DAY 2 - Monday, 12 March 2006 @ Mediashed, Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

Those present were the same as Day One:

Today was the turn of Kathirine Moriwaki to talk about her plans for her Art for Shopping Centre project. She started with discussions on migrations, social integration and sense of identity, and also about contemporary US culture, incorporating the Internet, gaming and technology. Informal culture from such things as the environment, skateboarding, surfing, shopping / consumerism and decoupled identities. She talked about a shift of perspectives within racial, cultural, class and language and the friction at points of intersection between these perspectives/intersection of concerns. Infrastructure and systems was also a topic including media systems as art and structural characteristics of ad hoc WiFi networks.

Emerging technology networks such as mobile networks not requiring fixed transmission points. The use of technology in social spaces: interaction and transferance of data, social interaction being part of a subnet within a larger social network and the intersection between these two layers.

GH - Social networking through media

DV - Technology and networks - highlighting the 'pollution' - eg mobile phone signals

KM - Encoding and decoding mediums

GH - Biological interaction of people in a town square

Technology as an accelerator of interactions - what we wear is a form of interaction/communication with others. Technology disembodies the user rather than direct communication, use of technology removes the human element (messages can be misconstrued, etc)- The flipside is the use of deep brain stimulation to cure disease (Parkinsons), therefore aiding communication

After lunch Katherine Moriwaki resumed with talk about the her project for Art for Supermarkets. We were joined midway through the afternoon by Damien Robinson.

Her project is to be based around the concepts of proximity/chance/coincidence, including interactive narrative exploring the ambiguity of location. The participant is to wear a set of headphones attached to the unit and walk around the shopping centre itself. The unit will play back 5 stories (1 story per node/unit preferred, but may have to consider otherwise) for around 10-15 minutes and change between narratives when in a certain proximity of another user.

Narratives: Cannot be too long, otherwise will lose interest, of emotional and psychological experiences and effects of consumerism, different visitors would want to hear different things - eg: GH's nieces would enjoy hearing of experiences in a US mall, but teenage boys wouldn't.

Stories of: Shopping, window shopping, shoplifting, hanging out in malls, observation and voyeuristic aspect of such places, narrative effected/interrupted by node interaction, structural elements at points of intersection, shopping malls can be 'non' places like airports, or of almost religious significance, like cathedrals (environments of reflection), dialogue could/should come from local people, split stories into short segments as audio clips, long dialogue is interrupted by passing nodes, which triggers an 'enlightening/epiphany' experience OR Passing nodes could temporarily swap 'thoughts'?

When interrupted the audio switches, rather like someone thinking and suddenly having their thought sdrawn to something else, then switching back to where they left off, thought points that encourage listener to think of the world around them in a different way, narrator could directly address the listener, what can be considered and 'epiphany' and how can it be created?, sense of being 'pulled out' of the narrative, moment of satisfaction, from inner world to the outer - connection with the outer world. Katherine really liked this idea.

Find a local group for Katherine to work with on the project address the unfamiliarity of the UK demographic, mix of ideas, differences between the US and UK in terms of shopping habits, behaviours and experiences, test prototype of nodes and the system, test proximity in Arndale Centre, sensitivity of units, average number of contacts, need to avoid constant or no interruption (unless desired). Narrator to be local and to understand the reference points of living in Manchester & use/users of Arndale.

Parts for node/units - 2.4GHz XBee Node -- 3.3V -- Range: 1.5km outside line-of-sight -- Regular $19, Pro $30 each - Microcontroller -- 5V -- For programming - Parts just plug together - ease of assembly

Talking points on this subject were RF ID tags re:Mark Dixon, After introducing Damien Robinson to Katherine and Drew and explaining the idea of the project to her, the following points were discussed: The system is not suitable for deaf people. How could they be included?, the use of NXT pads, the of poetry and male/female voices, transcription (scrapped - not interactive) and visual interaction of units.

Considerations to be made were: Age range, suitablility of content (nothing to worry about in terms of content, but interest is a factor), length of project, returning 'customers’, what if they want to hear more? If they want to hear everything, will they have to return and take the next available unit? What if they get same unit? Can all the stories be on each unit and they loop? Random order, different start times, each unit is out of sync/phase with other units, how much will participants know? Start times and individual/different times were all issues raised in this part of the debate. Security was also another high concern with the units being mobile and given to members of the public.

Benefits to individuals (What does the participant get from this?): Audio track, sense of taking part and the excitement of interactivity with unknown people (whilst maintaining anonymity, if no visual clues as part of unit).

Katherines_workshop_movie