Seeing the Invisible Placemaking

Yuyan Gan

s3554416

https://www.mediafactory.org.au/yuyan-gan/2022/05/27/seeing-the-invisible-media-placemaking/

Seeing the Invisible is an augmented reality contemporary art exhibition initiated by the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens in partnership with Outset Contemporary Art Fund, with the support of the Jerusalem Foundation. The app is a derived product from the exhibition and is updated based on the original. The exhibition of “Seeing the Invisible” is the most ambitious and expansive exhibition to date of contemporary artworks created with AR technology and exhibited in 12 botanical gardens in six countries including Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa, Britain and the United States for one year at the same time. Addressing themes of nature, the environment and sustainability, and exploring the boundaries and connections between art, technology and nature, the exhibition features 13 immersive virtual works by established.

The idea was born out of the pandemic and the purpose through the virtual interactions and use of mobile media to engage the public back to the outdoor to have fun with friends and family. Because during the period of COVID-19, we have increased our appetite for virtual interactions and for the great outdoors, because the only entertainment is electronic and we wish to go outside. This exhibition combines both. Tal Michael Haring has mentioned, “Coming out of the pandemic when outdoor experiences and nature have taken on a new meaning and gravity in our lives, this exhibition represents a fresh way for people to engage with art and nature simultaneously.” (Seeing the Invisible was co-curated by Hadas Maor and Tal Michael Haring. )

To improve and enhance the interactivity function of the original app, I have added two functions: social and gaming function. The first one is the AR message chat, Users can send AR messages and use the paper airplane function to launch in the specified direction. The paper airplane will be received by different users all over the world. At the same time, users can also view and reply to paper airplanes thrown by others which makes chatting more novel and interesting. Actually, the augmented reality is not a new function appearing in the social media. An app called Spotselfie has been using AR to enhance the online experience by blurring the divide between the real and virtual world. Besides, Tom Jones argues that AR technology can enhance sociality and many social media users see AR as a fun and engaging tool, particularly in the way we new communicate and interact as a society. The second function is that the user can take the artist’s work as the drawing board, and the application has provided an opportunity for the user to make the second creation of the work with the artist on the original art product. After publishing in the community, others can see the graffiti when they come across this artwork, and they can also re-create it on this basis. Although, I have mentioned that I do not want to develop the function of the game interaction, because I hope the visitors can focus more on the artists’ works. Therefore, in order to enhance more diverse experiences and also consider bringing the visitors’ immersive experiences to a new level, which derive this idea: the users can become more immersed in the artwork through the process of creation, it not only increases the enjoyment, but also keeps the audience paying attention to the exhibition, make every user as a soul artist.

With the development of technology, AR technology will be more commonly used in the future of our life, and make our life become more colourful and meaningful. Just same as this time, by using the interesting way to encourage us back to the outdoor to have fun after the pandemic.

#ACTIVATEMELBOURNE

Final presentation

#ACTIVATEMELBOURNE went through several stages to get to its final form. Inspiration from Times Square to refining and grounding it to Federation Square helped build what is now my final assignment. It was always an interest of mine to utilise the way individuals use hashtags in modern day. Already knowing hashtags were a form of navigation or categorising mechanic made me think of ways I could elicit different actions from it.

 

I redefined the way hashtags could be used to rebuild foot traffic with the city of Melbourne and combining the relationship of the hashtag between digital and modern world . Through research, I discovered that hashtags play a pivotal role within civic participation in social media and intimate publics. With this knowledge helped me design a creative and interactive project. #ACTIVATEMELBOURNE became an interactive experience which linked to mobile phones that prompts clues that lead to small businesses around Melbourne looking to rebuild their footprint post pandemic.

 

Digital Facade (Big Screen) - Fed Square, Melbourne Australia

 

Once the clue from the mobile was cracked by its participants, they would be greeted at the location with an experience funded by #ACTIVATEMELBOURNE. Whether it be food, arts or more, your night would be sorted through this project.

 

To conclude, this assignment encouraged my creative and innovative thinking. I was challenged to find the relationship between the digital and real world and design a unique way that combined the two through hashtags. I loved how broad this topic was and the assistance Larissa offered behind each form of presentation. Pitching and presenting build more confidence in my public speaking and feedback allowed me to build, reconstruct and strengthen my ideas.

LIFE

Justine Ling (s3691089)

Summary

The main reason that I design this app is because of pandemic, because of the epidemic we can only communicate with friends, family, supervisor etc through the Internet, so I want to make our communication more vivid and interesting through the Internet. LIFE is an app that allows you to design a character of your own, use it for online classes, work, and even upgrade to create a virtual world in which you can live. You can have your own avatar that you like and design in it and also you could change it anytime if you want.

Through the LIFE app we can make our lives more motivated and even improve our imagination and creativity. In the virtual world, because of the lack of prejudges based on gender, race, age etc, we can be more courageous to express ourselves, it is also a kind of benefits to those people who are fear to social.

In conclusion, through this software, working together on VR products can improve the economy of the whole city. I hope that this software can appear completely in front of the public to bring convenience to the people and economy to the country.

Link for the video of the app:https://vimeo.com/715503513

 

Summary :

We designed the app for people who have lost their children, or who are particularly important to themselves. Created so that they can continue to see familiar faces, and familiar lifestyles. A humanoid robot is created through a combination of AI technology and bionic human technology. There is both spiritual companionship and interaction with people, such as cooking together, walking together, playing games, etc. This app is a customized humanoid robot that belongs to the user, and it is a platform for uploading information and can also be a place to contact the company to solve the robot problem.

The first presentation of our group briefly introduced what a bionic person is and how to apply it to daily life. The second time our group combined bionic human technology and AI technology, we found the drawbacks of these technologies through research, such as data out of control, leakage of personal information and most people still have a sense of fear of these technologies, so we explained the advantages and disadvantages for everyone to think about. The third time we added the technology of QR code to the app, using popular functions to provide after-sales service for everyone. Automation technology has also been added to the humanoid robot to facilitate the user’s life experience.

During the course of the investigation, our team found that the revival of this technology will help the economic recovery of the city. It is also a contribution to the progress of mankind, but this is a huge technological development and a direction that human beings are more concerned about.

 

Melbourne DigiTours

Melbourne DigiTours

After the closure of most physical activities due to Covid-19 we investigated ways that we could reimagine art projects in a digital sense in an attempt to reopen the city of Melbourne. After investigating some gamified historical tours, I used my personal experience using one of these apps to determine some possible improvements and decided to try and implement a similar idea to tours that this did not yet exist for.
The final result was a single platform that could be used to open a number of different digital augmented reality tours in order to offer both on site and at home historical activities.

The idea involves creating a website where the tours can be both browsed and purchased but primarily works for search engine optimisation, the idea behind this being that when looking for tours, people rarely check the app store first and will opt to jump onto a search engine for ideas. However, after finding the tour via the website, people are then prompted to download the app.

The app then lets the user log into their account to access their purchased tours, which will then be played using augmented reality. Whether onsite scanning in the specified objects/calibrating the AR objects to the right room or even just dropping the narrative into their living room, the app will then begin replaying an interactive story of their choosing. This can work as either a fully interactive game or even just an immersive retelling of stories where you get to recreate the events as they unfold.

This single platform idea solved a few of the issues that arose from my investigations. Most tours are offered as individual apps, meaning you have to not only find but install a number of apps in order to use them. This meant taking up a lot of space on your phone but also limiting access to anyone that may have decided to do this tour on short notice.
From a development point of view, this also meant each specific tour would need to create and then maintain a number of different apps, an issue that has previously resulted in the project being shut down for some museums that were unable to maintain the upkeep of running a digital app.
From my experience using some of these apps, I frequently found that there was a period of learning when first introduced to the app user interface. Sometimes the buttons or symbols didn’t quite make sense and would result in me opening a window I didn’t intend to. By making this a single app with the same user interface, this results in the location and functions of buttons becoming learned due to them remaining in the same place regardless of the tour.

Although I don’t have any app development experience, I enjoyed the process of creating the idea and then slowly designing how it would look on a phone as well as investigating if some locations would benefit from this type of app more than others as it has allowed me to think critically for things that I have previously not done in this course.
Watching some of the other projects presented within this class makes me think that I could really benefit from some digital design/software design experience as there was a noticeable difference in the quality of the presentations given from those that had a more polished looking app.

Overall, I really enjoyed the experience and am happy with the overall idea I created as I definitely think that it would be something I would find both useful and enjoyable in my personal life, which I think makes it successful from an educational game perspective.

Melbourne DigiTours – Assignment 4 submission

 

Vertical Cinema Installation – Campbell Lord

From the outset of this project, I knew I wanted to experiment with vertical video in one capacity or another. It has and continues to fascinate me to this day. To adapt it to the course’s objectives of play in the physical world/space, I decided to look towards the museum & exhibition space and how I could adapt vertical cinema to be incorporated into these spaces. From this train of thought, my final project was born. A dark space that makes use of the physical space to house multiple screens telling slightly different stories all of which do still tell the same overarching narrative, which in my case was the BLM movement. My final project looks to create a cinema-style feeling for the audience by allowing the audience in the physical space to move around the room and understand their own story being immersed in the many different visuals being displayed on multiple screens. Floor to ceiling screens also makes great use of the 9:16 aspect ratio to bring the action on screen to a lifelike scale, helping to assist with immersion and realism.

Watch my film here:

https://vimeo.com/715480806

Queery

By Zachary Taylor (s3657197)

Queery is a location based geo-tagging platform that focuses on user-generated content surrounding queer first date stories— this could include but is not limited to users first kisses, first time holding hands along the street, first time seeing a drag show. Anything queer related that ties back to some sort of queer awakening or queer empowerment and queer first date, Queery is wanting to hear about it.

After choosing their preferred language— users must create a profile that tells us a bit of about themselves.

While the profile will be discreet in giving out personal information for safety reasons, we want to know that there’s someone behind the screen so people can feel a bit less alone when reading someone else’s stories.

All Queery would like to know is the users age, pronouns, sexual orientation and their first name! Pictures, videos and personal details will not be able to be shared publicly purely for safety reasons. While societies attitudes towards queer people have changed drastically over time, some people have yet to get on board with the idea. Through doing this, we hope to protect our audience as much as possible.

Once users have done that, it will bring them to our homepage. As you can see on the screen there will be plenty of pins and stories to choose from. To make things easier, users will be able to select stories based on their location. If you type into the search bar below, then Queery will be able to take you to that location. Here is an example of that happening.

And here it comes up on the homepage. Users will have the opportunity to pinch and zoom and scroll across the map, but for the purpose of this prototype it remains stationery. Another way users will be able to sift through stories is based on the mood associated with the story.

This can be done by selecting the Mood button at the bottom screen and selecting what they want. Users will be able to associate their stories based on relevant emotions that may influence the general tone of the story when they are crafting their post. This includes inspirational, liberating, happy, sad, funny etc.

Creating a post is designed to be as easy as possible. All one has to do is select the new post button at the bottom of the screen, and tell us what it is they want to say.

They will have to enter a title, location, moods associated with the story and be able type as much as they want. The choice behind a lack of word limit on the app was driven by Proboscis’ aforementioned work- I was very much inspired by how people were submitting creative essays to describe a space and thought that would be an elevated approach to this app. These submissions will be screened and approved by Queery staff members to ensure the safety of those included is protected, as well as if it is appropriate for other people to see.

This is what it looks like when it is displayed on the home screen by other users. Once a pin is created, this what users will be able to see. Users will also be given the option to save specific stories that they enjoy by clicking on the star above the title. This will work almost like a rating system for each post to indicate to users that the story is likeable. If you look in the top of the pin, we can see the number of people who have saved the post within the star.

To view your saved stories, just press the star in the bottom left corner. Here you will be see the title of the story, location and the creators names. This will be displayed in chronological order of when they were saved. And yeah that’s really all there is to it!

 

Stuck in Traffic Light

Stuck in Traffic light

Yingyin He(s3818899)&Shuyu Zhang(s3712862)

Summary: The focus of our project is to activate the economy of the city under the premise of ensuring the safety of users and enhancing people’s safety awareness of traffic lights through our mobile media products. The most important thing about our project is the safety of traffic. we hope it will be more diversified, but we will not forget the reason why we develop it, which is to hope that users can improve their safety knowledge of traffic awareness while entertaining.We developed this product against the background that there are too many traffic accidents caused by people looking down at their phones while crossing the street. That is the worst result which we don’t want to meet.

 

 

Our project is through the connection between mobile phones and signal lights so that people can also have the habit of watching signal lights. Like the automatic alarm system, we mentioned earlier when the red light changes to green. Therefore, when users insist on using our products for a while, they will focus on the prompt of the traffic light and form the behavior habit of watching the traffic light, which can effectively avoid traffic accidents caused by bending their heads to play on mobile phones when the light is green in the future.

If you want to watch our final video, you can follow this link:https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/715450127/privacy

If you want to know more about our MISSE in detail, you can click on this link:https://www.mediafactory.org.au/shuyuzhang/2022/05/27/4-assignment/

A critical analysis of the ArcGIS story maps as visualization convection.

By Saud A Q A J Hayat (s3760723)

For this project I chose to do a critical analysis of an already existing application, this was after in one of my classes we had used the application to be able to pass our messages in a much easier to understand manner. The application in question was the ArcGIS Story maps. Having seen firsthand how helpful the app was for me and the rest of the students, I became more curious to try and understand how the application is used in different sectors in the real world.

The ArcGIS Story map combines interactive maps which are hosted in Esri’s cloud service containing several multimedia contents including videos, audio, photos as well as text. All these contents can be used by the user to tell different stories of anything that is happening across the globe. In the critical analysis, something I noted was that Storymaps inspire lean thinking, sharp focus on value maximization, and enable informed product interactions with other stakeholders.

 

MediaFactory Link:

Doing Mobile Media – Assignment 4

Uber Customisation

Yizhi Wang (Yoyo) s3820041

The mobile placemaking I designed is Uber Customisation. It is a new ride function in the Uber app. The users can set up all their preferences about the trip here, like the car type, music, temperature and so on. It’s like a form and the users can edit the preferences anytime. With this function, people can achieve their favourite experience on every trip.

This idea is based on the Uber app. Uber as an example of digital labour is playing a significant role in human’s life. Moreover, the lockdown during the covid-19 period amplified the growth and impact of the digital economy. Customisation will be a good way for Uber to distinguish itself from other similar apps. The customisation services don’t cost too much or even no cost. It can improve the quality of the service while keeping a similar price to the original.

In conclusion, uber customisation can bring a lot of convenience to people. It provides humanised services and offers the passengers a more comfortable experience. With the growth of digital labour marketing, I believe that this kind of platform will work well with humans. 

 

From this project, I learned a lot about the importance of mobile media to human’s life. My app designing also helped me to think about what digital labour bring to us.

The link to the video: https://vimeo.com/715274883