Week 2 Semester 2

This video is part of a series that I am posting as a blog about my weekly experience of doing a masters in Interactive Media and Design at the University of Limerick.

The CraftCube initiative presents new and exciting ways of displaying, interpreting and accessing contemporary craft with a focus on new technology. The aim of the research-based CraftCube series is to champion and expose to a broader audience practice-based research that explores the boundaries of contemporary craft and its relationship with digital technology. The freestanding CraftCube is a complete, experiential display environment containing objects and dynamic interpretation. It is compact, lightweight and suitable for display in museums and galleries, libraries, higher education galleries, corporate environments or at events, conferences and festivals.

This cube houses a collection of pieces that reveal a trajectory of digital jewellery research into memory and memory loss designed by Jayne Wallace. The selected works are reflective pieces based on source material gathered from care staff at Alzheimer’s Society day care centres and people living with memory loss as well as in-depth co-creative research with an individual living with dementia.

Viewers enter the CraftCube to interact with the pieces and uncover the personal stories around them. The cube is being designed directly with Jayne , creating a personal and visually engaging environment for her work. Key to the design is viewer interaction with the works and interpretation.

Interactive art therapy

A multi-touch coffee table based on FTIR technology. Software on the table replicates real world properties of finger painting, allowing therapists to set up un-supervised sessions for people with dementia. The coffee table is similar to the Sage project, but includes a compliant surface and infrared camera in the unit. Software written in C#. Further information can be viewed at Tom Batindale's blog page. 

Patrick Olivier's blog space was the main resource page that led me to todays findings. It can be found here, Patrick Olivier.     

Art Therapy Easels

Hand crafted of solid oak and walnut these multi-touch artists easels are fully adjustable and include a high resolution, super sensitive multi-touch screen based on FTIR. Built for various projects involving gaze detection and un-supervised therapy. Three of these systems are currently on trial with real clients in Toronto, Canada. You can read further at Art Therapy Easels. 

BinCam

I was on the website of Cultural Lab Newcastle researching for articles that are associated with my end of year project when I came across the BinCam project. It is a project that aimed to increase individuals' awareness of their food, waste and recycling behavior. 

How the bin works is that photos are tagged using a crowd sourcing service and uploaded to the BinCam application on a social network site. This is to encourage playful engagement and to make a reflection upon a user's personal bin data. Another interactive element is that people can review and share communications about the bin-related behavior of themselves and others. 

The Link to the website can be found at Digital Interaction at Cultural Lab. 

BinCam is a collaborative research project between the Digital Interaction group in Culture Lab at Newcastle University, LiSC at the University of Lincoln and the University of Duisburg Essen.

A fruitful Thursday

Today me and Conor came up with an interesting proposal to deal with the rubbish problem out side the spar shop in the university court yard. I have sketched some new proposal ideas that are very different to my original ideas as a result of the responses from the care taker. Tomorrow I will post my new video explaining all the ideas in full detail and hopefully I will get my sketches uploaded. 

A busy Wednesday

Today we had another interesting development using Flash. I came across a very good tutorial that shows you how to build a website using action script. It is presented by Paul Trani on the Adobe TV website. I used his tutorials before to help me build my first website using html and I find his method and approach to teaching very easy to follow. Thanks Paul for the great help and all the tips that I have learnt form your tutorials. I haven't actually finished his tutorials using action script however its coming together bit by bit. Have a look at the link above, it really is worth the while to take the time to go through some of the things he suggests. 

Also today we were discussing in more depth the world of digital media and ethics. I have got my hands on Charles Ess's book, "Digital Media Ethics". I have only started reading this book and each week we will be discussing each chapter in class as the term progresses. I have dipped into a few pages and it seems to be a very informative read.

Last thing to mention for the night, I have been doing some further thinking on what path my final project is going to take. I'm confident of the general area of research as I mentioned last week, however I have been thinking which group of people would be best to engage with to do my study. I have a meeting on Friday to discuss this with one of my Tutors and hopefully between now and the weekend I would like to be on a clearer path so that at the beginning of week three (next week) I can commence my observations and gather as much data as possible to help inform my design decision. 

Between now and the weekend, when I do get a free minute, I will post all the drawings and sketches that I have been working on this week. Some really interesting developments on the Litter bin project. So many ideas, yet no money or resources to build, so it comes down to what's available financially and within the time frame because you could look at this project in terms of a final year project. All very exciting : )