The BinBot re-design

Here are some of the final design sketches for the BinBot. It has taken the shape of a frog for aesthetic reasons.  We are finalising the measurements and building the bin this week. Still working on  the electronics and programming, but it will be very exciting when frogee is munching good old rubbish.

Living Laboratories: Making and Curating Interactive Art

Living Laboratories: Making and Curating Interactive Art 

AUTHOR
Lizzie Muller and Ernest Edmonds
Creativity and Cognition Studios, University of Technology, Sydney

This paper describes the development of laboratory concepts in the making and curating of interactive art, in which the exhibition becomes a site for collaboration between curators, artists, and audiences. It describes Beta_space, an experimental public venue that seeks to realise the concept of the exhibition as living laboratory 

through the participatory qualities of interactive computer-based art. The paper places this initiative within an emerging phenomenon of hybrid production and exhibition spaces. It argues that the evolution of such concepts has been hampered by the continued distinctions, within traditional cultural institutions, among art, science and technology, object and experience, creation and consumption. 

Pdf available here Living Laboratories: Making and Curating Interactive Art.

Week 6 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.

Dr. Gabriela Avram's class on WordPress

Today we discussed about WordPress and its fonder. WordPress is a website management tool which was created by Matt Mullenweg. It is a very versatile option to use to build a website. There is a wide community using WordPress including forms which allows people to help one another. It's good for those who are not used to HTML and allows a user to choose from plugins which can make your website much more interactive and personal.

We also talked about SEO (search engine operations) and ways in which to get a better rating from your website. Such easy tasks of uploading new content daily (which Google loves) can get you better ratings. A easy and good way to do this is to link your website to a blog or/and Twitter. 

Also a good plug in to have is Google analytices which would allow you to see who has been to your site, what computer they use and operating system. Also analytices can tell you what page they left from on your website which could potentially help you to see if this page could be improved.

Final note, as you know I'm using Blogger to post daily on, but I'm almost tempted to change to WordPress. Much more exciting, more options, more fun. I will think about this over the weekend.

Group presentation

Today the group presenting were discussing the work being developed in the domain of AI. They discussed how computer games are studying real world experiences and finding new ways to represent this in the virtual world. This was a very exciting presentation because I was unaware of the many new developments within this area. Computer simulation is a field which is growing extremely fast with such developments which allow close to real world experiences. In Japan, it seems that enormous amounts of money is invested into making the user experience closer to that of the real world. 

I found the class activity very enjoyable. The group programed a set of tasks/puzzles that had to be solved to get the prize at the end. There were different levels to the game and once you passed each level, you got to the next stage. What I feel was important was the group allowing the class to experience AI within the one of the puzzles. This reflected well within the formal presentation and their topics discussed.

For me this was very enjoyable and clever how the activity was put together, great fun and the class really enjoyed it. Well done guys.  

The final touch to Geocaching

Today me and the group put the final touch to the Geocaching presentation. We typed up the core elements to the presentation and how we felt the group activity went. It is all in a pdf file at the moment so when I upload this to my website I will put a link to it here. Also, we a putting the final touch to a video we made on the presentation, so I will upload it here over the next few days, with a .mov file of the presentation we done. So the Geocaching presentation comes to a fun but enjoyable end. Cheers guys (Conor and Grace) for being such a great group to work with : )

Dr. Gabriela Avram's class on Research Methods

From analysis you draw conclusions, research is done systematically. My background is an artist which is very important to state at the beginning of my thesis. I have confidence in this area... which allows the reader to understand the angle in which I present my argument.

Research has to be done ethnically, I have to follow a code of conduct, respecting the opinion of the people being studied, respecting the data to be honest about my findings and results.

I should decide on a hypothesis and try to prove if it is right or wrong, conclude why I was wrong and what improvements I could make.

Getting to know the world is called epistemology. In my research I should take this approach to understand the user, so that my decision is informed from this primary research. An example of a good argument  for a thesis would be, 'My Masters Thesis focuses on participatory design techniques that would engage older people with dementia in design of digital technologies. I recruited and worked with numerous older adults and people with dementia and developed technological prototypes in response to the needs they articulated.' This would be a good example of designing technology to support mental well being.