12 June 2007: Call for Workshop Participation. Transmedial Interactions and Digital Games, Salzburg, Austria

http://hcid.informatics.indiana.edu/ace2007/

Held in conjunction with the 4th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology

As virtual worlds and games grow in importance, present limitations in access to them limits their ability to achieve their potential. In persistent online worlds, peer actions and event changes have cumulative effects that are consequential to individuals, whether or not they are available, just as in real life. But unlike real life, where we have plenty of tools to help us juggle multiple responsibilities, access into virtual worlds today occurs through a single access point; active participation requires a significant stationary commitment. Even the most dedicated users have difficulty keeping up with the dynamic information. To remain active and included, users need better ways to communicate, cooperate, and coordinate. Transmedial access, in which players’ access to a game and their characters/data is made possible across different devices, offers a promising solution to this problem. It also inaugurates a new category of interaction design: transmedial interaction.

This workshop explores the state of the art of transmedial interaction in games, which today unfortunately is often at most mere afterthought. It provides a participatory environment in which attendees can chart new paths forward, from developing viable business models and understanding the technical infrastructure to developing critical vocabularies and evaluative frameworks.

The workshop is intended for a broad audience, which will collaboratively achieve the following:

– Review current state-of-the-art examples of transmedia interactions in entertainment computing, especially video games
– Survey the technical infrastructure needed for transmedia interactions in digital games (e.g., feedback, adaptivity, etc.)
– Understand how the strength and weakness of different media channels shape player experiences during transmedia interactions
– Construct design guidelines for transmedial interactions and determine the components needed for successful and seamless transmedial interaction design
– Consider evaluation criteria for transmedial interactions

We encourage participation from diverse academic disciplines including design, HCI, computer science,, media and game studies, strategic communications, and psychology, as well as industry experts and practitioners, for a total of 15-20 people. Specifically, this workshop will create a synergy among the following target audiences:

– Online and mobile game designers interested in developing appropriate mechanisms to overcome the difficulty of designing for multiple media channels and cross-media experiences
– Interaction designers and researchers interested in human-human and human-machine interactions across devices, including mobile and ubiquitous computing
– Gaming industry pioneers interested in the exploration of novel ways to extend and integrate different media channels’ capacities to create cross-device and cross-network experiences for their target customers
– Entertainment computing marketers interested in identifying key challenges and solutions in promoting transmedial experiences

Participants will be selected based on 2-4 page position papers that address workshop goals. Send submissions (PDF) to Shaowen
Bardzell (selu [at] indiana.edu) with subject “ACE 2007 Workshop Submission” by March 30, 2007.

Accepted position papers will be published on the workshop website. Depending on the outcomes of the workshop and the interests of the workshop attendees, the organizers may also coordinate further publications.

http://www.ace2007.org/

From Irish Times (03/23/07) Lillington, Karlin
Researchers at Trinity College Dublin are constructing an immersive 3D replica of the city, complete with pedestrians, stonework, and the ability to pan upwards for a vertical view. The people who walk the streets of Virtual Dublin wear various clothes that move separately from their bodies, and the carvings on the side of buildings can be appreciated for their detail. “This is much more realistic than [online virtual world] Second Life,” says TCD computer science professor Carol O’Sullivan. “It’s a good framework for doing studies into human perception.” While the most obvious use for the technology developed by the effort, known as Project Metropolis, would be video games, the work could also contribute to health care and urban planning, as EU regulations will require planners to provide citizens with simulations that take into account road noise, pedestrian traffic, and the aesthetic effects of new buildings. “This will improve our understanding of the human brain,” explains TCD cognitive neuroscientist Fiona Newell. “A world like this could be used to rehabilitate people who are socially disabled–who are agoraphobic, perhaps, or autistic–because all the variables can be controlled. You could also safely put people into otherwise dangerous situations.” So far, 2 square km of the planned 5 square km have been completed in high detail, and there are currently 50,000 virtual people walking the streets. Project Metropolis is part of a 2.5 million euro Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) initiative.
Click Here to View Full Article – Web Link to Publication Homepage

By Maria Basile

An IPCity workshop in Sainte-Anne hospital (Paris) was held between March 19 and 20th. The workshop was connected to the City on the Move event “The street belongs to all of us!”. More information on the event at http://www.larueestatous.com/index_uk.html.

The workshop was addressing especially the work package on “Urban Renewal” (WP6) and “Presence” (WP3) but all IP City members were invited since it was the occasion to discuss stakes connecting mixed reality to the city in general. The workshop was attended by participants from the UMLV, TUW, TUG, UniAK, Oulu and Aalborg. The TUW tools which were trialled in the workshop were the Colour Table (Panorama, See-through and Sound applications), and from TUG the Urban Sketcher.

On Monday the work was mainly done with the equipment installation and final preparation, Mira Wagner had been preparing content since a week on site, most of the IPCity people had started setting material up on Sunday. During the afternoon, a working session was held with the stakeholders of Sainte-Anne, including the director and staff from the hospital management. Also architects and officials participated this session. One of the main conclusions was that IPCity tools are less adapted to urban design than to negotiation and demonstration/ communication.

On the Tuesday workshop, after debriefing and preparations, another session was held. This session was more cooperative than the previous one, probably due to the variety of the participants. The interactive possibilities were appreciated: the users wish to be able to introduce their own references real time. The learning process was a point of interest, too. Discussions went further on the real-virtual mix and its utility for the project negotiation.

A more detailed report on the workshop is available https://ipcity.eu/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/UMLVnewsletterApril07.doc (doc).

Carmelo Ardito from Interaction Visualization Usability group Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Bari (http://www.di.uniba.it/~ardito) has visited the IPCity partner HIIT. Carmelo Ardito is currently interested in “Making Dead History Come Alive Through Mobile Game-Play” Using pervasive games to transform the visit to archaeological sites into a more complete and culturally rich experience.

Also, Ina Wagner and Giulio Jacucci’s paper titled “Performative Roles of Materiality for Collective Creativity” paper has been accepted to ACM Creativity and Cognition 2007. More on the conference at http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/CC2007/

Several of the workshops in the Communities and Technologies 2007 Conference may be of interest, in particular Digital Cities 5: Urban Informatics, Locative Media and Mobile Technology in Inner-City Developments; Organizers: Marcus Foth and Fiorella De Cindio.

The workshops for the Communities and Technologies 2007 Conference are now announced on the C&T web site.

All workshops are actively soliciting participants now. This year’s workshops include:

1. Community Informatics Beyond the Case Study: Using the TOP Data Archive; Organizers: Kate Williams and Ann Bishop
2. BOF – Between Ontologies and Folksonomies: Tools and Architectures for Managing and Retrieving Emerging Knowledge in Communities; Organizers: Dario Maggiorini, Alessandro Provetti, and Laura Anna Ripamonti
3. Past, Present, and Future Impacts of Communication Technologies on Healthcare Communities; Organizers: Pamela Whitten, Michael Mackert, and Lorraine Buis
4. Digital Cities 5: Urban Informatics, Locative Media and Mobile Technology in Inner-City Developments; Organizers: Marcus Foth and Fiorella De Cindio
5. Studying Interaction in Online Communities: From Data Sources to Research Results; Organizers: Thomas Lento, Howard Welser, Eric Gleave, and Marc Smith
6. Communities of Practice in Highly Computerized Work Settings; Organizers: Aditya Johri and Volker Wulf
7. ICT for Business Clusters in Emerging Markets, Organizers: Souyma Roy, Shantanu Biswas, and Kurt DeMaagd
8. Social construction and implications of research infrastructures; Organizers: Peter van den Besselaar and Rob Proctor
9. The paradox of communication: Towards a society of inattention? Organizer: Filippo Dal Fiore
10. Memory practices in computer-mediated communities: a research methods workshop, Elisabeth Davenport and Howard Rosenbaum
11. Public Practices, Social Software: Examining social practices in networked publics, Organizers: danah boyd, Nicole Ellison, and Scott Golder
12. Coaching community leaders on community cultivation and technology integration, Organizers: John D. Smith and Lauren B. Klein
13. Implicit Online Communities, Organizers: Mu Xia and Wenjing Duan

Conference website: http://ebusiness.tc.msu.edu/cct2007/

Discursive formations – Place, Narrative and Digitality in the Museum of the Future

Call for participation and collaboration

We would like to invite you participate in the “Discursive Formations – Place, Narrative and Digitality in the Museum of the Future” pilot project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC, UK). This is a collaboration between several institutions within the University of Cambridge: the Digital Studio of the Department of Architecture, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Computer Laboratory.

The pilot project consists primarily of three interconnected workshops that will address the relationship between digitality and the Museum of the Future with an emphasis on the role of the moving image. The project aims to provoke interdisciplinary exchange, generate new design ideas and serve as a catalyst for future collaborations.

We would also like to take this opportunity to introduce http://moodle.expressivespace.org as a space for collaboration in practice-based research. “Discursive Formations” is the first project hosted by this new resource.

Project themes:

• ubiquitous computing; tangible interfaces
• pervasive, online, embodied narrative; expressive space
• real-time environments; video and pervasive games
• ephemeral, generative and adaptive architecture

Applicants are welcome to extend this list.

Important dates:

• Workshop application deadline: 1 March 2007
• Workshop acceptance deadline: 9 March 2007
• Workshop I: 16 March 2007
• Workshop II: 19 – 21 March 2007
• Workshop III: 21 – 23 March 2007
• Plenary session I: 21 March 2007 (pm)
• Plenary session II: 14 May 2007 (pm)

For details, see the link below.

Link: http://moodle.expressivespace.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=2#2

The Second Call for Papers of EuropIA.11.

Digital Thinking in Architecture, Civil Engineering, Archaeology, Urban Planning and Design : Finding the Ways

New digital cultures bring inevitable changes to our world and to the techniques, research methods and practices of design. The computer technology transforms slowly but surely the professions of environmental planning, architecture, archaeology and design. In recent years, we witness the emergence of digital methods using computer not only for facilitating technical tasks, but also to analyse project’s performance or amplify the creative thinking of designers. Educating the future professionals has become a real challenge due to the clash between fast developing technology and slower evolving new design thinking and values redefinition. Confronting multi-disciplinary theoretical, teaching and practice experiences at the Europia11, will help finding the ways to the future of design.

Link: http://europia11.free.fr/

Logo Cities: An International Symposium on Signage, Branding, and Lettering in Public Space

May 4-5, 2007
Concordia University, Montréal, Québec

Cities are awash in ‘public lettering’: street signs, newspaper mastheads, road signs, high-rise corporate logos, store/shop/restaurant signs, engravings on buildings and monuments, etc. They are at once branding and promotional devices; names (of buildings); labels; locating devices; material and technological artifacts; pieces of graphic, typographic, and industrial design; architectural heritage; industrial detritus; personal and cultural narratives. They are also intricately linked to the dominant preoccupations of the city: high-rise logos, for example, eloquently describe the commercial, financial, civic, even religious priorities of a particular urban locale – especially at night.

It is all the more surprising, given their sheer ubiquity, that signs have received relatively little coordinated attention – critical, creative, or otherwise. The Logo Cities symposium aims to draw together scholars, designers, artists, and artisans to foster an informed, critical dialogue about signage, branding, and lettering in public space. We invite expressions of interest and proposals for scholarly papers, panels, artworks and screenings that critically and creatively interrogate the intersections of signage, branding and lettering in public space – in any local, regional, national, or international contexts. We are especially interested in historical case studies; design and typographic studies; activist, artistic, and new media interventions; and, critical cultural analyses that offer new and adventurous insights into these phenomena from anywhere in the world. (NB We are less interested in advertising billboards and graffiti, given the substantial attention they have already received.)

Logo Cities will be held on the downtown campus of Concordia University, Montréal, May 4/5 2007. The event will include an art exhibition of creative works focusing on signage and lettering, alongside examples of old and new signs from around the city. The symposium will close with the Québec premiere of Helvetica, a new documentary film exploring the history and significance of this archetypal Modernist typeface which, for half a century, has been a ubiquitous presence in print and on signage in city streets, train stations and airports across the world. This screening of Helvetica will be introduced by the film’s director, Gary Hustwit.

The deadline for formal proposals is February 28, 2007. For more information and continual updates please visit the official symposium website. The website also features work derived from Logo Cities: Montréal, a research/creation project focusing on signage, branding and lettering in the city of Montréal.

Link: http://www.logocities.org/article/2/logo-cities-a-symposium-on-signage-branding-and-lettering-in-public-space

Call for papers: Parallel Session on “Mobile sharing applications for nomad and peripatetic storytellers” at HCII 2007.
http://www.hcii2007.org/

This parallel session aims to present research addressing innovative data gathering, evaluation and participatory design techniques to develop pervasive interactive multimedia systems that enable the creation and sharing of stories. Supporting and encouraging creativity, collaborative work and socializing. It looks at presenting significant projects and studies carried out in academia and in industry aiming to make new media technologies more enjoyable for the nomadic and peripatetic user by showcasing new relevant solutions that extend the field of action of people on the move improving, at the same time, the quality of the experience with them. The objectives are to understand how nomadic cultures can shape trends in technology, to analyze how sociability can be achieved in nomadic contexts, to unfold the futures of mobile TV, to explore the user-experience in pervasive interactive multimedia systems in general, to design applications to encourage the creation of Mobile Communities, to analyze how mobile digital content could evolve and to examine advanced interaction modalities for handhelds and ambient deployments.

Submission

Authors are invited to submit on or before January 22, 2006, the title of their proposal and full contact details. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by January 29, 2007 about the status of their proposals. Full papers are expected to be submitted by April 30, 2007. All submitted papers will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis.

Organizers

Dr. Anxo Cereijo Roibas, University of Brighton
Riccardo Sala, Dare

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) to: a.c.roibas at brighton.ac.uk

Tommi Ilmonen successfully defended his thesis “Tools and Experiments in Multimodal Interaction” 14.12.2006 in Espoo, Finland. The opponent was Michael Cohen from Aizu University, Japan. Tommi is currently working in IPCity for workpackages 5 and 7. The dissertation is available on-line in the address:

http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2006/isbn9512285517/

Currently only the overview is in the Web, but the articles should follow in a few weeks.