Course News

Upcoming Events

Some things of interest for Monday, March 3.
1.
Who: CHRIS PECK - From Field Recordings to Recorder Choirs
When: 3-5pm Monday March 3
Where: Krannert Art Museum (in the Collections Research Lab - basement)
Brooklyn-based composer Chris Peck, known for his collaborations with
choreographers John Jasperse, David Dorfman, and RoseAnne Spradlin and
video artist Charles Atlas, discusses his practice as an improviser with the
computer and his compositions for large ensembles of untrained performers.
Come prepared to engage in undisciplined singing and unfamiliar ways of
listening. This overlaps our regular class meeting time, obviously, but I would encourage people to attend ONLY if you can be there starting at 3. You must also write a short blog post about the event.
If you do attend, come to class immediately afterwards, I will be meeting with people regarding progress on the spatial interfaces.
2.
Also on Monday March 3. The next "For Educational Use Only" screening will be performance, video and architectural artist Vito Acconci's "The Red Tapes". Acconci is a seminal figure in performance and video art, who has more recently been working within an architectural and public art practice. This is at 7pm in room 229 as usual.
3.
March 5:
11:00 AM to 12:50 PM - Visual Music Workshop I in CAMIL (rm. 5045 Music Bldg.) - LIMITED SEATING, email Scott Wyatt if you wish to attend [s-wyatt@uiuc.edu]
4:00 PM Composers Forum "Composing with Image and Sound"
rm. 1180 Music Bldg. [all are welcome]

March 6:
10:00 to 11:50 AM - Visual Music Workshop II in CAMIL (rm. 5045 Music Bldg.) - LIMITED SEATING, email Scott Wyatt if you wish to attend [s-wyatt@uiuc.edu]
7:30 PM Visual Music Concert, Music Bldg. Auditorium (rm. 2100) [all are welcome]
Dennis Miller received his Doctorate in Music Composition from Columbia University in 1981. Since that time, he has been on the Music faculty of Northeastern University in Boston where he heads the music technology program. He is also on the faculty of the Multimedia Studies program. Dennis was the founder and served as director of the League-ISCM in Boston from 1982-1988. His works have been performed on concerts and festivals throughout the world, and his music appears on Opus One Records and the Frog Peak Collaborative CD, among others. Miller is an Associate Editor of Electronic Musician magazine, for which he writes about music software and hardware technologies.
Since 1998, Miller has also been active as a graphic artist and 3D animator. His animations have been shown at numerous venues throughout the world, most recently the Ambient Electron show at the DeCordova Museum, the 9th New York Digital Salon, the 2001 Art in Motion screenings, immedia, Sonic Circuits, the Cuban International Festival of Music, VideoFormes, the Images de Nouveau Monde Film Festival and the 2001 Not Still Art screening. His work was also presented at SIGGRAPH 2001 in the Emerging Technologies gallery. Recent exhibits of his 3D still images include the Boston Computer Museum and the Biannual Conference on Art and Technology, as well as publication in Sonic Graphics: Seeing Sound, published by Rizzoli Books.
Miller's music and artworks are available at www.dennismiller.neu.edu.

posted by ryan griffis at 10:40 AM Friday, February 29, 2008

0 comments

Feb 25 and 27

On Mon Feb 25 and Wed Feb 27 I will be at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and therefore not able to meet with classes as scheduled. There are lots of things to be done, and I expect everyone to use the assigned class time wisely. Here are things you need to do:
1. Familiarize yourself with Flash using the online resources provided (look below). Things that most need to focus on here are: working with multiple/nested timelines and basic actionscript/interactivity). For this project, people should be able to use movie clips/nested timelines and generate timeline-based interactivity (using buttons and movieclips to jump around the timeline).
2. Look at the border-interface links (in the last post) that I discussed in class on Wednesday, make a blog post that reflects on at least three of them and how you might incorporate some aspect of them in your own project. Maybe consider the relationship between the symbolic (what an interface might mean culturally) and mechanical (how an interface might function materially).
3. Work on the research presentation for your selected artist/collective - due March 5
4. In terms of the spatial interface, work out a plan of action - how you want to interpret the space as a screen-based, interactive design. One approach is to think of the project as an interpretive browser for your space, not unlike your book/map. If you accomplished something interesting with your book/map, how can that be translated? Drawings always help. The final projects are due March 10.
And, of course, feel free to email me with any questions or concerns regarding any of the above. I'll be in transit during class time on Wednesday, but can possibly set up a chat with anyone needing help during class time on Monday.

posted by ryan griffis at 3:38 PM Friday, February 22, 2008

1 comments

Some Things To Look At

In terms of continuing on our course of looking at space, place and interactivity, one thing becomes increasingly important: how we interact with space is highly determined by how we create, perceive and react to boundaries. Spaces, and the devices we use to navigate them, are designed to enforce (and rarely avoid) boundaries of different kinds and in different ways. Examples as simple as walls, locked doors that require keys or password protected websites are easy to identify, but there are more coded interfaces present pretty much everywhere. Think of how something like a traffic light creates an effective boundary through a combination of legal mechanisms (like traffic police) and cultural codes (like the normative use of color). I'd like everyone to consider how your chosen space is defined and delineated by such boundaries/borders. Not just physical borders, but other forms of boundaries that can be identified with some thought.
To these ends, here are some examples for considering the complexity of borders/boundaries, and how such considerations can lead to different visualizations, and therefore different forms of interaction design.
Multiplicity is a group of Italian researchers across disciplines (art, geography, architecture...). Their Border Devices Project attempts to give names to different kinds of political borders (Roll over "Border Devices" and then select "Border Matrix")
Along similar lines, MigMap is a project by the Swiss group Labor K3000 that uses cartography as a visualization method for understanding migration in Europe. Abstract ideas and legal frameworks are given geographic form to understand overlaps and connections.
Worldmapper, produced by British and US scholars, changes the shape of world maps according to other data attached to nations, like "preventable deaths."
The artist Louisa Bufardeci creates maps that similarly rethink cartographic projections based on an interpretation of data. Look at the projects on the left especially.
A story about mapping in North America, told through a Flash movie by Jackie Goss.
Less obviously related to such mapping, but an interesting and related attempt to visualize the boundaries of the wireless, interactive space of mobile phones and RFID technology is Timo Arnall's Graphic Language for Touch. (download a PDF of his research)

Labels: http://whttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifww.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

posted by ryan griffis at 10:49 AM Wednesday, February 20, 2008

0 comments

Some Flash & Other Resources

For those needing and/or wanting some more help with the basics of Flash, I have put together a list of possible recommended resources that can be accessed in various ways.
For those of you who like video tutorials: Adobe has a free, but limited "Video Workshop" - this link will take you to a video that covers the basics of creating a very simple, interactive file. If you close the video window and look to the bottom right, you can download the sample Flash files used in the video. (By clicking Play Video, you'll restart the video, but you can also browse from the other available tutorials in the middle panel, under "Title". All the video titles with the Flash logo under "Product" are for Flash)
For folks who prefer textual tutorials, I've reserved an online book about Flash registered with O'Reilly that you can access for just under $20 for 60 days. Start with Chapter 28.
For those of you who like paper books, you can always order a book like this one (good for people who like reference, non-linear help - under $20), or this one (better for those who like linear tutorials, just over $30) from Amazon.
We'll have a little time on Monday to check in, but I am coordinating a screening of a film (Strange Culture) at 5:30 in KAM, so we will only have an hour or so. So make sure to have any specific questions ready to go.

posted by ryan griffis at 7:15 PM Wednesday, February 13, 2008

2 comments

Mini Flash Assignment (Due Feb 20)

We will start a mini Flash project that will facilitate both experience in Flash as well as starting to think critically and imaginatively about its potential to create and interpret interfaces.
The assignment is to create a two part Flash animation that interprets the notion of inside/outside or micro/macro as you can relate it to your chosen space.
Conceptual parameters: your file will have two animated interpretations of your chosen space, one from a macro or exterior perspective, another from a micro or interior perspective. You will create a simple interactive transition between the two. Think of the way that interfaces function as membranes - permeable barriers between spaces or information. How does your space govern movement in and out of it? How can that be simulated or interpreted in Flash, with what we've covered so far? How is one's perspective changed depending on which side of the barrier they are on?
Technical parameters: With Flash, you will produce one file that uses the animation and interactive capabilities covered in class (as well as any previous knowledge you bring to it) to achieve the conceptual parameters above.
To recap: you will produce one Flash file that uses images and animation (and maybe sound) to interpret both an exterior/macro and interior/micro aspect of your space, as well as an interface that allows a "user" to move from one to the next.

posted by ryan griffis at 11:14 AM

0 comments

A Brief Philosophical Statement (or a love letter to a class)

In case anyone looks at this over the weekend, or before we meet for class on Monday, I wanted to make a couple of general philosophical remarks reiterating what this class is about. Not for any reason other than to make sure that I'm communicating the intentions and expectations clearly and consistently. It's all in the syllabus, but I know how that document gets left in the dust of our memories pretty quickly.
So, hopefully it's clear that this class is about "interactivity" in a broad and inclusive sense related to art (or maybe it's safer to say "related to symbolic representation and action" since "art" is more than a little vague). In trying to do so, we will be covering a small sample of processes (including software) that have been used to produce "interactive" art, sorry "interactive symbolic representations." We will not, certainly, cover them all... that would be impossible as the options are practically innumerable, and not limited or bounded by software applications.
In this class, we will think of software not as a tool that can simply be applied to solve a problem, but as a set of constraints and opportunities - as part of the problem to be solved. As the Johnson reading was meant to help show (perhaps unsuccessfully), software (or any technology) isn't a neutral platform or tool, but a mediator for a set of values (sometimes competing ones). Flash, for example, isn't something that can be simply employed without first accepting certain limitations as acceptable, convenient or useful. In other words, choosing Flash as a platform makes Flash part of the problem being solved, not just a means to solve the problem. Of course, all solutions to problems are mediated, and one of the goals of this class is to interrogate the relationship between interactivity and its mediation as a problem, and to understand (or at least try) what is lost and gained in solving that problem.
This is why we are going to spend as much time on process and methodology as on actually using software. So that we can try to look at the problems through different forms of mediation and maybe see what happens when that problem gets translated across media.
Hopefully this will be interesting and engaging for everyone and we can all learn something. This class is an experiment in interactivity in itself, and we are all both subjects and scientists simultaneously. Because of this, it is extremely necessary that we all have patience (with the tech and each other) and show some consideration and respect for everyone in the class. I don't expect this to be a problem, but I want to emphasize that there are different sets of experiences and skills within the body of the class. Not everyone is a new media major or has studied various techno-histories, for example, so don't assume that "we all know this" when it comes to something discussed in the class. Those with more technical abilities and familiarity with some aspects of the class, help others in the class and push your own ideas and abilities rather than coasting. No one likes a coaster.
I also want to stress that the readings, discussions and examples, even when historical, are rarely designed to educate you on the "facts." I'm not a historian, and this isn't a history class. Historical readings/screenings in this class generally serve two purposes: one is to illustrate how something was viewed at a certain point in time and had an influence on artists. The second is to introduce some poetic/metaphoric/analytic perspective on something related to what we're doing in class at that time. If you're reading something and only responding, "Gee, I know how the desktop works, and besides, 1996 was 12 years ago, I'm using Leopard." I would encourage looking beyond the "fact" value of what's being said. It's not necessarily important if the facts being presented are new or not, but how they're being interpreted or used to make a case for something. Sometimes, this requires reading between the lines a bit. You can find the point dumb, banal or unsubstantiated, of course. I don't expect that everyone will be interested in every aspect of everything, but I do expect a basic level of respect for the work of others and especially for your peers.
For those of you reading this and thinking, "Um... OK, but how will I be evaluated?"
That's a good and valid question. You'll be evaluated based mostly on visible effort. Sure, there are some expectations for actual, technical output, but the expectations are weighted on method and process (remember, that's the focus). If you already know Flash, for example, you are only at a very minor advantage.
For those of you reading this and thinking, "Um... OK, but am I going to learn Flash?"
That's an understandable question, though the syllabus explains that fairly well. The answer is yes for some, not-so-much for others. As said above, we will learn Flash as part of the problem-solution combination, and everyone will use it to some degree. But learning Flash, as an expert platform, is beyond the scope, goals and philosophy of the course. That said, I am there to help those willing and able to move beyond their current abilities in realizing something with it.
For those of you who made it this far and are reading this and thinking, "Um... OK, when is this post going to end?"
Right now. Well, one more thing. I recently came across a debate about the use of technology in education for Generation TXT (in case you didn't know, that's what us old people are calling you). It was the result of a video produced by an anthropology professor in Kansas.
Here's the original video. Here's a response in the form of a video. And here's a discussion about them.
See you on Monday.

posted by ryan griffis at 6:56 PM Friday, February 8, 2008

2 comments

Reading and Project 2

Things due and coming up:
Feb 6
Discussion of Steven Johnson's The Desktop.
Bring in initial ideas for interactive spaces for Project 2 (see project parameters)
Feb 11
Paper prototype/map for Project 2 due
Feb 20
Project 2 Flash files due
(img from Christian Nold's "Point of Sale" poster)

posted by ryan griffis at 12:45 PM Monday, February 4, 2008

0 comments

Previous Posts

| Upcoming Events | Feb 25 and 27 | Some Things To Look At | Some Flash & Other Resources | Mini Flash Assignment (Due Feb 20) | A Brief Philosophical Statement (or a love letter ... | Reading and Project 2 | This page has most of the skills you need for proj... | Mid-term Presentation Project | Where you should be now...

Archives

| December 2007 | January 2008 | February 2008