There are many ways to apprehend the world around, a myriad of modalities to make public one’s ideas. The category of research-creation captures some of the new hybrid methods employed by intellectuals of all stripes to push the boundaries of scholarly and artistic traditions. My forays into this experimental terrain often have been in collaboration with artists and teams of like-minded folk. A number of the projects have involved experimentation with digital media.
Artificial Agents and Lo-Fi Embodiment
(collaborator with project leads Nell Tenhaaf and Melanie Baljko)
Rodots. kids at osc.rodots
This is a prototype created by Nell and Mel to test user interactions with ‘artificial agents’ for an installation that Nell has under construction at York. I like it as an interactive performance piece unto itself. If you click on the image above, you see kids at playing at the Ontario Science Centre as a part of the ‘Fusion’ festival, which occurred in May, 2007. In the installation an overhead camera tracks the movements of participants and projects a bords-eye view of their movements on a wall. Greenish pixel-dust gathers on the participants as they move in the space, which has also been programmed with sound. The ‘pixel-dust’ follows their movements, sticks to them, until it ‘coagulates’ on one of the players. This person then becomes ‘the agent’. At this moment the players leave the indeterminate workd of pixel-dust land for the goal-oriented world of the ‘ro-dots’ where they are given a small task. The installation is a study in programming interactions in both Mx and Java as well as affording the opportunityfor the artist-researchers to observe how participants apprehend space, and cognitively process in an embodied fashion, the ‘herding’ task assigned. The gestural language and the movements of the children, and adults, is entertaining to watch and it is fun to play. I am in working on user-tesing protocols and an analysis of the project as a long-term participant-observer, and ‘embedded theorist.’ The research process is iterative: that is, changes to the system are added incrementally as a result of observation, analysis, and re-testing.
The Haunting www.the haunting.ca
“The Haunting” is a multi-player location based cell phone game designed for Mount Royal Park in Montreal. Players are invited by VFB Mobility to use a cell phone as the latest in technological means for exploring paranormal disturbances and communicating with the dead. Media debris, flickering screens unearthly vibrations and screaming cellulars inhabit the Forest of Shadows surrounding the cross at the Summit of the Spirits overlooking the park. Interaction scenarios, alternative mapping techniques, spontaneous public performance and location based play structures rooted in non-linear narrative are explored in mobile experience design. Using GPS and Bluetooth beacons in a networked environment, this project treats territory as interface playing with the potential of mobile technologies to augment and enhance our relationship to and understanding of space and place.
I worked as one of the creative leads on the project collaborating in the production of the game script, concept, helping with the image and sound production in addition to coordinating meetings and the inter-disciplinary collaboration. As a a co-lead with “EMU” (evaluating mobile users), I conducted intermittent user-integrating tests on “The Haunting” throughout its development.
Used Goods
The Cut-rate Collective
Salvation Works
The Happenstance Institute
StudioXX
The PoMoCoMo
