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Tag Archives: immersive

IMD Forum for 11/30/11: IMD Project Presentations

Posted by Scott Fisher  November 28, 2011 Tags: , , , , , , No comments yet.

Speakers:      IMD Project Presentations
Time:              Wednesday, November 30, 6-8pm
Location:       USC’s Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 122

Featuring Class Projects from :

  • CTIN 400: Fundamentals of Procedural Media ( Brinson)
  • CTIN 401L: Interface Design for Games (Hicks)
  • CTIN 404L: Usability Testing for Games (Desuvire)
  • CTIN 483: Introduction to Game Development (Gibson)
  • CTIN 484L: Intermediate Game Development (Brinson)
  • CTIN 488: Game Design Workshop (Gibson/Diamante)
  • CTIN 489: Intermediate Game Design Workshop (Kuzma)
  • CTIN 491aL: Advanced Game Project (Malamed)
  • CTIN 502a: Experiments in Stereoscopic Imaging (Hoberman)
  • CTIN 532: Interactive Experience and World Design (Weil)
  • CTIN 534L: Experiments in Interactivity I (Kratky)
  • CTIN 541: Design for Interactive Media (Fullerton)
  • Student research Projects (Gotsis)

and more….

Food and Drink will be provided!

Schedule after the jump.
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Augmented Reality & the Arts 5/20 at @art_center

Posted by Scott Fisher  May 10, 2011 Tags: , , , No comments yet.

On Friday May 20, 2011 Art Center College of Design and Layar present a symposium and workshop on Augmented Reality and the Arts. Join us to learn and be inspired by visionary writer Bruce Sterling, Dutch artist Sander Veenhof, USC Cinematic Arts professor Scott Fisher, and Layar founder Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald! From 1:30 – 3:00pm artist Sander Veenhof and Gene Becker of Layar will lead a hands-on workshop on ‘Hacking Space & Time in AR’ for artists, designers & enthusiasts who want to learn to make AR experiences on the Layar platform. Following the workshop, join us from 3:00 – 6:00pm for an afternoon with some of the most visionary and creative minds in augmented reality: Sterling, Veenhof, Fisher and Lens-Fitzgerald. Tickets are free, but space is limited; sign up at http://layardayla.eventbrite.com now!

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Good week for Stereopaths

Posted by Scott Fisher  April 3, 2011 Tags: , , , 1 Comment

 

 

 

 

 

New Nintendo 3DS and Hasbro’s My3D viewer for iPhone – out all in one week!
Now just need the new Sharp 3D phone,  Sony’s new 3D camcorder, and the Sony 3D Vaio….
(3D image taken with the Fuji W3)

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IMD Forum for 2/16/11: One Week Midterm Project Spring 2011

Posted by Scott Fisher  February 14, 2011 Tags: , , , , , No comments yet.

Presenters:     2nd Year MFA students
Time:                 Wednesday, February 16 , 6-8pm
Location:         USC’s Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 122
Title:                 One Week Midterm Project Spring 2011

The process of creating an interactive project is nothing to shake a stick at…or is it? This project invites you to explore the conceptual nature of your interactive thesis project idea by attempting to crystallize some part of its essence or a musing about its potential in a single, tasty word or turn of phrase. To keep you on your toes, off the screen, and in the world, you must also incorporate at least one stick-like object. As we have seen year after year, the best thesis projects are those with conceptual richness, depth and rigor; that are innovative not just in form but in the intellectual, emotional and physical responses they evoke. Even a project that deals with complex ideas or emotions can often be expressed through a single word or turn of phrase. The word should signify a conceptual realm, a zone of occult instability, or a space you are interested in exploring. You might also think of these words as part of your working hypothesis, a synthesis of multiple interests, or the antithesis of what is most precious to you about your work.

The presentation of the projects will take place in the format of a science fair with a circling-the-clock motif to be executed as follows:
• You must clearly present your word or phrase as part of the project
• The user interaction must be no longer than 3 minutes
• You will have 2 minutes in which to harvest feedback from users
• You will have 1 minute to reset your project for the next user
• Every 6 minutes, a gong will sound and users will rotate to a new project

Projects should be optimized for short-term, hands-on engagement by a single user or pair of users.
Your project must fit on a standard ZML or YML table. Output of all varieties – mechanical, physical, sound, projection, etc. – is encouraged: You may use one projector. You may incorporate internet connectivity and any available input or interface devices, including a limited number of Kinect systems available upon request. Other than the need to incorporate your chosen word/phrase along with a stick-like object (this may be selected from among the materials provided or you may procure your own), the choice of media, materials and subject matter is entirely up to you.
Your work should be at least one of the following: physically demanding, emotionally engaging, intellectually challenging, or spiritually enlightening. Each student is responsible for his/her own project, but you may assist each other and collaborate as you see fit. Outside help is allowed, but all such services must be donated.
The projects will be presented at the CTIN511 seminar on Wednesday, February 16, 2011. The projects should be set up in the ZML or YML prior to seminar as if they were entries in a science fair. Project experiences will begin promptly at 6:15 PM and will proceed through 17 consecutive, 6-minute intervals. Each interaction session will last 3 minutes, followed by a 2-minute feedback session. You will remain with your project as users circulate from project to project with one minute of setup to prepare for the next user. Once the interactions begin, you should not have to touch or adjust your project (except in case of emergency).
The project setup should also incorporate a feedback mechanism of some sort. This could be you standing by the project talking to users who have just completed the experience, a notebook and pen left on the table, or a computer, video camera or audio recorder where users register their responses. Please think of the most appropriate feedback mechanism for your project and design it into the experience accordingly.

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Another City for Another Life: the unforeseen games of the city of the future

Posted by Jeff Watson  May 27, 2010 Tags: , No comments yet.

ARGs, pervasive games, and location-based social games echo and reiterate a range of earlier experiments in ambient and locative art. Graffiti, sticker art, mail art, and other kinds of analog methods for creating distributed narratives paved the way for the kinds of practices that are today exploding in number and purpose thanks to ubiquitous computing and the real-time web. Lettrism and Situationism redefined urban space as a canvas for experimentation, play, and collaborative production. In 1959, Dutch architect and artist Constant Nieuwenhuys wrote “Another City for Another Life,” for the third issue of Internationale Situationniste. This text, which calls for a city “harmonized” by “unforeseen games” that make “inventive use of material co nditions,” surely must be one of the founding documents of locative art and pervasive gaming. I include it here in its entirety:

The crisis in urbanism is worsening. The construction of neighborhoods, ancient and modern, is in obvious disagreement with established forms of behavior and even more so with the new forms of life that we are seeking. The result is a dismal and sterile ambiance in our surroundings.

In the older neighborhoods, the streets have degenerated into freeways, leisure activities are commercialized and denatured by tourism. Social relations become impossible there. The newly-constructed neighborhoods have but two motifs, which dominate everything: driving by car and comfort at home. They are the abject expression of bourgeois well-being, and all ludic preoccupations are absent from them.

Faced with the necessity of building whole towns quickly, cemeteries of reinforced concrete — in which great masses of the population are condemned to die of boredom — are being constructed. So what use are the extraordinary technical inventions the world now has at its disposal, if the conditions are lacking to profit from them, if they add nothing to leisure, if imagination is wanting?

We crave adventure. Not finding it on earth, some men have gone to seek it on the moon. We prefer to wager on a change on earth. We propose creating situations, new situations, here. We count on infringing the laws that hinder the development of effective activities in life and in culture. We are at the dawn of a new era and are already attempting to sketch out the image of a happier life, of unitary urbanism (the urbanism intended to bring pleasure).

Our domain, then, is the urban nexus, the natural expression of collective creativity, capable of subsuming the creative energies that are liberated with the decline of the culture based on individualism. We are of the opinion that the traditional arts will not be able to play a role in the creation of the new ambiance in which we want to live.

We are in the process of inventing new techniques; we are examining the possibilities existing cities offer; we are making models and plans for future cities. We are conscious of the need to avail ourselves of all new inventions, and we know that the future constructions we envisage will need to be extremely supple in order to respond to a dynamic conception of life, which means creating our own surroundings in direct relation to incessantly changing ways of behavior.

Our conception of urbanism is therefore social. We are opposed to all the conceptions of a ville verte, a “green town” where well-spaced and isolated skyscrapers must necessarily reduce the direct relations and common action of men. Conurbation is indispensible for the direct relation of surroundings and behavior to be produced. Those who think that the rapidity of our movements and the possibilities of telecommunications are going to erode the shared life of the conurbations are ignorant of the real needs of man. To the idea of the ville verte, which most modern architects have adopted, we oppose the image of the covered town, in which the plan of roads and separate buildings has given way to a continuous spatial construction, disengaged from the ground, and included in which will be groups of dwellings as well as public spaces (permitting changes in use according to the needs of the moment). Since all traffic, in the functional sense of the term, will pass be low or on the terraces above, the street is done away with. The large number of different traversable spaces of which the town is composed form a complex and enormous space space [in its place]. Far from a return to nature, to the idea of living in a park as individual aristocrats once did, we see in such immense constructions the possibility of overcoming nature and of submitting the climate, light and sounds in these different spaces to our control.

Do we intend this to be a new functionalism, which will give greater prominence the idealized utilitarian life? It should not be forgotten that, once the functions are established, play will succeed them. For a long time now, architecture has been a playing with space and ambiance. The ville verte lacks ambiances. We, on the contrary, want to make more conscious use of ambiances; and so they correspond to all our needs.

The future cities we envisage will offer an original variety of sensations in this domanin, and unforeseen games will become possible through the inventive use of material conditions, like the conditioning of air, sound and light. Urbanists are already studying the possibility of harmonizing the cacophony that reigns in contemporary cities. It will not take long to encounter there a new domain for creation, just as in many other problems that will present themselves. The space voyages that are being announced could influence this development, since the bases that will be established on other planets will immediately pose the problem of sheltered cities, and will perhaps provide the pattern for our study of a future urbanism.

Above all, however, the reduction in the work necessary for production, through extended automation, will create a need for leisure, a diversity of behavior and a change in the nature of the latter, which will of necessity lead to a new conception of the collective habitat with a maximum of space space, contrary to the conception of a ville verte where social space is reduced to a minimum. The city of the future must be conceived as a continuous construction on pillars, or, rather, as an extended system of different structures from which are suspended premises for housing, amusement, etc., and premises destined for production and distribution, leaving the ground free for the circulation of traffic and for public messages. The use of ultra-light and insulating materials, which are being experimented with today, will permit the construction to be light and its supports well-spaced. In this way, one will be able to create a town on many levels: lower level, ground level, diff erent floors, terraces, of a size that can vary between an actual neighborhood and a metropolis. It should be noted that in such a city the built surface will be 100% of that available and the free surface will be 200% (parterre and terraces), while in traditional towns the figures are some 80% and 20%, respectively; and that in the ville verte this relation can even be reversed [20% and 80%, respectively]. The terraces form an open-air terrain that extends over the whole surface of the city, and which can be sports fields, airplane and helicopter landing-strips, and for the maintenance of vegetation. They will be accessible everywhere by stair and elevator. The different floors will be divided into neighborhing and communicating spaces, artificially conditioned, which will offer the possibility of create an infinite vaiety of ambian

ces, facilitating the derive of the inhabitants and their frequent chance encounters. The ambiances will be regularly and consciously changed, w ith the aid of every technical means, by teams of specialized creator s who, hence, will be professional situationists.

An in-depth study of the means of creating ambiances, and the latter’s psychological influence, is one of the tasks we are currently undertaking. Studies concerning the technical realization of the load-bearing structures and their aesthetic is the specific task of plastic artists and engineers. The contribution of the latter is an urgent necessity for making progress in the prepatory work we are undertaking.

If the project we have just traced out in bold strokes risks being taken for a fantastic dream, we insist on the fact that it is feasible from the technical point of view and that it is desirable from the human point of view. The increasing dissatisfaction that dominates the whole of humanity will arrive at a point at which we will all be forced to execute projects whose means we possess, and which will contribute to the realization of a richer and more fulfilled life. (notbored.org)

More on Constant Nieuwenhuys: Texts, Photos, and Paintings at notbored.org, profile at DADA and Radical Art, “Constant Vision,” by Lebbeus Woods

http://remotedevice.net/blog/another-city-for-another-life-the-unforeseen-games-of-the-city-of-the-future/

Posted via email from remotedevice’s posterous

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CTIN 499 – Immersive Game Design

Posted by Jeremy Gibson  December 21, 2009 Tags: , No comments yet.

This Spring, the Interactive Media Division and the USC Game Pipe will be offering classes where students will get hands-on experience working with and developing for the new XBOX 360 Natal device. Project Natal is a new, full-body interaction system for use with the XBox 360 game console. It allows players to interact with games in an entirely new way, by using their bodies as the controller. USC is the only school in the world that will be receiving advance Natal development kits.

The class will focus on creating games and experimenting with this novel interaction device. Students will be in bi-weekly communication with professionals at Microsoft who are on the Natal development team as well as mentors from throughout Microsoft.

The class will be taught by Jeremy Gibson from the Interactive Media Division and Michael Zyda of the Viterbi School’s GamePipe. It will fulfill 2 units of the CTIN Elective A requirement.

Registration is open now, and instructor permission is required to register. For more info, contact Jeremy Gibson.

    Click here to download and read the flier

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@touchPoetry: One-day Twitter/Multitouch prototype

Posted by Logan Olson  November 25, 2009 Tags: , 2 comments

Here’s a video and description of the prototype I whipped up yesterday.

Collaborative creativity using Twitter and Microsoft’s Multi-Touch Surface.

This is a one-day prototype exploring the possibilities of connecting the ubiquity of Twitter with the single-location Microsoft Surface.

It’s basically collaborative magnetic poetry. Any user can add words to be used by replying to @touchPoetry on Twitter. Users on the Surface drag words around to form poems and encircle them to create an outgoing “tweet” on the touchPoetry twitter account.

Let me know if you have any thoughts.

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Sensecam goes commercial

Posted by Scott Fisher  October 16, 2009 Tags: , , No comments yet.

sensecam Vicon.jpg

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

New camera promises to capture your whole life

13:10 16 October 2009 by Kurt Kleiner

A camera you can wear as a pendant to record every moment of your life will soon be launched by a UK-based firm.

Originally invented to help jog the memories of people with Alzheimer’s disease, it might one day be used by consumers to create “lifelogs” that archive their entire lives.

Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.

The ViconRevue was originally developed as the SenseCam by Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, for researchers studying Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Studies showed that reviewing the events of the day using SenseCam photos could help some people improve long-term recall.

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Visions & Voices: ” Sonic Forest”

Posted by Scott Fisher  October 11, 2009 Tags: , 2 comments

sonic forest postcard-sm.jpg

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

OPENING EVENTS:

Monday, October 12

6:45 p.m.: Performance on Hahn Plaza near Tommy Trojan

7:30 p.m.: Panel Discussion at Annenberg Auditorium

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

Organized by Scott Fisher (Cinematic Arts), Martin Kaplan (Communication) and Patrick Morganelli (Music).

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IMD Forum for 10/14/09: Christopher Janney

Posted by Scott Fisher   Tags: , 1 Comment

janney book cover.jpg

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:

(more…)

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