FINE COLLECTION OF CURIOUS SOUND OBJECTS from Georg Reil on Vimeo.
Links to other gesture-based works viewed in class:

• A Fine Collection of Curious Sound Objects (Georg Reil & Kathy Scheuring)
• Double Taker (Snout) (Golan Levin with Lawrence Hayhurst, Steven Benders and Fannie White) 
• Cause and Effect & Compliant (Scott Snibbe)

And the "Learn to Speak Body" comedy video. 
Due Monday (March 7): Gestural Interface Images (see project description)

Project One Follow Up
As part of the completion of our first creative assignment, each person must submit an evaluation of the project's completion. These will be submitted by email to me, and no one else but me will have access to them. This is not an optional component of the project.
These should answer the following questions:
1. Who was responsible for each aspect of the project (including yourself)?
2. How were decisions about these responsibilities made?
3. Were needs met adequately?
4. What, if any, problems arose while working on the project?
5. Did the project meet the goals set out by the group? Those set by yourself? Explain how/why.

Assignment One Presentation on Monday
Be ready to present your paper prototype videos on Monday, whether already uploaded to a video host or simply contained on a portable drive.

Creative Project Groups
Those of you who are in groups with people who missed today's class, please get in touch with them (you can look up their email on the University directory).

• Mike Wernert + Emelyn Baker + Robert Brown
• Alyssa Burke + Selina Zawacki + Collin Akemann
• Kelly Delahanty + JP Ramirez + Audrey Javier
• Alexis Kikoen + Anders Pollack + Sam Bowman
• Danielle Sheppard + Katie Damato + Mike Bieronski
• Eric Simmons + Cassie Tu + Julia Pollack + Laura Welle

If we don't meet on Wednesday due to weather, your group needs to meet before Monday to address the following questions, which should be posted to your blog (pick one team member's blog to use, and link to it from the others'). These questions are mostly about how you understand the problem you are creating for yourselves, trying to get that as clear for your team as possible. Your answers don't need to resolve visual aesthetic problems yet.
a. What is your team's subject matter - what is in the exhibition you're creating? You should be able to describe this in a sentence or two.
b. What are your design/communication goals? (what is the perspective offered by your exhibition on the objects being represented? For example, are you exhibiting the work of a single maker, counter to anthropological musuem norms that represent makers as anonymous members of an exotic culture?)
c. What is the organizational structure you will use? (geography, date, gender, function, narrative, etc.)
d. What will your kiosk's architecture be? (see this site for basic examples and read this for more concerns related to problems of information architecture) And how does it serve your stated goals?

Remember that there are no boundaries for how to conceive of your exhibition proposal except for 2 basic rules:
1. It must be founded on the collection of the Spurlock Museum
2. It must have an organizational agenda that is NOT represented currently in the Museum

What exhibition would really make you think differently about the objects in the collection? That's what your group should be aiming for.

For Monday
We will get back into HTML and begin some basic CSS. You don't need to have anything uploaded yet, but do bring your exercise files, and you should have most of your 10-15 html pages completed. If you're having problems still, that's OK. Refer to the tutorial links on the calendar page and also check out the tutorials available from Lynda.com. If you're working in the lab or using the campus IllinoisNet connection, you can access the full range of tutorials on Lynda.com by signing into their IP protected site.

Related to the first creative assignment, bring your observations about the Spurlock and be prepared to discuss them. Specifically, we need to establish what is already going on there, e.g. What are the dominant themes and narratives? What formal mechanisms are employed? After a brief discussion of these, we'll talk about possible ways to redirect, intervene or modify some aspect of their collection. We'll also get into teams.

Have a great weekend and see you Monday. Oh, and for anyone who wants to/needs to review earlier presentations made in class, you can get them as PDFs here: Introduction to course, Basic web and HTML

Beginning Project 1

Our introduction to the first project assignment comes from a discussion of the work of contemporary artist Fred Wilson. It may seem an odd choice given our focus on interaction technologies, but it's relationship to our concerns should become clear while reading. In your blog posts, I'd like everyone to address some of the things that make this reading relevant for us. For starters, Wilson's work involves the modification of a system of organization and reception (in this case, of information contained in the museum). How does he do this and what makes such a modification significant? You don't have to discuss every aspect of the work, but be specific and use examples from the description.
(img above: Mining the Museum: Mining the Museum: Silver Vessels in Baltimore Repousse Style. 1830-80 Slave shackles, c.1793-1872)

Welcome
This website hosts information of relevance to the course and will be used to communicate additional information on assignments and events of significance to the class. It is recommended that you check this page at least in advance of class meetings.