Sunday, February 28, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Book -"European Stereotypes" by Tony Connelly
Quotations from the book:
"The book is a highly-informed, though conversational discourse on how we view different cultures and how these views were formed." - Tony Connelly
"Stereotypes,Lippman suggested, are pictures in our heads that allow us to manage this new environment - 'the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world' - and simplify it. The problem is that it encourages swift judgment of those with whom we share the world,leading to conflict and tension. 'For the most part we do not first see,and define; we define and then see.'" (p.7)
"According to Marco Cinnerella, of the University of London, stereotypes can lie dormant,springing to the surface when people - even thosewho fancy themselves as tolerant and well traveled - are mentally stretched by stress, tiredness or doing too many things atthe same time. How many time we have blurted out "Bloody french!" when under stress, even thought we think of our selves as rather fond of the French?
Stereotyping may not just be something we learn from the media or Carry On films. In 1983, a study showed that the brain stores information in discrete mental structure called nodes. Each node corresponds to a single concept - a name, place, a personality trait. The nodes are interlinked,and these links map out meaningful associations between the concepts. The linkages in turn biuld a mental image (e.g. French = arrogant). The stronger the link,the stronger the mental image. ....
How quickly do we categorise people? According to Don Operario and Susan T. Fiske in the Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology, perceivers categorise people immediately - within milliseconds of the first encounter. "(p. 8)
"The rise in literacy and the boom in political cartooning and pamphleteer(pamphlet-booklet) elevated stereotyping to a serious artform. National caricatures could be easily shaped and solidified by a single powerful cartoon image (for the Irish, it was often-times an ape)." (p.13)
"And what about the Irish today?
It has become a cliche to say that we have punched above our weight in EU affairs. Our ability to mix business and humour to a disarming degree, our small-nation status and the fact that we've objectives. We love farmers, .....We're generally perceived as likeable, articulate negotiators."(p.15)
"What of Irish stereotypes beyond Brussels? The sharp end has been in oir relationship with Britain. Concocting the image of the wild, uncivilized Irishman. ... John Bull embodied the virtues of the rational,hardworking, individualistic, law-abiding Englishman, while Paddy was his polar opposite, unruly, drunken, brawling, superstitious and lazy"(p.16)
"....We were(are) redheads, Ireland was green, we had poets and playwrights, we were Catholic, ate potatoes, fought the English.... We drank Guinness, got drunk, had the Dubliners, u2, Sinead O'Connor. We were generally sociable, especially when drink was involved."(p.17)
"Is there still room in the 21st century for stereotypes?... globalization have begun to erode local cliches. Urban teenagers largely look the same across the planet:same clothes and gadgets, music and films, facebook and myspace "(p.22)
"The book is a highly-informed, though conversational discourse on how we view different cultures and how these views were formed." - Tony Connelly
"Stereotypes,Lippman suggested, are pictures in our heads that allow us to manage this new environment - 'the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world' - and simplify it. The problem is that it encourages swift judgment of those with whom we share the world,leading to conflict and tension. 'For the most part we do not first see,and define; we define and then see.'" (p.7)
"According to Marco Cinnerella, of the University of London, stereotypes can lie dormant,springing to the surface when people - even thosewho fancy themselves as tolerant and well traveled - are mentally stretched by stress, tiredness or doing too many things atthe same time. How many time we have blurted out "Bloody french!" when under stress, even thought we think of our selves as rather fond of the French?
Stereotyping may not just be something we learn from the media or Carry On films. In 1983, a study showed that the brain stores information in discrete mental structure called nodes. Each node corresponds to a single concept - a name, place, a personality trait. The nodes are interlinked,and these links map out meaningful associations between the concepts. The linkages in turn biuld a mental image (e.g. French = arrogant). The stronger the link,the stronger the mental image. ....
How quickly do we categorise people? According to Don Operario and Susan T. Fiske in the Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology, perceivers categorise people immediately - within milliseconds of the first encounter. "(p. 8)
"The rise in literacy and the boom in political cartooning and pamphleteer(pamphlet-booklet) elevated stereotyping to a serious artform. National caricatures could be easily shaped and solidified by a single powerful cartoon image (for the Irish, it was often-times an ape)." (p.13)
"And what about the Irish today?
It has become a cliche to say that we have punched above our weight in EU affairs. Our ability to mix business and humour to a disarming degree, our small-nation status and the fact that we've objectives. We love farmers, .....We're generally perceived as likeable, articulate negotiators."(p.15)
"What of Irish stereotypes beyond Brussels? The sharp end has been in oir relationship with Britain. Concocting the image of the wild, uncivilized Irishman. ... John Bull embodied the virtues of the rational,hardworking, individualistic, law-abiding Englishman, while Paddy was his polar opposite, unruly, drunken, brawling, superstitious and lazy"(p.16)
"....We were(are) redheads, Ireland was green, we had poets and playwrights, we were Catholic, ate potatoes, fought the English.... We drank Guinness, got drunk, had the Dubliners, u2, Sinead O'Connor. We were generally sociable, especially when drink was involved."(p.17)
"Is there still room in the 21st century for stereotypes?... globalization have begun to erode local cliches. Urban teenagers largely look the same across the planet:same clothes and gadgets, music and films, facebook and myspace "(p.22)
Project Schedule & Criteria
Project Timeline
Phase 1
Project Criteria
Phase 1
- 1 Feb 10 - Identify and describe cultural influences that have contributed to the development of Irish Stereotype(+).
- 8 Feb 10 - Identify and describe cultural influences that have contributed to the development of Irish Stereotype(+).
- 15 Feb 10 - Identify and describe cultural influences that have contributed to the development of Irish Stereotype(+).
- 22 Feb 10 - Write a summary report describing Irish Stereotype.
- 1 Mar 10 - Research for suitable interactive prototype to be built.
- 8 Mar 10 - Research for suitable interactive prototype to be built.
- 15 Mar 10 - Model paper prototype.
- 22 Mar 10 - Build paper prototype.
- 29 Mar 10 - Build paper prototype.
Project Criteria
KPI(Key performance indicators): Compare non-nationals and international view of Irish to ethnic view.
Project goal: Collect data from non-nationals and internationals.
Project success criteria:
- Produce a statement establishing a contemporary view of the Irish.
- Build an interactive multimedia art installation for public spaces that will portray
international view of Irish. - Keep a digital diary of the process of the project.
- Write a project report on future directions; review the process of the project.
- Complete project by 1 July 2010.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Personality test
Jung Typology Test™
My Personality test by Carl Jung and Isabel Myers-BriggsExtraverted 11%
Sensing 50%
Feeling 50%
Perceiving 33%
You are:
- slightly expressed extravert
- moderately expressed sensing personality
- moderately expressed feeling personality
- moderately expressed perceiving personality
Test 2
by careerpath.com
Color Career Consular
Best Occupational Category
You're a CREATOR
KeywordsNonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional
These original types place a high value on aesthetic qualities and have a great need for self-expression. They enjoy working independently, being creative, using their imagination, and constantly learning something new. Fields of interest are art, drama, music, and writing or places where they can express, assemble, or implement creative ideas. CREATOR OCCUPATIONS CREATOR WORKPLACES Suggested Creator workplaces are advertising, public relations, and interior decorating firms; artistic studios, theaters and concert halls; institutions that teach crafts, universities, music, and dance schools. Other workplaces to consider are art institutes, museums, libraries, and galleries.
Suggested careers are Advertising Executive, Architect, Web Designer, Creative Director, Public Relations, Fine or Commercial Artist, Interior Decorator, Lawyer, Librarian, Musician, Reporter, Art Teacher, Broadcaster, Technical Writer, English Teacher, Architect, Photographer, Medical Illustrator, Corporate Trainer, Author, Editor, Landscape Architect, Exhibit Builder, and Package Designer.
Consider workplaces where you can create and improve beauty and aesthetic qualities. Unstructured, flexible organizations that allow self-expression work best with your free-spirited nature.
2nd Best Occupational Category
You're an ORGANIZER
Keywords:Self-Control, Practical, Self-Contained, Orderly, Systematic, Precise, and Accurate
These conservative appearing, plotting-types enjoy organizing, data systems, accounting, detail, and accuracy. They often enjoy mathematics and data management activities such as accounting and investment management. Persistence and patience allows them to do detailed paperwork, operate office machines, write business reports, and make charts and graphs.
- Section I: You and Your Team
This personality overview section highlights your natural workplace talents—the tasks you pursue with passion. You'll learn how your natural strengths complement those of your coworkers and how, joining forces, you can resolve on-the-job dilemmas. - Section II: Your Key To Success
Here you discover your capacity for dispelling disruption and maximizing profitability. Use this proven, beyond-self-perception advice to create a more positive career path free of detours. - Section III: Managing Strengths and Weaknesses
Your evaluation's highest and lowest scores result in this section's recommendations for staying on-track in your career and reversing wrong turns. In focusing on your talents and missteps, you'll re-stoke your energy and enthusiasm for managing costly mistakes. - Section IV: Leadership Power Moves
This final section identifies your "street sense," those power moves that turn obstacles into insignificant details. Here suggestions based on your color-ranked evaluations will guide you towards making the most of an interview or harnessing your fast-paced workday.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
INTERACTIONS
What is Interaction?
When we discuss computer-human interaction and design for interaction, do we agree on the meaning of the term “interaction”? Has the subject been fully explored? Is the definition settled?
A Design-theory View Meredith Davis has argued that interaction is not the special province of computers alone. She points out that printed books invite interaction and that designers consider how readers will interact with books. She cites Massimo Vignelli’s work on the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds as an example of particularly thoughtful
design for interaction [1].
Richard Buchanan shares Davis’s broad view of interaction. Buchanan contrasts earlier design frames (a focus on form and, more recently, a focus on meaning and context) with a relatively new design frame (a focus on interaction).
Interaction is a way of framing the relationship between people and objects designed for them—and thus a way of framing the activity of design. All man-made objects offer the possibility for interaction, and all design activities can be viewed as design for interaction. The same is true not only of objects but also of spaces, messages, and systems.
Interaction is a key aspect of function, and function is a key aspect of design.
Davis and Buchanan expand the way we look at design and suggest that artifact-human interaction be a criterion for evaluating the results of all design work. Their point of view raises the question: Is interaction with a static object different from interaction with a dynamic system?
An HCi View
Canonical models of computer-human interaction are based on an archetypal structure—the
feedback loop. Information flows from a system (perhaps a computer or a car) through a person
and back through the system again. The person has a goal; she acts to achieve it in an environment (provides input to the system); she measures the effect of her action on the environment (interprets output from the system; feedback) and then compares result with goal. The comparison (yielding difference or congruence) directs her next action, beginning the cycle again. This is a simple selfcorrecting system—more technically, a first-order cybernetic system.
Natural Interaction
When we discuss computer-human interaction and design for interaction, do we agree on the meaning of the term “interaction”? Has the subject been fully explored? Is the definition settled?
A Design-theory View Meredith Davis has argued that interaction is not the special province of computers alone. She points out that printed books invite interaction and that designers consider how readers will interact with books. She cites Massimo Vignelli’s work on the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds as an example of particularly thoughtful
design for interaction [1].
Richard Buchanan shares Davis’s broad view of interaction. Buchanan contrasts earlier design frames (a focus on form and, more recently, a focus on meaning and context) with a relatively new design frame (a focus on interaction).
Interaction is a way of framing the relationship between people and objects designed for them—and thus a way of framing the activity of design. All man-made objects offer the possibility for interaction, and all design activities can be viewed as design for interaction. The same is true not only of objects but also of spaces, messages, and systems.
Interaction is a key aspect of function, and function is a key aspect of design.
Davis and Buchanan expand the way we look at design and suggest that artifact-human interaction be a criterion for evaluating the results of all design work. Their point of view raises the question: Is interaction with a static object different from interaction with a dynamic system?
An HCi View
Canonical models of computer-human interaction are based on an archetypal structure—the
feedback loop. Information flows from a system (perhaps a computer or a car) through a person
and back through the system again. The person has a goal; she acts to achieve it in an environment (provides input to the system); she measures the effect of her action on the environment (interprets output from the system; feedback) and then compares result with goal. The comparison (yielding difference or congruence) directs her next action, beginning the cycle again. This is a simple selfcorrecting system—more technically, a first-order cybernetic system.
Natural Interaction
Friday, January 22, 2010
ARTIFACTS
Constructed Narratives
Constructed Narratives at the Kiasma
Museum for Contemporary
Art in Helsinki, Finland.
ABSTRACT
The Constructed Narratives project has been designed for use in public spaces where there is the opportunity for individuals and groups of people, who are not acquainted with each other, to encounter the game and subsequently each other. The goal is to provide a platform that supports discourse in environments where “keeping comfortable distance” between oneself and others is the norm.
INTRODUCTION
Constructed Narratives is a block-based construction game that is based on the form and function of children’s construction toys but designed primarily for adults.
The act and metaphor of construction is used to demonstrate how a simple artifact, a building block, can be used to make connections and mediate discourse and discovery between collaborating participants who are participating in open self reflective play.
The goal of the Constructed Narratives project was develop a framework to design social interfaces, or “discourse wranglers,” the function it is to facilitate dialogical exchange, and support the inter-subjective contextualization of ideas, assumptions and beliefs among its users. In particular, the research focuses on developing methods to explore the inter-subjective public space and how we generate and can possibly challenge meanings and explanations we generate to understand the events around us.
Constructed Narratives is a mediator, or discourse wrangler, that encourages meaningful dialogical exchange between people in public spaces. The observation, which will vary culturally, is that except under unique circumstances, most people do not engage in meaningful discourse with others they encounter that they do not know, or know well. Meaningful discourse is defined as conversation between individuals that extends beyond basic introductions of name and/or personal logistics. An example of a unique circumstance is when an unusual event occurs that creates a shared experience (i.e. street performer, automobile accident, shared physical experience such as dancing or playing sports, or an unexpected person, animal, thing or event enters the shared space.)
All of these events have the potential to create a common-bond experience – a moment of shared experience or knowledge that places a metaphorical bridge between two people or two “worlds.”
Dynamo
ABSTRACT
The Dynamo project (2000-2003) was concerned with how to integrate interactive information devices in shared public spaces with the objectives of (i) developing a model of shared interaction, (ii) constructing a working system, and (iii) evaluating the system in a real working context. Our research was timely; it took place against a background of rapid advances in mobile communication technologies, an increase in the availability of online information, a growing prominence of digital display technologies in public spaces and the widespread adoption of low cost personal devices. The research outcomes from the Dynamo project made a number of significant contributions, in terms of understanding, conceptual developments and system architecture.
Very Nervous System
ABSTRACT
In the 1980s, the Canadian artist David Rokeby programmed an interactive system called Very Nervous System (VNS). This system creates an interactive art space in which the solitary participant's bodily movements are traced by a video camera. The video pictures are transformed into fluctuating digital data, describing the shifting color values of each pixel. These data are then used to generate audible expressions, in some instances in the form of elaborate musical scores, in others as sound modulations. Of course, the data describing the participant’s movements cannot ‘create’ this audible expression, but only execute and modulate stored sounds and scores and align them with the formal and rhythmic quality of the participant’s actions. The feeling of congruence is underpinned by the fact that the computational system works with a minimum of delay, so that the sound is generated simultaneously with the participant's movements. The result is that participants experience a direct correlation between selected parameters of bodily movements and particular sounds, and thus feel that they are actively ‘dancing’ the sound scape and musical scores. But because of the very tight feedback loop the sound also seems to ‘dance’ the participant, triggering new, seemingly unintentional movements.
This paradoxical feeling is further enhanced by the fact that the responses from the computational system are not based on a oneto- one relationship to the quality of the movements, as one might initially suppose. Rather, the algorithmic system brings about little shifts and variations, small enough to ensure the sensation of correlation between sound and movement, and big enough to cause reactions to the triggered sound and music. At this level, VNS – based as it is on the alternation between bodily and audible expression – is more a dialogue machine than a sound triggering machine.
Typical difference in posture for German (crossed
arms) and Japanese (joint hands)
Wave Like an Egyptian
ABSTRACT
The user’s behavior and his interpretation of interactions with others is influenced by his cultural background, which provides a number of heuristics or patterns of behavior and interpretation. This cultural influence on interaction has largely been neglected in HCI research due to two challenges: (i) grasping culture as a computational term and (ii) infering the user’s cultural background by observable measures. In this paper, we describe how the Wiimote can be utilized to uncover
the user’s cultural background by analyzing his patterns of gestural expressivity in a model based on cultural dimensions.
With this information at hand, the behavior of an interactive system can be adapted to culture-dependent patterns of interaction.
INTRODUCTION
Our cultural backgrounds largely depend how we interpret interactions with others, which aspects we find relevant, and what kind of behavior is deemed annoying or insulting. Culture is pervasive in our interactions and influences for instance how we negotiate or how close we stand to each other during an interaction. Picture above exemplifies typical hand/arm postures of German (crossed arms) and Japanese subjects (joined hands).
If we take the evidence from the literature seriously that users from different cultures interact based on such culture
In Picture: Typical difference in posture for German (crossed arms) and Japanese (joint hands) dependent heuristics, then it is necessary to acknowledge these differences for the design of interfaces.
Zora
ABSTRACT
Zora is a narrative-based graphical multi-user environment purposefully design to help people understand and affect the ways in which identity and values are actively constructed by both an individual and a community. Zora engages young people in building artifacts as representations of their complex self and creating communities in which values and attitudes are put to the test. It supports 1) creation of a virtual city with its different spaces, objects and interactive characters, 2) communication between the users, and 3) introspection about role models, personal and community values. This paper describes the theoretical framework that conceives identity as dynamically constructed by putting together diverse and conflicting elements and values. Based on this framework, Zora’s design principles are presented, as well as preliminary results from a pilot experience in which young people used Zora to learn about identity and values in a hands-on, constructionist way.
INTRODUCTION
There is a growing amount of research on virtual environments which concentrates on characteristics, both from a technical and social perspective, that foster the development of community (Donath, 1996). The work presented in this paper also looks at virtual environments but focuses on issues of personal identity and values. The goal is to develop an approach, both in terms of theory and design principles, to help people learn about their own identity in the real world and the values they live by or consider important. Since identity and values do not develop in a vacuum but in constant relationship with others, a community is needed for this type of learning to happen; therefore the choice of a multi-user virtual environment as the technological infrastructure.
BODYMAPS: ARTIFACTS OF TOUCH
Computer Interactive Proximity and Touch Sensor Driven Audio/Video Installation
This learning journey provides an insight into how four artists have explored a wide range of issues and ideas by turning their attention upon themselves or their families.
The Ferens Art Gallery has a rich and varied collection of portraiture which can be particularly relevant to Art & Design, Key Stage 3, Unit 7A Self Image where ‘pupils explore their personal identity’.
Similar projects:
The Shannon Portal: Designing an Auditory Display for Casual Users in a
Public Environment
The “Shannon Portal”, was designed for Shannon International Airport in County Clare, Ireland. The goal of the installation was to extend the airport’s role as a connection hub, allowing users to create content that would document their travels and experiences in the West of Ireland. The “Portal” made it possible for participants to create “e-cards” of their own photographs of locations and monuments in the area, to annotate them with a personal hand-written message and email them for free around the world.
Constructed Narratives at the Kiasma
Museum for Contemporary
Art in Helsinki, Finland.
ABSTRACT
The Constructed Narratives project has been designed for use in public spaces where there is the opportunity for individuals and groups of people, who are not acquainted with each other, to encounter the game and subsequently each other. The goal is to provide a platform that supports discourse in environments where “keeping comfortable distance” between oneself and others is the norm.
INTRODUCTION
Constructed Narratives is a block-based construction game that is based on the form and function of children’s construction toys but designed primarily for adults.
The act and metaphor of construction is used to demonstrate how a simple artifact, a building block, can be used to make connections and mediate discourse and discovery between collaborating participants who are participating in open self reflective play.
The goal of the Constructed Narratives project was develop a framework to design social interfaces, or “discourse wranglers,” the function it is to facilitate dialogical exchange, and support the inter-subjective contextualization of ideas, assumptions and beliefs among its users. In particular, the research focuses on developing methods to explore the inter-subjective public space and how we generate and can possibly challenge meanings and explanations we generate to understand the events around us.
Constructed Narratives is a mediator, or discourse wrangler, that encourages meaningful dialogical exchange between people in public spaces. The observation, which will vary culturally, is that except under unique circumstances, most people do not engage in meaningful discourse with others they encounter that they do not know, or know well. Meaningful discourse is defined as conversation between individuals that extends beyond basic introductions of name and/or personal logistics. An example of a unique circumstance is when an unusual event occurs that creates a shared experience (i.e. street performer, automobile accident, shared physical experience such as dancing or playing sports, or an unexpected person, animal, thing or event enters the shared space.)
All of these events have the potential to create a common-bond experience – a moment of shared experience or knowledge that places a metaphorical bridge between two people or two “worlds.”
Dynamo
ABSTRACT
The Dynamo project (2000-2003) was concerned with how to integrate interactive information devices in shared public spaces with the objectives of (i) developing a model of shared interaction, (ii) constructing a working system, and (iii) evaluating the system in a real working context. Our research was timely; it took place against a background of rapid advances in mobile communication technologies, an increase in the availability of online information, a growing prominence of digital display technologies in public spaces and the widespread adoption of low cost personal devices. The research outcomes from the Dynamo project made a number of significant contributions, in terms of understanding, conceptual developments and system architecture.
Very Nervous System
ABSTRACT
In the 1980s, the Canadian artist David Rokeby programmed an interactive system called Very Nervous System (VNS). This system creates an interactive art space in which the solitary participant's bodily movements are traced by a video camera. The video pictures are transformed into fluctuating digital data, describing the shifting color values of each pixel. These data are then used to generate audible expressions, in some instances in the form of elaborate musical scores, in others as sound modulations. Of course, the data describing the participant’s movements cannot ‘create’ this audible expression, but only execute and modulate stored sounds and scores and align them with the formal and rhythmic quality of the participant’s actions. The feeling of congruence is underpinned by the fact that the computational system works with a minimum of delay, so that the sound is generated simultaneously with the participant's movements. The result is that participants experience a direct correlation between selected parameters of bodily movements and particular sounds, and thus feel that they are actively ‘dancing’ the sound scape and musical scores. But because of the very tight feedback loop the sound also seems to ‘dance’ the participant, triggering new, seemingly unintentional movements.
This paradoxical feeling is further enhanced by the fact that the responses from the computational system are not based on a oneto- one relationship to the quality of the movements, as one might initially suppose. Rather, the algorithmic system brings about little shifts and variations, small enough to ensure the sensation of correlation between sound and movement, and big enough to cause reactions to the triggered sound and music. At this level, VNS – based as it is on the alternation between bodily and audible expression – is more a dialogue machine than a sound triggering machine.
Typical difference in posture for German (crossed
arms) and Japanese (joint hands)
Wave Like an Egyptian
ABSTRACT
The user’s behavior and his interpretation of interactions with others is influenced by his cultural background, which provides a number of heuristics or patterns of behavior and interpretation. This cultural influence on interaction has largely been neglected in HCI research due to two challenges: (i) grasping culture as a computational term and (ii) infering the user’s cultural background by observable measures. In this paper, we describe how the Wiimote can be utilized to uncover
the user’s cultural background by analyzing his patterns of gestural expressivity in a model based on cultural dimensions.
With this information at hand, the behavior of an interactive system can be adapted to culture-dependent patterns of interaction.
INTRODUCTION
Our cultural backgrounds largely depend how we interpret interactions with others, which aspects we find relevant, and what kind of behavior is deemed annoying or insulting. Culture is pervasive in our interactions and influences for instance how we negotiate or how close we stand to each other during an interaction. Picture above exemplifies typical hand/arm postures of German (crossed arms) and Japanese subjects (joined hands).
If we take the evidence from the literature seriously that users from different cultures interact based on such culture
In Picture: Typical difference in posture for German (crossed arms) and Japanese (joint hands) dependent heuristics, then it is necessary to acknowledge these differences for the design of interfaces.
Zora
ABSTRACT
Zora is a narrative-based graphical multi-user environment purposefully design to help people understand and affect the ways in which identity and values are actively constructed by both an individual and a community. Zora engages young people in building artifacts as representations of their complex self and creating communities in which values and attitudes are put to the test. It supports 1) creation of a virtual city with its different spaces, objects and interactive characters, 2) communication between the users, and 3) introspection about role models, personal and community values. This paper describes the theoretical framework that conceives identity as dynamically constructed by putting together diverse and conflicting elements and values. Based on this framework, Zora’s design principles are presented, as well as preliminary results from a pilot experience in which young people used Zora to learn about identity and values in a hands-on, constructionist way.
INTRODUCTION
There is a growing amount of research on virtual environments which concentrates on characteristics, both from a technical and social perspective, that foster the development of community (Donath, 1996). The work presented in this paper also looks at virtual environments but focuses on issues of personal identity and values. The goal is to develop an approach, both in terms of theory and design principles, to help people learn about their own identity in the real world and the values they live by or consider important. Since identity and values do not develop in a vacuum but in constant relationship with others, a community is needed for this type of learning to happen; therefore the choice of a multi-user virtual environment as the technological infrastructure.
BODYMAPS: ARTIFACTS OF TOUCH
Computer Interactive Proximity and Touch Sensor Driven Audio/Video Installation
Bodymaps: artifacts of touch is a computer interactive sound and video installation recently exhibited at the Western Front Gallery in Vancouver, April '96, Ars Electronica in Lintz Austria from September 2nd to 23rd l996, and at Interaction '97 in Ogaki-City Japan March '97. The piece uses a specially designed sensor surface, embedded with 15 Electromagnetic Field Sensors which operate very much like 15 therapist, and 8 Force Sensing Resistor Sensors which can detect touch, pressure and the amount of force applied to the surface.
Together these sensors lie beneath a white velvet surface upon which is projected images of the artist's body. The surface yearns for contact and touch. Its rule base is complex and subtle, impossible to decode. Its effect is disturbing, erotic, sensual and subjective.
The intention of the work is to subvert the visual/objective relationship between the object and the eye, between click and drag, between analysis and power, to create a relationship between participant and technology that transgresses rules of ownership and objectivity and begs questions of experience, power, and being.
Pakistani-American Artist Challenges Stereotypes
Art Installations are Multi-Media Social Commentary on Women & Power
In this art installation, Chaudhri created an environment where observers walk into a room through a small doorway opening cut into a cloth wall. Upon entering the small white room, they encounter a towering, silent woman dressed in full burqa standing in the center of the room. The woman remains motionless except for engaging the observer with her eyes as an acknowledgment of entrance into her space. Instead of being afraid of making work that appears clichéd, Chaudhri says she “tries to use clichés to [her] advantage…to expand or to destroy them, all the while playing with the biases of the audience.”
Chaudhri would like her art to have the effect of “destabilizing people…to get them out of their own perception of reality – whatever that is.” She uses tools in her art “that give and take away power from the observer…and play with who has control.”
Portraits
Introduction
This learning journey uses the collection of Museums Sheffield to look at portraits and how to draw them, including facial proportions and expressions.
The My Faces interactive can be used to see how different facial features can affect expression, through shape, scale and angle. The interactive uses facial features from the portraits, which students can use to re-create the portraits or create different emotions.
Self Image
Introduction
Studying portraiture is a wonderful way for pupils to investigate the work of other artists, develop skills and conceptual understanding as well as explore ideas around their own identity.This learning journey provides an insight into how four artists have explored a wide range of issues and ideas by turning their attention upon themselves or their families.
The Ferens Art Gallery has a rich and varied collection of portraiture which can be particularly relevant to Art & Design, Key Stage 3, Unit 7A Self Image where ‘pupils explore their personal identity’.
Similar projects:
- Flash Face
- Anime Face Maker
- You are the artist
- Facemaker
- FaceMaker - Games
- Create a character - South Park - possible example
- FaceYouManga
- Create my picture
- FaceMaker
The Shannon Portal: Designing an Auditory Display for Casual Users in a
Public Environment
The “Shannon Portal”, was designed for Shannon International Airport in County Clare, Ireland. The goal of the installation was to extend the airport’s role as a connection hub, allowing users to create content that would document their travels and experiences in the West of Ireland. The “Portal” made it possible for participants to create “e-cards” of their own photographs of locations and monuments in the area, to annotate them with a personal hand-written message and email them for free around the world.
Participants could also “donate” annotated photos to a public image gallery that was displayed in the airport’s transit lounge, which constituted a visual record of their journeys and of the heritage sites they had visited.
The public gallery of images was displayed on a “Image Wall” that visitors could browse, navigating by body movement: a computer vision system detected the presence of people in front of a particular portion of the Wall, and subsequently triggered a virtual digital magnifying glass to move in correspondence of the person’s position, so that annotated images could be viewed more clearly.
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