Archive for February, 2011

Date: February 28th, 2011
Cate: Final Project

Cultural Probes

Finished my cultural probes today, so they’re ready to go out this week. I’ve created little bags, each with a disposable camera, a pen and a bundle of postcards.

The top postcard explains a little bit about the project, my research and how the tasks are to be carried out. I’ve asked the user to take a photo of their “dining environment” every night for two weeks, hopefully gaining a combination of them eating alone and with their partner. I’ve also provided 14 “note” cards, for them to mark down whether they’re eating alone or with their partner. I’ve asked them to take some brief notes for every photo they take; I’ve given some guideline hints and questions on each card to get the ball rolling, for example, “how many courses are you eating tonight?” or “if your partner is absent, what do you wish you could tell them right now?”

The aim is to gain a deeper understanding of how/where/when/why people eat the way they do. Speaking as someone who spends six months of the year without a boyfriend (he works at sea), I know my eating habits differ hugely from when he’s at home to when I’m alone. I want to be able to see exactly what it is that making eating with a partner so special and intimate. What do they talk about over dinner? Do they eat more courses with a partner? Do they choose to eat on the sofa or in their bedroom instead of at the dining table when they’re alone? These are all things I want to both tackle and understand.

 

Date: February 28th, 2011
Cate: Mobile Media

Sound Walks

Today I dragged my boyfriend on a walk into town and back to do my “sound walks” assignment. For each task I recorded about three minutes of what I felt would be the richest environment – this happened to be in the town centre, on the high street – we encountered some good trolley noises outside Tesco!

[soundcloud width="100%" height="81" params="" url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/11249442"]

[soundcloud width="100%" height="81" params="" url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/11249443"]

Date: February 28th, 2011
Cate: Mobile Media

Dead Drops

Missed last week’s Mobile Media lecture as I was in Edinburgh pitching for £10,000 for my company (I know, it’s a tough life) so my Mobile Media thoughts are well overdue an update.

ASSIGN EX3A: Choose a public space media project (by an artist or designer other than yourself) to look at in class next week. It can be in any domain (public art, gaming, mobile services) but must use technology and take place in urban space and involve the general public.

I know I’ve really missed the boat with this one, but I wanted to do it anyway. I want to talk about Dead Drops, a project started by Aram Barthall. Full documentation is available on the deaddrops.com website.

Why do I like it? Well, I suppose I like it because it’s making interaction/something which is traditionally digital (traditionally digital is a bit of an oxymoron, perhaps “conventionally digital” is a better way of putting it) such as peer-to-peer file sharing about the physical engagement again. I also love adventuring and looking for things (hence my love for Geocaching) so the concept of actually having to SEARCH for it really appeals to me. Plus, the fact that so many people will just be walking past these things all the time without knowing they’re even there, or what they are, just makes it seem even more exciting to me. I love how it’s stripped technology right back to something so basic as actually plugging in your laptop.
Date: February 28th, 2011
Cate: Final Project

Project Branding

I’ve spent a few weeks now pondering what I should actually call my project. After spending a while thinking exactly what it is I’m trying to convey/achieve, I’ve decided to call my project “Clink”. I realised I wanted to suggest some of the experience/atmosphere/feeling of dining with others, and I love how when people are eating – or in restaurants – you can hear all the cutlery and glasses clinking. That “hum” of society and people enjoying each others’ company is really nice. So – for me anyway – the word “Clink” is rather fitting. I also like the connotation of clinking glasses, or saying “cheers”; it also ties in really nicely with the idea of dining with someone and enjoying their company.

I’ve been prototyping some branding and identity ideas this week, so my cultural probes can go out with an identity.

 

I’ll probably go with this one, although I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve shamelessly yet subconsciously ripped it off from something else? If anyone knows, please do let me know!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is a bit rough as it was only an idea, but what I was getting at was making the L and the I look like a knife and fork. Part of me loves it, but my boyfriend pointed out that they’re the wrong way round, which now bothers me a little!

 

 

I love serif fonts so I also toyed with something very simple for a while.

Date: February 19th, 2011
Cate: Uncategorized
1 msg

Rock Art Meets Mobile Media

Our assignment for last Tuesday’s class was to come up with a way for Rock Art to engage with Mobile Media. As Adrian and I visited together and seemed to be thinking along the same lines, we produced our A3 sheet together.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at the site was how vast the landscape was. There were no signs and, had we not had the map Adrian was given by Debbie, we wouldn’t even have known what direction to walk in. When we finally found the rock, we felt – as Joe put – “confused rather than satisfied”. Further up the hill, we also found some more markings but we were not sure if they were indeed rock art or merely the result of natural corrosion.

Our solution borrows from the GPS logging side of Geocaching and the social/tagging side of sites such as Gowalla or Foursquare. Our proposed solution would be a mobile app which used GPS to help lead people to the sites or rock formations. Once there – and only whilst at that location – they could log their successful finding of the site, and receive virtual awards and badges for doing so. Whilst at the rock art they would also be given further information about the site, perhaps including other visitor’s photos and experiences.

Ultimately, we wanted to make finding the rock art a little bit more fun and provide an “end result” of some feeling of success/satisfaction for the user.

Click to download our Rock Art Sheet

Date: February 19th, 2011
Cate: Mobile Media

Lordenshaw Rock Art Trip

On Sunday, Adrian, Sanjay, Joe P and I travelled to just outside Rothbury to take a look at the “cup and ring” markings that could be found there.

Luckily, Adrian had both the info for the Sat-Nav and a map of the area, as finding the site resulted in heading down a very modest looking road track, upon which my poor car greatly suffered. Once we found the carpark, we were in a valley between two hills – only the map told us which side to head up. (Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Sanjay and Joe, who arrived briefly after us, and set off up the significantly steeper one!).

We headed to what we now know is called “main rock” where we found our first cup and ring markings. There was a sign informing us the rock was protected, but no other information was given. Joe profoundly said he felt “confused rather than satisfied” which I actually thought summed the experience up quite well. We knew what we’d been looking for, we knew we’d found them… but once we were actually there, we didn’t feel very, I dunno, rewarded? in any way. I suppose this was emphasised by the fact there wasn’t really anything to let us know that we HAD succeeded in finding them. For Adrian and I, this was one of the key moments in terms of the development of our idea.

The weather was very bleak. It was raining on and off and was bitterly cold with a wind that was cutting right through us. I’d gone from enjoying splashing around in my wellies, to wanting to die, in the space of about half an hour. In an attempt to power through, I cracked out my iPhone and started up my Geocaching app. I was in luck – we were less than 200 feet from a Geocache! With Adrian still slightly confused as to what was going on, I lead us (or rather, my phone’s GPS did) to an unsuspecting looking pile of rocks. Within the rocks was a tupperware box full of goodies and I think Adrian suddenly realised how exciting it all is. We left his Valberg ski pass in the cache. Being ubergeeks, we also did another 2 caches on the way home (Adrian is now fully addicted). This was also something that greatly contributed to our final idea.

Unfortunately, when I got home I discovered that my camera had kindly saved my photos in some stupid format so I couldn’t open them. I’ve managed to salvage a couple, but it’s a bit disappointing to have so few after the 50+ I managed to take whilst bearing that horrid weather!

Date: February 18th, 2011
Cate: Inspiration

Spotify Player – Arduino and Processing

Found this the other day on Creative Applications, it’s GORGEOUS. It’s everything I love – a physical object allowing physical interactions with something that would otherwise be screen based. Not to mention the stunning design.

Spotify Player is the work of Jordi Parra and his degree project: a device to listen to Spotify at home.

In a nutshell the objects consists of Processing sketch, Arduino and an RFID reader. Each RFID tag can be assigned to a Spotify link, album, artist or search. When the tag is placed on the reader, an ID-12, it sends a trigger to Processing and triggers an AppleScript that will take over Spotify and play whatever is linked to that tag. The processing sketch can also retrieve the information about the track that is being played. For doing so, a packet sniffer is checking all the internet packets sent from the computer and whenever it finds something being sent to Last.fm, it grabs it and parses the track information (artist, album, title and length).

The two small buttons on the bottom left of the device skip to the previous and next track in the queue. The big know is the volume, and the magnets are place on top of it. The knob has a magnet so the RFID tags stick to it.

The object also includes three LED matrices, a total of 192 LED’s, to display information under the pattern of the speaker. In the video below you can see the LED’s turning on individually. It is just testing them to see if everything is working, but eventually they will be used to display battery levels, internet connection problems, premium subscription days left and other information.

Displaying information on the device from Jordi Parra on Vimeo.

Date: February 1st, 2011
Cate: Final Project

Cultural Probes

Starting to put together my cultural probes. I’ll blog in more detail once I’ve finalised everything, but at the moment they’re a set of postcards (as you would send someone a postcard if you missed them/wished they were there). I’m hoping to make a sort of “pack” for people to make them really think about when they miss their partners and what precisely it is that they miss.