ARTS 122 02W
Courses:ARTS 122 02W

Instructor: George Legrady
TA: Andreas Schlegel

Monday 1-3:30pm - Kerr Hall, Wednesday 1-3:30pm - Estudio


Interface Design, Camera Tracking Interactivity & How to Visualize Nanotechnology

An advanced studio course in interface design for interactivity. The course will address issues and concepts of interface design with a special focus on visualization metaphors for interaction at the nanolevel and motion sensing interactivity. Students will be introduced to the topic of nanotechnology and camera motion sensing using the Trackthemcolors Xtra in conjunction with the Lingo scripting language in the Macromedia Director environment. Familiarity with Macromedia Director and Lingo scripting language is a prerequisite.

The course will introduce the following topics: Interface Design, Scientific Visualization, Nanotechnology, and motion sensing through camera tracking interaction. This is a lot to cover in a 10 week quarter so our engagement with these topics will be restricted but adequate enough to produce an interactive work in Director that will address the question of how to interact at the nano level. From a philosophical and artistic perspective, the issue is to explore representation. The intention of the course then is to focus on innovative and creative solutions for visualizing and creating an aesthetic experience.


Information & Interface design Data by itself is worthless. It must be organized and presented in a way that gives it meaning. Interactivity and data management involves implicit and explicit modes of communication that reflect an interdisciplinary perspective. for example http://acg.media.mit.edu or http://bitsandspaces.ethz.ch


Scientific Visualization Visualization offers a method for seeing the unseen. That is, visualization is a tool both for interpreting image data fed into a computer, and for generating images from complex multi-dimensional data sets. It studies those mechanisms in humans and computers which allow them in concert to perceive, use and communicate visual information. For example http://www.mindspace.net


Nanotechnology This discipline involves creation and production at the molecular level. To see and be present at the nanolevel requires metaphoric visualization similar to being present in cyberspace. Both are simulations that must be culturally meaningful to the viewer.
http://foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_1.html
http://foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Glossary.html
http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/gimzewski


Motion Sensing through Camera Tracking The desire for the "intelligent space" is pushing us to go beyond the mouse/keyboard paradigm and towards the sensing of human human presence and movement within space.. Motion sensing through camera tracking is one of the key research topics. TTC is a basic tool by which we can communicate the displacement of humans to the computer.
For instance http://www.space-odysseys.com/ar_gh.php or http://www.interlog.com/~drokeby/home.html


Prerequisites Knowledge of contemporary art through ART 1a, 2b, and conceptual methods from ART 22. Familiarity with Macromedia Director and the Lingo scripting language through ART 102.


To pass the course students will be expected to:
attend the classes and do some web research
attend the Monday night 5pm Media & Technology Lecture series
learn programming the camera tracking
produce an interactive work related to visualizing Nanotechnology through interactivity