Interaction design for live performance

PhD Thesis Multimedia item accompanying this thesis to be consulted at Robinson LibraryThe role of interactive technology in live performance has increased substantially in recent years. Practices and experiences of existing forms of live performance have been transformed and new genres of technology-­‐mediated live performance have emerged in response to novel technological opportunities. Consequently, designing for live performance is set to become an increasingly important concern for interaction design researchers and practitioners. However, designing interactive technology for live performance is a challenging activity, as the experiences of both performers and their audiences are shaped and influenced by a number of delicate and interconnected issues, which relate to different forms and individual practices of live performance in varied and often conflicting ways. The research presented in this thesis explores how interaction designers might be better supported in engaging with this intricate and multifaceted design space. This is achieved using a practice-­‐led methodology, which involves the researcher’s participation in both the investigation of, and design response to, issues of live performance as they are embodied in the lived and felt experiences of individual live performers’ practices during three interaction design case studies. This research contributes to the field of interaction design for live performance in three core areas. Understandings of the relationships between key issues of live performance and individual performers’ lived and felt experiences are developed, approaches to support interaction designers in engaging individual live performers’ lived and felt experiences in design are proposed and innovative interfaces and interaction techniques for live performance are designed. It is anticipated that these research outcomes will prove directly applicable or inspiring to the practices of interaction designers wishing to address live performance and will contribute to the ongoing academic discourse around the experience of, and design for, live performance.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

“More than just Space” : Designing to Support Assemblage in Virtual Creative Hubs

This paper aims to understand interactions at creative hubs, and how this understanding can be used to inform the design of virtual creative hubs – i.e., social-technical infrastructures that support hub-like interactions amongst people who aren’t spatially or temporally co-located. We present findings from a qualitative field study in UK creative hubs, in which we conducted seventeen observations and ten interviews in three sites. Our findings reveal a range of key themes that define interactions within creative hubs: smallness of teams; neutrality of the hubs; value of the infrastructure; activities and events; experience sharing; and community values and rules. These interactions together form a network and elements that influence one another to make a creative hub more than just physical space. We employ the concept of Assemblage introduced by Deleuze and Guattari to explore this network of interactions and, in doing so, reveal implications for the design of virtual creative hubs that seek to replicate them

Enhanced User Interaction with a Device

A method, for a device, for enhancing user interaction with the device is provided. The method comprises the steps of: receiving a user input; receiving a signal comprising information indicating a motion and/or orientation of a sensor during a period of time occurring before, during, and/or after occurrence of the user input; performing an operation depending on the user input and the motion and/or orientation of the sensor

A Service Design Thinking Approach: What are the Barriers and Opportunities of using Augmented Reality for Primary Science Education

It has previously been argued that Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to provide relevant digital information to support pupils learning in real-time through engaging formats. However, the use of AR in the classroom remains uncommon for mainstream adoption. This study uses a service design methodology to focus on a more holistic approach toward AR as an educational service by investigating the challenges and conditions of integrating AR learning experiences into a primary curriculum. The research paper aims to provide an overview of how primary science (Key stage 2) in the UK is currently being delivered and where both barriers and opportunities occur for adoption to integrate more meaningful AR experiences that add real value to primary science education. An exploration stage (phase one) includes a questionnaire, contextual interviews, classroom observations, and focus groups. A thematic analysis was conducted on gathered data, identifying emerging patterns around teachers’ needs. The discussion section empathises with teachers’ needs and unearths key factors surrounding the implications of using augmented reality for primary science education

User Interface Device with Actuated Buttons

A user interface device with actuated buttons is described. In an embodiment, the user interface device comprises two or more buttons and the motion of the buttons is controlled by actuators under software control such that their motion is inter-related. The position or motion of the buttons may provide a user with feedback about the current state of a software program they are using or provide them with enhanced user input functionality. In another embodiment, the ability to move the buttons is used to reconfigure the user interface buttons and this may be performed dynamically, based on the current state of the software program, or may be performed dependent upon the software program being used. The user interface device may be a peripheral device, such as a mouse or keyboard, or may be integrated within a computing device such as a games device

Stepping Through Remixed : Exploring the Limits of Linear Video in a Participatory Mental Health Film

Participatory filmmaking offers opportunities to counterbalance stereotypes about mental health often endorsed by the mainstream media, by involving participants who have a lived experience of mental health problems in production. It is our experience, however, that the linear videos traditionally resulting from such processes can fail to fully accommodate and represent a plurality of participant voices and viewpoints and, as a consequence, may lead to oversimplified accounts of mental health. Interactive film, on the other hand, could open up a space of opportunities for participatory films that allow multiple voices and complex representations to coexist. In this paper, we explore this opportunity by reviewing Stepping Through, a linear film produced by five men with mental health problems in 2016 about isolation and recovery. Through a series of workshops, the film was deconstructed by its creators, who analysed which additional possibilities of both form and content that could be revealed if the Stepping Through was transformed into a non-linear interactive film. Our findings reveal several expressive needs that a non-linear interactive film could more easily accommodate and opportunities for making participatory filmmaking truly dialogic by allowing an active exchange with audiences that preserves, rather than streamlines, the tension between collective views and personal accounts

Framing the Startup Accelerator Through Assemblage Theory : A case study of an intensive hub in Indonesia

This article presents how assemblage theory, as taken from Deleuze and Guattari, can be used to understand the intensive approaches of startup accelerators in supporting startup companies. Through a study of a startup accelerator in Jakarta, Indonesia, we present three snapshots to exemplify manifestations of what we argue as the accelerator’s ‘seed accelerator’ form of content and ‘seed funding’ form of expression as well as their reciprocal presupposition to demonstrate the multiplicity of assemblage as the organizational principles of the accelerator. Employing the tenets of formalization and territorialization from assemblage theory to analyze the results, this article shows that the ‘seed accelerator’ form of content is manifested by way of how the accelerator’s bodies of its human elements, activities, events and infrastructure relate and interconnect throughout the accelerator’s 12-week program towards its end point, i.e. fulfilling the stakes for the Final Demo-Day, while, on the other hand, the ‘seed funding’ form of expression is manifested by way of the usage of terms related to fund-raising, expressions of worry and the expectations of the hub management and the VC in preparing the startups for the next level of funding. Moreover, we argue that the formalized function of the accelerator assemblage is to intensively seed scalable startups. This assemblage analysis thus offers an interrelational perspective regarding startup accelerators, and demonstrates the value of formalization and territorialization in assemblage theory to understand the programming arrangements in a startup accelerator