Wanderer beyond game worlds

We discuss issues and opportunities for designing experiences with 3D simulations of nature where the landscape and the interactant engage in an equitable dialogue. We consider the way digital representations of the world and design habits tend to detach from corporeal dimensions in experiencing the natural world and perpetuate motifs in games that reflect taming, territorializing or defending ourselves from nature. We reflect on the Digital Songlines project, which translates the schema of indigenous people to construct a natural environment, and the inherent difficulty in cross-culturally representing inter-connectedness. This leads us to discuss insights into the use of natural features by western people in cultural transmission and in their experiences in natural places. We propose McCarthy and Wright's dialogical approach may reconcile conceptions of place and self in design and conclude by considering experiments in which designers digitally reconstruct their own corporeal experience in natural physical landscape.

Designing for naturally engaging experiences

This full day workshop explores how insights from artefacts, created during data collecting and analysis, are translated into prototypes. It is particularly concerned with getting closer to people's experience of shaping a design space. The workshop draws inspiration from data-products resulting from interactions in natural, unbuilt places with the intention of supporting both those with work integrating understandings of such experiences into design and those interested in the way material provokes ideas and inspiration for design.

Studio game-on

The studio-gameon event was supported by the Institute of the Creative Industries and Innovation and the Faculty of IT as part of the State Library of Queensland GAME ON exhibition (ex Barbican, UK) The studio produced a full game in six weeks. It was a curated event, a live web-based exhibition, a performance for the public and the team produced a digital / creative work which is available for download. The studio enabled a team of students to experience the pressures of a real game studio within the space of the precincts but also very much in the public eye. It was a physical hypothesis of the University's mantra - "for the real world" statement: Studio GameOn is an opportunity running alongside the GAME ON exhibition at the State Library of Queensland. The exhibition itself is open to the public from November 17th through to February 15th. The studio runs from January 5th to February 13th 2009. The Studio GameOn challenge? To put together a team of game developers and make a playable game in six weeks! The studio-game on team consists of a group of game developers in training - the team members are all students who are either half-way through or completing a qualification in game design and all its elements - we have designers, artists, programmers and productionteam members. We are also fortunate to have an Industry Board consisting of local Queensland Games professionals: John Passfield (Red Sprite Studios), Adrian Cook (WIldfire Studios) and Duncan Curtis and Marko Grgic (The 3 Blokes). We also invite the public to play with us - there is an ideas box both on-site at the State Library and a number of ways to communicate with us on this studio website.

48 hour game making challenge

The 48 hour game making challenge has been running since its inception at the NEXT LEVEL Festival in 2004. It is curated by Truna aka j. Turner and Lubi Thomas and sees teams of both future game makers and industry professionals going head to head under pressure to produce playable games within the time period. The 48 hour is supported by the International Game Developers Association (Brisbane Chapter)and the Creative Industries Precincts as part of their public programs. It is a curated event which engages industry with Brisbane educational institutes and which fosters the Australian Games Industry

The little grey cat engine

The little grey cat engine (greyCat) is part of a series of projects which explore software which can enable access to the potentially empowering nature of represented space and game design. GreyCat is the result of research into the culture of the software itself in order to provide participatory environments which enable the telling of ‘small stories’ – stories and experiences which are those of the everyday or those of a cultural perspective other than that prioritised by most world building softwares or game engines. GreyCat offers a simple framework which allows participants to use their own image materials (photographs for the most part) as a basis for spatial exploration of their own places.---------- Truna aka j.turner (2008) The little grey cat engine: telling small stories (Demo), Australasian Computer Human Interaction Conference, OZCHI 2008, December 8th-12th, Cairns, Australia---------- Research Publications: truna aka j.turner & Browning, D. (2009) Designing spatial story telling software, in proceedings OZCHI09, Melbourne---------- Truna aka j.turner, Browning, D. & Champion, E. (2008) Designing for Engaged Experience, In proceedings Australasian Computer Human Interaction Conference, OZCHI 2008, December 8th-12th, Cairns, Australia---------- Truna aka. J.turner & Bidwell, N. (2007) Through the looking glass: game worlds as representations and views from elsewhere, Proceedings of the 4th Australasian conference on Interactive entertainment, Melbourne, Australia---------- Truna aka j.turner, Browning, D & Bidwell, N. (2007) Wanderer beyond game worlds, in proceedings, Hutchinson, A (ed) PerthDAC 2007: The seventh International Digital Arts and Culture Conference: The future of digital media culture, 15-18 September 2007, Perth, Australia, Curtin University of Technology---------- Truna aka j.turner (2006) To explore strange new worlds: experience design in 3 dimensional immersive environments - role and place in a world as object of interaction, In proceedings, Australasian Computer Human Interaction Conference, OZCHI 2006, November 22nd-24th, Sydney, Australia, November 20th – 24th 2006, pp 26- 29---------- Truna aka j.turner (2006) Digital songlines environment (Demonstration), In proceedings 2006 International conference on Game research and development, Perth, Australia---------- Truna aka j.turner (2006) Destination Space: Experiential Spatiality and Stories, Special Session on Experiential Spatiality, In proceedings 2006 International conference on Game research and development, Perth, Australia

Rephrasing voice : art, practice-led research and the limits and sites of articulacy

While my PhD is practice-led research, it is my contention that such an inquiry cannot develop as long as it tries to emulate other models of research. I assert that practice-led research needs to account for an epistemological unknown or uncertainty central to the practice of art. By focusing on what I call the artist's 'voice,' I will show how this 'voice' is comprised of a dual motivation—'articulate' representation and 'inarticulate' affect—which do not even necessarily derive from the artist. Through an analysis of art-historical precedents, critical literature (the work of Jean-François Lyotard and Andrew Benjamin, the critical methods of philosophy, phenomenology and psychoanalysis) as well as of my own painting and digital arts practice, I aim to demonstrate how this unknown or uncertain aspect of artistic inquiry can be mapped. It is my contention that practice-led research needs to address and account for this dualistic 'voice' in order to more comprehensively articulate its unique contribution to research culture.

Using virtual reality modelling in cultural management, archiving and research

This paper outlines how the Ortelia project’s 3D virtual reality models have the capacity to assist our understanding of sites of cultural heritage. The VR investigation of such spaces can be a valuable tool in 'real world' empirical research in theatre and spatiality. Through a demonstration of two of Ortelia's VR models (an art gallery and a theatre), we suggest how we might consider interpreting cultural space and sites as contributing significantly to cultural capital. We also introduce the potential for human interaction in such venues through motion-capture to discuss the potential for assessing how humans interact in such contexts.

The vernacular terrain : Songzhang Art Museum, Beijing, China

The field was the curation of cross-cultural new media/ digital media practices within large-scale exhibition practices in China. The context was improved understandings of the intertwining of the natural and the artificial with respect to landscape and culture, and their consequent effect on our contemporary globalised society. The research highlighted new languages of media art with respect to landscape and their particular underpinning dialects. The methodology was principally practice-led. --------- The research brought together over 60 practitioners from both local and diasporic Asian, European and Australian cultures for the first time within a Chinese exhibition context. Through pursuing a strong response to both cultural displacement and re-identification the research forged and documented an enduring commonality within difference – an agenda further concentrated through sensitivities surrounding that year’s Beijing’s Olympics. In contrast to the severe threats posed to the local dialects of many of the world’s spoken and written languages the ‘Vernacular Terrain’ project evidenced that many local creative ‘dialects’ of the environment-media art continuum had indeed survived and flourished. --------- The project was co-funded by the Beijing Film Academy, QUT Precincts, IDAProjects and Platform China Art Institute. A broad range of peer-reviewed grants was won including from the Australia China Council and the Australian Embassy in China. Through invitations from external curators much of the work then traveled to other venues including the Block Gallery at QUT and the outdoor screens at Federation Square, Melbourne. The Vernacular Terrain catalogue featured a comprehensive history of the IDA project from 2000 to 2008 alongside several major essays. Due to the reputation IDA Projects had established, the team were invited to curate a major exhibition showcasing fifty new media artists: The Vernacular Terrain, at the prestigious Songzhang Art Museum, Beijing in Dec 07-Jan 2008. The exhibition was designed for an extensive, newly opened gallery owned by one of China's most important art historians Li Xian Ting. This exhibition was not only this gallery’s inaugural non-Chinese curated show but also the Gallery’s first new media exhibition. It included important works by artists such as Peter Greenway, Michael Roulier, Maleonn and Cui Xuiwen. --------- Each artist was chosen both for a focus upon their own local environmental concerns as well as their specific forms of practice - that included virtual world design, interactive design, video art, real time and manipulated multiplayer gaming platforms and web 2.0 practices. This exhibition examined the interconnectivities of cultural dialogue on both a micro and macro scale; incorporating the local and the global, through display methods and design approaches that stitched these diverse practices into a spatial map of meanings and conversations. By examining the contexts of each artist’s practice in relationship to the specificity of their own local place and prevailing global contexts the exhibition sought to uncover a global vernacular. Through pursuing this concentrated anthropological direction the research identified key themes and concerns of a contextual language that was clearly underpinned by distinctive local ‘dialects’ thereby contributing to a profound sense of cross-cultural association. Through augmentation of existing discourse the exhibition confirmed the enduring relevance and influence of both localized and globalised languages of the landscape-technology continuum.

2006 International digital art awards : Beijing film academy galleries, China

The field was the curation of new media within large-scale exhibition practice for Chinese audiences. The context was improved understandings of the intertwining cultures and concerns of Chinese and Western contemporary practitioners. The research uncovered a range of connective and dialogical concerns around cultural displacement and re-identification, germane to the chosen group of media artists. The methodology was principally practice-led. The research brought together 31 practitioners from Asian, European and Australasian cultures within a major highly visible Chinese exhibition context. By identifying and promoting a distinct commonality within difference amongst the diverse practitioners the exhibition successfully activated a global dialogue that incorporated environmental and cultural identity agendas within a major Chinese educational and public context - thereby promulgating cross-cultural understanding, despite the often oppressive shadowing of domestic political processes. The project was developed under the international aegis of IDA Projects (established since 1999) and was substantially supported by the Fine Art Department of the Beijing Film Academy, QUT Precincts and Platform China Art Institute. It built upon IDA’s 2005 inaugural new media exhibition at the ‘Today Art’ Museum in Beijing – now recognised as one of the leading art spaces in China. Numerous peer-reviewed grants won included the Australian Embassy in China and the Australia China Council. Through subsequent invitations from external curators the work then traveled in a range of reconfigured formats to other major venues including the Block Gallery at QUT, Brisbane and ZAIM Artspace, Yokohama Japan. A major catalogue with authoritative essays was also printed.

Defibrillator

Defibrillator is a 16’41” musical work for solo performer, laptop computer and electric guitar. The electric guitar is processed in real-time by digital signal processing network in software, with gestural control provided by a foot-operated pedal board. --------- The work is informed by a range of ideas from the genres of electroacoustic music, western art music, popular music and cinematic sound. It seeks to fluidly cross and hybridise musical practices from these diverse sonic traditions and to develop a compositional language that draws upon multiple genres, but at the same time resists the ability to be located within a singular genre. Musical structures and sonic markers which form genre are ruptured at strategic levels of the musical structure in order to allow for a cross flow of concepts between genres. The process of rupture is facilitated by the practical implementation of music and sound reception theories into the compositional process. -------- The piece exhibits the by-products of a composer born into a media saturated environment, drawing on a range of musical and sonic traditions, actively seeking to explore the liminal space in between these traditions. The project stems from the author's research interests in locating points of connection between traditions of experimentation in diverse musical and sonic traditions arising from the broad uptake of media technologies in the early 20th century.

Autonomous control of underground mining vehicles using reactive navigation

Describes how many of the navigation techniques developed by the robotics research community over the last decade may be applied to a class of underground mining vehicles (LHDs and haul trucks). We review the current state-of-the-art in this area and conclude that there are essentially two basic methods of navigation applicable. We describe an implementation of a reactive navigation system on a 30 tonne LHD which has achieved full-speed operation at a production mine.

Music, media and making : humanising digital media in music education

This paper examines three functions of music technology in the study of music. Firstly, as a tool, secondly, as an instrument and, lastly, as a medium for thinking. As our societies become increasingly embroiled in digital media for representation and communication, our philosophies of music education need to adapt to integrate these developments while maintaining the essence of music. The foundation of music technology in the 1990s is the digital representation of sound. It is this fundamental shift to a new medium with which to represent sound that carries with it the challenge to address digital technology and its multiple effects on music creation and presentation. In this paper I suggest that music institutions should take a broad and integrated approach to the place of music technology in their courses, based on the understanding of digital representation of sound and these three functions it can serve. Educators should reconsider digital technologies such as synthesizers and computers as music instruments and cognitive amplifiers, not simply as efficient tools.

The Sun gives without ever receiving

A small scale sculpture that contributes towards my ongoing explorations into how our collective ability to sustain (the future) is as much a cultural problematic as it is an economic or technological one. The curatorial brief of the project was a technical one - in that each curated artist was to design a piece in CAD suitable for 3D resin printing - The object should be entirely generated through 3D visualisation and modelling tools and should be machined and shipped within the dimensions of 6cm x 6cm x 6cm. My design for this brief was influenced by recent research I had conducted in Mildura in the Sunraysia irrigated region of NW Victoria. Each name set within the work is an Australian soldier/settler – who, on returning from the ‘Great War’ was duly awarded a ‘block’ in Australia’s new inland irrigated settlements - with the explicit task of clearing it to plant and reap. Through their concerted and well-intentioned efforts, these workers began to profoundly re-shape Australia’s marginal country - inadvertently presaging the bleak future faced today by many of Australia’s inland lands and river systems. Furthermore, through that time's predominant colonial conception of ‘terra nullius’ (this land is unoccupied and therefore free to be claimed) they each played a small but formative part in building the profound cultural divide between land and peoples that still haunts Australia today. THE EXHIBITION: Inside Out is a compelling international touring exhibition featuring forty-six miniature sculptures produced in resin using 3D printing technologies. Developments in virtual computer visualisation and integrated digital technologies are giving contemporary makers new insight and opportunities to create objects and forms which were previously impossible to produce or difficult to envisage. The exhibition is the result of collaboration between the Art Technology Coalition, the University of Technology Sydney and RMIT University in Australia along with De Montfort University, Manchester Metropolitan University and Dartington College of Arts at University College Falmouth in the United Kingdom.

Artful determination : "state of the art" and PCME Ltd v. Goyen COntrols Co. UK Ltd

In a recent decision by Mr Justice Laddie, a patent was held anticipated by, inter alia, prior use of a device which fell within the claims of the patent in suit, even though its circuitry was enclosed in resin. The anticipating invention had been "made available to the public" within the terms of section 2 (2) of the Patents Act 1977 because its essential integers would have been revealed by an interesting character, the "skilled forensic engineer".

Use of advanced computer graphics and data visualisation technologies in teaching and learning of steel structural design

A teaching and learning development project is currently under way at Queens-land University of Technology to develop advanced technology videotapes for use with the delivery of structural engineering courses. These tapes consist of integrated computer and laboratory simulations of important concepts, and behaviour of structures and their components for a number of structural engineering subjects. They will be used as part of the regular lectures and thus will not only improve the quality of lectures and learning environment, but also will be able to replace the ever-dwindling laboratory teaching in these subjects. The use of these videotapes, developed using advanced computer graphics, data visualization and video technologies, will enrich the learning process of the current diverse engineering student body. This paper presents the details of this new method, the methodology used, the results and evaluation in relation to one of the structural engineering subjects, steel structures.