"Our understanding of animals these days, for example, is in part embodied in our skill in buying pieces of them, taking off their plastic wrapping, and cooking them in microwave ovens. In general we deal with things as resources to be used and then disposed of when no longer needed."1
Following are my notes from ISEA - and links to some of the works and presentations I saw at the Symposium. Yes I should have been posting this while I was in Belfast as I am sure I have missed much..
There was so much happening at ISEA that it was close to impossible to see everything, and I am sure I missed many good presentations, artworks and performances.
I was surprised by the number of Australians at ISEA - especially considering Belfast is so far away. The Australia Council reported on the number of Australians at ISEA - but sadly did not mention our work in the Juried Exhibition.
Tuesday 25th The University of Ulster Magee Campus in Derry
There were two highlights of the trip to Derry, first was ‘Simultaneous Echoes’ by Masaki Fujihata and Frank Lyons - which is part of Fujihata's series of "Field Works" "Field-Works" is a series of projects which reconstruct collective memories into cyberspace as a kind of video archive by using position data captured by GPS and moving image captured by Video. GPS traces combined with high resolution panoramic photography and evocative sound scapes and Irish music. The use of Stereoscopic images really added to the work separating the GPS lines from the images visually. Then a couple of us left the scheduled program to explore Derry and came across the Bog Side Artist Gallery - http://www.bogsideartists.com/ - which is run by the artists responsible for the murals along Russel Street in the Bogside. The murals depict the events of Battle of Bogside (12–14 August 1969) and Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972). Events which occurred at the start of "The Troubles" - such an English name for the protracted conflict which still scares Northern Ireland. After the conference we took a Black Cab tour, and I was amazed to hear that the last so called "peace wall" was constructed last year, and that they still close the gates between Catholic and Protestant areas at night and over the weekend. Yes there was a couple of riots while we were there - not that we saw anything. And we were woken on at least one morning by marching drums passing The Shac where we stayed. Wednesday 26th - start of the main symposium program. The main symposium commenced on the Wednesday, and there were about 4 or 5 sessions running simultaneously each day. So I did not even come close to seeing and hearing everything I marked in the program. However, all the papers will be published online, http://www.isea-webarchive.org/portal/, so I will be able to at least read the papers of the presentations I missed. Priscilla and I presented our paper, Also on the panel were: There were so many sessions running in parallel - in multiple venues - that I did not get to see all of the papers I had marked as interesting. And over the week I spend a lot of time walking along Church Lane between the Water Front venues and Ulster University Campus. Which posed a problem as between the venues was Muriel's Cafe / Bar which I had a very cosy upstairs and played excellent music, and the Duke of York with the best Guinness in Belfast and craic (or so I thought). Anyway Highlights from the 26th: I did not make it to Hannah Perner-Wilson's talk on DIY Wearable Technology.. But had marked it in the program and have looked up her work online since returning home. I really like the DIY approach to wearable technology, and Machiko Kusahara, Mitate: Realizing Playfulness, Multiple Viewpoints and Complexity in Device Art Before leaving Australia for ISEA I had actually just read a previous article by Machiko - Device Art: A New Form of Media Art from a Japanese Perspective. However, it did not discuss the Japanese concept of Mitate which she discussed at ISEA, and I found really engaging. This is probably not surprising since kuuki is a Japanese word which we selected for its poetic meaning, and interesting colloquial usage. Machiko describes Mitate as "the tradition of using metaphors, associations and double meanings in a playful manner often works together with playfulness. Mitate means seeing beyond the actuality."1 The keynote at the end of the first day was by UBERMORGEN.COM - and was irreverent presentation by the "rock stars" of activist netart. Citing their work as existing in the tradition of Viennese activism, ubermorgen went on to say that they had no ideology - which most of the people I spoke with after wards considered curious. But maybe ubermorgen let others write about their work and deal with the questions of ideology, politics etc. I found their work Google will eat itself, Amazon Noir, their early text generators and vote buying projects far more interesting then their later works which focus on the war on terror... Marked in my program... The 27th In the morning I went to the Interactive Textiles: Time and Form session. Where Zane Berzina presented E-Static Shadows. An Interactive E-Textile Membrane Which is a large curtain of fabric with thousands of LEDs that turn off in the presence of static electricity. The circuit was weaved into the fabric with a computer controller jacquard lume. THen Barbara Layne and Janis Jefferies presented their Wearable Absence project. I also saw Christian Dils' "Stretchable Circuit Board: New technology For High Level Integration of Electronics Into Textiles." This was really interesting as he presented the work of STELLA (STretchable ELectronics for Large Area Applications) project - basically a method for creating stretchy circuit boards . The design of these stretchy circuit boards seemed to involve the same software as currently used to design normal PCBs etc just printed on a different material. I also made it to see Kuaishen Auson's presentation on: Stridulation Amplified: on Biomimetic Stridulation Environments and the Use of Bioacoustics as an Artistic Resource. Kuaishen work, 0h!m1gas, I thought was one of the more interesting works in Ormeau Baths Gallery - where a colony of ants controlled the movement of two turntables. His presentation was great as I gained a real sense of how close he was to his ants. Marked in my program: In my notes I also have a random reminder to look up the TED5000 power monitor which apparently has an Ethernet interface and an open API. Finally an energy monitor which actually might be useful... http://www.theenergydetective.com/ted-5000-overview.html The evening of the 27th was the Finissage of the ISEA2009 Exhibition - at both the Ormeau Baths Gallery and Golden Thread Gallery. There was also work shown at the Ulster University and the main conference venue. Of course e. Menua Superba was in this exhibition, and yes at the finnishage the number of people around the work made it a little nervous - many people thought it was a peacock as opposed to a Lyre Bird. I have found a couple of blog posts which mention our work: Complex Pleasures who likes the works combination of "beautiful physical qualities and engaging interactive behaviour"; and, Furtherfield - who also wrote about our work at ISEA2008 - commented on e. Menura Superba being a little nervous at the opening and mistook the lyre bird for a peacock. There was a number of other wonderful works on display in the exhibitions and here are a couple I liked - but by no means is this all the work that was at ISEA. I also got to see Ecolocated: Littoral Lives by Tapio Makela, Nigel Helyer, Andreas Siagian, with Audio Nomad collaborators Daniel Woo and Michael Lake. A project which was the result of a residency with M.A.R.I.N. - which is a residency program on a large catamaran! 28th I also went to the ISEA meeting, where the potential hosts (Istanbul and New Mexico) for 2011 presented. Gavin Antz from ANAT announced that Australia is interested in hosting ISEA 2013 in Sydney - just over 20 years since the Third ISEA hosted in Sydney in 1992. In the evening we ventured out to Queens University to the Sonic Art Research Centre for a night of difficult listening. Sadly I don't think they made the most of the centers 48 channel sound system. In my notes I also have a reference to look up the Media Art in Aesthetic Technology group at Soongsil University - which seems to be doing some interesting work at the intersection of art and technology in South Korea. Marked in my program: 29th In the afternoon I went to the Leonardo Education Forum organised by Nina Czegledy, Daniela Reimann and Lynn Hughes. While rather work like, it was well worth the time as I met a number of academics from around the world - and it was good to hear that many of the challenges faces in Australia, and in my work at QUT, are common. The closing keynote was by Sadie Plant - on mobiles in developing countries, microloans, twitter and other social technologies. Marked in my program: I am sure there was a lot of great work, performances and presentations I missed while walking between venues, or distracted by the craic. It would have helped if the program had paper abstracts included, as it was really hard to decide what which session to attend based on names and paper titles alone - but then I guess the program would have been massive. Well that is it for my ISEA brain dump - now I just have to wait for the proceedings to be published so I can read the actual papers...
A night of Belfast craic (pub atmosphere) did not keep us from the first keynote, by Moritz Waldemeyer - who is know for his work ranging from interactive chandeliers with thousands of Swarovski crystals to couture dresses with Hussein Chalayan.
Tapio Mäkelä
The morning started with a keynote by the Sala Manca Group, "What’s Hidden behind the Pastoral? Responses, Strategies and Actions in a Conflicted Land(scape)." They introduce the http://mamuta.org/ project - which is an artists run initiative in Jerusalem.
In the morning we heard Hugh Davies, another Australian at ISEA, talked about ethics and Alternate Reality Games in his paper "Authored Collaboration and Choreographed Reality". This was followed by Maria Manuela Lopes, Paulo Bernardino, talking about "Mapping the Mind: Collaborative Creativity as Alternative Transformative Practice".
The latest Kuuki project, e Menura Superba, will be shown in the Juried Exhibition at the 2009 International Symposium of Electronic Art. The exhibition runs from the 7th of August through to the 2rd of September, at the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast.
e. Menura Superba is an interactive artwork, which hybridises 17th to early 20th century aesthetics with refined post consumer waste materials, to create a simulacra of a lyre-bird. A subject which is discussed in a paper, titled e. Menura Superba: Posthuman dreams of ersatz animals, that we will present at the Symposium.
For more details about the project see: http://www.kuuki.com.au/eMenuraSuperba
Finally there is photographic and video documentation of Distracted published. The work is a luminous, interactive, computational media installation of sound, light and translucent sculptural materials. The work is inspired by scientific ice core samples taken in Antarctica.
The software created for the project transforms bitmap graphics into data packets that can be sent over a TCP/IP network to an array of controllable lighting fixtures. The software also allows us to use data from a range of sources to control illumination in real time, such as external sensors (using the arduino physical computing platform) to data sources available online. The outcome is a robust system that allows us to combine existing skills in generative screen based interactive works with controllable lighting systems.
Whilst the form of the work is clearly inspired by ice core samples, we have created technology that gives us a blank 'canvas' that we can sculpt into any form (depending on the data from which inspiration is drawn). That data can be from scientific or historical sources, or can even be drawn in realtime from the network. We will now explore these possibilities through future works.
See the documentation here: http://kuuki.com.au/distracted/
Last night I started reading Julian Bleecker's "Design Fiction" essay in which he explores the relationship between design and science fiction. The essay draws upon Dourish and Bell's previous discussions in Resistance is Futile’: Reading Science Fiction Alongside Ubiquitous Computing. So being both involved in interaction design, and an avid science fiction reader/viewer these essays have prompted many thoughts. And more specifically because Bleecker's essay touches on some of Phillip K Dick's work - and it is PKDs novels that have been one of the main distractions through out my PhD.
Anyway, after reading both Bleecker's essay and Dourish and Bell's, I have had a vague feeling that something is missing - now maybe this something is to do with the fact that both works focused more on science fiction as represents in Film and TV, as opposed to literature. It is science fiction literature which I "consume" far more of - probably due to the dearth of good sci-fi on the screen and the wealth of great sci-fi literature.
It is interesting to consider the way Bleecker has discussed the relationship between science fiction and design in his essay, and specifically his ideas about the ways fact and fiction become tangled, "swap properties". This he discusses using Minority Report (the film) and specifically the gestural interface, as an example.
Some background, Minority Report the film was directed by Stephen Spielberg - which is an adaption of a Phillip K Dick short story called The Minority Report, which I believe was first published in 1956. Sadly PKD passed away before the screen adaption. Obviously the screen play involves a number of changes made to the original story, notably the protagonist is transformed from a middle aged balding man to a younger fitter character more suitable for drawing audiences, and sustaining a suspension of disbelief during action scenes. Despite this the central theme of the film remains relatively similar to that of the original, and the noir(ish) styling of the film is a cue to the vintage of the original story.
Anyway, Bleecker separates out the gestural interface used by the protagonist (Anderton) for discussion in the context of the relationship between fact and fiction. His discussion is informing, and clearly shows how fact and fiction become entangled, yet I am left feeling that there is something more to it then consideration of what amounts to an interaction style.
Despite his interest in the broader social context and not fetishizing the gadgets as things-in-themselves - Bleecker does not really spend much time talking about the system to which the technology in question is an interface to...
The gestural interface depicted in the film is part of a much larger system at the center of which are three humans with precognitive abilities i.e. they can apparent predict the future. It is the gestural interface that allows the protagonist to explore the recorded visions of the precogs.
Now the gestural interface - and the larger system to which it provides access to - actually plays an interesting role in the plot. In short, the system and hence interface are not neutral, the interface does not necessarily provide Anderton with a value neutral, 'truthful', representation of the visions of the precogs at the center of the system. In fact it is the design of the system that is integral to setting to plot in motion.
To understand this we need to go back to the story for a moment. Anderton works as a detective who fights crimes committed in the future, and which are foreseen by three people with precognitive abilities. The plot is set in motion when the system predicts Anderton will commit murder...
Now the plot spoiler is that the system has been designed such that the visions of only 2 of the 3 precogs need to agree for the visions to be named an accurate prediction of the future. The vision that does not agree is discarded, and not made available to the person using the gestural interface, this discarded vision is named a minority report. In Anderton's case this is what he suspects has occured - the data presented to him via the gestural interface is not the full story, so he has to kidnap a precog to gain access to the so called minority report.
In the original version of the story this is a little different - each precog sees a different future for Anderton, there is no agreement.. We will get back to the implications of this for design fiction in a moment.
In minority report we have the benefit of having two renderings of the story - one in text form by Dick, and a second in Film as discussed. In Dicks text version there are many difference, but the one I find interesting in this context is the way PKD described the interface. In the film we have a gestural interface that is very much represents contemporary interface design directions, and in the original text the interface is described as punch cards. (I have always wondered why in the film there was the need to pass media around on clear plastic cards?)
A historical note - PKD version of The Minority Report was published in 56, and punch cards, which had been used for data processing since the late 1800s, were till in use. However magnetic tape systems, and newer interfaces were being design and developed through the 50s. The major HCI landmark however is Ivan Sutherland's SketchPad in 63.
An interesting coincidence, is the story of the UNIVAC election prediction in 1952 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC
It is our ability to predict the future that is a central theme of both the original story and film remain the same. What is interesting is that the themes explored through both film and text remain the same, yet the technological backdrop and props used in the telling of the story are clearly entangled with technologies of the day, the mid 50s and early 2000s respectively..
On the surface the stories explore the question of determinism vs free-will. However, upon a closer reading we see that there is the presence of a paradox. That being, does the use of a system for predicting the future set that future in motion - one of the other PDK adaptions, Paycheck, explores this central paradox more overtly.
In Minority Report we can ask does the fact that the system presents a vision of Anderton murdering an unknown man actually bring about this event by setting in place the sequence of events that lead to death of this unknown man?
Now when we consider that the system for predicting the future contains a logic - which says that there only needs to be 2 of 3 visions agree for it to be a prediction of the future, we see that the system is designed to select (automatically presumably) between possible futures...
What is also of interest here is that while there is the assumption that the foreseen murder is determined, the purpose of prediction is to stop the foreseen murder - which suggests a (technologically) determined future for one of the actors yet a world of changeable futures of other actors.
In both the story and film there is actually multiple futures, and that fore knowledge of one future effects the unfolding of events, hence through design one future is secured / predetermined as 'true' and hence determines action in the present.
What Minority Report tells us is that foreknowledge of different futures can be used to manipulate present events, in Minority Report this is to the point where Anderton is almost enticed to murder. i.e. Anderton's path towards murder is set in train by the knowledge that he is going to commit a murder - which is not the only future.
The overlaying of a deterministic view of the future on top of system whose ability to change the future (i.e. stop a predicted murder from happening) is based in a multiplicity of possible futures, and raises questions for design fiction.
The power of design fictions (drawn from the discussion re science fiction) comes from the presence of a multiplicity of futures, but once we begin to crystallize our fictions - or mistake fictional futures for 'precognitive visions' - we find ourselves in the same position as Anderton, or worse Lamar Burgess.
Blade Runner - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep provides another film adaption and PKD text to consider in relationship to (interaction / ubicomp) design...
Engaged learning can’t always happen in neat rows. People need to get their hands dirty. They need to feel, experience, and build. (IDEO’s Ten Tips For Creating a 21st–Century Classroom Experience)
"Design Strategy: the use of design processes, perspectives, and tools to create truly meaningful, sustainable, and successful innovation across a variety of design disciplines, including industrial, interaction, visual, experience, and fashion design." (Nathan Shedroff)
Another academic year at QUT has begun, and again I am saying to myself I have to try and find the time to update my web site more often. One might even say "eat my own dog food" - its not exactly the same , but this year I do want more actively update uber.tv...
This semester is looking to be both busy, and exciting, as I am teaching two of my one of my favorite classes (Design for interactive media, which was previously called Interaction Design), and the lecture for my other class, Embodied Interactions, is in my favorite lecture theater L101.
Both classes focus on the design of interactive media, and draw upon a similar body of theory and practice. Embodied Interactions is a final year design class in which students prepare and develops works suitable to exhibit at the end of year graduate show. This year will be the 15th exhibition hosted by my department, and the 13th end of year grad show - works from last years exhibition can be seen here :: http://www.playon08.ci.qut.edu.au/
Embodied Interactions, as the title suggests, is informed in part by Dourish's text Where the action is : the foundations of embodied interaction.
“Embodied Interaction is the creation, manipulation and sharing of meaning through engaged interaction with artifacts.”1
The class focuses on a number of 'themes' including: Embodiment, design and production for/of embodied interactive media, ontological design(ing), practice and futures.
My other class, Design for interactive media, has grown in size since last year, with 140 odd students enrolled this semester. Up from 70 odd last year, so it has almost doubled in size...
This class provides an introduction to interaction design methods including basic design research, observation, ideation, prototyping, and evaluating. The assessment brief this year it set at the State Library of Queensland, and involves students designing interactive media works for display in the library which "reveal / make visible, the invisible life of the library".
Queensland State Library. Photo by Dan Hill.
The project came about after conversations with the Library staff, and Dan Hill who has been working on a 'post-occupancy evaluation' of the State Library of Queensland's wi-fi network. 2
It is also great that the Library is hosting the Ideas Festival in the first couple of weeks of semester. And Keith Armstrong and Chris Barker's work, Knowmore House of Commons, has just been installed on Level 1 of the Library in the infozone artspace - which will give us something to experience and critique in first tutorials.
So this semester is starting to shape up, and I am really excited to see how 140 students, and 5 tutors take on this project. Plus I will get to spend more time at the State Library.
... Here is hoping I can live up to my New Years resolution of more regularly updating uber.tv ...
I am way to busy during the day to update my facebook, tumblr, twitter, myspace, blog, read 100 + RSS feeds, and vicariously attend TED, Webstock, Lift or any other interesting design gatherings I cannot get to physically...
It is almost a full time gig just keeping up with the latest Web 2.0 social networks - not to mention the time investment required to maintain a presence, and develop meaningful connections etc. And I really should not spend my spare time staring at a screen - be it large or small...
Today I discovered pixelpipe - which is a really neat little web application which allows users to "pipe" content through to multiple social networks. It can even pass content through to an FTP server or email. Posts can be emailed to pixelpipes, there is an iphone app, and web browser plugins, an extension for picasa for those who want to use it but not store their photos with google.
The web interface is rather simple, but functional.
Files are not passed to the destination servers for all pipes, for example the drupal pipe creates entries with links back to images stored on the pixelpipes server. A bit of a bother if like me you are worried about where all of your data is, and maintaining it. But then I discovered there is an FTP pipe which looks very handy.
But it will not connect to blackboard - but then blackboard does suck when it comes to all things web 2.0ish. One reason why blackboard sucks - no human readable URLs - in fact a college of mine uses the tinyURL service to make simple URLs to sections of his class blackboard sites!
The other pipes web application is yahoo pipes, which is a very funky way of aggregating, remixing, mashing up web content.
Now do I have the time to setup my the infrastructure to support a web life?
New video documentation of Charmed has been published on the Kuuki web site, and includes footage recorded at ISEA 2008. There is also footage of Charmed at Performance Space, Sydney, May 2008, courtesy of Experimenta and Steve McDonald.
After the exhibition at the Western Australian Museum Charmed will return home to have two smashed screens repaired - and then will continue on the Experimenta Playground National Tour 2009.
Charmed has been prodded and poked by maybe 40 thousand odd people and survived in tact with only a few scratches and lot of dirt from hands and fingers. In the video documentation, towards the end, is some footage of Charmed being played with at the opening of the Play++ exhibition, and you will see a variety of ways people touch the objects.
Not everyone is gentle, but no one to date has broken anything. Well that was until this week. It seems the work elicited a strong response from someone in Perth who decided to take to it rather violently, smashing two of the three screens.
Fortunately screens can be replaced...
Escape into Experimenta Playground, an exhibition ofart that begs to be touched and invites your interaction.
Experimenta Playground is a free exhibition that promises an unforgettable experience. This is contemporary art with a difference!
Presented by AWESOME Arts and the Western Australian Museum. Proudly supported by Wesfarmers Arts.
Free. All welcome.
Perth Cultural Centre, James Street
Saturday 15 Nov 2008 – 27 Jan 2009
Open daily: 9.30am – 5.00pm
Launch & opening night party
Friday 14 November, 6-8pm
All welcome
T: 08 9212 3700
Experimenta Playground National Tour 2008 - 2009
Performance Space@CarriageWorks, Sydney:: 8 May-7June 08
Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide ::30 Aug- 17 Oct 08
Western Australian Museum, Perth:: 15 Nov 08 - 27 Jan 09
Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria :: 25 April - 7 June 09
Albury Library Museum, 25 July- 7 Sept 09
Episode 2 of Not Quite Art, Unpopular Culture, aired this week on the ABC and included a short clip of Charmed. There is also a short an interview / vox pop shot at the opening of the Experimenta Play ++ exhibition in Singapore as part of the 2008 International Symposium of Electronic Arts.
The episode also includes interviews with other ISEA artists and presenters, then turns to discuss creative commons and social creation of culture...
A version of the episode can be downloaded from the Not Quite Art web site : http://www.abc.net.au/tv/notquiteart/
One of the ISEA 2008 venues was the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore - which has a sweeping lawn roof.
Not quite the The Hundertwasser haus Waldspirale1 , but a green roof non the less. Hundertwasser came to mind as a college just returned from Vienna bearing gifts from the Hundertwasser haus in Vienna2.
Green roofs and tree tenants are an interesting counterpoint to the current fascination of urban informatics of transforming building surfaces are rapidly becoming screens, ambient displays etc. A discussion which hit the aggregator this morning via a series of links which led to a post where where Russel Davis talks about his fears of "blundering into cities plastered with the equivalent of flash banners and microsites." 3
This is an interesting collision that I wanted to record, trees or TVs - should our urban environment should be dominated by screens or plants? But can advertising be displayed on a plant? Can I glean any "information" about the state of our urban environment from a plant?
After being exhibited in Play++ at ISEA 2008 Charmed will be shown in the Experimenta Playground exhibition at the Samstag Museum in Adelaide
Experimenta Playground: International Biennial of Media Arts1 exhibition at the Samstag Museum Adelaide2. The opening is on Firday the 29th of August, and the exhibition runs till the 17th of October.
Finally I am back at work, and have a moment to write a post, be it very brief, ISEA 2008. It has been hard to return to the office after ISEA - where there were hundreds of presenters each day, and exhibition openings and events each night.
There is some coverage of ISEA on the web, and blogs, which is good as there was so much running in parallel that it was easy to miss things.
I am still looking for other writing about ISEA online...
Now that I am back at work I have started to think about ISEA 2009, which is being hosted by the University of Ulster in Belfast and a lot further away from Brisbane Australia then Singapore. Getting myself there is not to much of an issue, but after this year I think it is far better to be exhibiting work and presenting.
The call for papers etc for ISEA 2009 has already been released with an engaging range of themes, and I am particularly interested in the Posthumanisms: New Technologies & Creative Strategies, and also Interactive Textiles... Below is the description of the Posthumanism theme from the call for proposals:
Posthumanism operates at the interface of transhumanism and cyborgology, drawing attention to the convergent spaces of biology and artifice. Its manifestation through a range of biopolitical events, along with the aesthetic staging of bioethical encounters ruptures the polarized views of bioconservatism and technoprogressivism, provoking a series of conflicts that demand multi-layered conceptual apparatus to unravel. The sensory habitus of posthuman prostheses initiates the re-staging of design principles to anticipate the demand for new sensory experiences, technologies, services. This theme explores and expands our understanding of how innovative hardware and technologies are constituted by new art and design forms and how modes of sensory experience alter aesthetic encounters. For example, what kind of experience is generated through imaginations of posthumanity in different art and design forms? What do viewers expect from artists in terms of adopting posthuman technologies and modes of sensory delivery? How do we prepare and critically engage new generations of artists, designers and consumers through these technologies? 1
In the mid year break I have been consolidating work I have done todate on one of my current creative projects, Distracted. Of interest is the fact that the work spans from very small OLED screens through to large displays created from arrays of individual LEDs. At both ends of the scale developments in display technology have contributed to current trends in interaction design - specifically mobile personal devices and large urban screens and interactive architecture1.
The use of small screens in mobile / personal devices is not that much different previous larger screens. Screens in these devices are the focus of the user attention, and have a similar physical format (flat 2D rectangular display surface). It is only in electronic art and critical design do we see small screens used in different ways. For example Dunne's work Electroclimates / Pillow2 which he discusses in Hertzian Tales. Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design3.
An opportunity to use LCD screens arose. The first reaction was hesitancy. Screens are like "supermatter" : once switched on, all attention turns to them, and their material qualities are demoted to status of package or container as the viewer searches for real content, information. Unlike sound, which can be nondirectional, screens tend to give space a specific orientation.4
I am no sure about the statement of sound being nondirectional, as our perception of sound is spatial, and the placement of speakers gives rise to a spatial relationship between listen and source establishing an orientation, but that is another topic. Anyway, as a result Dunne embedded the LCD screen inside a fluorescent polycarbonate box suspended in an inflatable PVC "pillow".
I have been working with a 4D µOLED display module5 and learning how to control it via an Arduino.6 Jenny Chowdhury has a good introduction to using the 4D display module with the arduino: http://jennylc.com/4d/. To use the screen to draw shapes etc is not very difficult and there is an external library which is helpful.
But working with images and video content stored on a microSD card however is a little dull. The workflow is problematic as content has to be uploaded to the card using specific software, then displayed using the memory address. So making this workflow smoother, so it is easier to program the arduino to display images and videos without having to change memory addresses when ever I change content on the card, is my next step...
But again, the present question is how to actually use the screen in a creative work, and not have it become "supermatter"?
On the same project I have also been working on controlling large numbers of individual tricolour LEDs. The obvious examples of use of such technology are large and very large screens, where pixels are individual LEDs, scattered across the surface of a building for example. But what is more interesting is that at this scale the spatial relationship between pixels is flexible, no longer is there the need for a 2D rectangular display surface, the screen is exploded into three dimensions. Screens become spatial, architecture lighting, interactive lighting – again Dunne's question about LCD screens, just this time in the context of a different type of light source, comes to mind...
Below is a video of the first working trial of real time control of an array of 700 tricolour LEDs. Here I am running a Processing sketch on the laptop which is capturing video from the web camera, then sampling colours from the incoming video and sending this colour data to the array of LEDs over Ethernet. I am pointing my IR mouse at the web camera as the room was dark...
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The moment you decide sustainability is an issue with respect to interaction design and the design of interactive devices is the moment you realize how complex the business of deciding what to actually do about it is. It is not just a simple matter of calculating the energy and environmental costs of manufacturing, use, salvage, and disposal of one technology over another.1
The quote above comes from an article in Communications of the ACM Volume 51 , Issue 6, special issue on Organic User Interfaces. It is strange coincidence that I have also just started re-reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". A novel in which PDK explores questions of human and non-human, natural and artificial, divisions / classifications of life... A world where real animals have become a "commodity fetish" and artificial animals are valued more highly then androids.
Charmed can next be seen in Experimenta Play ++ - an exhibition of recent Australian media artworks which is part of the 2008 International Symposium of Electronic Arts in Singapore between the 25th of July and the 2rd of August.
Venue: Sculpture Square (Chapel Gallery), Singapore
Dates: 25 July – 2 August 2008
Sculpture Square Ltd
155 Middle Road, Singapore
Monday - Friday, 11am - 6pm / Saturday - Sunday, 12pm - 6pm
Admission is free.
Experimenta Play ++ is an exhibition of five recent exemplary Australian media artworks curated by Experimenta around the theme of 'Ludic Interfaces' as part of ISEA2008. All of the works chosen for the exhibition utilise playful methods of interaction in order to involve the gallery visitor in the artwork. Touch, movement, sound, shadow, and pressure are used in innovative ways to trigger responses in the works, to generate narrative within fictional worlds and create sonic compositions.1
Download the Experimenta Play++ media release in .pdf format.
One of my interactive media arts projects, Charmed, left on a truck today bound for Sydney where it will be exhibited at Performance Space as part of the Experimenta Playground National Tour.
The exhibition in Sydney runs from the 7th of May to the 7th of June, then Charmed will then be off to Singapore to be exhibited in Experimenta Play ++ during ISEA 2008...
As computers are increasingly understood (and modeled after) "expressive mediums" like writing, they begin to acquire the familiar and potent capability of writing not merely to express thought but to actively constitute it.(Hayles 2005, p60)
For some reason MySpace is a popular topic among both friends (who use it, or hate it, or prefer facebook) and also work colleges (who study it, or are ask about it in relationship to students and their use of it).
Anyway today I took a moment to read the Terms and Conditions of use, which is boring and interesting at the same time. Of interest is the fact that by posting content to MySpace the end user gives MySpace a non-exclusive, fully paid, royalty-fee license which even allows MySpace to modify the content, which is one of the creators Moral Rights.
Where moral rights include the right to attribution, right to publish work under a pseudonym or autonomously, and the right to maintain the integrity of the work.
However, moral rights are not recognised in the Copyright legislation in all countries, like the US where MySpace is served from. In many countries it is not possible to assign moral rights to a third party.
"By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the MySpace Services, you hereby grant to MySpace a limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on or through the MySpace Services, including without limitation distributing part or all of the MySpace Website in any media formats and through any media channels, except Content marked “private” will not be distributed outside the MySpace Website.1
What is interesting is that since I first read the terms and conditions MySpace WebSite has been replaced by MySpace Services. So such a broad license could see my content appear on TV sets in living rooms across the world with me receiving only the royalties local collection agencies (eg APRA) are able to gather, that is if the distribution method is one that is measured, but if it is content piped across a net connection, to a media PC (of similar) then maybe there would be no royalties... I guess this is where the iTunes model becomes interesting, and while the iTV may not yet be as popular as an iPod, a similar model is only a matter of time (bandwidth and quality etc being key factors).
Watch YouTube videos in a whole new way: on your widescreen TV. Enjoy millions of free videos, including the top featured, most viewed, and top rated. Thousands of new videos arrive every day, so there’s always something cool to see.2
The YouTube terms and conditions are similar to MySpace, and extend to allow YouTube to sublicenseable and transferable the license...
C. For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service. The above licenses granted by you in User Videos terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your User Videos from the YouTube Service. You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of User Submissions that have been removed or deleted. The above licenses granted by you in User Comments are perpetual and irrevocable.3
Again YouTube wants to be able to modify end users content, and also be able to sublicense, and transfer the license... I do not quiet understand the implications of the sentence describing the license granted to other users.
The MySpace terms and conditions do say that MySpace will not "sell" content, however, selling content is not how they make money. They make money through advertising, which is sold based on the number of eyeballs, and the content published on MySpace, by end users, is part of the equation of eyeball attraction.
"8.22 covering or obscuring the banner advertisements on your personal profile page, or any MySpace page via HTML/CSS or any other means;"4
MySpace is also a great source of data on media consumption, preferences etc which must be seriously mined for all sorts of purposes. "What movies are 18 year old boys who listen to R&B watching?" The data gathered from mining MySpace would be valuable for a media conglomerate like News Corp. More valuable then the advertising revenue generated by the web adds.
So is it really "my space" or their space? MySpace make money from (exploit as a raw resource) "my" labour, both the labour involved in creating content which I publish and the affective labour of social networking, communication etc. I do not get a percent of the money made by the presence of advertising within my space, yet it is my labour which has drawn the eyeballs to my space. And it is the aggregate labour of the long tail which underpins the MySpace business model.
If I run my own web site I could generate a income stream, from using say for example Google Adds. However, MySpace does not allow me to embed goggle adds within my space. The terms and conditions actually prohibit commercial activity, que?
All of this may not be a problem for the average MySpace user, however it poses a number of questions for "content creators" who plan to use MySpace to pimp their wares. The most pressing of which is how to generate "value" from publishing content on MySpace, in agreement with their terms and conditions.
The reputation economy is a dream until there is a way "reputation" can traded, to be used to pay the rent, or buy dinner. This may be possible for the A List - but for those in the long tail it is another story.
Anyway, this all started with work colleges discussing MySpace and students, and has lead me to ask weather or not I should be advocating that students (who emerging artists, designers, animators, musicians etc) should publish their work on these web sites. If students are going to publish work on MySpace, or YouTube, or similar web sits,then what advice should I provide knowing the associated terms and conditions?
The last two weeks have been filled with preparation for teaching this coming semester, which is why it has been a while since my last post. I will be running KIB210 Design Studio 1: Interaction Design, which is a second year undergraduate course on Interaction Design in the Faculty of Creative Industries.
While preparing notes for the class I have been trawling through my del.icio.us bookmarks, and in the process have noticed that free tagging can cause problems. That is if you enter tags quickly and pay little attention to spelling, typos etc, as I do. Often because I am in a hurry, or I am bookmarking while talking to someone on the phone or in my office...
del.icio.us has improved markedly since I commenced using it, which was in 2004 and some 2300 odd bookmarks ago, and who knows how many tags. Now, del.icio.us provides a number alternate entry methods for tags which reduce the problems of tag selection, as well as typos and spelling mistakes. Despite this I still find that I cannot remember my tagging conventions, do I use weblog, blog, blogging, or any of these and create a bundle? Then what do I do for things which normally contain a space, like interaction design, do I use the short hand IxD, or a dash or underscore between the words?
At one point I decided that the more tags I used for a bookmark would increase the chances of me finding it again in the future. I have also decided that using the comments section is a good idea, and will also improve the findability of the bookmark in the future.
I am also using the daily blog post feature of del.icio.us which provides me with an alternate view of my bookmarks. This also provides an automated method for backing up bookmarks. See http://uber.tv/delicious/ for my daily bookmarks. They are also reblogged at http://uber.tv/refeed/out/
I think that my rather messy tag cloud will become an example of what not to do, and why you need to be more organised then me when bookmarking... So maybe the title for this post should have been my problem with free tagging.
About digital representation - the first comes from Bowers' work "Let Them Eat Data":
"To digitise thought and aesthetic expression is to abstract them from their multilayered cultural and ecological contexts.1
The second is longer and comes from Fletcher's "The Art Of Looking Sideways", relating to VR and imagination.
"While Tibetan Monks pray for two weeks before their mandalas to transform then into three-dimensional floating palaces of light, with Virtual Reality one only needs to push a button. Virtual Reality is a technology which electrically converts physical and mental impulses into a computerised facsimile; a digitised doppelganner. By putting on some electronic gear you automatically get plugged into cyberspace, a world of controllable illusion. The brain, anxious to optimise the illusory sensations, grants them the credibility normally reserved for real experience. At the moment the tools are rather crude, but it works like this: The Datasuite projects an image of the body out into space, the Eyephone conjures up the vistas, the Dataglove interprets gesture. Tilt your hand to the left, you look left; point your finger, and you move forward. You are infact in effect free to go where you like and do what you will. Using software of world knowledge one could construct a symphony orchestra or do a bit of brain surgery. The more imaginative participants might mix imagery and sensations, play with time and space, or engage in auto-eroticism - a field of fantasy referred to as Tellydildonics. The options are seemingly limitless: jog around the moon, swim through banknotes, sit on the rings of Saturn, be a piano and play yourself. Technology, said Max Frisch, was the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it. In much the same way Virtual Reality bestows a sensation of achievement without the real experience. I guess that presented the option of walking around a Virtual Florence rather than the real Florence, many people would choose the former. They'd prefer thee homogeneous version rather than being in an old smelly city with traffic congestion and pigeon shit all over the place. There's an anecdote about Kierkegaard standing rapt in thought in a municipal flower bed. An irascible park keeper arrived and demanded to know what he was doing there. 'What are any of us doing here?' replied the sage. His imagination didn't need an electronic substitute."2
After the festive season I have returned to work, and am in the process of putting together a paper about Charmed1 for Computers in Entertainmant2.
The design of soundscapes in Charmed was informed by Schafer’s Acoustic Ecology.3 So this week I made my way to the library and borrowed a copy of Schafer’s text “The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World”.4
This is one of the definitive texts on Acoustic Ecology and is an engaging reading. Especially Schafer’s coverage of the history of heard soundscapes from natural soundscapes, to those of farms, towns and cities, pre-industrial to those of the industrial and electronic revolutions…
At a time when we are becoming increasingly aware of toxic waste, pollution, and human effects upon the environment, the consideration of/for the soundscape is often missing. In this context it is Schafer's positive approach to acoustic design which I find captivating, and the concepts and principles worth thinking about more seriously (especially in the context of my own work and practice).
Acoustic design does not, ... consist of a set of paradigms or formulae to impose on lawless or recalcitrant soundscapes, but is rather a set of principles to be employed in adjudicating and improving them. In addition to the lessons taught by music, these principles consist of:
1. a respect for the ear and voice - when the ear suffers a threshold shift or the voice cannot be heard, the environment is harmful;
2. an awareness of sound symbolism - which is always more than functional signaling;
3. a knowledge of the rhythms and tempi of the natural soundscape;
4. an understanding of the balancing mechanisms by which an eccentric soundscape may be turned back upon itself.5
So in thinking about resolutions for 2008, I have come to the conclusion that I need to pay more attention to my acoustic environment – and work on developing my sonological competence, to regain the “talent of clairaudience – clean hearing.”6 In other words my ability to listen, to clear my ear, to comprehend sound formations, develop a more attuned auditory sense especially in regard to environmental sounds of the world(s) I dwell…
In returning to Schafer’s text I have found that many of the concepts introduced in The Soundscape are increasingly significant in the my field of work, broadly interaction design. This is increasingly so as the products of Interaction Design move out of the office and lounge, off the desk top and into the urban environment. The interest in mobile and locative media, urban informatics, ubiquitous computing etc highlights this movement, and the ways these products change our relationship with the soundscape is something that requires attention.
Schafer makes the following comments on the state of acoustic design within architecture, keeping in mind he was writing in the 70s, “ The modern architect is designing for the deaf. He has his ears stuffed with bacon. […] the study of sound enters the modern architecture school only as sound reduction, isolation and absorption. Listen to the sound a building makes when no one is in it. It breathes with a life of its own. Floors creak, timbers snap, radiators crack, furnaces groan.” The sound of the iconic timber Queenslander comes to mind as I write this.
A common experience of disconnection from the acoustic environment occurs on days when I emerge into the world after working inside my nicely climate controlled building to discover that it has been raining - and I have not even noticed. Several of the tutorial rooms in my building are without windows, and the constant hum of computers and air conditioning masks any sounds from outside.
Considering the intersections of architecture and interaction design this suggests to me that Schafer’s work maybe valuable in my ongoing (personal) education as an interaction designer. The consideration of Schafer’s work, in the context of interaction design may lead to interesting questions/problems being posed. For example, how do we design interactions with new technologies that improve the quality of our urban soundscapes, or draw attention to soundmarks? etc etc... This is a topic I will continue to explore and develop over this year.
In describing the importance of acoustic design Schafer notes that the “sound sewer is much more likely to result when a society trades its ears for its eyes, and it is certain to result when this is accompanied by an impassioned devotion to machines.” 7 Again, I am reminded that interaction design focuses on the visual and tangible (physical) – and this is especially seen in description of the field that situate it at the intersection of Communication Design and Industrial Design.
From a post in my archives I found this quote from a wired article about discussing “noise-induced’ hearing loss caused by headphones:
Noise-induced hearing loss happens any number of ways, from attending noisy concerts and clubs to using firearms or loud power tools and even recreational vehicles (snowmobiles and some motorcycles are among the offenders).
Today, doctors say many people also are wearing headphones, not just to enjoy music, but also to block out ambient noise on buses, trains or just the street. And all of it can contribute to hearing loss. 8
Wrightson provides a description of this world of headphones, where the acoustic horizon is turned inwards, reduced to a point. But it is the concept of an audioanalgesic which I find most engaging. The thought that we use sound to not only mask the lo-fi noise of our impoverished sonic environments, but to also mask our inner dialogue.
Sound becomes something that the individual tries to block, rather than to hear; the lo-fi, low information soundscape has nothing to offer. As a result, many individuals try to shut it out through the use of double glazing or with acoustic perfume–music. Music–the virtual soundscape–is, in this context, used as a means to control the sonic environment rather than as a natural expression of it.
...
The use of sound as an "audioanalgesic" (Schafer 1977a, 96)–a soundwall to block the unceasing (and often critical) inner dialogue and the uncomfortable emotions the dialogue evinces–provides the illusion of mastery over emotion.9
This week I clipped a post from gizmodo which shows an image apparently from an add screened in Australia about the dangers of wearing headphones in the urban environment – more specifically when crossing the road. 10
The New South Wales Police print advertisements11 show people on the road outlined by a white headphone cables. Obviously listening to loud music on headphones masks sounds from the urban environment, thus reduces our ability to hear dangers. Hearing is a wonderful sense as we can localize sound sources that come from outside the visual field.
In one of the final chapters of The Soundscape Schafer discusses silence, and says "if we have any hope of improving the acoustic design of the world, it will be realised only after the recovery of silence as a positive state in our lives. Still the noise of the mind: that is the first task - then everything else will follow."12 Schafer connects the wests negative view of silence to our fear of death, the ultimate silence, which if the add above is to believed can result from a disconnection from the acoustic environment.
There will be more acoustic ecology in 2008…
Another quote found among the pile of unorganised notes in my über tv tinderbox file.
Considered as an operator acting in relation to the daily environment, the designer's ultimate responsibility can only be to contribute to the production of a habitable world, a world in which human beings not merely survive but also express and expand their cultural and spiritual possibilities. The term habitable, referring to the environment, indicates a complex existential condition that cannot be reduced to its functional component. It is a condition arising from the anthropological and social nature of the human race.1
Just what makes a world habitable? Does a new iGadget make the world more habitable? And whose world? In the process of making my world more habitable does it reduce the qualities of another?
Somethings worth thinking about as Christmas approaches... Manzini, in the same article, goes on to discuss the semiosphere, where he describes semiotic pollution as a boundary. The habitability of the semiosphere is an engaging concept.
This brings to mind those driving advertising billboards, which beyond being semiotic pollution, get purposefully stuck in traffic jams, and demonstrate in a very direct manner the ecological impact of the image.
Recognising environmental limits then necessitates connecting products to their environment not only in terms of their physical relationship with the biosphere, ... but also in terms of their relationship to the semiosphere. 2
Much of the old über.tv has been taken off line, slowly some of the old material will be recycled as I trawl through the archive. Below is a quote from an article written by Langdon Winner, which is not exactly the same as Thackara's innovation dilemma. We know how to make a lot of apparently amazing things, but we know a lot about why we should be making them, and even less about the 'ontological designing' of the things we make. i.e. how the things we make create the future reality.
"Perhaps aware of the growing vapidity of today's techno-news reporting, some prominent publications have recently decided they need a larger theme, a Big Picture within which to frame their topics. The startlingly brash, unprecedented, and illuminating context many of them appear to have settled upon is "Innovation." Yes, folks, here it comes! Out of the research labs, into the hands of entrepreneurs, from there to the global marketplace, and into your lives -- technology! What matters in this perspective is simply an appreciation of the dynamic flow and process. Never mind the social contexts, broader consequences, or policy choices at hand. Behold the surprisingly colorful people engaged in cutting-edge university and corporate research (and you thought they were just cold and grey!). Follow those far-sighted venture capitalists as they seed the landscape with promising start-up companies. Be the first on your block to catch a glimpse of all the gadgets and new media that will shape the offices, homes and schools of the future...
As the motto of the International Exposition held in Chicago in 1933 boldly proclaimed, "Science Finds -- Industry Applies -- Man Conforms." 1
It is interesting to return to this quote, especially in the light of the current techno-fascinations which range of computer games to mobile media. From iPones which continue to contain toxic materials2 and graphics cards that require at least 1000 watt power supplies 3 - hence producing anywhere up to 1Kg of green house gas emissions per hour of game play4
So while there is some evidence of interest in sustainability from within the broader 'interaction design' community - there remains a dilemma.
An aspect of this dilemma was noted over 100 years ago by William Jevons, know as Jevons' paradox. This paradox is basically stated as - efficiencies (improvements) of resource use may increased recourse use, not decreased resource use.
Thus, the productivist approach to technology and interaction design, which responds to global environmental crisis through the design of new green gadgets, may actually lead to an increased use of resources. Phrased as a specific question, do the 'savings' that result from the use of smart electricity meters out weigh the impact of production and consumption of these 'green gadgets'?
It appears that the field of Interaction Design (IxD) has finally started to think about sustainability. For example:
Sustainability,or sustain-ability as named by Tony Fry in Defuturing: A New Design Philosophy1, presents a significant challenge to the general field of Interaction Designers (and ICT). A challenge that may require a paradigmatic shift before it can be addressed in a meaningful manner. Sustainability requires IxD to question not only its practice, but the preconditions for practice; the ground (of ICT) upon which practice stands; the ways in which research questions are framed and focused …
A simple example of such a shift in design thinking might involve is what to consider what form an IxD practice would take if it encompassed Fry’s “elimination by design.” Considering that IxD often focuses on Design that ultimately leads to “new” products (and services which may inevitably require ICT products). Would an IxD elimination by design project lead to reduced consumption of ICT products, reduced need for large server farms, or reduced flows of e-waste?
...
Semester has drawn to a close and so today I have begun redeveloping über tv. The visual design has been recycled, in part, and at the moment is incomplete. In putting together the layout I have been experimenting with the blueprint css framework, which is an elegant solution for creating modular grid based layout programs.
Clippings, my reblog, has been upgraded to the new version of reblog and can be found at the same URL as previously http://uber.tv/envisioning/clippings/ . Content from the old clippings.reblog has been archived for my own use and is no longer online.
I have now returned to regular reblogging, starting from a clean slate and slowing building up the set of feeds that are worth reading regularly.
I have also installed the Bibliography module for Drupal, which so far seems excellent. Only a bit of fine tuning is required to get the fields for different references types aligned with my the way I am using EndNote. Importing the XML format from EndNote worked first go. I had to reorder the input filters to get the biblio tags working for footnotes in entries.
Next task is the develop a coherent design for the information architecture of über tv...
