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October 26, 2009

IMD Forum for 10/28/09: Gonzalo Frasca

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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.

October 11, 2009

IMD Forum for 10/14/09: Christopher Janney

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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" »

August 23, 2009

IMD Forum for 8/26/09: Curtis Wong

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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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April 27, 2009

IMD Forum for 4/29/09: IMD Project Presentations

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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" »

April 20, 2009

IMD Forum for 4/22/09: Locative Media and Responsive Environments

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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.

April 14, 2009

IMD Forum for 4/15/09: “Mobile Storytelling”

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Speakers: IMD's Mobile and Environmental Media Lab (Fisher, Stein, Watson, Gotsis, Kratky, Preuss, Carter, Yasuda)
Time: Wednesday, April 15, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: “Mobile Storytelling”
Abstract: The overall objective of our Mobile and Environmental Media research program is to design and prototype new capabilities for unique entertainment and out-of-classroom educational opportunities available to anyone, at anytime with the added benefit of being embedded in the rich context of specific “place”. The recent focus has been on content development for location-specific museum, game, and arts installations in which the ‘virtual’ contents are embedded on site and perceived through mobile display or viewing devices. This presentation will describe several of the group's projects ranging from crowd-sourced cinema and mobile advertising to " Ambient Storytelling".

April 5, 2009

IMD Forum for 4/8/09: Ulla-Maaria Engeström

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Speaker: Ulla-Maaria Engeström, Thinglink.Org
Time: Wednesday, April 8, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Thinglink: Web pages for design objects

Abstract: This presentation explores how tagging physical objects with personal stories can make them work as agents of social networking on the Internet. Thinglink is a free product code and an online catalog of design products that enables design enthusiasts to share photos and personal references of products with their friends. These photos and references link back to the catalogue forming a dialogue between designers, manufacturers and their products in the various real life settings. The presentation includes practical examples of creating ID stickers for artifacts and claiming a product in the Thinglink database.
Note: Thinglink is currently in private beta and it will open to public later this year. Ask for an invitation on thinglink.com.

Bio: Ulla-Maaria Engeström is a social media developer and columnist living in Palo Alto. Her works explores connecting physical artifacts to online communities of design and craft. Ulla-Maaria is the founder of Thinglink, a free product code and online catalog of design objects. In 2003-2006 she attended a graduate school at the University of Helsinki, Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work research, focusing on the development of collective design capabilities. In 2000-2002 she worked as the director of Institute for Design Research in Finland.
Blog: http://www.hobbyprincess.com

March 30, 2009

IMD Forum for 4/1/09: "Tinkering"

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Discussion leaders: Bryan Jaycox & Sean Plott
Time: Wednesday, April 1, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Discussion Topic: Tonight's seminar will focus on the topic of "Tinkering" raised in the previous two seminar presentations by John Underkoffler and Peter Brinson. Logs for the backchannel discussion can be reviewed on the respective talk announcements..

Abstract: In the modern age, the rapidly changing knowledgebase of technology is quickly outpacing our human ability to assimilate it. No longer is it possible to simply acquire a skillset and practice it in stagnation. In the rapidly evolving face of technology we must continuously adapt to stay on top of the curve. In this environment of changing technology learning how to learn for oneself and find knowledge becomes a much more valuable skill than simply learning artifacts of knowledge themselves. Tinkering is a way for us to learn how to learn through physically doing and dabbling in everything. It is a means for sparking interest in learning through exploration rather than textbook studies, and an opportunity for us as artists to open up into new expressive forms from biology to philosophy to engineering. This talk will cover tinkering as a new mode for learning and artistic expression in areas ranging from bioart, LED music boxes and circuit bending, to Henry Jenkins and education.

Required Readings/Watchings:
1. " Reflections on Tinkering", blog post by Alex Pang
2. John Seely Brown YouTube video: "Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production"
3. Explore these two Tinkering websites:
- "Reed Ghazala's Art of Circuit Bending".
- "The Biotech Hobbyist"

Optional:
1. "The Social Construction of Knowledge in Digital Media: Three Perspectives"
by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown (on IMD wiki under CTIN 511 class)
2. Henry Jenkins YouTube video on Convergence Culture.

March 18, 2009

IMD (& DADA) Forum for 3/25/09: Eric Goldberg

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Speaker: Eric Goldberg, Walt Disney Animation Studio
Time: Wednesday, March 25, 6:30 (sharp!) - 8:30pm
Location: Joint meeting with Digital Arts and Animation Seminar in SCA 108

Long-time Disney animator Eric Goldberg, well known for designing the Genie in Disney's Aladdin, will discuss character design in his presentation "Getting Character Out of Your Characters". He is the author of the recently published book, Crash Course in Animation.

Also featuring Pat Beckman, who is the WDAS Schools and Outreach Manager. Pat will provide students with preparation tips and tools for a career in the animation industry.

March 8, 2009

IMD Forum for 3/11/09: Shake Rattle and Roll !

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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.

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 3/11/09: Shake Rattle and Roll !" »

March 1, 2009

IMD Forum for 3/4/09: Peter Brinson

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Speaker: Peter Brinson, Instructor of Cinematic Practice, Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinematic Arts
Time: Wednesday, March 4, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Matching Meaning and Mechanics

Peter will discuss his upcoming, The Cat and the Coup, an experimental documentary game focusing on an aspect of U.S. warfare that has little presence in game history - the covert military interventions carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency. Broken into historical chapters, the game explores the justifications for U.S. interventions, the actual violent coup d’états, the subsequent effects on the country, and the consequences of "blowback" on U.S. foreign affairs. Currently in production, the first level ("justifications") puts the player in the role of the cat of Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran. On the night of August 19, 1953, the Prime Minister undergoes a CIA sponsored coup d’état. You accompany him through significant events of his life including living under house arrest, being convicted for high treason, undergoing the coup, meeting the President of the United States, and being elected Prime Minister. Future levels will document CIA coups in Chile and Cuba.

Peter Brinson is a game developer, filmmaker, and educator living in Los Angeles. His work explores the narrative possibilities found in animal protagonists, documentary play, and collective ownership. His films and games have exhibited in numerous venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica, Slamdance, Indiecade, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Kitchen, and the Telluride Film Festival. Brinson attended the University of North Carolina and the California Institute of the Arts, and currently teaches in the Interactive Media Division of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.


February 20, 2009

IMD Forum for 2/25/09: John Underkoffler (& IMD Research Demos)

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Speaker: John Underkoffler, Chief Scientist at Oblong Industries
Time: Wednesday, February 25, 6-9pm
Location: SCA Digital Collaboratory Annex, 509 W. 29th Street
(Between Flower and Figueroa Streets, Behind the Panda Express parking lot)

Tonight's CTIN 511 seminar will feature a special session and reception with John Underkoffler, chief scientist at Oblong Industries who will present and demonstrate Oblong’s G-speak Spatial Operating Environment. The G-speak SOE is a gesture-based immersive environment that was first envisioned in the film Minority Report; Underkoffler served as science advisor on the film and then went on to establish Oblong Industries to develop the platform.

The evening will also include demonstrations of other interactive experiences created by faculty and students who are part of the Interactive Media Division’s Collaborative-Design Lab (aka the Flower Street Lab). PLEASE NOTE: The talk and reception will take place at the School of Cinematic Arts’ Digital Collaboratory Annex.

February 17, 2009

IMD Forum for 2/18/09: "Social Computing"

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Discussion leaders: Nahil Sharkasi & Diane Tucker
Time: Wednesday, February 18, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Discussion Topic: Tonight's seminar will focus on the topic of "Social Computing" raised in the previous two seminar presentations by Warren Sack and Andreas Kratky. Logs for the backchannel discussion can be reviewed on the respective talk announcements..

Abstract: Social computing – the dynamic ways in which technologies and social behavior reflect and affect each-other -- has become pervasive in this era in which the network is the dominant metaphor for everything from information technology to international relations and as Hillary Clinton works to make the network and its associates – crowdsourcing and collaboration – into bases for American foreign policy in the Obama Administration (http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/117345.htm )

Social computing's ubiquity has arguably inhibited our acknowledging the range of transformations linked to its rise-- e.g. changes in the geographies of networks, the economies of processing, and the topographies of expertise – and prevented our realizing that the peer production it facilitates constitutes a new mode of production. We'll talk about each of them as well as consider how radically what Benkler calls "commons-based peer production" promises to overturn businesses founded in more industrial models.

Readings/Watchings for this discussion:
TED Talks - Howard Rheingold: Way-new Collaboration
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus" by Clay Shirky
http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html
TED Talks - Yochai Benkler: Open Source Economies
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/yochai_benkler_on_the_new_open_source_economics.html

Do We Need a New Internet by John Markoff
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15markoff.html?emc=eta1

Other recommended Readings are:
M. Ito, "Amateur Cultural Production and Peer-to-Peer Learning"

February 8, 2009

IMD Forum for 2/11/09: Andreas Kratky

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Speaker: Andreas Kratky, Visiting Asst. Professor, Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinematic Arts
Time: Wednesday, February 11, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Simulation Versus Representation – What Can Simulations Tell Us About the Past?

Abstract: An increasing amount of successful interactive media works uses mechanisms of simulation to construct their experience. As systems defined by an initial state and transformation rules, simulations are directed towards a future result. To consider the importance of this kind of process-oriented work as a general cultural form we need to ask what they can tell us about the past and how our systematic abstractions shape how we perceive the world around us. This presentation will show a selection of works that investigate this question looking at the experience of a stroll through urban streets, museum collections, and theater.

Bio: A media artist whose work focuses on memory, database, and new forms of cinema, Andreas Kratky was born in Berlin, Germany, and lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles. He is designer and co-director of several award winning projects including That’s Kyogen (2001), Bleeding Through – Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986 (2003), Soft Cinema (2004), and Title TK (2006).

February 2, 2009

IMD Forum for 2/4/09: Warren Sack

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Speaker: Warren Sack, Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Time: Wednesday, February 4, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

TITLE: Technologies of Community, Conversation by Design: How should networked public spaces be designed?

ABSTRACT: In the United States, public space is splintering into shards. Poor urban planning and the demise of many institutions of civil society are two factors that are to blame. But, media technologies, like television, are usually, also, seen to be destructive forces in this shattering of public space. Can new media technologies be designed to engender community rather than undermine it? I outline “discourse architecture,” an approach to designing software for community and then present a few examples of technologies that my group and I have designed in the last several years.

BIO: Warren Sack is a software designer and media theorist whose work explores theories and designs for online public space and public discussion. He is Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz and earned a B.A. from Yale College and an S.M. and Ph.D. from the MIT Media Laboratory. Warren's writings on new media and computer science have been published widely and his art work has been shown at the ZKM|Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the artport of the Whitney Museum of American Art; and, in the exhibition "The Art of Participation: 1950 - now" currently open at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

January 25, 2009

IMD Forum for 01/28/09: Serious Games: Reality Check

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Discussion leaders: Ian Dallas & Logan Olson
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Discussion Title: "Serious Games: Reality Check"
Tonight's seminar will look at the current state of "serious games" with a more critical eye. Games with learning components, games arguing a specific perspective, and games attempting to evoke feelings beyond simple enjoyment. What have current video games tried to achieve in these arenas, and how effective have they been?

To ground our discussion we'll be focusing on three games. Please play these games before seminar. They're short, free, and available online:
1. Rohrer, Jason. Passage. 13 December 2007. http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/
2. The ReDistricting Game. Los Angeles: USC Game Innovation Lab, 2007. http://www.redistrictinggame.org/
3. Ruiz, Susana. Darfur is Dying. mtvU: 2006. http://www.darfurisdying.com/

Readings for this discussion:
1. Lazarro, Nicole. Why We Play Games: Four Keys to More Emotion Without Story. Oakland: XEODesign, 8 March 2005. PDF available here: http://www.xeodesign.com/xeodesign_whyweplaygames.pdf
2. Rohrer, Jason. Interview with Travis Boisvenue. The Happy Medium. http://thehappymedium.tumblr.com/post/43808908/small-words-and-short-sentences. 28 July 2008.

January 20, 2009

IMD Forum for 1/21/09: Chris Swain

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Speaker: Chris Swain, Interactive Media Division, School of Cinematic Arts.
Time: Wednesday, January 21, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)


Title: Future of Games"

Bio: Chris Swain is a game designer, educator, and co-author of the textbook Game Design Workshop. He co-founded the EA Game Innovation Lab at USC. His serious game lab projects include:
• The Redistricting Game—funded by the USC Annenberg Center for Communication
• Immune Attack—funded by National Science Foundation and created in collaboration with Brown University and the Federation of
American Scientists.
• ELECT-BiLat and ELECT urbanSIM—funded by the U.S. Army and produced for the USC Institute for Creative Technologies.
• The New New Deal—funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and produced in collaboration with the Los Angeles Times.

Prior to coming to USC, Swain worked on games for Microsoft, Sony, Disney, Activision, Acclaim, and many others. He was a founding member of the New York design firm R/GA Interactive. At R/GA he led over 150 projects for clients that included AOL, Warner Brothers, PBS, Intel, Children’s Television Workshop, and many others. He was a creator of NetWits—a massively multiplayer online game show—for the Microsoft Network. Other notable projects include Multiplayer Wheel of Fortune and Multiplayer Jeopardy! for Sony Online, and Weakest Link Interactive for NBC.

Swain was a founding member of the start-up Spiderdance, Inc. He served on the Board of Directors of the Emmy’s from 2000-2004. His work has received many awards including Time magazine’s Best of the Web. He started his career at the pioneering interactive firm Synapse Technologies.

January 13, 2009

CTIN 511 Syllabus - Spring 2009

CTIN 511 Syllabus - Spring 2009:
Download file

CTIN 511/Spring 2009 COURSE SCHEDULE

CTIN 511/Spring 2009
COURSE SCHEDULE

“ Provocative Play”
Week 1 (1/14) Eric Zimmerman, Gamelab
Week 2 (1/21) Chris Swain, USC Interactive Media Division
Week 3 (1/28) (Discussion led by Ian Dallas and Logan Olson)

“ Social Computing”
Week 4 (2/4) Warren Sack, UC Santa Cruz
Week 5 (2/11) Andreas Kratky, USC Interactive Media Division
Week 6 (2/18) (Discussion led by Nahile Sharkasi and Diane Tucker)

“Tinkering”
Week 7 (2/25) John Underkoffler, Oblong
Week 8 (3/4) Peter Brinson, USC Interactive Media Division
Week 9 (3/11) One Week Project Demo (CTIN 542 & CTIN 548)
Week 10 (3/18) Spring Break – no class
Week 11 (3/25) CTAN seminar TBD
Week 12 (4/1) (Discussion led by Bryan Jaycox & Sean Plott)

“ The Internet of Things”
Week 13 (4/8) Ulla-Maaria Engeström, Thinglink
Week 14 (4/15) IMD Mobile and Environmental Media Lab project presentation
Week 15 (4/21) (Discussion led by Jeff Watson)

Week 16 (4/28) IMD Final Project presentations

January 9, 2009

IMD Forum for 1/14/09: Eric Zimmerman

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Photo by Vince Diamante

Speaker: Eric Zimmerman, Co-Founder & Chief Design Officer, Gamestar Mechanic
Time: Wednesday, January 14, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: The Ludic Century: In the Future, Everyone will be a Game Designer

In this wide-ranging and far-reaching talk, Eric will build on his fifteen years of experience as a game designer and game industry gadfly to talk about the wider relevance of games to the culture at large. What are games? What is game design? And in what ways is our culture changing to become more game-centric? The importance of thinking in terms of complex systems, playful technologies, and the world as a designed construction are bringing about new ways of making meaning, and demanding new kinds of literacies for understanding these meanings. In a talk that will include playing games with the audience and offering a sneak peek at his next major unreleased game title, Eric will provide a provocative glimpse into a very playful future.

Bio:
Eric Zimmerman has been working in the game industry for fifteen years. He is the co-founder and Chief Design Officer of Gamelab (www.gamelab.com), an independent game development company based in New York City. Gamelab creates and self-publishes innovative singleplayer and multiplayer games that are distributed online, on mobile phones, and through retail, including the hit downloadable games Diner Dash, Miss Management, and Jojo's Fashion Show. Pre-Gamelab titles include SiSSYFiGHT 2000 and the PC title Gearheads. Eric has taught courses at MIT, New York University, and Parsons School of Design. He has lectured and published extensively about game design and is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (MIT Press, 2004), and The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (MIT Press, 2006), as well as the co-editor of RE:PLAY (Peter Lang Press, 2004).

BACKCHANNEL LOG from presentation: Download file and below.

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 1/14/09: Eric Zimmerman" »

December 1, 2008

IMD Forum for 12/3/08: IMD Project Presentations

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Time: Wednesday, December 3, 6-9pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Featuring Fall 08 Semester Class Projects from :

CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design Workshop
CTIN 401 Interface Design for Games
CTIN 464 Games Studies Seminar (Machinima!)
CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop
-------BREAK-------
CTIN 532 Interactive Experience and World Design
CTIN 482 Designing Online Multiplayer Game Environments
CTIN 491 Advanced Game Projects
CTIN 534 Experiments in Interactivity I
CTIN 541 Design for Interactive Media

Plus bonus research presentations by IMD/ICT Immersive group, the new prototype for Participation Nation, and more....

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

***SCHEDULE below*****

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 12/3/08: IMD Project Presentations" »

November 17, 2008

IMD Forum for 11/19/08: "Technologies of Perception"

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Discussion leader: Veronica Paredes
Time: Wednesday, November 19, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Discussion Title: "Technologies of Perception"
Tonight's seminar will focus on the toic of "Technologies of Perception" raised in the previous two seminar presentations by Jim Campbell and Perry Hoberman. Logs for the backchannel discussion can be reviewed on the respective talk announcements..

Readings for this discussion are:
1. Donald Hoffman, "Peeking Behind the Icons" from Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See (1998).
2. George Lakoff interviewed by Iain A. Boal, "Body, Brain, and Communication" from Resisting the Virtual Life (1995).
3. Alva Noe, "Perspective in Content" from Action in Perception (2004).

Other recommended Readings are:
1. "Virtual Environments, Personal Simulators & Telepresence." by Fisher, Scott S. in Virtual Reality: Theory, Practice and Promise, S. Helsel and J.Roth, ed. , Meckler Publishing, 1991
2. "The Ultimate Display" by I E Sutherland (1965) Proceedings of IFIP Congress
3. "Amplified Smell" in The Inventions of Daedalus by David E. H. Jones (1982)

November 10, 2008

IMD Forum for 11/12/08: Perry Hoberman

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Speaker: Perry Hoberman, Associate Research Professor, Interactive Media Division
Time: Wednesday, November 12, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Bio: Perry Hoberman is an installation artist whose work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and worldwide. He works with a variety of technologies, ranging from utterly obsolete to seasonably state-of-the-art. His installation "Timetable" was awarded the Grand Prix at the ICC Biennale '99 in Tokyo, and "Systems Maintenance" won a 1999 Prix Ars Electronica "Award of Distinction"."Unexpected Obstacles", a retrospective survey of his work, was exhibited during summer 1998 at the ZKM Mediamuseum in Karlsruhe, Germany, and before that at Gallery Otso in Espoo, Finland. Other recent works include "ZOMBIAC", exhibited at the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, and "Workaholic", shown at the exhibition "Vision Ruhr" in Dortmund, Germany. His work has been featured in the "Future Cinema" exhibition at the ZKM Center for New Media in Karlsruhe. Hoberman has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, and is both a 2002 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and a 2002 Rockefeller Foundation Media Art Fellow. He is represented by Postmasters Gallery in New York.

BACKCHANNEL LOG from presentation: Download file


Continue reading "IMD Forum for 11/12/08: Perry Hoberman" »

November 3, 2008

IMD Forum for 11/5/08: Jim Campbell

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Speaker: Jim Campbell
Date: Wednesday, November 5
Time and Locations:
5-6:30pm Visions & Voices Lecture @ USC Fisher Museum of Art, University Park Campus (MAP)
7-8pm Informal Q&A @ ZML (Optional but food and drink will be provided).

Originally trained as a mathematician and electrical engineer, Campbell started to make interactive work in video and with electronic components in the late 1980s. In his work in “Phantasmagoria,” Campbell explores the limits of legibility by employing electronic systems in which the image is converted to its basic elements, demonstrating that both eye and brain tend to supply the missing information.

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics, Campbell has virtually no formal training as an artist. His art apprenticeship consisted of repairing video equipment and, later, designing integrated circuits for video in Silicon Valley. But at a time when many artists who want to create technologically-based art seek a partner who knows the electronics and will leave the creativity to them, Campbell is a whole different thing — a technocrat who discovered early on that he has an artist’s soul.

Website: http://www.jimcampbell.tv/
Suggested Readings: "Delusions of Dialogue: Control and Choice in Interactive Art" and also here as pdf from Leonardo.
"Electronic Time: the Memory Machines of Jim Campbell." Afterimage, November/December 1997. by Marita Sturken.

October 27, 2008

IMD Forum for 10/29/08: "Paradigms of Innovation"

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Discussion leader: Kristy Kang
Time: Wednesday, October 29, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Discussion Title: "Paradigms of Innovation"
Tonight's seminar will focus on the various approaches to innovation raised in the previous two seminar presentations by Tracy Fullerton and Paul Yarin. Logs for the backchannel discussion can be reviewed on the respective talk announcements and IMD wiki.

Readings for this discussion are:
1. Clayton Christiansen, "The Innovator's Solution (intro)."
2. John Seely Brown, "Introduction: Rethinking Innovation in a Changing World."
3. John Seely Brown, "The Debriefing"

Other recommended Readings are:
1. "Innovation", WIkipedia.
2. "50 Greatest Game Innovations", Business Week, 11/5/07

BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file

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October 20, 2008

IMD Forum for 10/22/08: Paul Yarin

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Speaker: Paul Yarin, Blackdust Design
Time: Wednesday, October 22, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Paul Yarin, founder of Blackdust Design, is a consultant in the fields of interactive media, product design, and technology research. Paul’s experience spans both research and industrial projects, many of which have been developed into real products. His focus is the rapid application of new technologies to challenging design problems. While a student in the MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group, Paul developed embedded displays for visualizing patterns of use of physical objects and spaces. This effort made use of networked microcontrollers, radio-frequency identification, and rapid prototyping technologies. The research system, TouchCounters, was presented at the 1999 and 2000 CHI conferences. Before attending MIT, Paul earned a Master's in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Paul's ACM publications here.

BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file

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October 13, 2008

IMD Forum for 10/15/08: Tracy Fullerton

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Speaker: Tracy Fullerton, Associate Professor, Interactive Media Division and Director, EA Game Innovation Lab
Time: Wednesday, October 15, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: " The Ghost of Innovation Past"

Bio: Associate Professor of Interactive Media at USC and Director of the EA Game Innovation Lab. Tracy is co-author of Game Design Workshop, a design textbook now in use worldwide. She designed The Night Journey a unique game/art project with artist Bill Viola, and Liberty Under the Law, a collaboration with Activision and KCET funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She was faculty advisor for the award-winning student games Cloud and flOw. Prior to joining USC, she was president and founder of the interactive television game developer, Spiderdance, Inc. Spiderdance’s games included NBC’s Weakest Link, MTV’s webRIOT, The WB’s No Boundaries, History Channel’s History IQ, Sony Game Show Network’s Inquizition and TBS’s Cyber Bond. Her work has received numerous industry honors including an Emmy nomination for interactive television and Time Magazine’s "Best of the Web."


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October 6, 2008

IMD Forum for 10/8/08: Smart Toys, Things that Think, and Evocative Knowledge Objects

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Discussion leader: Professor Anne Balsamo
Time: Wednesday, October 8, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Discussion Title: "Smart Toys, Things that Think, and Evocative Knowledge Objects"
Tonight's seminar will focus on the topic of things-that-think and things-that-help-us-think raised in the previous two seminar presentations by Steve Anderson and John Sosoka & Caleb Chung. Logs for the backchannel discussion can be reviewed on the respective talk announcements.

Readings for this discussion are:
1. The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.
2. "Behold the Toys of Tomorrow", David Shenk in the Atlantic.

Other recommended Readings are:
1. When Things Start to Think by Neil Gershenfeld
2. " I, Pleo" , Interview with Caleb Chung in Maker
3."Boundary Objects, Please Rise! On the role of boundary objects in distributed collaboration and how to design for them." Ellen Christiansen
4. "The Role of Objects in Design Co-Operation: communication through Physical or Virtual Objects.", Claudia Eckert and Jean-Francois Boujut,
5. Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling (Spimes!)

September 29, 2008

IMD Forum for 10/1/08: John Sosoka, Ugobe

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Speaker: John Sosoka, CTO, UGOBE
Time: Wednesday, October 1, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Lifeforms: exploring a new medium"
"Ugobe transforms the relationship humans have with technology by giving machines a soul. We are the first company to transform the relationship between humans and robots by blending emotions and personality with logic in machines... Our first product is Pleo, the robotic baby dinosaur."

Bio: John Sosoka brings inspired ideas to life at UGOBE and heads the technological innovation at the company. Recently he co-founded and was CTO at Neurosmith. Under Sosoka's technical leadership, this educational technology toy company grew to $12M in sales and won almost every major toy industry award including the "Most Innovative Toy Of The Year" (TOTY). In 2003, Neurosmith was acquired by Small World Toys. Prior to Neurosmith, Sosoka held senior executive positions at Davidson & Associates, Emerson Technologies and the Technology Application Group.

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September 21, 2008

IMD Forum for 9/24/08: Steve Anderson

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(Wordle by S.Anderson)

Speaker: Steve Anderson, Asst. Professor, Interactive Media Division; Director of iMAP
Time: Wednesday, September 24, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Evocative Knowledge Objects and The War Between Theory and Practice"

Abstract:
Coined by Rich Gold in his book "The Plenitude," the concept of evocative knowledge objects may be mobilized across a wildly diverse range of theoretical and practical pursuits. This presentation considers a range of "objects" -- a term that is also here broadly conceived to include such things as a virtual environment, a media database, an electronic journal and an experimental graduate program -- as tools to think with. How does our engagement -- dare I say immersion? -- in contemporary cultures of media and technology affect our most basic ways of thinking, knowing and being in the world?

Bio: http://iml.usc.edu/remix/anderson/

BACKCHANNEL LOG from Seminar: Download text file or Download HTML

September 17, 2008

CTIN 511 Schedule Fall 08 [UPDATED]

CTIN 511 Schedule Fall 08

Here's an updated schedule for CTIN 511: Download file

September 14, 2008

IMD Forum for 9/17/08: "Define Immersion..."

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(Wordle by S.Anderson)

Discussion leader: Jen Stein with help from Nahil Sharkasi and Bill Graner
Time: Wednesday, September 17, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Discussion Title: "Define Immersion..."

Tonight's seminar will focus on concepts of immersion raised in the previous two seminar presentations by Mark Bolas and Scott Fisher. Logs for the backchannel discussion can be reviewed on the respective talk announcements.

These points of view will be discussed in relation to the "Immersive Fallacy" presented by Zimmerman and Salen in Rules of Play, (pp. 450-458). Please read this article

Other important readings:
- The Virtual Reality Experience, in Understanding Virtual Reality, pp. 381-398

- A Grounded Investigation of Game Immersion, Emily Brown and Paul Cairns University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC)

- Player Immersion in the Computer Game Narrative, Hua Qin, Pei-Luen Patrick Rau1, and Gavriel Salvendy
(can be downloaded from on-campus network or vpn)

- Multisensory immersion as a modeling environment for learning complex scientific concepts, Dede, C., Salzman, M., Loftin, B., & Sprague, D.

BACKCHANNEL LOG from seminar: Download file

Video summary of discussion by Brandi Wilcox and Sean Plott:

September 10, 2008

IMD Forum for 9/10/08: Scott Fisher

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Speaker: Scott Fisher, Interactive Media Division
Time: Wednesday, September 10, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Immersion, Context & Presence"

BACKCHANNEL LOG of seminar: Download file

September 8, 2008

IMD bloggers for week of 9/8

This week, the IMD blog will be guest curated by Cynthia Nie and Emily Duff.
Thanks to Diane Tucker for her excellent posts and insights last week...keep'em coming.

September 2, 2008

IMD Forum for 9/3/08: Mark Bolas

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Speaker: Mark Bolas, Assoc. Professor, Interactive Media Division & Director, Mixed Reality Lab, Institute for Creative Technologies.
Time: Wednesday, September 3, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Growing the Medium"
Abstract: Mark will discuss his work to create a design vocabulary for the multi-faceted medium called VR.

BACKCHANNEL LOG for class (partial): Download file

Video summary of presentation by Susana Ruiz and Jeff Watson:

Teams for CTIN 511 Fall 08

REVISED 511 Student Pairing Assignments

511 Student Pairing Assignments

Week 2
Intro: Diab (2) + Bouchard (1)
Blog: Van Dyke (2) + Tucker (1)
Video: Ruiz (2) + Watson (1)

Week 3
Intro: Sharkasi (2) + Graner (1)
Blog: Nie (2) + Duff (1)
Video: Dallas (2) + Fenton (1)

Week 4
Intro: Stein (2)
Blog: Wilcox (2) + Plott (1)

Week 5
Intro: Paredes (2) + Ponce (1)
Blog: Jaycox (2) + Swensen (1)
Video: Cao (2) + Olsen (1)

Week 6
Intro: Kang (2) + Chen (1)
Blog: Dallas (2) + Yasuda (1)
Video: Van Dyke (2) + Duff (1)

Week 7
Intro: Anne
Blog: Sharkasi (2) + Silverman (1)

Week 8
Intro: Stein (2) + Taylor (1)
Blog: Paredes (2) + Chen (1)
Video: Ryu (2) + Swensen (1)

Week 9
Intro: Cao (2) + Fenton (1)
Blog: Diab (2) + Olsen (1)
Video: Nie (2) + Taylor (1)

Week 10
Intro: Kristy
Blog: Ryu (2) + Graner (1)

Week 11
Intro: Jaycox (2) + Tucker (1)
Blog: Cao (2) + Ponce (1)
Video: Wilcox (2) + Plott (1)

Week 12
Intro: Ryu (2) + Watson (1)
Blog: Stein (2) + Yasuda (1)
Video: Jaycox (2) + Silverman (1)

Week 13
Intro: Paredes (2)
Blog: Kang (2)

August 28, 2008

CTIN 511 Syllabus and Schedule Fall 08

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CTIN 511 Syllabus

CTIN 511 Schedule

April 29, 2008

IMD Forum for 4/30/08: IMD Project Presentations

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Time: Wednesday, April 30, 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 485L Advanced Game Development - Brinson
- CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity (Hoberman)
- CTIN 463 Anatomy of a Game (Hight)
- CTIN 405 Design and Technology for Mobile (Bleecker)
- CTIN 406 Sound Design for Games ­(Diamante)
- CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop (Swain/Arey/Diamante)
- CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design (Brinson & Fullerton)
- CTIN 491 Advanced Game Project ( Swain)
- CTIN 492 Experimental Game Topics (Bleecker)
- CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity( Production 1) (Kratky)
- CTIN 542 Interactive Experience Design (Bolas)
- CTIN 590 Directed Research - Fisher

and more....

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

***SCHEDULE below*****

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 4/30/08: IMD Project Presentations" »

April 7, 2008

IMD Forum for 4/9/08: SIGGRAPH 08

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Speakers: Mk Haley, Jill Smolin, and Josh Grow, SIGGRAPH 2008 committee members
Time: Wednesday, April 9, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

This week the CTAN 522 John C Hench Animation & Digital Arts Seminar combines forces with the CTIN 511 Interactive Media Seminar. Our visiting speakers will be three of the committee members for SIGGRAPH 2008 here in LA: Mk Haley, Jill Smolin, and Josh Grow. Jill represents the Animation Festival, Josh represents the Student Volunteer Program, and Mk represents the Interactive Installations. They will talk about the SIGGRAPH conference itself, as well as provide some examples of student submitted work, and a discussion related to how to best submit your work for consideration.

ACM SIGGRAPH's mission is to promote the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques and to foster a membership community whose core values help them to catalyze the innovation and application of computer graphics and interactive techniques. Some highlights of the annual conference are its Animation Theater and Electronic Theater presentations, where recently created CG films are played, and an installation of Emerging Technologies that showcases recent work from the crossroads of science, art, and technology and celebrates the best in creativity and innovation from the past year. Dozens of research papers are presented each year, and SIGGRAPH is widely considered the most prestigious forum for the publication of computer graphics research. In addition to the papers, there are numerous panels of industry experts set up to discuss a wide variety of topics, from computer graphics to machine interactivity to education. This year, the conference is also co-located with the 3rd annual Sandbox Videogame Symposium.

April 1, 2008

IMD Forum for 4/2/08: Big Stage Entertainment

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Speakers: Jonathan Strietzel and John Snoddy, Big Stage Entertainment
Time: Wednesday, April 2, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Big Stage is a media company whose breakthrough technology allows users to easily create and integrate a life-like 3-D avatar of themselves into everything from famous movie scenes, TV shows and video games, to music videos, short video clips, virtual worlds, still images, user-generated content, instant messages, e-mails, social networks and more – instantly. All Big Stage content can then be shared across social networks,mobile phones, and more.

The privately held, Pasadena, Calif.-based company was founded by three tech entrepreneurs who shared a vision for a new media paradigm in which users themselves inhabited the very content which they consumed, and in which the digital fidelity of 3-D animated people -- created and controlled by average consumers -- would soon render virtual performances almost indistinguishable from original performances captured in high-resolution media.

Big Stage’s life-like avatar creation system stems from advanced stereo reconstruction technology funded by multiple government grants, including the CIA, as part of a nineyear cumulative research project at USC. Company Co-Founder Jonathan Strietzel first saw the potential for this technology while meeting with the project’s chief scientist, Doug Fidaleo, Ph.D., at USC. He then assembled Co-Founders Jon Kraft and Jon Snoddy, who each brought unique skills and perspectives to the table, and were able to craft a powerful business vision, secure funding, obtain the core technology license from USC, and hire Fidaleo to officially help bring their vision to life.

Building on the USC research, Chief Technology Officer Snoddy, Chief Scientist Fidaleo and their team were able to take the quality and accuracy of complex, expensive 3-D scanning technology previously only available to production houses and animation companies and offer it to any consumer with a digital camera through a free, fun and easy to use Internet-based platform, for wide-spread entertainment immersion.

BACKCHANNEL LOG from PRESENTATION: Download file

March 25, 2008

IMD Forum for 3/26/08: Anne Bray

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Speaker: Anne Bray, LA Freewaves
Time: Wednesday, March 26, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

HollyWould?
LA Freewaves Executive Director Anne Bray will present a preview of this year's festival and several related projects and opportunities for media art, activism and public media culture. This year's Freewaves festival is titled HollyWould and will be distributed across every screen on Hollywood Boulevard. Since 1989, LA Freewaves has been presenting biennial festivals of film, video and new media art, under the direction of Anne Bray, who founded the concept of LA Freewaves and has administered the festival for two decades. http://www.freewaves.org/

Anne has been working in the field of media arts since the mid 1970s as an administrator, artist and art teacher. As the Freewaves Executive Director, she has continued to see the organization through the technological, social and aesthetic changes of the 1990s to the present, exploring innovative venues, curatorial models and distribution strategies ranging from traditional screenings to online distribution to public art venues. In addition to presenting on LA Freewaves, Anne teaches in the IML's Honors in Multimedia Scholarship program and the public art program at Claremont Graduate University.

***Special Bonus Presentation: Proceeding Ann's talk, first year IMD MFA student, Taiyoung RYU will give an encore presentation of his GDC '08 talk on "Game Design based on Micro-transactions in Online Games". ***

March 10, 2008

IMD Forum for 3/12/08: Flying Off The Handle

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Presenters: 2nd Year MFA students in CTIN 542, 544, 548
Time: Wednesday, March 12, 6pm-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Flying Off The Handle - CTIN 542, 544, 548 Second Year MFA Combined One-Week Interactive Design Project, Spring 2008"

Instructors/Jurors: Mark Bolas, Perry Hoberman, Michael Naimark, Peggy Weil

Project Description:
"In the center of the table in front of you is a pile of handles, knobs and pulls. These objects, specifically shaped for the human hand, can be attached to other objects or surfaces, allowing them to be pushed, pulled, grabbed, closed, opened, turned, twisted, switched, lifted, shifted, operated, poured, tossed, etc. Handles can be attached to either movable and immobile objects. Handles can have both symbolic and/or practical functions - a handle is a kind of affordance. Affordances provide clues to how an object can or should be used (clues that can be useful, but also misleading). Your assignment is to conceive of, design, and produce an interactive experience in which the operation of one or more of these handles by a human user is a central component. This experience should be one or more of the following: surprising, shocking, bewildering, addictive, amazing, exquisite, subtle, provocative."

March 3, 2008

IMD Forum for 3/5/08: Richard Lemarchand

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Speaker: Richard Lemarchand, Game Designer, Naughty Dog
Time: Wednesday, March 5, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)


Title: "Audacious Feats of Daring: An Expanded Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Post-Mortem"

Brace yourself for a rollicking ride as Naughty Dog game designer Richard Lemarchand leads a collaborative presentation deconstructing the successes and pitfalls of his studio’s first PlayStation 3 release, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. A contemporary reinvention of classic pulp adventure, the game was released at the end of 2007 to wide critical acclaim, public w00ts and the massive salez0rs.

In an Easter egg and bonus content-laden reprise of his GDC 2008 talk, Lemarchand covers the open, meritocratic, intensively collaborative way that Naughty Dog works, the iterative, play-test oriented development methodology that the studio subscribes to, and the technological, design and production challenges that the project faced.

Subjects ripe for discussion in this uniquely interjectional seminar format include interactivity design as exploration, managing large, talented teams through creative chaos, player attention as it relates to immersion, flow and variably scheduled activities, interactive storytelling techniques and emotion in games, wide-linear versus open-world gameplay, and gaming as mass entertainment, literature and fine art. The takeaway promises to be both practically applicable for game developers and stimulating for thinkers about interactive media.

Bio: Richard Lemarchand has made story-based character-action games the main focus of his design career, and has worked with some of the industry’s best and brightest in the field along the way. He spends his days building games with his metaphorical sleeves rolled up, advocating for the player and helping keep the development team on track. His credits include the Gex and Soul Reaver series of games, Jak 3 and Jak X: Combat Racing, and he was most recently the Lead Game Designer for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. He’s a contributor to Game Developer Magazine, and a frequent visitor to USC.

February 26, 2008

IMD Forum for 2/27/08: Patrick Goddi & Kurt MacDonald

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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.

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BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file

February 18, 2008

IMD Forum for 2/20/08: Rob Legato

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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 11, 2008

IMD Forum for 2/13/08: John KNOLL

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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

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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.

January 28, 2008

IMD Forum for 1/30/08: Eddo Stern

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Speaker: Eddo Stern
Time: Wednesday, January 30, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Eddo Stern works on the disputed borderlands between fantasy and reality, exploring the uneasy and otherwise unconscious connections between physical existence and electronic simulation. His work explores new modes of narrative and documentary, experimental computer game design, fantasies of technology and history, and cross-cultural representation in computer games, film, and online media. He works in various media including computer software, hardware and game design, kinetic sculpture, performance, and film and video production. His short machinima films include "Sheik Attack", "Vietnam Romance", ”Landlord Vigilante” and "Deathstar". He is the founder of the now retired cooperative C-level where he co-produced the physical computer gaming projects "Waco Resurrection", "Tekken Torture Tournament", "Cockfight Arena”, and the internet meme conference "C-level Memefest" He is currently developing the sensory deprivation game “Darkgame" recently featured at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Online at http://www.eddostern.com

For this seminar, Eddo will talk about "Empirical game design , extra-diegetic Machinima", and his new sensory deprivation game Darkgame.

BACKCHANNEL LOG HERE: Download file

January 21, 2008

IMD Forum for 1/23/08: Flavia Sparacino

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Speaker: Flavia Sparacino, Founding Principal, Sensing Places
Time: Wednesday, January 16, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Talk Title: "Interactive Media Environments & Architectural Machines"

Contemporary digital information has led us to question the traditional
meaning of presence, matter, and the human body. When confronted with
virtual landscapes on the internet such as Second Life, architecture
potentially takes on a new process of redefining itself through the
exploration of new identities and new venues. Flavia Sparacino, a former
researcher at MIT's Media Lab
, believes we are witnessing the birth
of a new architectural science, combining the research of exquisite
organic forms with increasingly complex functions and communications, all
tied into areas of sustainability. She will identify current areas of her
particular research and professional work which, she argues, call for
defining new professional roles, design methodologies, and educational
directions. She will present numerous examples that her company, Sensing
Places, is developing; media-enhanced responsive environments which
incorporate tactile and visually-immersive display technology,
architecture, and filmmaking.

Bio:
Flavia Sparacino, Ph.D., is a technology inventor, experience designer,
and fellow of MIT. She is the founder and director of Sensing Places,
a company based in Santa Monica, California, dedicated to creating
cutting-edge interactive architecture. She has designed
responsive media environments for museums, corporate headquarters,
retail stores, theaters, theme parks, airports and cities around the
world. Her emphasis has been on natural computational interfaces that,
through advanced computer vision algorithms and electronic sensors,
allow people to freely interact with physical objects, digital video
displays, graphics, and light. Her installations have been displayed
in MOMA, SFMOMA, and La Scala Opera Theater in Milan, and have been
featured in numerous newspapers, magazines, such as The New York Times,
the Boston, The Wall Street Journal, and television documentaries
aired on the Discovery Channel, Japan's NHK, and
Italy's RAI. A nominated Knight of the Republic of Italy, she holds
six academic degrees, a Ph.D. from MIT, and works as a technology
consultant for large architecture studios and museums around the world.

For more information on Flavia Sparacino, please visit:
http://www.sensingplaces.com
and also review some of her publications here.

BACKCHANNEL LOG from presentation: Download file

January 14, 2008

IMD Forum for 1/16/08: Anthony Borquez

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Speaker: Anthony Borquez
Time: Wednesday, January 16, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Anthony Borquez is the Vice President for Online and Mobile Business Development at Konami Digital Entertainment. His responsibilities include: identifying new business opportunities across multiple platforms, content strategy, technology innovation, social communities, and digital distribution. He is currently developing a strategy to leverage Konami’s back catalog of products, as well as new IP, for the online market. Additionally, Anthony’s team is evaluating digital distribution models enabling consumers to purchase online and mobile content from a variety of digital platforms.

Anthony has also been teaching at the University of Southern California since 1994. He has designed nine video game courses and currently teaches Video Game Production to Engineering, Cinema, and Business students. In 2003, he started an annual high school summer program in Video Game Design that attracts students nationwide. Anthony received his Undergraduate, Masters, and Doctoral Degrees all from the University of Southern California.

Tonight's presentation will focus on new Konami projects such as DDR - flash version, game widgets across web 2.0 sites, the impact of in-game advertising and HUD design, the convergence of mobile/PC/XBLA/Wiiware for future titles. We will also discuss the design and development of 'fear mechanics' for games in the survival horror genre (Silent Hill, Resident Evil, etc.) for a possible collaborative project.

Backchannel Log from presentations: Download file

December 3, 2007

IMD Forum for 12/5/07: IMD Project Presentations

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Time: Wednesday, December 5, 6-9pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Featuring Fall Semester Class Projects from :
CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design Workshop
CTIN 401 Interface Design for Games
CTIN 464 Games Studies Seminar (Machinima!)
CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop
CTIN 482 Designing Online Multiplayer Game Environments
CTIN 491 Advanced Game Projects (3)
-------BREAK-------
CTIN 532 Interactive Experience and World Design
CTIN 534 Experiments in Interactivity I (1st Years)
CTIN 534 Experiments in Interactivity I (2nd Years)
CTIN 541 Design for Interactive Media
CTIN 590 Directed Research Projects

Plus bonus presentation on research by:
IMD Immersive group

and more....

Food and Drink will be provided.

November 26, 2007

IMD Forum for 11/28/07: Joan Wood

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Speaker: Joan Wood
Time: Wednesday, November 28, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Hands-On: Three Decades in the Pixel Business - The only thing you can count on with a career in new media is that you will never stop learning."

A few topics up for discussion:

. Unfinished Business
Spending years working on a game that does not get
finished/published/distributed/played is heartbreakingly common. Some very
talented folks have a string of these experiences, which can be damaging to
creative inspiration as well as a career. Are there warning signs early on
for which projects will make it to completion and which will be abandoned
along the way? Is there a way to evaluate the concept, the development team,
and the business environment to maximize the chances of being involved in a
project that goes all the way to completion?

. Bleeding Edge Development
Partnering with technology companies to help get needed features built into
next gen products and in turn providing demonstration elements for their
marketing machines means that what you create can influence hardware, API,
and software tool design. The thrill of pioneering new landscapes is matched
by the risk of being first to a market that does not yet exist. Is leading
edge development right for you? Where is the "sweet spot" for integrating
new technology with your content?

. Unique Voices
Traditional gaming culture can be quite narrow-focused. The game development
environment - insular, isolated, and prone to sleep-deprivation-induced
paranoia - can be even more so. Because of this vulnerability (and the
natural tendency to believe one's own press releases), it is vitally
important to have non-traditional, "outsider" voices in the mix. How can you
make your voice heard when you are THE minority on a development team?

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Joan's bio after the jump -->

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 11/28/07: Joan Wood" »

November 12, 2007

IMD Forum for 11/14/07: Erik Loyer

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Speaker: Erik Loyer
Time: Wednesday, November 14, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Seeking eloquence in interactive space"

From Chris Crawford to Richard Nixon, Ella Fitzgerald to James Joyce, a look at the practice of eloquence and its relationship to interactive design.

Erik Loyer, Creative Director for Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular and founder of the design studio Song New Creative, is a designer and media artist whose work explores the ways in which digital interactivity enables human eloquence. His award-winning, internationally-exhibited works include The Lair of the Marrow Monkey, one of the first websites to be added to the permanent collection of a major art museum, Chroma, a web serial about the racial politics of virtual reality, and Public Secrets, an interactive documentary on the California prison system created in collaboration with artist Sharon Daniel. Loyer’s commercial portfolio includes Clio and One Show Gold Award-winning work for Vodafone, as well as projects for Sony, BMW, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and NASA. He is an alumnus of new media pioneers Inscape and The Voyager Company, and founded the information architecture division of Razorfish in Los Angeles.

October 29, 2007

IMD Forum for 10/31/07: Michael Naimark

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(image caption: “Field-Works” ongoing project, by Masaki Fujihata)

Speaker: Michael Naimark, USC Interactive Media Division
Time: Wednesday, October 31, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Representing Earth

Representing Earth, actual places at actual moments, presents a unique challenge. Unlike fantasy places like Second Life and video games, Earth has a “ground truth” frame of reference, indexed by latitude, longitude, altitude, and time. Hence all potential Earth models cross correlate with each other into a singular Earth model.

Recently several new Earth model applications have appeared. Some are more photo-realistic (Google Street View, Microsoft PhotoSynth, EveryScape), some are more interactive (Google Earth, Microsoft Live Search, Yahoo Maps), but, regardless of the hype, none are really “like being there.” The arts community, which instinctively understands that artifacts can be good things, has produced several alternative Earth models (e.g., Art+Com, Shaw, Fujihata).

We’ll take a critical look at these applications and examples, discuss a framework for conceptualizing (and feeling comfortable with) these new forms of representation, and speculate about their future.

We’ll also introduce a new IMD project, in collaboration with ICT and supported by a research award from Google, called "Viewfinder". Viewfinder is designed as a fast, lean project to seamlessly “Flickrize” Google Earth.

A workshop on the Viewfinder project will take place next Monday 5 November 1-5pm in the ZML. Team members from both IMD and ICT will be there.


October 22, 2007

IMD Forum for 10/24/07: Peggy Weil & Nonny de la Peña

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Image from rikomatic.com

Speakers: Peggy Weil & Nonny de la Peña
Time: Wednesday, October 24, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)


Title: "Heinous Corpus in the Multiverse"

Exposing practices and conditions in Guantanamo Prison by integrating
documentary footage and coordinated events in an installation in
Second Life, an online environment. We are providing a virtual,
accessible version of Guantanamo, in contrast to the real, but
inaccessible U.S. prison camp.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/IML/182/211/123

Bios:
Nonny de la Peña, writer, documentary filmmaker and journalist, has
consistently produced work across a variety of media probing
constitutional, social and human rights issues. Her journalistic work
has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Texas
Monthly, Premiere Magazine, Buzz Magazine and La Familia de Hoy. Her
most recent film, Unconstitutional, focused on civil liberties issues
post 9/11 including Guantánamo Bay. De la Peña's films have
appeared in worldwide theatrical release, broadcast on Sundance
Channel, BBC, CourtTV, and Al Jazeera, and have been shown at dozens
of film festivals including the Toronto Film Festival, South by
Southwest, Melbourne Film Festival and the Edinburgh Festival. She is
currently developing Gone Gitmo, a virtual installation of Guantanamo
Prison in Second Life.

Peggy Weil, Visiting Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at USC
School of Cinematic Arts, is a digital media artist and designer
focusing on interactive design as immersive experience for perceptual
and civic engagement. She's produced interactive projects for The
Voyager Company, Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Von Holtzbrinck and
Ravensberger Interactive, and was awarded the MILIA D'OR in Cannes in
1998. She was creative producer/designer for USC's Institute for
Creative Technology E.L.E.C.T. project, a role playing game to train
officers in bi-laterial negotiation skills. She acted as producer/ designer
for The Redistricting Game, a USC Annenberg Center sponsored project
to increase voter awareness about redistricting, and is currently developing
Gone Gitmo, a virtual installation of Guantanamo
Prison in Second Life.

October 14, 2007

IMD Forum for 10/17/07: CTIN555a - Advanced Interactive Project - Sneak Peeks

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Speakers: 3rd Year MFA students (and IMD Faculty)
Time: Wednesday, October 17, 6-8pm
Location: IMD Thesis studio @ 555 w. 23rd Street (at Figueroa)

This week's CTIN 511 seminar will be held at the IMD's Student Thesis Studio Spaces located at 555 W. 23rd Street starting at 6pm. The 555 class will be presenting prototype sketches which physically embody, test and communicate a subset of their project's technical and experiential goals. This is the first year we are having a 'Sneak-Peek' - you can read more about each project on the IMD wiki under Proposals & Committees.

October 8, 2007

IMD Forum for 10/10/07: Dennis Wixon & August de los Reyes

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Speakers: Dennis Wixon & August de los Reyes, Microsoft Game Studios
Time: Wednesday, October 10, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: “Making Emotions Work for You – Revolutionizing the way Emotions are understood and Measured for Product Design. "
How can you know if that a design works? Do users see the design the way you intended it? Can user research and design partner to make to provide useful answers? We say Yes and we can “prove” it. We present a brief overview of the current approaches to product design. We introduce a classic but innovative theory of human emotion that has simple and practical implications for both design and research. We show how this approach is reflected in many consumer products. We take this framework and show how it was used to guide the research work on the most successful game in history. The aim is to change the way you think about creating an engaging design, user research, and human emotion.

BIOS:
Dennis Wixon directs research at Microsoft Games studios which is recognized as a leader in applied methodology. Previously, Dennis was usability manager in the Software Usability Engineering group at Digital Equipment Corporation, where methods such as usability engineering and contextual inquiry were developed. He co-edited a book Field Methods Case Book for Software Design with Prof. Judy Ramey of the University of Washington. Dennis holds a PhD. in social psychology from Clark University.

August de los Reyes researches emotional design as a degree candidate in the Advanced Studies Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Also a PhD candidate in the Technical University of Delft’s Industrial Design Engineering initiative on Emotion and Design, August will be a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford beginning this fall.

This work was recently featured in Wired and is critical to our industry. Don't miss this talk!

September 24, 2007

IMD Forum for 9/26/07: Visual Effects, Stereoscopy, and Perception.

Speakers: Greg Downing, Perry Hoberman, Dr. Judith Hirsch
Time: Wednesday, September 26, 6:30-9:00pm
Location: USC School of Cinematic Arts, George Lucas Building, Room 108.

Title: " Visual Effects, Stereoscopy, and Perception".

This week the CTAN 522 John C Hench Animation & Digital Arts Seminar combines forces with the CTIN 511 Interactive Media Seminar. The objective of this forum is for scientists, artists and industry experts to discuss their research and ideas as it relates or intersects with animation and digital art. This evenings' experts will discuss visual perception and is application to stereoscopic and panoramic imaging. Students from the Division of Animation and Digital Arts have developed a web log with background information on the topics and speakers - please contribute your comments.


*******PLEASE NOTE DIFFERENT LOCATION AND START TIME!!*******

September 19, 2007

IMD Forum for 9/19/07: Dale Herigstad

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Speaker: Dale Herigstad, Chief Creative Officer, Schematic
Time: Wednesday, September 19, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Space and Time in Digital Media Interface

Abstract: Dale will present a number of projects from Schematic from the viewpoint of how interaction is influenced by notions of spatial context and time. Topics will include: layered media, invasive media, rich media, and connected media. Recent work presented will include Broadband TV applications, new experiences on game boxes with EA Sports, enhanced viewing experiences on HDDVD, and advanced thinking in new content-finders for Television. New gestural work will also be presented from work with Microsoft Surface, and an environmental media project with Accenture installed in airports. Dale will also present ways in which working in this new digital space has altered the creative processes at the company.

Dale's Bio: Download file

September 10, 2007

IMD Forum for 9/12/07: Flint Dille

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Speaker: Flint Dille, Writer, Designer, Producer, Bureau of Film & Games
Time: Wednesday, September 12, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

After receiving an MFA from USC’s Cinema Writing Program, Flint established himself as an animation writer and producer on programs such as Transformers and G.I. Joe. During the course, Flint wrote the Tiny Toon Movie and the feature-film American Tail II: Fieval Goes West for Steven Spielberg. Last year, Flint and John Platten sold BACKWATER to Dimension as a film. It was shot in Fall of 2005 as Venom. Flint was also the creative director of TSR-LA and worked on numerous DUNGEONS & DRAGONS projects along with the award winning board games LINE IN THE SAND and XXVc: BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE. All of Bureau of Film & Games' original projects are developed as franchises that can move seamlessly in to other media, including original soundtracks, graphic novel serializations, and feature film/TV possibilities. Flint will talk about his long and successful career working in movies and games, ongoing insurgency, and moving between media.

IMDB bio is here
and Moby games credits here.
Video interview of Flint talking about "Transformers: The Game".

September 4, 2007

IMD Forum, 9/5/07: IMD Thesis Projects

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Speakers: IMD 3rd Year MFA Students
Time: Wednesday, September 5, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

This forum will focus on the thesis projects required for completion of the IMD MFA program. First we'll review a short documentary of the "Are you Here" installation showcasing projects by the class of 2007. Then, current 3rd Year students in the IMD MFA degree program will each present the projects that they will be working on this year.

August 29, 2007

IMD Forum for 8/29/07: IMD Research Open House

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IMD Research Open House
Presenters: IMD faculty and staff
Time: Wednesday, August 29, 6-9pm
Location: IMD CoDesign Lab, Digital Collaboratory Annex, USC School of Cinematic Arts
2823 Flower street (Main entrance at 509 29th st.)

The program for this Open House and 511 session will showcase a wide variety of research developed by the Interactive Media Division and their various collaborations. It will include brief presentations by IMD faculty and Staff members in the context of their research demonstrations; the objective is to introduce IMD faculty, their research interests, and potential opportunities for student participation.

Projects will include: TiltSim, Wide FOV Head Mounted Display, Concave Surround Optics, Wii Games, "MobZombies", "The Night Journey", "Condemned to Repeat, "Trusted Makes", "Cloud", The Redistricting Game, "There's Nothing to See Here", Stereo 3D Projection, and more!

April 23, 2007

IMD Forum for 4/25/07: IMD Project Presentations

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Time: Wednesday, April 25, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Featuring Spring Semester Class Projects from :
- CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design (Brinson & Fullerton)
- CTIN 405 Design and Technology for Mobile (Bleecker)
- CTWR 410 Character Development and Storytelling for Games ( Bilson)
- 2006-07 Game Innovation Grant "Elysium Project"
- CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop (Swain/Arey)
- CTIN 491 Advanced Game Project ( Fullerton)
- CTIN 501 Database Cinema (Kratky)
- CTIN 542 Interactive Design and Production (Bolas)
& CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity (Hoberman)

and more....

Food and Drink will be provided starting at 5:30.

*****Schedule Below******

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 4/25/07: IMD Project Presentations" »

April 16, 2007

IMD Forum for 4/18/07: Danny Bilson

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Speaker: Danny Bilson
Title: "Screenwriting in Gamespace"
Time: Wednesday, April 18, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML), Room 201

Danny Bilson is a writer, director, and producer in movies, television,
videogames, and comic books. With his writing partner Paul DeMeo, Danny
Bilson wrote the movie The Rocketeer (1991), the videogame James Bond 007:
Everything or Nothing (2003), the television series The Sentinel (1996) and
The Flash (1990), and recent issues of the comic book, The Flash. Bilson
also directed and produced The Sentinel and The Flash.

Bilson's scope has been characterized as transmedia. He has adapted comic
books into movies (The Rocketeer), comic books into television (The Flash),
and movies into videogames (James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing). Bilson
and DeMeo's writing has tended toward action and sci-fi genres, emphasizing
more than human heroes and their visceral adventures.

Wikipedia bio here.

April 4, 2007

IMD Forum for 4/4/07: "Second Person": An evening on writing and gameplay

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Speakers: Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Jordan Mechner,Mark Marino, and Jeremy Douglass
Time: Wednesday, April 4, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML), Room 201

Title: Second Person: An evening on writing and gameplay
Tonight, the IMD Forum will host one of the editors and several of the authors included in Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media , a new text from MIT Press, and follow-on to their excellent and often referenced previous volume, First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game.

Jeremy Douglass
Jeremy Douglass is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB profile). His research focuses on interactive fiction and reader response to textual new media. His research on poetry software, "Slidewords: Towards Livecomposing Animated Poetry" are forthcoming at Digital Arts and Culture 2007. Jeremy is a database and web developer for numerous projects, including the academic search engine Voice of the Shuttle, and writes for the new media blog http://writerresponsetheory.org.

In "Enlightening Interactive Fiction" Jeremy Douglass discusses the meaning of Andrew Plotkin's 'Shade' in terms of both surface signification and source code, continuing how the medium and its particular history shape the message of the individual work unfolding before the player.

Mark Marino
Mark C. Marino is a new media scholar and artist, studying chatbots, electronic literature, and games. His dissertation, I, Chatbot: The Gender and Race Performativity of Conversational Agents, integrates sociological research with critical theory. In addition to blogging for Writer Response Theory (http://writerresponsetheory.org), he is editor of Bunk Magazine (http://www.bunkmag.com). His latest analytical work launches “Critical Code Studies,” an approach to interpreting computer code. He is the author of several hypermedia works, including “a show of hands” and “12 Easy Lessons to Better Time Travel.” He currently teaches writing at the University of Southern California (link to faculty site: http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~mcmarino/).

Mark will present “12 Easy Lessons,” which is featured in Second Person.
[Also see Mark's post about this event on his WRT blog. ]

Jordan Mechner
Jordan Mechner is one of the world's best-known videogame creators. His games, including Karateka, Prince of Persia, The Last Express, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, have sold millions of copies and received worldwide critical acclaim. He is also the director of two award-winning short films, Waiting for Dark and Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story. Mechner received his BA from Yale University.

Jordan will talk about his Second Person contribution, which was about the writing and story and game design for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Noah Wardrip-Fruin is a digital media writer, artist, and scholar. His writing/art has been presented by galleries, arts festivals, scientific conferences, DVD magazines, and the Whitney and Guggenheim museums. In addition to Second Person, he has edited First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (2004, with Pat Harrigan) and The New Media Reader (2003, with Nick Montfort), both from MIT Press. He is an Assistant Professor of Communication at UCSD, a Vice President of the Electronic Literature Organization, and a blogger at http://grandtextauto.org.

Noah will talk about the overall Second Person project.

BACKCHANNEL LOG from Presentation: Download file

March 28, 2007

IMD Forum for 3/28/07: Curiosity Cabinet

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Presenters: 2nd Year MFA students in CTIN 542, 544, 548
Time: Wednesday, March 28, 5:40pm-8pm [Please NOTE early start time!]
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
Food: Provided

Title: Curiosity Cabinet: CTIN 542, 544, 548 Second Year MFA Combined One-Week Interactive Design Project.

Instructors/Jurors: Mark Bolas, Perry Hoberman, Michael Naimark, Peggy Weil, Jordon Weisman


Description:
Each student will be given a stock - to be assembled or modified as they see fit - IKEA Akurum wall cabinet, coated with a scratch-resistant, easy clean surface, article numbers 34383710, 64578810 and 34383710, 64578810 and 10012861. They are to conceive of, design and produce an interactive experience in which their unit, as well as its associated bits and pieces, must "intereact" with one or more of the jurors. This intereaction should be at least one of the following: surprising, amazing, meaningful, bewildering, shocking, and/or thought-provoking.


March 23, 2007

Mark Meadows forum slides and log

Mark Meadows' slides from his presentation are here: http://bore.com/prz/07-03-21_la/

The Backchannel log is here: Download file

Any comments on the talk? Please post.

March 20, 2007

IMD Forum for 3/21/07: Mark Meadows

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Speaker: Mark Stephen Meadows
Time: Wednesday, March 21, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "The Emotion Machine called 'NPC'"

Abstract: As any DM worth his dice will tell you, the NPC is a literary form ­ it's a storytelling tool. But in order to do their job NPCs need to be able to change the story, understand the players' emotions, react to them, and affect how the player feels. This talk shows how it can be ­ and is being ­ done technically and psychologically.

Session Description: This talk looks at psychology and AI. In the first half of the session we look at player psychology and examine how mirror neurons (which we all have) cause us to identify with characters, and why. We look at Jungian archetypes and their important role in games and our emotional responses. We then consider a system for an "Emotional User Interface" which will allow a game to keep track of how a player is emotionally responding, thereby increasing storytelling capacities. In the second half of the session we look at how characters can be harnessed with EUIs so that an NPC can be what it was meant to be; a narrative vessel. This examination looks at the emotional, social, intellectual, and physical characteristics of NPCs and discusses why it is important that we throw out traditional A.I. approaches and work towards designing true digital humans with today's technology. We close the session with a few questions, such as, "What happens when we begin falling in love with our robots?" and "What is the emotional equivalent of a Turing Test?" Discussion is welcomed.

Background: Mark is a visual artist, writer, and engineer. He designs digital humans, builds virtual worlds, and engineers emotional interfaces. In 2006 he founded HeadCase Humanufacturing, a company that builds digital humans, where he currently works as Creative Director, designing and building autonomous characters. He is also author of the acclaimed text: " Pause & Effect; The Art of Interactive Narrative" (book website here.) .

His extensive bio is here.

February 28, 2007

IMD Forum for 2/28/07: Daishiro Okada

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Speaker: Daishiro Okada, President and Chief Operating Officer of Square Enix, Inc.,
Time: Wednesday, February 28, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: “East-West trends in Gaming – How to Position Yourself for a Career in Interactive Entertainment”

Okada-san will give an overview of his career background, offer a few tips for getting into the industry and cite statistics mostly related to mobile gaming in Asian countries vs. North America.

Square Enix is Japan's leading videogame developer, publisher and distributor. Its two best-selling franchises - FINAL FANTASY and DRAGON QUEST have sold over 95 million units worldwide. As of May 2, 2006, KINGDOM HEARTS II, Square Enix's action role-playing game created in collaboration with Walt Disney Studios, has sold through more than one million units in North America in only four weeks of release, making it one of the top-selling new releases of 2006.

Daishiro Okada is President and Chief Operating Officer of Square Enix, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Square Enix Co., Ltd. with offices in Los Angeles, CA and Seattle, WA. Square Enix Inc. handles operations in North America, including development, localization, marketing and publishing of Square Enix titles including DRAGON QUEST™ and FINAL FANTASY®. Daishiro leads management and operations and is an essential force in realizing Square Enix’s goals for the North American market. Daishiro served as a Senior Executive for Square Enix Co., Ltd. before his current role at Square Enix, Inc. Prior to joining Square Enix, Daishiro served as Representative Director and Chief Operating Officer for a Japanese technology-company. Previously he also built a successful career as a banker at Deutsche Bank AG Group Japan and The Industrial Bank of Japan (currently, Mizuho Financial Group).

February 21, 2007

IMD Forum for 2/21/07: Eric Hanson

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Speaker: Eric Hanson, Visura Imaging & USC Hench DADA
Time: Wednesday, February 21, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Digital Fiction: New Worlds in Film Environments

This lecture will review the scope and range of film backgrounds and environments, from historic precedence to contemporary digital techniques. Speaker Eric Hanson has a long experience of creating CGI backgrounds for prominent feature films, and will showcase shot breakdowns of films such as The Fifth Element, Cast Away, and The Day After Tomorrow. The lecture will end on the topic of creating affordable environments using high resolution panoramic images, and will discuss recent gigapixel techniques Eric has developed.

Eric's Bio is here.
and websites describing his work here:
http://www.visuraimaging.com
http://www.xrez.com

February 15, 2007

CTIN 511 forum schedule - Spring 2007

CTIN 511/Spring 2007

Week 1 (1/10) Robert Zemeckis
Week 2 (1/17) John Buckman, Magnatune.com
Week 3 (1/24) Anne Friedberg, The Virtual Window
[Profilers: Jack McMahan & Diana Hughes ]
Week 4 (1/31) Rich Gossweiler, Google
[Profilers: Maya Churi & Mike Rossmassler ]
Week 5 (2/8) Usman Haque
Week 6 (2/14) Slamdance Post-mortem
Week 7 (2/21) Eric Hanson, Visura Imaging & SCA DADA
Week 8 (2/28) Daishiro Okada, President, Square-Enix
[Profilers: Al Yang & ]
Week 9 (3/7) TBD
Week 10 (3/14) Spring Vacation – no class
Week 11 (3/21) Pia Tikka, Enactive Cinema group
[Profilers: ]
Week 12 (3/28) 2/4/8 Project (CTIN 542/544/548)
Week 13 (4/4) Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Pat Harrington, Jeremy Douglass,
Mark Marino
- “Second Person” Book launch
[Profilers: ]
Week 14 (4/11) Cameron McNall, Electroland
[Profilers: Andre Clark & ]
Week 15 (4/18) Danny Bilson - Writer, Director, Producer
[Profilers: Ethan Kennerly & ]
Week 16 (4/25) IMD Final Project presentations

February 14, 2007

IMD Forum for 2/14/07: Slamdance Post-Mortem

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Title: Slamdance Post-Mortem: A Discussion about Games as an Expressive Medium
Time: Wednesday, February 14, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)


Join Danny LeDonne (Super Columbine Massacre RPG), Sam Roberts and Peter Baxter (Slamdance Festival), Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen (flOw, thatgamecompany), and Tracy Fullerton (EA Game Innovation Lab) in an open discussion about the recent controversy surrounding the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition. The pulling of LeDonne’s Super Columbine Massacre RPG from the contest resulted in a protest which saw over half the festival finalists pull their own games from the competition, the IMD pulled our own sponsorship of the event in support of the protest, and the festival ended with the remaining finalists voting to forgo all awards in light of the protest. At the root of this controversy lie several important questions: Are games an expressive medium? Should they be protected as “speech” under the First Amendment? Should we hold them to a different standard of content then media such as films, literature, painting or theatre? Where can provocative, independent games be seen and celebrated if not at venues such as Slamdance? Bring your opinions and be ready to participate. This may be the most important issue facing independent gamemakers in the coming years.

BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file

January 29, 2007

IMD Forum for 1/31/07: Rich Gossweiler

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Speaker: Rich Gossweiler, Mad (Research) Scientist, Google Research
Time: Wednesday, January 31, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: Collaboration: from static document to interactive TV

Abstract: This talk spans several topics, from developing a
giant, interactive book(BookPlex) at Xerox PARC to
building collaborative whiteboards for the NASA MER
mission, to mobile story telling (HP Labs), to
finally developing a Custom TV (Phiz at HP Labs). I hope
that the talk will not only convey interesting elements
from each of the projects, but also the process of
doing user experience research at various labs and how
this research process is changing.

Rich's Wikipedia page.

January 22, 2007

IMD Forum for 1/24/07: Anne Friedberg

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Speaker: Anne Friedberg
Time: Wednesday, January 24, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: The Virtual Window and it's Interactive Other: the Page and the Window; the Book and the Screen

The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft is a book about windows and screens and frames and the virtual and the metaphors that shape our everyday access to the world around us. In his 1435 treatise on painting and perspective, De Pictura, Leon Battista Alberti famously instructed the painter to “regard” the rectangular frame of the painting as an open window (aperta finestra). Alberti’s Renaissance metaphor of the window has haunted centuries of subsequent thinking about the humanist subject of perspective, and has remained a defining concept for theories of painting, architecture, and moving image media. Unlike the metaphor of the window as a frame for perspectival view, the metaphor of the window in computer software relies on a different set of assumptions about the viewer and the view that the window provides. An early component of the graphical user interface, the computer “window” did not refer to the full expanse of the computer screen, but rather to a subset of its screen surface: an inset screen within the screen of the computer, one of many nested on its “desktop.” The computer “window” shifts its metaphoric hold from the singular frame of perspective, to the multiplicity of windows within windows, frames within frames, screens within screens.

The Virtual Window Interactive is a translation/extension/conversion of ideas and arguments found in the book. Because the computer screen is both a “page” and a “window,” at once opaque and transparent, it commands a new posture for the practice of writing and reading—one that requires looking into the page as if it is the frame of a window. The Virtual Window Interactive forms a tangent to the matrix of concepts in the book while supplying vivid examples of the still and moving images that have—in the span of centuries-- filled the apertures of our windows, frames, and screens.

Anne's Wikipedia bio is here.

BACKCHANNEL LOG here: Download file

January 17, 2007

IMD Forum for 1/17/07: John Buckman

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Speaker: John Buckman
Time: Wednesday, January 17, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Pissing off The Industry for Fun and Profit"

John Buckman runs Magnatune, the record label that proclaims "We are
not Evil" as well as BookMooch, a book exchange site whose original
slogan was "Never Buy a Book Again", as well as a member of the board
of directors of Creative Commons.

John will be talking about a model for Entrepreneurs in the Internet
Age, where Big Media remains mostly clueless, and where mass culture
movements, inspired by Linux and Open Source (such as Creative
Commons) are not challenging the Old Ecology, but simply ignoring it
altogether and creating a new, parallel ecology with its own rules,
dynamics and economics. How big this new world will get, we don't
yet know, but it's a great place to play around and maybe make a few
million before you're forty.

Wikipedia bio here.
View his Magnatune blog here and hear an online interview here.


BACKCHANNEL LOG here: Download file

January 16, 2007

IMD Forum for 1/17/07: John Buckman

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Speaker: John Buckman
Time: Wednesday, January 17, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Wikipedia bio:

John Buckman is the founder of Magnatune, the largest online store/recording company/media website that uses Creative Commons as license. Magnatune selects its own artists, sells its catalog of music through online downloads and print-on-demand CDs and licenses music for commercial and non-commercial use. Frustrated by the music industry's unfair treatment of artists, Buckman decided to create Magnatune as an artist-friendly record label that shares profits equally with musicians and allows them to retain the rights to their work. Magnatune has successfully used Creative Commons and open source principles to establish a new kind of business model for the music industry.

In November 2006, Buckman was elected to the Board of Directors of the Creative Commons. His most recent project is BookMooch, a non-profit online used book exchange service. Previously he was the founder (with his wife Jan Hanford) and CEO of Lyris Technologies.

View his Magnatune blog here and hear an online interview here.

January 8, 2007

IMD Forum for 1/10/07: Robert Zemeckis

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Speaker: Robert Zemeckis
Time: Wednesday, January 10, 7-9pm
Location: Room 108, Lucas Building

Title: Motion Capture Performance: The art of acting, directing, story and performance for motion capture will be explored while learning cutting edge technologies involved in bringing virtual actors and worlds to life.

Tonight's seminar will be Zemeckis' kickoff lecture for the CTAN 599 class that he is teaching this semester. PLEASE NOTE: This lecture will be held jointly with the Animation & Digital Arts Division Seminar in Lucas 108 from 7pm to 9pm. - Please arrive by 6:45, Seating will be held for IMD students, staff and faculty until 7PM at the latest.

November 27, 2006

IMD Forum for 11/29/06: IMD Project Presentations

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Time: Wednesday, November 29, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Featuring Class Projects from :
CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design Workshop
CTIN 464 Games Studies Seminar (Machinima)
CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop
CTIN 491 Advanced Game Projects
CTIN 532 Interactive Experience Design (Worldbuilding)
CTIN 534 (Cinemagraphic) Experiments in Interactivity I
CTIN 541 Design for Interactive Media
CTIN 590 Directed Research Projects

and much more....

Food and Drink will be provided.

November 13, 2006

IMD Forum for 11/15/06: Eduardo Sciammarella

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Speaker: Eduardo Sciammarella
Time: Wednesday, November 15, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Design Innovation- corporate R&D vs being the little guy"

Eduardo Sciammarella spent 10 yrs. in the corporate Design R&D labs for Sony. Over the last few years he has been going it alone with his companies Protohaus , an innovation studio, and Protomobl, a software product company focused on building social networking services for mobile phones. He reflects on the work, challenges, and opportunities from the inside and out.

"Cell Death 2010: Good-bye, mobile phones; hello, mobile web!"
by Steve Baker and Eduardo Sciammarella.

Wikipedia profile.

November 15th 6pm, 8pm 2006Speaker: Eduardo Sciammarella— at USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
"Design Innovation- corporate R&D vs being the little guy"

November 7, 2006

IMD Forum for 11/8/06: Luke Moloney

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Speaker: Luke Moloney
Time: Wednesday, November 8, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Luke Moloney is an artist in the field of New Media and a former developer of computer and video games. Starting from a very early age, Luke has been developing computer games and other works of art with computers. In 1997, Luke started Relic Entertainment, Inc, a company which produced such award-winning titles as Homeworld and Company of Heroes. Since then, he has shifted focus to new media arts and no longer considers himself a computer game developer. During his talk, Luke will share a number of anecdotes and insights from his years as an amateur and a professional computer/video game developer. He will also talk about the ups and downs of creating and growing a startup game development studio against the backdrop of the ups and downs of developing computer games.

Wikipedia profile.

October 23, 2006

IMD Forum for 10/25/06: Rebecca Allen

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Speaker: Rebecca Allen
Time: Wednesday, October 25, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

"Very early on, when the computer still seemed such a foreign thing, I had an interest in inserting human presence into the computer — human motion, human behavior — so that the computer would have a human face and form." This statement sums up the long and prolific career of Rebecca Allen, a visionary artist who has been pushing the limits of artistic creativity by tirelessly exploring the unknown territories of new audiovisual technology. During a career that already spans three decades, Allen has tried her hand on a wide variety of forms: 3-D computer graphics and animation, music videos, logos for TV, video games, large-scale performance works, artificial life systems, multisensory interfaces interactive installations, virtual reality and mixed reality.

Website and bio: http://rebeccaallen.com/v1/bio/

October 18, 2006

IMD Forum for 10/18/06: Yuta Nakayama and Steven Zhou

Speakers:Yuta Nakayama and Steven Zhou
Time: Wednesday, October 18, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

The Interactive Media Divsion has two Visiting Scholars for the 2006-07 year: Yuta Nakayama from Keio University at Shonan Fujisawa Japan, and Steven Zhou from National University of Singapore. In tonight's forum, they will present their past and current research projects.

Bios:
Yuta Nakayama is a Visiting Scholar at USC IMD during 2006-07. He is a media artist working in the areas of mobile and environmental media. Examples of his unique resarch projects include:
- 3D MUSCLE, a 3D moblog system created by two camera phones arranged in a line. It can shoot stereoscopic pictures everywhere and send those pictures wirelessly to its weblog at anytime. The purpose of this project is to recreate stereoscopic picture of 19th century with 21st-century mobile communication technology that captures the perspective and depth we perceive in real life.
- Iwani-Shimiiru-Seminokoe, a project collaboration with Architect Kengo Kuma to design physical and virtually annotated space where a visitors’ voice is soaked into the place through the use of QR code stickers.

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Steve Zhou ZhiYing is a Visiting Scholar at USC IMD during 2006-07. He has been working on research covering computer vision, mixed reality, multi-modal human-computer interaction, and wearable computers. He is currently a lecturer at the National University of Singapore where he leads a team of over 10 researchers and students. Steven is also the founder and director of MXR Corporation Pte Ltd, a NUS spin-off MNC which commercializes his patented inventions.

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October 9, 2006

IMD Forum for 10/11/06: Alice Taylor

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Speaker: Alice Taylor, BBC
Time: Wednesday, October 11, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Digital Narrative Spaces: how the BBC (and other broadcasters) are looking at videogames and virtual worlds."

Audiences are fragmenting, behaviours are changing. For the broadcaster, this has implications in how to reach ever more elusive consumers. For the storyteller, these digital environments are offering up new narrative experiences and opportunities. When the two finally come together, what will the results look like, that we can predict now?

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Bio and weblog here.
Wikipedia profile here.

October 5, 2006

CTIN 511 Schedule - Fall 2006

Here's the CTIN 511 speaker schedule for the rest of the semester.

[ First year Grads, please choose one of the remaining speakers to do a wikipedia page and introduction (if you haven't done one yet), and post your choice in the comments section below. The page is due on Monday morning before the presentation so it can be included in the announcement. ]

CTIN 511/Fall 2006
COURSE SCHEDULE

Week 1 (8/23) IMD Summer Update
Week 2 (8/30) danah boyd, Annenberg Center and UC Berkeley
Week 3 (9/6) Kevin McCoy
[Profilers: Mike Rossmasler & Andre Clark]
Week 4 (9/13) IMD Thesis Project Presentations
Week 5 (9/20) Michael Hawley
[Profilers: Diana Hughes & Al Yang ]
Week 6 (9/27) Simon Penny, UC Irvine
[Profilers: Jack McMahan & Maya Churi]
Week 7 (10/4) Jordan Weisman, USC IMD & 42 Entertainment
Week 8 (10/11) Alice Taylor, BBC
Week 9 (10/18) Steven Zhou, Yuta Nakayama , USC IMD
[Profiler: tbd
Week 10 (10/25) Rebecca Allen, UCLA Design | Media Arts
[Profiler: Andrea Rodriguez]
Week 11 (11/1) Douglas Greenberg, USC Shoah Foundation
[Profiler: RJ Layton]
Week 12 (11/8) Luke Moloney, Pandora Benevolent Society
[Profiler: Ethan Kennerly]
Week 13 (11/15) Eduardo Sciammarella, Protohaus
[Profiler: Jamie Antonisse]
Week 14 (11/22) Thanksgiving Vacation – no class
Week 15 (11/29) IMD Final Project presentations

October 3, 2006

IMD Forum for 10/04/06: Jordan Weisman

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Speaker: Jordan Weisman
Time: Wednesday, October 4, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: "Making things up for fun and profit"

Jordan Weisman has been a prolific game designer for over 20 years, creating role-playing, board, interactive site-based, and computer games that have won more than 50 design and marketing awards. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Interactive Media in USC's School of Cinematic Arts and co-teaches CTIN 558 Business of Interactive Media with Professor Mark Bolas.

Jordan is Chief Creative Executive of 4orty2wo Entertainment, and invented ARGs after having been inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame for games such as MechWarrior, MageKnight, Crimson Skies, and Shadowrun. Before founding 4orty2wo in 2002, Jordan served as Creative Director of Microsoft's entertainment division, providing creative leadership for the company's PC and video game portfolio (including the development of the Xbox). Jordan is also the founder/co-founder of FASA Corp., Virtual World Entertainment (makers of BattleTech), FASA Interactive, and WizKids, LLC.

Wikipedia Profile here and full bio after the jump.

BACKCHANNEL LOG here.

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 10/04/06: Jordan Weisman" »

September 18, 2006

IMD Forum for 9/20/06: M. J. Hawley

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Speaker: Michael J. Hawley
Time: Wednesday, September 20, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: The World's Biggest Book and Other Adventures.

Abstract:
Computers have always kept me on my toes. I had the opportunity to
produce the world's first digital books (including the works of
Shakespeare, circa 1986) and the world's largest printed book
("Bhutan", in 2003). But in between those efforts were a cornucopia
of projects ranging from pioneer efforts in computer music to the
first major scientific expedition on Everest. All of these have, in
various ways, helped to stretch the capacities of digital
technologies and the creative possibilities we imagine through them.

For this class session, I thought it might be fun and productive to
reminisce a bit on some of the more intriguing efforts I've stumbled
across, and brainstorm a little on what might be worth doing next.

Wikipedia Profile here.

September 11, 2006

IMD Forum, 9/13/06: IMD Thesis Projects

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Speakers: IMD 3rd Year MFA Students
Time: Wednesday, September 13, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

This forum will focus on the thesis projects required for completion of the IMD MFA program. First we'll review a short documentary of the "Dimension 9" installation showcasing projects by the class of 2006. Then, current 3rd Year students in the IMD MFA degree program will each present the projects that they will be working on this year.

September 4, 2006

IMD Forum for 9/6/06: Kevin McCoy

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Speaker: Kevin McCoy
Time: Wednesday, September 6, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

http://www.mccoyspace.com/

BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file

August 29, 2006

IMD Forum for 8/30/06: danah boyd

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Speaker: danah boyd
Time: Wednesday, August 30, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

This week's forum will be a conversation with danah boyd about MySpace and youth culture.

Her wikipdedia profile:

danah boyd, is an American academic, researcher, blogger, and employee of Yahoo! Research Berkeley best known for media appearances where she speaks about social networking sites such as Friendster and MySpace. Since 2003, she and her research have been quoted on the subject of social networking in dozens of different articles in media sources such as NPR, Wired, MSNBC, USA Today, and The O'Reilly Factor. She was also the subject of a major profile in The New York Times in 2003. [more]

BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file

August 22, 2006

IMD Forum for 8/23/06: IMD Summer Update

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Speakers: IMD Faculty & Students
Time: Wednesday, August 23, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC)
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

To kick off the 06-07 year, the first IMD Forum will introduce new members of the IMD community and attempt to catch up with the numerous IMD activities that have occured since last semester.

Highlights will include updates on IMD presentations,installations, and memorable experiences at events such as:


  • Big Picture Symposium III
  • Advances in Computer Entertainment
  • SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies and Guerilla Studio
  • PROCAMS2006- IEEE International Workshop on Projector-Camera Systems
  • The Aspen Conference
  • The TechnoSpheres Symposium
  • Sandbox
  • Creative Commons Rio
  • Intercommunications Center in Tokyo
  • Watarium
  • Hot new game trends in Tokyo....

and more.

Backchannel log: Download file

April 24, 2006

IMD Forum for 4/26/06: IMD Final Project Presentations

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Time: Wednesday, April 26, 6-9pm [Special extended Session!!]
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Featuring Class Projects from :
CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design Workshop
CTIN 482 Designing Online Multiplayer Games Environments: Final Projects
CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop
CTIN 405 Design and Technology for Mobile Experiences
CTIN 542 Interactive Design & Production
CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity

Bonus presentation by Jason Harlan on his Mobile Car Tour of LA Project.
and much more....

Food and Drink will be provided starting at 5:30 and overseen by Self Portraits from CTWR 518: Intro to Interactive Writing
*****Schedule Below******

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 4/26/06: IMD Final Project Presentations" »

April 17, 2006

IMD Forum Speakers for 4/19/06: Evening with Activision

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Speakers: Dan Winters, Carl Schnurr and Christian Busic
Time: Wednesday, April 19, 2006, 6:00-8:00pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Kate Paneno, Activision's University Relations Manager, we have several great speakers talking on game design, the pitch process and the “business” of games.

Bios:
Carl Schnurr joined Activision in 2005 as the Senior Director of Game Design. Previous work includes producing and designing the award-winning tactical shooters, Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear for Red Storm Entertainment, and overseeing the design of Amped, Top Spin Tennis, and Links as a Design Director for Microsoft Game Studios. He has a PhD in physics from Duke University where he studied quantum optics. Prior to joining the games industry he designed shuttle astronaut protocols, delivered singing telegrams, and freelanced for White Wolf.

Dan Winters has been involved in many hit titles including Medal of Honor: European Assault and Kingdom Hearts. Currently at Activision, he has also been at Electronic Arts and VP Product Development Buena Vista Games. In addition, he has been adjunct professor in the Interactive Media Division and presenter in CTIN 511 in 2004.

Christian Busic was Creative Director on Call of Duty 2: Big Red One and has worked on many other games.

***Backchannel log from class here: Download file

April 10, 2006

IMD Forum Speaker for 4/13/06: Norman Klein

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Photo by Max Gerber

Speaker: Norman Klein
Time: Thursday, April 13, 2006, 6:30-8:30pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Norman Klein is on the faculty at CalArts, a cultural critic, and both an urban and media historian, as well as a novelist. His books include "The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory," "Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon," and the data/cinematic novel, "Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-86" (DVD-ROM with book in collaboration with USC's Labyrinth Project). His next book will be "The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects.".

His essays appear in anthologies, museum catalogs, newspapers, scholarly journals, on the WEB-- symptoms of a polymath's career, from European cultural history to animation and architectural studies, to LA studies, to fiction, media design and documentary film. His work (including museum shows) centers on the relationship between collective memory and power, from special effects to cinema to digital theory, usually set in urban spaces; and often on the thin line between fact and fiction; about erasure, forgetting, scripted spaces, the social imaginary.

**********PLEASE NOTE TIME CHANGE!**********

April 3, 2006

IMD Forum Speaker for 4/5/06: Pierre de Vries

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Image by J. Bleecker

Title: "Hard Intangibles"
Speaker: Pierre de Vries
Time: Wednesday, April 5, 2006, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Intangibles have come to dominate the economy and our personal lives. However, our brains are built to deal with physical things. This talk explores what happens when the knowledge economy collides with our cognitive limitations.

Bio: Pierre de Vries was trained as a scientist. After receiving a PhD in theoretical physics from Oxford University, he worked for a London-based venture capital company. He then talked his way into art school, and after three years studying sculpture was hired by Microsoft to build prototypes of future products. His work there included managing user experience design for mobile devices; starting and managing technology incubations, including a community-based wireless mesh network; supervising the start-up of a European advanced development lab; and directing cross-company telecommunications policy. He left Microsoft in June 2005 and is now an independent researcher working on the intersection of technology and society. He is a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Center at USC.

March 28, 2006

IMD Forum Speaker for 3/29/06: Adam Clayton Powell III

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Title: "'The End of Cartoons' - Capturing Reality for Games, News and More, or: the Reinvention of Photography (Again)"
Speaker: Adam Clayton Powell III
Time: Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Biography: Adam Clayton Powell III is Director of the Integrated Media Systems Center, the U.S. national Engineering Research Center for multimedia, at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He is also a Visiting Professor at the USC Annenberg School and a Senior Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Powell came to USC in 2003 from Howard University's WHUT-TV, where he served as general manager of the broadcast and cable television channels. After joining the USC faculty, Powell was asked to provide weekly media reports for WHUT-TV, which ran on Friday and Sunday nights in 2003-2004 and which won the 2004 award for Best Network and Major Market TV Commentary from the National Association of Black Journalists.

Before 2001, Powell served as Vice President/Technology and Programs for the Freedom Forum. In his 15 years at the Freedom Forum, Powell developed and supervised new media conferences and seminars and training programs on Internet- and computer-based media and information technology for journalists, educators, policy makers, and researchers in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. He was also an executive producer at Quincy Jones Entertainment where he produced Jesse Jackson's weekly television series, and served as vice president for news and information programming at National Public Radio. He was also a manager and producer at CBS News and news director of ABC News' 24-hour cable television news service. He has written extensively about technology, media and international issues for a wide range of publications including the New York Times, Wired and USC's Online Journalism Review. He received the Overseas Press Club Award for international reporting for a series of broadcasts he produced on Iran.

Research interests: Immersive media
Public Diplomacy
International Broadcasting
Local News on television, radio and the Internet

http://ascweb.usc.edu/asc.php?pageID=26&thisFacultyID=266

March 6, 2006

IMD Forum for 3/8/06: Second Year MFA Projects

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(Image by Brad Newman)

Title: "Surprise Menu: Eleven Courses in Seven Days" - Second Year Combined One-Week Interactive Design Project
Speakers: Students from CTIN 542, 544, 548
Time: Wednesday, March 8, 2006, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Each student has been provided a serving platter and cover dome with which they have conceived of, designed and produced an interactive experience in which something happens upon removal of the cover. This eleven course meal for the mind and senses shall begin promptly at 6:15 in ZML.

Continue reading "IMD Forum for 3/8/06: Second Year MFA Projects" »

February 28, 2006

IMD Forum Speakers for 3/1/06: Bernard David, Jerry Schubel, Steve Mayer

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Title: "Big Game Design Challenge"
Speakers: Bernard David & Jerry Schubel
Time: Wednesday, March 1, 2006, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Tonight's Seminar will present a Design Challenge to IMD and serve as the kick-off meeting for a new project collaboration with the Aquarium of the Pacific and the Future of Life Organization. Presentations will be made by Jerry Schubel, President and CEO of the AOP, Bernard David, Director of FOL, and by Steve Mayer, to outline the vision and aspirations of their respective organizations. Professor Tracy Fullerton will then describe the scope of a sponsored "Big Game" project in the Game Innovation Lab that will attempt to address these needs through this spring and summer.

The project will be an exploration of the connections between people and their coastal oceans, with a design goal of raising awareness and deepen understanding of the way in which human activities on land stresses the coastal environment. Big Games and social games of this type have proven to be a rich source of community growth and activism and The Aquarium of the Pacific is the perfect platform for implementing such a game, where it can provide a playful, thought-provoking experience for participants and serve as an example of using interactivity to engage players in important dialogues about critical issues. Please attend this meeting if you have any interest in joining the project team.

Backchannel log of presentation here: Download file

February 21, 2006

IMD Forum Speaker for 2/22/06: Jon Winet

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"Sunset: 200 MHz in a 35 MPH Zone" (1997)

Title: "Fast Forward In Reverse: Adventures in Intermedia"
Speaker: Jon Winet
Time: Wednesday, February 22, 2006, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)


Abstract:

Jon Winet, University of Iowa School of Art & Art History Associate Professor and Intermedia Area Head will discuss his work -- "past, present and there up ahead" -- in the broader contexts of relational aesthetics, hybrid practice, and the comparative cultures of collaborative creative art and technology research.

Links to recent work:
2004-America & The Globe http://www.2004atg.net
“The Street” http://www.the-street.net
“Monument” http://www.locusplus.org.uk/monument

Backchannel log here: Download file

January 30, 2006

IMD Forum Speakers for 2/1/06: Mimi Ito & Daisuke Okabe

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Title: Visual Communication and Co-Presence: Camera Phones in Japanese Life
Speakers: Mimi Ito & Daisuke Okabe
Time: Wednesday, February 1, 2006, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Abstract:
Camera phones now represent 3/4 of all mobile phones in use in Japan
today. As these devices have merged with existing practices of visual archiving, sharing, and communication, new kinds of technosocial practices have become part of everyday life in urban Japan. We will discuss the current state of camera phone use in Japan based on our ethnographic research, and outline some of the emerging trends for how related technologies and practices seem to be evolving.

Bios:
Daisuke Okabe, a cognitive psychologist, lecturer at Keio's Keitai Lab and at Yokohama University, has conducted extensive fieldwork on mobile phone and Wi-Fi use. Mizuko Ito is a cultural anthropologist who is interested in how digital media are changing relationships, identities, and communities; she researches new media and mobile phone use at Keio University and the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communication. Both teamed up with Misa Matsuda to edit Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, the first English-language book dedicated to mobile communication use in Japan that was published by MIT Press last summer.

January 23, 2006

IMD Forum Speaker for 1/25/06: Yoshifumi Kitamura

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Title: Challenges of 3D Computer-Human Interactions at Osaka University
Human Interface Engineering Lab.
Speaker: Yoshifumi Kitamura
Time: Wednesday, January 25, 2006, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Abstract:
3D interaction is one of the key techniques for providing
sophisticated intuitive user interfaces, by exploiting everyday
experiences of humans and natural physical motions in 3D environments.
We are conducting several research projects on 3D user interfaces that
fully utilize the user's intuition, sensitivity, and proprioception.
For example, IllusionHole is a stereoscopic display system used in
face-to-face cooperation with multiple co-located users, ActiveCube is
a set of electronic blocks incorporated into a real-time and
bi-directional interface. I am going to introduce some of our research
activities in the Human Interface Engineering Lab.

Bio:
Yoshifumi Kitamura was born in Osaka, Japan. He received B.Sc., M.Sc.
and PhD. degrees in Engineering from Osaka University in 1985, 1987
and 1996, respectively. From 1987 to 1992, he was at the Information
Systems Research Center of Canon Inc., where he was involved in
research on artificial intelligence, image processing, computer vision,
and 3-D data processing. From 1992 to 1996, he was a researcher at the
ATR Communication Systems Research Laboratories, where he worked on
sophisticated user interfaces in virtual environments. From 1997 to
2002, he was an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of
Engineering, Osaka University. Since April 2002, he has been an
Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Information Science and
Technology, Osaka University.

**Backchannel log from talk: Download file

November 29, 2005

IMD Forum for 11/30/05: Project Presentations

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Time: Wednesday, November 30, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Featuring Class Projects from :
CTIN 482 Designing Online Multiplayer Games Environments: Final Projects
CTIN 483 Programming for Interactivity: Final Projects: 2D Multi-Screen Games
CTIN 499 Location-Based Mobile Media: Maps, Games and Stories
CTIN 532 Interactive Experience Design: Final projects for the Aquarium of the Pacific
CTIN 541 Design for Interactive Media: Final projects from the mobile module

Plus bonus presentations by:
Doox on Isostar
Mike Stein Machinima
Jess' Microsoft adventure
Tracy Fullerton's Travelogue
and much more....

Food and Drink will be provided

November 15, 2005

IMD Forum Speaker for 11/16/05: BIll Viola

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Image: The Crossing, 1996
Video/sound installation
Photos: Kira Perov

Title: Presence and Absence
Speaker: Bill Viola
Time: Wednesday, November 16, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Bill Viola is internationally recognized as one of the premiere video artists working in this medium. For over 35 years he has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, and works for television broadcast. He has been instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped to expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach. His works focus on universal human experiences—birth, death, the unfolding of consciousness—and have roots in both Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. He is also working with us here in the Interactive Media Division on a prototype for a new interactive project called The Night Journey.

Bill will give an overview of his work from the 1970s to the present with an emphasis on his earlier video/sound installation pieces that contain an interactive element.

More info at www.billviola.com, wikipedia,
and at his gallery's website: www.jamescohan.com

November 7, 2005

IMD Forum Speakers for 11/9/05: Michael Mateas & Andrew Stern

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Title: Creating the Interactive Drama Façade
Speakers: Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern
Procedural Arts and The Georgia Institute of Technology
Time: Wednesday, November 9, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Abstract: High-agency interactive story, in which the player can have a real and complex effect on both the inner lives of autonomous characters and the evolution of the plot, is one of the holy grails of interactive art and entertainment. Unfortunately, attempts to create interactive stories have primarily involved design-only solutions using standard technologies such as finite-state-machines and simple story graphs, resulting in experiences that inevitably trade-off agency and story structure. The consistent failure to combine agency and story has even prompted some designers and theorists to conclude that interactivity and story are fundamentally opposed. Façade, a first-person, real-time, one-act interactive drama (available for free download at www.interactivestory.net), is our attempt to constructively explore the design space of high-agency interactive story.

In this talk we describe the process of building Façade, a process that combined three simultaneous and related research and design thrusts: designing ways to deconstruct a dramatic narrative into a hierarchy of story and behavior pieces; engineering an AI system that responds to and integrates the player's moment-by-moment interactions to reconstruct a real-time dramatic performance from those pieces; and understanding how to write an engaging, compelling story within this new organizational framework. We provide an overview of the process of bringing our interactive drama to life as a coherent, engaging, high agency experience, including the design and programming of thousands of joint dialog behaviors in the reactive planning language ABL, and their higher-level organization into a collection of story beats sequenced by a drama manager. We describe the iterative development of the architecture, its languages, authorial idioms, and varieties of story content structures, and how these content structures are designed to intermix to offer players a high-degree of responsiveness and narrative agency. We conclude with design and implementation lessons learned as well as describe current and future research and commercial directions.

November 1, 2005

IMD Forum Speaker for 11/2/05: Bruce Sterling

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Speaker: Bruce Sterling
Time: Wednesday, November 2, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Bruce Sterling is a futurist, writer, and Visionary in Residence at Art Center College of Design, recognized for his challenging, unflinching evaluations of politics, technology, design, ecology, and culture. Now a journalist, lecturer, and prolific blogger, he was initially acclaimed for his science fiction works which were defining documents of the cyberpunk genre in the early 1980s. He is the author of 14 books, a contributing editor to WIRED magazine, founder of the Virididan Design movement, and also The Dead Media Project - A collection of "research notes" on dead media technologies, from Incan quipus, through Victorian phenakistoscopes, to the departed video games and home computers of the 1980s. ( Bio mostly from Stuart Karten Design, additional biography on wikipedia, and "Who's Bruce Sterling".)

Previous post about Bruce's recent publication " Shaping Things" here.

October 25, 2005

IMD Forum Speaker for 10/26/05: Seamus Blackley

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A May 2005 picture of Seamus Blackley at his desk at CAA.(photo by Justin Hall)

Title: "The Ugly Truth: Art, Games,& Innovation"
Speaker: Seamus Blackley
Time: Wednesday, October 26, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
3131 South Figueroa Blvd./2nd Floor

Bio from the E3 2005:

Seamus Blackley is an agent at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a talent and literary agency based in Beverly Hills, Calif. Blackley's role is to help guide and execute CAA's strategy for representing video game creators in a full-service manner - securing and negotiating deals with game publishers, with film and television studios, and with networks, and building and servicing client development companies to give game designers greater creative and financial control. The top-selling game designer joined Microsoft in 1999 and piloted the creation of the Xbox game platform. While at Microsoft, the former physicist and DreamWorks Interactive executive producer wrote the initial proposal for Xbox, assembled and led the team behind the technical design and philosophy for the platform, and established and nurtured support for Xbox within the game development community worldwide.

Full bio on wikipedia:

October 17, 2005

IMD Forum Speaker for 10/19/05: Joi Ito

joi-mashup.jpg

Speaker: Joi Ito
Time: Wednesday, October 19, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
3131 South Figueroa Blvd./2nd Floor

Joichi Ito is General Manager of International Operations for Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) which indexes and monitors blogs and the Chairman of Six Apart Japan (http://www.sixapart.jp) the weblog software company. He is on the board of Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.org), a non-profit organization which proposes a middle way to rights management, rather than the extremes of the pure public domain or the reservation of all rights. He is a board member of Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Open Source Initiative (OSI). He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. In 1997 Time Magazine ranked him as a member of the CyberElite. In 2000 he was ranked among the "50 Stars of Asia" by Business Week and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT. In 2001 the World Economic Forum chose him as one of the 100 "Global Leaders of Tomorrow" for 2002. He has served and continues to serve on numerous Japanese central as well as local government committees and boards, advising the government on IT, privacy and computer security related issues. He is currently researching "The Sharing Economy" as a Doctor of Business Administration candidate at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. He maintains a weblog (http://joi.ito.com/) where he regularly shares his thoughts with the online community.

The wikipedia article gives a good summary of his many interests.

Joi is also the promulgator of the Hecklebot school of backchannel with various versions of the device now in use: View image. Another image. Also see a prescient article by by JHall.

[Definitely can't take credit for the excellent Joi mash-up image and embarassed to say it's true author is currently unkown to us. But indicators appear to lead back to Fred's House - Gene, is this your masterpiece? ]
UPDATE: Mystery Solved - the mashup author is indeed Gene Becker.

October 11, 2005

IMD Forum Speaker for 10/12/05: Andreas Kratky

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Title: Database Art
Speaker: Andreas Kratky
Time: Wednesday, October 12, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
3131 South Figueroa Blvd./2nd Floor

Abstract: Databases are the most common device to handle the permanently growing flood of information. This system for the organization of data can be diverted from its normal goal to achieve maximum efficiency for creative uses. Artistic and idiosyncratic ordering structures allow us to create dynamic and recombinant structures to support a multitude of different approaches to narrative forms. The possibility to create multilayered and associative experiences makes this approach fascinating and universal. The experimental field ranges from a tightly crafted narrative to the point where narrative breaks away and forms an aleatoric pathway.

Andreas Kratky will show some examples from his recent work exploring the concepts of database as an artistic device. Among other examples he will show excerpts from the award-winning DVD-Rom “Bleeding Through – Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986” and “Soft Cinema” published this year by MIT Press.

UPDATE: Backchannel log here: Download file

October 3, 2005

IMD Forum Speaker for 10/5/05: Kenyatta Cheese & Justin Hall

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Title: Portable Video Workshop
Featuring Kenyatta Cheese with Justin Hall

Time: Wednesday, October 5, 6-9pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
3131 South Figueroa Blvd./2nd Floor

Devices like mobile phones and portable media players make it possible to have our media follow us wherever we’d like. But as the devices change, does the content change with it? What does it mean to view media outside the home or office, and how do we as content producers prepare for this new medium? The historic USC School of Cinema-Television is a fantastic place to launch a coordinated assessment of this new small screen medium.

Media activist Kenyatta Cheese leads this first in a series of USC- based workshops exploring the potential for portable video. Through hands-on sessions in the Fall of 2005, students and faculty will have a chance to learn how to capture, edit, compress and publish video from their laptops to the internet, and onto portable video devices including mobile phones and the Sony PSP.

Bring your laptop and copyright-free video clips! And RSVP here in the comments or to justin at bud dot com. Future workshops will not take place during 511 - they'll be announced on this Portable Video research page below:

http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/portablevideo/

UPDATE: Backchannel log here: Download file

September 19, 2005

IM Forum Speaker for 9/21/05: Blair MacIntyre

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Title: "Supporting Early Design Exploration of Augmented Reality Experiences"

Time: Wednesday, September 21, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
3131 South Figueroa Blvd./2nd Floor

Over the past six years, my research group [at Georgia Tech] has been exploring the
potential of Augmented Reality (AR) as a medium for creating dramatic
experiences. Our research has three integrated thrusts; creating
compelling experiences, understanding the design process used to
create such experiences, and creating tools to support the
exploration and evaluation of AR experiences. In this talk, I will
touch upon all three aspects of our work. The focus of our technical
work is an AR prototyping environment called DART (the Designer’s
Augmented Reality Toolkit). DART is built on top of Macromedia
Director, a widely used multimedia development environment. DART is
freely available on our web site and is being used by designers both
at Georgia Tech and throughout the world.

I will summarize a collection of problems faced by designers working
with AR in the real world, and discuss how DART addresses them. Our
work focuses on supporting early design activities, especially a
rapid transition from storyboards to working experience, so that the
experiential part of a design can be tested early and often. DART
allows designers to specify complex relationships between the
physical and virtual worlds, and supports 3D animatic actors
(informal, sketch-based content) in addition to more polished
content. Designers can capture and replay synchronized video and
sensor data, allowing them to work off-site and to test specific
parts of their experience more effectively, as well as supporting a
form of editable video prototyping. Extensive Wizard-of-Oz support
allows complex experiences to be developed and tested incrementally.

Throughout the talk, I will draw on experiences we have developed,
including "Four Angry Men" (an AR version of the movie/play "Twelve
Angry Men") and "The Voices of Oakland" (an audio-AR walking tour of
Atlanta's historic Oakland Cemetery).

Download Backchannel Log File

[Bio below the break]

Continue reading "IM Forum Speaker for 9/21/05: Blair MacIntyre" »

September 11, 2005

IM Forum Speaker for 9/14/05:Celia Pearce

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(Artemesia hard at work on her in-game ethnography in the virtual
world There)

Title: Playing Ethnography: Studying Social Emergence in MMOGs

Time: Wednesday, September 14, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
3131 South Figueroa Blvd./2nd Floor

Abstract:
"Playing Ethnography: Studying Social Emergence in MMOGs"
One of the interesting properties of mmogs is that of emergent social behavior. This sort of behavior can be characterized as activities that evolve outside of the main purpose of the game. For the past 16 months, I have been conducting an ethnographic study, using methods of particiant observation, interviewing and visual anthropology (in- game screen shots) of inter-game immigration patterns. In particular, I have been looking at the Uru diaspora, a group of players who were made refugees when the Myst-based mmog Uru closed in February of 2004. Uru refugees migrated into other game worlds, creating 'ethnic' neighborhoods, bringing the culture, play patterns, and aesthetic of Uru with them. They created Uru-derived artifacts, and over time, began to create original objects inspired by Uru but integrated into the new worlds they were inhabiting. In this talk, my avatar Artemesia will take us on a tour of some of the areas created by members of the Uru diaspora in different virtual worlds, and discuss their relationship to game design. We may also have the opportunity to talk to some Uru refugees during this live 'in-world' demonstration.

Continue reading "IM Forum Speaker for 9/14/05:Celia Pearce" »

September 7, 2005

CTIN 511 schedule, Fall 2005

CTIN 511/Fall 2005
COURSE SCHEDULE

Week 1 (8/24) Scott Fisher – “Japan Expo Trip Report”

Week 2 (8/31) IMD Thesis Project Presentations

Week 3 (9/7) Alex Singer – “CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE DIGITAL KIND”

Week 4 (9/14) Celia Pearce – “Playing Ethnography: Studying Social Emergence in MMOG's”

Week 5 (9/21) Blair MacIntyre - "Supporting Early Design Exploration of Augmented Reality Experiences".

Week 6 (9/28) TBD

Week 7 (10/5) Kenyatta Cheese

Week 8 (10/12) Andreas Kratky

Week 9 (10/19) Joichi Ito

Week 10 (10/26) Seamus Blackley

Week 11 (11/2) Bruce Sterling

Week 12 (11/9) Michael Mateas & Andrew Stern –“Façade

Week 13 (11/16) Bill Viola

Week 14 (11/23) Thanksgiving Vacation – no class

Week 15 (11/30) IMD Project presentations


Also workshops for all IM students:

- 9/7, 9/14, 9/21, 9/28, Perry Hoberman - “ MAX/MSP Jitter”

- September (tbd) – Marientina Gotis “ Networking 101”

- October (tbd) Kenyatta Cheese/Justin Hall - “Portable Video Production & Distribution”

September 6, 2005

IM Forum Speaker, 9/7/05: Alexander Singer

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IM Forum Speaker, 9/7/05: Alexander Singer:

Title: "CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE DIGITAL KIND"

Location: USC Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, Room 201
3131 South Figueroa Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90089-7756
Time: 6:00pm-8pm, 9/7/2005


Alex Singer is a film director based in Los Angeles. In an ongoing 39-year career he has directed over 280 television shows on film in all forms and five theatrical features. For the last five years the three varieties of Star Trek spawned by the original series have mostly filled his director dancecard. He is a pioneer in the areas of New media, interactive fiction, computer-mediated entertainment, film production, and virtual reality.

Currently, he is under contract to USC's Integrated Media Systems Center as a Senior Research Scholar and was deeply involved as one of the industry mentors for our "Inventing Exterme Dataspace" class last Spring. He is also committed to a project with DARPA that is examining the prospects for designing a system that combines A.I. and emerging information processing arts and technologies to simulate alternative futures, and will screen his 20 minute DARPA movie called, “The Future of Augmented Cognition”.

More links for reading on AugCog here.

Continue reading "IM Forum Speaker, 9/7/05: Alexander Singer" »

August 29, 2005

IMD Forum, 8/31/05: IMD Thesis Projects

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This forum will focus on the thesis projects required for completion of the IMD MFA program. First we'll review a short documentary of the "PassThrough" installation showcasing projects by the class of 2005. Then, current 3rd Year students in the IMD MFA degree program will each present the projects that they will be working on this year.

Location: USC Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, Room 201
3131 South Figueroa Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90089-7756
Time: 6:00pm-8pm, 8/31/2005

August 24, 2005

IM Forum Speaker, 8/24/05: Scott Fisher

IM Forum Speaker, 8/24/05: Scott FIsher

" Aichi Banpak: A trip report from the 2005 Japan Expo"

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Location: USC Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, Room 201
3131 South Figueroa Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90089-7756
Time: 6:00pm-8pm, 8/24/2005

A POV summary of new display technologies and innovative interactive exhibit installations at the 2005 Japan expo in Aichi, Japan.

August 23, 2005

CTIN 511: Interactive Media Seminar

CTIN 511: Interactive Media Seminar

Professor: Scott S. Fisher (sfisher@cinema.usc.edu)
Semester: Fall 2005
Time: Wednesday 6:00-8:00pm RZC 201 (weekly seminar)

COURSE OBJECTIVE & DESCRIPTION:
This course will focus on the presentation and analysis of recent developments and applications of Interactive Media Art and Technology and is also designed to provide CTIN MFA students with constant updates on the latest trends in technology. Emphasis will be on understanding the production processes involved in making these works and on comprehension of fundamental principles of interactivity in stand-alone, immersive, and networked environments. It is hoped that through these cultural and scholarly intersections, MFA students will be aided in the achievement of a stronger focus and clearer vision for their careers in the field of interactive media.

The course will feature guest lecturers on a range of areas introducing students to: new and upcoming content platforms, new entertainment software products (such as previews of consumer games and web sites), production tools, current research new business models and distribution methodologies, as well as current ‘hot topics’ in new media business and law. The course is structured around a two-hour weekly session consisting of guest speakers, presentations, and discussion. In addition to the lecture sessions, one session per month will consist of a discussion/forum to which students may bring issues pertinent to their courses or projects, presentation of their projects in progress, sharing of tips and information, announcements, and any other topics related to the filed of Interactive Media. The course will also include field trips to events such as the E3 Computer Game Conference, or site visits to interactive or digital media production facilities.

This course is required for all CTIN MFA students - second and third year students are required to attend as part of CTIN 532, 542, and 555ab, As such, CTIN 511 will serve to forge a community among all MFA students in all three years of the program. This community will serve several purposes. First, it will afford first year students, who will be taking primarily cinema core courses and interactive courses along with students from other programs, a venue to have regular contact with their peer group. Second, as the program progresses, it exposes first year students to students in the second and third year of the program, affording mentoring and peer contact opportunities that will benefit all MFA students.

COURSE FORMAT

Course Requirements
This is a credit/no credit class based on (1) attendance, (2) a “report” on each meeting attended due before the next meeting (to be posted on the division blog), and (3) presentation of work-in-progress in the Forum sessions. There are a total of 14 sessions and students will be allowed 1 excused absence. There will be 10 guest presentations (or field trips) and 3 Forum sessions for work-in-progress presentations and topical discussions. If more than one session is missed and not reported, students will be required to prepare a 10 page written report on a topic determined by the instructor.

Missing an Exam, Incompletes
Both the mid-term and final exam in this seminar are projects rather than written exams. However, USC standards still hold: The only acceptable excuses for missing an exam or taking an incomplete in the course are personal illnesses or a family emergency. Students must inform the professor before the exam and present verifiable evidence in order for a make-up to be scheduled. Students who with to take incompletes must also present documentation of the problem to the instructor before final grades are due.

Academic Integrity
The School of Cinema-Television expects the highest standards of academic excellence and ethical performance from USC students. It is particularly important that you are aware of and avoid plagiarism, cheating on exams, submitting a paper to more than one instructor, or submitting a paper authored by anyone other than yourself. Violations of this policy will result in a failing grade and be reported to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs. If you have any doubts or questions about these policies, consult “SCAMPUS” and/or confer with the Professor or Department Chair.

Students with Disabilities
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure that the letter is delivered to the Professor as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30am – 5:00pm, Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.