Towards immersive generosity: The need for a novel framework to explore large audiovisual archives through embodied experiences in immersive environments

This article proposes an innovative framework to explore large audiovisual archives using Immersive Environments to place users inside a dataset and create an embodied experience. It starts by outlining the need for such a novel interface to meet the needs of archival scholars and the GLAM sector, and discusses issues in the current modes of access, mostly restrained to traditional information retrieval systems based on metadata. The paper presents the concept of ``generous interfaces" as a preliminary approach to address these issues, and argues some of the key reasons why employing Immersive Visual Storytelling might benefit such frameworks. The theory of embodiment is leveraged to justify this claim, showing how a more embodied understanding of a collection can result in a stronger engagement for the public. By placing users as actors in the experience rather than mere spectators, the emergence of narrative is driven by their interactions, with benefits in terms of engagement with the public and understanding of the cultural component. The framework we propose is applied to two existing installations to analyze them in-depth and critique them, highlighting the key directions to pursue for further development.Comment: This is the pre-published version (after peer-review

Relational navigation and archiving of multimedia information for contemporary dance

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia InformáticaTechnology continues to evolve at an incredible rate and with it, the number of people adhering to new digital trends. As the production of multimedia content such as photographs and videos becomes accessible to more people every year, so does the amount of digital content increase exponentially. Consequently, it becomes a hard task to create systems in order to provide efficient storing and browsing of multimedia content. Multimedia Web archives are one of the most popular solutions found for these issues. By providing organized and connected information storage with efficient browsing and social networking features, these systems become the main platforms used to store and share photographs and videos in the internet. This work is done in the scope of the TKB project: Transmedia Knowledge Base for Contemporary Dance and the goal of this thesis is to develop a system for multimedia information storage and relational content navigation. The analysis of multimedia archiving systems done throughout this thesis extends to those specific for Contemporary dance as it is one of the main focus of the work. The contents which will be integrated in the archive include typical multimedia information such as images and videos, as well as annotated videos exported from specific platforms. Connecting all the information within the archive through taxonomy and content hierarchy allows the definition of the intended relational approach. Setting connections between content and users allow the creation of graphs, which will serve as a basis for all the browsing, navigation and searching done throughout the system.TKB project- A Transmedia Knowledge Base for contemporary dance(PTDC/EAT-AVP/098220/2008

Montage As A Participatory System: Interactions with the Moving Image

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictionsRecent developments in network culture suggest a weakening of hierarchical narratives of power and representation. Online technologies of distributed authorship appear to nurture a complex, speculative, contradictory and contingent realism. Yet there is a continuing deficit where the moving image is concerned, its very form appearing resistant to the dynamic throughputs and change models of real-time interaction. If the task is not to suspend but encourage disbelief as a condition in the user, how can this be approached as a design problem? In the attempt to build a series of design projects suggesting open architectures for the moving image, might a variety of (pre-digital) precursors from the worlds of art, architecture and film offer the designer models for inspiration or adaptation? A series of projects have been undertaken. Each investigates the composite moving image, specifically in the context of real-time computation and interaction. This arose from a desire to interrogate the qualia of the moving image within interactive systems, relative to a range of behaviours and/or observer positions, which attempt to situate users as conscious compositors. This is explored in the thesis through reflecting on a series of experimental interfaces designed for real time composition in performance, exhibition and online contexts

Video recording and documentation of the performing arts: from the annotation to the visualization of metadata, the example of the Rekall software

International audienceFrom the mid 2000s, an increasing number of initiatives have explored the digitization of live performance collections. Generally these initiatives focus mainly on video recording, the most “spectacular” and easily approachable components of performance archives. Yet, it may seem simplistic to suggest the webcasting of video recordings, in whole or in part, in the midst of the possibilities offered by semantic web technologies and metadata. What are the benefits of digital technologies over the more conventional documentary method that has now become video recording? We will demonstrate how one answer lies in video recording annotation. Far from being univocal, video recording annotation has brought forward multiple approaches in the field of the performing arts. We will outline key experiments on the subject, including those led by William Forsythe, whose work has transformed video recordings from heritage materials to being a generator of digital arts, in the perspective of capturing choreography. Using Rekall software (currently under development), the goal is to expand the video annotation model to reach out to new visual possibilities of displaying the metadata underlying a heterogeneous corpus of documents associated with the same performance

Reconfigurable video

Thesis (M.S.V.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1986.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCHBibliography: leaves 105-107.by Russell Mayo Sasnett.M.S.V.S

Picbreeder: A Case Study in Collaborative Evolutionary Exploration of Design Space

For domains in which fitness is subjective or difficult to express formally, interactive evolutionary computation (IEC) is a natural choice. It is possible that a collaborative process combining feedback from multiple users can improve the quality and quantity of generated artifacts. Picbreeder, a large-scale online experiment in collaborative interactive evolution (CIE), explores this potential. Picbreeder is an online community in which users can evolve and share images, and most importantly, continue evolving others\u27 images. Through this process of branching from other images, and through continually increasing image complexity made possible by the underlying neuroevolution of augmenting topologies (NEAT) algorithm, evolved images proliferate unlike in any other current IEC system. This paper discusses not only the strengths of the Picbreeder approach, but its challenges and shortcomings as well, in the hope that lessons learned will inform the design of future CIE systems

Decoding learning: the proof, promise and potential of digital education

With hundreds of millions of pounds spent on digital technology for education every year – from interactive whiteboards to the rise of one–to–one tablet computers – every new technology seems to offer unlimited promise to learning. many sectors have benefitted immensely from harnessing innovative uses of technology. cloud computing, mobile communications and internet applications have changed the way manufacturing, finance, business services, the media and retailers operate. But key questions remain in education: has the range of technologies helped improve learners’ experiences and the standards they achieve? or is this investment just languishing as kit in the cupboard? and what more can decision makers, schools, teachers, parents and the technology industry do to ensure the full potential of innovative technology is exploited? There is no doubt that digital technologies have had a profound impact upon the management of learning. institutions can now recruit, register, monitor, and report on students with a new economy, efficiency, and (sometimes) creativity. yet, evidence of digital technologies producing real transformation in learning and teaching remains elusive. The education sector has invested heavily in digital technology; but this investment has not yet resulted in the radical improvements to learning experiences and educational attainment. in 2011, the Review of Education Capital found that maintained schools spent £487 million on icT equipment and services in 2009-2010. 1 since then, the education system has entered a state of flux with changes to the curriculum, shifts in funding, and increasing school autonomy. While ring-fenced funding for icT equipment and services has since ceased, a survey of 1,317 schools in July 2012 by the british educational suppliers association found they were assigning an increasing amount of their budget to technology. With greater freedom and enthusiasm towards technology in education, schools and teachers have become more discerning and are beginning to demand more evidence to justify their spending and strategies. This is both a challenge and an opportunity as it puts schools in greater charge of their spending and use of technolog