A framework for the design and evaluation of magic tricks that utilises computational systems configured with psychological constraints

PhDA human magician blends science, psychology and performance to create a magical e ect. This thesis explores what can be achieved when that human intelligence is replaced or assisted by machine intelligence. Magical e ects are all in some form based on hidden mathematical, scienti c or psychological principles; the parameters controlling these underpinning techniques are hard for a magician to blend to maximise the magical e ect required. The complexity is often caused by interacting and con icting physical and psychological constraints that need to be optimally balanced. Normally this tuning is done by trial and error, combined with human intuitions. This thesis focuses on applying Arti- cial Intelligence methods to the creation, and optimisation, of magic tricks exploiting mathematical principles. Experimentally derived, crowd sourced, data about particular perceptual and cognitive features is used, combined with a model of the underlying mathematical process, to provide a psychologically valid metric to allow optimisation of magical impact. The thesis describes an optimisation framework that can be exibly applied to a range of di erent types of mathematics based tricks. Three case studies are presented as exemplars of the methodology at work, the outputs of which are: language and image based prediction and mind reading tricks, a magical jigsaw, and a mind reading card trick e ect. Each trick created is evaluated through testing at public engagement events, and in a laboratory environment. Further, a demonstration of the real world e cacy of the approach for professional performers is presented in the form of sales of the tricks in a reputable magic shop in London.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), grant number EP/J50029X/1.

USING INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE AS A CONCEPTUAL TOOL: AN EXAMINATION OF COGNITION IN IMPROVISED MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

Viewing musical improvisation in the light of psychology and cognitive science, this thesis will explicate the rationale behind the development of a software based audiovisual interface for use in improvised solo instrumental performance. The evolution of the performance environment is presented along with the theories and concepts that have shaped its progress. The opening chapter will review the terms of reference used throughout the work and will set a boundary around the area of examination. Chapter two will place musical improvisation within the context of human behaviour and in so doing will draw upon theoretical discourse from the fields of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science. This chapter will explore the nature of volition and its relationship with subconscious processing, drawing upon anecdotal evidence from improvising musicians as linkage between theory and practice. Chapter 3 augments the study of the inner world of the improvising musician by encompassing the communicative functions of this activity. The boundary of this study does not embrace musical interactions between musicians in a dialogic sense, my remit here is to explore behavioural response to sensory information and the mechanism by which this may or may not manifest itself in conscious thought. Chapter 4 sees the development of a theoretical model with which to contextualise the practice of musical improvisation and to provide the foundation from which to evolve the architecture for an experimental performance environment. This leads in Chapter 5 to a discussion around the function and nature of tools as problem solving devices looking at conceptual and physical tools and the mapping of functionality. The discourse in this chapter is aimed at providing a rationale for the development of a software based tool to address some of the issues raised previously in the study. The concluding chapter will document the evolution of a software based audio-visual performance environment, mapping its various incarnations and its relationship to the theoretical model developed over the course of the pervious chapters. This chapter will refer to documentation and audio visual material on CD Rom and DVD found in Appendix l

What is the Avatar? Fiction and Embodiment in Avatar-Based Singleplayer Computer Games: Revised and Commented Edition

What are the characteristic features of avatar-based singleplayer videogames, from Super Mario Bros. to Grand Theft Auto? The author examines this question with a particular focus on issues of fictionality and realism, and their relation to cinema and Virtual Reality. Through close-up analysis and philosophical discussion, the author argues that avatar-based gaming is a distinctive and dominant form of virtual self-embodiment in digital culture. This book is a revised edition of Rune Klevjer's pioneering work from 2007, featuring a new introduction by the author and afterword by Stephan Günzel, Jörg Sternagel, and Dieter Mersch

Archaeological knowledge and its representation an inter-disciplinary study of the problems of knowledge representation

The thesis is a study of archaeology viewed from a perspective informed by (a) social constructionist theory and pragmatism; (b) techniques of Belief and Knowledge Representation developed by Artificial Intelligence research and (c) the conception of history and historical practice propounded by the philosopher, historian and archaeologist, R.G. Collingwood. It is argued that Gibsonian affordances and von Uexkull's notion of the Umwelt, recently discussed by Rom Harré, provide the basis for a description and understanding of human action and agency. Further, belief and knowledge representation techniques embodied in Expert Systems and Intelligent Tutoring Systems provide a means of implementing models of human action which may bridge intentionality and process and thereby provide a unifying learning environment in which the relationships of language, social action and material transformation of the physical world can be explored in a unified way. The central claim made by the thesis is that Collingwood's logic (dialectic) of Question & Answer developed in 1917 as a hermeneutic procedure, may be seen as a fore-runner of Newell and Simon's Heuristic Search, and thereby amenable to modem approaches to problem solving. Collingwood's own approach to History/ Archaeology is grounded on many shared ideas with pragmatism and a social constructionist conception of mind and is conducted within a problem solving framework. Collingwood is therefore seen as a three-way bridge between Social Psychology, Artificial Intelligence and Archaeology. The thesis concludes that Social Psychology, Artificial Intelligence and Archaeology can be integrated through the use of Intelligent Tutoring Systems informed by a Collingwoodian perspective on Archaeology, Mind and History - construed as Mind's self-knowledge

Perceptual fail: Female power, mobile technologies and images of self

Like a biological species, images of self have descended and modified throughout their journey down the ages, interweaving and recharging their viability with the necessary interjections from culture, tools and technology. Part of this journey has seen images of self also become an intrinsic function within the narratives about female power; consider Helen of Troy “a face that launched a thousand ships” (Marlowe, 1604) or Kim Kardashian (KUWTK) who heralded in the mass mediated ‘selfie’ as a social practice. The interweaving process itself sees the image oscillate between naturalized ‘icon’ and idealized ‘symbol’ of what the person looked like and/or aspired to become. These public images can confirm or constitute beauty ideals as well as influence (via imitation) behaviour and mannerisms, and as such the viewers belief in the veracity of the representative image also becomes intrinsically political manipulating the associated narratives and fostering prejudice (Dobson 2015, Korsmeyer 2004, Pollock 2003). The selfie is arguably ‘a sui generis,’ whilst it is a mediated photographic image of self, it contains its own codes of communication and decorum that fostered the formation of numerous new digital communities and influenced new media aesthetics . For example the selfie is both of nature (it is still a time based piece of documentation) and known to be perceptually untrue (filtered, modified and full of artifice). The paper will seek to demonstrate how selfie culture is infused both by considerable levels of perceptual failings that are now central to contemporary celebrity culture and its’ notion of glamour which in turn is intrinsically linked (but not solely defined) by the province of feminine desire for reinvention, transformation or “self-sexualisation” (Hall, West and McIntyre, 2012). The subject, like the Kardashians or selfies, is divisive. In conclusion this paper will explore the paradox of the perceptual failings at play within selfie culture more broadly, like ‘Reality TV’ selfies are infamously fake yet seem to provide Debord’s (1967) illusory cultural opiate whilst fulfilling a cultural longing. Questions then emerge when considering the narrative impact of these trends on engendered power structures and the traditional status of illusion and narrative fiction

What is the Avatar?

What are the characteristic features of avatar-based singleplayer videogames, from Super Mario Bros. to Grand Theft Auto? Rune Klevjer examines this question with a particular focus on issues of fictionality and realism, and their relation to cinema and Virtual Reality. Through close-up analysis and philosophical discussion, Klevjer argues that avatar-based gaming is a distinctive and dominant form of virtual self-embodiment in digital culture. This book is a revised edition of Rune Klevjer's pioneering work from 2007, featuring a new introduction by the author and afterword by Stephan Günzel, Jörg Sternagel, and Dieter Mersch

ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge

The socio-technical production of GIS knowledges: the discursive construction of bodies and machines at Scottish Natural Heritage

This thesis focuses on the situated use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in one government organisation - Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) - in order to explore the mutually productive and complex relationships between the social and the technical. The account is located within science and technology studies (STS) and feminist theories, both of which challenge notions of technical determinism and the neutrality of science and technology, suggesting instead that technological artefacts are products of complementary and competing discourses, and their limits. These theories, which are reviewed in Chapter One, are utilised to illustrate that GIS is a boundary object that is co- constructed as an object of knowledge and as a technological artefact through the messy nexus of social relations in which it is practised, whilst it concurrently actively contributes to the production of the social. In -depth interviews were conducted with staff who had recently been trained to use GIS as part of a major GIS implementation strategy in SNH. The methodology is described in Chapter Two. The interview transcripts were subjected to discourse analysis, in order to explore how the practice of GIS co- constructs fluid technologies, bodies and subject positions, which gain only the appearance of stability through their iterative citation in discursive practice. The empirical data are explored in three substantive chapters. Chapter Three examines the discourses which enable GIS, through the operation of power, to (re)produce particular geographies. Drawing on theories of the visual, it is argued that GIS, as a technology of realist representation, relies not merely on discourses of rationality, but also on its own inexplicability, which enables it to function as a site of spectacle and magic. Chapter Four focuses on the GIS user, exploring the practice of GIS as a site for the multiple production of bodies and subject positions. Haraway's figure of the cyborg is utilised to explore how users relate their bodies to the machine, and three possible subjectivities are proposed: the magician, the apprentice and the inept. The final substantive chapter explores how GIS emerges through the agency of both users and the machine itself as they negotiate each other. It is argued that through these complex situated negotiations GIS is multiply embodied and constructed as a sentient other. The thesis concludes by examining the relevance of feminist geography to an understanding of these processes

Association of Architecture Schools in Australasia

"Techniques and Technologies: Transfer and Transformation", proceedings of the 2007 AASA Conference held September 27-29, 2007, at the School of Architecture, UTS