Marsha Berry

Changing Urban Spaces: Mobile Phones on Trains

Abstract Mobility is changing the ways people routinely behave in public places. Since the appearance of digital mobile phone networks, mobile phones have become part of suburban and urban landscapes globally. Both the use of public transport and mobile telecommunications are integral for daily life and self‐presentation in most large cities such as London and Tokyo. Public places and spaces are being transformed into hybrid geographies through the introduction of new spatial infrastructure. In this paper, we present our analysis of the responses of our survey sample of commuters concerning their use of mobile phones on trains.

Animated drawings rendered by genetic programming

We describe an approach to generating animations of drawings that start as a random collection of strokes and gradually resolve into a recognizable subject. The strokes are represented as tree based genetic programs. An animation is generated by rendering the best individual in a generation as a frame of a movie. The resulting animations have an engaging characteristic in which the target slowly emerges from a random set of strokes. We have generated two qualitatively different kinds of animations, ones that use grey level straight line strokes and ones that use binary Bezier curve stokes. Around 100,000 generations are needed to generate engaging animations. Population sizes of 2 and 4 give the best convergence behaviour. Convergence can be accelerated by using information from the target in drawing a stroke. Our approach provides a large range of creative opportunities for artists. Artists have control over choice of target and the various stroke parameters.

Evolutionary Non Photo-Realistic Animations with Triangular Brushstrokes

We have developed a method for generating non photorealistic animations of a target image. The animations start as a random collection of triangular strokes on a canvas and the target gradually emerges as the animation proceeds. We use genetic programming to evolve programs that draw the brushstrokes. A measure of similarity to the target is used as the fitness function. The best individual in a generation becomes a frame of the animation. We have experimented with open and filled triangles. Both kinds of triangles resulted in animations that our artist collaborators found engaging and interesting. In particular, the use of filled triangles generated animations that exhibited a novel immersive quality. The evolutionary approach requires artistic judgment in selecting the target images and values for the various parameters and provides a rich environment for exploring novel non photo–realistic renderings.

Constellations and connections: the playful space of the creative practice research degree

The academic space for creative practice research is dynamic and ‘is always in the process of being made. It is never finished: never closed’ [Massey, D. 2005. For Space. London: Sage, 9]. It is a research space filled with constellations of connections, which serves as a vital incubator for risk taking, reflexivity and fearless critical thinking. Higher degree by research candidates working in this space move fluidly between thinking and making, allowing their creative practice to become informed and innovative. They draw on a community of practice – of thinkers and makers – to make connections that form constellations in order to extend and expand what they would usually do. Their practice thus becomes their methodology in an environment that is responsive to new concepts and customs. Supervising research degree candidates involves being there with them in that messy space. When candidates try to organise ideas and practices into neat boxes, and those boxes leak, supervisors play an important role in making sure the content does not collapse. Often creative practice researchers themselves, supervisors are both the guardians of academic standards and the ones who dare candidates to ‘go there’. The result is the creation of a dynamic space for play, where boundaries can be pushed. In this paper we present a series of ideas about and reflective experiences of supervising creative practice research degree candidates, namely in the disciplines of screen and media production, and creative writing. We discuss the nature of the creative practice research space – philosophically, metaphorically and practically – and we discuss the role of the supervisor in creating and navigating this space. We end by reflecting on and how this type of space is not only important for creative practice research, but is also a vital component of the contemporary academy.

Mobile Computing Applications: Bluetooth for Local Voices

Our vision is to create an independent content-distribution system using ubiquitous computing technologies. In this paper, we report on how we implemented mobile computing applications to design and build a content-distribution system using Bluetooth technology in an urban site in order to distribute context-sensitive media. The granularities of our design considerations included the ability to support both annotative and phenomenological locative media projects. GPS surveillance technologies were integrated into our prototype. While we were building the system, we conducted a survey to find out what would induce people to turn their Bluetooth on and what kinds of content they would like to receive. This paper contributes to the field of ubiquitous computing and urban studies through its description of how existing technologies can be combined to provide novel mobile computing applications in the city. In our vision a tram route assumes the guise of a performative terrain where passengers can listen to varied narratives of place.

Comparison between Genetic Algorithm and Genetic Programming Performance for Photomosaic Generation

Photomosaics are a new form of art in which smaller digital images (known as tiles) are used to construct larger images. Photomosaic generation not only creates interest in the digital arts area but has also attracted interest in the area of evolutionary computing. The photomosaic generation process may be viewed as an arrangement optimisation problem, for a given set of tiles and suitable target to be solved using evolutionary computing. In this paper we assess two methods used to represent photomosaics, genetic algorithms (GAs) and genetic programming (GP), in terms of their flexibility and efficiency. Our results show that although both approaches sometimes use the same computational effort, GP is capable of generating finer photomosaics in fewer generations. In conclusion, we found that the GP representation is richer than the GA representation and offers additional flexibility for future photomosaics generation.

Creative Mobile Media: The State of Play

This chapter elaborates on the creative dimensions of mobile media practices point at prospects to further expand the field of creative arts and design. It contributes to existing debates around co-presence in networked media and the impact of smartphones on our understandings and interactions with space and place; emergent socialities associated with social media to contextualize the notion of ‘sharing’ and how this concept is replacing ‘community’; the aesthetics of mobile media; and how storytelling shapes and is shaped by mobile media.

Generation of self-referential animated photomosaics

We describe the implementation of an art installation that generates animated photomosaics of the viewer. Photomosaics are target images composed of smaller images known as tiles. When a photomosaic is viewed from afar the detail of the tiles is lost and the target image is evident. Up close, the opposite occurs: the detail of the tiles is evident and the target image is lost. Our system uses a photo of the viewer as the target and miniatures of the viewers face as tiles. Evolutionary search is used to find the best selection and arrangement of tiles. Each newly found best image is then used as the frame of a movie. The resulting animations start from a random arrangement of tiles and gradually the viewers face emerges and is clearly visible, and then gradually de-materialises into a random pattern.

Out in the open: locating new vernacular practices with smartphone cameras

ABSTRACT We are living in a moment where new types of visuality and vernaculars are emerging. For many of us sharing of objects such as photos and video has become a part of our daily routines. The sheer volume of videos and photos uploaded to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram provide ample evidence of our desire to document and share our most ordinary moments. Details of our lives are out in the open through the entangled zones of smartphones, networks and geography. In this paper, I explore some of the entanglements of video and photography have with life our lives, both physically and through social media, and how these might be understood within a broader context of emplaced visualities through a short and sharp digital ethnography of how creative practitioners who participate in social media groups use photographs and video.

Using BDI to Model Players Behaviour in an Interactive Fiction Game

Player Modelling is one of the challenges in Interactive Narratives (INs), where a precise representation of the players mental state is needed to provide a personalised experience. However, how to represent the interaction of the player with the game to make the appropriate decision in the story is still an open question. In this paper, we aim to bridge this gap identifying the information needed to capture the behaviour of players in an IN using the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) model of agency. We present a BDI design method to mimic the interaction of players with a simplified version of the Interactive Fiction Anchorhead. Our preliminary results show that a BDI agent based on our player model is able to generate game traces more similar to humans than optimal traces.