The centre is founded on the now familiar notion that new media industry has certain characteristics distinguishing it from traditional industry. They argue that ‘technological development is faster and that work within new media industries is based much more heavily on experimentation.

Rather than simply noting, critiquing, or analysing this shift the MEDEA Initiative recognises the implications for research itself. Because digital media is relatively cheap and development fast it is argued that ‘rather than doing careful studies over longer periods of time before acting, it is more efficient to simply experiment.’

The centre is built on the concept of co-production which sees academic researchers working with actors outside of the university including from the corporate sector, community, government, NGOs, and individuals in the development of ‘new forms of knowledge and new innovation models within the field of new media’.

This commitment to experimentation as a mode of research and research-as-doing, coupled with a philosophy of open-innovation, offers an almost improvisational research dynamic. This dynamic promises a moves beyond the notion of overtly determined and instrumental private/public partnerships or the need to farm and protect the value of institutional and corporate IP. The  Centre’s approach to research, design and development promises the support of an open collaboration between community, institutional and corporate actors.

The MEDEA Collaborative Media Institute is located a Malmo University where a large studio space offers the chance for academic researchers, external partners, artists-in-residence and ‘entrepeneurs-in -residence to engage with and develop experiments, workshops, events and creative work in general.

MEDEA is funded as one the KK (Knowledge)-environments funded by the Knowledge Foundation to develop networks of collaboration between Universities and External Partners and programs designed to create opportunities for collaboration between a variety of actors in the service of encouraging innovation.

MEDEA has been a central partner in the establishment of the Media Evolution ‘network hub’ which develops and implements opportunities for interactions between different media industries and skill sets in the service of encouraging innovative approaches and experiments in new media, as well as encouraging the development of business models capable of harnessing the potential of new and networked media.

The MEDEA group funds a series of innovation projects provocatively called ‘do-tanks’ (creating an intriguing parallel to the ‘think-tank’. Projects funded/supported in the last series of grants include;

Dodream – an engine for sketching, sharing, and developing ideas into new and concrete projects.
Parapolis – a project that uses augmented reality technology to allow the public to view, comment on, and reconfigure plans for development in shared or public spaces.
Urblove – a project aimed at developing the tools and strategies for combining urban exploration, gaming and user created content. Urblove is a service for developing location based mobile games in urban environments as well as supporting a community that develops their own games and share their experience of them. (http://www.ozma.se/2010/05/06/urblove/)
Liverse – an application that allows concertgoers to interact with the musicians and for bands to share additional content via ‘mobile tags’ (QR Codes). (trendmaze.com)
The Magpie Nest – a Facebook based application that supports small teams of eight participants in reflecting and analysing corporate stories and dilemmas in the interests of enhancing the transmission and transference of tacit knowledge within corporations.
Din Nature – an interactive museum exhibition that morphs according to a user/clients attitudes to the concept of nature.
It’s my experience – a Web Based Editor allowing users to create location based games and experiences for mobile phone with a focus on the potential they provide for contextualised and informal learning.

The MEDEA centre also supports a research program and a series of in-house projects. The center is directed by Bo Reimer.

The two projects listed on the Institute include; the ‘Audio Index’ system  and the  Inclusive Train Information Terminal. The ‘AudioIndex’ is-a system that allows visually impaired library patrons and librarians to navigate the audio book shelves of a library. Touching the spine of a book provides audio feedback – a project supported by the European Union and is run by public libraries in the Umea region. The Inclusive Train Information Terminal is an accesible information kiosk – the completed and tested design will be rolled out to all Swedish railway stations in 2010.

Malin Grummas a student in the MA program for Advanced Product Design at the Institute was awarded gold at the International Design Excellence Awards for her ‘Clean Air System’ – an intelligent light weight intelligent air filter system for use by firefighters or other professionals working in a a compromised environment.

Under the Cutural Heritage focus of the centre the DUL has worked with Moesgård Museum to produce an interactive display allowing visitors to create and record their own rune stone designs. Under the Digital Art focus the centre has curated an exhibition of work exploring Surveillance in contemporary networked and pervasive media cultures. Under the Digital Art fous the centre has also employed the ‘Talkaoke’ format developed by the British Artist collective ‘The People Speak’ to explore the potential for digital/networked art to open spaces of public dialogue and exchange and as a commercial and cultural ‘facilitation’ engine. The Talkaoke format involves a donut shaped ‘news desk’ in which a central interviewer host a ‘talk show’ with the participants seated around the table discuss a particular user -led issue. The format of the table encourages and open and intimates engagement which is then recorded and presented on screen on site and online. In the same vein and in collaboration with ‘The People Speak’ once again the DUL directed a game show  ’The Pledge Pyramid’ that encouraged people to discuss options  and to vote for an idea for combatting the effects of climate change – participants were required to donate ‘hard cash’ and the collected funds were awarded to the ‘winning’ option. The project Atmosphere Co2 involved the translation of Co2 levels to sound and light in the form of 3 sculptures positioned in public spaces- exploring the effects of making the non-sensuous qualities of the environment sensible. The data from the sculptures’ sensors was captured to pachube.com. Pachube.com is a site that acts a an open repository/collection point for environmental and other forms of realtime sensor creating a real time source of CO2 information beyond the immediate and the sensible.

The centre also publishes extensively on management training, management and business communication, and participatory design, and the analysis of public and management discourse.

The centre includes five research groups – Scientific Visualisation, Information and Geo Visualisation, Computer Graphics and VR, Structural and Civil Engineering and Visual Learning and Communication.

It should also be note that the Centre for Medical Image Science and Visualisation is based at the university teaching hospital and works closely with both VITA and the Norrköping Visualisation Centre.

Research projects include but are not limited to: Volumetric visualisation of large datasets, Data visualisation and Augmented Reality, Haptic Interaction with Deformable Objects, Visual Analytics, Photorealistic computer graphics for virtual and augmented reality, Town Planning, Civil and Structural Design, Learning through Scientific Visualisation.

The Centre for Visual Information Technology and Applications, along with the Centre for Medical Image Science and Visualisation worked in collaboration with the Interactive Institute on The Virtual Autopsy Table project.

Some projects with which the lab is associated include:

Nexttext : nexttext.net – A project (based in Processing-Java) that allows the breakdown of text into unit hierarchies (phrases, words, letters) and to apply dynamic behaviours and interactions to those hierarchies.

Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace Project: http://www.abtec.org/

Mr Softie: A typographic text editor, for working with the nexttext framework.

The Korsakow non-linear video system has been central to the groups work – Originally designed by New Media artist Florian Thalhofer – the system was further developed in conjunction with CINER-G. Matt Soar is the principle investigator on this project is a major contributor to a growing community of users.

A story from the Concordia University Joural regarding the work of the Research Group, its relation to the Korsokow project, and its use in teaching non-linear video can be found here.

About TEKS – TEKS, Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre is a non-profit organization founded in Trondheim in 2002.  TEKS is a resource and competence centre that has as a goal to realize productions of techno related art projects within all art disciplines.
TEKS initiates and organizes artistic productions and projects, works with promotion and education through courses and workshops, and acts as organizer or co organizer of various cultural initiatives.
TEKS organizes “Trondheim Matchmaking,” an annual international festival for arts and technology. The festival is an arena for presentations of innovative ideas and artistic projects – a place where competence and resources are maintained and developed.
TEKS is in 2009 funded by the Norwegian government, the Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs and the City of Trondheim.
TEKS is a member of PNEK, Production Network for Electronic Arts.

Virtual Knowledge Studio – The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (KNAW) supports researchers in the humanities and social sciences in the Netherlands in the creation of new scholarly practices and in their reflection on e-research in relation to their fields.

A core feature of the Virtual Knowledge Studio is the integration of design and analysis in a close cooperation between social scientists, humanities researchers, information technology experts and information scientists. This integrated approach provides insight in the way e-research can contribute to new research questions and methods.

The VKS collaborates with the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Erasmus Studio KNAW (in short: Erasmus Studio) based in Rotterdam and with Maastricht University in the Maastricht Virtual Knowledge Studio KNAW based in Maastricht.

A good primer on Hyperdub’s rise and the project more generally can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/22/hyperdub-steve-goodman

To cite that article directly on Hyperdub’s post Burial era;

‘The new Hyperdub sound is all about synthesisers…”It’s like hearing circuitry crying,” Goodman has said of this recent output, and for new signings Darkstar this idea of computer love is a real fascination.’

There is an obvious ‘mutation’ here form a music born of hedonistic abandon in a sea techno-cultural detritus to a more positively generative techno-synthesis.

The ACVA’s first exhibition ‘Babelswarm‘ (2008 Nash, Dodds, Clemens), won the Australia Councils inaugural Second Life Artists in Residence aware. (See the project post for more detail on Babel Swarm.)

In 2010 the ACVA will launch ACVALab – an attempt to provide an incubator for emerging practices and practitioner while providing a collective interface for educators, curators and artists to extend and explore the development of virtual art. ACVALab started with a call for artist participants based on the central question; ‘What could a virtual art lab be if it was imagined by artists for artist?’

ACVA also plans to launch a critical journal.

ACVA Labs lists an impressive list of collaborators on the site including;

Coordinators:

Christopher Dodds – Artist and Produce founder of Icon.Inc.

Greg More – Director OOM Creative.

Adam Nash – Artist working in Digital Environments – SIGGRAPH, ISEA, Venic Biennale

Faciltators;

Dr Melinda Rackham – Adjunct Professor RMIT. Founder of – empyre – list/fourm.

Kate Richards – Artist and Lecturer in Convergent Media at UWS.

Guest Presenters:

Dr Justin Clemems: Artist, Lacanian Scholar.

Fee Plumley: ‘Techno Evangelist’ and owner of creative agency ‘the phone book limited‘ – Digital Program manager for the Australia Council for the Arts

Dr Troy Innocent: Senior Lecturer – Department Multimedia and Digital Arts, Monash University Melbourne.

Gillian Raymond:  Online Manager for the National Portrait Gallery (Canberra)

The ACVA and ACVALab projects are funded by the Australia Council for the Arts.

TechLab’s artist-in-residence program is designed to give artists the time, space and technology they need to realise their digital art projects. It is also intended to be a space of interaction, a place where the public is able to witness the process of creating computer-based art. It is also designed as an engine for innovation with artists being asked to advise on future exhibitions and programs.

Innovation and its relationship with experimentation and artists are particular interests.

Their website states

Artists are innovators, if a new piece of technology or a new medium, becomes available; artists want to try it, to experiment with it, to push the boundaries. Some artists take on the role of a scientist in almost a performative way and some scientists equally take on the role of artist. Attitudes to science, medicine and art have changed over the last five hundred years, in that whilst Science has become more formalized, Art has become increasingly less so. By stepping outside the testable hypothesis artists are free to go off at tangents, to get bogged down in aesthetics and be mavericks.

Founded in 1998, the Interactive Institute is comprised of multiple research studios/groups located across the country and each node has its own area of specialisation that contributes to their focus on exploring the intersections between technology, art and design. Their innovative research uses collaborative models to explore digital technologies and their research output includes academic publications, exhibitions, start-up companies and popular books.

Between 2005 and 2008 they developed and coordinated The Migrant Project, a collaboration between 40 Sydney-based artists that included performances and the creation of serveral multimedia projects.

CuriousWorks’ second project, All Around You, is, according to their website, “a system for using digital media in a simple, positive, lasting manner in marginalised communities. Currently the system is being developed through 3 year partnerships in two regions: Western Sydney (urban) and the Pilbara, Western Australia (remote).” A resource kit and training program is being developed and will be available to other interested groups and communities in 2010.

The ART Mobile Lab, for instance, is known for its work on locative media in wilderness areas, while the Collaboration and Visualization Lab is known for its hybrid research practice and is dedicated to “the design of new technologies, applications, and experiences for cultural interfacing. That is, interfaces that encourage shifts in the perception of the self and the everyday lived world through collaborative experiences in spaces where we play, work, and learn.”

Interactive Media Facades (Rob Saunders, Martin Tomitsch, Design Lab)

The Design Lab is a centre for research and creative practice in the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. It aims to “foster design as a means of knowledge production in its own right.” The centre’s research staff and postgraduate students come from a range of disciplines including interaction design, electronic arts, computer science and social science.

Based in the UK, Haque Design + Research is a centre specializing in the design and research of interactive architecture systems. Headed by Usman Haque, the centre houses the collaborative projects of a collective of designers and architects including Ali Hasegawa, Barbara Jasinowicz, Chris Leung and Susan Haque. The team’s innovation is based on the assumption that architecture is no longer to be considered something static and immutable; it is instead imagined as dynamic, responsive and conversant.

As an architect, Husman Haque’s stated focus has been to consider what he’s called the ‘software’ of space (ie. sounds, smell, light, temperature, electromagnetic fields, social relationships etc) as opposed to the ‘hardware’ (ie. floors, walls, roof etc) – the domain of traditional architecture. His personal work has involved the creation of responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass participation performances, all of which have displayed a celebrated skill for the design of physical space and the software and systems that may bring them to life. His work has been recognized and supported via several prestigious international grants and residencies.

Projects completed by Haque Design + Research transverse the aesthetic and the social. Examples include ‘Reconfigurable House’, an environment constructed from thousands of low-tech components that can be “reconfigured” by its occupants, allowing them to determine the systems that run inside it; and ‘Haunt’, a collaboration in non-visual architecture that uses humidity, temperatures and electromagnetic and sonic frequencies to imbue an environment with a simulated feeling of ‘haunted-ness’.

Pachube is currently a main focus for Haque Design + Research.

Pactac Video

A short animated video sums sum up the planning approach and philosophy.

ABC approaches (ICT) development from an ‘activity’ rather than ‘utility’ based perspective. This means moving away from the assumptions of a desktop paradigm and associated layer(s) of abstraction. We have gotten very used to this way of working (spatial information metaphors) but when documents and activities becomes more mobile – more likely to move between applications, instances of applications, platforms, mediums, between users, and finally between utilities (that require differing ‘perspectives’ on those documents or applications) the desktop paradigm becomes more cumbersome. In fact many of the older spatial metaphors with which we originally structured the developing information space (of the network, the personal computer) are in the process of being fundamentally undermined by meta-data systems that provide for more recombinant mobility – a single organ (file, routine) can be central to more than one organism in the datascape – a document is not so much some ‘thing’ to be finally categorized, to be given a final context,  as it is a zone of ‘torsional coalescence’ capable of dynamically generating ‘context’ according the potential interactions and/or requirements of particular bodies or the concret spaces that those body’s inhabit. A concrete example here is the way ‘tags’ or ‘meta-tagging’ systems upset the extended and hierarchical ‘Folders’ metaphor. Tagging and the Folksonomies are both exemplars and evidence-of the usefulness and problems that occur as we move to a less spatially coherent or grounded taxonomy.

While the Activity Based Computing project doesn’t voice its aims in such theoretical terms these issues nonetheless underwrite the project; How do we facilitate the mobility of data in concrete space – how do we lend the molecular mobility of data a concrete/useful molar coherence? The CfPH’s approach is grounded in the concrete and time-critical environment of the hospital ward where effective collaboration saves time and pervasive computing might equate to a more pervasive distribution of skill/talent or simply put, better resource management.

Computing in health care evolves iteratively according to the identification of a need. This tends to leads over time to a complex perhaps disjunctive informations space – an information space always out of phase with itself. Pervasive computing in a Healthcare environment manifests within a diverse group of platforms, operating systems, devices, and knowledges will inevitable permeate each space. A hospital also provides the an architecture in which the mobility of data is critical and its coherent distribution essential given the mobility of bodies that inhabit that space. In a hospital the concrete is the only constant, everything else is fluid; patients, nurses, doctors, managers, services – information must also be coherently fluid. In fact in Healthcare the mobility of information should provide the relational glue on which the coherence of medical service is based.

Based in Montreal, Quebec the Foundation funds a variety of projects by artists and researchers from around the world including art projects and investigative residencies that explore the nexus between art, science and technology. Recent projects included Ælab’s DATA (2004) , a collaboration that explored the representation of the micro and nanometric imagery with the Lennox Lab in the Department of Chemistry at McGill University; and Judith Barry’s 3-D video work Not reconciled: Cairo Stories (2006).

Central to the foundation’s investigation of the aesthetics of our technological environment is the Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D), a media collection devoted to trends and practices in electronic and media arts from the sixties to the present day. The growing collection is an invaluable resource for researchers interested in the history of new media and theory surrounding its documentation. The collection’s web site is an integral part of the Centre’s strategy: In Digital Preservation: Recording the Recoding – The Documentary Strategy, CR+D’s Director Alain Depocas writes “To make accessible – and to access – is to preserve.”

Since 2002, CR + D has funded innovative residencies for curators, artists and researchers interested in engaging with the media collection and investigating the special challenges inherent in preserving and documenting new media. Recent residents have included Australian-based curator Lizzie Muller, Variable Media Network curators Caitlin Jones and Paul Kuranko and, in conjunction with OBORO’s MediaLab , Uraguayan artist Juliana Rosales.

Located in Montreal, Canada, the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) is a multidisciplinary centre dedicated to research, creation, production, presentation, education and conservation in the field of digital culture. The centre operates as a forum where practitioners who work with digital technologies may congregate and collaborate across an array of artistic and scientific disciplines. The centre is situated prominently within an international network of industry and educational institutional partners who share similar and complementary objectives.

Since 1996 the SAT has established a number of programs that facilitate access to human and technical resources with the aim of encouraging reflection on issues related to the use of technology. SAT[Art&D] supports IT projects in IP network environments by providing a studio for research, production and commission of artwork that is utilized as a workspace by artists participating in SAT’s artist in residence calendar. [Espace]SAT is a presentation space that is used to house live electronic music and video events conceived and performed by international artists. Between such larger events SAT[Mix Sessions] serves to promote and develop local audiovisual creativity by gathering Montreal’s VJ and DJ/sound artist communities for jam session meetings. SAT also provides education through [TransForm], which offers courses on production of interactive projects, video art, audiovisual creation in real time and VJing, teaching students to operate software such as Arduino, Max/MSP and Modul8.

SAT is an affiliate of The SenseLab, a research-creation laboratory that houses the collaborations of Erin Manning and Brian Massumi.

The Centre for Pervasive Computing is committed to bolstering this rapidly unfolding reality by contributing to the development of new concepts, technologies, products and services based on a broad spectrum of available media and resources. Beyond harnessing and understanding these technologies, the centre facilitates innovative interaction between universities and companies to assist with the implementation of new business models based on pervasive computing, as well as providing a strong future basis for educating IT specialists.

The size and scope of the centre positions it as a world leader in the development of next generation computing environments. Housed within the centre are a number of departments that cut across research areas and involve several traditional research traditions, attesting to the widespread implications pervasive computing bares for several aspects and levels of society.

Research pursuits range from exploring the effects of sound in its functional and emotional roles in day-to-day life, to addressing the impact of 3D visualization and interaction technologies in areas of life and industry as diverse as architecture, city planning, industrial design, medicine and the arts. Current joint research projects involving both companies and universities aim to examine and develop new information technologies for workplaces and the manufacturing sector; others seek to provide new ways to deliver services and dynamic content to mobile computing users.

]]> http://dynamicmedianetwork.org/institutions/interaction-design-and-work-practice-laboratory/feed 0 -33.883785 151.201025-33.883785151.201025 http://dynamicmedianetwork.org/institutions/australasian-cooperative-research-centre-for-interaction-design http://dynamicmedianetwork.org/institutions/australasian-cooperative-research-centre-for-interaction-design#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:00:24 +0000 timmaybury http://dynamicmedianetwork.org/?p=201

The Australasian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction Design (ACID) is a leading innovator within the realm of experience design. In developing new platforms for human interaction via communication technologies and new media, ACID is committed to helping people participate in an increasingly digital world. The centre houses a multi-disciplinary team of ethnographers, designers, computer scientists and software developers who utilize their expertise to provide solutions for clients who wish to use technology to get closer to their users or customers.

The strength of the centre’s research derives from its extensive investigation into new ways to facilitate collaboration and develop social capital in various communities via technological intervention. In creating versatile digital media content, ACID aims to develop methods and tools that emphasise automation, generation and adaptation, thus enhancing creative potential for individual users.

ACID’s unique propriety research methodology follows a process that begins with careful determination and understanding of case-specific human interaction needs, followed by the formulation of initial designs for an appropriate digital interface. Each project’s prototype subsequently undergoes extensive testing and evaluation before a solution is obtained, carried out with the aid of genuine subjects in living laboratories.

Since 2007 ACID has provided technology-based resolutions to human problems in a number of real-world contexts. The broad spectrum of the centre’s research encompasses services to education, tourism, local government, electronic entertainment, indigenous communities, artistic practitioners and telecommunication networks.

Since the start in 1998, their work has been characterized by not only conducting traditional academic research but also exploring the borders between art, design and technology, industry and academy, etc. The institute has about 60 employees organized in a number of research studios/groups located in Kista/Stockholm, Piteå, Eskilstuna, Norrköping, Växjö and Göteborg. Each research group has its own focus area that relates to the overall focus of combining technology with art and design.

With a background in interaction design, focused on algorithm controlled animation, sensor driven interactive installations, web applications, broadcast applications and digital design, shiftcontrol applies a united process of design and development to its clients and users.
In 2008 Simon Løvind joined as associate partner, bringing experience from media-art, academia and game developement.

shiftcontrol has already taken on projects for Carlsberg, ZDF, Al Aan, BBC, Danish TV2, PRADA, OMA, AMO, Kontrapunkt and VW.

shiftcontrol works tightly with the team behind Unity – our preferred platform for exploring next generation interactive media, and Markus Schaefer/Hosoya Schaefer Architects – our preferred partner for exploring next generation concepts.

Operating nationally and globally for two decades, ANAT has been delivering initiatives which enable connection, collaboration, research and development, fostering enterprise, sustainability, dialogue and exchange across art, culture, science and technology.

By creating opportunities for enrichment & inspiration, ANAT supports emerging and established artists in the fields of media and hybrid arts, networked and distributed practices, sound and performance to develop new concepts and work. The majority of Australia’s prominent media artists, curators and producers have benefited from ANAT’s innovative programs.

ANAT collaborates with science, industry and arts partners within Australia and overseas to initiate opportunities including immersive residencies, databases and emerging technology labs. ANAT also provides quick response competitive grants to assist Australian practitioners to take up professional development opportunities worldwide.

The global political climate is rapidly changing, shaped by phenomena such as globalism, terrorism and violence, migration, displacement and postcoloniality. Researchers at the CCAP are investigating cultural responses to each of these issues, identifying in particular the new forms of visual art emerging in this global context. The CCAP encourages research in both the theory and practice of art, and it runs a program of exhibitions, conferences and publications addressing diverse forms of political and social engagement.

The Centre facilitates the formation of research clusters, comprising staff and postgraduate students, and of national and international networks that bring together those working at the cutting edge of art and politics. The CCAP has links with a number of international institutions and its members are currently working on collaborative research projects with scholars in South Africa, China, Germany and the Netherlands.

ACMI at Federation Square

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) celebrates, champions and explores the moving image in all its forms – film, television, games, new media and art.

Through a diverse and engaging annual calendar of award winning major exhibitions, film programs, live events, creative workshops, education programs, community activities and lending services, ACMI brings the best of moving image culture from across the globe to Australian audiences.

Visitors to ACMI can explore all about the moving image, engage with the industry and get hands-on by making their own moving image stories. In presenting these programs, ACMI celebrates the convergence of art and technology and broadly fosters innovation in Australia’s dynamic screen industries – from animation to games.

The Interactive Insitute outside Stockholm, Sweden is celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Originally set up by Sweden’s Foundation for Strategic Research in 1998, it is now owned and co-funded by the Swedish Insitute of Computer Science group which also includes the Viktoria Institute and Santa Anna, and is in turn owned by the government body Swedish ICT Research.

The Interactive Institute has a number of research groups within it such as Digital Cultural Heritage Centre which looks at issues such as cultural knowledge transfer in new media and technologies, The Design Research Centre which seems concerned with developing big-picture research strategies, Sound Studio and SoundSpace groups working in interactive sound design, NVISION working with visualisation techniques and Mobility Studio which looks at, well, developments in the use of mobile technologies.

The Mobile Life Centre at Stockholm University has a research focus that spans from social and entertainment and work aspects of mobile technologies, affective engagement and ubiquitous computing. Set up as a 10 year funding project by VINNOVA – (The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems), which is a State authority that aims to ‘promote growth and prosperity throughout Sweden’ through funding ‘innovations linked to research and development’. The Centre names the Interactive Insitute and the Swedish Insitute of Computer Science as collaborative partners, and also list a number of industry partners including Sony Ericsson, Microsoft Research and Stockholm Innovation and Growth. The centre lists around 20 PhD students and Professorial staff on its list of researchers and lsome of the more interesting research projects include:

Mobile Eco-System

The future mobile eco-system – who pays for what? And what does it feel like? A future mobile service eco-system where we explore alternative universes for infrastructure, business models and the industry’s new role.

Embodied Affective Interaction

Interact emotionally with your whole body. New mobile and ubiquitous services in areas such as pervasive games, social, emotional and bodily communication and new mobile media.

There is also an interesting list of seminars on topics such as the following:
Beyond representations: Towards an action-centric perspective on tangible interaction

Mobile Collaborative Live Video Mixing

Affective Loops : research agenda for bodily persuasion through a design approach we name affective loops is outlined. Affective loop experiences draw upon physical, emotional interactions between user and system.

Whilst this begins to appear quite the complex web of tangled connections, it seems that one common link and hence potentially a good interview subject might be Professor Kristina Hook . She is Professor at Mobile Life, as well as Lab Manager at Swedish Institute of Computer Science, and Professor of Human-Machine Interaction at the Dept of Computer and Systems Science (a joint venture between Stockholm University and Royal Institute of Technology, Kristina Hook lists research projects in embodied interaction and ‘affective computing’ among her interests. Particularly notable is the research project which has involved Microsoft Research called Affective Diary, which investigates techniques data-mapping diary of galvanic skin response via mobile technologies, and seems to have spawned collaborative projects such as a sound design project which looks at sonification techniques using the data sets generated by Affective Diary.

Youtube video on Affective Diary with Kristina Hook Purchase Lortab

Users can upload and download a variety of raw and processed, unmixed and remixed audio, video, images and text all under various incarnations of Creative Commons. The site is divided into user accounts or profiles which have information and background about the user (much like existing social media sites) and where they upload their work, name, categorise, genrify (well ‘genrification’ is a word) and tag it for perusal by site member and non-members, but also importantly to act as source material for further downloading and reworking and remixing by other members. There are also ‘projects’ which are works in progress at any one time which on site members can collaborate and also the capacity to search members by skills and interest areas for collaboration and networking etc.

There are certainly many interesting questions raised here in the production of open-source new media content and related aesthetic concerns and the ways that these might intesect with a national-scale broadcast media network, and the various kinds of feedback (social, technical, cultural) within the network ecologies that may emerge from or be drawn into this.

Another question to investigate would be how might the relationship between the metadata such as tags, genres, geolocation etc and the actual AV/text content on the site be used in other innovative and interesting and dynamic ways?

There are some interesting people on the project who might be worth talking to:

The Pool Team

Editorial:

Executive producer: Sherre DeLys

“Sherre DeLys has developed playful dialogues with some of her favourite writers and musicians to create radio art which displays an intense regard for listeners’ own imaginative involvement. She has collaborated with sculptor Joan Grounds for more than a decade– their sound sculptures enter into a call-and-response with the botanical environments they inhabit.”

Producers:

John Jacobs – John is an ABC broadcaster, social media activist, electronic and mechanical inventor, bike rider, vegan cook, performer, promoter, composer, and enthusiastic life hacker. He is a founding member of the Indymedia movement and also part of the team that devised and produces Radio National’s weekly remix program, The Night Air.

Gretchen Miller – Gretchen Miller is a writer, radio producer, composer and maker of audio arts. She works at ABC Radio National. Her work has been broadcast in Germany and France and reworked for live performance at the Studio, Sydney Opera House. She has a passion for travelling into the Australian inland, camping rough and collecting sounds from the natural world, tales that float across the landscape.

Pool education consortium:

Ross Gibson, Norie Neumark, Shannon O’Neill, and Darrall Thompson from University of Technology, Sydney; Marius Foley from RMIT; Brogan Bunt and Terumi Narushima from University of Wollongong; Tom Ellard from UNSW College of Fine Arts.

Also: the Production Manager is a person called Peter Jackson – ?

Users can upload and download a variety of raw and processed, unmixed and remixed audio, video, images and text all under various incarnations of Creative Commons. The site is divided into user accounts or profiles which have information and background about the user (much like existing social media sites) and where they upload their work, name, categorise, genrify (well ‘genrification’ is a word) and tag it for perusal by site member and non-members, but also importantly to act as source material for further downloading and reworking and remixing by other members. There are also ‘projects’ which are works in progress at any one time which on site members can collaborate and also the capacity to search members by skills and interest areas for collaboration and networking etc.

There are certainly many interesting questions raised here in the production of open-source new media content and related aesthetic concerns and the ways that these might intesect with a national-scale broadcast media network, and the various kinds of feedback (social, technical, cultural) within the network ecologies that may emerge from or be drawn into this.

Another question to investigate would be how might the relationship between the metadata such as tags, genres, geolocation etc and the actual AV/text content on the site be used in other innovative and interesting and dynamic ways?

There are some interesting people on the project who might be worth talking to:

The Pool Team

Editorial:

Executive producer: Sherre DeLys

“Sherre DeLys has developed playful dialogues with some of her favourite writers and musicians to create radio art which displays an intense regard for listeners’ own imaginative involvement. She has collaborated with sculptor Joan Grounds for more than a decade– their sound sculptures enter into a call-and-response with the botanical environments they inhabit.”

Producers:

John Jacobs – John is an ABC broadcaster, social media activist, electronic and mechanical inventor, bike rider, vegan cook, performer, promoter, composer, and enthusiastic life hacker. He is a founding member of the Indymedia movement and also part of the team that devised and produces Radio National’s weekly remix program, The Night Air.

Gretchen Miller – Gretchen Miller is a writer, radio producer, composer and maker of audio arts. She works at ABC Radio National. Her work has been broadcast in Germany and France and reworked for live performance at the Studio, Sydney Opera House. She has a passion for travelling into the Australian inland, camping rough and collecting sounds from the natural world, tales that float across the landscape.

Pool education consortium:

Ross Gibson, Norie Neumark, Shannon O’Neill, and Darrall Thompson from University of Technology, Sydney; Marius Foley from RMIT; Brogan Bunt and Terumi Narushima from University of Wollongong; Tom Ellard from UNSW College of Fine Arts.

Also: the Production Manager is a person called Peter Jackson – ?

Includes four research groups:

ARKI: Which looks at the social effects and potential of digitalization in everyday life

Projects (but are not limited to) include Mediaspaces which looks at the effects and potential of convergent platforms in a domestic space – this includes ‘Design TV’ which plans to develop streaming media channels. P2P Fusion; a really interesting P2P system that is one of a couple recently developed that are focussing on a distributed framework capable of offsetting the server (and potentially social) costs that large scale P2pP databases necessitate. Here a distributed client does much of the heavy lifting in terms of information transfer while a central database handles the DB services. The Fusion software is concerned with making rich media available for remixing and metadata tagging and redistribution. This is a step away from most p2p projects which maintain a user/consumer distinction along the lines of broadcast media. The emphasis here is as much on making stuff as getting stuff. Maybe this is a distribution and collaboration model that the Dynamic Media project should look at closely. I must say at the moment Tribler.org a project of the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands is more developed and more decentralized – admittedly without the important collaborative functions. I am sure there will be a number of competing platforms for a while as several open source and university projects look to ‘front-ending’ bit-torrent style P2P. This form of distribution and social network potentially moves away from web2.0 models with sacrificing any of web2.0′s much loved functionality (paper pending on this). The IP redesign project looks at the legal and social costs regarding the inadequacy of current IP laws in the face of a network culture – acknowledging that their p2p projects (as indicative of a prevailing tendency) problematize our ‘legacy’ approach to intellectual property.

The Learning Environments for Progressive Inquiry Research Group : Focuses on research and development of innovative learning environments – involved with the LeMill CMS for the open distribution of learning resources amngst a number of others. Will return with more information.

Systems of Representation : An interesting research looking at transferring elements of traditional culture to the ‘virtual’ world…using visualization reserach, 3d modelling, Digital cartography. (lovely simple Plone driven site as well).

Crucible: A digital narrative and storytelling research centre. I’m out of time but will return to this.

 InterMedia is an interdisiplinary research centre which investigates the intersections between design, communication and learning in digital environments. InterMedia participates in research networks, and has a research lab for development and experiments in our research fields.

This school at the University of Oslo is cited by the ArtLab’s David Gauntlett as an influence for its approach to ‘researching self-representation through various forms of digital storytelling’. There are a number of other research projects here that may be of interest concerning the relationship between technology, expression, narrative, and education….The Knowledge Practice Lab looks interesting for its approach to knowledge production and there are numerous other projects and publications to be found here.

For me the most interesting aspect of this project was its implications for an approach to research and perhaps more importantly to teaching /developing a creative research practice. The site shows Lego models used to collaboratively develop high level research projects as well as sculptures developed by students to model and explore essays questions. There are also terrific examples depicting the use of Lego to explore identity which is ArtLabs current focus.

Lego is interesting in that it escapes any pretense or anxiety regarding a person’s facility for expression and routes around inscribed notions of creativity that often encumber a playful expression. I’ve noted this anxiety even in the use of simple scrap booking with students and extending to things like anxiety regarding a student’s handwriting. Using Lego moves us beyond this block and allows the ArtLab to move straight into a well executed approach to getting participants to play with metaphors. One example given is that the participant is asked to build a small Lego animal and then to subsequently modify that model to express quite simple relationships (how I feel on a Friday afternoon for example). From this starting point participants develop metaphorically rich Lego landscapes that express and provide a mode for reflecting on and recursively developing an understanding of identity and its constructs.

These experiment are really interesting in terms of the approach they suggest to education generally and the development of process (rather than outcomes) based models of pedagogy. More specifically they suggest approaches to developing technical frameworks/systems/courseware that facilitate such a model.

There are a couple of very interesting papers and interviews on the site;

An Interview/Conversation between David Gauntlett and Peter Holzwarth for the Journal of the International Visual Sociology Association.

A short process focussed interview for Lego’s Serious Play division.

There was a symposium at the Tate run by ArtLab that is fairly well documented here. 

The Artlab is partnered with the Bournemouth University Media School (Centre for Excellence in Media Practice) who are also doing interesting work on pedagogy and creativity- the effects on models of learning of a commercialization of tertiary education for instance.

More coming on CAVI and the other research areas of The Centre for Pervasive  Computing.

From the Innovation Lab site;

Through a wide and varied range of activities and media, Lab Agents work to translate the latest technological developments into hands-on experiences and meaningful scenarios. Innovation Lab interprets the meaning of technology—and makes technology meaningful for all of us.

A very interesting commercial model, the Innovation Labs has terrific slogans like; ‘Insight is Influence’ and ‘Ideas are born of movement’.

The Katrinbjerg Centre has strong ties to the University of Arhus that appear to be negotiated via the Alexadra Institute which appears central to the mangement of the information networks described above, is based at Katrinebjerg and whose members include various research bodies, university schools, corporations housed at Katrinebjerg, and large organizations external to the Arhus municipality.

The most prominent of the schools/research programs aligned with the Katrinebjerg centre are;

Department of Computer Science – There is a really interesting HCI reserach focus/centre housed here with a number of interesting projects under the banner of Hypermedia, Participatory Design, Augmented Reality, and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (beyond Groupware !*&6!). They do other Math type stuff as well….

The Information Institute – Its all in Danish – feel free to comment on what they do…

Multimedia @ Arhus Uni – Its all in Danish – feel free to comment on what they do…

Centre for Digital Aesthetics - Its all in Danish but I note Matthew Fuller’s name here.

and the most prominent for Katrinbjerg is the

Centre for Pervasive Computing – This research centre deserves a blog entry to itself and I suspect it is the principal research body engaged with the Katrinebjerg centre/city. The amount of research the centre is involved in prevents me from a providing a detailed account. But I might comment individually on some of the projects that are of particular relevance. These can be found via the links below copied from the site. Of particular interest are Centre for Andvanced Visualization and Interaction. Note that there are a number of projects that cross over between partners so that the pervasive computing is a research focus for the Department of Computer Science on Computer Supported Collaborative Work that is listed here as well – so the CFPC appears to manage an area of research interest that runs (and provides a funded node for) projects under that title which each have a different group of partner institutions attached. Super Distributed and very Dynamic the projects become kind’a virtual in the process… (fishing for comment – more ideas to explore here regarding research/development structures – I wonder how this plays out in terms of funding and commercialization/IP)

• Ambient Intelligence with Tangible Objects
• Center for Advanced Visualization and Interaction – CAVI
• Center for Pervasive Healthcare
• Computer Supported Cooperative Work
• Database Technology
• Design Anthropology
• Embedded Systems – Embodied Agents
• Interactive Workspace
• Mobile Systems and Wireless Communication
• Modelling and Validation of Distributed Systems
• New Ways of Working
• Object Technology
• Sound as Media
• Tangible User Interaction

The group lists its research focus as including; ‘Computer Support for Writing and Reading processes, Computer Supported Collaborative Work, User oriented design and development, Perceptual user interfaces, Human-Robot interaction and Connected Communities.

As is the case with many of these Swedish institutes the work here is often developed in collaboration with a cluster of partner institutes. I would guess that this has to do with EU funding structures and it would be interesting to work this out in more detail. This appears quite divergent from the approach in Australia where Networks and Centres generally remain tied to the infrastructure/bureacracy/authorship(?) of a university. This might have something to so with concerns of IP and commercialization and the universities need to create/defend potential revenue streams form external claims – I admittedly no very little about this and maybe someone can put me straight on this. It is quite common to find the web sites for these institutes link to independent domains named according to the research project rather than the principle partners. This is a small point but I’d be surprised to see that kind of open proliferation of projects in Australia – we might say plenty about how this effects the development not only of the Australian research ecology but also the Australian domain space – what was potentially a useful a vibrant neigbourhood has become a stagnant pool of commercial and institutional sites.

Research projects are many and varied but I’ll include a brief overview of some that are relevant to this project. These and an extensive list of others can be found here;

Cogniron: The cogniron project is a robotics and HCI project aiming at the development of a robotic companion for the home. The aim is to build a robot capable of adapting to context, not delimited to a particular function but capable of learning about the environment and learning to interact with the inhabitants of that environment.

The results of the project’s first two years 2004 & 2005 are printed here.

The research publications are published via a wiki – this includes publications from all of the projects partner organizations.

Inscape: Concerned with the development of a Inscape – a multimedia publishing system that allows writers and developers to collaborate on Interactive Storytelling projects. Inscape is developed to be inclusive in terms content types – both internally (supports 2d and 3d graphics production) and allows an open incorporation of interface and control devices. The software will not be available until 2009 (? – so at the moment this is vaporware)

Micole: Multimodal Collaboration Environment for the Inclusion of Visually Impaired Children

This project is particularly interesting. It seeks to address the problem presented to the visually impaired in an ocular centric educational environment where visualization is heavily depended upon in communicating often abstract relationships -particularly in the disciplines of maths and science. The project is exploring the use of haptic systems (magnetic force/resistance communicate realtionships) and audio systems and has had considerable successes in verifying that these systems work preferably when compared to the less dynamic modes of representation previously available (raised paper). Some interesting descriptions and results can be found here.

NEPOMUK – Networked Environment for Personalized, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge – The Social Semantic Desktop;

This project is concerned with the development of a collaborative environment that is desktop based, semantic, and social. It appears to be an attempt to create a delicious/google.docs/bittorrent hybrid that is built into the desktop environment. An interesting idea but one must wonder whether the corporate sector is gassumping projects like this one – for better or worse. Nepomuk was destined to have an open API and to foster an active and collaborative environment in development as well as application – something Google is not likely to encourage or inspire.

MonAMI: Mainstreaming Ambient Intelligence.

From the MonAMI website;

‘The MonAMI (Mainstreaming on Ambient Intelligence) project will demonstrate how accessible and useful services can be delivered in mainstream systems and platforms. Services provided via digital television, mobile telephones and the Internet will support daily tasks and increase quality of life for elderly persons and persons with disabilities in their home environment.’ There is not any substantial publications or detail on this site. Once again the work under the project is distributed to a cluster of organizations.KTH is simply one partner working under this ‘funding stream’ which is operating under the eInclusion priority of the EU IT program.

There are many other projects listed for KTH – most of which are shared projects in which researcher based at KTH play a part.

Hexagram – Media and Comms research Institute Montreal

CRAC – Creative Room for Art and Computing A digital media space- Denmark.

Artnode – Denmark

AV-Arkki - Finland – A distribution Centre for Finnish Media Art.

NICE – Network Interface for Cultural Exchange (Information exchange and collab between media centres in the Blatic and NE Europe)

The Mixed Reality Lab is a reserach and development lab at the University of Nottingham specializing in ‘innovative technologies’ spanning a wide range of fileds including HCI, Ubiquitous and pervasive computing, Computer Supported Cooperative work, Virtual Environments, eScience and distributed computing’

The MRL’s current projects focus on the potential for mobile and pervasive technologies and networks to open onto new modes of social interaction and the development of participatory cultures.

Not all MRL projects are culturally focussed however. The ViRS project is developing a new type of virtual reality simulator for training surgeons.

 The MRL Projects are documented here.

There appears to be a lot of interesting digital media culture coming out of Helsinki and m-cult – the centre for new media culture aims to be a central node in this culture in something like the mode Fibreculture had originally aimed at. I seem to recall Helsinki provocateurs as being central to the Amiga warez scene and the new media eddies of tracker music and graphics cultures that grew out of that scene – I’ll have to track some references down but there certainly appears to be a healthy participatory culture online that transcends the bounds of university research centers – and is more nebulous, self sufficient, and dynamic than your average (even Nordic) ‘sandstone’ institution.

m-cult focusses on ‘social and cultural innovations in urban, wireless, and participatory media, and on developing open infrastructures and transdisciplinary competences in new-media culture.’

m-cult.org is involved with the development of community digital/internet television in Finland where there is apparently no community access or public television. The M2hZ – urban television project ‘is being collaboratively developed by artists, developers and civil society activists. A group of people and organisations who wish to imagine what channels could be like in the current media environment, and what types of contents could be delivered through collaborative and distributed production.’ m-cult is also opening a brick and mortar site which includes a lab/wokshop environment which will house the above project among others.

Perhaps the most important element of m-cult for the CCAP is however the database of Nordic new media actors m-cult.net. This looks to be a terrific reference site and perhaps another example of a database attempting to function as a node for generating collaborative intersections within otherwise geographically and disciplinary diverse new media cultures. I had trouble accessing the database but I am sure its a temporary problem- even inthe sites current state it provides an invaluable list of new media actors in the Nordic/Scandinavian regions. There are a great many (222) Actors listed from all of the Nordic countries and some beyond.

shiftcontrol employ Unity the previously mentioned and Danish developed game development platform, the open source ‘Processing’ multimedia (Java) scripting engine, as well as the more common commercial apps to make intriguing visual installations – mainly large scale projections for public spaces. They have also done HCI work for the BBC’s ‘Data Table’ – an interesting project in itself and a very interesting visualization project for the Autostadt center in Wolfdburg Germany in collaboration with Hosoya Schaeffer Architects

 Radarstation  is  a London based design and business planning firm with which shiftcontrol worked in partnership at the BBC innovation Labs. There is something really interesting in the application of what radarstation call ‘design led futures’ – and while this site is ‘strictly from commercial’ there is an intersting take on innovation and design in other spaces of interaction that is hinted at here.  A commercial application of ‘mining virtuality’ – or just another consultancy?

The real interest in this center is however the link to one of their research projects; The educational potential of commercial game technology. This link leads to the site of a commercial game developer, Serious Games Interactive (based in Copenhagen) and their product Global Conflicts: Palestine.

Global Conflicts is a 3D game based in a ‘photo realistic’ 3D representation of Palestine that places the user as a young Journalist just posted to Israel to cover the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Using all the recognizable features of a First Person Shooter the game sees the principle character move about the environment and engaging with characters, covering events, writing headlines , stories, taking photographs and assembling them into an ongoing coverage of the conflict. The aim is to provide and educational experience that approximates all the qualities deployed in contemporary games including their depictions of war and conflict. Here however the depiction of violence is directly mirroring the real world events of a current conflict, highlighting the the tendency for games generally and the FPS genre specifically tendency to ignore complex socio-political issues in preference to a kill or be killed representation of conflict. GC is not however making a statement about gaming – it is rather aiming to use gaming as a means of affective engagement in the service of achieving an ‘educational outcome’.

Global Conflicts is built with the UNITY engine for game development, developed by OTEE a company also based in Copenhagen. The GC project is supported by the EU Media Programme, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, The Danish Ministry of Education, The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, and The IT University of Copenhagen (in which the Center for Computer Games Research is based).

GC is not yet available for either purchase of demonstration and could of course be vaporware…..An very interesting project nonetheless…

The Society of Art and Technology is based in Montreal and is the principal organization behind the aforementioned Interfaces conference. Based in a 36000 square feet of ‘bricks and mortar’ space the SAT is a ‘transdisciplinary centre dedicated to research, creation, production, presentation, education and conservation in the field of digital culture’.

Some of the videos on the site however present the SAT as much less ‘institutional’ than this description. See the PixelTANGO video linked to below for a better idea of the SAT from a developer and community member’s perspective. He describes SAT as a collective of Visual Artists, Technologists and Musicians and seem to indicate that the ‘Mix Sessions’ run by the SAT are the critical site in which collaborations develop and development projects are born. The main site initially made me think that the VJ’ing side was a community access component of the ‘higher level’ research performed by the Open Territories project (link below). But a deeper look shows that the research and development projects appear to grow out of the community that is fostered by the open access space and is driven by the needs of the community of VJ’s and musicians that collaborate there. All applications are released under a GPL licence and are motivated by the lack of open source/open access software for video processing and interaction.

A corner of the web site presented in english but not linked to form the main page explain the focus of the Open Territories Project;

‘The Open Territories project made possible through the Canadian Culture Online Program of Canadian Heritage, aims to foster the emergence of innovative forms of cultural expression by engaging the creativity of a new generation of artists and creators, in whose hands will be placed a host of advanced interface and networking technologies.

The research and HCI projects I mention above are then based on creating open access technologies that better facilitate experimentation and collaboration in the field. The OT projects are then clearly being developed to as a means of encouraging innovation within the open framework and concrete spaces of the SAT. This is a really interesting approach to fostering cultural innovation. The projects *are* in fact documented in English in this hidden corner of the site.

These technologies include:

LightTwist: An application that scans the deformation in a surface and adjust projections so that are presented accordingly – this allows the projection to be presented on large hemispherical surfaces (for instance) but obviously has many other potential uses as the deformation is dynamic/not tied to a particular project or space.

Audio Twist: Not documented in english but assumed to be an accompanying audio spatialization engine to accompany lighttwist.

nSlam: A Pure Data DSP library and extension that allows for multichannel positioning and streaming.

pixelTANGO: is a PD library and collections of externals that make ‘using pd and GEM easier, faster and more satisfying. The purpose of pixelTANGO is to foster creativity in the area of live visual performance and make open-source software more accessible to visual artists. ‘ A good video describing the SAT and Pixel Tango and the Open Source/Access nature of SAT : Cool People!

TeleCHACHA: A two-way telepresence application that uses high-bandwidth research network

Tele Ballroom: Not Like the IKEA ballroom unfortunately but still very exciting. Looks a little like Luc Courchesnes ‘bowl’ projections although here the aim seems to be to attach a two way telepresence application to a robotic camera and a hemispherical projection allowing the robot to project a surround image of space. I’m largely guessing based on the video though.

The Society hosts 600 active artists and researchers according to its site and connects this work with a network of institutions worldwide that includes the MediaLab at MIT and (not least) UNSW. They have hosted a travelling exhibit from the Swedish Interactive Institutes -Smart studio..

The current focus of the lab is on the development of the free Zotero browser plugin that facilitates the logging and ascription of metadata- bibliographic informations and user ascribed notes to web sites. Having used Zotero a little I found the application a little lacking in utility given the massive overhead in terms of processing that it added to the browser – firefox is already a rather process laden browser. The more distributed and obviously more limited (in terms of feature set) Del.icio.us combined with Google notes appears to offer a more social, less processor laden, tool for annotating web and web based media. As an active researcher I think that one of the key places web based applications are particularly useful is in this bookmarking and annotation environment where the benefits of the collaborative and generative potential of many eye and ears feeding back in modulation of network space is obviously and immediately apparent.

The Digital History lab hopes to augment this Zotero by providing intramedia metadata ascription (adding metadata to a video or audio timeline and by providing more support for French-Canadian localization (language and bibliographic support).

The other projects of the Digital History Lab are the apparently very performative Guantanamoblie project which seeks to document and communicate the unfolding stories emerging from the US Governments Detention Centre at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. The project seeks to gather information on the knowledge of the US public of events and stories that surround the Dentention centre and its detainees and also to help actively communicate these stories and events by taking them to the public arena- hence the performative aspect.

The Oral History and Digital Storytelling Centre is engaged in a project called ‘Life Stories’ that will collect the stories of Montreal residents displaced by War, Genocide and other human rights violations. There is little to indicate that this is more than an exercise in the collection of oral histories other than the Centre’s interest in Digital Storytelling. It would be interesting to see digital media used as a more dynamic  means of acessing, collaboratively annotating and re-presenting these histories and experiences. That the same Centre is working on this interesting -yet-to-be-intersecting- trio of projects is perhaps indicative of a potential not yet communicated on the public site of the Centre.

There are a number of completed projects described on the Q-Life web site at this page and some downloadable publications here.

Having been involved in the dotcom boom as what some people have  (erroneously in my case) called a ‘digital sweatshop worker’ I came to university expecting the sort of environment that perhaps moved further toward the ideal of a collaborative environment and moved further beyond the limited horizons of an immediately determined outcome and shortsighted economic rationalisms. The truth of the matter is that the environment in which I won my digital stripes was far more open to debate, innovation, new ideas, and more open and conducive to collaboration (with coworkers) than the university I have now spent such a long time attending and (I hope) serving.

I have often wondered about the difference between these two spaces – a creative ‘sweatshop’ flush with money, exuberant (and naive) youthfulness, and an honest belief that nearly anything was possible in this brave new digital world, compared with the university which struggled under a very different conception of economic rationalism that was almost always based on reduction rather than ‘excitation’ and the production of ‘excess’. Its a little too easy to say that this was just a matter of money. Perhaps a more detailed comparison account is warranted elsewhere but for now I just wanted to say that the descriptions of HUMlab reminded me more of the exuberant space of a dotcom optimism that was at least partially well placed if not well ‘measured’. It looks to me that HUMlab looks very well measured – a creative, open space, for an active and ongoing discussion of digital media that transcends disciplinary distinctions while allowing their productive differences and disjunctions to play out creatively.

HUMlab is (importantly) an actual space set aside and equipped  for experimentation and collaboration using digital media. It includes digital media workstations and multiple computer based and networked projection systems.  It is open to all members of the university of Umea in which it is based and is designed as a comfortable and creative – and I dare say most importantly ‘social’ environment. The design of the space along with the open access make this a social space built to generate a dialogue around media forms and projects – there are games platforms, surround projection and sound facilties, 3D and VR facilities and the space has a large format touch screen and a ‘locative’ sensor that can identify the position and movement of bodies within the space. The board of Humlab includes digital luminaries such as Katherine Hayles and  has played host to seminars led by the likes of same, in addition to Howard Rheingold and a variety of other veterans and newcomers to the digital humanities (all of which are available as video for download here). While HUMlab is based in the humanities its user base is populated by half humanities specialists with the rest of its ‘users’ coming from across the universities University faculties with 65 schools represented.

There is little research or formally defined projects detailed on the website. It seems as if this space is rather removed from the stipulation of research or creative outcomes -perhaps because it is foremost a student space and a space from which it is acknowledged ideas might be born rather than necessarily formalized.

The Lab will accommodate 5 postdoctoral researchers starting 2007 on one or two year visits and the lab will double in size (hard to tell what size the current space is). There are three PhD candidates, 1 Artist, and 1 network/services working at the lab as well as those bought in to run workshops and seminars. The lab play host to a wide variety of speakers working in an interdisciplinary mode on matters relating to digital media and society more generally.

Patrick Svensson is the Director of HUMlab. His personal website can be found here. And he blogs here as well as at the HUMlab blog.

I began with ReFlex the Flexible Reality Centre which is a research centre focussing on the application and accesibility of 3d modelling and ‘virtual reality’ technology to the general community for primarily both business and professional (design) ends. The focus appears to be making VR accessible/profitable for working professionals and medium to small business use. The site is largely concerned with presentation of a masters program specializing in delivering VR/Modelling skills and applying them to fairly straightforward VR models concerned with agile prototyping, presentation, walk-throughs and etc. The Flexible Reality centre is attached to the University of Lund Sweden. There is little research presented on this site apart form masters theses concerned with modeling.

The ReFlex centre is a part of the Enactive Network of/for Excellence which is concerned with Enactive HCI design. From the Enactive website;

The driving concept of Enactive Interfaces is then the fundamental role of motor action for storing and acquiring knowledge (action driven interfaces). Enactive Interfaces are then capable of conveying and understanding gestures of the user, in order to provide an adequate response in perceptual terms. Enactive Interfaces can be considered a new step in the development of the human-computer interaction because they are characterised by a closed loop between the natural gestures of the user (efferent component of the system) and the perceptual modalities activated (afferent component). Enactive Interfaces can be conceived to exploit this direct loop and the capability of recognising complex gestures. Intelligent interfaces recognise the gesture of the user at the beginning of the action and are able to interpret the gestures (in terms of intentions, skills and competence) and to adapt to them in order to improve the users performance.

Enactive is actually a loose network of sattelite projects and institutions that undergo diverse projects generally conceived under that banner and committed to the exchange of information through that network and an accompanying conference. The conference is in Grenoble in November of this year. There is quite a lot of published work on this site and I have only just started to sort through it. Much of these publications point directly to interesting projects at partner institutes.

One interesting Partner institute was the CERTEC division at Department of Design Sciences at Lund Univerity’s Faculty of Engineering, Lund, Sweden. CERTEC is concerned with Rehabilitation Engineering and Design and Situated Research and Design for Everday Life . The division’s publications are available here.

Another Enaction partner is Miralab and although well outside your region of interest (Geneva) is nonetheless of interest for the magnitude and diversity of dynamic media and HCI projects with which it is engaged. There is also a great number of recent papers on mixed and virtual realities, tele-presence, and graphics generally (this is a dhtml site without perma-links so look under ‘projects’.) – While I’m stuck in Switzerland check out this VRLab also attached to the Enaction Network for some interesting HCI/Haptics papers.

While I’m here I’ll post this link to HMC Interactive an interesting UK (Plymouth) Commercial Design company that does interesting work with responsive projections and has worked on a number of projects with a social bent. Particular interesting is the work done for the Montana Assistive Technology Centre.

Getting back on track the VRlab at Aalborg University began as an interdisciplinary centre with representatives from both the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Engineering and Science working together. Focus would be on Virtual Reality as a technology and as a medium. There are a number of interesting VR applications and facilties that use a combination of ‘cave’ and theatre like reality projections both of which also employ either passive (polarized lenses) or active (shutter glasses) stereo vision systems. The most intriguing project here are the Data mining and theatrical applications of the technology but the centre also works on community and industry visualizations. There are no published papers at this site but some promotional documentation of projects and facilities. The data mining and 3D Visualization of data fields is documented here. It is interesting in so far as it realizes the potential of VR once we move away from straight representation allowing a dynamic interaction with data via a spatio-temporal rendering – a shift from VR presenting an ideal reality to augmenting the real by producing the potential for new relational interactions with implications that shape the development of actual bodies.

URL: http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/

An fairly interesting and obviously functional model of industry and art working together to find an outside of ‘institutional’ stasis. This centre focuses on encouraging a dialogue around new media arts practice. It is built around the availability of a historical space and its dedication as cultural ‘precinct’ by a regional government in Spain (Government of the Principality of Asturias).

There is a great deal of artwork featured here that amounts to providing a non-linear history of media art by the juxtaposition of work and the promotion of dialogue within that particular space. There are interesting if oblique references to an inversion of the space/architecture as organizing, to the space as providing for an intersection/transduction – a flow – between works that would otherwise remain typologically distinct – this appears close to the modus operandi of the centre itself.

The most interesting thing here is perhaps the use of the terms ‘industrial’ and ‘industry’ and ‘creativity’ to actually refer to a kind of generative activity. This approach is considerable divergent form the often utilitarian approach to culture and creativity often espoused in creative industries centres. Here it seems clear that industry is involved not in any attempt to monetize our glean cultural capital from the activity of the centre but rather to provide the means and the ‘distance’ (in the Deleuzean sense of a differential distance that give rise to the Idea) to art as a generative engine that finds it ‘end’ in utility – ‘end’ as in death and ‘end as utility’- utility as the end of variance. Of course I may be well clear of the mark but there is none of the sponsorship iconography or crediting that by now we are well use to seeing wherever the term ‘creative industries’ is deployed. In this instance the ‘industrial’ sits comfortably beside artistic industry and the flow between them appears mutual – although this centre is clearly concerned with the industry of art rather than the artfulness of industry. One comprehensive exhibit focusses on computer games – a site where industry and expression are clearly engaged in an ongoing, coextensive, dialogue. This is perhaps the most comprehensive array of varying approaches to gaming culture I have seen presented – a historical collection, serious games, experimental games, recodings (machinima and hacking etc.)….many terrific examples of innovation in gaming cultures from both the industrial and the end user perspective.

As an aside I should note that this is foremost a museum and gallery space and it is a space that is always already written. There is no dialog – and although a forum is provided for it is currently inactive and while the centre has amassed a large amount of online material documenting and extrapolating the intersections between the works it collects this nonetheless remains a curatorial space rather than of art or theoretical practice (as much as curation remains an art in its own right).

The centre is new (2007?) but currently features two comprehensive exhibitions both with a substantial online presence. The first is titled Feedback (2007, May-June) and examines reactive and recursive models of media expression. Many of the works are presented as historical archetypes and/or precursors to vectors of new media art. Marcel Duchamp and Nam June Paik are featured alongside contemporary new media works- Some of which I’ll catalogue here. The second is the ‘Gameworld’ exhibit I have already discussed.

From an institutional perspective and as is the case with many of the examples I’ve looked at there is an emphasis on topos..movement, flows, as productive and multiple. Its a nice rhetorical trope but one that has strangely disconcerting neo-modernist overtones. Those overtones are self-consciously addressed in the remapping of this post-Franco cultural space but I wonder if there is also a forgetting that operates in this cartographic revisionism. Here I mean not only a forgetting of history but a forgetting of the constructedness and manipulation of the topology as an architectonic figure….the multiple is always already determined.

URL: www.ubuweb.com

Why this is of Interest:

A truly amazing example of what the web enables in terms of open access to media. Ubuweb is developed without regard for anything other than the operators desire to collect this material and make it available where else it would simply disappear or be invisible to the network. Ubuweb has become an unprecedented archive of the Avante Garde and and experimental media arts. With all the talk of database design and interface design this is perhaps a refreshing reminder that perhaps the most pragmatic archives are the least organized, that is they don’t necessarily impose a schema or taxonomy on the user. It is like there is no ‘user’ here – no attempt to organize the experience of the user.

From the site;

UbuWeb has no need for money, funding or backers. Our web space is provided by an alliance of interests sympathetic to our vision. Donors with an excess of bandwidth contribute to our cause. All labour and editorial work is voluntary; no money changes hands. Totally independent from institutional support, UbuWeb is free from academic bureaucracy and its attendant infighting, which often results in compromised solutions; we have no one to please but ourselves.

UbuWeb posts much of its content without permission; we rip out-of-print LPs into sound files; we scan as many old books as we can get our hands on; we post essays as fast as we can OCR them. UbuWeb is an unlimited resource with unlimited space to fill. It is in this way that the site has grown to encompass hundreds of artists, hundreds of gigabytes of sound files, books, texts and videos.

Sounds like a marginal situation? Hardly. We’ve won many prestigious internet awards and are acknowledged web-wide as the definitive source for Visual, Concrete + Sound Poetry. UbuWeb is on the syllabus of countless schools; we’ve gotten queries from Ph.D. candidates seeking information to third-graders researching a paper on concrete poetry. UbuWeb embodies an unstable community, neither vertical nor horizontal but rather a Deleuzian nomadic model: a 4-dimensional space simultaneously expanding and contracting in every direction, growing “rhizomatically” with ever-increasing unpredictability and uncanniness.

Description/My comments:

Ubuweb is one those net destinations/applications/sites that has the propensity to induce a feeling akin to vertigo. There is so much media here of historical importance, in terms of art practice and critical thinking, that one could spend a life just moving from one incredible find to the next; from Barthes’ inaugural lecture at the College de France, to Debord’s film’s including Society of the Spectacle, to Beckett directing Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Krapp’s Last Tapes. There is increasingly a lot of contemporary work here as well and there is no real attempt to mark one from the other. While Ubuweb started as a repository for recordings concrete poetry it has now developed to include massive quantities of Avant Garde composition and sound design (from Varese to Cage to Derek Bailey to Paul Miller), a papers section, and a film section which includes readings, lectures, films, video without so much as a category other than the most general (film,sound, papers) to organize them.

If this interface is nearly as effective and perhaps more interesting than the highly mediated previous example for the Danial Langlois foundation its worth working out why. Firstly, I can explore openly without any impediment bar the density of list of names. Secondly, there is no arbitrary categorization that places walls between types of data. This means that Beckett’s plays stand alongside Debord’s films which stand alongside Irene Moon’s super8 films. The provision of a simple search function allows the user to easily search for things I am looking for. The site is completely non-proprietary and offer the user the opportunity to download large uncompressed versions of most of the material while also allowing the user to access the content as embedded video/audio within the browser. As it discusses in the exert included above the operators care little for copyright permissions and operate on the premise that the content is being published for educational and research purposes and that copyright holders need only ask and content will be removed. The lack of institutional influence is also a kind of defense against the restrictions of a preconceived utility: the ubuweb media is ‘just there’ and this, in the parlance of Murphie and Munster ‘conserves virtuality’. That said, conserving virtuality, is different from ‘harnessing virtualization’. Without imposing my own theoretical stand point on this post (Yeah -Right!) I simply mean to say that such an open and unrestricted archive is a terrific place to start. I wish that there were more ways to map out our travails as users discovering and relating new pockets of the Ubu archive and to remember them both to ourselves in a developing ‘consciousness’ of the media we experience and with others as a means of discovery and explication. Ubuweb needs a layer of interaction that won’t organize the users experience for them but rather allow their experience to generate layers of potential interaction for themselves and for other users.

URL: http://www.fondation-langlois.org

Andrew suggested I look to this database and collection of electronic art and expression. Here is a first post based on initial impressions and explorations over the last weeks. I am here commenting on the interface and database rather than the content specifically. The foundation supports and the web site features projects in Digital Media and the collection holds a substantial collection of historic and contemporary works many of which are relevent to this project.

A description from the site itself;

The Daniel Langlois Foundation’s purpose is to further artistic and scientific knowledge by fostering the meeting of art and science in the field of technologies. The Foundation seeks to nurture a critical awareness of technology’s implications for human beings and their natural and cultural environments, and to promote the exploration of aesthetics suited to evolving human environments. The Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D) seeks to document history, artworks and practices associated with electronic and digital media arts and to make this information available to researchers in an innovative manner through data communications.

Description.

The approach to developing a web archive deployed here is very interesting. The design uses Adobe’s Flash to provide a ‘rich’ interface to an multi-modal archive capable not only of cataloging electronic art and expression and related critical work but also connecting the links between critical texts and the featured works. The web site is operated by the Foundation and is a ‘mediated’ database in the sense that it is professionally populated and managed although artists and writers can submit contributions via the Foundations staff who do the cataloging. There is little or no potential for the user to develop a profile or to organize their findings as they peruse the collection – there is a limited history function based on single session ID’s (meaning that my history lasts only for the current session).

The Flash interface is central to the experience of the site but as with any web interface displays both pro’s and con’s. On the ‘pro’ side we find a very rich user experience which allows the incorporation and interspersion of a wide range of digital media including audio playback with full FFT (Fourier) visualization, streaming Video. Both the latter stream seamlessly within the interface. As can be seen in the image included above the site uses nested windows like ‘pop-up’ index cards to display information. This approach can lead to a rather chaotic navigational experience as the index cards often don’t operate as one would expect (clicking on a rear layer can close several upper layers completely – its a hierarchical menu made to look like its not). The interface splits access to the one DB into a ‘multimedia’ index and a ‘database’ search index. The multimedia index plays out into a series of clusters (a series of squares laid out like dominoes). I couldn’t make head nor tail of the organisational structure deployed to arrange these clusters. It looks very pretty though, and certainly made for a exploratory approach (read; random) to navigation. Indeed, there is perhaps to much of an emphasis on aesthetics in this interface – it almost works but occasionally the visual metaphor obfuscates the information architecture. This obfuscation is avoided with the ‘database’ index which uses a somewhat irritating Flash ‘form’ to allow full searches of the DB based on a wide range of parameters. I say irritating because Flash has a couple of really tedious end-user problems. In a form for instance a ‘Tab’ may not take you to the next field (requires a click), text doesn’t always cut and paste as it should (as you would expect it to), buttons are not automatically activated by the usual key, meaning I have to move unexpectedly between keys and mouse, images and sounds are stuck in ‘rendered’ space so that I can’t easily ‘redeploy’ them (obviously Flash was used for this very reason in many projects). These are little problems when your building such an interface but with a big research DB or an interactive DB these irritations amount to a tiresome navigational experience. To return to the Database search index; this allows you full search of the DB as you would expect. In terms of exploratory research I find a DB coupled with such a search function nearly completely useless unless I know exactly what I am looking for. There is no keyword search here and no tagging system as I previously inferred when commenting on the lack of user profiles. These contemporary developments in DB structure are enormously useful in building a dynamic and recursively developing experience of large archive like this and the importance of these additions is the primary lesson to be learnt from examples such as last.fm. There is a prescribed taxonomy – a series of categories that allow an exploratory approach but these are fixed hierarchical categories ( meaning that a project is in one folder not another).

One of the really useful features of this database and interface is its ‘related material’ tabs which see every item connecting to any related material in the DB. An artwork that is commented on in an article included in the DB will be associated through this tab in the interface. This allows a segue between critical commentary and artwork (for example) – the dissapointing thing is that this is never user or machine driven – which is to say that the database structure is always already written/authored. There is no potential to develop a critical dialogue, to connect works via a critical dialogue or an invented taxonomy. These are perhaps more ‘contemporary’ options that the interface predates – Flash, in the face of AJAX has largely been replaced as the dynamic front end of a relational database system (despite the fact that the quintessential examples of a rich db experience were- and perhaps continue to be- flash based ie. theyrule.net). Flash as a proprietary system is a dubious choice of engines as its longevity is far from assured – despite the fact that at the time this dtatbase was produced that application was synonymous with a ‘rich’ browser experience.

I would also suggest that there is a real problem with lack of information here. Its never particularly clear what a particular project is about – for web based projects I have to click through to their ‘home’ sites which means I can’t easily identify projects of relevance to my search. The lack of descriptions for some works, and lack of detailed meta-explanation is probably (as is nearly always the case) the result of having an expert based systems that doesn’t allow for user contribution.

This all sounds like a very negative appraisal – its meant to be critical rather than negative. There are many positive aspects to the approach this site has taken to the design challenges of a rich multi-modal archive, the ease and immediacy of media playback, of keeping related material in a ‘pile’ of index cards as you navigate through them, the well ordered informational structur are all key successes

The content is another thing entirely and the ability to, for example, look and listen through the Latin American Electro-acoustic collection, look at scores, listen to recordings, watch interviews with composers, read some explanation of their work alongside their colleagues, contemporary and ‘historical’ is very effective – all in one browser window without the need for multiple third party codecs – this is something Flash does well..