The Justice Syndicate: Using iPads to increase the intensity of participation, conduct agency and encourage flow in live interactive performance

The Justice Syndicate is an interactive performance, featuring an audience who take on the role of jurors considering a difficult case. Participants receive evidence, witness testimonies and prompts to vote and discuss the case on iPads. With this practice-as-research project we sought to explore what are the most effective means of inviting people to participate; how to widen their “horizon of participation”; how to increase the intensity of interaction in order to increase the level of “agentive behaviour” of the participants; and how to create a sense of flow in participants. We found that an effective solution to the fear of experiencing or causing embarrassment is for the invitation to participate to come from a machine and for there to be no distinction between “audience” and “participants.” The use of machines to stimulate interaction in the absence of live performers also proved an effective way of stimulating a high intensity of “agentive behaviour” among audience members, although it did not automatically lead to a greater feeling of agency. Applying an adapted version of Lindinger and colleagues’ (2013) codification of how to stimulate a state of flow in audience members also proved effective in creating a highly immersive experience. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media on 06/02/2020, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14794713.2020.172291

Systems, interactions and macrotheory

A significant proportion of early HCI research was guided by one very clear vision: that the existing theory base in psychology and cognitive science could be developed to yield engineering tools for use in the interdisciplinary context of HCI design. While interface technologies and heuristic methods for behavioral evaluation have rapidly advanced in both capability and breadth of application, progress toward deeper theory has been modest, and some now believe it to be unnecessary. A case is presented for developing new forms of theory, based around generic “systems of interactors.” An overlapping, layered structure of macro- and microtheories could then serve an explanatory role, and could also bind together contributions from the different disciplines. Novel routes to formalizing and applying such theories provide a host of interesting and tractable problems for future basic research in HCI

Reviews and press coverage of The Justice Syndicate

This file contains reviews and press coverage of The Justice Syndicate. Articles are from (in order): The Irish Times (4 stars) The Londonist (5 stars) The Observer (double page spread feature article) The Stage (5 stars) The Sunday Times (feature article) Miro Magazine (4 stars) No More Work Horse The Play's The Thing Felix Online (4.5 stars

Evolution of correlation strength in KxFe(2-y)Se2 superconductor doped with S

We report the evolution of thermal transport properties of iron-based superconductor K$_x$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_2$ with sulfur substitution at Se sites. Sulfur doping suppresses the superconducting $T_c$ as well as the Seebeck coefficient. The Seebeck coefficient of all crystals in the low temperature range can be described very well by diffusive thermoelectric response model. The zero-temperature extrapolated value of Seebeck coefficient divided by temperature $S/T$ gradually decreases from $-0.48 \mu V/K^2$ to a very small value $\sim$ 0.03 $\mu$V/K$^2$ where $T_c$ is completely suppressed. The normal state electron Sommerfeld term ($\gamma_n$) of specific heat also decreases with the increase of sulfur content. The dcrease of $S/T$ and $\gamma_n$ reflects a suppression of the density of states at the Fermi energy, or a change in the Fermi surface that would induce the suppression of correlation strength.Comment: 5 Pages, 4 figures, 1 Table; submitted to Physical Review

Creation and luminescence of size-selected gold nanorods

Fluorescent metal nanoparticles have attracted great interest in recent years for their unique properties and potential applications. Their optical behaviour depends not only on size but also on shape, and will only be useful if the morphology is stable. In this work, we produce stable size-selected gold nanorods (aspect ratio 1-2) using a size-selected cluster source and correlate their luminescence behaviour with the particle shape. Thermodynamic modelling is used to predict the preferred aspect ratio of 1.5, in agreement with the observations, and confirms that the double-icosahedron observed in experiments is significantly lower in energy than the alternatives. Using these samples a fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy study observed two photon luminescence from nanoparticle arrays and a fast decay process (<100 ps luminescence lifetime), which are similar to those found from ligand stabilized gold nanorods under the same measurement conditions, indicating that a surface plasmon enhanced two-photon excitation process is still active at these small sizes. By further reducing the nanoparticle size, this approach has the potential to investigate size-dependent luminescence behaviour at smaller sizes than has been possible before

Teachers, teams and technology: Investigating a team approach for supporting teachers\u27 uptake of ICT

This study sought to explore the professional development of elementary school teachers who were keen to use Information and Communications (ICT) in their teaching and learning. The main object of the study was to investigate a model of professional development that would support teachers as they adopted ICT. At the same time a simple framework to help locate teachers on some typology of ICT uptake was desirable, on the grounds that such a typology could help teachers, professional development planners and schools in their use of and support for ICT and its associated professional development.A review of the literature suggests two factors were of particular significance to teachers in Western Australia. The first was collaboration, and the second was an outcomes orientation. Collaboration is shorthand for the myriad ways that teachers worked together and an outcomes orientation embodies, in short, a student-centred approach to learning. Outcomes orientation is a current major initiative of the WA Department of Education and of keen relevance to educators in Western Australian schools

The symbolism of Tennessee Williams\u27 The Glass Menagerie: an inductive approach

Tennessee Williams expressed himself in the language of symbols. They were not ornaments to his work, but were to his mind the only satisfactory means of expressing himself as an artist, and predate almost every other consideration in the process of composition. Characterization, dialogue, plot and setting were all selected based on their potential to represent symbolically his identity and experience, and more specifically, the conflict between spirit and flesh which he felt had come to define him. However, before transforming his life into symbols, he attempted to abstract the world of his experience into something pure, something elemental and universal, as he insisted all artists should. The imagery of stasis is his primary symbol for spirituality and innocence, whereas the imagery of flux, particularly of rivers flowing into oceans, is his symbol for carnality. In The Glass Menagerie, Laura and her glass figures represent spirit, while her brother Tom, who abandons her and becomes a sailor, represents flesh. Laura also represents things Williams considered related to spirituality: the Old South, romantic idealists, and what he calls those small and tender things that relieve the austere pattern of life and make it endurable to the sensitive, entities which time, industrialism, and the modern world ultimately destroy. Virtually every element of the play serves as a symbol which amplifies the struggle between Laura and all she signifies and the forces ranged in opposition to her. In his discussion, Barnard analyzes each character in turn, explicating those symbols which pertain to him or her; thereafter, he shows how these symbols interact as the play draws to a close