Shifting the Focus: The Role of Presence in Reconceptualising the Design Process

In this paper the relationship between presence and imaging is examined with the view to establish how our understanding of imaging, and subsequently the design process, may be reconceptualised to give greater focus to its experiential potential. First, the paper outlines the research project contributing to the discussion. Then, it provides brief overviews of research on both imaging and presence in the process highlighting the narrow conceptions of imaging (and the recognition of the need for further research) compared to the more holistic and experiential understandings of presence. The paper concludes with an argument and proposed study for exploring the role of digital technology and presence in extending the potential of imaging and its role in the design process. As indicated in the DRS Conference Theme, this paper focuses “…on what people experience and the systems and actions that create those experiences.” Interface designers, information architects and interactive media artists understand the powerful influence of experience in design. ‘Experience design’ is a community of practice driven by individuals within digital based disciplines where the belief is that understanding people is essential to any successful design in any medium and that “…experience is the personal connection with the moment and… every aspect of living is an experience, whether we are the creators or simply chance participants” (Shedroff, 2001, p. 5). Keywords: Design, Design Process, Presence, Imaging, Grounded Theory</p

A Virtual Reality Platform for Musical Creation

International audienceVirtual reality aims at interacting with a computer in a similar form to interacting with an object of the real world. This research presents a VR platform allowing the user (1) to interactively create physically-based musical instruments and sounding objects, (2) play them in real time by using multisensory interaction by ways of haptics, 3D visualisation during playing, and real time physically-based sound synthesis. So doing, our system presents the two main properties expected in VR systems: the possibility of designing any type of objects and manipulating them in a multisensory real time fashion. By presenting our environment, we discuss the scientific underlying questions: (1) concerning the real time simulation, the way to manage simultaneous audio-haptic-visual cooperation during the real time multisensory simulations and (2) the Computer Aided Design functionalities for the creation of new physically-based musical instruments and sounding objects