Guests from Tip IT

Yesterday, we had a group of Creative Multimedia students from Tiperarry Institute of Technology, together with their lecturer as visitors in the IDC.

All started a few good weeks ago, with Bernard following the Jaiku channel used by Gabriela and her students (Bernard recalls jaikus about Doug Engelbart received on his mobile phone while he was walking his dog:).

After that, Gabriela finally made it to an OpenCoffee in the Absolute Hotel and met Bernard in person. Gabriela invited Bernard to give a talk on podcasting to her students, and Bernard suggested he could bring some of his students with him.

And then all happened yesterday - Bernard spoke to the UL+TippInst students about podcasting, jobs and entrepreneurship, asked his students to talk about their own work and encouraged the audience to ask questions. The students were a bit shy in the beginning, but when he invited them to have a look at his podcasting gear, most of them couldn't resist the temptation and the ice was broken. The two groups of students had the chance to mingle for a few minutes afterwards!

After the lecture, the TippInst students visited the IDC, where Liam talked to them about the Interaction Design Centre and our way of looking at technology, and Lui spoke about previous and current IDC projects. The visit finished with the grand tour and a closer look at some of our "reliques" - the Shannon Portal, the recipe pyramid...

It was an interesting exchange and I have the feeling we all learned from it!

PTBYBO 3

The Interaction Design Centre and the Center for Computational Musicology & Computer Music proudly present:
PTBYBO 3
Date: 21st of November 2007
Time: 14:00-17:00
Venue: Kilmurry Hall, University of Limerick
All are welcome!

PTBYBO 3 will present Hellström and Bowers’ latest efforts at circuit bending and live coding (where, respectively, hardware and software are hacked before your very eyes and ears) to explore live sound/image relations in an improvised performance. The occasion will feature the Irish debuts of Ohm-My-God (an environment in which random electronic circuits are constructed) and My Little Dreamachine (a miniaturization of Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville’s hallucinogenic Dreamachine, the behaviour of which is variously sonified and visually transformed and projected). Generally, lights will flash and circuits will blip with an uncommon intensity as Hellström and Bowers work feverishly to transport all our bodies, minds and souls from the beginning of the end. A Performance To Blow Your Brains Out, surely.

A seminar discussing the techniques in PTBYBO 3 and relating them to larger issues in interaction design and the construction of new instruments for musical expression will be given by Hellström and Bowers in Kilmurry Hall, University of Limerick, the 21st of November 14:00-17:00.

Links
http://schhh.se/
http://www.onoma.co.uk/
http://suborderly.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

Biographies
John Bowers
John Bowers is currently a Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Design at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Music, University of East Anglia, UK. As an improvising musician, John is part of Tonesucker, an improvising noise metal electric guitar duo (CD Slaughterhouse available on Onoma Research), the Gentlemen of Circuitry, a quartet who play antique and homemade electronic instruments, and the electro-acoustic improvisors The Zapruda Trio (CD Live at Smallfish available on vision-of-sound), amongst other collaborations. Solo work includes The Dial: Have you been to Hilversum? (broadcast by Resonance FM, London), Do It Yourself Silence and Silence Silenced (contributed to the CD A Call for Silence, Sonic Arts Network), and Atonement for Violin Quartet (Norwich Gallery, UK), a four day long performance-installation-webcast revisiting the instrument destruction preoccupations of Fluxus artists. John is co-founder of the Onoma Research music label. A monograph specifying John's characteristic approach to music, social science research and technical affairs, Improvising Machines, is available from http://www.ariada.uea.ac.uk/ariadatexts/ariada4.

Sten-Olof Hellström
Sten-Olof has been active as a professional composer since 1984 and gained a Masters of Music in composition at University of East Anglia, England 1990. He has been employed as a researcher and composer at the Centre for User Oriented IT Design (CID), Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) since 1997. As a researcher Sten-Olof has mainly worked in the field of Human Computer Interaction where he has been part of several major EU-funded long-term research projects such as eRENA and Shape. He is also very active in the field of sonification (representing data with sound). One example of current work is the construction and development of a computer interface for the visually impaired.  Sten-Olof’s main occupation and profession is as a composer working with electro-acoustic music. His music has been performed and broadcast around the world and he is also active as a performer playing live electro-acoustic music on his own and with others such as Ann Rosén, John Bowers and Simon Vincent. Sten Olof is also part of the performance group the Zapruda Trio based in England.

Questions and queries
Please contact Mikael

Talk: "Interaction design in practice: on the construction of an interactive object"

The IDC is hosting a research talk this Friday, 9th of November: "Interaction design in practice: on the construction of an interactive object", by Dr. Cristiano Storni, University of Trento (Italy)

Abstract:
The talk will provide an overview of one the two case studies that I have
analyzed in my research. The case is about the birth of a new Interaction
design working prototype. The work is based on extensive observations based
on the idea to map the trajectory of events and transformations that bring
from the first instantiation of an idea to its final realization.
The presentation will focus on the methodological aspects of the research by
bringing to the fore the importance of fetishistic ethnographic accounts. It
will follow an overview of some of the new concepts and conceptual
distinctions proposed in the analysis such as: pro-ferences vs. re-ferences,
sewing practices, in-jects, thing vs. objects.
The talk is aimed at provoking conversations with audience about daily
design practices and experiences.

Bio
Cristiano Storni holds a degree in Human/computer interaction from the
University of Siena and a Ph.D in Information Systems and Organization from
the Department of Sociology and Social research (Faculty of Sociology of the
University of Trento), with a Thesis on Design practices and the
construction of objects. He has worked as senior engineer in several IST
European Projects on Information systems, Knowledge Management, E-Government
and, more recently, e-Health. E-Health and Gerontechnology is the main
research area he is currently involved with. His interests range from SSIS
(Social Studies of Information Systems), HCI, Interaction Design and
Participatory Design, to Semiotics, ANT (Actor Network Theory), STS
(Science and technology studies) and Ethnography/Ethnomethodology.
He is concerned with social, organizational, existential and human aspects
of technological innovation and design. He has presented several research
papers in national and international conferences.

Time: 10.30
Venue: CSIS meeting room, Computer Science Building, CS2037

All welcome!

IDC Christmas Party