Internet of Things

i-DAT & IBM thinking smarter together

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i-DAT & IBM thinking smarter together

One of the biggest names in the digital realm was the guest of i-DAT and Plymouth University earlier this month for the Smarter Planet Lab event.
The event was open to Plymouth University staff, students, researchers and IBM staff with an interest in the Smart Agenda / Internet of Things.
The conference stimulated discussion and an exchange of ideas around specific themes including: art and audience, culture and heritage, digital cities / digital civic, environment and sustainability.

At the conference, IBM backed i-DAT’s research ethic. Said i-DAT Creative Director Birgitte Aga: “IBM backed up our approach. We’re about research and prototyping. We’re not about development – that’s for others to do. That’s what allows us to be at the frontier and to keep experimenting”.

Istanbul conference

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Istanbul conference

i-DAT team members Mike Phillips, Birgitte Aga, Gianni Corino and Stavros Didakis travelled to Istanbul to explore the theme of the cloud and molecular aesthetics.
They attended the third International Conference on Transdisciplinary Imaging – of which i-DAT is an International Conferencing Partner – where they led the panel entitled ‘More Things in Heaven & Earth’.

“As the prefix trans indicates, transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline. Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge” (Nicolescu, 1996).

The conference is at the intersections of art, science and culture, bringing together artists, theorists, scholars, scientists, historians and curators in areas related to media arts, painting, drawing, curating, installation, film, video, photography, computer visualisation, real-time imaging, intelligent systems and image science.
i-DAT’s panel focused on the manifestation of dynamic data processes generated by sensors and algorithms that trigger, capture and measure interactions, feelings and events in an evolving dialogue that comes from a real-time negotiation with participants.
The following papers were presented:
Paper #1: Imaging The Event. Chris Speed, Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Reflecting on the capture, storage and recovery of events that are recorded through disparate sensors located in smart homes.
Paper #2: The Internet of Props: a Performative Framework for the Internet of Things. Gianni Corino, i-DAT
Proposing design methodologies or approaches to help with the rapid growth of the Internet of Things.
Paper #3: Capture the Rapture. B Aga, i-DAT, Plymouth University
Exploring initiatives to capture and represent audience mood, evaluation and impact through a series of technological interventions based around i-DAT’s Social Operating System (S-OS.org).
Paper #4: Spatializing Invisible Matter, Stavros Didakis, i-DAT, Plymouth University.
Presenting and discussing current practices of computational media used for identifying, capturing, and transforming properties of an interior space, providing customized aesthetic environments.
Paper #5: The sonification and visualisation of small brain circuits: Plasticity and The Neurogranular Sampler. Jane Grant and John Matthias, Art and Sound Research, Plymouth
Introducing the collaborative artistic work from the Art and Sound Research group at Plymouth University with Kin Design which has been exploring ways of triggering live sound events from the brain.
Paper #6: For Dust Thou Art. Mike Phillips, i-DAT, Plymouth University.
Exploring the use of Atomic Force Microscopy for uncovering lost tales and histories through subtle audience interaction.

Remediating Urban Space Symposium

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Remediating Urban Space Symposium

Remediating Urban Space Symposium
Wednesday 6th June 2012 10.00– 16.30

Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK

Organised by: School of Architecture and i-DAT Plymouth University, UK
Keynote: Mark Shepard, University of Buffalo
Communication technologies remediate everyday urban life, resulting in subtle shifts in the spatial, temporal, scalar and material processes which are ‘all too often overlooked in conventional and binary approaches opposing the ‘virtual’ realm of new technologies to ‘real’ urban places’ (Crang 2007). We need to move beyond an artificially created dichotomy of a real and a virtual world as if the two were opposed. Instead, we must develop a new understanding of our activities and behaviour in the spaces of the city; since online and mobile socially networked spaces and realworld places are connecting and converging in numerous and complex ways. The challenge before us is finding ways to engage with these changes as designers. The aim of the workshop is to consider more fully the multiple, subtle, and interdependent spatio-temporalities which together work to constitute ICT-based urban change. How do we start to create meaningful spaces that merge digital and physical interactions?
The workshop will examine and propose design responses for how to remediate urban space through a range of ICT’s, locative media and smart objects. It will draw on an interdisciplinary field of architecture, human computer interaction, geography, media studies, art and sociology to explore questions of how urban space can be conceived and inhabited when it is mediated, and the nature of these mediated experiences at an everyday level. Contributions will be a mix of ideas/projects and case studies.
Programme:
9.30-10.00 am
coffee
10.00am
Session 1: The ‘internet of things’, social memory and networked objects
Chair: Chris Speed, Edinburgh College of Art, UK
Michiel de Lange (themobilecity.nl and Utrecht University, Netherlands)- Playing for ownership: mobile media and playful encounters
Emma Whittaker (www.expandednarrative.org, UK)- Locating Storyworlds: listening and feeling space and sound
Dimitrios Charitos (University of Athens, Greece)- “Where” is the space that we experience during locative media use ?
Karen Martin (University of Kent, UK)- In-between spaces: Interaction as material
12.00-1.00pm – Lunch
1.00-2.00pm
Keynote
Mark Shepard, University of Buffalo, USA
Sentient City
2.00pm
Session 2 Urban screens, urban public space and participation
Chair: Ava Fatah gen. Schieck, UCL, UK
Simona Lodi (Share festival, Italy)- Augmentation, information and immersion in spatial contexts
Lorena Melgacao (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil)- Long Distance Voodoo: social negotiation in the public space through remote actuation.
Marcos Pereira Dias (School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia)- New Experiences of Mediated Urban Space Through Participatory Networked Art
Martyn Dade-Robertson (University of Newcastle, UK)- Architectural User Interfaces
4.00-4.30
Alex Aurigi (Plymouth University, UK)
False Syntaxes: Why urban design thinking should help shaping the digital city
4.30-5.00pm
closing discussion/wrap up
Participation
There will be no registration fee, but in order to participate please confirm your attendance in advance to artsresearch@plymouth.ac.uk
Further Information: http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=38864

Devonport Open Event

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Devonport Open Event


Devonport Guildhall, Ker Street, Devonport
http://goo.gl/hl10k
ALL WELCOME
Friday 3rd February 2012
2pm – 4pm

 An one-off event showcasing a series of exploratory projects which
reveal invisible histories, memories and traces in and around Devonport. These projects embed and reveal information about the past, present and future. They explore the use of interactive mobile media, smart objects and projection to suggest new ways of experiencing, interacting and engaging with our built environment.
Background.
Fourty students from the Schools of Architecture and the Digital Art and Technology have worked to create interactive projects that address the following topic:
How can we bridge the gap between the digital and the physical, the material and the immaterial transforming the way we interact with the space around us?
Organisers:
Unit Inbetween, School of Architecture and i-Dat, University of Plymouth
with the kind support of RiO (Real Ideas Organisation)
Further information:
Katharine.willis@plymouth.ac.uk / Gianni.corino@plymouth.ac.uk
PDF flyer

ESF-CUC PhD Studentship Opportunity: Hundreds of Things

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ESF-CUC PhD Studentship Opportunity: Hundreds of Things

Hundreds of Things: the Internet of Things for Cultural Networks.
hundreds_of_things_phd_ad.pdf
i-DAT, in collaboration with University College Falmouth, invites applications for a 3-year full-time PhD studentship to engage in an applied, practice based research project to explore the potential of smart networked technologies (topically described as the ‘Internet of Things’) to map and evaluate the movement and relationships of people and resources across a geographically distributed communities.
Project overview:
The research will take place through collaborating cultural and heritage venues and regional art galleries distributed across Cornwall. These venues act as active nodes on a dynamic network, linking communities of local residents to a transient community of visitors. They operate as conduits for exchange for ideas, knowledge and physical objects. They also become nodes on more problematic seasonal networks, such as supply chains for food, traffic and amenities (water, electricity and sewerage).
The research will engage in participatory design process through the use ‘provocative prototypes’ or ‘cultural probes’. It will explore the use of smart networked technologies, such as RFID’s, networked sensors, mobile phones, web and embedded technologies, to reveal the complex processes that exist within this networked ecology.
Applicants should therefore have accomplished digital media production skills, such as programming (such as processing, AS3, max msp php, java, etc) and hardware and basic electronics (such as arduino, xbee, RFID, etc).
These processes can be described as a ‘techno-ethnography’ that embraces quantitative data (such as server hits, financial transactions, GPS tracking of artefacts and people, etc) and qualitative data (such as stories, images, audio/visual recordings and conversations).
The research builds on i-DAT’s research projects that can be found at: http://www.i-dat.org/
Supervisory team
Mike Phillips, Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Director of i-DAT (www.i-dat.org) , University of Plymouth, Faculty of Art, Centre for Media Art & Design Research.
Phil Stenton, Professor of Pervasive Media and Associate Dean for Research & Enterprise at the School of Media and Performance at University College Falmouth.
(‘Hundreds of Things’ refers to the geographic division of Cornwall).
How to apply:
For an application form and full details on how to apply, please visit www.plymouth.ac.uk/pghowtoapply. Applications should be made by using the PDF application form or the Word application form. Printed application forms are also available and can be obtained from the Course Information Unit, Tel: +44 (0) 1752 585858, Email: prospectus@plymouth.ac.uk.
On completion send your application form to:
Sue Matheron by email: susan.matheron@plymouth.ac.uk or posted to:
Faculty of Arts
Research and Graduate Affairs Office
Room 305
Roland Levinsky Building
Plymouth, PL4 8AA
Further information on the terms and conditions of a PhD at the University of Plymouth can be found on www.plymouth.ac.uk/graduateschool.
Application deadline: 12 noon, Friday 3 June 2011
Please contact Professor Mike Phillips (mike.phillips@plymouth.ac.uk) for further information and an informal discussion regarding the research.