentary by David Schwerten was made as a result of two years research into European 'Culture Jamming'. I found it very interesting and key to many current paradoxes seen in media advertising and logo designs.
As described in the programme, "modern culture jamming is distributing viral information like fake media campaigns to 'jam' the mass media".
One of the people interviewed for the documentary described it as using the media itself to draw attention to how we are influenced my the media. We are all part of the system and we can't escape the system.
The idea of culture jamming dates back to the beginning of the 20th century looking at Marcel Duchamp and the French avant-garde group Situationist International.
In the documentary various cases of modern culture jamming were talked about, including a campaign by Nike where they travelled around placing a Nike infobox in various city's. People could enter the infobox which had a 3d sculpture displayed
giving information about a giant sculpture to be placed in the Karlsplatz or Nikeplatz the following year. The giant sculpture of Nike's famous logo, a "Swoosh", a 36 metre long by 18 metre high monument supposedly made from "special steel covered with a revolutionary red resin made from recycled sneaker soles". The information was obviously not true but visitors believing it were shocked and angry by the suggestion of a big corporation buying a piece of an old historic square to promote their identity.

Another example talked about was Hans Bernhard from ubermorgan.com who a few years ago created a website where people could bit in an online auction for Americans votes. voteauction.com This obviously caused a big stir.
One other point talked about, that I found interesting, was the idea of logos and signs being presented everywhere and in a sense being forced upon us, yet they have a copyright. I think one of the persons interviewed suggested that this was like having

copyrights on trees and other natural surroundings. He amongst others believed that public advertising should have no copyright as it is already being placed upon the individual unwillingly and should therefor be available for anyone to copy just like trees and buildings are.

The second documentary by Volker Sattel, Mario Mentrup was about a secret unauthorised street - art exhibition in the small city Wuppertal in 2006. The film follows the perspectives of artist who uses the industrial city walls as an exhibition space. One artist was using the dirty black walls along the monorail as a backdrop for his artwork, by cleaning lines on the walls rather than graffiting on to them, he could erase white from black. I found this fascinating as it made me think about the legal aspect of making art in urban spaces, usually it is illegal to paint on to something but if you are cleaning something is it a different matter? The documentary had a very slow and slightly gloomy feel about it which made it, at the time, not very interesting but looking back ,very memorable.

Session 2:Embedding Fear Thu 31 Jan: 1pm (Auditorium)
'Embedding Fear' was about the Internet as a platform for political, military and corporate propaganda and the perceived threat of terrorism. The discussion was based upon the freedom and access of web communication becoming a complex issue when confound with a corrupted image of what is real. especially in fighting against war on terror. The four speakers talked about the subject within four different caegories, the world wide risk society, Position of the individual, The Internet - terrorist spectacle, and the illusion surrounding people and the internet.

Faceless: Opportunistic infections of the surveillance apparatus
Fri 1st Feb:2pm (The Co-opting strategies salon)

Faceless was a presentation by Manu Luksch about her research into surveillance cameras and her ways of using them as an artistic tool. She did a small project in a housing estate in the UK using dancing teenagers in front of many security cameras, as a humorous response to Bushby Burkely's choreographies. After this project she became more interested in the legal aspects and spent some time in London seeing how many pieces of footage of herself on surveillance camera she could claim. She sent

hundreds of letters, but only 10% of her requests for footage were successful. In the received footage all other faces than hers were cut out. She then decided to try and make a film telling a story of a woman who lived in a faceless world dominated by time. However the further she got with her film the harder it became to claim footage, as regulations were tightened and most letters she sent came back with a negative reply saying the footage had unfortunately been deleted. Instead of finishing the film she tried to work on changes in movement within the footage that she did receive, such as movements of shadows, lighting etc.

Overall she works with the legal aspects of the image and the aesthetic which you don't have control over.

I found her project quite interesting and unusual. The ideas of using tools within public spaces as a personal mean for artistic expression is quite fascinating.

www.ambientTV.net

General opinion about Transmediale:

Overall I think the festival was a great experience with plenty of interesting input that I feel I can use in the context of the course and future projects. The one thing that disappointed me was the quality and attention to detail in some of the work presented at the festival. In one of the films the subtitles were unreadable, and in one conference the video didn't work. My opinion on this is that surely these things should have been tested beforehand especially as people pay a lot of money to attend these programs. Having said that I was really loving the overall atmosphere of the festival, the place seemed relaxed, friendly with families, many nationalities and people who new each other from previous years festivals.
At the time it was all very overwhelming, and trying to keep up with all that was going on could at times seem frustrating, but now that I have come away from it all, I can honestly say that I enjoyed it and would even consider going back one day.

Other interesting things I saw in Berlin:
The Bauhaus exhibition
The Holocaust Monument
The Aquadom
Panorama bar

(More to Come)

Project: D&AD Global Student Awards Jan. - Mar. ' 08

Iv'e looked at the different briefs for the D&AD student awards. Most of them seem very commercial and quite geared towards selling or relaunching the identity of a brand. However a few of them seem a bit more open for personal experimentation and these I like the sound of. The ones I am particularly interested in are:

HSI London - Create a character then portray it through an animation to express it's personality

Research Studios - Re-launch FUSE Magazine by designing its 20th issue

Davisystems - Produce an illustrated book about yourself or someone else

MTV - MTV is a virus, what does it look like, how does it behave and where does it invade

Gollancz/Orion books - Create a striking new look for the "Space Opera" book series

The Macintosh with the first graphical user interface presented in 1984

http://static.hugi.is/misc/movies/1984macintro.mov

DJ Scotch Egg

Had a presentation by Dj Skotch Egg, interesting stuff. He played a series of his tracks whilst explaining the inspiration that formed the style for each track. All the music was made using sounds from gameboys. What I particularly found interesting was the range of different inspiration he had incorporated into his music. By having an instrument so controversial as a gameboy he is able to work with a whole range of genres, from Dub to Barch to Stoner rock. Very experimental. In most cases mucisians tend to stick to certain style according to what instrument they play, for example a saxophone for jazz and a violin for classical. DJ Skotch Egg likes all genres and expresses this in his music. He also talked about the idea of limiting himself (or his amount of tools) in order to be more imaginative and creative. This is a concept I have been interested in for a while, and tried to explore in my final piece last year by making an animation based on rules and limitations, inspired by Lars von Triers experimental film "The five obstructions". I agree that if you limit the amount of options you have you force yourself to be more imaginative.
We were also shown the piece by John Cage "4'33" which is a a 4.33 min long composed piece of complete silence. |It was interesting to see the idea of silence as being a piece of sound in itself, it got me thinking if you could make film with no content, but even a black or white screen would seem like content, so maybe no screen at all. I guess the reason why the 4.33 piece worked was because it had a conductor and an orchestra and everything was timed in fine detail.
The sounds used by DJ Skotch Egg were old school gameboy sounds which bring a sense of nostalgia for people who used to play these games, adding to the overall experience.

http://www.djscotchegg.com/

Research

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/
http://swarmsketch.com/
http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/Pixelfest/

Dynamic Interactive Painting

Hey everyone hope you had a good Christmas.

Over the past two weeks I've been trying to collect all my research to work out a final idea for this project. I've had a few different ideas ranging from an installation giving interactors an experience similar to the Synesthesia syndrome, to an interactive piece working as a chain where interactors form a story by engaging and reacting to previous interactors actions. However the more I tried to visualise these ideas as actual pieces giving users interactive experiences, the more I disliked them and felt stuck. So it took me a while of going through lots of different thought before I finally cracked it. I think I am now getting somewhere with an idea of an interactive installation in the form of a dynamic paint by numbers.
Interactors will be drawing (on different computers) parts of a huge image. A small piece from a larger image (divided into individual parts in a grid) is given to them to copy in their own style. Every time an interactor has finished drawing their piece it is automatically uploaded onto the large image. The gradually changing large image is projected onto a wall in a public space to give members of the public a sense of a fixed artwork yet with dynamic movement from the continually changing gridded parts within the image. To ensure that movement is always taking place, the already existing individual parts will be continuously looped at random times.
This will only be a proposal for an installation as it would be technically difficult to make in the short time given.
More description will follow.

























I remember helping out students at Northbrook College with this huge painting which works on the same principle except from being painted in real life not on a computer. This was what inspired me to this idea.

The original image used for this work was from Chuck Close website http://chuckclose.com/

I also found this site inspiring: http://www.chuckclose.coe.uh.edu/

The projected painting would look a little bit like this:

Inspiration for physical computing by Rona Innes

Useful links:
wiring.org.co (look at exhibition)
arduino.cc
processing.org
nastypixel.com/instantsoup

CONTROLLING FLASH WITH A WIIMOTE
Windows
http://wiiflash.bytearray.org/?p=52

Mac
http://screenfashion.org/releases/motedaemon/

Book:
Physical Computing by Dan O'Sullivan and Tom Igoe

Links for Interactive work:

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/microphone.htm -Flash animations using microphone
http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca/imm2004/chin/tutorial/ -blowing grass
http://www.nastypixel.com/prototype/?page_id=73 -webcam motion detection
http://www.nastypixel.com/prototype/?page_id=86 -Gesture controlling Google Earth
http://gskinner.com/blog/archives/2005/08/flash_8_webcam.html -snowstorm & game etc
http://members.westnet.com.au/lmwan/projects.html - Wan's webcam experiments
http://www.protozoo.com/?p=179 - generate and pop bubbles
http://www.discombo.co.uk/cam-experiments.htm - cupid game etc
http://www.webcamtastic.com/ -webcam goo
http://www.extendedreality.com/webcam_games_info.html - eyetoys type games
http://cam.playdo.com

Distance changes face perception?

http://www.doctorhugo.org/illusions/illusion1.html
This is probably one of the best illusions ever! Please do the following: look at the above images from your seat in front of the computer; Mr. Angry is on the left, and Ms. Calm is on the right. Now, get up from your seat, and move back 10 or 12 feet. Who’s the angry and calm now? This illusion was made by Phillippe G. Schyns and Aude Oliva.

Gathering some thoughts

What are the elements that I want to explore/play with in this project?
Element that contradict or correspond with the idea of interactivity

Immersed <------> Distracted

Curious <------> Apathetic

Tempting <------> Repelling

I am interested in the question of whether curiousity and temptation are what drives us to take action? This question seems important to ask for the sake of interaction and what makes us interact with something in the first place.

In a game we move forward because we want to unfold, discover and realise the plot or goal. If a door is closed in the game and we have to solve a puzzle before the door will open, we will spend hours trying to solve the puzzle just to see what is behind the door, in other words quench our curiousity. If we have a particular question that we know there is a particular answer to, we will equally spend hours searching (the internet) for the answer. We particularly spend longer if we believe the answer is within our reach. This stubberness seems to be driven by human instinctive curiousity as well as a want to prove ourselves. It is a mixture of irritation of not knowing and the challenge of finding out which keeps us busy because we know that if we do we will be rewarded. These two feelings needs to be finely balanced in order to make the overall experience joyful. If we have to work for too long before the answer is given we become frustrated and give up, but equally if the task is too easy we loose the feeling of being challenged and the reward seems less earned.

These observations are all concerned with the idea of "play" and "fun" which we mainly know from games. Computer games are often the first medium mentioned when talking about interactivety, as these are highly interactive. We can illustrate how interactivity has progressed over time by looking at a film which is not interactive at all to second life which is as interactive as a game gets. But can we say which of these are better? Films are still highly popular today.

3d Magic Eye Tetris

http://www.lutanho.net/play/magiceyetetris.html

Ideas and thoughts so far

These are some rough notes to gather all the ideas/thoughts I have had so far:
Working around the idea of temptation and curiousity - what makes a person want to interact with a medium? Could one play around with the idea of temptation and limitation through images or sound?
Work around the idea of optical illusion and how we memorise. Do we memorise through sound or visuals? Do we always link our past to the present?
Are 3D magic eyes interactive? Could you build on the idea of something being interactive without requiring the user/viewer to physically interact much?

Memory through sound or images?

I've been thinking about sound because recently I've been listening a lot more to the radio rather than watching TV. I've found that radio programs stick much better in my memory than TV programs. I think it may have to do with the fact that when you listen rather than watch, you create your own images. But maybe it's just because we are so used to visual information and are slightly overloaded with this form of information. I was wondering if I could build this idea into my project in some way, perhaps I need to research if there is any truth in this or if it is only my experience that sound is more effective in terms of memorising than visuals. Maybe each individual remembers things differently. I've always wondered if some people memorise more in images, and some people memorise more in sounds, words or numbers. Either way this subject relates well to the idea of how our brain works in terms of how we memorise.

3D Magic Eye - A different form of interactivity?

I started thinking about the old idea of magic eye images. These are in a way very interactive as they require the viewer to focus in a particular way in order to receive a 3d image. It is quite a different form of interactivity as it doesn't require much physical involvement by the user, just a long time staring. I was thinking how interesting it is that the way you look at these images (with a blurred focus) is quite similar to when you are in deep day dream, or completely immersed in a painting or landscape. I can't think of any other form of interactivity where you get this completely uninterrupted experience, where you can almost switch off. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps video games have a similar way of drawing the player into an almost "dream like" state.

I remember the first time I was introduced to one of these magic eye images, and how eager I was to be able to see the 3d image. I got really frustrated after 20 minutes when I still couldn't see it, but when i eventually did it truly seemed like magic.

Anyway just out of curiosity I started looking into how these images are made and came across this flash website where you can make your own 3d magic eye image, you draw the content that you want to appear in 3d.

Try for yourself here

Here is one I made

Maybe one could expand on this idea of an image becoming alive without the viewer taking any action, either by speech recognition or movement sensors. I like the idea of something being interactive yet time consuming or in other words the viewer having to take some time over a particular piece before moving on. Perhaps sound could also help in setting a particular pace.

I also like the way these images often have patterns made of smaller images that gives clues to the larger 3D image. In the above example the roses are a metaphor for love giving a clue to the 3D image being a heart.

Thoughts on Interactivity:

Idea Generating Exercises - answers to Carolyn Hadler Miller text.

1. What traditional ritual have you participated in, or are you aware of, that reminds you in some way of an interactive narrative? What is it about this ritual that you think is like a computerized interactive experience?

If Guy Fawkes Night can be considered a traditional ritual then it seems a good example of an event that could be compared with an interactive experience in a multi player online game. In Lewes each year on the fifth of November people celebrate the night by dressing up in old costumes and participating in the big procession parading through the small town. Bonfires and fireworks are used as a reminder of the big gunpowder plot that nearly killed the English parliament and King James 1 in 1605 . The big theatrical show taking place throughout the evening follows certain traditional rituals that brings people together with a sense of social belonging, importance and common goal similar to players in online games.












2. What game or sport have you played that you think could be adapted to a work of interactive entertainment? what would remain the same, what would have to be changed, and in what way?

I remember a game I used to play when I was a kid named 'I declare war', this was an outdoor game with chalk. A big round circle was drawn on the ground, the circle was divided into even parts, one for each number of players. Each player represented a different country and had a part which was there land. One player would through a ball in the air and say 'I declare war against....Italy' the player representing Italy had to catch the ball and say STOP whilst everyone else ran away from the circle. When stop was called out everyone had to stop and stay where they were. The player who had caught the ball chose the nearest other player and took 3 steps towards this other player as well as a spit, where the spit landed he could see if he could reach the other player from here and if so he was aloud to try and take some of this players land by standing on one leg in the centre of the circle and drawing as big a piece of land as possible out of the other persons land and naming it Italy. The idea was to get as much land off the others as well as keeping your own. Who ever had the most land at the end of the game had won.
I think this is typical example of an old game that has many ideas
now used in an interactive games. In fact the game Risk, which is both a board game and a computer game draws on similar ideas. Claiming the oppositions territories.

3. What work of traditional storytelling (a novel, a play, a movie, or even a comic book) have you read or seen that contains a narrative technique that could be applied to a work of digital entertainment? What is this technique, and how could it be used?

The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware is a comic book that uses clever techniques to engage the reader at a much deeper level. Colours and various grids are used to hump through the story in a way that is much more like a in a film. When ever the background is red the main character Jimmy is feeling anxious. I theink this form of narrative technique could be applied to a film or game.




















5. Can you think of any work of traditional entertainment (poem, short story, novel, play, movie, TV show, etc.) that breaks the "fourth wall"? Describe how the fourth wall is broken in this work. Could the fourth wall be broken in a similar way in an interactive work? Why or why not?

Lars Von Triers - The Five Obstructions is an experimental film. Lars Von Trier challenged his mentor Jorgen Leth, to a one-of-a-kind director's game: von Trier gives Leth rules, or obstructions, by which Leth would have to remake his own 1967 short film "The Perfect Human"--five times.
I think this film breaks the fourth wall as it lets the viewer not only see how this film is made, but almost makes the viewer feel as if he/she has been part of making this film due to the way the film is styled as a documentary emotionally engaging the viewer in the same journey as leth is taking. Besides Leth and Trier dosn't know any more than the viewer what the outcome is going to be. Brilliant piece of work in my opinion, everyone should watch this.

http://worldfilm.about.com/od/scandinavianfilm/fr/5obstructions.htm

Research for Design for Interaction Project

http://www.aec.at/en/index.asp
http://www.aec.at/en/archives/pp_center_inst_chronolog.asp
http://www.setpixel.com/

Wikinomics Book

I found this in the latest Edge Magazine
Christmas 2007 p.22
After having discussed this subject in class and come across it loads since through other readings, I really want to read the book myself.

Sutte Træ i Frederiksberg Have

Project: Design for Interaction Nov. 07 - Jan. 08

We have been given a new project brief which involves developing an interactive project that explores/plays with the concepts surrounding the process of interactivity. The brief suggests that we look into other areas, than just screen based design, where audience interaction is an integral part of a concept. The final piece could include; a game, an experimental website, an interactive art-piece, a non-linear story, or a design for an interactive environment, such as retail space, a museum, a learning zone or as a response to a public arts commission.
I am not sure what I would like to do for this brief yet, however I like the idea of something that is less screen based and more experimental. After hearing about how the games developers at Kerb makes games that grow and stay alive on the Internet for an incredible amount of time, I started thinking how great it would be to create something that potentially could live and grow forever. I am not quite sure how this could be achieved but it is an interesting thought. Previously I made an Interactive Poetry Installation in collaboration with another student, this gave me a good idea of how a successful interactive piece is achieved. I think the key is a careful process of constantly asking questions and evaluating any ideas and decisions made, as well as always referring back to the goal or main purpose of the work. I really enjoyed making an installation so maybe I should consider the same area for this project. Back then I realised how important it was to be two people working together as we were able to feed off each others ideas and form much more in depth realisations of what we wanted to achieve due to long discussions and criticisms together. It was a really exciting process, I hope I can use some of the same principles for this project and take advantage of tutors and class mates to discuss my ideas. This blog is probably not a bad place to start, if everyone can help each other out, people are bound to achieve something far greater.
I am going to start my research by raising some really basic questions such as:

What does interactive mean?
What does Interactivity involve?
In what different areas is the concept of interaction used?

Artists I know about who work around the subject of interactivity, installation art or audience participation:
Lev Manovich
Bill Viola
Blast Theory
David Rokeby
Camille Utterback

Book: Interactivity by Design by Ray Kristof & Amy Satran

Alistair suggested I had a look at this website:
We-make-money-not-art.com

Exhibitions

John Maeda

Why it would make sense to live in chaos.

Guys you have to read this! It really made me laugh.

For those of you who insist on dwelling on supply chain management to the detriment of your social life, one fascinating idea in that field comes from Stephen Ho, who just got his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ho calls his idea, which will only work once RFID is on every product, "location-relaxed storage." It's a funny euphemism in the tradition of calling a bald person follically challenged.

Basically it means that instead of organizing a warehouse by putting items in their carefully defined proper places, RFID will make it more efficient to just throw everything everywhere. It's the total chaos warehouse.

How can that possibly work better? Well, picture an Amazon.com warehouse. A worker is looking at an order for one copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beagles and one copy of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Chances are that the spot for beagle books is far away from the spot for T.S. Eliot books. The worker has to zoom around the warehouse to fill the order.

Now let's say every book has an RFID tag. Whenever a truckload of books arrives at the warehouse, instead of sorting them into defined slots, workers just shove them anywhere there's an empty space. Copies of Idiot's Guide to Beagles and Prufrock are scattered all around the building.

RFID readers placed around the warehouse constantly ping all the RFID tags to learn what books are where. The readers send that data to the warehouse's central computer. Then a worker filling an order picks up a wireless handheld computer and uses it to ask the central computer where he can find the nearest copy of each book.

Because the books are scattered around the warehouse, one of each is likely to be nearby, making the worker more efficient — he might just have to walk a few steps to get both books. Ho mathematically proved that the chances are greater that both books would be closer when using this chaotic, location-relaxed storage system, vs. using an organized warehouse.

Of course, if the electricity goes out, the warehouse is hosed.

Though Ashton didn't say so, there might be some contradictory elements to these RFID concepts.

If it's true that in an RFID world it's more efficient to fling everything around a warehouse than to use space as an organizing principle, would that also apply to your home? It might be better to let everything in your house go to chaos, then use an RFID reader to find what you're looking for.

I would love to try this ridiculous system out at home one day in the future, wouldn't you?

I also wandered if this concept could apply to your computer one day. No need to save things in the correct folders, just shove things where ever you want, much more efficient.

Taken from: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/maney/2004-10-05-maney_x.htm

http://www.closertotruth.com/topics/technologysociety/210/210transcript.html

http://www.project2061.org/publications/sfaa/online/chap3.htm#issues

Thoughts from reading "the socio - cultural horizon" from the book vision of the future by Philips

My understanding of the text:

The text seems to imply that fifteen years ago people were trying to cope and keep up with a rapidly changing society. Demands of modern life and an ever-accelerating rate of living meant people were experiencing time and space in an entirely new format. Technology enabled people to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and things such as work, play, education and entertainment no longer seemed strictly separated. This created new patterns and behaviours amongst individuals and in society. Moments of rest, absorption and reflection between activities were slowly neglected. As people gradually started to restructure according to new criteria, the danger of people losing sight of themselves and their roots began to emerge. The outcome of this vulnerability was a desire to try and restore the balance between activity and rest, between being swept along and being anchored. People were starting to seek meaning by looking at their own personal lives and bridge the gap between the past and the future. Such tendencies, of people wanting to clearly define their space, could be witnessed on a number of different levels. Break-up of former communist states, religious fundamentalism and people generally withdrawing into their own homes and social groups rather than participating in community activities and projects. A trend often referred to as 'cocooning'. An act of insulating or hiding oneself from the normal social environment, which may be perceived as distracting, unfriendly, dangerous or otherwise unwelcome, at least for the present.

How is this relevant today and in the future:

By looking at what people and society in the early nineties were like, considerations on how things may have changed since can hopefully help predict how things may develop in the future.

I think the principle of 'cocooning' is interesting, as this trend has continued since the nineties but also changed slightly. When the term was first used , technology was making people stay at home and become isolated, for example by watching TV rather than going to the cinema. Today although people may physically be as isolated as before, technology especially due to the Internet, has allowed them to socialise through cyberspace. Online gaming, forums, blogs, skype, msn, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace etc. are all places were people can share amongst each other, form small communities and work together. In a way, we have become more sociable, more accustomed to cyberspace and less alienated and frightened of new technologies. It seems like nothing in terms of new technology would surprise us any more, anything is possible, and we are not as sceptical as users as we used to be. Services providing easy solutions and ways for saving us time has lead us to acceptance. Most people have no issues with Internet banking, online shopping or giving out personal identification for membership purposes any more. Whether this is a good or bad thing, is saving us time or driving us into new avenues of time consumption is all a matter of debate. One thing is certain, it is the way things are going. One could argue that humans have been facing such challenges for a long time, when the bank was first introduced people would have been hugely sceptical about putting their money into someone else hand.

So how will these new ideas progress in the future? I think that now we have become used to the new pace of living, found trust and acceptance in technologies used in everyday situations and realised the potentials of improving services, sharing information and socialising in cyberspace, we will seek ways for making these more accessible and mobile. As with most things in history, different needs and desires tend to go round in circles. Now that we have been through a period of 'cocooning' in front of our screens, it would only seem natural that we would want to be more active, manoeuvrable, deeper involved, wanting to make a difference, and have options to freely use technology when wanted and needed. I suppose there are signs of this happening already in mobile technology. Blackberries are the newest in this direction, with access to emails and the Internet through your mobile. So to summarise what I believe to be the coming trends regarding future technology:

• A continuing want for quicker easier accessibility in services.

• Products made of, and providing, greener solutions.

• A continuous desire for mobility.

• Many devices brought together into a single device (less things to produce, keep in order and carry around).

• More intense, realistic, immersed virtual experiences.

• A continuing need for user centred products you can customise, personalise and get feedback from.

• Further want for socialising in very selective communities.

Guest Speakers

Ellie Rees
06/12/07
http://www.ellierees.co.uk/

Kerb
22/11/07
Alistair McDonald introduced us to Kerb an independent digital marketing agency specialising in online viral flash games. He works as a programmer amongst a team of fifteen others who have different roles ranging from animator, project manager, producer, business developer, technical director, office director and so on. Kerb has been going for eleven years and used Flash all this time. They specialise in games for the young audience. We were shown stills giving a flavour of the style of characters and games they do, these reminded me of the characters from gorillaz video, and manga animations. Kerb specialise in viral marketing meaning they purposely make games for websites that are easy to steel with the intention that they will spread their work much quicker and easier and therefore promote them automatically. This technique works brilliantly and means that often they get contacted for work rather than having to look for work. There are only two things you have to remember when doing viral advertising, to make sure you make money and that people know who did the work and can get back to you. Kerb ensures that they can check up on and measure how many play their games and nick them, the statistics are impressive. The other interesting thing about this is how long these games stay alive, as Alistair put it. "you don't expect a website to last for many years, but these games do". He also told us that these casual games are mostly played y woman in their mid twenties-thirties, this is not really what you would expect, but this is a true fact. Another fact is that around $ 2.5 billion float around the casual games market.

http://kerb.co.uk/

Semiconductor
01/11/07
Unfortunately I missed this talk but have found some information on their work through their website.
www.semiconductorfilms.com/

Soheila Sokhanvari
25/10/07
Soheila is an artist originally from Iran but currently living and working in the UK. She studied science, but later did a masters in Art. Her work has been influenced by her mixed eastern and western upbringing. Through her studies, she specialised in the subject of how we relate to others with an emphasis on eastern and western views of each other. She told us that at Chelsea Art College they were always challenged to do work that they wouldn't usually do and think about new ways of presenting their work. In her case she was encouraged to think about art through drama and performance. She talked us through her final piece for her MA which was an installation, in the form of a game, that played with the audience reactions to powerful war images. The idea was to present images, that we normally see in the media but have become desensitised to, in a new way that somehow would confront us differently. The installation consisted of a small dark room with a scent of gunpowder and florescent light glowing from the wall and floor. The audience would enter the space in pairs of two and be greeted by a games master explaining the rules. Soheila was also in the room wearing a full costume also painted with florescent light. The game involved the participants shooting, if they wished to, on to the war images which were projected one by one on the wall. If they did shoot Soheila, who was their attacker, would start shooting on to their chest plates to try and drop their health and her health would equally drop according to how many images the players hit. The game would go on until either she or the participants ran out of health. The audience reactions were mixed, a lot of people didn't want to shoot on to these images but others were keen to win the game and didn't seem to care too much about the content. Weather you chose to shoot or not you were confronted with some horrific images in an environment you wouldn't normally experience.
The second project Soheila talked about involved a miniature gallery, inside an old sewing box, placed on the London tube. Travellers on the tube could look at it and use the attached headset to listen to happy music at the same time. The idea was to break the usual awkward atmosphere you get on the London underground. This worked a bit like a social experiment, testing peoples curiosity and reservations towards each other. Soheila was sitting a little distance away from the gallery pretending she didn't know what it was. A friend of hers was also on the tube, and every time a stranger had gone up to look at the gallery the friend would offer them a sweet. After a while everyone started chatting to each other and slowly it transformed into a little mini party on the tube.

Some notes from this session:
Every element is important in your artwork
As an artist you really have to think bout how you can present your work best. How can you get the strongest reaction from your audience.
The artist becomes the audience, the audience become the artist.

Simon Morse
18/10/07
Simon introduced us to his art works by explaining his long grown interest in systems of viewing the world. His artwork is very much influenced by this way of thinking and as h













http://simonmorse.co.uk/

Dan Mellor
15/10/07
Dan introduced us to his work by showing us his very impressive show reel. He works as a freelancer in 3D, After Effects, motion graphics and animation. He originally studied sculpture, then worked on props and finally became a freelance web designer. Before becoming a freelancer he worked for a TV company where he got involved in big projects including a viral campaign in 2000 which was quite a new thing at the time. Now as a freelancer he get a lot of his work through pitching. He showed us some of the work he had done for a pitch and gave us some advice on how to go about it. It is a risky but equally exciting way of finding work and it sounds like you learn a lot from it. It is a fine balance determining how much work you do for a pitch in case you don't get the job. Dan gave us a realistic insight into the industry by letting us know that it isn't always as fantastic and romantic working in this field, it is hard work and there is a lot of competition in this industry. You also have to be careful with back pain and RSI if you are working long hours in front of the screen. Another aspect that was mention about this industry, is that it is important not to under value the prices for paid jobs. If graduates don't charge enough for the work they are doing the are bringing the standard of the industry down in price which is harmful to professionals. Finally we were shown some work done for the arts council in Brighton this involved big projections on to houses.
http://bliink.tv/
studio@bliink.tv

Some notes from this session:
- Petes plugins - free to download (kaleidoscope)
- WiredSussex - really good for freelance promotion
- Brighton and Hove arts council - artists news letter - they have money left over to donate to artist who will come up with ideas for projects that involves getting the community together.

Angie Taylor
11/10/07
Angie mainly works as a 2D and 3D animator in After Effects. She originally did a BA (Hons) in Sculpture in 1986. Since then she has moved around working in many different fields such as prop making, Dj'ing, music & technology, demo work for Adobe Apple and more recently as a freelance AE animator. She has also written books on After Effects.
We were given some tutorials on multipass compositting and expressions in After Effects. Angie also advised us o find an area of Multimedia that we are good at and show this as our specialist area in our portfolios.
http://www.creativeaftereffects.com/

Some notes from this session:
- LUA - creativecommons.org - to distribute your work
- bliptv/angietaylor - for tutorials
- creativeaftereffects.com - for tutorials
- Book - How to cheat in Photoshop
- JJ Gifford - Good for expressions
- aenhancers.com










Rona Innes
11/10/07
Rona creates storyboarding, illustrations and 2D animations. She showed us a selection of her storyboards and other pieces of work. The work range from content for e-learning, viral campaigns for organisations such as Greenpeace and one-off commissions for museums and shop windows.
In storyboarding you usually work as part of a large team alongside programmers, animators etc. Ronna explained in further detail two interactive pieces she was commissioned to do for the Churchill Museum Cabinet War Rooms in London. She did a ballot box with projected comments sliding into a slot and a video installation with original footage from 1946. This was a huge project, with lots of artists responsible for making different pieces for the museum. She showed us photos of some of the installations, and explained the whole process of being involved. We also talked about how to go about setting up as a sole trader freelancer.



Moshimachine.com

Some notes from this session:
- chimwag - good agency for jobs
- koniti - creative catapult. A new scheme with workshops for graduates on how to "pitch". New coarse starting in December.
- UHC - a company that only works for ethically sound companies.

Mike Blow
08/10/07
Mike works as a freelance 'creative technologist' with an interest in art and science. He showed us some of his projects from both the past and more recent years. Most of his work seems to be closely related with ideas and observations found in nature and biology. In my opinion these projects and ideas seem quite unique simple and appear to be more concerned with the process of discovering and making, rather than perhaps the end results. He also presented us, in more detail, with one of the latest projects named 'Machines for Singing'. This project was a physical installation where one could hear and experience the sounds from within a building in the same way as the building would hear it itself. This involved acoustic sensors placed around a building to pick up various sounds that we wouldn't normally pay attention to, including the ones out of our hearing range. The result was a rather gloomy sounding piece. One thing I found interesting about this installation, was the unexpected reactions of the audience. Mike said that they had deliberately made the space as empty and simple as possible to avoid any distractions for the visitors allowing them to just absorb the sound and atmosphere. The room only had a small circle of seats, with a sub woofer in the center, placed in the middle of the room. The idea was that people could sit with their back to the sub woofer and look outward and experience the sounds coming from around the room, however mike told us that a lot people decided to face inwards and place their hand on the subwoofer to feel the vibration. This was an unexpected reaction, and shows how people in general likes to have some way of interacting with a piece more physically.
www.evolutionaryart.co.uk


Some notes from this session:
- Karl Sims, William Latham & Stephen Todd
- Arduino & Phidgets
- An issue with interactive work is that often too much is distracting from the actual point / essence of a piece

Sam Butler
04/10/07
Sam Butler works as a visual designer for a web company in London. He introduced us to the work environment and the different roles involved in web design. A thorough breakdown into the process of making a website was presented, from meetings with clients to working in a team with different responsibilities. An IA (Information Architect) is responsible for the feel of the site not the look. He/She will produce a flowchart to organise the pages and use wireframes as a layout template to organise the positioning of every element within the website. Wireframes consist of boxes and the size and positioning of each box will often determine the importance of this information. A Visual Designer is responsible for the look of the website. He/She will have a meeting with the client to form some ideas about the style they want. Following this, the Visual Designer will produce some mood boards so the client can choose different things within these that they like. From this information three designs are produced, and the client agrees and signs for one design to go ahead. The Visual Designer then makes all the pages and passes them on to the rest of the team. A design handover guide with instructions is also produced and given to the client. A site may also need a CMS Content Management System to allow client to update information regularly.
We also talked about Web 2.0 styling, which is a guide to web design where the focus is on the user experience rather than the designer showing off. Usually the philosophy of this is lees is more. We looked at examples where web 2.0 was applied and where it wasn't.

Some notes from this session:
- Jesse James Garret - The elements of user experience
- Stock Photography - isostockphoto.com or stockexchange for free images
- To make stock images more interesting crop them.
- webdesignfromscratch.com - useful site with info about web 2.0 styling
- N.M.A - New Media Age Magazine + Website - good for jobs, look for top 100
- Jacob Nielsen - Graphics are evil

Daniel Pryde - Jarman
01/10/07
Dan introduced us to his gallery Grey Area, a small independently run art gallery tucked away in a dark cellar near Brighton Station. He put forward some of his own thoughts about art and culture in general and presented us with some of the work that has been displayed in his gallery previously. This led to a discussion in class where subjects such as high & low culture, online galleries, street art and conceptual art was discussed. Some interesting points were raised, is the Internet a good or bad way of displaying art? In a real gallery an artist can control precisely how his work is displayed whereas on an online gallery the control is taken away from the artist because screen sizes, colours and lighting will change from different computer monitors. The general belief in class was that some art was more suitable for an online environment than others. The Marchel Duchamp, fountain 1972 was talked about, some thought it was reasonable to call this art, others didn't except this as being true art.
One thing I noted down from this session is the term pooterism, which from what I understand means something self-indulgent, dull and mundane. I am planning to look up more about this term, as it seems to tie in with some of the ideas I have for my dissertation.

http://www.thegrey-area.blogspot.com

Some notes from this session:
- Robert Smithson, Cultural Confinement.
- Kasimi Malevich 'Non - objective art & suprematism 1919