Augmentation conventionally happens in real-time. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view.
Advertising campaign example of MINI:
Another example by Toyota:
Augmented reality is in my opinion still in the early stages of development, but gives already a little glimpse of the future.
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Tagged: 3D, augmented reality, Interaction
Manuel Lima, dataviz guru and well known for the “Visual Complexity” blog, talked about the understanding of complex inerconnectedness at the BBH’s office in London this afternoon. Many thanks to the digital consultancy company Made by Many for having organised this talk.
“… it usually starts with a question…”
He started his talk with explanations, why the importance of the visualization of data will increase considerably in the near future. Here’s a list of some of them together with some of my thoughts:
Manuel Lima continued to talk about his efforts with visualcomplexity.com in order to contribute to the creation of a new language for this new science. He started to write a book, where he tries to categorise the syntax for this new language of data visualisation. The main components seem to be:
He also talked about trends within data visualisation:
The Q&As afterwards made me think about the purpose and usage of data visualisations.
” target=”_blank”>Manuel Lima points out, that data visualization is still niche, but opening up. He is aware, that visualization has to move from being a tool of curiosity to becoming a tool of functionality. To make this happen it needs lots of vision and some adventurous entrepreneurship from the creators but also from the clients. Maybe it needs a middleman to connect those two parties and assure everyone, that it can be really done?
I and my technologist partner, Johannes, have worked on the interactive case-scenario tool called Vispol for the German police. Everyone seems to be excited about it, but it lacks the vision on the client-side at the moment to really implement this improvement for their work procedures to happen.
It’s not about visualising everything, just because we are now able to do so, but to provide sense, to offer contexts that matter. As Lima stated, the content/data has to go away from fun-visualisations with flickr- or last.fm towards more serious discoveries and mind openers. I have to remind myself that never before in history did designers have such powerful tools and opportunities to shape the opinions of the world. Visualisation has always been a key for gaining and also for keeping power. To create a map for example, the creator or his commissioner has to select himself, what to show and what not. This is a double sided sword and can be easily misused to manipulate. One step against the misuse would be to always cite the source as ” target=”_blank”>Manuel Lima has suggested during his talk.
Looking at all these data visualisations, I cannot get rid of the feeling, that most of the stuff was done because it’s now possible to do it – we have the computer power, the neccessary tools, etc. But how can it be really used properly? What’s the message behind it, the communication value? What do you want to let the user experience, discover or complete? What about providing conclusions? Who interprets the patterns created and how? Is it accessable for everyone, who looks at it, or do you need additional text and visualisations to explain it? Where’s the interactivity to access this data? What about search and retrieval tools? Aren’t they even more important in the future?
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Tagged: Ethical, Infographic, Interaction, Manuel_Lima
Not your mother’s javascript: http://www.chromeexperiments.com/
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Tagged: Interaction, JavaScript, Processing
Loved the usage of type inside and outside the LCC building!
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Tagged: Type/Fonts
It was my first time at the OFFF! festival. I entered the amazing looking Fundição de Oeiras without knowing what to expect.Well, definitely not unbearable heat, standstill oxygen, and the hunt for front seats against 3499 other visitors!
It kicked offf with good old Neville Brody, who pleaded, that the designers nowadays have to be more dangerous again within their work by questioning the loss of identity via CCTV or the war in Iraq for example. He underlined this talk with showing works, he found dangerous (Sex Pistol’s cover coming up again, of course…) including some of his own works, which didn’t work for me at all. I found they were lacking a certain freshness, energy and fierce. However one presented recent work I really liked, was the major restyling of the “The Times”, which included the creation of a new font called Times Modern.
Next on stage were Multitouch Barcelona, who started their presentation with this lovely video in real “Michel Gondry“-homage-style called: “Hi, a real human interface”
I was very impressed with their multitouch able space invaders game, where they invited people to use real foam balls in order to destroy the invaders. It was interesting to hear about the insights they gained from the users, while observing them interacting with the game and with each other. MB explained that some users started to organise themselves in groups in order to fight the invaders more successfully. It’s amazing how the users act completely on instinct and intuition within this interactive setup and therefore much more natural then by playing the same game on a computer or a portable gadget.
It was great to see Karsten Schmidt (aka Toxi) again. He presented some of his projects, where (as always) he has used code as the primary design tool to build unique services and systems.
Karsten also talked about the installation for the V&A called “Forever” again, which was a collaborative project together with Universal Everything.
Jason Bruges Studio talked about their interactive light sculptures, interactive environments, and screen-based installations. Their work sits between architecture, interaction design and installations and is quite impressive. One eight storey high architectural installation, called “Pixel Cloud” was created for the Bishops Square of Allen & Overy. It’s a matrix of light globes, which can be addressed to react individually.
United Visual Artists were represented by animation designer Dave Ferner. He was talking about UVA’s works, but also how they created the software to actually create the final artwork. The work presented was quite impressive with nice images and music combinations, but somehow the content and context was missing. (Photos by © Melanie Seyer, 2009)
Showing offf the software that created the artwork
The last presentation of the day came from Chris Milk. He is an American music video director and filmaker and played the OFFF audience videos he directed. His work is amazing.
Frank Bretschneider is a composer, a video artist and one of the founders of the Raster-Noton label.
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Tagged: 3D, Infographic, Installation, Interaction, Moving Visuals, Processing, Projection
Amazing shopping windows at Selfridges department store on Oxford Street. Love the 3D and usage of type! I can imagine photographs of them on mobile phones and digi-cams of thousands of tourists.
Details:
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Tagged: 3D, Type/Fonts
Photographs (© 2009 Melanie Seyer) of shopping window at Selfridges store, London.
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Tagged: 3D
This is the subtitle of a conference taking place in Vienna on the 31st of March (organised by: ORF, Ö1 Wissenschaft). “Creative Cities. The promise of the creative industry” becomes maybe more urgent than it was meant to be, regarding G-20 events, financial crisis in full force and more and more jobless people all over the world.
Coincidentally it’s the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009, too. One might think, what a bad timing this is, when there is probably no money on the market left to be innovative and to do neccessary research. On the other hand this could be exactly the answer to some of the problems during the crisis as the old systems and thinkings have failed.
Resetting The System?
One of the authors of the Ö1-”Radiokolleg”, Armin Medosch writes in his article about the conference, that one of the participants of the conference , US-economist Richard Florida, doesn’t even want to talk about a great recession, but calls it instead the great reset. He compares nowadays crisis with the crisis of 1873, when industrial work started to replace the agriculture sector as the main employer. Florida thinks, that the creative class will be the most potent power in economics in the future as was the “proletariat” (the avantgarde of capitalism) in the 19th century. (Did I actually already mention that I hate the word „class“ btw?!). He counts art- and culture productioneers like advertising, PR, communication, specialists in law and finances and software developers to this class, which doesn’t actually give me much of hope that something might change. Can they really adapt and take on more responsibility? Isn’t the financial sector as dehumanized as was the post-industrial revolution in the last century?
Cognitive Capitalism After Liberal Capitalism?
Important for the creative class to settle in an area, according to Richard Florida, are the 3 T’s: Technology, Talent and Tolerance. Cities and regions are flourishing especially when they offer an open and tolerant place for immigrants, artists and creatives of all kinds. Sounds familiar? Yes, I always thought we kind of relive the ideas of the 60s at the moment. Richard Florida even states, that the values of the counterculture of the 60s are now mainstream and are accepted without having to be a part of the left wing spectrum anymore. Forward to the past! I really think, that the solutions we are needing at the moment, shouldn’t be retro at all. We really need innovative new thoughts. That’s where the creativity and the creative industry have to come into full effect.
Immaterial Work – What’s It Worth?
Maurizio Lazzarato speaks about the change of the character of work, meaning that it became immaterial. In postmodern capitalism the image of a brand is more important than the value in use of a product. In the information age, the image of a brand is created by everyone – online blogs, photos or videos posted on Flickr or YouTube, remixes or mash-ups, they all contribute to create a cult around a brand or even an information. How did this happen? The workers in the industrialized western countries became more and more ungovernable with their claims for better working conditions and better salaries. The answer of the industry has been to start to outsource the production to third world countries. A move, that left the former industrial countries concentrate on high-value informational products. The outsourcing of the production not only meant the beginning of the globalisation, but also the withdrawal from discussions and compromises towards job securities and conditions.
One reason, why I hate the word class, is the fact, that it already implies a different status of certain groups of people. To simplify the thought you could already speak of a creative class vs. working/production/service class, leaving the later mentioned often poorer paid and kept low in value. But if “being creative” is the thing everyone wants to be, who should put the the ideas into reality? What about craft and production? The population of the world is not decreasing! Isn’t both equal in value? Please can we start to think beyond classes!
Also interesting:
It’s a Culture Without Profit?
Above: Video of Richard Barbrook talking about his book “Imaginary Futures“
Political theorist Richard Barbrook states, that all the youth- and subcultures from the 50s on (Teds, Mods, Ska, Punk, Dubstep, etc.), which made London the creative city it is, are created by people, who have “normal” jobs during the day, but follow their hobbies after work and on weekends – most of the times for free. This selfless attitude is quite contrary to the motivation of the creative economy, which only defines itself by sales and profits. He thinks, that this DIY-creativity “of the masses” is the real origin of innovation.
He also thinks, that the creative class was finally acknowledged as a class of its own in the 90s, because of the happening of the new economy. A radical change of values came into the picture in the heart of hightech-locations, the axis between Silicon Valley and Market Street, San Francisco - ironically the former center of the counterculture in the 60s, too. Young people with brash ideas and computer knowledge became the new type of entrepreneurs, who turned the values of the old economy upside down.
Also very interesting:
The Draw-Backs
10 years after the introduction of creative industries and the hype of the new “creative entrepreneurs” everything looks a bit different of course. Apart from having sacrificed social securites, the creatives sacrificed their freest thought, the profoundest creative ideas, too. Their creativity suddenly became a sellable unit of the capitalist world. Instead of forming countercultures and questioning and challenging the existing system, they are now part of the system – the postmodern capitalism. The establishment has won, the counterculture has eaten itself by their own created hype of creative entrepreneurship.
One of the best books to describe this development is „Microserfs“ by Douglas Coupland. Cultural scientist Diedrich Diederichsen writes in his book “Eigenblutdoping” how the creatives get high on themselves, while many of them actually live near the poverty line. Of course the economic situation doesn’t help and the creative industry – ever so often – doesn’t shy away, to take advantage of this situation by not paying the creatives at all! Does this mean a new creative proletariat is in the making?
Also interesting:
Crisis = Opportunity? (I want to believe!)
The fear that “the reset” – the creative upgrade of the global operating system – will only be used as a rejuvenating cure for the old capitalist system is justified. Instead this crisis should be seen as a chance to finally make the neccessary changes in the world not only on the financial sector. Creative solutions are really in urgent need but the decisionmakers have to realise its real potential and use it well. Stop thinking about unlimited power and profits all the time, that’s the old system that hasn’t worked!
Also interesting:
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Tagged: Ethical
The first film using minimal infographic animation is about “Globalization & The Information Age” and provides the viewer with a huge amount of worldwide facts, which can leave you breathless sometimes. It’s the latest edition 2008 and called ”Did You Know 3.0 – From Meeting in Rome this Year”.
Created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod; It was even adapted by Sony BMG at an executive meeting they held in Rome this year.
The second one is a reinterpretation of the fairytale “Little red riding hood” – inspired by Röyksopps “Remind me”. I love the way animated infodesign is used to tell the story – with more facts than ever!
Music: Slagsmålsklubben, Sponsored by destiny
Animation: Tomas Nilsson
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Tagged: Animation, Infographic, Moving Visuals
Another event by “This happened” and soo far the best in my opinion. It always electrifies by bringing on innovative and creative people from different new media backgrounds. At the moment “This happened” takes place at the BFI Southbank, nevertheless the organisators of “This happened” are looking for other spaces too, as the audience is getting bigger and bigger. So, if you have any idea or suggestions, please let them know.
This time the talks were even more divers and very, very entertaining. It started with Laura Culpan, Director and Curator of Artwise. Artwise curates, commissions and manages contemporary art projects internationally. She was mainly talking about the commissions completed for British Airways’ lounges at Terminal 5 and about the two multidisciplinary artists and designers Christopher Pears and Troika that got into the BA Collection. Questions of the audience included maintenance, lifespann (5-10 yrs) and the commissioning process of digital artwork.
This talk was followed by Universal Everything.
Matt Pyke – a former Designer’s Republic member based in Sheffield – and Karsten Schmidt – based in London – talked about their audio-visual sculpture “Forever”, which was shown in the John Madejski Garden at the V&A during the winter 2008.
Karsten Schmidt, who programmed the generative sculpture, talked about a book that highly influenced him called “Hallucinations And Their Impact on Art” by E. M. R. Critchley. The book states, that most innovative paintings, uses of colours or forms are due to the fact, that the seeing conditions of the artist had changed like becoming blind or colourblind for example.
Universal Everything work with a wide range of media from pencils to generative design.
Adam Cubitt of Glassworks created a real-time system to assist in the teaching of transoesophageal echocardiography. Being part of Glassworks R&D and working together with three anaesthetists from the London Heart Hospital, he was able to provide the world with the fantastic and first of its kind medical simulator known as HeartWorks. Adam explained the development of these realtime graphics step by step, how he worked on it for 2 years and how crazy it was to take on this medical adventure, considering that his and Glassworks roots lay in the postproduction sector for advertising and film.
After that electrifying talk, the multi disciplinary organisation working in post digital design called “Really Interesting Group” had it hard to satisfy the now eager alerted audience, but managed brilliantly to keep up the vibe.
Russel Davies and Ben Terrett were talking (or rather entertaining) the audience about “Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet”, which is a collection of things from the internet they published as a limited edition run newspaper. Their presentation was not only quite interesting but also hilarious with a crowd cheering to their comments. At one point Ben Terrett said jokingly to Adam Cupitt: “We have more laughs (than you)!”
At the end of their talk Russel Davies and Ben Terrett started a “recognize-the-font-competition” among the audience, giving away 4 of the last TOFHWOTI limited newspapers. And yes, I was a lucky winner recognizing my beloved Zapf Dingbats!
Last but not least, experimental designer Michael Cross talked about his art project “Bridge”, which allows you to walk on water. It was amazing to listen to his story as he seems to question everything apart from the process if something’s actually possible to build at all. He explained (in a rather humorous way) how people fell in the water as the mechanics of his work failed and how they shouldn’t complain about it, because “nothing is for free in the world!”
I’m already looking forward to “This happened” #8
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Tagged: 3D, Installation, Moving Visuals, Projection, This happened
