Simple Design

Hello, everybody.
Usually I don't do visual design. Since I started to work with computers, almost all my projects
have had some kind of visual design, yet I have never studied how to do it and what are the rules here, so other people were helping me. By "the rules" I mean something really simple that any programmer can understand. Something like this:
http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/
I hope that this class will make visual design and visualization in general more accessible for me.

I do not have an idea for the project, but I think it will be something 3D implemented using http://www.jmonkeyengine.com or ... something else..

See you.

Obsolete Technology...

This past black Friday I bought a 32" Samsung flat screen TV, which I am immensely proud of (having owned a "tube" my whole life). I just set it up in my apartment 5 days and then, not 72 hours later, I read on CNN that my glorious television will be near obsolete before the end of the year! I'm abhorred at this news. Yes, I know technology increases at such a rapid rate, it's almost impossible to keep up with...BUT come on? I'm just asking for at least 2 years...these things are still super expensive.

I do, however, think it's intriguing to know that it will most likely be replaced with 3D television. That is just crazy! I wonder how strange we will all look sitting in front of our LG's wearing shades. Eventually, you'll just pop in a contact lens and call it a day! Oh...the possibilities.

ART && CODE

The 2009 Art&&Code Symposium gathered together some of the pioneers of the open source tools intended to democratize "computer programming for artists, young people, and the rest of us."

The Art&&Code symposium series as well as the social network around it was created by Golan Levin, who is a Professor of Electronic Art at Carnegie Mellon and the director of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. You can see some fascinating work of his and his collaborators here.

This video is the presentation of Processing, the program developed by Ben Fry and Casey Reas, which is one of the important open source visualization tools that we have at our disposal.

The presentation is a little long but make sure you get to the demos by the various artists they feature and whose work you will surely enjoy and might trigger some ideas of your own.

ART && CODE SYMPOSIUM: Processing, Ben Fry and Casey Reas from STUDIO for Creative Inquiry on Vimeo.

A mind of my own!

I am not sure how to go with this as I have kept away from blogging for many reasons. That task will take a great deal of discipline from me because it is usually difficult for me to put words on things that are going on inside my brain. Moreover as I am registered into two of Mr Sinclair's classes some of my posting may overlap. In fact today, I experienced a phenomenon that I was familiar with while studying Latin and Spanish at the same time. I was thinking about visualization while in the game course. And I have been asking myself if these fields are not interconnected. I assume yes particularly after seeing prototype of the work of previous students.

So today I was thinking about an interactive wall poster. A search revealed that someone taught about that and I am integrating the link here if you are curious.
I know we must think about the future but in my case I have to work in a particular 3D the past the present and the potential future because I want to create things that are feasible in Haiti. Third world countries are seriously particular because of huge discrepancies. But instead of focusing on the few (2%) that have constant access to high tech I want to develop something that would be innovative but that focus on this context. If I close my eyes I am seeing a giant poster that looks like an iphone screen and that is based on solar energy.

I will stop...for now!

Hello World

Hello everyone, I'd like to use this first post to introduce myself and share some of my previous works with you all so that you can get a feeling of where I'm coming from. My name is Garrett. I received my BFA in sculpture and a BA in anthropology in December of 2008 from the University of Florida. Needless to say i am very excited to begin this MA program at digital worlds. My sculptures have tended to be more traditional or installation based but i have experimented in the digital realm. Here are a few of my works:

Monoculture 2007
This interactive installation would rock up
and down releasing corn kernels from vinyl
pods that would fall to an amplified metal
base when viewers would eat corn derived
products (such as doritos and coca-cola)
from a table with a sensor in it.
The piece was an investigation into the
problems facing monocultured crop
supplies and how these processes also
create monocultures of the mind.

Garden 2008
Garden was a collaborative installation
In which myself and co-collaborator
Leslie Tharp transformed the pit in the fine
arts courtyard at UF into a community
garden.
The goal was to take a forgotten and unused
parcel of land and turn it into a productive
space.



Mobjects 2006
In Mobjects I asked various people to
create objects out of clay. I than took
these originals, created molds, and
cast multiples of the objects out of
differing materials ( foam, acrylic,
wax, etc..). I than sold these copies
back to the mob via ebay.
The goal of the work was to explore
the possibility of open source
sculpture. In this instance I hoped
to act as more of a mediator than the
primary generator of the work.

Well that's about all for now. Looking forward to getting to know you all better and hopefully learn from each other.
-Garrett

hey

I thought I would take this first post to write about things I am interested in. My work for my BFA was primarily painting. I also have minors in English and Art History. Artists I am interested in include Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Beuys, and Joseph Albers. Contemporary artists I like include Anslem Kiefer, James Jean, and Jim Houser.

My goal in life is to create powerful artworks. Things that are skillfully handmade do possess a power, a kind of grace. I do not worry that these things will become obsolete in a technologically driven world. Rather, I think technology will always have to look back and use craft if it is ever going to have any kind of permanence. And craft can utilize technology in unique ways. Recently I have seen a lot of work with soft circuits in fabric. These circuits are sewn with conductive thread. Besides looking cool, putting lights on your clothes could be useful at night if you were riding your bike.We as artists must learn to look back at traditional crafts and forward into what technology can offer.

Recently, I joined and helped initiate an artist collective called Afterschool. We are a group of Gainesville artists that have committed themselves to showing in town and giving each other constructive criticism and support. Most of us have graduated with our Bachelor's in Fine Arts. We are united in recognizing the fertile creative ground that Gainesville offers. Our first art show on September 25th was a success due to the level of talent as well as the amount of promotion that was put into it. We have much more to learn. I would like to continue to work with this group and incorporate what I will be learning within the Master's in Digital Arts and Science program.

The broken window

Marcel Duchamp, Fresh Window, 1920 (MoMa, NY)

In Leon Batista Alberti 's treatise De Pictura (1435), where he discusses for the first time in western literature the concept of optical perspective, he mentions, in relation to art that, "it is impossible to take anything away from it or add anything to it, without impairing the beauty of the whole."

Illustration for Book 2, p.15

More recently, the American poet William Carlos Williams, talks about what he calls action “pruned to a perfect economy”, and goes on:

" To make two bald statements: there is nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words. When I say there’s nothing sentimental about a poem I mean that there can be no part, as in any other machine, that is redundant. Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matter like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy. As in all machines its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character. In a poem this movement is distinguished in each case by the character of the speech from which it arises."

I believe the same applies to the concept of design, which is, like Williams says, a well tuned machine, made of all the necessary elements but nothing more, since, by logic, anything not essential would be taking the place of what is. A place where form and function are interchangeable and indiscernible from each other.

Alberti said, in his famous visualization of painting as a window that the observer, from a fixed point of view looks 'outside'. The role of the artist/designer, is to establish the continuity between those two seemingly separate worlds, breaking so to speak, the metaphorical glass that stands between them.

Now, Alberti was not refering to the surface of the painting as a whole as the "window", but rather to the square, quadrangolo de retti angoli, that you draw as a boundary, limit or predetermination of the shape, size, proportion etc where the outside will be seen, like a hole punched in the very fabric of reality.

I only wanted to share these thoughts to make you think about that window, about the possibility to break it, once you know it is there. Is it possible to maintain the coherence or continuity without it? What happens in our media world where the view is fragmented or distributed around millions of tiny windows that together are more than the sum of their parts?



All images, except Duchamp's Window are from The Painting of Leone Battista Alberti facsimile that you can find at the Science, Engineering and Technology Linda Hall Library

the one question I'm struggling to answer!

Looks like there is more to learn each day from this class. It was eye opening and it promises to be even more... I believe it's wonderful how the possibilities are endless... I like the fact that we don't have to watch as spectators, but have to come up with our own project. I've been mainly struggling with this idea in creating a website, therefore I never marketed any: what is my purpose from a website? I think if I can answer this question, then I can find my project idea for this class somehow easily... Best wishes for the new year 2010 everyone!

Bill's Brain

Talk about looking deeply inside yourself for answers, or what is the other one? it's good to be introspective? Bill Moorier's coded this interactive brain scan explorer to take a look at his own brain. I am sure our friend Twyla will enjoy this. Maybe an idea to implement in her site? You can play with Bill's brain here

As for my interest in interactivity and storytelling I see lot's of possibilities...hmmm. I can see googoles of data served by every microlayer, now, if I can only remember where I left my glasses...

The Eye Writer

Tempt1

We live in interesting times, no question about that. Plague, famine, kids killing people in remote villages from their drone playstations in Las Vegas, sipping RedBull. It is quite difficult to know how we can provide an ounce of balance to a ton of misery, so that ounce must be something really special to rescue our impossibly damaged spirit.

The influx of very damaged very young humans, the broken byproduct of that biggest business which is war, ends up in the landfills of society, the eternal superfund from which some people pick up the pieces and try to put things back together, albeit in a very different way. A leg here, an arm there, an eye or two, perhaps a brain? Can we pull us back together?

I will call him Luis

While searching for an appropriate picture to help me cut through the fog I had trouble finding one of the millions of miserable children which survive doing such a thing, because Corbis Corporation, the photo "service" owns most of them. I wonder, do those children get a percentage directly deposited to their pig accounts?

I guess you get the point. What triggered all this diatribe was me thinking about what we do on a daily basis, our "job" in other words. Do we really do something useful, something that tips the balance and creates a positive change? I think one of the reasons that the Open Source movement is so important is that it is a sort of groundswell, difficult to perceive because it is so pervasive and widespread.

But this movement, so dangerous to the monopolists of the world will tumble the most arrogant of them. There is no corporation, not even the most technically sophisticated that can evolve as rapidly as thousands or millions of people working together for a common cause.

As a little sample, I offer this movie about such an endeavour, one that ends with a call to hackers all over the world to collaborate, in this and any other way that might become the glue that binds us together again, into our cyborgian future.

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Open Frameworks, F.A.T., Graffiti Research Lab, graffiti legend Tempt1 and of course EyeWriter got together to produce that ounce of energy for each and everyone of us...

Here is the how to and all the good monopoly-breaking stuff for those DIY's among us. Keep on DIYing...!

Shamar's Machinima Video

Hello all. I cannot upload my machinima video here because it is too big but I'll go ahead and say a little bit about it anyways.

Originally, I had wanted to take files from Second Life and upload them to Isadora to make a three-screen Machinima movie. However, I had many problems with the footage I filmed in Second Life. After spending many, many hours capturing footage of my character dancing everywhere from ghettos to sacred sites and dance clubs, I found that many of the files would not open correctly. I don't know if there was a bug or what, but for some reason most of the footage I shot became unusable. So, I learned from this that in the future I should work in segments..capture a little, test it, work with it and then move on to capturing more. That way I will find out if there are problems that need to be worked out before I invest a ton of time in one stage of the process.

I took some of the files that DID work and uploaded them to Isadora where I began to play around with altering the footage, even to the extent that it became totally abstract. I think many fantastic opportunities still await in using Second Life with Isadora.

This Machinima is the first try at bringing Second Life and Isadora together. I put images together that showed some of the different processes I had gone through. I also used sound files from freesound.org. So, the end result is really just a collage of sorts.

The End of the Semester

I wanted to write a little bit of a summary of what I have done this semester in case some of you wish to visit what I've build in Second Life. I think we'll be illustrating these things on Thursday as well. I have tried to illustrate the process of radiation therapy, since this is what I do full time when I'm not pretending to be a student so it is what I'm most familiar with.

There are four different areas, an Introductory area with a quick video clip of the facility where I work. There are several posters with links with some helpful information. The Intro Room is the area where a patient will get "simulated" for their treatment. This used to mean using a machine similar to the radiation delivery machine which was called a simulator. With the advent of digital media and computers that could handle the huge data sets there is no need to use an actual machine as a simulator, a "virtual patient" is created from the CT images of the patient and all of the simulations is then done in a computer, along with a bunch of calculations. This is all performed in the Treatment Planning area which in Second Life is not so cool since it is all about working on computers and there are many VR types of tools already in existence to assist with this (Vertual). The final room is the Linac Room where the radiation delivery machine is in place. There are several posters explaining the process.

While the idea of radiation can be scary to some, or even controversial to others, it serves as a means of cancer cure for many. It's technology is expensive, but in some cases it is used as a substitute for surgery because of the reduced side effects and risk. I hope none of you have to experience this process in real life and it could become and only virtual process!

Hope you have all been able to get something out of this class, I know I have learned a lot mostly as a paradigm shift about how I approach the use of digital media, it has made me think of news ways to illustrate concepts and ideas, and I love some of the ubiquitous ideas (especially with the handhelds). I know I have barely scraped the surface on what can be done with digital media in education and in medicine.

Interactive Storytelling: Weaving the collective and the self in art

Interactive Storytelling: Weaving the collective and the self in art

Growing A ToonLoop Animation

In answer to Nick's slip-n-slide posting, here is the one I came up with in class. ToonLoop was a pleasure to use because of its simplicity. Since I am interested in heuristic learning, it makes sense to me that now that I have been able to produce something that I had fun with on my first pass, I am that much more motivated to try another more involved stop motion project. If I had hit a technological wall or steep learning curve the first time, that impression might have colored my idea of stop motion animation forever after. Thank you to the ToonLoop programmers for understanding that sometimes less is more.

What's next for Second Life?

Since I have spend a bit of time now in Second Life, I have started to wonder if it will stand the test of time. The move the company made towards the Enterprise version (at such a high dollar) along with Shamar's post about the possibility of law suits for visiting someone else's creation (or filming while there) makes me question what the future will hold for this particular platform. I believe there is a lot that it is flexible and provides a platform to illustrate different concepts and even for a novice like myself it has been fairly usable. While there are still advances being made and some companies creating new tools like this new 3D software for graph illustrations (BrainBoard - picture right), other areas seem to be closing down. I have found myself in some Islands that were pretty vacant that looked like they used to contain merchandise or some other form of activity. One article I found (picture below) seem to feel that second life needs to find a new life. I think that this critique comes from people who don't see much use for walking around trying to buy stuff and maybe "talking to weirdo's". Another hit for Second Life comes from Australia where a major internet provider who had given unmetered access to Second Life to its customers has decided to pull the plug and also to take down their BigPond Island because after 2 years the company's "focus has moved to other social media opportunities". I can completely agree that from a social networking standpoint, Second Life doesn't quite make it. It is too slow, too expensive, and is really awkward, that along with all the materialism it makes me a little crazy. However, this doesn't discount the fact that there are huge opportunities from an academic point of view for lectures, meetings, conferences, and for illustrating abstract concepts. This class and others interested in using the medium to convey ideas will determine if Second Life succeeds or fails; not the number of shoes or outfits that I buy.

EFF Lawyer Says Second Life Copyright Issues "In Some Ways Worse" Than Real Life

Over the past few weeks, I've been experimenting with how the content of Second Life can be used to create Machinima videos and also brought into Isadora to create content for projections. As I played around with the possibilities, I began to become very interested in zooming in on objects to create abstract images of flowing color. I realized a swaying bush could become beautiful abstract swirling greens and have no resemblance to a bush at all. I thought to myself, "Wow, what a great way to collect abstract footage to mix with real world footage". I was reminded of the abstract film pieces of Stan Brackage. So, Second Life, more than presenting opportunities for filming virtual spaces that represent real life, has unlimited abstract potential, if areas are filmed from an angle of distortion. Or, for example, if a moving character is brought into Isadora and connected to a time-blur and color filter, then the content can change tremendously!

I got really excited about all of this and even about the possibilities of making straight on Machinima videos with little abstraction. But, then I started to wonder about copyright. Did individuals who created the trees have a copyright on their trees? Would Linden Labs have some rights to everything I would make within their virtual landscape? What if I abstracted the content to such a potential that it could not be recognized? Could I be sued for filming an avatar without his/hers/its consent if its name appears above its head and the shot is included on a short machinima film that is uploaded to YouTube, receives 200 million hits and shoots me to superstardom? Ok, just kidding! But, you know what I mean.

I did a quick google search and came across this article: EFF Lawyer Says Second Life Copyright Issues "In Some Ways Worse" Than Real Life

Here's the meat of the article:
"Second Life in some ways is worse than real life. That's because users retain the underlying intellectual property rights to their SL creations. And after all, as Fred pointed out, you can walk down the street in real life without worrying that the textures in the sidewalk are copyrighted. "In Second Life these are gray interesting mysteries" around the law, he added. Something worth considering for people who publish screenshots or machinima extracted from SL. It's been argued that if you run a photo of a Second Life street, you don't really need to get the permission from the creator of every single item in the frame, just as you don't need to do so when you take a photo of a New York City street. However, that assumption has not yet been tested in court. As Von Lohmann added, most of the Second Life community is unlikely to be aggressively litigious. But if Second Life continues growing, I believe that sense of good faith won't always hold."

So, after reading this, I began to have second thoughts about using Second Life for content creation. Why would I want to put all of that time an energy into learning how to use it, or film scenes and edit them, etc., if ,down the road someone could tell me that it is not really my content at all, but belongs to ten other individuals, one of whom would like to sue me?

The article did state that "the Second Life community is unlikely to be aggressively litigious. But if Second Life continues growing, I believe that sense of good faith won't always hold". And, that's what I'm worried about. Any thoughts?

Channel Surfing

As an alternative to cable TV, users of the website surfthechannel.com can look under the category of television to see programs from around the world. The opening page has four different types of searches available.

Avatar

I already posted my comments regarding my movie making experience when I saw an interview with John Cameron regarding his new movie Avatar which comes out this December. This seemed to tie in for a number of reasons, namely the topic of the movie as well as John Cameron's ability to create great work. Even though his interest in virtual worlds and ours may be different, I am sure we can all be inspired by his vision, his talent, and his work ethic.

My Machinima Experience

I had hoped to be ready to share my machinima by now, but what I can share is some of my experience with this process. First of all, I am disappointed in the information from the SL Wiki on Machinimas. They list "machinima friendly sims", locations where filming is allowed. I tried almost every one of them and only one allowed you to create a film path, and even that one deletes anything you create in 5 minutes. Also, I did not find very many free tools for Mac for filming. I ended up purchasing iShowU HD which is extremely user friendly, but if you are running that and SL you have to stop every few minutes or the animation in SL will stop being able to Rez. Also, as all of you know by now, there is a great deal of time involved in editing. I am using iMovie'08 which is quite easy and I've used it once before. Overall I'm relatively pleased with how my machinima is turning out, (but I have to admit, I'm not a perfectionist). Probably the most frustrating thing of this entire process has been the inordinate amount of time I had to spend "creating sets" for my movie I cannot even tell how many hours that has taken and the finish product by no means looks like it took so long! Hopefully I'll have time to also complete some of the functional aspects of my second life project so that it is a better teaching tool rather than just a stage. It has been an interesting project so far.

Becoming Cyborg

In the reading of Frank Biocca's The Cyborg's Dilemma I found myself thinking a lot about how embodied we have become in virtual worlds. The whole theses of the Cyborg's Dilemma is that as interfaces and means of engaging with computer or with people via computers becomes more "natural" the human interfaces become the more "unnatural" we become as we enter into another state of being (in essence). I think I would also add that in doing so we re-define what "natural" is. (An interesting article on this) How many of us have seen a couple in love holding hands but talking on their cell phones to someone else. Also, how common is it to see a group of students sitting at table but everyone is engaged with their cell phones communicating with someone else. This is not "natural" the more natural thing would be to pay attention to and talk with the person whose company we are keeping. I know that communicating via email and text or even through social networking sites is convenient and seems like from a physical point of view a fairly natural means of engaging with the electronic medium, but it has change the normal for what it means to interact and spend time with someone. It is a dilemma.

I Needed This In Boston

Using either an EDGE or 3G signal, this new app for iPhones can allow users to start their car remotely, and operate other functions. This means that it will work with both an iPhone and/or an iPod Touch. I needed this when I lived in Boston, because in the depths of the long winter, it would have been very convenient to have the car warming up before getting into it on the morning commute! The company, Directed Electronics, charges $499 for installation of their Viper SmartStart System, or $299 if installed in a vehicle which already has the Viper alarm system. The technology can also be used for triggering many other functions in tech projects, and it would be interesting to develop a game or musical instrument with remote capibilities.

Online Resources For Creativity

One of the only places on the web that I know of to provide public access to free video editing tools is a relatively new website called One True Media. It offers other services as well, without the need to purchase expensive editing software. I believe this falls into the category of Cloud Computing, a precept of which is that the public can work on projects using technology without having to own or update the software. I favor this idea as I am not a big fan of upgrades.

Another interesting site is called Aviary. It is a suite of graphics tools much the the pricey Adobe software, but also includes the ability to save your files on their server. This was extremely useful this summer when I was teaching at a tech camp for migrant teens which was under the auspices of the School Board and the Alachua Multi-county Migrant Program. Many, if not most, of these kids did not have access to a computer at home, but could create their designs for tee shirts and save them to the website. Now that the camp is over, they can still access their work online at any public library. This is an important solution in the struggle to address what is known as the Digital Divide.

Second Life Enterprise

Last Wednesday, Linden Labs releasing an enterprise version of Second life that allows a company to have the database on their own server and behind their firewall. This seems like a smart move for companies and I wonder if they may have a little more control on the speed and workflow within their own "enterprise" world within second life.

Phantom touch, our CYBORGIAN present

As some of you know, our DW team is working on the implementation of a haptic device driven by brain waves in collaboration with the Neuroprosthetic Research Group under the direction of Dr. Justin Sanchez. Their goal is to develop novel BIONIC medical treatments This has many applications, primarily for disabled people that have lost limbs or are paralyzed.

This is a graphic I made for Dr.Sanchez. Check out his presentation Co-Evolution of Man and Machine: Neuroprosthetics in the 21st Century.

This is a particular area of interest to me since I started experimenting with cursor control via electrical body feedback in the early nineties although my focus was more as a game designer, which is what I was doing at the time.

Here are some pics of my biofeedback contraption. I built my own "electrodes" which connected to the battery snaps at the back, but I could not find them for this post. Of course all of this can now be done with a cheap microprocessor with a much better clock rate. I remember spending a few hundred dollars thinking that gamers would be interested in such input device, but, alas, it was not so. True, it took a lot of training and effort to move the darn cursor, but it worked, lazy bastards!

Old 37 pin PC-Lab 750 parallel card built on a prototyping board by Advantec

If I was doing this by myself again I would probably use a parallel processor like the Propeller by Parallax which would be quite enough to achieve a much better result for a fraction of the cost and would be a lot of fun, anybody?.

Here is another approach well implemented by those cool Norwegians. Thanks to Master New Media Designer extraordinaire Virgil Wong for the link.

Data and Design

In answer to Edward's previous post, another useful website to know about is called Many Eyes.

It allows users to try out various types of graphic representations of data sets, either their own or sets provided. I thought the graph of football quarterback's salaries on page two was interesting, because what people choose to focus on is telling.

Short Paper

This link is for my Short paper on VR in education and research. I have never tried this process but I uploaded the paper into Google Docs and saved is as a shared document and then recorded the link. Please let me know if you are unable to view the paper.

I found this process of reading several papers interesting as I was focused on efficacy (for my own research project). The conclusion that I came to is that there is plenty of evidence showing the efficacy of VR and AR in education and that one of the main roadblocks towards greater utilization of VR in education is that we don't know what we need, let alone what we want. Otherwise, we might just find that we succeed.

-Twyla

Why MMOG? Why Not?

I have to admit that before this class and this reading on MMOG. That I hadn’t given much thought to MMOG. I personally have never participated in any of the games mentioned although through the years I’ve known many people who have. Probably, the most interesting to me in the historical narrative of the development of online gaming was the information about how politics has influenced the development of the games. I find it fascinating that part of the reason that Korea has lead the way with games such as Legacy was that rather than importing other commercial gaming systems from Japan (which was not allowed post WWII the country focused their attention on broadband. That one difference made a huge impact in their country being successful in the online gaming business. The other fascinating thing to me that was pointed out in the article was that the way the different cultures interface with MMOG is different. For more communal societies, the users gravitate towards game that better reflect the society they know.

In the second set of reading I was asking myself “what is the purpose of the game?" Gaming is such big business and has been extremely successful, but why? The reading cleared this up for me a bit because the developers are asking the same question. What is it about these games that draws people in? Is it the fight or the social interactions or some combination of both? What method of payment works best? What Leveling up method keeps people interested? I think the development community knows that the social interactions and some sort of goal are key but they cannot have a free reign society because the survival of the fittest mentality tends to take out all the new players too quickly (which isn't good for business or for social satisfaction).

I think we'll have to stay tuned to see where this goes. As to the satisfaction of "why they are popular" I found an interesting article on The Psychology of MMORPG. In this article the author conducted an online survey for 3 years from 2000-2003 of users who played EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. They had anywhere from 2000 to 4000 responders for each survey they posted. Many of the questions were related to social interactions both in real life and in the game. One static that really caught me was that of women gamers 59.8% participated in the game with a romantic partner and 39.5% of female responders participated with a family member. There were also many other interesting statistics about friendships within the game. It seems to me, that at least for women, the huge draw is the social interactions that can be had, in some ways, much more easily in the game than in reality. Maybe the MMOG has taken the place of the Tupperware party. Time will tell if it is a passing trend or is here to stay.

Games with a Purpose or GWAP's

How many tags?

Tagging has become one of the most invisible but significant elements of digital media. Although it is not immediately apparent, when we search on the web, in our own folders or in the public library, we depend 100% on tags and their accuracy to find what we are looking for.

A tag can be described as a non-hierarchical keyword which can identify a piece of information. In this respect it can be considered metadata, since it is information about information.

Now, tags are usually keywords chosen by someone to describe a particular aspect of that information. In the case of an image for example, tags would vary greatly depending on who "tags" the picture. Since this is not a very reliable way to describe anything, various tools have evolved that attempt to remedy this situation by applying crowdsourcing to solve this problem.

Delicious is one example where each individual tags a particular site with as many keywords that might bring it up again in a future search. We all know how easy it was to completely lose sight of a great site among our bookmarks simply because we forgot either how we named the bookmark or the name of the site itself which can be pretty cryptic anyway, no to mention the fact that before Delicious, bookmarks resided in our computer so we could not access them if we were away from it. So now our bookmarks, that old term, reside in the cloud, for everyone to access.

Google, whose main purpose is to make information accessible to everyone (some might disagree), has developed sophisticated algorithms to classify and tag all the information available on the internet and the cloud. However, tagging and classifying images, videos and music has proven to be specially difficult, because of the same problem we face when we ourselves attempt a description.

So what is the solution? depends on the users of course, to do the dirty work. Google Image Labeler is one such tool that has proven very effective. It's simple, fun, game-like minimal interface allows you and a random partner to label images with ever more complex tags, and it gives you "points" depending on the complexity or precision of the label. For any label to work, both you and your partner must submit the same keyword or descriptive phrase.

This idea was originally proposed by Carnegie Mellon's Luis von Ahn, who also developed the infamous and ubiquitous captchas. Originally called the ESP game, which is when I first played it some years ago, it was subsequently licensed by Google. One important difference is that now, if the picture that is presented to you has been tagged before, all those tags are now off-limits, so you have to come up with new ones. This was in response to the fear that tags would become very generic since it is easier to agree on an obvious word, like bird, instead of for example agree on the specific species name.

I have for a long time been intrigued by how we, humans, have suddenly, as the tools became available, become busy bees tagging, describing, sharing information, even as trivial as to what we are doing at the moment, where we are, what we ate etc. (Twitter and FB being the best examples.) My own weird take on it, is that this is the way the "system", the cloud or the emerging consciousness of our information age, gathers all the necessary bits and pieces to achieve the critical mass or the tipping point in order to wake up. A few years ago this thought was simply part of the SF literature. Today is is just a waiting game.

And please, while you wait, tag your posts!

ISMAR and Medicine

I attended a workshop at the ISMAR conference that focussed on current trends in medical simulations. Most of the simulations that were demonstrated were for military training purposes which does not fit my needs specifically, but I came to appreciate the technology of augmented reality and some of the applications. There was a open forum at the end of the workshop to talk about how to move medical virtual reality to the next level. I think what the vendors and the people who were present want to see happen is for medical simulators to be used in the licensing and recertification process of medical doctors. There is a proposed bill HR855 that would mandate doctors to spent a certain amount of time in simulation prior to practicing. This hasn't been passed yet, but one thing I am concerned about with this type of initiative is that it would place a requirement on professionals that may or may not be proven to help train in the particular skills that cause problems. No one can argue that the rate of medical errors is too high, however, simply creating legislature to require doctors to spend time on simulators that may or may not be useful doesn't seem to make sense. As many of our readings have implied unless the VR or AR system adds some benefit to the training simply using it "because it is there" and especially require people to use it because it is there doesn't make any sense at all. For this reason I am focussing my attention on the VR paper for education and research on studies showing efficacy. Perhaps I'm naive enough to believe that developing good VR products and conducting efficacy studies would generate the necessary interest in these simulators that all doctors would begin using them.

AR, VR, MAR, MVR, ISMAR and other acronyms

ISMAR 2009 was a mixed bag, some awesome talks and demonstrations and on the other hand very few vendor kiosks with disappointing demos that looked more like 2001. Yes, some AR headgear was almost tolerable but with poor image quality (basically little low-res tv's hung in front of your eyes). Although there are already working prototypes of retinal projection none was available, and this is the technology which I believe will be both less intrusive (almost ubiquitous) and at the same time totally invasive with a direct path to your brain.

I think that all head worn displays suffer from an extreme case of risk-aversion, incrementing oh so slowly, sensors and devices that are already mainstream, like accelerometers, magnetic compasses etc. They need a serious garage-shock! anybody there?

The conferences, on the other hand, were fabulous. It was hard to choose which one to attend, but we stayed with the Arts&Humanities chapter most of the time, except when some very well known presenters gave their demos, like Pattie Maes from MIT wearable computing lab which demonstrated the "SixthSense""a device developed by Pranav Mistry that we had already seen in a TED video, or the HitLab guys from New Zealand with which we had very interesting conversations about their various tools and projects. We also found out that they are already working very closely with UF's department of Engineering.

Augmented Reality (AR) Joiner series, Waterfall - Outdoors from Augmented Stories on Vimeo.

And talking about projects, I was really impressed by Helen Papagiannis from York University in Toronto. She presented work utilizing marker tracking with a custom library created at their Augmented Reality Lab in the Department of Film. This was the first time that I have seen a truly creative an original work which has gone beyond technology and in the process of becoming a new language, a new form that she might not even be aware of. I am sure we will hear more from her in the future. The video above is only a small taste. But in a shorter term she agreed to make a virtual presentation to our class, just need to coordinate times! Very exciting.

Natasha Tsakos as ZERO

The other high point for me was the presence of Natasha Tsakos, whose work we have also seen in class. She too agreed to visit us online. It was nice to see her after almost seven years, from a theater student to a full fledged international performer and media star. We had a chance to talk about the ethics of technology and our responsibility as technoartists in this world and time that will be crucial to our survival as a species, not to mention other life forms that we are decimating as we boldly go where no one has been before.

Our presentation of the virtual alien controlled real-time from Digital Worlds was a smashing success. Eyes and mouths open, plenty of smiles and excitement. To be honest I myself was surprised of the enthusiastic response, being a very techie and sophisticated audience. That made me realize that we are on the right place at the right time...! Using an Open Source game engine running code by Anton Yudi and my 3D character and environment we were able to advance a few steps towards physical-virtual avatar control. Still a long way to go to be completely untethered.

Jarrel Pair, the organizer who introduced us, said we had taken a great risk by presenting something live, in real-time and involving so many variables. In reality it was nerve wrecking! Internet connectivity via ethernet, which we needed because wireless was so spotty, was non existent until about 4 minutes before our group began (we were 3 presenters in a panel). But once we started everything went absolutely smooth, even beyond our expectations.

Pictures coming soon...

Shamar's IRS Research and Design Paper to be created on Blurb

IRS Research and Design Paper to be created on Blurb

-Pursue own interests within your academic area in the context of virtual environments
-Utilize qualitative and/or quantitative research methods and identify, discover, or determine the answers to critical research questions within your field of study
-Publish on Blurb or Lula


BAM!

I will explore how to create an online network in a virtual environment that serves as a teaching tool and a place for a global community to converge around a topic of interest even if they are physically located thousands of miles away.

In this paper, I will specifically explore how to create a globally connected network around BAM!


To do this, I will flesh out how to build a virtual world that does the following:

Hosts an online educational space that teaches about the history of trance dance through videos/ photos/ text

Hosts an online performance space that enables djs to stream music live from any location in the world to multiple locations that can be experience BAM at the same time

Hosts an online convergence space where speakers and participants can share their experiences in real time and have their experiences cataloged. A mythical character will be the host.

Hosts an art museum that will hold the generative artwork of all involved in BAM across the world

Hosts a store that sells the generative artwork for download to be put on computers as screensavers, displayed on screens during parties and fundraisers, and to be used by artists in music festivals across the world.

Shamar's Machinima Video Outline

IRS Machinima Video

The techniques of machinima creation will aid me in creating an abstract art video that celebrates ecstatic movement as a common language capable of uniting people across barriers and showing our common humanity. Real world dancers and avatars will dance in extended spaces that overlap real world environments with virtual ones. I will explore these spaces within the context of community building and consciousness raising. Thus, a spectrum of environments will be explored. Some will acknowledge the planetary wisdom of ancestors connected to the land. Others will reveal present day environments which have been mistreated. On one end of the spectrum, themes of global warming, pollution, war, and hunger will be explored. On the other end, a positive future will be imagined. Through it all, the wisdom of people who have come before and been stewards of the land will be respected. These environments will be explored through movement.


Steps:

I.

Film Shamar's avatar dancing in natural setting in second life - ocean, forest, stream, sky
Film Shamar's avatar dancing in polluted environments in second life - trash dumps, corporate logo environments, dark desolate places, online protest sites
Film Shamar's avatar dancing with other avatars in environments that represent a positive imagining of the future


II.
Download clips of films/ pictures that show bombs, guns, death, hunger, destruction
Download clips of films/ pictures that show positive imaginings of the future

III.
Film dancers in environments around Gainesville

IV.
Create text that honors ancestor voices

V.
Use Isadora to create a video that combines all of this.

Arts in Medicine Second Life Webinar

I just found out about these webinars that will be hosted in Second Life. This is a great opportunity to see how Second Life can be used to teach and network and bring people together on a particular topic even if they are spread out across the world.

Viral marketing or deadly indigestion?

With its usual lack of understanding of user needs or wants Microsoft has come up with probably one of the worst product launch campaigns in the annals of advertising.

In consonance with their overbloated, indigestible and socially irresponsible practices, Microsoft launches Windows 7 by partnering with Burger King and offering a "Windows 7 Whopper"!

With over 2500 calories, this obesity and artery clogging, hormone-laden, environmentally devastating promotional campaign will probably (and hopefully) do as much harm to Microsoft and its shareholders as they have inflicted upon users for over 3 decades.

The vomitive offer features 7 greasy patties for only $8.55. What a bargain. Check with your insurance company before buying Windows 7 to see if they cover software-induced triple bypass surgery. But hurry, this offer is good only for 7 days and after that the price goes up to$ 15.86.

What's up with the 7's? do they just want to up-one the famous 666 you know who? That would be bestial.

Isadora and Text

In researching how to animate text for the names of the performers in the Live Vibe TV Bach presentation, I tried working with both Flash and Isadora. There seemed to be no advantage to Flash in that the overall production is going to use Isadora to control the multimedia components for the event. Isadora offers an amazing versatility of effects and modes. It comes with examples of how to set up a series of variables and controls, one of which is shown on the screen capture above. Only focusing on the possibilities with text, the following are just some of what can be accomplished:

1) Showed alpha channeled text over video images

2) Allowed for control of font size, color, and style (can match logo fonts)

3) Allowed for control of location and/or rotation of text

4) Create effects with the text such as changing it to dots, or cutting it into

sections which then come together to form the names

5) Animated on an x,y, and z axes

6) Allowed for button or toggle control of chosen functions