Scott Fisher

Speaker: Gonzalo Frasca, Co-Founder and CCO, Powerful Robot Games
Time: Wednesday, October 28, 6-8 pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Play like you mean it! Videogames & Rhetoric

Please join us for a talk by Gonzalo Frasca, who is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Powerful Robot Games. His talk will describe a framework for understanding how play and games convey ideas through the use of rhetoric rather than rules.

Gonzalo Frasca is a game developer, researcher and entrepreneur, who lives in Montevideo, Uruguay. He co-founded the studio, Powerful Robot Games, in 2002 to build both commercial and experimental games. Their game for Cartoon Network reached over 13 million player accounts. They described it as "our biggest gaming success in our history".

One of their most popular indie projects is Newsgaming.com, a project mixing journalism with videogames. It received the Knight Foundation News Games Lifetime Achievement Award at the Games for Change 2009 conference.

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Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Visual Story TAs on Vimeo.

From Microsoft's Surface Blog:

"I don’t want to put any pressure on Michael and the team over at Carnegie Mellon University, but you guys should be getting an A for your class project this semester. Their Dungeons & Dragons experience called “Surfacescapes” on Microsoft Surface is amazing. This is the future of how computers will aid in board games. Remember, D&D playing aids like this are for serious role playing gamers who might normally use balsa cutouts and not just wimpy printed maps. The computer is has a technical role in the gameplay but the DM and the players are the storytellers. That’s why it doesn’t look exactly like a video game. Not that it isn’t seven shades of wonderful. This is crazy cool stuff for role players – unless your dream is a mashup of Project Natal and LARP. ;)"

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Lifelogging has been a constant interest for many of us in IMD and there are a few posts around the blog such as here and here. More recently, Professor Mark Bolas did some research with Microsoft on their prototype Sensecam. Here's an update on a new commercial version by UK company Vicon (via New Scientist):

New camera promises to capture your whole life

13:10 16 October 2009 by Kurt Kleiner

A camera you can wear as a pendant to record every moment of your life will soon be launched by a UK-based firm.
Originally invented to help jog the memories of people with Alzheimer's disease, it might one day be used by consumers to create "lifelogs" that archive their entire lives.
Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.
The ViconRevue was originally developed as the SenseCam by Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, for researchers studying Alzheimer's and other dementias. Studies showed that reviewing the events of the day using SenseCam photos could help some people improve long-term recall.

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This year's annual L.A. County Technology Week is featuring a panel discussion on the video game industry in L.A. The panel will be moderated by WIRED senior editor, Chris Baker, and will feature Kellee Santiago of thatgamecompany( and IMD alum), Alex Hastings of Insomniac Games, Amir Rahimi of EA (he worked with Steven Spielberg on their Boom Blox games), Chris Hewish of Dreamworks animation and a "yet to be named" panelist from Infinity Ward, makers of the "Call of Duty" series of games. There will also be an interactive exhibit area where attendees can play the games produced by our panelists' game studios.

They have given us a bunch of special student discount codes. Students who register online by the 17th using the code will be given a $70 discount on the $85 ticket price (need to show valid student I.D. when you arrive at the event and receive your passes). Tickets include attendance to all panel discussions, a buffet luncheon and our keynote speaker. I have cards with the details and the discount code - will hand out at seminar and leave rest at IMD front(back) desk.

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Sonic Forest is a mesmerizing light and sound installation created by acclaimed artist, architect and composer Christopher Janney. The installation is composed of sixteen eight-foot columns, each containing audio speakers, lights and photo-electric sensors that enable up to four people to interact with each column at once. Students will immerse themselves in the multisensory installation as they pass between the electronic trees, “playing” the forest as they go by, triggering sensors by touch or movement, and creating an ever-changing score of melodic tones, environmental sounds and spoken or whispered texts, with varying effects of light. Christopher Janney has created public interactive sound-light artworks and performances all over the world. Trained as an architect and jazz musician, Janney aims to have music “wrap around you like a blanket.”

OPENING EVENTS:
Monday, October 12
6:45 p.m.: Performance on Hahn Plaza near Tommy Trojan
7:30 p.m.: Panel Discussion at Annenberg Auditorium

For the official opening of Sonic Forest at USC, Christopher Janney has composed a "truly immersive sound experience" to be performed within the installation. The piece will be performed by Stan Strickland on electronic flute together with the percussion section of the Trojan Marching Band. The performance will begin at dusk, and will be followed by the panel discussion, "Public Space, Public Art and Public Life." The panel will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Annenberg Auditorium. For more information on the panel, please click here.
Organized by Scott Fisher (Cinematic Arts), Martin Kaplan (Communication) and Patrick Morganelli (Music).

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Speaker: Christopher Janney, PhenomenArts, Inc.
Time: Wednesday, October 14, 6-8 pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Architecture of the Air: From Urban Musical Instruments to Physical Music"

Trained as an architect and a jazz musician, Christopher Janney has combined these two disciplines in a number of projects. Sometimes he has tried to make architecture more like music as in his "Urban Musical Instruments" series. These include a number of large-scale interactive sound/light installations. Projects completed include "Harmonic Runway", a 200 ft. long interactive light/sound corridor in the Miami International Airport; "Chromatic Oasis", a 30 ft. diameter colored glass and steel mobile, at the Sacramento International Airport; "Touch My Building, an interactive light/sound piece for the entire facade of a new nine-story Bank of America building in Charlotte, NC; “Rainbow Cove,” two nine-story colored glass pedestrian towers at Logan International Airport; “Whistle Grove: The National Steamboat Monument”, a 2500 square foot interactive light, sound, steam environment on the banks of the Ohio River; and “Turn Up the Heat” a 30-ft. diameter interactive scoreboard for the American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL. At other times, Janney has tried to make music more like architecture- more physical, more visual. Projects in this vein include his "HeartBeat," a dance/performance piece where the performer wears a modified heartbeat monitor and moves to the sounds of his/her own heartbeat while other musicians perform in counterpoint.

Backchannel log of the presentation after the jump:

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 10/14/09: Christopher Janney" »

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Holographic Interface - round interface - Ringo from Ivan Tihienko on Vimeo.

"this short feature demonstrates the simple of the possibilities of having the holographic shadow (?) instead of a pda or a cell phone, or a computer for that matter."

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Speaker: Curtis Wong, Microsoft Research
Time: Wednesday, August 26, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Tuva and the whole Universe - Experiments in Interactive Media Learning

The application of Interactive Media for learning has been one of the compelling but elusive goals for the technology since its early days. In this talk I will briefly focus on the evolution of “ECR” an information architecture for learning gleaned from twenty years of developing Interactive media from interactive laserdiscs, CD-ROMs, enhanced digital television, broadband Web, Web applications and cloud services. The balance of my talk will focus on the origins, learnings, challenges, goals and aspirations behind two recent interactive media learning projects: The WorldWide Telescope and Project Tuva.

“ECR is for Engagement | Context | Reference. It’s a simple idea: first, you hook someone—whether they’re using a CD-ROM, watching a video, or visiting a website or a museum—with a story or an object that produces an immediate emotional impact. Then, at the very moment they’re most engaged and curious, you offer them context that broadens their understanding. Finally, you provide a deep reference layer, for the people who get so intrigued that they want to know a lot more.”
Excerpted from Xconomy.com blog: “Project Tuva or Bust: How Microsoft’s Spin on Feynman Could Change the Way We Learn”

BIO: Curtis Wong is a Principal Researcher in Microsoft Research focusing on interaction, media, visualization, gaming and storytelling. Curtis and his collaborators have built advanced prototypes which have influenced Microsoft products and have been featured in numerous executive keynotes on the future of computing. He also spends a portion of his time working with selected non-profit organizations to develop examples of next generation media such as his collaboration with PBS’s television series Frontline to produce The Age of AIDS on the global AIDS pandemic and the broadband enhanced documentary Commanding Heights ~ The Battle for the World Economy, winning a British Academy Award and nominated for the first interactive TV Emmy. Continued......

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Time: Wednesday, April 29, 6-9pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Featuring Spring Semester Class Projects from :

- CTIN 405 Design and Technology for Mobile (Carter & Stein)
- CTIN 406 Sound Design for Games ­(Diamante)
- CTIN 483 Programming for Interactive Media (Brinson)
- CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop (Swain/Arey/Diamante)
- CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design (Brinson & Fullerton)
- CTIN 501 Interactive Cinema (Kratky)
- CTIN 542 Interactive Experience Design (Bolas)
- CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity (Hoberman)
- CTIN 590 Directed Research (Bolas, Brinson, Hoberman, Fisher)
- Immersive Research Group (Bolas)

and more....

Food and Drink will be provided starting at 5:45.

***SCHEDULE below*****

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 4/29/09: IMD Project Presentations" »

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Speakers: Lisa F. Grand, PhD Visiting Scholar (USC) and Jeff Watson, IMAP PhD Student (USC)
Time: Wednesday, April 22, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Abstract: This presentation will explore the evolution and trajectory of ubiquitous computing technologies that enable designers to embed media artifacts and computational systems in physical space. By placing custom bar code glyphs, GPS/Google Earth markers, sensor systems or other smart-phone-readable triggers in physical locations, designers can create hyperlinks connecting real-world objects or places with a wide variety of media -- from video, audio and text content to dynamic data feeds and opportunities for interactions with both human and non-human agencies. Crucially, however, this layering practice does not stop at the level of the hyperlink or the traditional notion of Augmented Reality. Rather, designers are beginning to perceive opportunities for embedding responsive computational power in physical space, enabling environments to track, profile and communicate with their inhabitants, providing customized, adaptive and anticipatory user experiences. After surveying this nascent practice of layering information and computation atop and within physical space -- the latest step in the gradual disintegration of the boundary between the Real and the Virtual -- the presenters (Lisa F. Grand, Visiting Scholar and designer of the TRISH Responsive Environment, and Jeff Watson, IMAP PhD Student) will lead a discussion exploring the profound implications of these new technologies on the nature of entertainment, storytelling, game play, privacy, and social organization.

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