Author: patconley

EMPOD launch: 09/03/06.

patconley News , , ,
EMPOD launch: 09/03/06.

empod.jpg

(12/03/2006). The EMPOD (a Scanning Electron Microscope Simulation interactive pod) was launched at the opening of the National Marine Aquarium £3.6 million Explorocean Centre. The EMPOD was developed by i-DAT in collaboration with the Plymouth Electron Microscopy Centre. The web-enabled pod offers interactive explorations of microsopic organisms and incorporates a real (but dormant) Scanning Electron Microscope. The National Marine Aquarium is a charity committed to promoting a sympathetic understanding of the sea through programmes of education, conservation and research. http://www.national-aquarium.co.uk

BB4D

patconley Projects , ,
BB4D

2005:

The Broadband4Devon project aims to help more than 5,500 businesses in key areas of the country to reap the benefits of broadband through a range of subsidies, practical advice and knowledgeable support. i-DAT is a working in partnership with BB4D project to design innovative solutions in the use of Broadband technologies.

Original HTML website can be found here: https://i-dat.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/oldi-DATprojects/liquidpress/bb4d/index.html

Out of Scale

patconley Projects , , ,
Out of Scale

16/06/2004:

Plymouth Arts Centre.Out of Scale explores architecture’s relationship with image, digital technology, structure and materials, by focusing upon microscopic detail. The show reveals the unusual relationship that architects have with scale; how the digital systems and measuring tools transform models of actuality, from the precision of the scalpel blade used to make a model to the materials used to construct the finished building.

Original HTML website can be found here: https://i-dat.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/oldi-DATprojects/outofscale/index.html

Generator

patconley Projects , , ,
Generator

Spacex Gallery, 1 May – 22 June 2002

Generator: curated by Spacex & STAR, with support from the Institute of Digital Art & Technology and the Arts Council of England (Collaborative Arts Unit). Spacex Gallery, 1 May – 22 June 2002, and touring in the UK. Generator will present a series of ‘self-generating’ projects, incorporating digital media, instruction and participation pieces, drawing machines, experimental literature, and music technologies. All work will be produced ‘live’, in real-time, with some elements continuing indefinitely.

The exhibition can also be described as ‘generative’ in that it will develop and expand over time, by acting as a point of connection for different generative practices across disciplines, pointing to the relationship of visual arts to other media – especially sound works, performance, and issues relating to chaos theory and complexity, neural networks and artificial life.

http://www.generative.net/generator/

And …

STAR & Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys from Paignton Zoo
As part of the development of the Vivaria project, Generator hosted a troop of Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys from Paignton Zoo to test Infinite Monkey Theorem. The idea that an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters for infinity could eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare was enacted in a monkey cage in Paignton Zoo…

Real monkeys

In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Celebes crested macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website. Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five total pages largely consisting of the letter S, the lead male began by bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by urinating and defecating on it. Mike Phillips, director of the university’s Institute of Digital Arts and Technology (i-DAT), said that the artist-funded project was primarily performance art, and they had learned “an awful lot” from it. He concluded that monkeys “are not random generators. They’re more complex than that. … They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there.”

Notes Towards The Complete Works of Shakespeare Book.

ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

Artefact

patconley Projects , , , , ,
Artefact

Artefacts can change their meaning not just over the years as different histriographical and institutional currents pick them out and transform their significance, but from day to day as different people view them and subject them to their own interpretation. The ‘Artefact’ Project takes this fluidity as its starting point. The Artefact and its interpretation panel slowly evolve as visitors to the website play with it and reinterpret its meaning.

At the core of the Artefact Project is a 3D database drawn from the V&A Collection. For the duration of the show the ‘Artefact’ evolves through a generative breeding of this ‘genetic’ information. At some point in its evolution the ‘Artefact’ will become the collection.

Artefact is a MODEL project: May 16th – June 9th 2002.

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Corrupted images downloaded from the V&A archive during the R&D phase of the project.

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Artefact digital sketches.

Old HTML site for Artefact. https://i-dat.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/oldi-DATprojects/artefact/project.html

Artefact was a MODEL production:

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Model is a transdisciplinary research consortium of three organisations, STAR [Science Technology and Art Research] of the Institute of Digital Art and Technology at the University of Plymouth / REALL [Research in Education, Arts, Language and Learning] at Middlesex University / inIVA [Institute of international Visual Art]. As a collegiate space supported outside fixed institutional frameworks MODEL allows the group to test product and process critically, and as the name MODEL suggests, to develop schematic descriptions of digital arts systems, theories and phenomenon that account for unknown properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics. MODEL’s distinctive interest is in the examination of virtual spaces and objects;- the manipulation of ‘invisible architectures’ and ‘dematerialised objects’.

An example of a MODEL project, “Artefact” can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Artefact website.

Previous MODEL collaborations include:
1: Vertex, which includes children’s avatar-building software for creating and populating 3D Virtual environments. Vertex is raising research questions about learning which enables children from different cultural and geographical locations to collaborate and exchange stories, experiences and ideas within playful virtual spaces. The Vertex project can be found on-line at: http://www.lle.mdx.ac.uk/research/projects/vw/

2: Autoicon: is funded by the Arts Council of England and inIVA. It is a dynamic Internet work composed of three distinct but integrated components. The aim of the project is to simulate both the physical presence and elements of the creative personality of the recently deceased artist Donald Rodney using interactive and ‘intelligent’ programming for the World Wide Web. In early 1998, Donald Rodney began developing the idea of creating an interactive project which would map out the co-ordinates of an ‘original’ Donald Rodney art work so that his work could continue to be made in the event of his death. Autoicon is also available on CDROM from inIVA. Autoicon can be found at:
http://www.iniva.org/autoicon

MODEL’s staff publications and research commentaries on toys: the Arts Council Touring Exhibition Toys: Are They Playing With You?(1989, G.Cox & V.deRijke) playful pedagogies: This is Not the National Curriculum for Art (1994, G.Cox, V.deRijke) Rubbish Reading (1995, V.deRijke & R.Sinker)The Impossibility of Art Education (1999, G.Cox, H.Hollands, V.deRijke) Making/Unmaking Design History Society Conference(2000, G.Cox, H.Hollands, V.deRijke) and invisible architectures: The Visible & the Invisible (1996, inIVA & international artists) Distance No Object: intercultural art resources on the Net Association of Art Historians at Tate Britain Looking Over the Overlooked Conference(2000, R.Sinker) regular MEDIASPACE sections in the CADE journal Digital Creativity (M.Phillips ed) proceedings and v01d Virtual Architecture catalogue and exhibition, Plymouth University & Arts Centre (2001, F.Bailey & M.Phillips).

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Spectactor

patconley Projects , , , ,
Spectactor

Date: 22/05/2000.
This is an experimental project that uses interactive digital media to enable the development of new forms of performance and narrative. It looks at the way that layers of interactivity are created in a live event. It also explores how human interaction is moderated through different forms of technology. In this project the performance operates over a series of inter-connected spaces. These will be created, using three technologies: satellite transmission, VRML and email. The performance will ‘take place’ in a T.V. studio; the performance will be transmitted by satellite to other receiving venues which can communicate with the performers by ISDN video conferencing. Spectactor is funded by DA2 and i-DAT.

Phillips, M., Ride, P., Lavelle, M. Turley, S. The Spectactor Project: A Multi-user narrative in Mediaspace .
palmeres for to seken straunge strondes.  Consciousness Reframed III.
Spactactor Mediaspace 9.

GM (Generative Music)

patconley Projects
GM (Generative Music)

GM:

i-DAT committed several Generative Music events. These consisted of live coding, digital sound toys (mostly produced by students on MLA and audio montages.

Locations:

Sherwell Centre, Plymouth / The Cavern, Exeter / The Cube, Bristol (as part of the RX Artec/DA2 event) / Lovebytes Sheffield.

Cavern Club, Exeter, 16/06/1999

These images and recordings were from the Cavern Club, Exeter on June 16 1999… and people were dancing…

Performers included: Ade Ward (AKA Slub) / James Norwood / Mike Phillips / Dan Livingstone / Geoff Cox /.

Digital Originals (2000) Lovebytes festival Showroom Cinema, Sheffield (6–8 April). 

Installers include: Geoff Cox / James Norwood / Chris Speed /.

Live recordings from:  Sherwell Centre, Plymouth / The Cavern, Exeter / The Cube, Bristol /

[but not sure which]

GM#1: [17 minutes – 14 seconds]

[Probably The Cube]

GM#2: [41 minutes – 36 seconds] –

[think mainly Slub…]

VA

patconley Projects
VA

The Virtual Advisor:

{Published in Mediaspace 4. 1997}

An Online Advisory & Support Environment for Staff, Students & Industrial Partners.

Academic Programmes with vocational components (sandwich courses) have to maintain a continual dialogue with Placement companies in order to monitor industrial trends and preferences. This constant background activity (which includes frequent visits) places a relatively unrecognised strain on programme teams, especially as many companies are located at considerable distances from the home University. Students are often concerned about their level of personal skills and the relevance of their programme of study to employers, and are constantly seeking first hand information about the ‘real world’. The ‘Virtual Advisor’ (VA) recognises a need to provide a mechanism to allow staff to enter into a continuous interaction with new and established companies, and to encourage a critical dialogue between students, staff and prospective employers.

The underlying aim of the design team was to create an ‘active’ facility that would be in a state of continual use and dynamic change. As there was an obvious need for the VA, it was important to make the system pleasurable to use, and encourage a high level participation. Initially emphasis was placed on designing a ‘location’ that would mimic or be reminiscent of a ‘real’ location. By seeing the real location the user would be reminded of the discourse underway in the simulated environment and be encouraged to enter into further discussion. However, the ‘VA’ has a real geographical location (the location WWW server) which is a considerable distance from the primary target audience (London), it also aims to support a national and international audience. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to identify a location that would have universal appeal, and be visible from all areas of the globe. An off world location was finally chosen, a set of coordinates, a cluster of stars, between the horns of Taurus, in an area of high radio activity in the Crab Nebula. Look to the skies and imagine the ‘VA’.

As the project progressed it became apparent that the significant design issues were not the visual aspects of the site, but the processes and functions that needed to be built in to enable a process of discussion to take place. And, although the concept of a location ‘somewhere out there’ (certainly not in the server room in Plymouth) is quintessential to the project, emphasis changed to to the development of a ‘process’. The graphical elements are reminiscent of network diagrams, nodes and branches, a process of connection. The 3D renderings support the notion of a physical space, but the abstract structure place significance on linking, travelling from A to B, and passing through the system.

Sections:

Project: this section allows students to submit an illustrated proposal for their final Stage Project (contributes to a third of their degree classification). This can be seen by staff and other students. Updates can be submitted at several points throughout the Final Stage.

Experience: allowing students to enter their experiences from placement and post Programme employment, (issues tend to focus on management and production methods, client/company relationships, anecdotes, and technical experience.

4D Conversation: a layered discussion, allowing participants to maintain a multi-user conversation back linking to previous entries.

Think Tank: accepts proposals, ideas and problems from external advisors. These can then be developed by student production groups.

Production Team:

Will Bakali, graphics, scripting and server control;

Mike Phillips and Chris Speed, concept and system design.

Many thanks to:

Brian Eno

Andy Finney (The Independent Multimedia Company)/

Mic Cady (Dorling Kindersley Online Publishing), AA Multimedia/

Rob Morrison (Silicon Graphics).

Tech:

The VA was built on an Apple Mac WWW server, using WebStar and Netforms, CGI scripts, HTML, Shockwave (Director), Java Script, Photoshop, Netscape, etc….