Author: aucadmin

Sebastian Beswick, University of Tasmania Part of CW12

I’m currently studying for a Bachelor of Computing with Honours at Utas, and as a keen amateur musician, I have a special interest in Computer Sound – after all, most modern music relies heavily on computer generated synthesised sounds.

Now, Wouldn’t it be cool if you could sit down in front of a computer and, after showing it what you liked, have it intelligently generate you unique works of art, (in this case synthesised sounds), based on your own personal aesthetic preferences?

My honours project Gene-synth leverages the incredible power of modern evolutionary computing and artificial intelligence techniques to deliver a solution that would allow all composers – regardless of their level of technical ability – to create beautiful original sounds. Gene-Synth works by automatically learning and modelling the musician’s sound preferences, and using Darwinian techniques (such as survival of the fittest) to breed generations of high-quality sounds for immediate use in their production.

Dylan Turney, Auckland University of Technology Part of CW12

Creative Coding (or Sometimes It’s Alright to Write Rubbish Code) looks at the role of coding within in the emerging field of experiential advertising and interactive installations, using examples from projects I have been involved in (including work for international tech start-up company Makelight Limited).

Topics:

• Why a high-tech approach is needed to engage the public
• The relationship between creative and commercial coding and how the two are often intertwined within a project
• The importance of code quality and scalability for one-off installations and large commercial creative products
• The challenges of a 24-hour work cycle (New Zealand/London) and tight deadlines
• The art of quick code iteration for prototyping

Richard Deveraux, Charles Darwin University Part of CW12

The presentation will look at some of the perceived barriers/limitations with developing for the web and will provide possible alternatives that can ease the transition from traditional native development. Some topics that would be covered include:

• the barriers/limitations for web programming (straight from the spider’s mouth)
• workflows for making cross platform websites / web applications using responsive design
• developing a game with HTML5 and JavaScript

The last topic will look at my major third year project, which was a HTML5 Game (called The Little Worlds Project). This would include a live demo where the audience use BYO mobile devices to view/participate in the demo. QR codes will be provided for quick linking.

Ro Bairstow, Auckland University of Technology Part of CW12

I will share ways in which the students use their iPads, the Apps of value and
experiences gained in rolling out a BYOD iPad programme for students.
I will talk about my experiences with the creation of educational Apps and iBooks. I will also cover running e-learning courses, including delivering “live” online lesson with Blackboard Collaborate.

Mark Galer, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Part of CW12

The presentation will outline how students can quickly and easily create time lapse and stop motion sequences. The workshop will move from basic through intermediate to professional workflows. It will showcase student examples using basic editing workflows (budget stills cameras, a tripod and iMovie) and outline the common difficulties and technical problems students typically encounter when making their first time lapse sequence.

The workshop should inspire photography and media arts educators to think beyond the still image.

The workshop will conclude by showing how time lapse can be integrated with real-time video and slow motion video in the same project to extend the creative possibilities of the story teller.

Cat Hope & Aaron Wyatt, Edith Cowan University Part of CW12

This presentation looks at the work Western Australian group Decibel new music ensemble have been doing with ipads as graphic music score readers in performance. With investment from an industry partner, Decibel have been working toward the realisation a number of scores on networked ipads, some of which they premiered in their September concert at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. An ‘app’ has been developed, that allows any score to be inserted into and put in motion inside a ‘reader’.

In addition, they commissioned new works for the reader, and adapted others – such as the complete John Cage Variations scores. The most recent adoption is a work for 2 concert organs and string orchestra for the International SpaceTimeConcerto competition, where the readers connect with five different orchestras/countries over the Internet. The features of the reader, and the processes of its development will be examined and demonstrated in this presentation.

Prof Paul Draper & Dr Kim Cunio, Griffith University Part of CW12

This presentation is proposed as both ‘presentation’ and ‘performance, comprising a scholarly paper and exemplification though short performances and recorded excerpts:

‘Artistic research’ (AR) is increasingly expanding in the academy, most recently exemplified in the establishment of the EU-funded Journal for Artistic Research. One of the characteristics of AR is that it accepts subjectivity (aka ‘little r’ research) as opposed to traditional scientific methods (or ‘big R’ research). As such, it is similar to the social sciences in using qualitative research and intersubjectivity as tools to apply measurement and critical analysis. AR investigates and tests with the purpose of gaining knowledge within and for artistic disciplines, and through presented documentation and artworks, the insights gained are placed in a context where the research aims to enhance knowledge and understanding in that discipline.

This presentation will present two interwoven components: i) a scholarly research paper complete with artistic research questions, method, analysis and conclusions; and ii) live music performance components that will feature the voice, acoustic instruments and digital arts technologies. This juxtaposition aims to present both highly familiar and unfamiliar thinking about musical practices to answer the following questions: How may musical thinking and preparation be considered ‘research’? In what ways can both the music and the text best serve to answer these questions? In particular, the presentation and performance components will focus on three aspects of this process: in relation to musical improvisation (the beginning of a new work); the formalization of structure, form and repetition (in the composition of the piece); and finally, in the technical production, capture and representation of a ‘final’ work as audio-visual recording.

Thomas Verbeek, University of Otago Part of CW12

“The Octagon” is both an exhibit and an experiment in cooperation and user interface design. Eight computers provide eight ‘artists’ with a view into a shared virtual room. In the center of the room is a platform on which sculpture may be built. Each participant can add to the sculpture using a very intuitive interface. It ‘feels’ as though you just draw what you want and it appears in 3D. Most users need no instruction. Each user’s 2D view is inherently ambiguous, yet artists do not seem to ask how their 2D gestures are translated. They discover the rules by experimentation and usually don’t even realize that there are rules.

The Octagon can be presented in various forms. The simplest is to set up eight computers in a ring so they surround a real space. But it is possible to put the computers anywhere. Activity can be shared across the room or across the world.
The application was developed in Graphics Research Group at the University of Otago in New Zealand. It was featured in the “Emerging Technologies” exhibition at SIGGRAPH ASIA 2011 Hong Kong.

Richard Stals, Edith Cowan University Part of CW12

How can we leverage the devices that staff and students are bringing onto campus, their own iPod, iPhones, iPads? How can we enable anytime, anywhere access to learning content, information and expertise? What applications do we need to develop to allow our community to take control of their own learning journey with us?

This presentation will explore the open-source framework, ‘Kurogo’ – a Mobile Middleware for developing content-rich mobile websites and iOS and Android apps. The core of Kurogo is a lightweight PHP framework that aggregates and organizes raw, decentralized data sources from your enterprise systems and delivers them through a mobile web experience and native companion applications.

We will explore how to get the framework up and running and connect some of the more common University data sources. We will briefly look at the iOS application project in Xcode as a first step in releasing your own University iPhone app.
I will also introduce you to the newest Kurogo module, which I have developed, that connects to your Learning Management System (we will be using Blackboard).

Richard Stals, Edith Cowan University Part of CW12

In a recent project, I developed a series of prototype 3D Serious Games using the Unity3D game engine.

One of the prototypes sparked a great deal of interest from both academics as well as students and has been further developed into a pre-release version of the game.
The game/simulation is a real-world disaster scenario that is designed to train Paramedic students in Mass Casualty Incident Triage.

Initially it was developed as a SCORM compliant module that can be loaded into the school’s Learning Management System like Moodle or Blackboard. In order to explore the utility of the game further, I have developed a version for the iPad.

In this session you will learn how you can begin your creative journey into 3D serious games using a combination of free and low cost tools and resources.