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.

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Visual Story TAs on Vimeo.

From Microsoft's Surface Blog:

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

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

New camera promises to capture your whole life

13:10 16 October 2009 by Kurt Kleiner

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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

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

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......

Prior to Microsoft in 1997, Curtis was Director of Intel Productions where he conceived and developed ArtMuseum.net, the first Broadband blockbuster art museum exhibition network on the World Wide Web. ArtMuseum.net featured faithful 3D recreations of concurrent art exhibitions in major museums such as The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam so that visitors to the virtual museum could see and closely examine the works of art as well as converse with other visitors to the virtual museum. Curtis was also responsible for creation of the first enhanced digital television program broadcast in the US - The Poetry of Structure accompanying the broadcast of the Ken Burns film Frank Lloyd Wright. Visitors would experience the broadcast digital television program and then enter the virtual environments of the most famous Wright buildings and virtually explore them with grandson Eric Lloyd Wright as their guide.

Curtis was General Manager of Corbis Productions where he was responsible for the creation of a critically acclaimed series of CD-ROM's on art, history and science. His CD-ROM on Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester for Bill Gates in 1997 remains the state of the art in ancient manuscript interpretation for public and scholarly access.

Before Corbis, Curtis was producer for the Voyager Company where he was a producer for Criterion producing special editions of feature films winning Video Magazine’s top award for the Last Picture Show and Jason and the Argonauts. He was also responsible for the group producing Multimedia Beethoven, one of the first ten multimedia CD-ROM's for Windows and the first multimedia CD-ROM title launched by Microsoft in 1991.

Curtis currently serves on the board of trustees for the Seattle Art Museum, the advisory boards for PBS Kids in Washington D.C. and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. He has previously served as a trustee for the Rhode Island School of Design and the advisory boards for Ovation - The Arts Network, PBS Online, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee for the National Constitution Center, the Canadian Film Centre, and the American Film Institute. He is a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Astronomical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science. Curtis is included in TED conference creator Richard Saul Wurman's book, Who's Really Who: 1000 Most Creative Individuals in the USA.

Curtis’ earlier work has received numerous industry awards including the first interactive television Emmy nomination, a British Academy Award, New York Film Festivals Gold Medals 1995,1996,1997, ID Magazine’s Interactive Design Review 1997, Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual 1996 & 1997, many New Media Invision Gold awards, Time Magazine’s Best of the Web. This past year the WorldWide Telescope was selected ID Magazine Annual Design Review, Best of Category: Interactive and AIGA Certificate of Excellence in Design for the 365: AIGA Annual Design Competition.

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*****

- 5:45 FOOD (and setup) starts
- 6:00 Announcements
- 6:00 CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design Workshop - 40 minutes
- 6:40 CTIN 483 - 6 min. (2 projects)
- 6:45 CTIN 488 - 10 min. (2 projects)
- 6:55 CTIN 590s - 8 min.
.........Kennerly - "Quality of Life" & Wii the People"
.........Rossmassler - "Dungeon Dash"
- 7:05 CTIN 405 Design and Technology for Mobile experiences - 15 min.

----------- BREAK ---------------

- 7:30 Immersive Research Group - 20 min.
.........Jaycox & Cao – "Covert Immersion"
.........Dallas – "Unfinished Swan" (excerpt from Fellowship presentation)
.........Olsen – "Overt Interaction" (excerpt from Fellowship presentation)
- 7:50 CTIN 542 Interactive Design and Production (10 min)
- 8:00 CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity (20 min)
- 8:20 CTIN 501 Interactive Cinema (20 min.)
- 8:45 END

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.

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".

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

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.

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.