FOG SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

The technology of immaterial projection systems are in constant development and will be more applicable on the market in the future. Therefore, there is a need for color management to improve the image reproduction on these displays, as they are more complex to manage than normal fixed screens. The FogScreen® projection screen produces a thin curtain of “dry” fog that serves as a translucent projection screen, displaying images floating in the air. This thesis aims to optimize the viewing experience by considering the technical aspect as well as the application aspect in order to reach reliable results, as they both have equal impact on the viewing experience. The technical approach is the characterization of the device in terms of color management and profile generation. Based on the device’s characteristics, we are able to determine how the image projection can be optimized under given viewing conditions and installation settings. Furthermore, the application aspect is approached by designing innovative concepts for Norwegian companies. The concepts include consideration of location, the screen’s functionality and purpose, media content management and business innovation

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

From corporeality to virtual reality: theorizing literacy, bodies, and technology in the emerging media of virtual, augmented, and mixed realities

This dissertation explores the relationships between literacy, technology, and bodies in the emerging media of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). In response to the recent, rapid emergence of new media forms, questions arise as to how and why we should prepare to compose in new digital media. To interrogate the newness accorded to new media composing, I historicize the literacy practices demanded by new media by examining digital texts, such as video games and software applications, alongside analogous “antiquated” media, such as dioramas and museum exhibits. Comparative textual analysis of analogous digital and non-digital VR, AR, and MR texts reveals new media and “antiquated” media utilize common characteristics of dimensionality, layering, and absence/presence, respectively. The establishment of shared traits demonstrates how media operate on a continuum of mutually held textual practices; despite their distinctive forms, new media texts do not represent either a hierarchical or linear progression of maturing development. Such an understanding aids composing in new VR, AR, and MR media by enabling composers to make fuller use of prior knowledge in a rapidly evolving new media environment, a finding significant both for educators and communicators. As these technologies mature, we will continue to compose both traditional and new forms of texts. As such, we need literacy theory that attends to both the traditional and the new and also is comprehensive enough to encompass future acts of composing in media yet to emerge

Archives in the age of transformation of art institutions: an art preservation strategy or a curatorial experiment?

This paper presents the development of the curatorial research project Black Box, which was established in the spring of 2020 in the Brno TIC Gallery to support contemporary art and artists at a time when artists and cultural institutions were affected by the existential crisis caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic. This experimental archive, which initially appeared to be temporary, has been developing its activities for a second year in a row. This text aims to provide a report on the ongoing remakes and postproductions of this archive and present various curatorial interventions carried out on the archived works of the participating artists. We observe a shift of exhibition institutions towards community centres with a diversified program, raising their social awareness and critical self-reflection, and building new means of communication on the axis of the artist-spectator. Especially in the latter area, creating and enabling access to an art archive is an essential tool

Loop Quantum Gravity: An Inside View

This is a (relatively) non -- technical summary of the status of the quantum dynamics in Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG). We explain in detail the historical evolution of the subject and why the results obtained so far are non -- trivial. The present text can be viewed in part as a response to an article by Nicolai, Peeters and Zamaklar [hep-th/0501114]. We also explain why certain no go conclusions drawn from a mathematically correct calculation in a recent paper by Helling et al [hep-th/0409182] are physically incorrect.Comment: 58 pages, no figure

Because I am Not Here, Selected Second Life-Based Art Case Studies. Subjectivity, Autoempathy and Virtual World Aesthetics

Second Life is a virtual world accessible through the Internet in which users create objects and spaces, and interact socially through 3D avatars. Certain artists use the platform as a medium for art creation, using the aesthetic, spatial, temporal and technological features of SL as raw material. Code and scripts applied to animate and manipulate objects, avatars and spaces are important in this sense. These artists, their avatars and artwork in SL are at the centre of my research questions: what does virtual existence mean and what is its purpose when stemming from aesthetic exchange in SL? Through a qualitative research method mixing distribute aesthetics, digital art and media theories, the goal is to examine aesthetic exchange in the virtual: subjectivity and identity and their possible shifting patterns as reflected in avatar-artists. A theoretical and methodological emphasis from a media studies perspective is applied to digital media and networks, contributing to the reshaping of our epistemologies of these media, in contrast to the traditional emphasis on communicational aspects. Four case studies, discourse and text analysis, as well as interviews in-world and via email, plus observation while immersed in SL, are used in the collection of data, experiences, objects and narratives from avatars Eva and Franco Mattes, Gazira Babeli, Bryn Oh and China Tracy. The findings confirm the role that aesthetic exchange in virtual worlds has in the rearrangement of ideas and epistemologies on the virtual and networked self. This is reflected by the fact that the artists examined—whether in SL or AL—create and embody avatars from a liminal (ambiguous) modality of identity, subjectivity and interaction. Mythopoeia (narrative creation) and experiencing oneself as ‘another’ through multiplied identity and subjectivity are the outcomes of code performance and machinima (films created in-world). They constitute a modus operandi (syntax) in which episteme, techne and embodiment work in symbiosis with those of the machine, affected by the synthetic nature of code and liminality in SL. The combined perspective from media studies and distribute aesthetics proves to be an effective method for studying these subjects, contributing to the discussion of contemporary virtual worlds and art theories