Thursday 26 January 2012

This is the first week back to semester two of doing the Masters in Interactive Media at the University of Limerick. Last semester I documented my progress using a video diary that I embedded on my website http://cambellp.richie.idc.ul.ie/index.html. However, I found that once a week was not enough to map my new findings and so I decided to create this blog so that I could update my research and what I am learning through out this second term daily. I will continue to do my once a week 3 min video diary to touch base with my main findings, thoughts and feeling of the week, however I intend to use this blog and have my videos posted at the end of the week along side another blog which I will dedicate solely to the video diary which can be viewed at http://studentvideodiary.blogspot.com/

This week was mainly touching base with all the tutors and exploring the new electives that we can choose from. The three main classes are the Interactive Media work Workshop with Mikael Fernstrom, Principles of Interactive design with Dr Avram Gabriela and Professional Issues in Interactive Media with Dr Joe Griffin. The electives are broad from business to programing and contemporary art in conjunction with interactive design. Between this evening and tomorrow I will choose my elective and that will be me set for the term.

I have been thinking now in closer detail about what my final design area will be and at present I feel more inclined to look at the area of computer supported art therapy as opposed to an interactive art project. Both areas would be great starting points for a dissertation, however  I feel that I will stay now with the art therapy area and continue the research that I have started. 

For today I came across a link that made me consider new ways of displaying art work in a very interactive approach. Considering one of my earlier observations were I worked as an assistant in using art for therapeutic purpose in a hospital with patients with mental illnesses, one of the problems was the display of the work that they created. It was the case that the work of the patients only got displayed once a year at an exhibition and after this it went into storage. My concern was that through my observations I found that the patients were more enthusiastic and happier (which could help in the treatment of mental health) when their work was present in the environment that they spent most of their time. My earlier observations were only at a surface level and it is clear that much more in-depth observation and research would be required to understand if a new interactive approach to displaying patients work would be beneficial to their their recovery or not. When I came across the link below it sparked off new thought on how an interactive space can be used for the display of large amounts of archived work. I feel this was a cleaver solution to help people view large amounts of data that could be otherwise never seen and could be potentially developed further within more everyday situations like a DVD store or tourism office to provide information clearly and efficiently to the wider community.