IM_III/Rouvelle/Fall '06

Thursday 4pm-10pm. (Dinner break from 6-7)

Brown Center 206

Contact:jrouvelle@mica.edu

Office: Brown Center, room 211, phone (in office).

Office hours: by appointment

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Course Description

Interactive Media III is studio course that offers an overview of the tools, aesthetics, and cultural paradigms at the intersection of computing, art, design, interaction and communication. Students will be introduced to an array of multimedia tools and techniques used in the production and authoring of graphics, text, animation, video, and sound. The goal of the course is to develop a familiarity with the materials of this evolving medium, along with practical and critical skills essential to the creation and interpretation of digital and electronic art forms.

Students are not expected to become experts in any software application. This course is not a "software training" course. Students are expected to learn the basics of the technology, make progress in their understanding of the tools I will introduce, and to make the best artwork they can. It is the intention of the course to explore the computer as a tool for making art, with the various software applications, readings, and presentations offering a context.

I ask that you approach our work with a sense of experimentation, and a willingness to explore its possibilities for you. In other words, to approach our work as artists: to reveal combinations, forms, perspectives, and patterns that, while speaking to personal sensibilities, engage others on the grounds of invention, discovery, beauty, and sincerity.

At the conclusion of our time together we will organize an exhibition in and around the Rosenberg Gallery of our work together.

This class, although carefully planned, will be a work in progress as I come to know you, and you me. I am very excited to be here and look forward to becoming familiar with your work and interests. Please feel free to contact me for any reason regarding our class. Communication goes a long way to ensure a good environment and successful experience.

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Course work in summary

Main Project

A significant element in your final grade will be your final project, which will be presented to the class for critique and be installed in the final exhibition in the Rosenberg Gallery. You are free to make your work out of whatever media you like. It is essential that the work have a clear interactive feature. We will discuss this thoroughly during class. You will also have to make it available to visitors to the show. We will discuss this as the semester progresses. It is also essential that you document your work - this is a skill that will benefit all of your future undertakings. Stategies and techniques of documentation will be a significant part of our coursework. You will have ample time to work on your project during the final third of the semester. During this time I will make a point of meeting with each of you individually. During our ninth class I will ask each of you to submit a brief proposal for your final project. The point is this is for me to work out technical needs, and to get an idea of what you are thinking about.

Evaluation:

Grades in this course will be based on regular class attendance, the quality of your work, class participation, and progress. Tardiness and excessive absences will adversely affect your grade. Participation in discussions and critiques is mandatory.

Projects & Grading:

Students will be graded by letter, A-F, on all evaluated work. Work must be completed on time and in full satisfaction of each project goal. Late work (assignments handed in or posted after the start of in-class critique sessions) will be automatically downgraded by one letter grade.

A	Well above the expectations of the course. Outstanding participation, attendance, and exceptional progress.
B	Above average assignments and participation. No more than one absence.
C	Average execution of assignments, participation, and no more than two absences.
D	Well below average: work, attendance (two absences), projects, and participation.
F	Unsatisfactory: work, attendance (more than two absences), projects, and participation

Attendance:

Two or more unexcused absences from class may result in failure. Two unexcused late arrivals, or early departures (eg, not returning from lunch, or other unexplained disappearance) will be marked as the equivalent of one absence. Absence from a class is not an excuse for skipping a tutorial, reading assignment, or posting an assignment. You are fully responsible for completing work.

Readings:

Readings and tutorials will often be delivered through the web - via links (URLs). Critiques will frequently be initiated from various topics covered in the readings - in other words, please use the concepts you read about in discussion of fellow students' work.

Supplies:

Please bring to each class: 1-2 CD-R(s) - Recordable Compact Discs (700 MB). You'll probably go through many of them, for both this and other digital classes. You might also want to bring in a sharpie to label your CD's.

It is essential that all work done in class be saved to CD-R at the conclusion of class. There will be many, many other students using these computers and anything saved on them will be permanently removed shortly after the conclusion of class.

Food and Drink in the Computer Labs:

No.

ADA COMPLIANCE:

In MICA's efforts to provide the highest possible quality

educational experience for every student, MICA maintains compliance with the

requirements of the ADA and Section 504. Any student who has, or suspects he or she may have, a disability and wants to request academic accommodations

must contact Dr. Kathryn Smith at the Learning Resource Center, 443 695-1384 or email at ksmith@mica.edu immediately.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

MICA has developed policies and practices to ensure a healthful environment

and safe approaches to the use of equipment, materials, and processes. It is

the mutual responsibility of faculty and students to review health and

safety standards relevant to each class at the beginning of each semester.

Students should be aware of general fire, health, and safety regulations

posted in each area and course specific polices, practices, and cautions.

Students who have concerns related to health and safety should contact

Quentin Moseley, Environment Health and Safety Coordinator at 410 225 0220

or email at qmoseley@mica.edu

This course is about making things interactive

Weekly Schedule

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Week 1

Professional Development Phase()

• Weeks 1-6 (you may choose to devote the entire semester to this phase)

• Maryland Science Center

· Universe of the Cell

• Cellular visualization I
• interesting interface
• please read before next week!
• “Art as Science – Science as Art” – please read for next week!

***We are not asked to create visualizations, we are asked to create integrated, interactive media elements of the exhibit.

• Dr. Cooks has expressed an interest in creating some sort of virtual roundtable where visitors can sit and interact with ideas contained within the exhibit. One model she thought about was having a sort of chat where visitors could chat with scientists from antiquity.
• It turns out Python (see below) has some modules for Natural Language Processing (ntlk-lite). Sam showed this stuff to me over the summer. We might also think about some Speech Recognition , there is also a python module for dragon’s Naturallyspeaking. Maybe a chatbot might be a better idea?

We will be working closely with mdsci. Next week we will go to the center and meet with the director, Dr. Roberta Cooks. Bus will depart from Brown Center at 4pm, please be on time as we must get to the science center before 4:30pm. You will be asked to brainstorm and prototype potential components of the exhibit. You should work in small groups. You will have access to their facilities during the week and on the weekend. Whatever you create will be tested with the general public at the Center. You may choose to spend the entire semester working on this phase.

Open Studio Phase()

• Weeks 7 – 15
• Exhibit at week 14 in Rosenberg.
• You may show either your mdsci work, or other creative work.

Tools:

We have a few new gizmos you can use:

(4) h2210 ipaqs

(2) sd-502 gps units

(4) wifi CF cards for the ipaqs

(2) Nokia e61 smartphones

(2) Nokia 6682 videophones

(10) Basic Stamps w/sensors, etc… (from Ryan’s physical interface class)

(4) BlueSmirf Bluetooth modules for the Basic Stamps

Sam Sheffield is now working with us. Sam and I will give a demo of ad hoc networking using the above devices in two weeks.

In preparation:

Ad hoc networks, or, connecting this to that

Regardless of what you’d like to do, learning how to get things to share information is useful. During the semester we will be showing demos of how to do this.

Take a tour of Python.

Take a look at what you can do with Python on a mobile phone

***You can also run Flash apps on the e61s

You can also run Python scripts on the ipaqs we have, with PythonCE.

I will be giving you some demonstrations in Python

We also have Max

Other exhibition opportunities:

1. There is a “major café” in the lobby of Brown on November 16^th. We would like to have a couple of works there.

2. The director of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore has asked me to ask you if anyone would like to create an event for the opening of an exhibit on Cell Phone Art, January 20^th. She is interested in any sort of collaborative project that will encourage the participation of the crowd.

3. Jason Sloan told me that there is a MAP exhibition being organized for next spring and they are looking for interactive works. I will get more information and report back in two weeks. This is a juried show.

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Week 5

Ricardo’s talk

Ricardo Dominguez talk ->Critical Art Ensemble

Some quotes:

Ø “Ubiquitous Disturbances”

Ø “Simple technology to disturb the most developed technology”

Ø “…must locate those elements which can be disturbed”

Ø the Demos – the gesture, gestural.

Ø “a radical gesture as yet un-named”

Ø “a discourse of Utopian Plagiarism”

Ø “…approach technology not in an apocalyptic way – but be critical of it. Apocalyptic and Utopian points of view are ok, but what is critical is what is in our hands at this moment.”

What did you think of the Performative Matrix? Did you hear what he said about the mass-hallucinatory vs. research?

Ø “…research deals with the empirical, empiricism violates the mass-hallucinatory”

This is an important point! What do you think he means?

He referenced Neuromancer, William Gibson’s early cyberpunk novel from ’84, where he coined the terms cyberspace and defined the term the performative matrix as a mass-hallucination, that was experienced within the individual mind of different beings.

Current discourse on the internet of things describes a network of online/offline objects that are shared. The writer Bruce Sterling has written about an imagined future where objects would be spimes, and would all be outfitted with, among other features, locative tech that would allow one to search for, say, your shows, via a handheld that would tie into some other tech in your apartment and tell you where your shoes are. Sterling writes and speaks about how profoundly liberating this experience would be – when we no longer have to be bookkeepers for our increasingly large stash of stuff. Sterling also writes about thought objects – ideas posted online that are collectively developed in the wet bog of cyberspace – cyberspace now seen as a collective, shared experience, that is NOT a mass-hallucination.

How do you think research and the resulting empirical data relates to your own interests and works?

He also referenced that the “enclosure movement” began in Europe during the 15^th C.

With research in mind:

Ø Timo Arnall

• Jan Chipchase: future perfect / present imperfect

o Jane Fulton’s “thoughtless acts”

o per persson projects:

o Sensor is particularly interesting

o Scent

o TXTual Healing – by Paul Notzold. The mention of “proprietary software” is a bit of a drag….

o What do you think of

o buttons ?

o Dr. Marc D. Hauser’s moral intuition test

o Other online tests (scroll down)

Updated script for universe of the cell

Cellphone exhibit at the Contemporary – what are you thinking about doing, what equipment might you need?

Class wiki/swiki experiment – let’s set one up today.

Timeline for completing prototypes and showing them to Roberta and Bill.

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Week 6

1. Setup wiki, or site for class, can be a blog, or netvibes…

• All of us will (you, me, Roberta, Bill) be keeping an eye on the wiki – post questions, links, content, etc…

2. Prepare questions for Roberta and Bill – they will be here between 6-7.

• Be able to speak with them about your project in specific relation to the Updated script for universe of the cell.

Mixed Reality Lab Singapore

>Interview with director (scroll down)

• Disney/Hollywood lab: Imagineering

MXRToolkit – free software

Mimeticon: baroque search engine, using:

• imgSeek

Rfid

• Rfid tags, and other cool gizmos

Of interest:

• Truly Anonymous Public Broadcasting
• batchgeocode

The next two weeks:

• Presentation of your prototypes for Roberta and Bill is October 26^th!

• Assignment: prepare your presentation for next week – each of you will present and then take comments.

• Post stuff to the class site, this is the most efficient way to communicate with Mdsci.

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