Reproduction

"Reproduction" is a mixed reality installation that investigates the flow of data between the material world and synthetic worlds, in particular realtime 3D environments, through the creation of a persistent realtime 3D environment populated with agent entities that evolve over the duration of the exhibition in response to the actions of the human visitors to the gallery.

How to pack a bag

The artworks in this exhibition form part of my practice-led PhD research. As a daily task while travelling, packing a bag becomes a complex process, as we juggle the many movements in acquiring, discarding and arranging objects.

These artworks aim to highlight the many material interactions we have during the packing process, emphasising the ways in which we arrange materials and consider spatial constraints. For instance, how much we can “fit” in a bag, or, how we use the space of the room we are within, as well as the many movements our bodies undertake with the materials.

Exhibited works:
"Packing Diagrams", laminated digital prints
"Tracking the packing process", interactive installation
"Packing (exploring)", interactive installation, mixed media
"Packing (puzzle)", interactive installation
"bodies + bags" (excerpt), digital video loop

Reproduction game demo

An 8 screen stereoscopic 3D Multi-user environment set in a circular formation. Paticipants are tracked by 8 kinect sensors as they move around the 360 degree installation. Participants inherit a species upon entering. Artificial Life based entities cluster towards the human particpants of their species and their songs evolve according to the interactions.

Contested Meme-ing: Co-opt or Co-operate

This artwork details the designs for an interactive installation that address cooperation and competition for control over meaning of a text in a a game-like situation.

Teaching a digital performing agent: artificial neural network and hidden Markov Model for recognising and performing dance movement

For a Digital Performing Agent to be able to perform live with a human dancer, it would be useful for the agent to be able to contextualize the movement the dancer is performing and to have a suitable movement vocabulary with which to contribute to the performance. In this paper we will discuss our research into the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) as a means of allowing a software agent to learn a shared vocabulary of movement from a dancer. The agent is able to use the learnt movements to form an internal representation of what the dancer is performing, allowing it to follow the dancer, generate movement sequences based on the dancer's current movement and dance independently of the dancer using a shared movement vocabulary. By combining the ANN with a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) the agent is able to recognize short full body movement phrases and respond when the dancer performs these phrases. We consider the relationship between the dancer and agent as a means of supporting the agent's learning and performance, rather than developing the agent's capability in a self-contained fashion.

Recognition: combining human interaction and a digital performing agent

Virtual and augmented environments are often dependent on human intervention for change to occur. However there are times when it would be advantageous for appropriate human-like activity to still occur when there are no humans present. In this paper, we describe the installation art piece Recognition, which uses the movement of human participants to effect change, and the movement of a performing agent when there are no humans present. The agent's Artificial Neural Network has learnt appropriate movements from a dancer and is able to generate suitable movement for the main avatar in the absence of human participants.

As imagens ds instalações interativas: uma abordagem sobre os modelos de solicitar a participação do público na obra de arte

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Por baixo da pele outra pele: conjunto de obras artísticas. Corpo, ecrã e interface para uma visualidade háptica interativa

A tese teórico-prática de doutoramento apresentada contempla a investigação, a criação, a produção e a conceptualização da instalação artística interativa intitulada Por baixo da pele outra pele. A Obra é constituída por três objetos tridimensionais concebidos à escala humana. Recorre a materiais flexíveis, como têxteis, convidando o público (interator), à envolvência física, numa relação corporal sensorial e sensual com a obra. Os objetos contêm dispositivos técnicos interativos e sensores tácteis, que, ao serem utilizados, desencadeiam estímulos multissensoriais no espectador. A instalação interativa focaliza a experiência háptica e íntima do interator considerando os seus mecanismos sensoriais e cognitivos como um potencial aparato na construção de experiências fenomenológicas, singulares e individuais. A autora considera a interatividade enquanto elemento potenciador da experiência estética visual háptica. Na argumentação conceitual da obra, reflete-se sobre o tema da visualidade háptica interativa a partirdos conceitos de ecrã, corpo e interface, assim como de endossensorialidade. Instrumentam-se metodologias de investigação em ação, experimentais e observacionais. Apresentam-se os processos investigativos, criativos e técnicos necessários ao desenvolvimento e à materialização da instalação artística. A investigação revela-se de grande interesse para o avanço da pesquisa de novas linguagens experimentais apresentando estratégias de criação artística que, ao privilegiarem o corpo físico e fenomenológico do interator, transpõe a experiência háptica interativa para um grau interno de imersão motoro-sensorial; Underneath the skin another skin: art installation. Body, screen and interface towards an interactive haptic visuality. Abstract: The theoretical-practical doctorate dissertation presents the research and conceptual framework behind, and the processes leading to, the creation and production of the interactive installation art piece Underneath the skin, another skin. The piece is presented in the shape of three human-scale tridimentional objects. It is made from flexible materials, such as textiles, inviting the (interacting) audience, to physically engage in a bodily sensorial, and sensuous, relationship with the artwork. The objects enclose interactive devices and tactile sensors that, when used, trigger in the interactor multiple sensorial stimuli. The interactive installation focuses on the interactor's intimate haptic experience taking in consideration his or hers sensorial and cognitive mechanisms as a potential apparatus in the construction of unique individual phenomenological experiences. The author understands interactivity as a triggering element into an haptic visual aesthetical experience. The supporting conceptual reasoning deals with thought and criticism on interactive haptic visuality applied to the concepts of screen, body and interface, as well as with that of endo-sensoriality. The dissertation describes the use of experimental and observation research methodologies. It also elaborates on the research, creative and technical processes at play in the installation's development and realization. The research at hand has shown great potential for the further development of new experimental languages, as it presents art-creation strategies privileging the interactor's physical and phenomenological body, and thus able to take the interactive haptic experience onto an greater inner level of motor-sensorial immersion.

Étude des caractéristiques et du processus de scénarisation d'une installation interactive

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Emergence in interactive art

This thesis is concerned with creating and evaluating interactive art systems that facilitate emergent participant experiences. For the purposes of this research, interactive art is the computer based arts involving physical participation from the audience, while emergence is when a new form or concept appears that was not directly implied by the context from which it arose. This emergent ‘whole’ is more than a simple sum of its parts. The research aims to develop understanding of the nature of emergent experiences that might arise during participant interaction with interactive art systems. It also aims to understand the design issues surrounding the creation of these systems. The approach used is Practice-based, integrating practice, evaluation and theoretical research. Practice used methods from Reflection-in-action and Iterative design to create two interactive art systems: Glass Pond and +-now. Creation of +-now resulted in a novel method for instantiating emergent shapes. Both art works were also evaluated in exploratory studies. In addition, a main study with 30 participants was conducted on participant interaction with +-now. These sessions were video recorded and participants were interviewed about their experience. Recordings were transcribed and analysed using Grounded theory methods. Emergent participant experiences were identified and classified using a taxonomy of emergence in interactive art. This taxonomy draws on theoretical research. The outcomes of this Practice-based research are summarised as follows. Two interactive art systems, where the second work clearly facilitates emergent interaction, were created. Their creation involved the development of a novel method for instantiating emergent shapes and it informed aesthetic and design issues surrounding interactive art systems for emergence. A taxonomy of emergence in interactive art was also created. Other outcomes are the evaluation findings about participant experiences, including different types of emergence experienced and the coding schemes produced during data analysis.

The ECOS Project. An interactive simulation to promote an ECO-friendly universe.

Custom designed for display on the Cube Installation situated in the new Science and Engineering Centre (SEC) at QUT, the ECOS project is a playful interface that uses real-time weather data to simulate how a five-star energy building operates in climates all over the world. In collaboration with the SEC building managers, the ECOS Project incorporates energy consumption and generation data of the building into an interactive simulation, which is both engaging to users and highly informative, and which invites play and reflection on the roles of green buildings. ECOS focuses on the principle that humans can have both a positive and negative impact on ecosystems with both local and global consequence. The ECOS project draws on the practice of Eco-Visualisation, a term used to encapsulate the important merging of environmental data visualization with the philosophy of sustainability. Holmes (2007) uses the term Eco-Visualisation (EV) to refer to data visualisations that ‘display the real time consumption statistics of key environmental resources for the goal of promoting ecological literacy’. EVs are commonly artifacts of interaction design, information design, interface design and industrial design, but are informed by various intellectual disciplines that have shared interests in sustainability. As a result of surveying a number of projects, Pierce, Odom and Blevis (2008) outline strategies for designing and evaluating effective EVs, including ‘connecting behavior to material impacts of consumption, encouraging playful engagement and exploration with energy, raising public awareness and facilitating discussion, and stimulating critical reflection.’ Consequently, Froehlich (2010) and his colleagues also use the term ‘Eco-feedback technology’ to describe the same field. ‘Green IT’ is another variation which Tomlinson (2010) describes as a ‘field at the juncture of two trends… the growing concern over environmental issues’ and ‘the use of digital tools and techniques for manipulating information.’ The ECOS Project team is guided by these principles, but more importantly, propose an example for how these principles may be achieved. The ECOS Project presents a simplified interface to the very complex domain of thermodynamic and climate modeling. From a mathematical perspective, the simulation can be divided into two models, which interact and compete for balance – the comfort of ECOS’ virtual denizens and the ecological and environmental health of the virtual world. The comfort model is based on the study of psychometrics, and specifically those relating to human comfort. This provides baseline micro-climatic values for what constitutes a comfortable working environment within the QUT SEC buildings. The difference between the ambient outside temperature (as determined by polling the Google Weather API for live weather data) and the internal thermostat of the building (as set by the user) allows us to estimate the energy required to either heat or cool the building. Once the energy requirements can be ascertained, this is then balanced with the ability of the building to produce enough power from green energy sources (solar, wind and gas) to cover its energy requirements. Calculating the relative amount of energy produced by wind and solar can be done by, in the case of solar for example, considering the size of panel and the amount of solar radiation it is receiving at any given time, which in turn can be estimated based on the temperature and conditions returned by the live weather API. Some of these variables can be altered by the user, allowing them to attempt to optimize the health of the building. The variables that can be changed are the budget allocated to green energy sources such as the Solar Panels, Wind Generator and the Air conditioning to control the internal building temperature. These variables influence the energy input and output variables, modeled on the real energy usage statistics drawn from the SEC data provided by the building managers.

Evoking gesture in interactive art

In this paper, we describe an interactive artwork that uses large body gestures as its primary interactive mode. The artist intends the work to provoke active reflection in the audience by way of gesture and content. The technology is not the focus, rather the aim is to provoke memory, to elicit feelings of connective human experiences in a required-to-participate audience. We find the work provokes a diverse and contradictory set of responses. The methods used to understand this include qualitative methods common to evaluating interactive art works, as well as in-depth discussions with the artist herself. This paper is relevant to the Human - Centered Computing track because in all stages of the design of the work - as well as the evaluation - the focus is on the human aspect; the computing is designed to enable all-too-human responses.

CNN Interactive just got more interactive

Interactive gallery installation which playfully re-contextualised online news feeds from CNN’s website with a soundtrack of found music in order to comment on an online environment where 'serious' news and trivial 'infotainment' often occupy the same space. ‘CNN Interactive just got more interactive’ aimed to investigate the balance between information and ‘info-tainment’ on the web. It demonstrated how the authority and presence of global news corporations online could be playfully subverted by enabling the audience to add a variety of emotively titled soundtracks to the monolithic CNN Interactive website. The project also explored how a work could exist dually as website and gallery installation. ‘CNN interactive’ contributes to the taxonomy of new media art as a new form of contemporary art. One of the first examples in the world of a gallery installation using live Internet data, it is also one of the first attempts in a new media art context to address how individuals respond to and comprehend the changed nature of the news as an immediate phenomenon as relayed by network communications systems. 'CNN interactive’ continues Craighead and Thomson’s research into how live digital networked information can be re-purposed as artistic material within gallery installation contexts but with specific reference to online-international news events, rather than arbitrary data sources (see e-poltergeist, output 1). ‘CNN Interactive’ was commissioned by Tate Britain for the exhibition ‘Art and Money Online’. This was the first gallery exhibition in Tate Britain featuring work that utilised and explored new media as an artistic area, and the first work commissioned by the Tate to operate simultaneously as an online gallery artwork. Selected reviews and citations include ‘Digital Art’ by Christiane Paul, 2003; ‘Internet Art: The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce’ by Julian Stallabrass. (2002); ‘Thomson & Craighead’ by Lisa Le Feuvre for Katalog Journal of Photography and Video, Denmark. All work is developed jointly and equally between Craighead and her collaborator, Jon Thomson, (Slade).

TINSEL – a web-based intelligent tutoring system on electrical installation design

This paper presents a project consisting on the development of an Intelligent Tutoring System, for training and support concerning the development of electrical installation projects to be used by electrical engineers, technicians and students. One of the major goals of this project is to devise a teaching model based on Intelligent Tutoring techniques, considering not only academic knowledge but also other types of more empirical knowledge, able to achieve successfully the training of electrical installation design.

Two Women; On the Cinematic Experience in Installation Art

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-07