Virtual Walks

For this project, the students had to design a virtual space that users could navigate.  The virtual journeys they designed ranged from taking us through a tumultuous Hollywood career path to asking us to make tough decisions in the aisles of a grocery store.  One group used live-keying techniques to take us on a virtual field trip from Antarctica to Africa. We got to hang out with some virtual penguins and giraffes.  It was real!

But perhaps the most surprising was the game “Whose Status is it Anyway?”, which challenged the Coms Diploma ’14 group to see if they could identify their classmates based on past Facebook status updates. The game was also an opportunity to learn some fun facts about classmates.

GIF from the game:

You’re given a status, click on the classmate you think generated it, and are sent to a page with more info on the correct status-generator, with more info on that person. Kind of like a virtual yearbook:

Testing the magic of the green screen:

Virtual Field Trip tests in the lab. Penguins in the background.

Giraffes.

Green Screen Dreem Teem

Collect Karma by making healthy, ethical choices at the supermarket. Click to Play.

SAVE THE BEES! Play the game.

Land of dreams, nightmares, and firework gifs. Click to play.

10 Things to Think About When Designing Interactive Media

After designing our “Virtual Walk” projects, in which we created virtual, screen-based interactive environments that could be navigated by a user, we came up with a list of 10 “things to think about” when designing interactive media.

1. Be invested in the concept: you’re going to spend a lot of hours with it!

2. Visual Planning: storyboard, sketch, diagram, make a logic map.

3. Consider all of the senses: involving the user’s vision, hearing, and touch makes for a more immersive experience.

4. Limitations: What are the technical limitations of the platform, and those of your own schedule and skill-level?

5. Play-testing is key: This is how you find out how much instruction a user needs, and where.

6. Using stock visuals can help speed up the prototype creation, allow you to get to testing sooner and focus on interaction design issues.

7. Copyrights: Are your stock visuals or sounds ok to use?

8. Ethics: Are you working with humans?  What kinds of consent and trust do you need to establish?

9. Think about the pacing of the experience: things like text-heavy pages might slow down the user.  Can your design be more concise?

10. Plan B’s: it’s good to have these ready.

 

Readings and Links

Here is what we’ve read so far, and some examples of media art we looked at in class:

On the term “Intermedia”

• Higgins, Dick. “Synaesthesia and Intersenses: Intermedia”, Originally published in Something Else Newsletter 1, No. 1 (Something Else Press, 1966) http://www.ubu.com/papers/higgins_intermedia.html

Moment Factory/Chris Milk:
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/chris-milk/arcade-fire-and-chris-milk
Moment Factory Projection Mapping:
http://vimeo.com/49960413
Student Work Samples:
http://missingmomentdata.wix.com/moments
http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/17196
http://vimeo.com/59417823
http://benjaminjallard.com/untitled/index.html

On screen presence and immersive media

• Manovich, Lev. “The Poetics of Urban Media Surfaces.” First Monday (4). <http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1545/1460>
• Huhtamo, Erkki.“Messages on the Wall: An Archaeology of Public Media Displays.” The Urban Screens Reader. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2009. Pp 15-28
• Marchessault, Janine. “Multi-Screens and Future Cinema: The Labyrinth Project at Expo 67.” Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema. Ed. Susan Lord and Janine Marchessault. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Pp 39-51

Daniel Peltz:
http://vimeo.com/channels/101190/11096985
Diana Thater:
https://vimeo.com/16326381
Kara Walker:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/kara-walker

Pipilotti Rist:
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/307
Krzysztof Wodiczko:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-krzysztof-wodiczko-in-power

Expo ’67:
http://www.nfb.ca/film/impressions_of_expo_67/
The Labrynth pavillion:
http://www.nfb.ca/film/in_the_labyrinth/

On networked images and interactivity

• Wasson, Haidee. “The Networked Screen: Moving Images, Materiality, and the Aesthetics of Size.” Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema. Ed. Susan Lord and Janine Marchessault. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Pp 74-95.
• Morioka, Yoshitomo. “Between Magic and the Algorithmic Image” Public, 11 (1995): 45-40
• Bolter, Jay David and Grusin, Richard. “Introduction: The Double Logic of Remediation.” Remediation: Understanding New Media. MIT Press (2000).Pp 3-15
• Smuts, Aaron. “What is Interactivity?” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 43, No. 4 (WINTER 2009). University of Illinois Press. pp. 53-73

A Day Made of Glass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38
Style Wars
http://stylewars.com/

A Brief History of the GIF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuxKb5mxM8g&feature=player_embedded
GIF art by Brandon Blommaert:

http://pandaclock.com/phantom_hand/?p=134

Ani-gif web gallery:

http://ani-gif.com/about/

Paper Rad art collective:

http://www.paperrad.org/newindex.html

Online exhibition, Plastic Yet Still In Between, curated by Andrew Benson:

http://plasticyetstillin-between.com/

Stephanie Davidson’s Inferno:

http://stephd.biz/inferno/

Toshio Iwai’s video games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28UDxIQiaIY

Pacmanhattan:
http://pacmanhattan.com/index.php

Siting the Image

These projects address the challenge of contextualizing screens in physical space.  Drawing on examples of video installation, interactive architecture, advertising, public art, and performance, we created our own screen-based works with attention to scale and location.

“Spring is Coming” juxtaposes two different visual interpretations of the term “spring”. A collage-animation was temporarily projected onto a university campus building in Winter 2014. This site was chosen for its association with youth-driven political movements.

“New Aphorisms” uses guerilla street art tactics to comment on the rift between the public and the private.  New takes on familiar aphorisms are projected onto architectural surfaces in Montreal.

“That Awkward Moment” situates elevator users in uncomfortably close proximity to a confrontation between a virtual and a real human.

“Please Do Not Reshelve” comments on the restructuring of the 3rd floor of the Concordia Library, where they are dismantling and removing all bookshelves.  A narrative video projected in the adjacent study room shows the gradual disappearance of books in the library as information technologies change.

(video still, “Please Do Not Reshelve”)

(location view, “Please Do Not Reshelve”)

(Installation view, “Please Do Not Reshelve”)

More projects coming soon!

10 Best-Practices for Site-Specific Media Interventions

After completing our first intermedia projects, the class collectively came up with this list of things we’ve learned.

1. Prevision all of the logistics from start to finish early on, and use it to make a checklist and production schedule.

2. Organize crew roles if working in a collaborative group.  If working with specialists, delegate tasks.

3. Find out what kind of permissions you need early on.  Navigating bureaucracy can be a slow process!

4. Test your workflow from start to finish–both software and hardware–in order to flag media compatibility issues, equipment limitations, etc.

5. Location scout! Once you’ve chosen a site, gather information about the physical measurements, lighting conditions, weather and social conditions of the space at different times of the day, week, season, etc.

6. Design the media for the specific conditions of the space.  For example, adjust the image brightness and contrast to suit the ambient light levels, consider the duration of the video loop in terms of how long people are likely to look at the work, etc.

7. Pause to reflect on the meaning of your work, and continue refining the concepts during the production process.

8. Consider that no object is neutral and either eliminate extraneous materials or embrace whatever you have to work with.

9. Immediacy or hypermediacy?  Decide whether it makes more sense for your project to expose or hide the apparatus.

10. Do a “dress rehearsal” with everything as finished as possible, a few days in advance.