IMD Forum for 3/11/09: Shake Rattle and Roll !
Presenters: 2nd Year MFA students in CTIN 542 and CTIN 548
Time: Wednesday, March 11, 6pm-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
Title: " Shake Rattle and Roll - CTIN 542,548 Second Year MFA Combined One-Week Interactive Design Project, Spring 2009"
Instructors/Jurors: Mark Bolas, Perry Hoberman, Steve Anderson.
The Challenge: Keyboards contain the arms, wrists, hands and fingers to slight taps along a tiny plane. Mice confine the entire body to slight motions along a plane – reducing intent to inches. Screens constrain our backs, necks, and heads into Nixon-esque postures – eyes fixed forward, shoulders slumped. It is time to break free from the bondage of our systems and engage our bodies in the interaction. It is time to Shake, Rattle and Roll!
Your assignment is to conceive of, design, and produce an interactive experience in which the body is not a mere spectator, but a central element of the experience. The experience should engage the body and be one or more of the following: surprising, shocking, bewildering, addictive, amazing, exquisite, thoughtful, provocative. Students are to incorporate the box, in some way, to create an interactive experience that transpires in between .002 to 200 seconds. Engagement is a two-way street – we move, speak and sweat while we also hear, see, feel, touch and smell. Think in terms of the whole body, and a full range of sensory possibilities.
Additional Instructions: Your project should fit on a standard ZML desk. Output of all varieties – mechanical, physical, audio, projection, etc. – is encouraged: Engage the User’s Body. You may use one ZML projector. You may incorporate internet connectivity. Other than the need to incorporate the box in some way: the choice of media, materials and subject matter is entirely up to you. The project need not be self-contained within the box. Each student is responsible for his/her own project. You may assist each other and collaborate as you see fit. Outside help is allowed, but all such assistance must be donated.
The projects will be presented at the CTIN511 seminar on Wednesday, March 11th. The projects should be set up on the central or peripheral tables in ZML before the seminar begins. Presentations will begin promptly at 6:15. Once the presentations begin, students should not have to touch or adjust their projects (except in case of emergency). Going through each project in turn, one or more of the jurors will interact and engage with it for as long as they see fit, for up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds. If required, instructions to the jurors should be provided in written form on a slip of paper no larger than 8.5" by 2".