Course

Joining everyone else in the spirit of recapitulation, I bring you the original link to: MG2.

I'm beginning work on my final project: a creative work to take up most of my energies the next 18 months.

Over the next few months, I'll be experimenting with tools - particularly the Half-Life 2 engine. I'll be prototyping, and hope to share those prototypes online, at least as much as people have the systems that can download and try these out.

The 532 class this semester got some hint of the direction I'm working in during my Open Mic session; feel free to contact me directly if you'd like more information. Thanks!

Hey everyone. Here's my Open Mic powerpoint presentation. You can find it here.

Powerpoint for my 532 Open Mic...

Download file

Here is a pdf of the open mic presentation I gave in Michael Naimark's 532 class earlier this semester. It was based partly on the responses to this presentation that I embarked upon my radical new powerpoint strategy, which I feel reached its logical conclusion during my Aquarium presentation, and which I am now thinking might be useful to take a couple of steps back from.

Here is my open mic presentation in .swf format.

Open Mic

Fish Olympics

Assumptions now are touch-screens for signs, no creation station, and an "arena"
screen.

For next week:

1. First pass of a presentable fish kit (5 fish, 5 variables).

2. First pass of presentable games envronments (5), fact-checked.

3. RFID working in Flash.

4. Plans for experience design / game play.

5. Plans for budget expendature.



Fishualization

Assumptions now are live cam, no people drawing but people interaction in ways
that help them "see the unseen."

For next week:

1. research digital video processing (e.g., Proccessing, Jitter) to look for additional ideas.

2. research and lock down camera parameters and best placement.

3. design and first-pass demo of interaction possibilities that give people
a sense of participation and ownership. Possibilities include whether (and how
much) of the fish video to show, whether the trails are actual images of fish
or arbitrary trails triggered by tracking fish, etc.

4. Plans for budget expendature.

Doox's fish painting demo is awesome. You should check out the video.

The general assignment for both teams is to GET SPECIFIC for next week and PRODUCE.

Specific assignments:

Fish Olympics
1 - write specific treatments
2 - check out New England Aquarium fish game and other “build a fish” games
3 - get the RFID technology working
4 - winnow down the big list (equipment, tasks, etc.)
5 - begin design for the presentation, i.e., what you’ll demo and what you’ll simulate

Camera Team
1 - develop Doox applications to see what works best
2 - develop specifics for the rest of the system (touch screens, etc.)
3 - winnow down Fish Symphony, Fish Painting, Fishualization, the garbage idea, etc.
4 - begin design for the presentation, i.e., what you’ll demo and what you’ll simulate

It’s important that both teams think about their presentation. This will lead the budget.

I’ll work to lock down the demo date.

In a Tuesday morning second year MFA class, everyone is present.

The class is split into two groups, working on projects for the Aquarium of the Pacific. Each of the two Producer-role people for these groups has a Mac, as does the Professor. Three Macs. The rest of the students have PCs (eight PCs - one of them a tablet PC), save for one student who does not have a laptop here today.

Apple Macintosh Powerbook 3
Sony Vaio 3
Compaq Presario 2
Toshiba 1
Dell 1
Motion Computing (Tablet) 1
Pen and Paper (only) 1

Camera Team

1) “just working” demo based on aquarium video footage (Doox code,
Justin +? visit Aqauarium)

2) design doc of user experience (Josh)



Fish Olympics Team

1) to do list of everything needed (everyone)

2) interface sketches (Aaron)

3) conference call with Aquarium staff about content (Noah, Herb, +?)



And in the bullpen for Open Mic: Herb

Download file

My research – retrospection, present and the near future

1988~1998 10-year skill preparation
1998~2001 back to school for graduate study: Film/Video, Animation and Multimedia



Why visual/aural psychology is so important?

The power of 1 frame

An example: Little Big Man and Dede Allen
Bruce Block. The Visual Story - Visual Perception/Psychology vs. Entertainment Industry of Motion Images.

Some constructive advices from the division e.g. Sensation and Perception, a course of the Psychology Dept., might be helpful.

My experiments done before my time of USC (...)

Combination of kiosks (computers) with long-range networking and short-range networking/RFID/bar code.
-2 computers
-Built in ethernet and wi-fi capability

~$1000 (2 x $500 USD) (Or just use existing computing resources!)

-RFID reader/tag combination
-http://www.phidgetsusa.com/cat/viewproduct.asp?SKU=2002

$70 dollars for kit (with 6 RFID discs)

More tags cost between 1 and 2 dollars each in small-quantity orders.

Here's a zip file of all the slides.


Reference Links


LADOT Automated Traffic Info


Caltrans Realtime Freeway Speed Map (requires Java)


Center for Land Use Interpretation


Loop Feedback Loop - The Big Picture of Traffic Control in LA


US Census Bureau - American FactFinder

So here's what Rick and I came up with yesterday afternoon:

Big Idea: Several mini-puzzles, solutions fitting together into an overarching meta-puzzle about balance
and the global ecosystem, possibly with some sort of take-home artifact. Each puzzle can be scaled based
on the age level of the player.

Puzzle #1: Overpopulation
- players decide whether to be a predator or prey
- each turn, each predator rolls a die
- if the roll is less than the number of prey present, then that player gets to survive the round and the number of prey drops by one
- after all predators have rolled, all surviving predators and prey reproduce
- this is repeated until the system collapses - this puzzle is weighted so that, assuming all the kids want to be the cool predator, the predators kill off all the prey and then face starvation

Puzzle #2: Codependence in the Ecosystem
- Jenga-style game
- pull pieces until system collapses
- pieces have meaningful lables, represent different species
- depending on the age group, point out that it's not a specific sequence that causes the collapse, but the aggregation of all extinctions

Puzzle #3: Dependence on Habitat
- "Take me home!"
- player is presented with several fish that are in the wrong habitat
- misplaced fish explain their issues (e.g. "I can't lay eggs here," "I can't hide here," "I'm too cold here," etc.)
- have to put everyone back in the right place

Puzzle #4: Adaptation
- large open ocean area connects with more specified habitats, e.g. deep sea, arctic, coral reef, etc.
- player is a generic fish that wants to get a competitive edge on food in a more specialized area
- choose adaptations that allow you to move deeper into your new home

Puzzle #5: School vs. Solo
- explore why some predators and prey travel in groups and some travel alone

amazon river cam

more!

“The dream of creating a color music for the eye, comparable with auditory music for the ear, dates to antiquity…”
- William Moritz

I always had two ideas for my final thesis. One is about a narrative game that makes audience feel strong relationship with NPC and the other one is a performance art that combines playing the keyboard with visual arts.

Both Music and Visual Arts are perfect forms of arts by themselves. They have their own depth and beauty. But actually we meet arts which are the mixture of both of them more often than separate one. Mixed form of the arts evokes totally appreciation different to the experience from the separate one. How Music and Visual Arts are affecting each other in creation and combined into one art form and what is the synergy effect by that are one of the most interesting research subjects for me. When I was learning how to play the piano I found that the arrangement of the keys in keyboards helped me remembering different scales. When it comes to learning perfect pitch, there was an exercise that imagining a correspondent color for a specific note. Like that using synaesthesia in education is also one of my matter of concerns.


When I came up with this topic “Interactive Visual Music”, it immediately reminded me of the well-known popular film “Fantasia.” So my first idea out of it was sort of “Real-time Interactive Fantasia.” Also visualization tools in Windows Media Player and WinAmp might be the closest art form to my envisioning of “Visual Music.” Fantiasia and Visualization tool are very different to each other in their creation and appreciation. Fantasia is an animation art created on the basis of well-known classical music pieces. In its order of creation, music is first, and then the animation is carefully created inspired by the pre-made music. In terms of the inspiration from one art from the other, Fantasia is one-way. The visualization tools I mentioned above are also one-way in its creation. In visualization tools, although the visual scenes are created procedurally which is different to Fantasia, only music affects the creation or modification of the visual scenes and visual scenes doesn’t have anything to do with creating music at all. My envisioning of “Interactive Visual Music” is two way form that music and visual scenes affect each other when they are created in real-time. The degree of affecting each other can be different but both of them must have some relationship at the point of its creation. That means when creating a mixed form of the arts, the artist should be inspired by both of the art forms in its progress of creating or performing the mixed form of the art.

When I was thinking about specific interface for this art I instantly came up with this idea of having musical keyboard connected to PC by MIDI interface. Keyboard is the best musical instrument that can express broad range of complicated musical elements for single player. That is why it is considered necessary for composers to learn how to play the piano. I need to program a visual music performance application which makes it possible to visualize what a keyboardist plays in real time by analyzing actual MIDI signals into various musical elements like pitch, harmonics, velocity of pushing keys, types of musical patches and so on. With those analyzed data out of MIDI signal, the application will control various visual elements on the screen like types of object, color, scale, animation, etc. The application will offer various options for keyboardists to preset what kind of musical elements will take effect on what kind of visual element. Main difference compared to other music visualization tools I mentioned before is that my visualization program will use actual musical elements, which I mentioned above, out of MIDI signal; which is different from using sound frequency of the music being played by the application. Especially with great improvement of today’s 3D engine it’s possible to render real-time high polygon objects with various effects almost close to that of cinema in its detail.

Preparing this open mic. I could find that “Visual Music” has already a long history.
A good start point to find various forms of “Visual Music” was “Center for Visual Music”.
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/

Also “iota center” is one of the major sites for “Visual Music”.
http://www.iotacenter.org/

The famous visual music artist Oskar Fishinger’s site.
http://www.oskarfischinger.org/

William Moritz’s article about “The Dream of Color Music, And Machines That Made it Possible”
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.1/articles/moritz2.1.html


When I found a visual artist from various internet sites who’ve had same idea with me and had already developed the idea, I felt like meeting an old friend of mine.
Especially for the idea of using musical keyboard as an input, I found there is someone who had already done similar work before. Like the perfect pitch exercise I mentioned before, the way it visualizes the music is mostly like expressing corresponding color to a specific note or harmony.
http://homepage.tinet.ie/%7Emusima/visualmusic/visualmusic.htm


It is kind of limited way of visualization compared to my picture, though. But now, thanks to today’s great improvement of PC, real-time graphics opened a whole new era for individual artists and I want to make the best use of that in my visual music work.

This link below is about Audiovisual work from MIT guys. It was quite different approach because it has visual art tool as an interface in creating certain audio work. Don’t miss the movie files from the link.
http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/golan/aves/


This work is perfectly two way creation, procedural contents and real-time performance. The content for this work is totally abstract. For me, audio for this work is more like sound effect than music. This work is the closest one to my picture of visual music except the fact that it uses visual art tool as an interface and it doesn’t actually have something to do with musical elements I am envisioning.

Watching various kinds of visual music arts, I had some questions for myself about them.
1. In the process of creating music or visual arts, is either of them actually affected by the other? ( Most of the visual music works I could meet were one-way which means one art form is made on top of a pre-made art form inspired by it. Like animation made out of a music and so on. )
2. Does it contain procedural contents or not?
3. Is it real-time or prescripted?
4. What’s the interface for the creator or author? Is it making a visual out of an musical interface(or instrument) or creating a music out of an art tool?
5. Is the content containing obvious narrative? Or is it more abstract and symbolic?
6. What are the actual musical elements or visual elements that affect each other in their creation?
7. Does it still have enough meaning or appreciation when it’s experienced separately?
8. What are the synergy effects when they are combined together?

I think this is a great beginning for me to start researching this area, and I am happy to find that I am living in a capital city of “Visual Music”. Lots of visual music artists and important organizations are here in LA. I wish to experience more visual music works from now on and keep developing my own idea. Visual music is also really fit to my study on programming procedural 3D graphics. I hope to start developing something on this as soon as possible. That leaves me lots of study in music, arts and programming. How exciting!!!

A topic that interests me, perhaps an inkling of a thesis, perhaps not. An interesting investigation nonetheless.

Games to teach history
SchoolHistory.co.uk: http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/games/
- Does this work?
- Does this count as interactive history?

Demanding active learning
New Intelligence Inc. Announces: Interactive History of the United States:
A Text Reconstruction Program for Improving Reading, Writing, and Reasoning Skills
http://www.newintel.com/USH_1.html
- Does this really engage the student more?

Immersive Education: http://www.immersiveeducation.com/uk/Products_Default.asp
- "Kar2ouche is cross-curricular role-playing software for producing pictures, storyboards, animations, movies, comics, handouts, posters and magazines."
- "MediaStage is a virtual reality performance editing platform for making and editing performances using a cast of virtual characters, 3D environments, 3D props and a virtual camera and lighting rig. Students can build their own sets, instruct the characters to move, pose and behave in a specific way, as well as giving them speech (either using text-to-speech or by recording sound files which the charcters speak back). Performances can be played back in virtual reality, allowing viewers to navigate in 3D around the performance while it happens."
- "Krucible is science simulation software for secondary pupils, covering Waves, Optics, Energy and Forces. It lets students and teachers choose to create their own experiments using real-time computer simulations, turning the PC or Interactive Whiteboard into a virtual laboratory."
- What new forms of projects can this software afford?

Interactive Lessons
http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/interactivelessons.htm
example: http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/firstworldwar.htm
- Should this be a standardized way to run a history course?
- Does this create a significant change in the way history is taught?

Databases - Piece it together yourself
Manhattan Project: http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/
Klondike Gold CD-ROM: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/exhibit/showrev.cgi?path=22
- "In other words, is the ability to move back and forth between subjects, and between text and images, an invention of multimedia? Clearly not; what is unique, at this stage in its development, is the ability to add sound and moving images, and substitute the loading and display of computer files for the flipping of pages."
Assemble newspaper: http://www.headlinehistory.co.uk/
- So this is active learning of sorts - how do you motivate an audience to participate in this outside of a class assignment?

Wiki History
Pearl Harbor: http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/
- What sort of history could this give us?
- What are issues with this method?

Interactive Maps & Timelines
http://www.u-s-history.com/
PBS Kids - History of Jazz: http://pbskids.org/jazz/time/
- A first step - where can these lead?

Immersive Historical Environments
Ideal Classrooms
http://www.landmark-project.com/ncsh/room.php?rm_id=34&floor=epg.php
- What are practical take-aways from this project?

Reenactments
Medieval: http://www.knightstour.org/
- What sort of a digital experience can rival a "living history" park?

Panoramas
U-505: http://www.msichicago.org/exhibit/U505/virtualtour/vr_tour/index.html
- How can this experience be incorporated into a larger lesson and message?

Games as simulations - Medal of Honor, etc.
Colonial Williamsburg as an MMORPG
http://cms.mit.edu/games/education/revolution/index.html
Interview with Jane Boston, Warren Spector, & Will Wright on simulations:
http://edoneel.chaosnet.org/seriousgames/interview.txt
- Jane Boston: "[Simulations] are better suited for those things that need to be learned in context and require active problem solving"
- Will Wright: "Simulations are great for understanding processes that are outside of our experience. You can play with time or scale."
- Are these a useful medium for teaching compelling history?
- What makes a historical game different from a historical movie?
- What is dangerous about using historical fiction in this (or any) medium as part of educational instruction?

History as game environment:
http://www.activehistory.co.uk/Miscellaneous/free_stuff/renaissance/frameset.htm
- How is this method useful?

Investigating facets of a particular place and time
PBS - Colonial House: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/history/index.html
- How can this experience be elaborated on?

VR
John Bonnett: "In this study, I argue that 3D-immersive environments - Virtual Reality - should not be construed as a thoughtless import from popular culture. On the contrary, I suggest that VR, properly applied, has the potential to heighten the effectiveness of historians, as teachers, as communicators, and as researchers. Specifically, I suggest VR can be used to heighten the critical thinking skills of students. I further suggest that VR will soon enable environmental, urban and cultural historians to produce models of far greater range and sophistication than is possible in print."
http://mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCVI2/ARTICLES/bonnett/bonnett.HTML
- What can be gained by VR as a history teacher?
- What are pitfalls of using VR in this way?

Multi-faceted stories
Raid on Deerfield, MA: http://1704.deerfield.history.museum/
Digital History eXplorations - hearing multiple accounts; music, art, etc. from time period: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/
- What's the next step?
_________________________

Overall discussion questions:
1) What did you enjoy about learning history?
2) What did you hate about learning history?
3) What sorts of interactive experiences do you think would be most enjoyable in a history classroom?
4) What sorts of interactive experiences do you think would be most educational in a history classroom?
5) What sorts of interactive experiences would compell you to learn about a historical topic today?
6) How can interactive and immersive historical experiences help our research and understanding of past events?

__________________________

Papers
1) Slava Gerovitch, "Toward an Interactive History of Science and Technology: Reflections on the Dibner/Sloan Web Project"
http://web.mit.edu/slava/homepage/interactive.htm
2) John Bonnett, "Following in Rabelais' Footsteps: Immersive History and the 3D Virtual Buildings Project"
http://mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCVI2/ARTICLES/bonnett/bonnett.HTML
3) Edward L. Ayers, "The Pasts and Futures of Digital History"
http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/PastsFutures.html
4) Maria Roussou, "Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality and Informal Education"
http://ui4all.ics.forth.gr/i3SD2000/Roussou.PDF
5) Laia Pujol, "Archaeology, museums and virtual reality"
http://www.uoc.edu/humfil/articles/eng/pujol0304/pujol0304.pdf
6) Gary J. Kornblith, "Venturing into the Civil War, Virtually: A Review"
http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.
historycooperative.org/journals/jah/88.1/kornblith.html
7) Peter Teuben, Piet Hut, Stuart Levy, Jun Makino, Steve McMillan, Simon Portegies Zwart, Mike Shara, Carter Emmart, "Immersive 4-D Interactive Visualization of Large- Scale Simulations"
http://www.adass.org/adass/proceedings/adass00/reprints/P1-39.pdf

Journals
1) History Now: http://www.historynow.org/06_2005/index.html
- includes an "Interactive History" section (games, etc.)
2) Council for American Studies Education:
http://www.casechicago.org/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=5
- includes an "Interactive History" section (recipes, geneology, etc.)
3) Journal of the Association for History and Computing: http://mcel.pacificu.edu/jahc/JAHCindex.HTM

For next week’s class, everyone is expected to do pre-production research to move forward to the next step of our two project ideas, and to make brief (5 minute) presentations describing what you’ve found.

Research must be coordinated within each team. This will require both teams to internally agree on delegation - who does what - in order to divvy out tasks. (This is probably best done via internal team email.)

Examples (only examples, yours may differ) of elements that need pre-production research leading to decisions about how to proceed include: blogging, budget, communication with client, experience design, scheduling, technology spec, procurement, and writing.

The presentations are expected to be coordinated within each team as well. Consider this a rehearsal for presenting your project the following week to an outside expert - Perry.

Also - please note - for the moment, I’ll be the liaison with the Aquarium folks, so any questions you have for them, please email to me. This is only to get things started.

Finally - things will shift and morph, but we have to start somewhere. So please do your best to cooperate in the context of the teams.

Here's from the signup list. Please note we've cut back from 2 to 1 Open Mics per person to concentrate on the Aquarium project. This schedule has enough flexibility that OMs can slide to the following week.

Class 1 (8/23): Introduction, Syllabus v0.9

Class 2 (8/30): project brainstorm 1

Class 3 (9/6): field trip to Long Beach Aquarium (9am-2pm)

Class 4 (9/13): project brainstorm 2

Class 5 (9/20): LOCK DOWN PROJECT(S), VINCE, RICK

Class 6 (9/27): Project pre-production, JESS, DOOX

Class 7 (10/4): (Michael is out) guest project speaker

Class 8 (10/11) - Project pre-production, mid-term review, NOHA, MIHAI

Class 9 (10/18) - Project production 1, JUSTIN, YUECHUAN

Class 10 (10/25) - Project production 2, JOSH, AARON

Class 11 (11/1) - Project production 3, HERB

Class 12 (11/8 - Project production 4

Class 13 (11/15) - SOMETHING TO SHOW

Class 14 (11/22) - Debug and Feedback

Class 15 (11/29) - LAST CLASS

Final (12/13) - TBD

No, not Metal Gear 2. This is the rather brief powerpoint that will accompany my open mic presentation tomorrow morning: MG2, Mobile Gaming 2. MG1 was the predecessor (of course): a play on words touching on both nostalgia-minded and the performance art crowd. MG2's conception came about through the late discoveries made in the MG1 project. You crazy 532 kids will find out more tomorrow...

(Shout out to Shelby, my partner in crime on MG1!)

Download file

(20 min) news and misc discussion

(45 min) split into 2 project groups to achieve the following:
- elevator pitch (one-liner)
- timeline and milestones
- team roles

(30 min) report back and compare notes

(15 min) break

(60 min) Open Mic (2)

I'll have a revised Open Mic schedule.

We now have 2 teams around 2 concepts/venues:

1) Live aquarium cams
- can be stereo, can be robotic/mobile, can have immersive display, can be webcast

2) Multiple checkpoints
- use entire Aquarium as playing field, possibly with card/tokens/RFIDs or tracking

Both venues can involve game components, group interactivity, and humor & entertainment as well as informative value. Ideally, both teams will converge and make a single experience, but this is not essential.

Our job now is to iteratively fill in specifics and get feedback from folks at the Aquarium.

Most Important Elements

1. Engage some kind of social issue. The aquarium is interesting in encouraging people to think about issues that are effecting ecosystems. I think it would be powerful for whatever we do to reflect this.

2. Physical interfaces. I'm really into the idea of getting people to step out of their normal mode of interaction with other people and with computers. I think if we create some kind of project that requires people to use their bodies, we'll automatically get a different kind of openness and attention. Take people out of their typical ranges of interactivity.

3. A game-like system. Not something that has an explicit goal or a beginning end, but a system that encourages exploration and experimentation. I can't help but keep coming back to the playfulness of Electroplankton. There is something there that we could harness and put in a context that would give it an entirely different meaning/feeling.

Here's three ideas I have for the aquarium project.

1. One thing that struck me at the aquarium was a mural that was completely static, with a touchscreen plasma monitor sitting right next to it. People were supposed to touch parts of the mural on the monitor and make it "come to life". Nobody seemed to get this and most people passed the mural by without giving it a second look. I propose creating a projected interactive mural installation in which the imagery changes based on motion sensors (so kids can participate as they don't need to reach for something to interact with it). The experience would last no longer than 3-5 minutes.

2. I love the camera concept. I think we could do it so that it's not invasive to the aquarium wildlife. I think it'd give people a chance to swim with the fish without getting a diver's license.

3. Continuing on the interactive mural, I'd like to do a thing where interacting with it allows people to see what happens when we harm the environment. The idea would be to inform, more than to show cutesy imagery and try to relate it to social issues (like that horrible 3D movie).

5,000 bucks would be best spent on finding extra help (only if absolutely necessary). I think 5,000 isn't a lot of money, but I do think it'll be inteteresting to see what we can conjure up given this limitation.

I. After visiting the long beach aquarium what I felt missing there was INTERACTION which is not only between visiting people and fishes but also among different fishes.

1) Fish vs Fish Interaction. & Place vs Place Transition.

Obviously, different fishes should be placed and displayed saperately to protect them from being eaten from other fishes but I wanted to learn and feel all the fishes as parts of a whole ecosystem. For example, what is the food chain among them, how different fishes make friends to each other, and so on. I wanted to have fun playing some interactive work that I can learn and see those interactions among fishes which we should be careful not to make it look too violent.
Walking through the different tunnels of the aquarium I felt it would be great of each places to have some connection to the next places that makes smooth transition. I wanted to know what ocean and how deep I should get into the ocean to actually meet the fishes I was watching. I believe there must be reasons for the order of arrangement for the different fish tunnels/tanks and that could be good start to make those transition.

2) Fish vs People Interaction.

From the little interactions like talking fish switch and kiosk touch screen to the big one like actual interactions with fishes through transparent water tank, this interaction between fish and people must be the most compelling interaction we could have from aquarium. I felt there were not enough of them, though.

3) People vs People Interaction.

I wanted to see people visiting aquarium actually communicating with each other by playing a very simple but cooperative game together which is fun and also can learn a message while playing it.


II. Who are the TARGET people for the project?

How can we make audience with different ages and cultures to participate the interactive work together without feeling too bored or too challenged? How can we make certain messages delivered correctly to different age groups?

III. How can we achieve bigger SYNERGY EFFECT by making this project work well with the actual display of various fishes?

I think what to buy would be a matter after deciding what to make. Also Obviously, what to make must be affected by how much we have.

1 The to-be-improved content could be a direction:

I'm still thinking of the installation of the multi-screen projection. The moment when windows are rolling down, with the music starting, is rather dramatic. I noticed people stopped there awaiting for something to happen. However, obviously, the content of the movies are not so well organized as expected. If they are better arranged in some other way - e.g. what to show for each screen, with some consideration of the in-screen spacial accordance ...

Anyway, I think this 2D plane installation is yet acceptable and I only expect "good" content to fit.

2 The hung whale models still have some inspirations:

Could this immersive intension be advanced/enhanced by adding connection to the glass exhibits? What if lining more models (turtles, flock of fish etc. lining right to the front of the glass shelter spot)...

3 The volume of it is comparatively small, I don't think a multi-cam ball is worthy now, especially considering the $5000 budget. But there might be other ways to make use of camera: what if have the frogman ware a camera hat while the video displays realtimely outside to the visitors...

....

Things I thought about...

1) Physical range of interactivity. One thing that I noticed at the aquarium was how easy it was to get drawn in to the living stars of the exhibits. For so many of the kiosks or windows with some electric (audio) or electronic (computer app) interaction, the person had to be right next to the thing in order to elicit anything of importance out of it. The sea otters were drawing in people from 40 feet away. The nearby touch-screen plasma needed people to be a foot away for them to begin to realize that it was the interactive companion to the mural immediately next to it. Ideally, the connection leading to interaction should happen as soon as it’s within sight: as soon as they round the corner.

2) Broad range of input. Back to those otters. Kids were clapping. Kids were smacking the glass. Kids were flying their hands over the glass and pointing in all sorts of directions. Whether the otters did things in direct reaction to their motions is a moot point; they felt that their input in all of its forms was meaningful. Whatever we make has to be ready and willing to do more than just accept tapping on a particular area of a 2d plane. (Might also want to think about how input gets changed thanks to the prejudices brought to the computer screen…)

3) Size and shape are key. I couldn’t help but think: Damn, we have to fit in THIS? I think a lot of the brainstorming we did previously had us thinking very square or cube when it looks like we’re going to be thinking lines or sheets for our project…

As for what to spend it on? $5000 doesn’t feel like a lot right now, but I think a lot of it is going to be developing the look and feel of it. Materials over software. Of course, who really knows what we’re going to be doing by the end of tomorrow…

Important Elements
1) Content: Ecosystems - global interaction, codependence, responsibility
2) Message: engage, change attitudes, change behavior - provide small, practical steps
3) Interface: immersive, compelling - not just a chastising screen on the wall

Spending: I think we should focus money on constructing an appealing physical interface for our project.

Responding to Michael Naimark's request to establish priorities for interactive art installations, and based on our recent experience at the Aquarium of the Pacific, plus a recent trip to Burning Man, I see three criteria for interactive art installations. In this order!

Indestructible

There's little that is more disappointing than an "Out of Order" sign. Relatively unbreakable seems like a good edge to use to cut out unnecessary features. Too many controls? Too breakable. Not good for rough-handling kids, only adults? Not appropriate for humanity at large then.

Performative/Social

Any kind of computer installation, especially one featuring a special glimpse into another world, or the chance to manipulate controls, risks being too solipsistic. Fun public installations need to at least welcome an audience for the controlling person; something to engage passersby. Few people go to a place like the Aquarium of the Pacific alone; don't make them leave their social context for an installation.

Provocative

Offering a 2D version of the animals nearby is not going to grab people when living beings are twitching nearby. The exhibit has got to reach out of the screen, out of the context, to offer a chance to think outside the context. Or perhaps to sum up the context, but with an attitude.

What should we spend $5000 on?

Nothing until we've done everything we can with our laptops and wacom tablets and software floating under our fingers. There's a ton of mocking up that we can do, even with paper and pencils, before we start to commit materials.

Hi All,

First the News: Jerry will commit to providing $5,000 for supplies if we are able to converge on a project, or a few projects, that are of direct interest to the Aquarium. He also would expect that at the end of the class the students would make a presentation, or presentations, at the Aquarium of their projects.

Now it's time to put on our (collective) thinking caps. Assignment continued here---v

I just had a few thoughts on today's trip:

1) AWESOME!!! I am so excited about this project. Museum exhibit design is something I have been interested since applying to this program, and I am so happy to get the opportunity to try out something that will actually be seen by the public.

2) I like Jerry Schubel's suggestion of a display that would convey the codependence of humans on the marine ecosystem and our power and responsability over it. It seems like a neat way to do that would be to incorporate a small kiosk or display into the end of each major exhibit, relaying information directly related to the animals that the audience just interacted with. Then towards the exit there could be a culmination of all the displays.

3) One thing that really bothers me with any plea for community service is its scale. Sure I'm against polluting the ocean and destroying the rain forests, but I have no idea how I could have an impact on those activities, much less how a child could have an impact on them. I agree with Mr. Schubel that it is vital to have extensive scientific research backing up any factual claims we make, but I also think it is crucial to provide the audience with appealling, reasonable actions that they can take to stay aware and combat these issues.

The second-year IMD Folks went on an exploratory trip to the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, to explore opportunities for interactive media installations there.

Here's my Flickr photoset recording the trip: