Children playing branded video games: The impact of interactivity on product placement effectiveness

This study extends product placement research by testing the impact of interactivity on product placement effectiveness. The results suggest that when children cannot interact with the placements in video games, perceptual fluency is the underlying mechanism leading to positive affect. Therefore, the effects are only evident in a stimulus-based choice where the same stimulus is provided as a cue. However, when children have the opportunity to interact with the placements in video games, they may be influenced by conceptual fluency. Thus, placements are still effective in a memory-based choice where no stimulus is provided as a cue. Keywords: Perceptual fluency; Conceptual fluency; Video games; Interactivity; Children; Product placement

Communication mechanisms and middleware for distributed video surveillance

A new generation of advanced surveillance systems is being conceived as a collection of multi-sensor components such as video, audio and mobile robots interacting in a cooperating manner to enhance situation awareness capabilities to assist surveillance personnel. The prominent issues that these systems face are: the improvement of existing intelligent video surveillance systems, the inclusion of wireless networks, the use of low power sensors, the design architecture, the communication between different components, the fusion of data emerging from different type of sensors, the location of personnel (providers and consumers) and the scalability of the system. This paper focuses on the aspects pertaining to real-time distributed architecture and scalability. For example, to meet real-time requirements, these systems need to process data streams in concurrent environments, designed by taking into account scheduling and synchronisation. The paper proposes a framework for the design of visual surveillance systems based on components derived from the principles of Real Time Networks/Data Oriented Requirements Implementation Scheme (RTN/DORIS). It also proposes the implementation of these components using the well-known middleware technology Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). Results using this architecture for video surveillance are presented through an implemented prototype.

Can objects perform?: agency and thingliness in contemporary sculpture and installation

In his 1967 essay, “Art and Objecthood”, Michael Fried bemoaned the theatricality of minimalist sculpture, which replaced the presentness of compositional sculpture with the staging of an experience for the viewer as performer. His argument has since been inverted by artists and art writers invested in the idea of sculptures as props forming part of an artistic experience economy. This discourse has accompanied the rise of relational aesthetics as a dominant paradigm for contemporary art. More recently, however, there has been a turn away from relationality to ‘object-oriented’ art, where objects are seen to stage their own theatrical experiences, performing themselves without requiring the activation of a viewer’s body. We trace parallels between the philosophy of Bruno Latour and the “Speculative Materialism” group and this emerging trend in sculpture. In ascribing agency to objects, Latour proposes a radical shift from philosophy’s traditional investigation of the relationship between the mind and the world. Drawn to the idea that matter can be creative, artists have embraced his thinking. However, we argue that this has lead to a generalized, universalizing humanism that disables political action. Moreover, it undermines the potential for anti-humanist critique latent in object-oriented philosophy.

Modern lovers

Modern Lovers was a survey show of contemporary art practices in dialogue with modernism, bringing together established and emerging artists based in London and international artists from Berlin, Jerusalem and Zagreb. The show features video, film, installation, sculpture, music and performance work that addresses the legacy of the avant garde and the survival of its aesthetics within contemporary culture. In 1976, as punk rock was busy smashing the cultural rubble left behind by the second world war and rejecting the consumer society that had emerged from the ruins, one band bravely announced that it wanted no part in this destruction. Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers sang about how they still loved the old world. Neither parents nor girlfriends could understand, but the decaying inner city with its false promises of progress still held a fascination for Richman, who claimed he wanted to keep his place in this arcane landscape. Punk's assault on culture was the logical conclusion of modernism's linear narrative of art as a force of innovation that must reject preceding artistic movements to establish new ones. Echoing the negations of Dada, it set out to put an end to this narrative, an end to culture. It is partly because of this inherently destructive and totalising side of Modernism that it has come under harsh critique in the post modern era. Nevertheless, we are still caught up in the same dialectic of progress, revolution and destruction. Post modernism has failed to unseat our desire for the revolutionary moment, even as it has been co-opted to the degree of meaninglessness by the discourses of marketing and Capitalism. But, like Jonathan Richman, the artists in the exhibition "Modern Lovers" keep returning to modernism for something else. Instead of taking it at its word when it proffers revolution, they turn to it in search of reform. Still loving the old world and desiring a dialogue with the past, perhaps as an antidote to the eternal present of Capitalism, they are willing to engage with its aesthetics and ideas on equal ground. Leaving behind the ironic deconstructions of post modernism, they find perspectives worth salvaging and juxtapose them with contemporary visual productions. Trading in the grand narratives of modernity for a more personal approach, they don't seek the purity of form that drove the avant garde movements that inspire them but rather revel in adulteration, dilution and contamination of the past by the present". A live performance by sala-manca was sponsored by the British Council and took place May 26th, 19:00. MODERN LOVERS was accompanied by a catalogue (14.80 cm x 14.80 cm) including essays by Avi Pitchon, the sala-manca group and the curators. A discussion panel about the exhibition themes, as well as the catalogue launch,took place at Goldsmiths College's cinema on the 27th of May at 14:00, chaired by Dr. Suhail Malik (Senior Lecturer & Course Leader Postgraduate Fine Art Critical Studies at Goldsmiths College) and with the participation of Tom Morton (curator, Cubitt Gallery, and regular contributor to Frieze magazine), sala-manca (artist group), Dr. Amanda Beech (artist, curator and senior lecturer at the Wimbledon School of Art), Matthew Poole (course director of MA Gallery Studies, dept. of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex).

On-demand hd video using Jini based grid

This research establishes the feasibility of using a network centric technology, Jini, to provide a grid framework on which to perform parallel video encoding. A solution was implemented using Jini and obtained real-time on demand encoding of a 480 HD video stream. Further, a projection is made concerning the encoding of 1080 HD video in real-time, as the current grid was not powerful enough to achieve this above 15fps. The research found that Jini is able to provide a number of tools and services highly applicable in a grid environment. It is also suitable in terms of performance and responds well to a varying number of grid nodes. The main performance limiter was found to be the network bandwidth allocation, which when loaded with a large number of grid nodes was unable to handle the traffic.

How level and type of deafness affects user perception of multimedia video clips

Our research investigates the impact that hearing has on the perception of digital video clips, with and without captions, by discussing how hearing loss, captions and deafness type affects user QoP (Quality of Perception). QoP encompasses not only a user's satisfaction with the quality of a multimedia presentation, but also their ability to analyse, synthesise and assimilate informational content of multimedia . Results show that hearing has a significant effect on participants’ ability to assimilate information, independent of video type and use of captions. It is shown that captions do not necessarily provide deaf users with a ‘greater level of information’ from video, but cause a change in user QoP, depending on deafness type, which provides a ‘greater level of context of the video’. It is also shown that post-lingual mild and moderately deaf participants predict less accurately their level of information assimilation than post-lingual profoundly deaf participants, despite residual hearing. A positive correlation was identified between level of enjoyment (LOE) and self-predicted level of information assimilation (PIA), independent of hearing level or hearing type. When this is considered in a QoP quality framework, it puts into question how the user perceives certain factors, such as ‘informative’ and ‘quality’.

Ballet-Granite

Live Performance, Szuper Gallery + Curtain Razors Dur: 50 mins NTSC HD 2011 Direction/Conception - Susanne Clausen, Pavlo Kerestey, Michele Sereda Performance Installation - Susanne Clausen, Pavlo Kerestey Performers - Jason Cawood, Susanne Clausen, Blair Fornwald, Morgan Garneau, John Hampton, Pavlo Kerestey, Michele Sereda Cave Video - Susanne Clausen and Pavlo Kerestey Sound scape - Szuper Gallery Voice - Michele Sereda Ballet Band - Billy Hughes, Trent Mailander and Otis Young Music - Dance of the Spirits - Danilo Villalta Technical Direction - Kenneth Young Stage Management - Paul Crepeau Sound Support - Jeff Morton Structural Design Consultant - James Phillips and Caragana Production Design Inc Set Assistants - Rebbeca Donison and Shelby Lowe Headress - Alla Sidorenko Costume consultation - Dean Renwick Documentation, Still - Carey Shaw, Szuper Gallery Documentation, Moving - Gabriel Yahyahkeekoot Administration + PR - Carey Shaw and the Mackenzie Art Gallery Poster Design - Rio Saxon Design Produced by Curtain Razors and Szuper Gallery in collaboration with the Mackenzie Art Gallery with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the City of Regina Arts Advisory Committee.

Children with Special Educational Needs as film makers: Using digital video to support Understandings of Narrative

The literature has identified issues around transitions among phases for all pupils (Cocklin, 1999) including pupils with special educational needs (SEN) (Morgan 1999, Maras and Aveling 2006). These issues include pupils’ uncertainties and worries about building size and spatial orientation, exposure to a range of teaching styles, relationships with peers and older pupils as well as parents’ difficulties in establishing effective communications with prospective secondary schools. Research has also identified that interventions to facilitate these educational transitions should consider managerial support, social and personal familiarisation with the new setting as well as personalised learning strategies (BECTA 2004). However, the role that digital technologies can play in supporting these strategies or facilitating the role of the professionals such as SENCos and heads of departments involved in supporting effective transitions for pupils with SEN has not been widely discussed. Uses of ICT include passing references of student-produced media presentations (Higgins 1993) and use of photographs of activities attached to a timetable to support familiarisation with the secondary curriculum for pupils with autism (Cumine et al. 1998).