John Hight GDC Interview
Great interview at GDC with IMD faculty member (and Sony Exec), John Hight. Talking about thatgamecompany, flOw, and his IMD class, "Anatomy of a Game".
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February 27, 2008
February 26, 2008
IMD Forum for 2/27/08: Patrick Goddi & Kurt MacDonald
Speakers: Patrick Goddi & Kurt MacDonald, HP Labs
Time: Wednesday, February 27, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
Title: "Mediascapes make fun of GPS"
This talk covers the current state of HP Labs' mscape platform, a software toolkit for building, playing and sharing discreet location-based games and rich media experiences for handheld GPS devices. Each "mediascape" can be opened in the editor so that everyone can see how it's built. The non-commercial beta version of the software is freely available for download and use. And mscapers.com is a community-driven, sharing website where many examples of games, tours and other experimental locative media can be downloaded.
Patrick Goddi is a senior researcher at HP Labs in Palo Alto.
Kurt MacDonald is an independent designer and USC Interactive Media alum.
BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file
February 21, 2008
flOw award at GDC
Congratulations to the flow team for winning the "Best Downloadable Game" award at GDC last night! And in good company I would say...
San Francisco - Video game publisher and developer Valve's "Portal" took home the title of Game of the Year last night at the Game Developers Choice Awards, held during the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The title also won awards for Innovation and Best Game Design. The other big winner was 2K Games' "BioShock," which won awards for Best Visual Art, Best Writing and Best Audio. Other awards were doled out to Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" (Best Handheld Game); Sony/thatgamecompany's "Flow" (Best Downloadable Game); and Crytek/Electronic Arts' "Crysis" (Best Technology).(From digitalmediawire.)
February 18, 2008
"360 Degrees of Difference", 2/20/08
USC Visions and Voices Event:
"Immersion and Its Applications:360 Degrees of Difference"
Join us for an exhibition and panel discussion on 360-degree immersive
explorations in viewing. The exhibition entitled Degrees of Immersion will
include a new multi-screen stereoscopic work by Michael Naimark in
collaboration with the Ars Electronica Future Lab. Other works,
including works by students, will be displayed in the Pano Chamber, a
360-degree pentagonal plasma-screen display that is nine feet in
diameter. Viewers will enter the chamber and be immersed in a
time-based environment.
A dynamic discussion will explore the effectiveness of immersive viewing
and its potential applications for a variety of fields, including fine arts,
psychology and journalism. The distinguished panel of experts will include
multimedia artist Char Davies, founder of the Montreal-based art and
technology company Immersence, Inc.; University of Chicago professor
emerita Barbara Maria Stafford; USC cinematic arts professor
Michael Naimark; USC Annenberg professor Lawrence Pryor;
and USC psychologist and research scientist Albert “Skip” Rizzo.
EXHIBITION:
Monday, February 18 through
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Helen Lindhurst Gallery,
First Floor, Watt Hall
OPENING RECEPTION:
Wednesday, February 20, 5 p.m.
PANEL DISCUSSION:
Wednesday, February 20, 7 p.m.
Leonard Davis Auditorium,
Andrus Gerontology Center
Event website here.
IMD Forum for 2/20/08: Rob Legato
Speaker: Rob Legato
Time: Wednesday, February 20, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Location: Lucas Building, Room 108
Meet Academy Award-winning visual effects artist Rob Legato as he shares his perspective on the VFX industry and art form. Legato has been the driving VFX force behind some of Hollywood’s biggest films, including The Departed, Aviator, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Cast Away, Armageddon, Titanic and Apollo 13. In 1997, he received an Oscar for Best Visual Effects for Titanic. Legato most recently created the Virtual Cinematography System that will be used on the upcoming James Cameron films Avatar and Battle Angel, as well as the new Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson film Tintin.
Doors open to all at 6:20p.m. on a first-come, first-served basis. (Priority seating for all Animation & Digital Arts and Interactive Media division students who arrive prior to 6:15.)
February 16, 2008
EDT-IPT 2008
4th Workshop on Emerging Display Technologies
10th Workshop on Immersive Projection Technology
EDT-IPT 2008
http://edt-ipt2008.org
Evolve out of the Frame: Interactive and Immersive Displays at all Scales
Los Angeles, California, USA, Saturday/Sunday August 9th/10th, 2008
co-located with SIGGRAPH 2008
===================================================================
-------------------------------------------------
Call for Papers, Short Papers, and Demonstrations
-------------------------------------------------
Aims and Scope
The recent flurry of display technology development has produced
families of technologies that make fixed and projected pixels cheaper,
faster, more flexible, and of higher quality. These advances enable
'smart pixels' and enable a number of burgeoning applications ranging
from displays being used for better and more flexible images, to user
interaction, scene sensing, and environment enhancement.
This event combines the successful series of Emerging Display Technologies workshops (www.emergingdisplays.org
Some example topics of interest include:
* multiview, multifocal, or high dynamic range displays;
* omnistereo projection systems;
* ad hoc or "poor man's" projection systems;
* ultra wide field of view HMD optics;
* ultra fast displays;
* head-worn or hand-held (mobile) paradigms;
* hybrid display systems and applications;
* displays with integrated interaction components;
* adaptive projector display systems;
* extended color gamut or color matching displays;
* projector-based user/device tracking or interaction;
* embedded pixels for Spatially-Augmented Reality; and
* rendering techniques associated with the above.
This two-day workshop should provide an opportunity to expand attendee
thinking about ways to use contemporary display devices in new systems
and applications.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Friday, May 16th, 2008
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
Technical Presentations
=======================
We encourage the submission of short or long papers for corresponding
technical presentations. The papers should describe recently completed work, work in progress, or publicly presentable ideas for unimplemented and/or unusual systems or applications. Accepted submissions will be published on a conference CD and will be archived in the ACM Digital Library.
Submissions can be a two-page (short presentation) or four-page (long
presentation) and need to be prepared electronically (PDF) in camera-ready form (i.e. with full author names and affiliations, no page numbers, etc.) following the SIGGRAPH Publication Guidelines for Conferences sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH.
Submission deadline is May 16th, 2008. Please submit your paper by email to submit@edt-ipt2008.org
To allow inclusion in the ACM Digital Library we will need a signed copy of the ACM Copyright form faxed to +1-337-735-1346 and in the mail to
Dirk Reiners
LITE
537 Cajundome Boulevard
Lafayette, LA 70506
USA
by the submission deadline.
Please include pictures and/or video with your submission if possible. Videos should be in a common format, e.g., MPEG-1, MPEG-4, XviD, or DivX. Size permitting we will include the videos on the conference CD, please make sure to indicate in the submission email whether that is acceptable for your materials.
Submissions from commercial vendors are very welcome, as long as they are focused on technological aspects of the presented displays and avoid being a sales pitch.
We will ask authors to commit to either personally attend the workshop to present the work, or to arrange for a suitable replacement presenter.
ACCEPTANCE NOTIFICATION May 30th, 2008
Demonstrations
==============
There will not be a separate demonstrations track at EDT-IPT, but we encourage submitting demonstrations of new display technologies, to the New Technology Demos track at SIGGRAPH. This will give your demonstration a much higher visibility than the pure EDT workshop.
Please submit them as a Demo or Installation Format in the Juried Work area.
We are working on arranging an EDT-IPT preview showing of display-related demos on the evening of the 9th.
CO-CHAIRS AND CONTACT INFORMATION:
Dirk Reiners
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Laura Arns
Envision Center, Purdue University
Workshop information and updated submission details can be found on the
workshop web page: http://www.edt-ipt2008.org
February 13, 2008
Slides for 548
My slides from recent CTIN 548 presentation are posted on the class wiki.
February 11, 2008
San Jose Climate Clock
The Climate Clock Global Initiative is seeking ideas from artist-led teams
to create a major artwork entitled Climate Clock, which will measure
changes in greenhouse gas levels, and be the first in a series of global
projects calling attention to climate change. Climate Clock will be an
instrument of long-term measurement and will collect data for 100 years.
The artwork will be located in downtown San Jose, California, Silicon
Valley's city center, and will be a collaboration between an artist-led
team composed of artists, international and Silicon Valley engineers and
other creative professionals who are working with climate measurement and
data visualization. It is anticipated that the budget for the construction
of Climate Clock will be between $5 and $15 million, depending upon the
scope of the final proposal.
Deadline: May 9, 2008
For a PDF of the call, please visit http://www.sanjoseculture.org/?pid=4500 and to apply, go to www.callforentry.org , register a username and password, navigate to "Apply to Calls", and search for "San Jose Climate Clock". The Climate Clock Initiative is a collaboration between FUSE: cadre/montalvo artist research residency initiative and the city of San Jose Public Art program in cooperation with ZERO1.
IMD Forum for 2/13/08: John KNOLL
Speaker: John Knoll, Industrial Light & Magic
Time: Wednesday, February 13, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Location: Lucas Building, Room 108
Join visual effects master John Knoll for an in-person presentation of his Oscar-nominated work in The Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End!
Knoll is an Academy Award-winning, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). He is known for his innovative CG work on The Pirates of the Caribbean series, Star Wars Episodes I, II, III, Mission: Impossible and The Abyss. Knoll, a USC alumnus, and his brother Thomas are the original creators of Photoshop software.
(Priority seating for all Animation & Digital Arts and Interactive Media division students who arrive prior to 6:15.)
February 5, 2008
IMD Forum for 2/6/08: Machiko KUSAHARA
Speaker: Machiko KUSAHARA, Waseda University
Time: Wednesday, February 6, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
Title: "Device Art: Latest Trend in Media Art and Technology from Japan"
Why does Japanese media art tend to be playful? Why are artists so design-conscious, sometimes even designing gadgets themselves? Where does the Japanese "love for technology" come from and how is it reflected in media art? Questioning borders between art, design, technology, or even entertainment, is a worldwide phenomenon today. Such tendency has been most visible and widely accepted in Japan. Analyzing this phenomenon brings a new aspect in the role of media art in our society. This lecture will introduce the concept "Device Art," providing ample examples from Maywa Denki and other artists working within this realm. It will also analyze this Japanese trend within what's currently happening worldwide in art and design.
Bio: Machiko Kusahara is a media scholar and curator. She has published internationally in the field of art, technology, culture and history, including essays on Japanese games and mobile phone culture. With her background both in art, science and technology, she has been teaching computer graphics, multimedia and media study since 1985. She taught at UCLA in 2002-03, and is currently a professor at Waseda University, Tokyo. Kusahara holds a Ph. D. in engineering from University of Tokyo. Her recent research studies the correlation between digital media and traditional culture.