Interactive Multimedia Technology

Apr 12, 2012

Large touch-screen display in a hotel lobby at the Tides Hotel at Folly Beach, S.C.

There is a story behind this picture. I will revisit this post soon to finish it!

Apr 10, 2012

Update: Daughter's recovery from sepsis, and public awareness video about sepsis

My daughter is recovering from sepsis, which came on suddenly and required a week in the hospital. It was serious, and I am thankful she is getting stronger each day. I will resume regular blogging soon.

I am posting the following video about Sepsis as my effort to promote public awareness about sepsis. I haven't had time to fact-check the information in the video. It is from the Sepsis Alliance website. With awareness, more lives will be saved.

Mar 29, 2012

Quick Post: Media Facades and Luminous Tweets (Video featuring Thomas Schielke)

I am fascinated by interactive large displays in public places, "urban screens" and the convergence of architecture and technology, especially media facades, and am happy to share a video of a presentation of Thomas Schielke to a group at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Thomas Schielke is a German architect known for his work in the area of architectural lighting and media facades. In the presentation, Thomas talks about how new technologies are influencing what he calls "urban branding", and also provides an overview of related history. If this is an area that interests you, take the time to view the video!

Below is a summary about the presentation taken from TheHavardGSD YouTube site:

"Brands strive worldwide for distinctive visual identities in the urban landscape. At night they rely on luminous messages ranging from conventionally illuminated signs and billboards up to dynamic luminous architecture for story telling. Therefore, media facades have turned into a fascinating medium to create an architectural image in the nocturnal city. Some brands use guerrilla lighting projections for temporary installations to subversively transform urban spaces. Other companies equip their flagship stores with large LED pixel screens for high-resolution images or they consider the building façade as an interface for more artistic solutions. Often video screens appear as decorated elements competing for attention with traditional commercial billboards. Here media facades have become an interesting alternative to establish a more sophisticated design language for merging the dynamic content with the building. Whereas some luminous facades appear as monumental monologues repeating a fixed animation daily, some installations even allow people to interact with the building to receive enlightening responses. Thereby, the consumer becomes part of the urban marketing strategy to shape a vivid and progressive brand identity. The lecture by the German architect Thomas Schielke (http://www.arclighting.de) gave an overview about media facades for urban brand communication and addressed questions like: Will the energy consumption of luminous facades go along with the desire to introduce sustainability? To which extent do neighbors accept obtrusive luminous content? Further, what kind of media facades will shape the future of urban branding with luminous tweets?"

"The overview of international projects covers various lighting methods and techniques from lighting designers as ag4, Arup Lighting, blinkenlights, LAb[au], Licht Kunst Licht, Mader Stublic Wiermann, Okayasu Izumi, magic monkey, Onur Sonmez , Qosmo, realities:united, Rogier van der Heide, StandardVision, Uwe Belzner and architecture like Asymptote Architecture, BIG, Frank Gehry, Kohn Pederson Fox, Jean Nouvel, Peter Cook, UN Studio, schneider + schuhmacher, Simone Giostra, WOHA architects1. Artists like Doug Aitken are included in the timeline as well. Brands like Coca- Cola, Nokia, American Eagle, Citroen, Bayer and ERCO or social campaigns for Occupy Wall Street with the Illuminator are presented as case studies."

RELATED
2012 Media Facades Summit
Media Facades: "When Buildings Start to Twitter"
International Urban Screens Association
Designing Urban Media Environments as Cultural Spaces (pdf)
Curating Urban Screens //Approaching the City as Cinema
Media Architecture

Mar 24, 2012

Digital Media and Learning: Video presentation by high schoolers, video of John Seely Brown's keynote at DML2012

This is a video of students from Morningside, Crenshaw, Rosevelt, Locke, and Manual Arts high schools in L.A. who presented a session on Education for a Digital Democracy at the recent Digital Media and Learning Conference.

What I especially like about this presentation is the way the students highlighted the current state of technology in their urban schools, and what they have to say about their schools' policies regarding the use of personal technologies during the school day.

Digital Media and Learning Conference: Kids from Locke High from School Library Journal Vimeo. on

Thanks to the School Library Journal and Scott McCloud for sharing this!

If you are interested in digital media/new media/multimedia and learning, take the time to view John Seely Brown's DML 2012 Keynote:
Cultivating the Entrepreneurial Learner in the 21st Century

DML2012 John Seely Brown Keynote from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.

PDF transcript of John Seely Brown's keynote

RELATED

Digital Media and Learning Hub

John Seely Brown's website

Book: A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change

Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown