Quick Update....

So, been busy with Christmas related family commitments this past week. And the one before that I was in Paris. Saw a really tought provoking exhibit on Remenance painting, and a 3D illusion exhibiton. Will post in more detail about them and write up my thoughts in the New Year. Just to say here that I'm thinking about my dissertation and doing lot's of reading/research, and that my other project work is on hold for a week because of that, but I feel confident about it and in conrtol of my time management.

My Very Own Individual Thought

I've been thinking a lot about the question: What is media? I think in order to understand what interactive media is, it is an essential question. Alot of theorists argue about interactive media, specifically about freewill, manipulation and control within it. The term media is just a word, it implies multiple mediums. It is not a thinking, opinionated entity, thus it cannot be accused of manipulation. Any manipulation exemplified by media is the fault of the USERS. The digital age we live in has allowed for a lot more users of the tool 'interactive media', and this is making us more aware of issues regarding freewill. But, it is my argument that these issues are the blame of society in general, and the history of the human race. Interactive media is merely a tool, one that makes us more aware of a debate that has been around since the dawn of communication- does freewill exist? Perhaps this means it can even be argued that interactive media gives us MORE chance for freewill, because it is a tool that is letting us educate ourselves more than our ancestors and appreciate a board range of perspectives, rather than a limited few presented to us by politically tampered with newspapers.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no manipulative media, there is just manipulative USE of media. I think that it could be argued that Interactive Media it is a tool that makes manipulation easier, and encourages the decline of human morality and ethics, but it itself is not the CAUSE of this, it merely makes the representation of problems in society more evident.

Furthermore, on the matter of limited choice in terms of hyperlinks and games....so what? Interactive media is technology, not magic. It may subtly influence us to think logically in the way of the creator, but the creator thought of how to lay the site/game out in a more logical way for us during development. It's a two way street that can't be avoided due to technical constraints. It is NOT manipulation. It can be used for manipulation, yes, but just because SOME people misuse the media, it does not mean ALL Interactive media is an example of this.

Also, you may notice the title of this post- My Very Own Individual Thought, entitled so because it is a thought I have derived from weeks of reading a WIDE VARIETY of texts, and educating myself to devise MY OWN opinion. It is not an idea that I have seen anywhere. Maybe other people have had the same thought, but that doesn't mean it is not individual or self thought out, as this scientific article on free will and brain patterns describes. We may not always be aware of subconicous influences, hence the use of the prefix 'sub', but that doesn't mean we are not capable of making our own decisions based on the facts. I can FEEL, in my inner slef, that this is MY opinion, not one I'm channelling, hence my firm standing on this issue.

I am considering looking into the idea of expanding these ideas for my dissertation, and exploring early forms of media and manipulation to argue that interactive media today is just making us more aware and broadening our minds about an issue that has been around since the creation of old media newspapers (in 1400) rather than being the actual cause of a reduction in new ideas. So if anyone has any opinions or relevant research re: my ideas......please feel free to tell me.

Misuse of Media Manipulation

I just received a text from a friend informing me that a software tool called 'CyberLover.re' has just passed the Turing Test. Intrigued, I looked it up, and discovered that Cyber Lover is a Russian chatbot program that infilterates social networking sites to cyber-seduce female web users, up to ten at a time, into giving out there personal identity information, including phone numbers.

"As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering," Sergei Shevchenko, Senior Malware Analyst at PC Tools, said in a statement.

I think this is an awful misuse of media, and it raises the questions for me; do media companies somehow see themselves above the guidelines of moral ethics? And how far are we as a society going to allow such practices to continue?

Puzzle Game

This is the puzzle game I mentioned in my last blog entry.
I used a tutorial that supplied the code and some objects, and then manipulated the objects to my own taste, and altered the text responses. The tutorial finished on a simple 'Well Done', but I used some extra code from a QA section of the tutorial and altered the game script so that the solution of the puzzle triggers a move to the next frame.

It's a bit flawed....the message is over clouded at the end dependant on the piece chosen last. Nothing I can't fix if I do decide to use this in my final piece though.

Mental Hesitations - my weak area

Over the last couple of days, I have been focussing more on idea generation and what interests me rather than research.

On Tuesday........
I decided to go with the idea of an immersive puzzle book, created as a touchscreen in Flash, that would be part of an immersive installation and also use sound and lighting. I decided my aims would be to to further my technical knowledge of flash, and examine the immersive, almost magical effects that interactive media can have on a user, in order to gain a better understanding of the relationship between humans and computers. This would also demand my consideration to practical aspects such as information architecture and design principles. The piece would aspire to blur the lines between a storybook and a game, and invoke a high level of mental interaction and immersion


On Wednesday afternoon.....

I wrote this into my 'Digital Doodles' interactive flashbased sketchbook:

"for the purposes of this project, I will create the touchscreen puzzle interface itself (my main
deliverable), and an animation of someone using it. I will plan out how the rest of the installation room would be set up and learn all the technical details, perhaps even creating a scale model out of foamboard for presentation purposes (I realize the brief says everything needs to be shown on screen, and all the important features will be- this is just for my own sake, and can be photographed as a slide show) I could also create a proposal with this pitching the complete idea to the museum. To give my deliverables an edge, I will also consider creating a mock-up environment of the installation at home, setting up a webcam and getting people to have a go at the puzzle. If I can use a touchscreen pane this would be great, but not essential. The point will be to film the facial reactions of the user to examine the immersive effect of my work, and consider ways of improvement based on this and questioning the test subject."

I then made some decisions about my audience:

the identification of an audience is dependant on the gallery that the installation is based in, because this says something about the type of person that will visit, and the age. I want my piece to appeal to a wide range of users, and for the sake of this project I am envisioning it to be for a small fictional gallery in brighton, and after some un-fruitful attempts at researching target audiences for galleries here, I have decided to use my own knowledge that brighton has a strong art and digital media reputation, so think that it would appeal to a lrge audience of students and exhibition lovers. I am going to pick my target audience based on casual puzzle game audiences, which according to research is 65% of women between 25-30, and 35% of men. However I am going to try and ake th egame gener nuetral, to try and interest as many men as possible as well as women (this could be done by the idea of a quest), and also take into account that brighton has a very youthful population, and the idea of a storybook immersion could easily appeal to yougner people too, so based on my research and own opinions, my target audience is men and women, aged 15-35.

I then brainstormed ideas for themes, and found it quite hard to come up with a story. I did some technical research and managed to get a drag drop feature working, so that a key can be dragged and dropped into a lock, and trigger the next frame....a script I could use to trigger animations in more ways than a key/lock, and make my touchscreen a bit more advanced then just using touch/activate buttons. However, this took me along time to learn. If I go with this idea, most of my time wll be spent coding, and I don't think this is very productive for my proffersional development, because I don't want to be a Flash coder. I'm more interested in visuals. I considered making my puzzles more basic, and putting my effort into creating a more diverse narrative, so there is more choice between different storylines, and the option of failing to pass the puzzles, and having something bad happen to the story character, and the story/game end, an okay idea, but it does not really grab me.

I then thought, what if I try and engage the viewer more by reverting back to another idea, and bringing teamplay into action. I could have two people in a room, and one (person action) is looking at on screen puzzles, and the other (person screenreader) is in front of the computer screen, on a large mat with squares on it. Each square has a pressure sensor in it, which correlates to a square on the screen. P.ScreenReader must instruct P Action on how to move back/forward/left/right based on the puzzle they see on the screen, in order to get the player to stand on the correct answer to the problem. The screen puzzle will be formed of rollover buttons that do nothing other than show a cartoon person standing there when that square activation key is pressed. They will work by hooking up each sensorpad to a keyboard key, so that the position of P.Action will appear on the screen. When P.Action reaches the correct answer position, the next level will activate. I could have 5 levels that work like this, and a 30 second timer for each puzzle. If the timer runs out, the game ends and the curator asks the players to leave through a losers door, and if they win they will be asked to leave through a winners door. There will be no difference, but I think the POSSIBILITY that there may be a reward will urge people to try and win. This would mean the players have to work together to suceed. P.Screenreader must be good as a speaker, and P.Action must be good as a listener and show trust in p.screenreader. I would make the environment quite cold and chilling, to encourage the players to focus attention on each other and the task at hand. I am hesitating to proceed with this idea becuase the deliverables for this project will end up being

1. an instruction manual on how to technically set the installation uo (which I am comfortable about the challenge of writing)
2. an animation of how it might look
3. the flash interface, but working with regular mouse or keyboard clicks for presentation purpopses
and maybe 4. a demo of a sensor activating a button to show I am capable of creating this

I think this is a perfectly resonable end result, so long as I think out all the puzzles well, and make the animation very well, but Im worried it's too conceptual.

So, I started to think, what am I really interested in about this idea? and I answered myself......examining the relationship between people and interaction. I like the thought of seeing how they react to my installation, more than creating an installtion itself, and am liking the thought of getting a fully working installation/interface working so that I can film and examine the users reactions.

SO... new idea.......what about a flash interface that makes no logical sense? I will play with design principles and makes navigations difficult, and touch on puzzles to mentally challenge the user to figure out how to get from start to end. They will simply use the keyboard and mouse, and I will then get a test subject, and record there reactions, to each myself about the way the user responds. I can then create a deliverable website or DVD that decsribes my experiment and shows the video of the interface being used, and my own commentry on what is causing challeneges and barriers to ease of use, in order to teach myself, an aspiring web designer, what is good and bad about interface design.

Each idea has pitfalls becuase what I want most s to builf a full installtion of my sensor rigger game idea and film this as an experiment looking at trust between people. But I do not have the resources to do this, and I don't just want to propose something. I want to do it.

So, desicions desicions..... I need to start making them! I am self aware of the fact that this is my weakpoint and need to address it, even if I make a mistake in my choice, at least I will have thrown all my energy into makig the best of it, rather than hesitating constantly about a way forward and ending up with a weak final outcome. SO, I aam taking a few days to consider my choice, and am going to vists an exhibtion on interactive media in Paris, and then in a week I will come back to this with a fresh perspective and commit myself to one of the three outlined choices above.

If you have any comments , please tell me.....( I could do with the input!)

Holiday Crit.....

Had some good feedback, great, about the idea of meeting up for a group crit over Christmas, so just throwing a date/place idea out there....I am away for the first week in Paris, and then there is the actual 3 day event of Christmas, so how would people feel about THURSDAY 27th, at 10.30AM, in a coffee shop in the lanes. If anyone has any ideas for a quiet one please suggest it!

Please post a reply to me here with your e-mail address / phone number or e-mail me (claire.a.johnson@hotmail.co.uk) if you want to come so I know who I'm meeting! Or if this is a bad time we can come up with a different one. It's nice and in the centre of the holiday though, so should be pretty useful.

Change of heart.....

I blogged earlier that the theme of ideas I have selected to develop is 'People and Interaction'. Having analyzed the comments made about my last project, thought about ideas for deliverables, and considered the areas I have researched that I am most interestd in. I have CHANGED MY MIND, and selected my third theme: Immersion and Interactivity (the relationships between people and interactive media. Specifically a book/story) This is similar to the topic of my dissertation and will be helpful to my personal development. The key themes in it that appeal to me are:

fantasy
mental interaction
people
books
installation
puzzles
stories
magic
familiar aliens
immersion

I am now using a digital scrapbook in Flash to generate ideas (partially because my workbook is so overflowing with paper that I fear a whole tree will need to be cut down if I don't start to use alternate resources!!!) to look at my inspirations in more detail and discuss the four main variations of the idea, and brainstorm ideas for deliverables. Over the next day or so I will become ruthless and choose one idea to proceed with, and start developing my ideas for deliverables. I would like to start generating a timeplan for creation of these over Christmas, and think once I've chosen my idea, it would be a good time for a crit, and so will ask around over the next few days to see if anyone wants to meet up sometime during the holidays, just for a couple of hours, to talk about work and present the idea so far. If any of you are reading this and are interested, please post a comment!!

Interactive Magic

I just participated with an interactive magic trick, on this site and then the computer read my mind! Logically, I can see how this was done (I won't tell you in case you want to try...but I'll post it as a comment below, so you can click if you want to see) but it was still pretty interesting. Have a go yourself. The trick is called 'Psycho Test'

TUTORIAL WTH DANIEL PRYDE JARMAN - notes

I talked through my three key ideas with Daniel and identified that my favourites are ‘two’ (intersperson interaction) and ‘three’(interactive book). He suggested that three seems a bit too similar to the last project because of some of the technologies I mention such as e-paper. I don’t fully agree with this, as the emphasis would not be on the technologies used, but on the idea of having an object that seems like ‘old’ media- not very interactive, being surprisingly interactive and becoming ‘new’. However, I too agree it might not be the best direction to go in, as I feel I have more material and ideas to use with option two. Daniel suggested research areas for both idea one(memory/time travel) and two, but I think all would be relevant to two, as I have not totally eliminated the idea of incorporating a memory theme into idea 2. I am going to look at all these areas and develop some new variations to the ideas I have already proposed, from which I will pick one to start working on the deliverable for at the end of the Christmas break/start of week five. I like the idea of not just presenting my work on screen as a proposal, but also perhaps creating it for real if possible and filming people using it (if it is an installation) I will see how my ideas develop and start to consider presentation/deliverable over Christmas.

Comments from Dan / Research to look at-

- Guy Debord – Society of the Spectacle
- Situationist Theory
- Deriva
- Churchill quote: “We design buildings, but then they design us’
- Be productive I games. Don’t just have a threat to defeat
- Systems between people
- Limitations between people
- Geo-caching
- Pervasive gaming
- Psycho-geography
- Blast Theory (Day of The Figurines)

Ideas not to forget....

At the end of the project, it would be a good idea to write a glossary of all the new theoretical words I have learnt and my own explanations of what they mean. Also, because I am finding lots of refernces to research I have already done (names/theories/subjects) in new research that I am doing, I should make my sketchbook more interactive in a way similar to early interactive books, by putting 'See page ?' by each mention of something I have already looked at, or will look at in the future. Will be quite time consuming but tie in well with the theme 'interaction', and make it easier to read and fun!

For all you mac-lovers....

I just discovered a really useful shortcut in Word. If you hold the apple key down and then click your cursor once in the middle of a word, it will auto-select that whole sentance for you. Saves time on making sure you manually select the whole sentance and nothing else when you want to copy a quote.

SELF EVALUATION

SUMMARY OF WEEK THREE / GOALS FOR WEEK FOUR


This week I have been mainly looking back through my work so far and re-organizing my filing of it all. This has helped me to gain a self-awareness of where my strongest research lies and what my best ideas are. After having a tutorial with Daniel Pryde Jarman at the end of this week, and taking into account my ideas for the dissertation and conversations that I have had with Michael and some of the guest speakers, I have decided on the topic of ‘interperson interaction’, and am going to spend this next week (which technically will be only 4 days…my ‘weeks’ are more periods of time that start on a Wednesday because of the date we began the project. I will alter this after the Christmas vacation so that week five begins on the Monday.) doing some specific research to advance my knowledge in this area, based on some tips given to me by Daniel in my conversation with him. I will also take a closer look at the tv show Knightmare which has been of influence to my development of ideas, but has only been mentioned in my blog thus far, and start generating specific, developed ideas for my final piece. I will also read through and make notes on the excerpts from texts that I have this week photocopied, and start looking at the issue of interactive design architecture and principles.


SELF EVALUATION OF PROGRESS SO FAR

I have still not started putting examples of visual research on my blog, which I should be doing, and will aim to start soon. My research is very strong, and I have started looking at counter arguments for issues I research and developing my own ideas. I am also aware of the fact that soon out ‘Client Proposal’ project will start and am keeping an eye open for work opportunities.
I have started generating a lot more research for my dissertation this week, but feel I should be further along with this. I am confident though that I can have a detailed essay structure/plan written up by the end of the Christmas holidays, and am currently doing some reading for that. I want to have sorted out my question by the time we break up. Once my structure is written up I will be able to write a draft fairly quickly I think (as my blog indicates, I enjoy to write), it is just the starting and evaluating what material to use and what not to, and which themes would be best to discuss that is what takes the time. This is what I will spend the Christmas vacation concentrating on doing.

Thoughts Regarding The Disseration

One week left of term. Getting a bit worried. Had a plan for myself to get my research together, and get an essay plan done over Christmas. Now there is rumoured talk of having a first draft done over Christmas, something I had envisioned working on from January until roughly the middle of Febuary. I think I can pull together some of the research I've been doing and get a detailed essay plan done, with a specific question and argument outlined, and themes to discuss and a conclusion all planned out by the end of the Christmas holiday, and will work hard to get a first draft finished by the middle/end of January. I do not want to rush this though, because I think that would be quite harmful to it's development. I have been keeping interesting texts for my research folder, so I do not feel it is something that needs me to suddenly rush into action, as I have decided now to go with the topic of relationships between humans and computers, and have alot of material in my blog already that I want to use. Some interesting ideas I think I might want to address in my dissertation and wish to research further before I start writing or turn my topic into a specific question will include cyberfeminism, cybernation, cybernetics, walter benjamins 'the age of mechanical reproduction', interaction theories, anthropomorphism, and cultural differences in relationships with technology.

Evolution of the project- trying to choose one of three main ideas....

I've been thinking alot this past week about the difference between 'art' and 'design' in interactive media. I don't want to get too caught up in this thought, because it is such a vast topic/discussion, and I want to start focussing more detail on my actual concept development, however this question mark is creeping up in my decision making regarding how to move forward because alot of my research and ideas for installations could fall under the category of 'art' rather than 'design', yet considering my on-going development, I feel I ought to be focussing more on 'design', because of the career path I want to pursue. But then I think, this year is about exploring and being open to new ideas, and I am enjoying that because gaining a wider understanding can feed really well into my knowledge of interactive design

So, what I am thinking is that I might create an installation, and that would fall under the category of art becuase it will be very idea led, but will hopefully convey alot of meaning derived from what I have been learning, but will also be relevant to my aspirations for a career in interactive design, because it will use interactive technologies and I will look in detail at userability, and the way I present my information. I am going to look at (possibly touchscreen based) installations, but use standard design principles that are applied to the web to help with it's development. One way I could do this is to set myself a more exact brief fom a supposed client, perhaps a museum, and approach the final product in the way I would need to if I were actually working in an interactive design company. I could create a proposal for the actual installation, and use the computer to create some working elements to demonstrate how it would work, and an animated overview of the space.

Over the last week I have also been reveiwing my research ideas, and identified four areas that have been constant and re-inventing themselves throughout my whole project. They come under these headings:

1- Memory and Time Travel -how a collection of objects can be interpeted by each person in a unique, personal way that relate to memory and cause a feeling of time travel due to the thought patterns activated by the brain)
keywords: Memory / time travel / eisentstein / montage / science /brain / thoughts / personal / unique

2-Interperson Interaction -an installation that gets people to work together to get the best experience. Possibly an installation that uses people to show how freedom of thought does exist and should not be dwarfed by an authors own ideas....will play with the ideas surrounding control/freedom in interactive media. mental interaction would be a huge factor to consider, possibly a game installation with people as players and pieces, trust would be a big theme.
keywords: people / social interaction / barthes- death of the author / teamwork / games / psychology / control / freedom / ideas / individuality/ mental engagement

3-Interactive Book - an installation that uses an existing (preferable really old) storybook and makes it seem magical through use of interactive technologies and breaking of the fourth wall. Would have sensors in the pages, and also somehow behave differently with different people. Possibly could be a touchscreen book made from e-paper(if that is possible) which allows for diverse choices in plot. The space would somehow mirror the themes/landscape of each page, and would make the user feel like they were IN the book. Turning the page would change the surrounding landscape. Could even be possible that the user can talk to the characters in the pages. OR an interactive digital book on screen, where you can't proceed to the next page, until you've solved a problem on that page... the solution would make the button apparent.
keywords: mental interaction / magic / children / espen areseth / digital storytelling / non linear narrative / pyschical interaction / ubiquitous computing / cybernetics / physical interaction

I'm so keen on all these ideas that choosing one is quite a task. I think I've narrowed it down to either 2 or 3, and am aiming tol make my final choice by the end of Tuesday(tomorrow) so I can get a structured idea of what to get done over the Christmas vacation, and how long I can develop the idea before I need to get practical and producing the deliverables.

If you have any thoughts on what sounds best, please tell me!

Reaction to Systems Theory text

What I took Systems Theory to mean, based on the text:

Systems theory is the idea that any system can be transferred to any group/medium. For example, key ideas or laws from physics systems can be applied to the workings of computers, and in the case of this text, this idea is being used to create systems aesthetics, a system thats allows us to judge a piece of work that is fair to it's context and media, but can be applied to all art/media. The writer suggests this can be done in three ways:

1- Looking first at the way a piece of work relates to the audience it is aimed at. (sociological context)
2- Looking at the piece of work in relation to other works of a diverse, post-modern nature. (i.e, not just looking at paintings when your judging a poster, but looking also at new medias such as digital imaging)
3- Using a flexible definition of New Media to judge it by (because new media is so diverse and constantly evolving that it is unfair to poinpoint certain aspects of it to define)

Inspirations derived from the text

I did not find the text very engaging or inspirational, however I did take an idea from the writers remarks about radical new technologies/media/objects becoming quite old quite quickly and the retrospective way people look at them. The idea is to take an old(it can be an old 'new media') media, and examine the way it was perceived at the time, the way is is perceived now, and look at ways to update it, and make it new again, applying interactive features if it has none, or updating them if it does already.

I also made note of the word 'hermeneutics' which was used not in the text, but in the class discussion of the text, quite frequently. I looked up this term, and discovered that-

'hermeneutics involves cultivating the ability to understand things from somebody else's point of view, and to appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook. Hermeneutics is the process of applying this understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts and symbolic artifacts (such as art or sculpture or architecture), which may be either historic or contemporary' [from http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermenutics"]

This is an idea that ties in quite well with one of my own ideas of exploring relationships between people and teamwork in interactive installations. Using interactive installations to get people to understand one another could be a way forward with the project.........

theory texts

I was just doing a google search for the exact name of a piece of text I wanted to recommend to someone, and stumbled upon a list of media theory texts. Reading through, I have picked out a list that I want to read over this year, some for this project, some for my dissertation, and some just for my own development and knowledge. The annoying thing is, one I found whilst searching cam up in google without an author. I THINK it may be Lev MAlovich, and will have a look at his books in the library to see if it is his: "From Participation to Interaction: Toward the Origins of Interactive Art." If anyne knows for sure, please let me know!

The list of texts I want to read, and some of you may also enjoy, are:

Aarseth, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1997.
Braidotti, Rosi. "Cyberfeminism With A Difference."
.
. "Memory: Hologram of Desire." Lucille Nelson, Trans. Trivia 13 (Fall 1988): 42-47.
Brown, Julian. Minds, Machines and the Multiverse: The Quest for the Quantum Computer. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.
. "Becoming...an Introduction." Becomings: Explorations in Time, Memory and Futures. Ed. Elizabeth Grosz. Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1999. 1-11.
---. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism . Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994.
Hamilton, Sheryl. "Thoughts on Cyberfeminism." Maid in Cyberspace. 12 July 2000.
.
Hovagimyan, G.H. "Notes on Immersion."   08 April 1998.             .
Kirschenbaum, Matt. "Truth, Beauty and the User Interface: Notes on the Aesthetics of Information." 1997.
Kluitenberg, Eric. "The Politics of Cultural Memory." Online posting. 21 July 1999. Nettime. 21 July 1999. .
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Toronto: Signet, 1964
Malloy, Judy. "Hypernarrative in the Age of the Web." 
 (1998).
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Feminism & Film Theory. Ed. Constance Penley. New York: Routledge, 1988. 57-68. _______(read this already but want to read it again)
-. "100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism." 1997. 13 June 2000. 
.
The Object of Post-Criticism." The Anti-Aesthetic . Ed. Hal Foster. New York: The New Press, 1998. 83-110. [1983]
VNS Matrix. "Cyberfeminist Manifesto."   . 08 Jan 2002.
Wertheim, Margaret. The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.
Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine. 2E Cambridge: MIT, 1961. [1948]
"The Future is Femail." Online posting.18 Sept 1998. Nettime. 18 Sept 1998.
.

Cybernation to Interaction: A Contribution to an Archaeology of Interactivity

Doing reasearch for my dissertation, I came across a brilliant piece of text, called 'Cybernation to Interaction: A Contribution to an Archaeology of Interactivity, by media research Erkki Huhtamo. As the title may suggest, it is also of relevence to this project. It ties in really well with the text we just read as a group by David Marshall, and looks into where the roots of some existing theories about interactivity lie. I'm only halfway through so far, but found it gives a great explanation of the difference between "automatic machines" and "automation"(which later was given the new name of cybernation), and the ideas it discusses on this subject can be eaily applied to the idea of interactive media being about empowering the user. The term cybernation is an alteration of the word automation and it also comes from the idea of cybernetics. The reason for this change can best be summed up with a quote:


The demarcation line between mechanization and automation was never as clear as its spokesmen wanted to make one believe. This can be discerned even from Bagrit's scruples about using the word: "I am dissatisfied with it, because it implies aucornaticicy and automaticity implies mechanization, which in its turn implies unthinking, repetitive motion, and this . . . is the exact opposite ofautornati~n."~~Sit Bagrit preferred the word "cybernation," because "it deals with the theory of communications and control, which is what genuine automation really is."" The word "cybernation" had been used before-for example, by Donald N. Michael-to refer to "both auto- mation and computer^."^^ Although Michaei justified the use of the new word (derived from Norbert Wiener's concept cybernetics....


So, cybernation is basically about the idea of computers adapting themselves to human needs, rather than humans enslaving themselves to the computers.

The text is mainly relevent to my ideas on the dissertation which I am writing an essay plan for now, but I will be copying it over to my workbook for this project too, because I think it ties in really well with everything we've been discussing in class.
It also talks about Marshall McLuhans ideas on mechanization, so if that interest you, have a look at it!

I really recommend this text to anyone interested in interactive theory, particularily the ideas surrounding human/machine relationships, or mechanization in the industrial age! Brilliant read!

Plan of action: pulling my research and ideas together

In response to my chat with Ellie, I have decided to hold off doing anymore research for a week, unless I find inspirational material in which case I will certainly save it, but I'm not going to source stuff out, as I think I need to take some time to go through the materialI have already generated and start deciding where to go from here. I will write up all my most favoured ideas in one document, and start to analyze which one(or two) will be best to proceed with, and set myself some boundries regarding what new developed research I will need to generate, and what decisions I will need to start making to develop my idea and make it more informed and mature. One way of doing this will be by writing up what each piece of research has taught me and what I have taken from it, something I normally do at the end of a project to show I have not just stuck stuff in without reading it properly. It will have the benefit for me in this case, if I do it now, of letting me re-fresh everything in my mind, and clarify where my keenest interests and knowledge would be best chanelled in terms of my varied and instinctive, research reactive, whim-y ideas.

Control/Freedom- a symbyotic relationship?

This morning we had a class debate over author control and the empowerment of the media, and what a huge issue this is in interactive theory. My perspective, although it is an obviously big issue in interactive theory, is that it seems to invoke only one way of thinking about control- that it is bad. This might not be the case, but judging from all the material I've seen so far, that idea seems to seep through. That bothers me, becuase I think sometimes control can be a good thing. It's all about balance.

[ At this point my post was saved, and I incorporate the point I was going to make below in my section- 'Talk with Ellie Rees' ]


Guest Speaker: Ellie Rees - influential points from lecture

'Context is what makes art, art, and non-art, non-art'
'Context is everthing'
'Fine art depends on the artists intentions'
'Ellie Rees likes to control the way her work is presented because to change it's context changes it's meaning'


Talk with Ellie Rees
I've just been talking to Ellie Rees about her perspective on the project, and discovered it was quite refreshing to re-cap over everything theoretical I've been learning with someone who doesn't know much about it. My motivation for having a chat with her came mainly from something she said in class, about wanting to have control over the way her work was seen, and it being for the reason that if it was seen in a different way, it will change the meaning(to a point at least). I found this an intelligent perspective on the issue of control.

As I said earlier, it seems that alot of what I'm reading and hearing is geared towards an argument on whether freedom exists in new media or whether all is controlled because of it's set boundaries. I still personally think that all forms of old or new media has a degree of freedom, in the sense that the user/reader/viewer/lurker has control over their own thoughts and emotional response to the piece. Art, film, installation ect can always try and provoke certain responses, but the user always has the end say on how they react emotionally. To get back to the point, most of what I'm reading and hearing seems to stem from an idea that being controlled is a bad thing, but I don't buy into that. I think that boundaries exist for a reason, and what Ellie Rees said about her work exemplifies my point. She creates art pieces that have meaning, and she NEEDS some control over the way people view them, in order for the pieces to be true to themselves, much in the same way that the audience needs some control over their own perspectives and emotional reactions. When she tries to control the context of her pieces, she is trying to create a truer, better experience for her audience. With interactive media, I think the same can be said, to take for example a website, control exists in the from of boundaries and the author decision on where the buttons to be pressed will be, and freedom exists in the users ability to decide what order to view the pages. Yes, this freedom is a limited one, but it is for the purpose that what they are reading belongs not to them, but to the author. In a way the idea of freedom/control in new media both contradicts AND supports Barthes ideas on the death of the author. It supports it because the user is becoming the prosumer/protagonist and therefore the text/object belongs to them as an individual, but also contradicts it because it has boundaries that are set by the author/creator that allow the author/creator to still be able to claim some part of the object/text as 'theirs'.

To clarify my opinion on the control/freedom issue, I would say that yes, there is a big issue there, and yes, both arguments are valid, but I don't see it as an issue that needs any sort of resolution, and I don't side with either perspective. I think that in order for interactive media to be the most effective that it can be, 'control' needs to be a shared privilege between both the author and the audience. When either side gets too much control, it can be detrimental to either the audiences 'right(?)' to freedom, and the authors 'right(?)' to lay claim to their work.

To bring my argument out a little bit away from the world of interactive media, I would like to consider shock art. It is created by an artist who tries to provoke certain reactions in the audience. Is this really taking away the audiences freedom of emotional/mental interaction, or is it a necessary 'evil' in order to let the meaning of the pieces apparent? To a degree, people EXPECT an art work to have a meaning, part of the challenge of looking at some pieces is to identify it, and read what the author is saying, does this mean that that the shock artist is invading their thoughts by invoking a certain reaction? No. The reaction is part of the work. The artist can have an idea of the reaction they want to provoke, but free will is part of the human spirit, and their will always be individuals that react in an unexpected way, and while this is true, it cannot be said that the shock artist has total control. I think that different 'pieces', and 'medias' should all be judged on their own merits, as each type has a difference balance of power between author and user control, and this can be integral and often beneficial to both. So to me the keyword in this issue is BALANCE. It is true that in certain situations the author can impose such rigid control and manipulate mediums to try and mentally engage the user to thinking the way that they do, and that this can result in a bad thing (e.g, Hitler and propaganda in the war), but it is unfair to say that just because some individuals misuse media, that ALL media has hidden control. Context and meaning should always be taken into account, but generally speaking, I think that BALANCE OF CONTROL BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE will always come through as a positive thing.

So, to get back to my discussion with Ellie Rees, she heard what I was saying, and asked me about my ideas for the project, and basically helped me by letting me discuss my thoughts on control and clarify them in my mind, and suggested that I look at using installation to teach people that don't know much about interactive theory or interactive media about these issues, and about my own thoughts. I thought this was pretty similar to my existing idea of having an installation that explores freedom and control, and think that would be a good underpinning 'aim' for the piece. I also talked about my idea of having a screen based puzzle piece that needs mental attention to figure out how to proceed, and she pointed out I would need to make a motivation for the user apparent, something I have already noted by that idea to consider at a later point if I pursue it. Also she got me thinking that I will need to decide how 'challenging' I want the piece to be.

Basically Ellie Rees got me thinking that I have lots of idea already, and a lot of research, and that to progress I need to start making decisions so I can develop in certain areas, which I will start to do as planned at the end of the week. (Oh, she also reminded me the video artist I wanted to research earlier in the project but could not remember the name of is called Tony Oursler)

I am now very aware that the idea of control, and my thoughts of balance between author and user is a big issue for me when thinking about interactive media, and I think that I can definitely come up with alot more ideas related to this theme before I settle on one to develop.

"A New Era In Internet Shopping"....but do we really want it?

I read an article in the Metro this morning, about a virtual shopping mall, theMall.tv, that will be online in the UK next year. Skeptical, but intrigued, I looked up their website, and was dismayed to find just what I suspected....a lovely 3D space, with pretty primitive forward/left/right navigation, and shop fronts that seem to just lead to online stores. Really, what's the point? From the perspective of a busy person who can't get to the shops, and hates being caught in a crowd- 'hurrah!', but we do have this already in the form of internet shoping, with sites that let us compare product prices, see what clothes look like on avatar reps of ourselves, and let's face it, it just takes a few clicks. So why enter a virtual mall where we are bound to spend a lot longer navigating the virtual world, for essentially limited choice of dressed up links that take us to online retailers that we already have? And if you do like going to a mall, this will take away the experience of bumping into friends and having lunch while you shop, getting excercise, strolling past shop windows, feeling out the merchandise, ect. To be fair, all I saw was the promo vid, and experiencing it may prove it to be better than expected. I can see the novelty value, and the idea of being able to stroll into virtual shops with a little avatar and seeing virtual products to order, with other little virtual customers around you in a second life style environment could be very appealing to some, but sadly this is not how TheMall.tv seems to work. Still, to be fair, they do have some good points listed for it, but I guess it depends on your perspective. Personally, I'd rather steer clear...so, a new era in shopping, or not?.......what do you think? Please post a comment and tell me!

I filled in a feedback form on the site to ask a few questions, and will post their response when I get it. This is what I asked:

"What restraints will this mall have...will the doors serve as links to virtual 'stores', with 3d merchandise? Or will they be links to websites for that retailer?
Do, do the retailers pay to be here?
Why do you think this will be more beneficial than just googling a store or product and following a hyperlink? Surely it is just a more elaborate way of online shopping that will end up being more time consuming?
Are any 'mall sounds', like music/chatter/promotions heard?
What benefits do you think your product has in relation to replace person to person interaction in a real mall, and person to computer interaction in the home?"

note2self:links

to look at after class, in response to interests derived from the texts-

http://videogames.suite101.com/article.cfm/why_video_games_matter

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009442.php

http://ase.tufts.edu/gallery/shows/newmediawall.html

http://www.hf.uib.no/hi/espen/

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/cornucopia

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/393/part3/paradiso.html

Self critique of progress so far....

I have just been evaluating my progress so far in this project, and it has come to my attention that something I should be doing is demonstrating my ability to work on multiple projects. I am doing the working on multiple projects bit, but just not demonstrating so, and I will do this by blogging about other areas of my professional development, aside from just this project.

THE DISSERTATION

I am generating some research for this, but probably not enough as I should be. I have decided to focus on creating an essay plan for it over the christmas holidays, and so will make sure that I do alot of rsearch over this period. o prepare for that I will talk to a tutor in class about my ideas before breaking up next week.

CLIENT PROPOSAL

This has not yet been formally introduced but I have approached one company, whom I used to do graphic design work for, to see if they would be interested in me re designing their site, which they are unhappy with, but have not yet received an answer. I will wait to see exactly what the brief entails before making any definitive decisions.

OTHER WORK

Client:
I am about to take on some work for a man putting together a business proposal for sponsorship for his child's sporting activities, this will involve photoshop work.

Student Network Work:

I am continuing to work for Sussex Learning Network / Student Network Sussex and have just submitted a magazine advert which will be printed in XYZ magazine sometime soon. I am also about to start working on web updates for our site, which was visually designed by me and another girl, but has been in the care of another web development student for the past few months, so I could concentrate on uni work. I will now be helping with regular updates. I have also been asked by SLN to act as official photographer for the foundation degree sympoisum in Lewes in the Spring. I have also recently done work for sister company Aim Higher Sussex, in the form of a student rep at a skills fair, and going to Stenyning Gammer School to give a talk about my experience on the FdA course. From January, I will be working with the event management team at SNS to help generate promo material for the student learning event we are holding in March. That work will begin once the venue has been determined. I have also been creating the visual template for our monthly newsletter over the past month.
Our site has lot's os useful info for students mainly in lower level courses, but is worth look anyway. We also have a student forum if your interested in getting involved.

http://www.studentnetworksussex.org.uk/


Creative Catapult:

I have applied for the Creative Catapult workshops, but have not heard back yet.

DScape:

I attended Portfolio Clinic

ITV:

I did a days work experience for ITV last month which is featured here.

Personal Projects:

Sometime by the end of the year I want to re design my own site and change it from Flash to HTML/CSS.

MY SITE


Job Hunting:

I have been working on my CV and keeping an eye out for potential companies to apply to for work next year. I am going to start e-mailing and asking what they would except to see in potential candidates, so that I can prepare myself to start applying for work in May/June.

The Girlfriend Experience- unique idea or badly formed concept?

I have just looked into The Girlfriend Experiment,and realised that it was in fact something Emma DID discuss with us last year, although the name did not ring any bells when I heard it. The project is basically a game that uses real people as avatars, and you can log on a control them, although you need to gain their trust first. The project raised a couple of points for me.

To start with, I have thoughts about the way they look. The avatars are presented in their undergarments, all very basic and with arms limply at their sides, as expressionless as possible. It is a classic look of an avatar that is being customized, and has not yet been instructed how to look. This to me raised the question: 'Why?' Surely the point of computer avatars modelled on the human form is, for alot of people, to appear as human as possible. So why, then, are these actually human avatars playing down their humanity? Obviously it is to make them appear as characters in a game, but surely letting them stand more naturally, with more human expressions, would be more in keeping with the point that the avatars they are trying to look like are trying to appear as - humans. OR, maybe this is a parody of the fact, maybe the game is making a parody of computer avatars trying to be human, by making humans try to be avatars? Would not then, it be more in keeping of this idea to get the humans do to as instructed without having their trust gained first as avatars do. Avatars have no free will. Being 'tools', they are a conduit of the free will of the game creator and the free will of the game player. The avatar has no existing 'will' to speak of, becuase it does not exist beyond it's visual representation. So why then do the human avatars here get a degree of free will? It is because they are not, and cannot ever be, just tools. They will always be humans, they can act as avatars, but will never be that simplistic in nature. In the 'game' they will not do any wrongdoing, they will tell the player to leave, and the idea of gaining their trust suggests to me that this might be an experiment, the purpose of which being to get the player to start relating to computer avatars in a new way, and to bring a human set of ethics to games. We would not ask this human avatar to kill, so why should we a computer one? Because the computer universe is not real...because computer universes allow us to dispense of our agression in a way that does not harm our reality....are two reasons I hear you say, but who is to judge what reality is? Surely ANY unhappy act can be seen as a harmfull blow to our universe, cyber or otherwise...bad thoughts breed bad actions. I am digressing from the point here slightly, so to backtrack, the girlfriend experience uses human avatars and presents them as close to the same as a computer avatar is presented, perhaps for many reasons that can be pondered and argued against. Another point raised for me, beyond the presentation, is the purpose. I have touched on the idea that it could be an experiment challenging the the relationships humans form with computer avavtars, but what if it is instead challenging human to human relationships (human interaction). This could be why the element of trust and the building up of a relationship is such an important factor in it's gameplay.

Unfortunately this game only works wed-fridays, so I have not played, so perhaps experiencing it will make its purpose more evident than just reading about it and looking at images from it. Either way, I can see why it was suggested to me to look at, it is similar to Knightmare in the way that it works, i.e, having a human avatar with whom trust is an important factor. It differs however becuase there are no puzzles to solve or end goal to work towards. I really like the idea of using a human character in a computer game now, but perhaps one with narrative and obstacles, and will be looking into performance art if I decide to take this idea further.

To end, if anyone has played this game or has any differing perpsectives of it, please feel free to post a comment for me to consider/argue against/agree with/debate.

Tutorial with Micheal.....

I spoke to Michael about my project so far and the research that I have been doing, as well as a couple of the themes and ideas I have been exploring. Before noting his comments, I’ll just give a brief overview here of what that was, because I did not go into my research in full, or explain all of my ideas as detailed better in this blog.

I spoke about the following research areas:

- psychical interaction
- control/manipulation
- mental interaction
- interaction between people
- Knightmare tv show
- Non linear storylines / parallel universes

And discussed the following ideas:

- interaction between people (controlling the person as a character in a game)
- installation using montage to provoke memory related experiences
- installation using montage materials arranged in two ways, one to give free will over interaction, one to manipulate and control, to show that free will is better than control in terms of producing more beneficial experiences
- touch screen application using clues in page to mentally engage the user in figuring out how to stimulate the page and proceed to the next.


RESPONSE:

Michael fed back some of my ideas to me in a way I had not considered/been aware of. I am thinking a lot about using installations to experiment on people and prove a point. He says that I sound like I have an opinion on issues such as free will and control in interaction, and could perhaps be exploring differing opinions or thinking about ways of communicating that to prove my point, however, I do not really have a set opinion….I have read a lot of texts and can see a lot of peoples different points of view. If I HAD to choose, I would say that it can be dangerous to use the media to manipulate public opinion, but I wouldn’t say it’s always wrong. His comment made me wonder….am I falling into the trap I have been reading about, of mistaking other people’s ideas as my own? Am I just voicing what I’ve been reading into my ideas rather than judging different sides and drawing my own conclusions? I don’t think this is true, it is still early and my research is quite wide ranging, but I think these are points I should come back to and consider when formulating my main idea to develop. I certainly will come back to the idea of using installation to prove a point or explore a point. One that comes to mind is that ‘interaction between people is good’, which is another comment Michael took my words to mean, though it was not my intent, but perhaps, it could be a theme to pursue, and use installation to prove. Other comments included suggestions to research ‘The girlfriend experience’, the argument that maybe it is not actually possible to completely remove freedom of thought, the artist Lorenzo Hemerr (who created an installation where light would beat at the same rhythm as the hearts of the people watching), and Deleuze’s ideas of repetition. One area I forgot to mention was my research into the fourth wall, and the idea of breaking it, which is something I am going to consider in more detail.

Brain Overload....

Got alot of research now, it's going to take me a full week to read through it all fully and commentate and draw ideas from it. Got loads of ideas just from skim reading things. Alot of the feedback has been really thought provoking too. As has looking at other peoples blogs and giving them feedback. I made one comment about a show called Knightmare that has been echoing in my mind since I made it. The show is about 15 years old, and was about a dungeon master, a fantasy world, and groups of kids who would have quests in the world, which was a VR simulation. One kid would wear glasses and see parts of the wolrd, and his team members would watch on the screen and have acess to extra perspectives, and would guide him through the puzzles and offer help. There would be monster like bad guys, like evil wizards, out to sabotage you in the virtual world, and it was a really immersive game. Anyway, recalling it has got me thinking more about the idea of using the computer just as a tool, like so many texts I have read suggest, and placing ephasise on person to person interaction, so that people have to work together to get full use from some sort of interactive installation game. A bit like Sohelia spoke about last term, except I'm thinking of a more fantastical environment rather than robotic, or even no environment at all, just some sort of mentally challenging puzzle. I've also been thinking about the idea of forcing your opinions on another, and having them mistake the ideas as their own, another point made in a lot of the texts I've read recently (although I've looked at so many they are all beginning to blur in my mind- will be re-reading in full with lots of note making next week!), and was re-enforced by a comment in a Carlos Casteneda text that was recommended to me, about why forcing your ideas onto another is a bad thing. I have come up with a couple of ideas related to these ideas, to do with stories told through montage installations and lighting that guide one user to follow a certain narrative, but then using exactly the same images and lights, re-arrange the materials to be more mysterious and allowing of multiple narratives. It would need to work so that both users have someway of comparing experiences afterwards, but would explore the idea of how physically non-interactive materials can be arranged to really provoke mental interaction, dependant on the way they are presented, and how the user who could get the most mental interaction would benefit more and have a better experience than the user that couldn't. Perhaps this could even be in the form of a website where the user is asked to choose one 'portal' from the splash page, and then at the end reaches a forum where they can interact with others and discuss the experience. I'm thinking on my feet a bit here, as I find this blog most effective for typing out my ideas as they come to me, and then working them out in workbook, partially becuase all the feedback I've gotten so far has inspired me in one way or another.

However, time planning concern, by about Wednesday I think I'm going to stop sourcing out loads of research/inspirations for a bit, and review all my ideas and research so far, to figure out what direction to go in for the final idea, and start to develop/research it in more specific detail, although I'll keep an open mind the whole way towards change, I just think I need to give myself a little time to let what I have been inspired by and researched so far to sink in a little and brew, and it would be good to write more structured report/essay for my work book about what I have learnt about interactivity so far, because it's such a vast amount!

note2self-print later

http://www.sushu.de/free/PDArt_Su_Schuricht.pdf>
http://slippingglimpse.org/>
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson/>

Brainwave...

...new idea. Have been drawn recently to the idea of parellell universe and quantum physics, becuase it reminds me of the idea of interaction between non linear narratives in animation, as I have demonstratede in previous posts. Have been questiong whether I'm going to far off subject by thinking about it though. Now I'm reassured that it's okay to let the mind wander, because that idea has lead to the discovery of an article about 'Mental Time Travel'. The articlke is about how seeing something from our opast can trigger brainwaves that we have experienced in the past, essentially, we re-live the past in our brain. I think this would be a great idea for an interactive exhibit. The creation of something that produces a user to time travel in their own thoughts.
(This is not my 'idea', just ONE of MANY....I'm still researching!)

Discussion with Lucy Irving

I spoke with Lucy about my experiments with IQ testing the chatbot ALICE in reference to the Chris Crawford text, and she suggested that I look into 'The Chinese Room Argument', and 'The Turing Test'. The later is a way of measuring intelligence that I have looked at before, which I will do if I decide to create something that uses AI, or mental interaction, but will leave alone for the time being. The first I had not heard of, but after a little research discovered that it is abouit the computer being a tool in the mind, and the idea that they could one day think. Have only glanced at the article I found, but will read through it fully over the next week.

Also, we discussed the idea of getting together in a small group with others and having a mini-crit about our ideas sometime next week, maybe one lunch time or otherwise in class whenever it is possible. So, if your reading this and are interested...post a comment!

Discussion with Sarah Strickett

Today Sarah Strickett spoke to us about her animation work. In the afternoon session I spoke with her about my ideas for the project, to be specific, I said that I'm enjoying the theories behind interaction, and the ideas of playing with mental and physical interaction. Also I spoke about my idea of having a book that interacts someway, perpaps with sensors in the pages that trigger animated projections, maybe with a web camera in it. I like the idea of breaking through the 'fourth wall', and looking deeper into it. I asked if she knew of any interactive animation I could look at, but she didn't. What she did suggest was that I look at the film 'Being John Malkovich', becuase of the way it plays with realities, she said my explanation of the fourth wall to her reminded her of it becuase it's about walls between fantasy and reality. I will look into it.

End of week one. Progress so far....

We're about a week and a day into the project, and I've got quite a bit of research and a range of conceptual ideas so far. I'm enjoying the theory side of it alot, and am going to spend the next week continuing to research anything interactive realted over the next week that interest me, perhaps arranging my research into categories...'web interaction'....'game interaction'.....'installation interaction'...'psychical interaction'..........'mental interaction'....ect, I have ideas that fall into all these categories, and I'm enjoying being open minded about where the project could go and brainstorming lot's of ideas. I think at the end of next week though, or in two weeks at least, I should start to focus on one conceptual idea, and begin to develop it.

Some of my research so far has included relating Chris Crawfords ideas on the threee key elements of conversation, 'listening', 'understanding', 'speaking', and asking ALICE about his ideas. She did not know. She also failed. She said she had a human IQ, but I tested her with a question from an actual IQ test, and she failed to comprehend the question. So, clearly ALICE does not fit in with CC's ideas as well as she is meant to.

This week I am also going to examine the idea of the forth wall and identify whether breaking it is actually a good thing or not. The microsoft paperclip in word does begin to break it, by confronting the user, and most people hate it. I am going to examine in whatcases NOT breaking through the forth wall could make the interactive experience better.

Ultimately, I am still most interested in creating some sort of interactive installation that does break the fourth wall, and plays around with the ideas of mental(or 'emotional') interaction and physical interaction. Howeve, I want to learn as much as I can about general interaction before I focuss on this task ,and give myself the option of going in another direction.

Idea Generating Exercises

Ok, so, I spoke earlier about some of the ideas I'd developed from the digital storytelling text we were all asked to read. Now we've been asked to do the excersises, which I already read through and those are what inspired me to develop those ideas. To be more specific, here are my responses to the questions:


1: What traditional ritual have you participated in that reminds you of an interactive narrative?
Pantomine- actors address audience, you address them- similar to digital tv shows that tell you to 'press the red button', to interact with the show and vote ect.
Kids puzzle books- your meant to solve puzzles on the page for the character, so it can proceed to the next page. quite mentally engaging for kids in a fiction al way- similar to computer game.

2: What game or sport have you played that could be adapted tp a form of iinteractive entertainment?
Chess- a computer game. Sounds basic, but I'm thinking of having it from the perspective of ONE piece, so you don't see the whole board, and have to work as a team with other pieces, perhaps as an online group game. would excerise the mind and induce interperson-interaction ( teamwork!)

3: What work of trad. storytelling have you read that has a narratve technique that could be aplied to digital media?
The Jane Austen Book Club (book) compares a number of characters to different Jane Austen books, telling their tales over time as the group meet, discuss and grow via flashbacks, Jane Austen quotes, and present day plot. It would make an excellent film, following the goings on of different people, and cutting it up to reveal the plot from different peoples perspectives. But altering the question to relate to Int.Media, I would say perhaps developing a DVD only bersion of a film, where you select the charcter you want to view the whole perspective of the plot from. Would be quite weak interaction though, mainly just one choice you can make, but would lead to altered perceptions of the media. wouldn't really work out though for finanical reasons. If all tv started being filmed from every angle, so many sub-plots would dvelop that it wouldn't be worth watching.

4: Describe how hyper text can deepen the characterization of a character.
Pretty obivous answer- links. Press on a name, go to a page about them. Wikipedia does it as do alot of other sites. To dwell on this a bit though, I think it is a shame that this idea of fictional characterization isn't a bit more exploited comercially. On Home and Away, if you miss an episode, you can go to the online blog of one of the characters- 'Sallys Blog' and read about the episode from her perspective (or at least used to be able to. Not certain if it still exists) This sort of idea doesn't break the fourth wall of interactivity, but I think it get's close, as the blog is being written and directed at the audience. It is a nice idea to build up a charcter online, and really give them an identity, and I think that this could be used more to generate interests in tv shows and films.

5: Can you think of any work of traditional entertainment that breaks the 4th wall? How could this be done in Int.M?

This question brings to mind a cartoon where a little boy would draw a perons or animal each epsidoe with chalk and the character would come to life and they would have an adventure. Not really breaking the 4th wall, but the idea within it is that the little boy is interacting with his drawings. Also, I am reminded of a book about a boy that has a character come out of a book, and has to convince him to go back and end the story. Think the boy then goes itno the book. These kind of magical experiences always seemed appealing to me when I was young, and I think modern interactive media is really making experiences like that seem possible, making everything in old media such as tv shows more lifelike. I'm not really answering the question here, just noting down thoughts related to the project that the questions has sparked in me. I really like the thought of making a plain book into a much more interactive object.


And finally.....
a little off subject of the text, but the idea of narrative has reminded me of a tv show I watched the other day on quantum physics, about the man who invented the theory of paralell universes and hopw they work. To recap extremely sketchily, because I'm not so sure on the specifics myself, and didn't agree with his ideas exactly, he developed a scientific idea that atoms can be in two places at once, and addressed a scientific problem about a cat in a box. If some of the atoms that form poisen react one way, the cat dies, if they react another, it lives. The spectator cannot see in the box, so it is plausible that both things happen. The cat is both dead and alive at the same time. It prompts a paralell universe. Every tiny change in the world prompts an inumerable number of them. I'm not explaining the theory too well, but that's beside the point. The whole idea of paralell universes makes me think of DVD's that offer us multiple endings, or games where we can do one thing, but know other people may be doing something else at the same time in the same game. I'm sort of typing as I'm thinking here, but I think exploring the concept of parallel universes could produce some ideas for digital narratives to use with my ideas for this project.

Digital Storytelling

So, this past week has been spent mainly researching and scribbling down rough ideas. Haven't really developed or stuck with any. Still got lot's of research leads and want to keep an open mind a little longer. I'm a bit confused too as to whether it's okay to develop a 'concept' or an interactive object/installation, and then create an animation to show how it would work, which is what I'd most like to do. Perhaps making the animation a bit like a powerpoint in the sense that you click to slide onto the next step of the animated explanation or something. If we have to create the fully finished object, then I won't be able to create a lot of my ideas as some are installations or would be v.expensive to buy the materials(like a touch screen pane!) so I would need to change the way I'm thinking a bit. Will ask tutors about that this week.


Sat up quite late last night doing the reading for today. Really enjoyed it. Found it really inspiring. Had hoped to do extra research to prepare for class and read up on some of the leads I picked out, but sadly don't have the time. I will look into them after class, they include:
William Burroughs,
James Joyce, and
Eastgate systems.
I really enjoyed 'Digital Storytelling' and am quite keen on the idea of exploring an 'old' medium, like a book, and turning it into a 'new' interactive medium in some sort of installation, somehow draining the persons mentally into the story, but also getting them to hold it physically. I did the idea generation exercises included, and they really opened my mind up. I recalled puzzle book I had as a child, similar to 'Where's Wally' but more complex, where the character could not proceed to the next page until you'd solved a problem for him/her. I'm going to dig them out if I still have them, and consider creating some sort of digital version of this, in a an animation, or the book idea I just mentioned. I think it might be quite fruitful to look at lot's of old mediums, and examine the 'schwerpunkt' of them, and then try and alter this or make it digitally interactive somehow.

Also, I really like the term ' fourth wall of interactive media' coined in the third text, and I like the type of interction it is referring to. I hope to create something that breaks through this wall.

note2self: check this out later-

http://www.mentalmodels.com/

Note to self- print this later

http://www.diss.sense.uni-konstanz.de/ostweb/manovich.htm

Weird Interactive Site

The below link is to a site that is a sort of story that gets the user to navigate the site by choosing pictures and words... I don't hink it's particularily amazing, and the content is pretty bad quality, but it's a good example of interactive 'web art'
http://www.teleportacia.org/war/wara.htm
It is by Olia Lialina, and it was recommended to look at in a Lew Manovich essay I was reading on Russian New Media.

Talk with Alastair MacDonald (Kerb programmer) - notes

I asked Alastair MacDonald about audience engagement in interactive media, and if he had created any games that incorporate sensors or physical interaction. I also told him about my reactions to the brief so far. Comments he made in our conversation are:

He has not incorporated physical interaction in games, but has in installations and other bits and pieces.

He talked about a piece of work that used floor mats and connections to the mouse that meant the feet were using to click rather than the hand.

He confirmed that it is possible to have the user in the work using web cams and code that allows for motion sensors, and that I should look for free code on the internet, because it might be too complicated. He gave me this link relating to it-

www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/webcam_motion.html

Also, when asked about control in terms of who has it, user or creator, he said that although there are boundaries, it can also be said that there are physical boundaries such as the keyboard and screen itself that can be considered, and that making things happen that are unexpected can be a great way of making something successful, and humorous.


Thoughts /Inspirations gained from the talk:

It is encouraging to know that it could be possible in this project to create some sort of interactive installation, such as a flash based application that allows the user control in the sense that they can bring something totally unique and individual to the interactive experience they, well, experience.

It also got me thinking about the idea of having an installation that has the computer screen embedded in a screen, and allows the user to explore beyond the boundaries of the screen, and navigate the space around it, perhaps having a projection of an extended screen. Or perhaps a humorous approach could be a ‘behind the scenes’ sort of projection around the edges so you veer off into a dark, mechanical space with lots of matrix style code where odd things happen to the cursor.

It also got me wondering if I can get an old mouse or joystick or keyboard or sound or microphone and experiment with hooking it up to interact. I will have a look over the next week at bits and pieces and explore ideas regarding this.

Also this talk prompted an idea about creating something that uses a touch screen to get the user to mentally figure out how to proceed to the next page of a website/program. i.e, parents use blocks and shape holes in a box to encourage learning in children, and I like the thought of having to stimulate the page in a certain way, so you have to touch it in a variety of places or with a certain shape, to proceed, and the clues are within the page, so the user has to interact mentally to proceed. (would need ideas on what to make as an incentive to do so). This also led onto thoughts about an interactive puzzle, as it’s quite similar, and the idea that the tv show ‘lost’ is quite interactive, because to get the most you can from it, you have to really be alert and observant. There are so many connections between characters in thier flashbacks that when I watch it with my family we almost turn it into a game, trying to observe all of them, and pause and rewind to watch them because as individuals, we can never notice them all alone, it is watching in a group that means we all get more from the experience. It has turned into a whole web movement, almost, lost connections websites and people theorizing what all the weird clues could mean. They even advertised fake products in the show that people looked up. EVERYTHING is becoming interactive. EVERY media is encouraging user participation. MENTALLY.

Jumbled thoughts (but pretty important ones)

Am starting to research the brief. Have read an interesting Manovich essay on Totalitarian Interactivity which examines pseudo-interactive games among other things, and how even the most interactive applications that seem to allow for free will, such as games where you can control your character, have boundries, because everything that you can do, has been pre-written by the creator. The space has been created by another person, and all the options haave had boundries drawn. Every decision that you CAN make, has had the tools created by the creator. Similarily, websites are all narrow in terms of the choices a user has in terms of navigation. An argument against this can be taken from Barthes Death of the Author, in the sense that a reader interacts with websites and goes from site to site, reading texts in a way that only they can decide to do. They can take snippets here and there, writing there own text, in a sense, although I think exploring readerly/writerly texts might be going a little off subject here. But it brings to mind the idea that perhaps free individuality in interactivity can exist becuase the user had their own perceptions and reeactions that can be provoked by the creator ( in the sense of shock art installations perhaps) BUT the user will always have their OWN inner view of a work. In a way evrything can be interactive, in the sense that a user reacts mentally.
To start researching this project on a deeper level, I want to try and explore what 'interactive media' actually is. So....initial thoughts.....

basic interactive applications: touch screen: kiosks/dvds/websites/computers/software/games/virtual reality

more thought out examples of interactive media:
interactive installations (camille utterback)- these can allow the user to have a unique effect on the way a work actually appears. This could include using sensors to alter works based on users movements, or cameras to place the user into the piece.
the set-up of a piece of work: this could be done in a way that forces the user to observe the work in a certain way, e.g, projected on the ceiling(forces user to crane neck upwards..perhaps the projection of a piece could move so that then the user has to move themselves, and interact wihg the piece, to see the end)
3d glasses like the ones seen in the grande parade exhibition yesterday, would cause the user to interact with their movements(physical interactivity) to bend down and see the piece properly through the glasses.
mental interaction i.e, works that force the user to engage mentally

These are just a few ideas running throught my brain, not fully thought out in terms of how the ideas could be applied to this project yet, although I do like the idea of having something unusual, and not relying on just have a basic mouse clicking interactive applications. I'd like to go in the direction of forcing the user to interact either mentally with a storybook type animation, or to interact physically, perhaps using some kind of touch screen or cameras or sensors if it is possible for this project.

Other extremely random thoughts:

Digital mirrors. (as theorized by Ian Pearson from BT and loooked at in the last project) When these exist(I think a prototype already does) they will really encourage physical interactivity in the sense that users will be using eye movement, projections and psychical actions to interact with the mirror in a digital way.

Leading on from that.....I'm going to try and not let my ideas in this project get too theoretical, and keep the idea of digital media in mind. For example, psudeo interactivity (the theory that mental interaction can be applied to ANYTHING) is such a vast subject and I could really explore it, BUT, at the same time, I don't think doing a painting and then arguing about how it's interactive because it's forcing the user to interact mentally is going to be the right outcome for this project. Not that I'm suggesting there is a defined 'right outcome', but I think the project is asking us to look into all these ideas on interactivity, and come to some kind of synthesis of ideas that relate to digital media, since at the end of the day, that is the course we are on.

Memories- and having a digital experience that prompts the user to connect with their own memories might be a great way of demonstrating psudo interactivity, although I'd need to think alot about how to successfully approach this.

Userbility- is a VERY IMPORTANT factor in interactive media. I could approach this project in a sense that I explore these existing guidelines and restraints and try to alter/push the boundries regarding them.

Control- I could look a the project from the perspective of finding a solultion to the problem/question about exactly how in control a user is and explore ways that allow for more freedom of will. Or even create something that has the purpose of NOT allowing much freedom of will. But would that make it less interactive in a way.

-----------------------

So, as I expect this post shows, I do have a LOT os ideas, but they are all pretty jumbled, so I'm going to plan out a rough time frame for what I need to get done by when in this project, and a rough starting structure of what do research. Which I'm going to start on now.

Initial reaction to new brief

Have looked at the new brief, and will read it again in full detail later.
Thoughts off the top of my head to start with are that it looks like a project I can really get my teeth into. I like the sound of it. I like interaction design alot and I like the fact that we can choose any type of interactive media we wish. I like the thought of experimenting and pushing the boundries too. One book comes to mind to get from the library that I read in the first year, which explains interactive design principles and shows exampls of good sites and bad sites, including experimental sites that just don't work, becuase even when trying to be different, there are some design principles that always need to be considered. I will make sure I look into this issue fully, and try and determine how far I can push boundries and make my work unique without actually causing it harm in terms of userbility. I am also thinking that I would like to use after effects and dvd studio pro to create some kind of interactive animation, but no ideas exactly as to what/how. But I don't want to immediately limit myself to using computer software alone. I will give some thought as to other ways the idea of an interactive project could be perceived, such as perhaps creating something that forces the user to interact by standing in a particular way, or using their wholel body. (motion sensors?) I will look into the work of camille utterback when considering this. The thing that puts me off that idea though is that I would need to create something that shows my idea, but depending how ambitious it gets, might not be able to actually CREATE the final thing, and so would have to create an interactive demo off it on the computer perhaps, wheras I would like in this project to create a finished, complete piece. I missed one of the talks this term by Rona (surname?), but heard her speak last year, and remember her showing some work that used a camera, so the person looking at the work was actually becoming a part of it, and I'm sure she explained the setup as being quite simple. I may be able to purchase something that lets me be a bit adventurous, so I'm definately going to let my ideas run wild initially and then start to narrow them down in a couple of weeks.

Other comments.....

Enjoyed visiting the galleries this monring. Liked the grande parade exhibiton, not so much the other two, that kind of installation art isn't really my cup of tea, but I appriciate the value of learning about other areas and people pespectives, and everything in life is inspiration in one way or another.

Dissertation....

Am going to start keeping a research folder, looking at bits and pieces related to my different ideas.

Self-Evaluation of Presentation

Yesterday I gave my presentation. It did not, unfortunately, go as smoothly as hoped. I practiced it twice over the weekend to try and make sure the timing was fine, but did not allow time for technical difficulties, which I had, and so I ran over by a couple of minutes. I also feel that I read to much and did not express my enthusiasm as much as I should have. I was so determined to get all my info out there, that I think I did not fully sell just how popular my product could be. Also, I noticed most other people had a lot more content in their power point presentations, just with key-points to prompt their speech, something I felt needed to be avoided when creating my own presentation, because I was trying my hardest to put more effort into my actual idea and show I was thinking about other ways of presenting, rather than falling back on a tried but trusted method. In retrospect though, I was I had done that, because I think it's tried and trusted for a reason. If I had to present again, I would have bullet points and talk about the product more freely, and just mention that I have the research facts to back it up, and that they can be seen in the proposal, which is probably a better way of approaching it. Then I could have focussed more specifically on what it is and how it works, and why it would be popular, and summed all my other pricing/enviroment/health ect concerns into a more liberal speech, to say that they exist, but not explain their research unless asked.

However, I contained my nervousness well, I think, and I beleive that my proposal itself is very strong, thorough, well though out and considered from a range of perspectives, and I fully support and stand by my concept idea.

Portfolio Clinic

Handed in project this morning. Am going to spend rest of week doing some research for the dissertation, and re-charging my batteries for the next project.

Last night I went to the portfolio clinic at Grande Parade. It was a really useful experience. The room was quite small and dark, with lit tables packed close together, and people hovering around whomever they wished to speak to, and due to the crowded environment, I only got to see half the companies I wanted, but I saw a few others I hadn't planned on speaking to, that actually turned out to be much more useful than I had expected of the ones that I did want to see. One rep from Nixon Mcinnes took my CV to shreds and told me how to re arrange the content, and what to cut, and what to add in. She also said that the covering letter when applying for a job is almost more important than the CV itself. It was also suggested that I look into facebook, which I personally don't like, becuase if applyoing for a job with her, she would expect potential web designers to have 'experienced' all aspects of the web, and to be active about participating in it.

Everyone I spoke to agreed that A3 is the bext size for a paper portfolio, but that it would be better to stick with a digital one.

NOTE TO SELF

must check this out over reading week. might help with dissertation idea selection:

http://www.comp.rgu.ac.uk/staff/sw/stuarts_papers/theoryofmind.htm

Presentation Development

Have been re-thinking my take on the presentation. I still think 'pitching' it as a product is the best way to proceed, but have decided instead of using still images in a powerpoint presentation that I need to keep scrolling through, I will jazz it up a bit by having my three 'concept boards' play on loop as an animation, which I will create in After Effects or Flash, and then export this as a movie to play looped on a single slide in power point. This means I can have a title page, and when I'm ready to unveil my concept, will only need to press next slide once, which will allow me to concentrate on my pitch and stand away from the keyboard, in a position where I can face everyone, which I think is very important when presenting in such a verbal, formal manner.

Thoughts on the dissertation

I found the session today regarding the dissertation really helpful. Especially thinking about how someone else could approach it, because it helped me re evaluate my own ideas objectively.

I have been trying NOT to generate ideas about the dissertation so far on this course, because I wanted to wait until our first session to gain a better understanding of what is required, what limitations there are ect. I have also been worried about needing to stick exactly to the proposal I handed in at interview, because I don't really want to go down that path now. It was about challenging accessibility issues and identifying where guidelines/ principles are right/wrong and how they will develop into the future.

Thinking afresh, I have taken into account alot of comments made on the course about thinking outside of the box, pushing the limits and experimenting with other areas of design, not just areas one is especially interested in. This current project has been about the future, and has got me to think not only about media, but about other worldly factors that impact on it and shape the way different aspects of it are. Like energy, economy, psychology, science ect

I want to finish this year being able to look back on my work and see that is has led to my development in the areas I'm interested in, but also to show that I have explored new realms of knowledge and explored subjects I might not get the chance to again.

So, my three leading ideas for a dissertation are as follows:

relationships between people and technology

closely studying the way interaction works in this context, from a psychological perspective: how/why do people interact the way they do?
Also looking at anthropomorphism, what is the root of human compulsion to associate emotion to inanimate things.
japan has no fear of new technologies, some countries do though, what causes this difference? is it nature or nurture?

new technologies do not just change the world, they change the way people perceive the world

the above is a quote made in the tv show 'the genius of photography' that in context refered to a realisation prompted by the development of the camera, but I would like to see how it relates to other media, by choosing a few examples from different times in history and analysing how true/false this observation is, looking at what effects have been caused by this idea of a new perspective

wikinomics and a new era of authorship

Last year I wrote an essay on Barthes Death of the Author which I got really interested in. Since I now have a good idea of what that essay was about, I think I could happily discuss his ideas in relatiion to the idea of wikinomics, and consider the questions: who gets credited for authorship? who has the 'rights' ? I could look at the ideas of copyright and copyleft and incorporate these, too.

TUTORIAL WITH MIKE BLOW RE: PRESENTATION

Yesterday I discussed with Mike Blow my dilemma about how best to present my work. So far this project, as my idea has developed and changed, I have been working towards presenting it in different ways. At first I thought a website promoting my concept, then as I realised my concept would involve a piece of software to work with it, I decided I would create that piece of software (a look/feel of it anyway), developing the idea to consider creating pieces of software. I then decided It would be better to create a 3D model of my concept itself, but after a week trying to produce it, I decided it was better to abandon that idea, since my skills were not very good, and it made the concept look bad. Then I narrowed down my ideas, and decided again on just creating a flash ‘look/feel’ of the piece of software, but my problem is that I have such a vast amount of information to deliver ( I have created a 7 page proposal to print and hand in, explaining my concept in relation to all relevent factors such as disabilities, the environment, what countries it would sell in and why ect..) , that I think just clicking through the pages of a flash software application and describing the idea would end up hurting my concept, as I am not able to create a functioning piece of software, and if it is just a selection of look and feels, still images, like my concept image, then a power point presentation is my most obvious, logical choice so that I can really TALK about my conept. However, I want to be creative about the presentation. I have been working hard NOT to use power point, but it seem like it is the most logical and best idea, because predominately I just want to talk and ‘pitch’ my concept as a future product. I could use foam mount to display my images, but where to do so could be tricky, power point would let my just project them

Mike Blows comments were:

- To create a 3D model (physical not digital) Which I have already considered, but I explained that my photo shop mock-ups developed from this ended up looking a lot better than it would if I tried to sculpt a model.
- To invite questions about my product at the start. I replied I would rather do this at the end because I want to ‘pitch’ the idea as a product, and as the time is limited, I want to make sure I deliver all the information logically, and don’t have to repeat things.
- To envisage the audience as a sales pitch panel, and come in wearing a suit. I will definitely dress smartly, but I think a suit is a bit over the top.

Ultimately Mike agreed with my thinking that it was best for me to present my product by talking about it because I have such a clear idea of my concept, and to use power point to project the still images (I am still in the process of creating these).

I still think I might develop some sort of flyer to hand out promoting the concept as a product though, and maybe use the foam board idea to just hold up the relevant images. Then I could stand at the end of the room and face everyone at once.

Nearing end of week five - progress report

I'm now approaching the end of week five, and do realise that I haven't 'blogged' for a week and a half, which is not for lack of interest, but simply becuase my intenet connection has been playing up, and I like to use class time to take advantage of doing web research and printing.



So to summarise where I am:

I am feeling very clear minded about what I want to get done and how to achieve it. I have decided to focus my attentions on strengthening the concept rather than trying to teach myself to create a flashy 3D presentation. So, I am working on creating a rough presentation now written in word, and then I will create some visual aids in photoshop to illustrate it. Then I will get friends and family to look over it and ask critical questions, that I can then consider and compose answers to in case I am asked in the real presentation. I will then organize the information I want to deliver into either a power point presentation or a flash microsite that promotes the concept. I have now created some mock up images of my product, 2 of the 4 I have planned, and am also wondering whther or not to create a screen grab of teh software program (or 'settings') it would be supplied with, which is challenging me because it envokes the question: what will software look like in 30-50 years time? I might instead just create a site map of what options and pages would be in the software, and show how it would be organized.
I still have a little research left to do, but it is mostly complete. I plan on producing a written 'proposal' of the product to hand in along with the presentation, that will EXPLAIN the product and JUSTIFY why each design/technical desicion has been made, offering links or quotes to research 'evidence' that backs up my decisions

As for time, I hope to finish all my visual aids and and generated all content for the microsite/presentation by the start of next week(6). I am also hoping to work towards completing by the original hand in date of next Thursday, so that I have the reading week leftover in case anything goes disasterously wrong!

I would also like to note that I found the BBC4 TV show 'The genius of Photography' which is on Thursdays at 9pm, and recommend it to anyone interested in the area. It had a really great quote last week that relates to this project:

"New technologies don't just change the future, but they change the way we perceive the world around us"
I think this is a comment worth considering, becuase it has been true of many past technologies uch as photography, moving image, the internet, satellites...ect