Children in the UK were asked to create self-portraits for a special arts project designed to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee. The self-portraits were digitized and transformed to create a media facade that was projected on Buckingham Palace. This example of digital art for public viewing was shared on a number of large screen displays in public spaces around the UK.
This project was part of Face Britain. All children in the UK were invited to submit a self-portrait in an attempt to create the largest on-line gallery of self-portraits in the world.
Call for Participation Large interactive displays are now common in public urban life. Museums, libraries, public plazas, and architectural facades already take advantage of interactive technologies for visual and interactive information presentation. Researchers and practitioners from such varied disciplines as art, architecture, design, HCI, and media theory have started to explore the potential and impact of large display installations in public urban settings.
This workshop aims to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners from different disciplines such as art, architecture, design, HCI, social sciences, and media theory to exchange insights on current research questions in the area. The workshop will focus on to the following topics: how to design large interactive display installations that promote engaging experiences and go beyond playful interaction, how different interaction models shape people’s experience in urban spaces, and how to evaluate their impact.
Workshop Goals &Topics The goal of this one-day CHI 2011 workshop is to cross-fertilize insights from different disciplines, to establish a more general understanding of large interactive displays in public urban contexts, and to develop an agenda for future research directions in this area. Rather than focusing on paper presentations, this workshop aims to trigger active and dynamic group discussions around the following topics:
Beyond Playful Interaction A number of studies found that large display installations invite for playful interaction but often fail to convey meaningful experiences related to content. This raises the following questions:
How can we design installations that endure people’s attention past the initial novelty effect and direct the interest toward the content?
What design strategies can be applied to promote an active individual and social exploration and discussion of the presented information?
Character of Interaction A number of interaction techniques have been explored for large displays in public spaces ranging from interaction via cell phones, to direct-touch or full body interaction. We would like to discuss:
How do different interaction methods shape people’s experience of large display installations in urban spaces?
How do interaction methods differ from each other in terms of triggering interaction and engagement with the presented content?
Evaluation Different quantitative and qualitative methods have been applied to evaluate people’s experience and use of large display installations in public spaces. During the workshop we would like to discuss:
How can we evaluate the "success" of large display installations in urban spaces?
How can particular aspects of public large display installations such as engagement be evaluated?
What kind of evaluation methods are most effective in different progress stages (design phase/installment phase)?
We see this workshop as an opportunity to start thinking about a general framework that can inform the design and evaluation of large interactive displays in different urban contexts. With a diverse research community present at the workshop we hope to come up with an agenda for future research directions in this area.
Submission Details Submit a position paper (maximum 4 pages) to largedisplaysinurbanlife@gmail.com by January 14, 2011 using the CHI extended abstract format. The paper should describe experiences, works in progress, or theories around designing and/or evaluating large interactive displays in public urban settings. We plan to explore approaches and insights from different disciplines to this topic so submissions from art, architecture, design, HCI, media theory, and social science are highly encouraged. We welcome all methodological approaches and techniques centered around the topic of large interactive displays in urban life.
At least one author of each accepted position paper needs to register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI conference itself.
Important Dates Submission Deadline: January 14, 2011 Notification of acceptance: February 11, 2011 Workshop: May 7 or 8, 2011 (final date to be announced)
WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS Uta Hinrichs is a PhD candidate in computational media design at the Innovations in Visualization (InnoVis) research group of the University of Calgary, Canada, under the supervision of Sheelagh Carpendale. Her research focuses on the design and study of large display interfaces to support lightweight information exploration in walk-up-and-use scenarios Nina Valkanova is doing her PhD at the interaction group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra(UPF) in Barcelona, Spain under the supervision of Ernesto Arroyo. Her research interest focuses on the design of urban media facades exploring the intersections between scientific and artistic design knowledge. Kai Kuikkaniemi is a project manager in Helsinki Institute for Information Technology. He is currently leading a national research project focusing on public displays. His earlier research has focused on exploring novel multiplayer game designs ranging from pervasive gaming to biosignal adaptive gaming. Giulio Jacucci is a professor at the University of Helsinki at the Dept. of Computer Science and director of the Network Society Programme at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology. He leads several interactional projects on interaction design and ubiquitous computing, and is co-founder of MultiTouch Ltd. a company commercializing products for multi-touch screens. Sheelagh Carpendale is a Professor at the University of Calgary where she holds a Canada Research Chair: Information Visualization and an NSERC/iCORE/SMART Industrial Research Chair: Interactive Technologies. She directs the Innovations in Visualization (InnoVis) research group and her research focuses on information visualization, collaborative visualization, and large interactive displays. Ernesto Arroyo holds an associate teaching position at the Dept. of Information and Communication Technologies of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, Spain. He earned his PhD at MIT Media Lab in 2007. His research at the Interactive Technologies Group focuses on interaction design, visualization, and user-centered interfaces, enabling and preserving the fluency of user engagement.
This morning I received a message from Thomas Schielke, of arclighting about his recent work. Included in his message was a link to this awesome video, Media Facades: When Buildings Start To Twitter, which is a video timeline of this history of media facades.
Below is a description of the video, by Thomas Scheilke: "The timeline depicts international media facades with their different artistic, social or brand messages up to interfaces like iPhone Apps or brain sensors for public participation. The movie is a shortened version of the lecture, The semiotics of media facades - When buildings start to twitter" that was presented at the Parsons The New School for Design in New York in 2010."
Related info from Schielke's YouTube site: Luminous walls: From clerestory windows via modernist wallwashing to pixelated planes "The movie is a shortened version of the lecture that was presented at the Cornell University in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis in Ithaca/USA (Oct. 18th 2010) and at the Columbia University in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York (Oct. 26th 2010)." "Luminous walls belong to the essential repertoire of qualitative lighting design. With light, spaces can be defined and reinterpreted. Illuminated walls allow us to provide orientation and to perceive the form and dimension of space. Further, their glow and play of brilliants could bestow a space with an impressing scenography. The timeline reveals different lighting approaches: From backlit clerestory windows for spiritual enlightenment in the gothic period to modernist uniform wallwashing. Contemporary examples will open the view for pixelated colour changing planes based on LED technology. The movie with an overview of international projects covers lighting methods and techniques for luminous walls and their visual appearance. With a perception-orientated design perspective the designer could use vertical illuminance to create bright spaces and thereby also contribute to sustainable lighting solutions." "The overview of international projects from architects like Antonio Gaudi, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Jean Nouvel, Peter Zumthor, Raffael Moneo, Toyo Ito, Christoph Ingenhoven and Karim Rashid or light artists as Peter Kogler and Erwin Redl covers various lighting methods and techniques for luminous walls and their visual appearance. Note: The image for 1814 needs to be reassigned to Bergisel Panorama in Innsbruck/Austria painted in 1897." RELATED Previous posts: Revisiting Urban Screens: 555 Kubik Facade Projection Video; Info about Media Facades More Urban Screens and Outdoor 3D Media Facades
"We used Touch Projector to paint on a multimedia facade (here: Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria). Users simply aim their device at the facade causing the viewfinder to show the facade locally. In this local image, users can now draw with the selected color. The building then changes its color accordingly as if users directly painted on it."
Info about the iRiS team members - (will be updated) Johannes Schöning works at the Innovative Retail Laboratory of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Saarbruecken. His research interests include new methods and interfaces to intuitively navigate through spatial information, and ways new intelligent interfaces can help people to solve daily tasks more effectively. Johannes recently completed his Ph.D. at the Saarland University. He runs the multi-touch Google group. (LINK: http://groups.google.de/group/multi-touch) Johannes is involved in a range of interesting professional activities. He's currently looking for new opportunities.
Sebastian Boring started his Ph.D. thesis in April 200 6 at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and expectes to graduate July 2010. He's a member of the Fluidum. His research interests include user interfaces for ubiquitous computing and instrumented environments, especially in interaction techniques for multiple devices and displays. He is also interested in 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling and animation, and computer vision. (Sebastian has worked on projects to benefit assisting young people with autism).
Alexander Wiethoff is a passionate interaction designer committed to developing and implementing visionary strategies that support architectural, industrial and interaction design objectives. He works as a researcher in the field of Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Munich. Currently his key research focus is the analysis of design processes in the area of pervasive computing, the creation of work process tools that support communication of multidisciplinary teams and the design of usability testing methods in this domain.
"Urban Screens are dynamic digital displays and visual interfaces located within urban public spaces. They include LED screens and signs, plasma screens, information terminals and projection surfaces as well as intelligent architectural surfaces and media facades...Urban Screens transform the capacity of public spaces to serve as a platform for user-generated civic and cultural expression, community building, multiculturalism and public engagment in issues related to social, cultural and environmental sustainability....Through networking, content sharing and joint broadcasting, they constitute a rapidly expanding and still largely experimental global multimedia infrastructure for commercial and cultural exchange.""The IUSA aims to inform and support the ‘worldwide Urban Screens movement’: the expanding use of dynamic digital displays in public spaces; their considerate and sustainable integration in the urban landscape; and the ability for screen communities to collaborate in the digital space to share content, experience, ideas, innovations and emerging possibilities." Book:Media Facades: History, Technology and Content, M.Hank Haeusler
Photo credit: Face Britain
