GlobalFestival: Evaluating Real World Interaction on a Spherical Display

Spherical displays present compelling opportunities for interaction in public spaces. However, there is little research into how touch interaction should control a spherical surface or how these displays are used in real world settings. This paper presents an in the wild deployment of an application for a spherical display called GlobalFestival that utilises two different touch interaction techniques. The first version of the application allows users to spin and tilt content on the display, while the second version only allows spinning the content. During the 4-day deployment, we collected overhead video data and on-display interaction logs. The analysis brings together quantitative and qualitative methods to understand how users approach and move around the display, how on screen interaction compares in the two versions of the application, and how the display supports social interaction given its novel form factor

Virtual reality: Theoretical basis, practical applications

Virtual reality (VR) is a powerful multimedia visualization technique offering a range of mechanisms by which many new experiences can be made available. This paper deals with the basic nature of VR, the technologies needed to create it, and its potential, especially for helping disabled people. It also offers an overview of some examples of existing VR systems

An examination of the physical and temporal parameters of post-physical printmaking practice: exploring new modes of collaboration, distribution and consumption resulting from digital processes and networked participation.

This research was initiated by questions raised from the researchers professional activities in fine art printmaking and examines, through contextualised artistic practice and critical enquiry, redefinitions in the physical and temporal parameters of digitally mediated fine art printmaking caused by developments in digital media; specifically the impact of digital culture, Web2.0, social networking, augmented and virtual reality. Grounded on critical contextual review the research explores, through contextualised research probes, the notion of post-physical practice and the impact of new modes of collaboration, distribution and consumption on contemporary printmaking. It includes the findings of an international, digitally mediated, participatory and collaborative exchange survey of contemporary digital print, developed through direct enquiry using social media as a research tool. Philosophical questions about the impact of eculture, post-physical working and new modes of print-based artistic practice were examined, as well as the indexicality of the print itself in augmented and virtual contexts. The research employs dynamic triangulation between critical contextual review and direct qualitative and practice-based research; to develop a taxonomy framing the contextual precedents of digital printmaking, pinpointing key markers of transition between traditional and new printmaking. It uses post-studio methods and explores the conception, production, editioning, collection and ownership of print in an increasingly networked digital age, providing proof of concept and exploring virtual immersive surfaces in printmaking. These lead to the development of new models for a second generation of printmaking practice or Printmaking2.0 expressly founded in post-physical practice in a poststudio context and embracing the lingua franca of contemporary digital practice in the production of born digital virtually imprinted forms. In both, the technical practice of post-physical printmaking and the significant artistic implications resulting from the cultural shifts following digital participation and post-physical embodiment

The Emergent City (2007- 2017): Artistic explorations of the control and the ethics of data

The PhD by Published Works examines selected practice-based artworks made by the author - the artist Stanza - over a ten-year period. This thesis represents an opportunity to reflect back on a body of digital artworks after they have been made and to re-examine the artworks that were conducted through artistic practice-based research and to contextualise them in an academic framework. This PhD focuses on selected art projects made in the period 2007 to 2017 but are grounded in work under the title The Emergent City developed from the author's AHRC research fellowship at Goldsmiths College, University of London from 2006 to 2009. The research became an investigation into the ubiquity of real-time data within the city to create new media artworks. The practice resulted from technical investigations via sensor-based inquiry into real-time global observations currently employed via data harvesting technologies which cannot be separated from the artworks made and presented. This thesis discloses how, through practice-based research, these artworks contribute to the field of new media art by investigating real-time data flows, that simultaneously allow the meaning to be shifted, altered, parsed, and represented back to us, the audience, as art. Furthermore, and in context, the work incorporates inquiry into dataveillance , the smart city and the Internet of Things (IoT). The body of work The Emergent City incorporates research based digital artworks which are all in turn investigations into archives of these data that are controlled via bespoke online interfaces, which have been reformed and recounted into real-time experiences, as emergent artworks made by the author. The artworks are not only expressions of ideas that create a rich understanding of complex concepts of the contemporary issues of surveillance and privacy. They could also be described as technological demonstrators that cross multi-disciplinary boundaries, including art, computing and urban studies. Through numerous commissions, and research grants, these artworks have in common that they scrutinised the real-time city as a panoptic control system. Over twenty art projects (2007 - 2017) have been made using live real-time environmental data, surveillance and security data that have been presented and exhibited in various galleries worldwide from the Bruges Museum to the V&A and supported by numerous curators, which will be discussed. Finally, conclusions drawn at the end relate to the possibilities offered to artists by representing city environments with data and how artworks can enable us to critically reflect upon issues concerning surveillance through data-oriented new media artworks. The projects are all viewable online at www.stanza.co.uk where all these art projects are archived as online interfaces and online visualizations, as well as data-driven dynamic artworks in the form of large scale installations, or sculptural objects

Every day art : demonstrating a new approach to visual arts for children

Known phenomenal techniques found in the psychology of perception are combined with the architectural design of five non-classroom art environments in which children experience and understand visual arts. The art environments are: (1) Land Marks, (2) Art Marks, (3) Color Connections, (4) Art Openings, and (5) Art Amplitude. Drawing from research conducted on cognitive learning theory and information gathered from site visit interviews, cognitive learning concepts were incorporated into the design of the art environments. Five categories of perceptual phenomenon were used as the bases for the architectural design of a visual arts center for children. The categories are: (1) General perceptual concepts, (2) Perceptual constancies, (3) perceptual selection processes, (4) perceptual organizational processes, and (5) depth and distance clues. In addition, a set of research principles were also incorporated into the art environment designs, based on information collected from site interviews. The research principles cover topics involving: kinaesthetic activity, interaction which includes both active and reflective spaces, areas for sharing ideas and relating experiences and memories with other people, designs which encourage connections and memories of beauty in every day objects and experiences. In the design of Land Marks, using the vocabulary of point, line and plane, children will be introduced to the perception of movement using a succession of stationary design elements. They will experience how changing the brightness of a surface or object changes their perception of the size and distance of these elements. They will also learn how perceptual constancies in the shape, color, size and location of an incomplete image may be used to perceive the qualities of known objects as complete objects, regardless of the angle, distance, or context of the observed object. In the design of Art Openings, childrens\u27 exploration of art forms will be extended using circles, squares, and triangles. In these art environments, the emphasis is on learning to compare and contrast both two and three dimensional images and objects. Within the formal representations of circular, square and triangular art environments, children will playfully explore the characteristics of each geometry. They will learn what is inside, what is outside, what is up and what is down, what is an outline, a shape and a form. These explorations will help children to set up rules for grouping certain patterns together. From this, they will begin to understand sensory patterns. Examples of perceptual techniques used in these art environments involve developing a child\u27s familiarity with geometric forms through repetition alone, by contrasting and comparing the size or intensity of geometric forms and spaces. The design of the Art Amplitude art environment combines playful experience and actual practice in the spatial and exhibit arrangements. In this environment, children will begin to understand how depth and distance cluses are used to create spatial images. The concepts of linear perspective, aerial perspective and gradient of texture are incorporated into the design of this art environment to help children experience and learn about creating images with depth and distance. Finally, the design of one section of the Art Amplitude art environment will organize space to be reminiscent of an attic in a house. The artifacts found in the attic will be actual examples of children\u27s art. The attic is intended to be a reflective area where children can see the value of self expression and connect with others of their own age who may live in other parts of the country or other parts of the world. The work presented here is dedicated to the students and teachers of Ulm, Germany who provided the inspiration for my ideas in 1972 and to my husband, Dennis, who provided the support and endless encouragement I needed to complete my graduate architecture thesis in 1992

The artist's performative practice within the anti-ocularcentric discourse

The thesis discusses the development of my artistic research in relation to the critique of the ocularcentric Western philosophical tradition developed by twentieth century French thought, as referred to by Martin Jay and Amelia Jones. The work reviews the positions of both authors with respect to the relationship between Lacan's Mirror Stage and Gaze and Merleau-Ponty's Chiasm or Intertwining, within two areas of investigation: the self and strategies for its engagement with the external world. The research was conducted by adopting an evolutionary approach, which allowed me to test hypotheses through artistic experimentation. The structure of the thesis encompasses these two theoretical discussions in relation to my artistic practice, fully presented in the enclosed cd-rom. The first discussion, in Part I and II analyses the Mirror Stage and the emerging of the self, its psychological implications and manifestations in the history of art, with particular emphasis on self-portraiture, the performative self, Body Art and my own production. In Part III, the concept of Chiasm/Intertwining - developed from the notions of visuality and Gaze - is discussed in relation to inter-subjectivity in Body Art. The issue of the interaction between artist/audience and environment is also investigated in my most recent artworks, which question the primacy of vision over the other senses. I believe my original contribution to be both in the content of the artworks and the methodology adopted, rather than at theoretical level. By adopting a set strategy in the creation of my work, I challenged the static artist-audience relationship implicit in the one-way perception of representations based on central-focus perspective. My hypothesis, which encompasses a two-way artist-audience interaction, was first tested in the body of work I produced in 1999. The theoretical argument of chiasmatic intertwining I subsequently developed, allowed me to place my practice within the antiocularcentric discourse and confirmed the direction undertaken in the practice to be satisfactory. The validity of my initial hypothesis was further confirmed by the participation of the audience in aspects of the art making process of the recent videolive installations

Networks for art work: an analysis of artistic creative engagements with new media standards

The principle objective of this study is to examine the culture of networks that are implicated in the production of culture, specifically as it pertains to artists' design and use of digitally networked information and communication technologies (ICTs) for the production of artworks. The analysis in this study seeks to reveal a better understanding of the working practices that underpin artists' creative engagements with new media while recognising the significance of discursive continuities that inform such engagements. Theoretically, a case is presented for combining several theoretical perspectives into a multilayered conceptual framework for examining the circulation of power as it relates both to artistic creativity and to technological innovation. The former is accomplished through a critical assessment of the production of culture theoretical tradition. In calling upon concepts of discursive conduct as a means of developing relations of power, the concept of maverickness is proposed to understand how certain artists do not necessarily bring about change in an art world but instead dedicate themselves to the production of artistic creativity through a contention among various conventions. The latter is problematised drawing upon theories of mediation to develop a model of the conversion and classification of new media standards into art world conventions. A novel methodological approach is developed based on the development of multiple biographical threads of an individual and of a technology within a single case study of an art world network. Empirically, the thesis contributes insights into the diverse end contingent collective work practices involved in the design and use of ICTs by artists for the production of artworks. The findings suggest that individual artists are able to develop designer roles consistent with their situated understandings of creative conduct for modifying aspects of the ICT infrastructure despite shifting technological and social new media standards. However, in order to coordinate such roles within wider collective social structures, artists also initiate forms of mediation, articulation, and classification work that extend beyond the production of artworks and into attempts at programming art world networks within which such artworks were produced and distributed

Sculpting in cyberspace: Parallel processing the development of new software

Stimulating creativity in problem solving, particularly where software development is involved, is applicable to many disciplines. Metaphorical thinking keeps the problem in focus but in a different light, jarring people out of their mental ruts and sparking fresh insights. It forces the mind to stretch to find patterns between dissimilar concepts, in the hope of discovering unusual ideas in odd associations (Technology Review January 1993, p. 37). With a background in Engineering and Visual Design from MIT, I have for the past 30 years pursued a career as a sculptor of interdisciplinary monumental artworks that bridge the fields of science, engineering and art. Since 1979, I have pioneered the application of computer simulation to solve the complex problems associated with these projects. A recent project for the roof of the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh made particular use of the metaphoric creativity technique described above. The problem-solving process led to the creation of hybrid software combining scientific, architectural and engineering visualization techniques. David Steich, a Doctoral Candidate in Electrical Engineering at Penn State, was commissioned to develop special software that enabled me to create innovative free-form sculpture. This paper explores the process of inventing the software through a detailed analysis of the interaction between an artist and a computer programmer