Not grown out, but growing up to play (with Aninstalation)

Before we can even speak we play, it is an “ancient biological structure that existed before our consciousness or ability to speak. For example the natural tussling of kittens just happens…Like digestion, play in its most basic form proceeds without a complex Intellectual framework (Brown 2010: 15)¹. Not only does play seem to be hard wired, it also seems to be essential for our well being and mental stability.

Brown “interviewed 26 convicted Texas murderers for a small pilot study, he discovered that most of the killers, including Whitman, shared two things in common: they were from abusive families, and they never played as kids. Brown did not know which factor was more important. But in the 42 years since, he has interviewed some 6,000 people about their childhoods, and his data suggest that a lack of opportunities for unstructured, imaginative play can keep children from growing into happy, well-adjusted adults. ” (Wenner 2009: 1, Scientific America)².

Play in children has been studied extensively but in adults most play related research has focused around games. But some see play in adults being very different to play in children. “Child’s play occupies a more narrow range of behaviours than the play of adults. Play is just one component of the complex social existence of the working adult and one that is rarely analysed..Adults may play less often than children, yet adults have knowledge, abilities and freedom of action which enables them to play in times and paces which are not available to children. ‘ (Stevens 2007: 27)³.

It is this knowledge and understanding that made The Anistalation Project⁴ I was involved with work so well. It is true that children would enjoy the experience but the skills and knowledge of adults enabled them to benefit from it on another level. People often refer to growing up and even growing out of playing but in a way adults take play to another level and grow up to play in more sophisticated ways than children. In Aninstalation Project adults brought an understanding of the grammar and vernacular of animation to the experience. Young children may have a seance of this but do not necessary have the skills to put this into practice.

In a previous blog posting, Fundamentals of Play⁵, I attempted to define play. I have since looked at Browns work and in some way agree with him that “Defining play seems to me like explaining a joke – it takes the fun out of it” (Brown 2010: 16). This said he was once forced to come up with a Definition of play when talking to engineers and came up wit the following properties:

• Apparently purposesless (done for its own sake)
• Voluntary
• Inherent attraction
• Freedom from time
• Diminished consciousness from self
• Improvisational potential
• Continuation desire

By apparently purposesless Brown means they do not have a apparent survival value (i.e. food, shelter) and therefore by some considered pointless. This seems why it is normally considered to be voluntary and for me this links nicely to its inherent attraction, it must be something that seems to have merit for its own sake. Freedom from time seems an important element due to its seemingly purposeless nature and for games relates to the idea of being ‘in the game’, lost in time and space. By Improvisational Potential Brown talks about “not being locked into a rigid way of doing things, we are open to serendipity, to chance” (Brown 2010: 18) . I find property of Continuation desire useful in that play is generally voluntary and something we wish to continue doing, stopping it ‘spoils our fun’ but needs clarifying. It is not necessarily boundless, we do not necessarily want to engage in it indefinitely and a ludic activity we only want to engage in for a few minutes are still valid.

Browns properties of play seems to compliment Roger Callious framework for lidic engagement. Brown looking at properties of play and Callious looking at different types of play. We can look at The Animation Machine using Brown properties.

• Apparently purposesless – Looking at it in this context Brown seems to be implying there is no point in fun but in terms of it not having a purpose connected with survival the Animation Machine passes this ‘test’
• Voluntary – people were asked to come, we did not even bribe them with mice pies, they came of there own free will. When they arrived all but one participated.
• Freedom from time – Most people who came spent several houses and many got absorbed by creating the animation. After people had created several animations due to the time based nature of the process the three minutes it took to make the animation did not seem a problem. Often the first time they did it it they commented on how long it took.
• Diminished consciousness from self – As the movements needed to create the animations involve people holding strange postures engaging in the activity can make people feel self conscious. Generally this did not seem to cause a problem and for those it did the group activities helped them overcome this.
• Improvisational attraction – The Animation Machine was designed around the principle of Improvision and there is certainly a level of chance.
• Continuation desire – the amount of time people who stayed indicates this and some were engaged for the majority of the time. On person seemed unwilling to stop and his said, will leave in 5 minutes on several occasions to his partner (not a problem as she seemed to be enjoying spectating).

For me the project has been a great success and I think it has potential in the future for the following applications:

To be used in schools to teach animation. Animation generally takes a long time to produce and the project creates an animation every four minutes. Hopefully this would get kids exited.

• In museums and exhibitions to teach animation and make people think about time. As The Animation Machine is automatic it can be left untended.
• In amusement parks and other public spaces. It provides a fun activity that is cost effective and can be engaged with by multiple people. One application in amusement parks would be to have it pointed at the queues to give people something to do while waiting.
• Clubs, Bars and Pubs. I think it would work well in a Club situation where DJs are playing. Dance is all about movement and this would be another way for people to use movement in there social life.

References

1. Brown, Stuart 2010 Play, How It Shpes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, Lindon, Penguin
2. Melinda Wenner 2009 The Serious Need for PLay, Scientific America, February, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-serious-need-for-play consulted 9/1/2011
3. Quentin, Stevens 2007 The Ludic City, Oxon, Routledge
4. Aninstalation. Presenting the Animation Machine, 2010, http://digitalmediaplay.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/aninstalation-presenting-the-animation-machine/, consulted on 9/1/2011
5. Ben Edwards, 2011, Fundamentals of play blog posting, http://digitalmediaplay.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/fundamentals-of-play/ consulted 9/1/2011

Three minutes later

On 29th December 2001 we took the animation machine to the PESC New Gallery on Jamaica Street in Bristol.  I will start with some of the animation sequences that were created.  For each I have shown the sequence twice and then shown how it was created.  The latter is speeded up to 300% as this shows the process well.

Circle of Cups

Spinning

Cup Run Away

Not So Fast

Switch and Squat

The venue we managed to secure was on in Stokes Croft around a mile from the centre of Bristol. It had large windows which meant that using a video projector was going to be a challenge.  I have used video projectors in the day before and as long as you do not want a very large image is works well. Partly to reduce the light and partly to stop people seeing in to make them inquisitive we hung blackout over the bottom 6 foot of the windows.

We decided that it was a good idea to have the event between Christmas and new year because I have found it to be a time when not a lot is happening but there are still people around.  We only had a week to promote the event but as it was a work in progress we did not want a lot of people to cone, we were aiming for 10-15.  It was publicised using Facebook with the following description:

Anistallation – An interactive installation using animation and photography
Come along to a private viewing of a work in progress at PRSC New Gallery Jamaica Street of an interactive installation using user created animation and photography.

We deliberately left the description quite vague as experimentation was a big part of what we wanted people to be interested in and we did not want to give people any preconceptions as to what the event was going to involve.

The housing had been completed by Jon and everything was assembled. The idea was to make it look like a large camera to give people the idea that there picture was going to be taken. The animation machine consisted of a single unit with the camera in the front and the projector at the back.  This was to give the idea of it being a single unit (machine) that automatically created the animations.

One thing that became apparent very quickly was that the spectators were enjoying the installation almost as much as the participants, sometimes more.  As an installation it had to be engaging for those not directly creating the animation sequences.  Those watching also acted as entrenchment for those participating. The enjoyment of the spectators was particularly apparent when the sequences were played back, this really invigorated people and there were lots of big smiles and laughs.  People were sometimes reluctant to try to create animations until they had seen people doing it.  Also some people much preferred to take part where several people were engaging at once.  I think this was partly because people were self conscious.  A good example of this was the spinning animation.  A lot of people got involved in this as it was very simple, more and more people started engaging and eventually almost everybody was involved.

Using Roger Caillois framework I noted the following:

There was defiantly a lot of velocity based play.  The spinning animation is a good example of this and several people found moving fast between frames to position themselves enjoyable.  As engaging with the exhibit almost always involved movement it was interesting to see many people enjoying this for there own sake.  In a way trying to stand still for long periods is also a velocity experience.  This may of been to hold a pose and wait for the camera to take a picture or stand still while others move around you.

Due to the nature of the exhibit chance is a big part of the experience as you don’t know quite when the camera will take a picture.  It is not until the sequence is played that you know exactly how well your ideas will work.  When groups of people engage at once this becomes even more so.  Not having the shutter release sound also added to this.

It was interesting to watch the relationship between velocity, chance and skill.  The more velocity based activities such as spinning relied more on chance and the more precise ones such as the circle of cups required a lot of skill. The skill included judging when the shutter would fire and judging the amount of movement needed to create the sequence you wanted.

Simulation was a big part of the more intricate sequences such as Circle of Cups.  It was almost possible to put velocity at one end and simulation at the other of a continent.  Some of the sequence were random and velocity based and some trying to simulate things that happen and sometimes things that do not.

We did not implement the shutter release noise and this meant that people tried to work out exactly when the picture was being taken which for some was enjoyable but some people found it a little frustrating.  For more velocity based activities such as moving slowly this did not matter.

When people were trying to be more precise such as moving an object and wanting it to look like it was moving on its own this was more crucial.  The Circle of Cups sequence is a good example of this.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how long we should record the sequences for and the frame-rate we would use when compiling the video file. One thing a few people observed was that 3 minutes seemed like a long time when doing the same thing (e.g. spinning) so I am glad I kept the duration to a minimum.  To get good looking movement a frame rate of at least 5 frames per second  is required and that requires 60 pictures to create a sequence of 8 seconds.  Playing the video 3 times seemed to work well as it enabled people to see what they had created without missing anything. I think we got the balance right, although people commented on the duration no one abandoned creating a sequence half way.

We played different types of music during the event and it seemed to have an effect.  When ambient movement was played people tended to be more graceful and faster music created more hectic reactions.  We also found that props worked well.  Some enjoyed animation just biased on moving there body but when props were provided, such as cups, people tended to engage in more skill based play. The cups were particularly successful.

If I was to do the exhibit again I think I would make it easier for people to know when the shutter would fire.  I like the element of randomness you get when you do not know when the shutter fires but even if you know you can still ignore it.  If we did it again I would of had a series of bleeps similar to that of a countdown when a camera is on a self timer and I think this would work well.  I would also have more props as some of the most fun sequences involved cups and I would like to encourage more of this.

Aninstalation, presenting The Animation Machine

The result of the play-testing described in the previous post confirmed our belief that we were on the right track to create a playful experience.  Not only were we enjoying the playfulness but others were also enjoying watching it and wanted to take part.  This relates nicely to a book I have been reading.

“After five hours driving over the tire-melting highway of the Nevada and Utah deserts I am beat.  My Yellow Lab, Jake, shares this emotion. He drapes across the back seat all the air let out of him…I shut down the engine and the dust cloud that has been following us blankets the car.  Then something miraculous happens. I open the door for Jake and he freezes, every sense aquifer. He instantly takes in the whole scene: A bright August day, four acres of pasture, a dozen horses, my Cousin Al, his for kids, and two dogs…In half a second Jake is flying out of the door, a blond blur zipping towards the pasture.  He races at full gallop one way and reverses, paws tearing up the dirt in the opposite direction. his mouth is agape, the corners pulled back in a canine grin…The children squealing with delight..The adults are soon whooping and running ” (Brown 2010: 3).

What we are witnessing here is the invigorating nature of play and of watching it, Stuart Brown has studied animals and people and play is important and invigurating for both. The above represents (in Roger Cailois’s terms) unstructured (Paida) play and this is what I am interested in.  The Animation Machine we have built capitalises on this.  As well as being a playful experience for the participants it is also enjoyable for the spectators.   As The Animation Machine ‘films’ a fairly large area multiple people can create different animations or combine and work together.

Rules and Mechanics

At this point I would like to make a distinction between rules and mechanics.  The Ludic activities we are setting up are unstructured but this does not mean they do not have mechanics.  Rules can be broken, mechanics can not.  The way the animation machine works is purely mechanics but there are not any rules.  This way we keep the forms of ludic activities as free as possible.

“I’ve seen a lot of designers use these words interchangeably. Personally, though, I don’t see Rules and Mechanics as the same thing. As children, we were told to “always obey the rules.” However, the rules could be bent, or even broken, if we so desired. Mechanics, on the other hand, are what make the big machine work, in this case, the game. Mechanics are the things we CAN do. Rules are the things we can’t.” (Shades of Silver Blog)2.

In this way we are interested in play rather than games. The underlying pineapple of Games is they contain rules

“Games have rules, that is perhaps the most prominent feature of games…in the previous chapter, the idea that games were ordered and structured by rules was the most common definitional element we found” (Salen et al 2004: 103)3

The Animation Machine

OK, maybe I am getting ahead of myself a little.  I think I now need to describe The Animation Machine. This automates the play testing I talked about in the previous post.  The Animation Machine consists of a digital Stills camera that is connected and controlled from a netbook via a USB Cable. This camera is pointed at a empty area where the participants can position themselves. The netbook is connected to a video projector which can project on the wall.   The Animation Machine does the following:

1. Takes a picture every 3 seconds a predetermined number of times, these pictures are downloaded onto a laptop as they are taken.
2. Turns these images into a .avi file, a video file.
3. Plays the video via the video projector.
4. goes back to step 1.

This way the Animation Machine caries taking pictures, making a move and playing it in a loop until it is turned off, automating the process.

The Hardware

Camera and Wide Angle Lens

The camera is a Canon Powershot S2 IS.  Researching what type of camera is needed I found that we did not need a very high resolution one.  Fill HD video is 1920 by 1080 so this is only Just over 2 mega-pixels (MP).  I had decided to use gphoto2 (see below) to control the camera and there were only certain cameras that can be fully controlled from this software (Canon seem to of done something with there later models which stop gphoto2 working with them).  The Powershot is 5MP, can be controlled by gphoto2, is small and a used one can be got for around £50.

We also decided that it would be good to have a wide angle lens so the area that is being filmed could be maximised.  I found a good quality Wide Angle Lens of Ebay for under £20.

Netbook

As we wanted the whole thing to be portable I used a netbook running the Ubuntu Linux operating system.  This is open source and very reliable.  All the software we wanted to use was readily available and free.

Video Projector

As we wished to project the images we used a smallish video projector.  This was something I already had.

Casing

As we wanted The Animation Machine to be seen as a single unit we wanted to build it into a casing.  The initial version used a banana box with holes for Camera and Projector lens. The video projector vented hot air forward so we simply made the hole bigger to stop it overheating.

The Software

BASH Script

We decided to use a BASH script to call each program and create an infatuate loop.  The script simply contains calls to a number of programs.  The script will be walked through below.

Gphoto2

This software is used to control the camera.  We experimented with getting it to take a series of images and downloading them all to the Netbook but decided to get gphoto2 to take a picture and download each in turn as it was technically easier.  The gphoto2 command we uses was:

gphoto2 --capture-image-and-download --filename $NAME.jpg

This worked well and took around 3 seconds.

$NAME is a variable that is defined so each image has a unique and name.  The name the Julian second.  Julian Day is used in astronomy to denote the number of days since January 1, 4713 BC Greenwich noon.  Julian seconds gives the seconds since then and acts as a counter which increments every second (and is sequential).  The following command is used to define the $NAME:

NAME=pic`date +%s`.jpg

This uses the Linux date command to read the Julian seconds, prefix it with ‘pic’, suffix it with ‘.jpg’ and assign it to the variable NAME.

Memcoder

Memcoder allows a series of images files to be combined into a video file.  It allows the frame-rate and resolution of the video to be defines.  The command line we used for this is:

mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=$FPS:type=jpg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=$VCODEC -vf scale=$SIZE -oac copy -o $AVI

There are a number of variables that are used in this command, they are defined at the beginning of the script.  The values we use are:

• AVI=`date +%s`.avi

• FPS=10

• SIZE='1280:960'

• PHOTO_COUNTER=60

• VCODEC='mpeg4:mbd=2:trell:vbitrate=7000'

AVI is used to give the video file a name, this is done is a similar way to NAME above using Julian seconds. FPC is frames per second, SIZE is the resolution of the video and the VCODEC tells memcoder how to encode the video.

Mplayer

mplayer is used to play the move when it has been assembled.

mplayer -fs $AVI

-fs stands for full screen.

Brief look at playfulness

To look at how and why The Animation Machine is playful  I will first outline it using the Roger Caillious framework.  My initial thoughts were that we were dealing with velocity based play and this is certainly true but further thinking leads me to conclude we are actually dealing with 4 in his framework.

• velocity, there is certainly a element of velocity in the animation machine.  The creating of the animation is a movement based activity.  The participants can place them selves carefully or run around in a ‘playful’ manor.
• simulation, as the participants are animation themselves they can use the Machine to create a simulation of the real world.  This tends to be a stylised hyperreal version but can often be based on trying to simulate real movements.
• chance, creating the animations is a bit hit and miss, especially when multiple people are trying to position themselves even when trying to create a predetermined animation sequence. It is also possible to simply move around and let chance take it toll.
• competition, this is the least prevalent and obvious one.  The trying to create a predetermined sequence can be seen as competing with ones self to create the best sequence.  In a way I take composition to also mean skill in general and in this context it certainly exists.  It is also possible for different groups or individuals to compete to create the most interesting, or even playful animation.

Almost There

So far we have created the animation machine and been playfully wit tit ourselves.  The next steps are:

• To build a more interesting housing.  The current box serves its purpose but a large paper-machay SLR camera is being built to house it.
• To add audio.  This is both in terms of a loud camera click so users can tell when the picture is taken and possibly a set of sound-scapes to see how people react.

References

1. Brown,Stuart 2010,Play,How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination,and Invigorates the Soul, Lindon,Penguin
2. Silverstein,Dan2008ShadesofSilverBlog,http://dsilvers.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/mechanics-vs-rules/consulted23/11/2011
3. Salen & Zimmerman 2004 Rules on Play, Massachusetts , MIT Press

Playtesting Near-Realtime Animation

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “animation” as “the act of producing ‘moving pictures’; the technique, by means of which movement is given, on film, to a series of drawings (esp. for an animated cartoon)”(Oxford English Dictionary)1.  This is normally done by setting up a shot, taking a picture and then setting up another shot.  The setting up of a shot involves such activities as moving a clay figure or putting a new picture in front of the camera.  The amount of time between shots varies as there may be a lot of different activities needed.  The pressing of the shutter is done manually.

Then there is time lapse photography where a picture is taken at intervals (i.e. every five seconds).  Where this becomes simpler to animation is if the pictures are strung together in a sequence as a video.  This is the idea behind The Animation Machine that is the heart of the project I am currently working on.  The idea is that the pictures are taken and the video is created automatically.  This is why I am referring it as Near-Realtime animation.  The pictures are taken as time-lapse, the video is made and is then played.  You may be able to argue with the phrase Near-Real-Time but I think it gives a good idea of what is happening.

The first stage we went through is experimenting (or playing) with time-lapse photography and making videos out the the sequences.  We then experiment with different intervals, shutter-speeds and frame-rates for the video.  The frame-rate does not have any relation to the interval.  We can take a picture every 10 seconds but create a frame-rate of 25 frames a second (25 pictures are played every second).  The intervals are to allow the ‘players’ to reposition themselves.  Choose a too short interval and the players will not have time to reposition themselves.  Choose a too long interval and the players will get board.  Different frame rates will alter how ‘hectic’ the video look and how smoothly the movement is.  Slow frame-rates will make the sequence jumpy and faster frame-rates will make the movement more fluid.

“For standard quality web animation, there are 12 frames per second; high quality web animation downloaded over high bandwidth goes up to 15 frames per second – which is, coincidentally, the default frame rate for standard quality television animation. 24 frames per second can be either high quality TV animation, or low quality cinematic animation, while high quality cinematic animation is generally 30 fps. ” (About.com)1.

To do the experiments we use a Canon 550D with a interval times (an attachment that let the interval be set and a picture taken every interval).  I used Blender to animate the sequences, this is an open source software application available from http://www.blender.org/.  It allows image sequences to be loaded, frame rates to be set and the sequences exported as video files.

Experiments with different intervals indicated that 3 seconds was enough time to reposition a person.  This means that 60 pictures would take 3 minutes to take.  This would give 8.5 seconds at 7FPS, 5 seconds at 12 FPS and 2.4 seconds of video at 25FPS.

The first set of tests are to look at how different frame-rates look.

25 Frames Per Second

This creates a fairly hectic sequence and obviously the video is very short.  I feel we need at least 5 seconds of video to be player for people to be able to work out what is going on so it is not the frame-rate we need.

12 Frames Per Second

5 seconds (for 6 frames) is just about usable and still looks good.

7 Frames Per Second

This starting to get a nice long video and alough movment is jurky it still looks good.

5 Frames Per Second

Starting to get quite jumpy

3 Frames Per Second

This is very jumpy but not totally unusable.

I personally thing 7FPS is the speed to go for.  The sequences all look a bit hyper-real and 7FPS gives a reasonably long sequence and not to jerky.  The real question is is will people be prepared to wait for 3 minutes before seeing the sequences.  If they are not we may have to drop the frame-rate.

These were done at a fairly slow shutter speed (1/10 second) and the slight blurriness looks quite nice. Below is a example with a faster shutter speed (1/40 second).  The result of looking at this makes me think the shutter speed is not that important alough when using slower frame rates I would tend to go for a higher shutter speed, for fast frame rates (over 12) I think it does not matter.

As well as trying out interval timing we also decided to play with lights and fire (matches).  The lights were inspired by light painting and the fire a natural progression (but not practical in a public space).

These two images were created using white and red bike lights.  The red lights were used to point the face red and the white to trace around the outside of the body.  Exposures of several seconds were used had the subjects tried to stay still.

These images were created by striking several matches at once.  The long exposures mean that as well as fire painting movements can create ghost like images.

This last image uses a verry long exposure (around 30 seconds) to allow people to place themselves several times in the picture.

The result of this playful flay testing was that we decided to use 7 frames per second.  The experiments with light paining were interesting but we decided that trying to do the animation with very long exposures would make the repositioning of people more difficult and was likely to create very blurred images. It would also take a very long time (i.e. over 20 minutes).

References

1. Oxford English Dictionary, http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/animation consulted 30/11/2011
2. About.com animation, http://animation.about.com/od/faqs/f/faq_fpsnumber.htm consulted 03/11/2011

 

A Ludic Project

For my MA in Media Culture and Practice one of the projects in the first semester is to ‘Make a project that explores playful / simulatioal / game like aspects of the contemporary media landscape through the mechanics of play and / or games themselves.’.

This was a group project so the first thing we had to do was ensure everybody involved was enthusiastic about the idea.
My initial idea was a locational mobile phone application involving oral history collected from people in an area. The idea was to structure it like a treasure hunt and have various types of activities. My idea was to have the different activities relate to different types of play and using Roger Calises model to investigate what types of play people enjoy. Others were interested in pursuing a project where unstructured play was a fundamental looking at how unstructured play was enjoyed, possibly involving movement and dance.

One thing we had in common was an interest in doing something in physical spaces and looking at how people interacted with spaces. We also realise we had to create something which was doable in the time period allocated. We discussed a number of ideas surrounding digitally mapping people’s location in space and realised we were interested in projects which allowed people to be creative and experimental.

Watching contemporary dance pieces by Erika Janunger(1) which played with ideas of physical space and gravity, there was definitely ludic elements of velocity. We discussed a project where mechanical controller was built to send (probably text messages) to a player to control the player in a space. One of the ideas we thought about was having the person have a large pencil or brush and direct them to create shapes, the person controlled did not know what they were. We considered that this might be done as the competition where 2 groups of people could race to create a shape or set of shappes. The fundamental problem with this was the only involved two players. We started thinking about ideas where multiple people could engage and wanted the spectators to have a ludic experience as well as the players.

The idea which emerge was one of allowing people to create animations of themselves. A video camera which took the frame every few seconds would be installed in the space. This would be quite a wide angle so that multiple people could engage. This would happen for a number of minutes and then what has been recorded would be played back as a stop frame animation.
The development of the idea consisted of starting off with a white space with a video screen and a video camera. Entering the space you would have no idea what was going on, people would not be briefed. After a few minutes the first animation sequence would be played and people would begin to realise what was going on. People should then engage with the exhibit practecing their animations. The beauty of this is that there are multiple types of animation can be created. People could work as individuals or as groups. People could create fluid animations where they slowly moved or simply position themselves in random positions and be jumping all over the place.

One of the problems we envisage is people not realising exactly what’s going on and not knowing what the timing of both the loop and how often the pictures are taken. To get round this problem we came up with two separate ideas. The first was to install the countdown timer which showed when the new animation sequence would be played. The second was to have a shutter release sound being played whenever a picture was taken. This would allow people to position themselves for the new frame and know when they could position himself for the next.

Part of the project is to analyse how people engage with the exhibit. It would be interesting to see how people of different ages reacted to the experience. As well as recording the whole session on a videocamera with audio it may also be worth having debriefing sessions.
 Other things that were considered were having objects in the room that people could interact with. Maybe a table and a bunch of chairs. These would probably also be white. We could also has an geometric objects like cylinders and cones which people move around. Maybe these could be brightly coloured and the rest of the space would be white. We also thought about using music to set the mood. We were curious as to whether the types of music that was being played would affect the type of animations would create.

Technically there are a number of challenges. The first challenge is capturing the individual pictures through the videocamera, or maybe a stills camera, and getting them onto a computer. The second is finding a way of combining the set of images into an animated sequence. This sequence would then be played on the screen. The third challenge is that of timing and coordination. There is also a challenge of both having the countdown timer and the shutter release sound synchronise with what’s happening.

My experience of computer development leads me to think that this can be achieved through simple computer scripting. Each of the elements could be a separate script which runs at the same time. The first script could simply collect images from the camera and place them in a directory this script would run everyone to 3 or five seconds depending on how often wanted pictures taken. The second script would run every five or 10 min. This script would copy all the images from one directory into a working directory. It would then call a program which would turn all the images into an animated sequence. Lastly it would play the animated sequence on the video projector. At the end of the second script, the one which grabs the images, each time and images grabbed the audio for the shutter release can be played.

The countdown timer can be achieved in a number of ways. The first would be a bespoke display LCD or LED which would simply start from a number of minutes and countdown to 0. The easiest way to keep this in sync may be to send a reset signal to the display every time the sequence needs to be started. This can be sent by one of the scripts. A possibly easy solution would be to render the countdown sequence electronically player through either a second video projector or superimpose it on the main video projector having a countdown running in maybe the bottom right-hand corner. Having the countdown generated digitally may well make it easy to integrate it with the other scripts.

Refarence

1. Weightless by Erika Janunger, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiJhRjBEm6o consulted 15/11/2011

The balance between the physical and digital elements of museums

In the MShed is an exhibit that may of been in the previous incantation of the MShead, The Industrial Museum. A 1930s Bus (smiler to the one show left) may not seem one of the most progressive things to find in a modern museum, but for me this illustrates what is wrong with way technology has taken on an almost fetish nature in this type of space. To often technology has become the basis of the exhibit, rather than a way to augment to exhibits. The problem is that at home we have access to computers and media which is much more engaging than that of modern museums. In the 90s it may of been cool to have screens and keyboards but now most primary children take this type of this for granted.

Anyway back to the bus. In some ways the ‘mode of exhibition’ is modern, in that you can actually go inside and clime up the stares rather than having a roap around it as is traditional. It is not exactly an interactive exhibit but you can interact with it. In the bus there is a conductors jacket and hat. This is simply on the bottom deck allowing the visitor to put it on. So far we are just being presented with a bus. The experience has been added to by the addition of audio being played. These include the sounds you would get on the bus and stories. One such recounts how there were no men to drive the bus in the war so women had to drive them. This inspired a group of filmmakers to make a short animation to go with the recording (although this is not part of the exhibit).

The recordings give an extra dimension to the bus, the problem with a static bus in a building is that although you can see exactly what a bus looks like you do not get a notion of what a bus is, or more precisely, what was a bus like and what was its cultural and social significance at the time the bus was used. Siting in the bus listening to the recording gives us a what Roger Caillois would of referred to as ludic mimicry (simulation). The bus on its own is not a ludic simulation but if you add recording of bus noises the bus becomes a simulation of what a bus was like rather than just what the bus is physically. Therefore a bus can be a simulation of itself. Now days simulation is often used in relation to virtual reality or games. However when Caillois wrote Homo Ludens in 1938 he would be using a very traditional definition of simulation, referring to mimicking a real object or experience rather than a modern cultural definition. Although these new uses of the word are culturally significant it does not meant that the more traditional use is not also usefull.

Siting in the bus you imagine what it was like to be a passing in the war, the bus becomes a simulation of the essence of what the bus once was. In some ways, especially for kids the bus also has another ludic quality, what Caillois refers to as Ilinx (vertigo), as the kids run up and down the stairs playing at being passengers. Whey this is significant is that it is the Ilinx quality that is the most difficult to attain with multi-media screen and keyboard type exhibits, but it is exactly the quality that makes physical exhibits that you can interact with work so well. Even for an adult going on a WW2 spitfire there is both a sense of ludic simulation and velocity. Talking about the mediation of museums Henning states:

“I see the process of translation and circulation and having various implications and working on various levels. Firstly, as Barry suggests, it involved changes in the relationship between the body and visitor. The visitors body replaces the museum artefact as the thing that is examined in the display space, but also becomes increasing subject to monitoring and surveillance. Second, as mentioned above, it involves shifts in the way visitors are conceded of as political subjects. Third, and central to my argument about the museum at media form, it involves changes in the way material artefacts perform in the museum setting the word setting, changes in what visitors are interacting with – to the extent that interactivity in the science Museum has begun to move away from being about hands on interaction with the material and physical worlds.” (Henning 2006: 9)

I feel that this moving away from hands on interactions is failing to capitalise on the way that it is these physical interactions which differentiate physical museums. This give a level of ludic interaction of a type not present in purely digital exhibits, in Caillois’s terms the velocity element. For me the future of museums should be combining the physical and digital new media elements capitalising on the strengths of each. This does not mean that there are not places for totally digital exhibits, or total mechanical exhibits. One of the challenges for the curator in contemporary museums  is to get the balance right.

Bibliography

Henning, Michelle 2006, Museums, Media & Cultural Theory, Oxford, Open University Press

Is the future of museums in ideas from the past?

“In 1627 the scientist and philosopher Francis Bacon described an imaginary science centre designed for both amusement and hand-on investigation of scientific phenomena in his unfinished book The New Atlantis. This dream did not become reality until 1969 when the Exploratorium was founded in San Francisco by the US scientist Frank Oppenheimer. It was this place that inspired Professor Richard Gregory, CBE, of the University of Bristol, to start up the Exploratory in 1983 – the first hands-on science centre in the UK. By the time The Exploratory closed finally on September 1st 1999 it had attracted over two million visitors.” exploritory.org.

It is interesting that 1999 is sited as the closure of The Exploratory.  It did not close through lack of popularity, in fact the opposite was true.  It was one of the only science/nature exhibitions which was self sustaining.  Rather than government grants it survived on entry fees and donations alone.  In 1987 visitor numbers had reached 100,000/year and by 1989 had doubled to 200,000/year. There were stories of school kids who visited talking about it for weeks.

In around 2005 The Exploratory became part of a consortium which won a large amount of Lottery Funding.  As part of this full control of The Exploratory was handed over to the consortium.  When Explore @ Bristol was launched the mechanical ‘plores‘ of The Exploratory were replaced with multimedia exhibits.  This was not supported by Professor Gregory, indeed everybody who had originally been involved with The Exploratory were not retained by the new organisation.

“‘Plore’ is coined because there is no existing word having the required meaning. The equivalent museum words ‘Demonstration’, ‘Working Model’, ‘Artefact’, or the most commonly used, ‘Exhibit’ (which one may note can be used as a noun or a verb) are far too passive in meaning and specifically associated with passive viewing; but we wish to include the touching, handling and generally active exploration which is the essence of the Exploratory. So we call our hands-on models, experimental apparatus, puzzles and games-against-nature ‘Plores’ – to be explored in the Exploratory by Explorers.” exploritory.org.

This was partly a sign of the times, in the late 90s everyone was exited by computers and museums and science exhibits saw computers as the was forward to capture visitors imagination.  Looking at modern Museums (e.g. M Shead Bristol) the multimedia components seem uninspiring to me.  I think the main problem is that they do not give us anything than computers at home can.  In some ways they give us less than the internet. They also are not much good for spectators.  Tom Bennet, a Pervasive Media practitioner biased at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol talked about not only the direct participants but also the spectators should engaging with exhibits.  He was talking about installations in buildings (such as stately homes) but this also seems true for museums and science exhibits. It is one thing for an individual or small group to be engaged by an exhibit, if it is also engaging for spectators it could be seen to be of far greater value.  In the M Shead, Bristol there are large screens with big buttons which when pressed  play various videos on a large screen (which video depends on the button).  This may not be very interactive but I did find others in the area sometimes were also watching the screen, so to some extent the spectators were also participants.

For me the best experience in the M Shead was sitting in the old double decker bus which plays stories about Bristol (some related to buses) through the speakers. Having large old vehicles in a Museum may seem like a dated idea but it is using the physical space to give you an experience that you would not otherwise have.  The Museum of Aviation in Belgrade is a good example of this.  Visitors are allowed to touch and clime on exhibits, there is even the wreckage of a F-117 Nighthawk (stealth bomber) you can prod.

Museums may be designed to teach but it is the ludic qualities they have that seem to work best.  Simply being able to go inside, look at and physical interact with exhibits satisfies what Roger Caillois referes to as Ilinx (vertigo) ludic qualities.  The Exploratory and it forerunners capitalised on other ludic qualities.  As well as the ludic vertigo qualities of the mechanical exhibits, or plores, could cover quite a range of other ludic qualities.  They were designed as experiments which had elements of chance and simulation.  If the exhibits are designed as games with a score this adds composition to the mix.  At this point we have all four of Caillois’s ludic qualities.

For physical museums and exhibitions where they can differentiate themselves from online or multimedia is the ability for them to have vertigo ludic qualities.  There physical nature seems there biggest asset.  Keyboards and screens may be a good way for us to explore the physical objects but if you are going to have a physical museum not having physical objects seems like missing the whole point.

I am not saying computers and modern technology do not have a place in these types of spaces, but that they should be combined with something that is physical (e.g mechanical) to create a experience that engage the senses and is good to watch others doing as well as doing oneself.  The Exploratory managed to do incredible things with little funding.  Using its ideas and adding modern technology should create exhibits that are engaging for both adults and children alike.  So rather than having multimedia exhibits should we not return to the philosophy started by Francis Bacon and used to make The Exploratory such as success.

We are Cyborge, is Pervasive Media cybonetic

Recently I have been pondering the idea of Cyborg in Gaming and how this relates to Pervasive Media but first lets take a step back and start from a look at Interactivity. Oxford Dictionaries defines Interactive as ‘allowing a two-way flow of information between a computer and a computer-user; responding to a user’s input:a fully interactive map of the area‘.  This is a very computer orientated detention and an alternative wider definition is ‘reciprocal action, effect, or influence‘ (Dictionary.com). For the origins of the word Interaction it simply states the word Interact which it defines as “act in such a way as to have an effect on each other:all the stages in the process interact”.  The origin of Interact seem to step from the prefix inter-  “a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin, where it meant “between,” “among,” “in the midst of,” “mutually,” “reciprocally,” “together,” “during” ( intercept; interest );” (Dictionary.com) and action “the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim” (Dictionary.com).

So the word Interactivity (A derivative of interactive)  seems to refer to a direct cause and effect relationship between a person and another entity (i.e. a computer). In new media this can be seen as “Technically the ability of the user to intervene in computer processes and see the effects of the interaction in real time” (Lister et al 2009: 424)1 and this text goes on to say “Also used in communication theory to describe human communication based on a dialogue and exchange.”.  Up to now all the definitions seem to be describing a cause and effect type of interaction.  The person does x and y happened.  There are taking about and action rather than a chain of events.  Although they do not explicitly prohibit the action to be a chain of events these definitions do not talk about it.

Although Games are defiantly interactive in nature to describe them as simply Interactive seems inadequate.  In the early 1990s Peter Lunenfeld  distinguishes between two paradigms of interactivity, extractive and emersive.   The extractive model refers to such activities as accessing information from a website.  We request information (by clicking on a link) and it is returned to us.  He seas operations such as interacting with 3D worlds emersive an this isccloser to the model for modern digital games.  ‘Emersive interaction will also include the potential to explore and navigate in visually represented screenspace‘ (Lister et al 2009: 22)1. So far I have been considering modes of interactive that are cognitive rather than kinaesthetic.  ‘The idea of a disembodied spectator/viewer/reader is a fiction subject created by a particular ways of conceptualising the relationship between “texts” and “readers”.  This fiction is founded in the Cartesian model of perception whereby consciousness is seen as a separate and distinct form of embodiment’(Lister et al 2009: 24)1. 

If the term Interactive is inadequate to define the high levels of real-time interaction where not only are the exchanges consent but the state of the media is changing.  Talking about ‘configuration‘ rather than ‘interaction’ (Aarseth 2001,Eskeline 2001, Moulthrioe 2004 in Lister et al 2009: 22).  ‘Woolgar defines configuration as designers’ attempts to “define, enable and constraign” the user’ (Lister et al 2009: 24)1, however for games, and other highly immersive digital media products, they have become cybernetic in nature and the user/player relationship as one of cyborg.

‘The term itself (cybernetic) began its rise to popularity in 1947 when Norbert Wiener used it to name a discipline apart from, but touching upon, such established disciplines as electrical engineering, mathematics, biology, neurophysiology, anthropology, and psychology. Wiener, Arturo Rosenblueth, and Julian Bigelow needed a name for their new discipline, and they adapted a Greek word meaning “the art of steering” to evoke the rich interaction of goals, predictions, actions, feedback, and response in systems of all kinds … [Wiener 1948]. Early applications in the control of physical systems (aiming artillery, designing electrical circuits, and maneuvering simple robots) clarified the fundamental roles of these concepts in engineering; but the relevance to social systems and the softer sciences was also clear from the start. ‘ (Pangaro.com).

In popular culture the terms cybernetic and cyborg are seen as introduction of hardware to a person/ or other sentient biological system.  The Borge (Starttreck) and Cybermen (Doctor Who) are examples from science fiction.  But many feel that it is more to do with the mode and level natral real-time interaction that what hardware is used and how it integrates with people.  Freedman talks of the cybernetic loop, ‘the perpetual feedback between a player’s choice, the computers almost- instantaneous response, and so on – is a cybernetic loop’ (1999).

An understanding of this can come from strange places, ‘Meet Donna Haraway and you get a sense of disconnection. She certainly doesn’t look like a cyborg. Soft-spoken, fiftyish, with an infectious laugh and a house full of cats and dogs … Beneath the surface she says she has the same internal organs as everyone else … Yet Donna Haraway has proclaimed herself a cyborg, a quintessential technological body…For Haraway, the realities of modern life happen to include a relationship between people and technology so intimate that it’s no longer possible to tell where we end and machines begin … Being a cyborg isn’t about how many bits of silicon you have under your skin or how many prosthetics your body contains. It’s about Donna Haraway going to the gym, looking at a shelf of carbo-loaded bodybuilding foods, checking out the Nautilus machines, and realizing that she’s in a place that wouldn’t exist without the idea of the body as high-performance machine. … Haraway’s world is one of tangled networks – part human, part machine; complex hybrids of meat and metal that relegate old-fashioned concepts like natural and artificial to the archives. These hybrid networks are the cyborgs, and they don’t just surround us – they incorporate us.‘ (You are Cyborg, Wired). So if we look at people as cyborg it does not seem so strange that we talk about digital games as cybernetic as they could be seem as being a good examples of us demonstrating our cyborg self.

So to what extent can Pervasive media be thought of as Cybernetic.  The cybernetic nature of computer games is due to the cybernetic loop mentioned above.  Players actions create interactions which change the state, behaviours and data contained within the media and this can happens many times a second.  The experience can cause us to become immersed ‘Inside the Game’.  In (especially module phone based) Pervasive Media the input device (touch screen) is slower in use to the keyboard/mouse and it often needs to send and receive data over the mobile network that can be slow.  If it is cybernetic then so is the internet.  In a way maybe we need a new language. In Pervasive media it is not so much the technology we are interacting with it is the world we are interacting with (through the technology).  This idea may help to formulate working definition of what pervasive media is. Other Pervasive Media Devises give a much more tightly integrated experience for the user where user actions almost immediately produce some sort of (i.e. audio) feedback.  The question Is Pervasive Media Cybernetic? may not be a useful one as it very much depends on how the hardware/software elements integrate with the user. As bespoke interfaces develop and applications mature there will no doubt become more cybernetic in nature but Pervasive Media is a relatively new field and is still maturing. The very nature of Pervasive Media gives it a high propensity to be cybernetic and this is what makes the future of Pervasive media so exiting, all we need now is to find ways of unlocking its potential.

Regerences

1. Lister, Dovey, Giddings, Grant & Kelly 2009 New Media ,A critical Introduction(2^ndedition), Oxon: Routledge
2. Aarseth, Epsen ‘Computer Game Studies Year One’, in Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Resurch, vol 1, no 1, (2001).
3. Eskeline, M. The Gameing Situation in Games Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Resurch, vol 1, no 1 (2001)
4. Moulthrope, Stuare 1992 ‘Towards a rheotrc information texts in hypertext’, Proceedings of the Accosiation for Computing Machinary, New York, 1992
   

What is Pervasive Media?

From first hearing about the Pervasive Media Studio around six months ago I have been trying to work out ‘What is Pervasive Media’.  A talk by a Calvian at The Festival of Ideas Pervasive applications helped somewhat.  It seemed to revolve around applications that used actual location or location relative to somewhere/someone.  Google Maps and Foursquare being examples.  It seemed to me that the applications broadly fell into two camps.  Those that used GPS and were not bound to any particular location (Google Maps) and those that required technology to be added to a location and only worked in this location (Oystercard, Krstl). Granted Google Maps may not work on 100% of the planet but it is designed so it could if the maps existed.

“Pervasive Media is basically any experience that uses sensors and/or mobile/wireless networks to bring you content (film, music, images, a game…) that’s sensitive to your situation – which could be where you are, how you feel, or who you are with. Oyster Cards are a simple pervasive device: so are audio guides at tourist attractions, which can give you extra information according to where you are and which bits you’ve been to already.” Pervasive Media Studio

More recently briefly discussing this with Seth Giddings on the MA led to a slightly wider definition.  Pervasive media is media which transcends the constraints of the traditional computer system.  In this context the traditional computer system would be made up of screen, keyboard, mouse (and possibly printer, graphics tables, trackball).  I don’t think the size of the system necessarily makes things pervasive, it seems to run pervasive apps on a mobile phone they need a GPS or the ability to triangulate position from the mobile phone masts they can see.

There seem to be a new wave of pervasive devices with the ability to interact with the environment rather than know where they are locationally.  Is a ball that when you press areas on the surface plays sound and flashes lights pervasive? It does not seem to adhere to the definition of pervasive media on the Pervasive Media Studio’s website but does fit very well into the wider definition.

Do welding robots used in car plants have any relation to Pervasive Media?  Probably not, they follow a set of predetermined movements and while they affect their environment they do not react to it as such.  So can we say Pervasive media should react to something that a person or persons do? Does it have to have a level of interactivity? Do people have to be involved?

So is XBox kinetic Pervasive.  It does have a sensor that senses people and the applications it uses to react to what the people are doing.  It certainly uses location and reacts to what the user does which seem to be at the the roots of pervasive media, so I guess so.

Pervasive media is a new and developing area so maybe trying to pin down a definition is not productive and if we do it may quickly be superseded.

Maybe rather than talk about if media is Pervasive Media or not it may be more useful to talk in terms of levels or degrees of Pervasiveness or what Pervasive elements exist in a media product.

Fundamentals of Play

We all know what play is,or we think we do.  It is ingrained in us from childhood, but coming up with a solid definition is not spright forward. The problem is that is is used in do many ways coming up with a all encompassing definition is close to imposable.  The origins of the word are ‘Old English pleg(i)an ‘to exercise’, plega ‘brisk movement’, related to Middle Dutch pleien ‘leap for joy, dance’ (OED). From a cultural and perspective the book ‘Homo Ludens : A Study of play-element in culture‘ (Johan Huizinga,1935) discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society (It can be read online here). It has however come to be used in numerous ways:

Playing with, playing at, play someone for (a fool), at play, in play, put into play, bring/call into play, come into play, make a play for, not playing woth a full deck, play both ends against the middle, play something by ear, play by the rules, play one’s cards close to one’s chest, fair play, play fast and loose, play the field, play for time, play the game, play god, play havok with…. (Oxford Dictionaries)

And that’s just half way down the list.  Many of these talk about some type of plan or scheme being played out (call into play, come into play, play the field) or the way it is played out, play both ends against the middle, play something by ear). There is a very strong relationship between play and games and these uses of the word play seem to refer to characteristics and ideas in gaming.  The other group of uses of play refer to playful activities (both mental and physical), or in other words ludic activities.  ‘Play the fool’ is an example of a ludic use of the word play and ‘come into play’ has gaming as its root, it is not necessarily ludic.

Roger Caillois (1913-78) Identifies 4 patterns of (ludic) play:

• Agon (competition) – chess -
• Alea (chance) – luck – snap – slot machine
• Mimicry (simulation) – role playing
• Ilinx (vertigo) – doing, movement – rolecoster

(For more information See The Challenge of Agon, The Rituals of Alea, The Imagination of Minicry and  The Joy of LLnx)

Within this a continuum of Ludus to Paida.

• Ludus – structured play with rules and a winner/winners – chess
• Paida – unstructured play, anarchistic, messing around – word association, Mornington Crescent

(Further Reading The Complexities of Ludus).

It is not so much if a media product is ludic or not but how ludic it is as many forms of media that are not considered to be playful have a ludic element, even the news has its funnies and humor is often used to break tension in the most serious drama.

Caillois was concerned with creating a sociological model to define ludic activities and they tell us a lot about what play is. It is not done solely for acquisition of wealth of goods. Therefore activities that seem playful (playing second life) may not be so. It is the motivation for doing something that makes it playful, not the activity itself. Gold Farming in second Life may be in a play environment but if it is done solely for profit (18 hour days) it is not play.

Ludic is activities, or approaches to activities, that are not necessary (in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy or needs) for our physiological or safety needs but do help to fulfill the higher needs (love, esteem, self actualization and self transcendence).