The 'sustainable student' unfortunately didn't work when I put the website template together on photoshop. Because it was a photograph, when the banner was in dreamweaver it became pixilated and it didn't co-ordinate with the rest of the website template. including a navigation bar. i have now come up with an idea which will stick to my handmade theme, but it will be alot easier to co-ordinate now i have simplified the logo.
I am much happier with this idea because all the design elements have a sense of continuity, but still have a more handmade look. The 3d recycling symbol is from i-stock royalty free images, so in order to actually use this on my website I will need to buy the rights to use this image.
i have just become a volunteer at the New Art Exchange Nottingham. On my induction i met the two curators for the exhibitions, and found out a bit about their history. we also had an in depth talk about the artwork at the exhibitions and how to respond to any comments by the general public. we were given basic health and safety routines and even got a free lunch buffet!
How interactive design is becoming a universal language
I aim to focus my research around the recent rise in digital interactive design exhibits and artworks and its potential to become a universal language, which goes beyond written and spoken language.
The research will investigate various interaction design theories and review various interactive artworks from museums and festivals such as Ars Electronica. I will investigate how people have become accustomed to interactive devices and procedures in their everyday life so much so that different spoken language may no longer a barrier.
I will also research examples of how interactivity is used as a universal method to bridge the spoken language barriers between people as a new form of communication.
This is the original photograph i took of the motherboard with the wire wrapped around to read 'sustainable'.
I cropped the photograph to a suitable banner size:
I added 'student' to the end although i wasn't happy with the font or the colour:
I gave the 'student' text something light to be written on through copying it from another part of the photo in adobe photoshop cs3. i am much happier with the text and the colour, although there are now two pale blocks on the motherboard.
Here i got rid of the original rectangular pale block on the motherboard and filled in a similar pattern instead. This will be the final banner.
Here are some rough sketches of how i would like the section banners to look like:
As part of my travels around europe over summer, i ended up going to Ars Electronica in Austria. Before i went i had a rough idea about what it was going to be like, but i didn't realise i would learn so much from the visit.
As my time was limited i headed to the main ars electronica centre first. Here, the first exciting installation i saw was 'Humphrey 2' involving a man flying virtually through Linz. The technology was similar to a flight simulator, although the user controls the simulation. Slight arm and leg movements allow the user to glide through the city - and even under water. Various feedback from people who tested this said they did actually feel weightless as if they were flying.
Next we were called to the 'cave' by Dan Sandin. We all put on some LCD glasses and travelled through various 3D worlds, from Linz to Rome. There were three screens which emerced you in the visualisation. The technology was pretty impressive, however the graphics were sparse and i ended up feeling quite nauseous.
The 'diorama table' by Keiko Takahashi was quite fun to play with, there were various ropes and shapes that could be arranged to trigger a variety of virtual animations, such as flowers and water. The concept was that real objects could communicate with new fantasy worlds through an overhead camera. Although we didn't see this happen, apparently, if a sweet is put on to the table, the tracking system recognises the new object and an animated dog eats the sweet.
Another fun installation was the 'phantasm' by Takahiro Matsuo, and was one of my favourites in this section. The concept is simple, which I appreciated but it was aesthetically pleasing. The installation was at the back of the ars electronica centre, cordoned off by white netting. There was a red LED ball and a sensor camera above the installation. The ball could be thrown anywhere around the netting and virtual animations would follow the ball real time.
After this we made our way to another museum in the city, that claimed they could take a photograph of your eye and then when the photograph is processed with the help of technology they could visualise the last memory you were thinking of. we felt quite apprehensive about this, although this kind of technology is supposedly used on murder victims to visualise what their murderer looked like.
The camera:
The photograph of the memory:
Personally, I really don't know how they could claim that this was real, because the photograph did not trigger anything from my memory, and this was the same for my two friends i was with at the time. It was although they had a file of archive images which they then manipulated together with a photograph of our own eye to make it appear more realistic.
The next day i visited the OK centre where most of the entries for the interactive, hybrid art entries were held. This was the most interesting part of Ars Electronica because the work entered was so advanced, it was pretty impressive.
My favourite was the 'golden nica' of the digital musics category called 'reactable' by Sergi Jorda, Gunter Geiger and the Music Technology Group, Barcelona. The entry could have been part of the hybrid art genre, or even interactive art as the table was pretty versatile. The table adopts quite a user friendly interface, with graphics that people of any language, any age and any ability could access with no difficulty. It can be used, by 1, 2 or up to 10 people, and it gives the users a chance to compose a song together.
Here is the video i made whilst i was watching people use the reactable table, which demonstrates how easy it is to use, and the amazing results that can be achieved when people work together. There was no communication between the people that were using the table, it was purely made through mutual understanding and experimentation. The table has even now been used by Bjork on one of her tours around Europe.
I've been thinking of ideas for my client project and will keep it up to date on here so i know where i after christmas when the project begins.
I have an idea in my head and once i get it, and know that it is going to be a challenge, i have to do it. the basis for this idea began when i was travelling around europe in the summer. when we arrived at our hostel in warsaw we assumed that it would just be another city visit, like all the rest. however, we were greeted with a vibrant, and very useful map which was made by young locals and designed for young travellers. it was like a breath of fresh air that made the day that we had in the city a lot more useful than it would have been without this map. There were illustrations of all the buildings and main points of interest with honest opinions from the locals. It was all colourfully coded so we could tell what was a restaurant, what was cheap and what art gallery was worth going to. There were also photographs of the locals at the bottom with their opinions in speech bubbles. Next to this was a logo of the design company and a tag line explaining how to do this for your own city.
This triggered off a few sparks and i really wanted to do this for nottingham. for my research i would speak to the locals, including students and young people of nottingham and make another useful map for the new freshers and to bring travllers from london to nottingham, so they would get a good feel about nottingham as a city.
i would like to make the map more than just a paper map. i want it to be paper so it can come in the induction pack for the new students, but also as a web version, so it is possible to click on all the sights of nottingham which will link to a page with information and a video of the sight. I will see if the idea is good enough to take to the SU or even to Nottingham Council so i can promote this idea further.
Well, it's nearly half way through the first week of term and i am just trying to get my head around ideas for the project briefs we have been set.
I will begin by thinking about my personal research project because i know this is something i am going to get quite easily excited about when i pinpoint exactly what i want to research.
My first ideas are based around my visit to ars electronica over the summer. it is a digital arts festival involving lots of competitions and art work all around the city of linz, austria. it was an amazing experience to see all the programmes that are being developed this year, and to interact with all the different entries was definatly an experience which inspired my ideas for this project. alot of the entries for the competitions were designed by people that didn't speak english, which is one thing i particularly noticed when playing on an interactive music table. this was an amazing experience as all the people that gathered around the table did not speak the same language, however, it seemed that everyone had the same ideas about making a song together. i was so surprizing to me that people managed to make a piece of music together without being able to actually speak a sentence to each other. this made me realise how increasingly dependent we are on the ability to use our other senses that we don't need to talk to each other.
At the moment this is the beginning speculations to my personal research project and i intend to research this area in more depth before i begin to write a specific title for my project.
