Information Visualization

The last panel of the Festival in the last time slot before Josh Davis and Yugo Nakamura's packed house presentations, but for me the best of show this year:
Marcos Weskamp
Nicolai Cornell
Branden J. Hall
Ben Fry

Each panelist showed examples of graphic interfaces that are data driven. I was surprised at how easy they all seemed to find the creative side of the process, not being bound by the data or the 'scientific' or 'technical' predispositions of their clients.

Weskamp's Newsmap is an independent project, application that parses Google News for headlines then displays them sized relative to their frequency. Later, Marcos and I chatted about what the effect would be if the headline sizes were in inverse proportion to frequency; would it say something about the news that the mainstream media do not want to report?


Cornell's work is very focussed on user interactions, e.g., the touch screen interface that takes one through the story in the work Supersonic. In the work shown above, the fashion industry is pulled apart at the seams by showing graphically the actual cost of each garment's various parts.

Ben Fry talked about the challenge of presenting data graphically to scientists, e.g. chromosome 14, who are used to seeing data presented very basically, in tables and such, and being pleasantly surprised by how delighted they often are. Seeing data in different, often elegant or even beautiful ways opens the eyes and the senses generally. It certainly is possible that info viz also opens minds to different ways of thinking or to new insights based on a given data set.

Branden Hall talked about his work with Jemma Gura and Dustin Hostetler, mapping their careers and their relationship, and also about his work with Josh Davis which he described as "he builds something and gives it to Josh, who then breaks it," at which point maybe they start getting somewhere conceptually.

But the funniest moment had to be when Ben Fry showed a still from the film Hulk where his work Genome Valence appeared on a monitor as a computer tool used by one of the characters.

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Design Futures

Is the design glass half empty or half full?

On this panel, the roles of optimist and pessimist were curiously inverted.

Robert Peters sees the glass half full. His presentation the day before was all about ethics and here, in a more personal setting, he talked again about the challenge of working against the many assumptions of the commercial, corporate world. Peters could be considered a "scold", a term the Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente uses to wither the voices of conscience with the voice of Ms. Manners. But his talk about global issues like climate change and poverty was underlined with an optimism that designers can be part of the solution. Many attending the conference found that inspiring.

On the other hand, you might say Jesse Seppi considers the glass half empty. On Saturday, he raised a major concern about the fate of the designer - as technologies and media converge he fears the craft that is so evident in new media work at present will be covered up or lost. Contrasted against Peters, Seppi seemed pessimistic, though you could say he is only more of a pragmatist or realist.

I felt that for both panelists, being aware of the issues that surround your specific design tasks was extremely important, and that they both believed in contributing positively, though clearly in very different ways.

David Carson regretably did not show for the panel. His freestyle approach cuts both ways, against corporatism (no annual reports in his portfolio) and also strongly in favour of design craft. Carson occupies a space in which optimism or pessimism is largely irrelevant. It's a joyful space, lots of laughter and sunshine.

Maybe it depends on what is in the glass whether you think it half full or half empty.

With only a few minutes left, a few folks in the audience asked about the role of women in new media and at the Festival in particular. It was noted that there were too few women speakers and panelists, the awards ceremony having been particularly sexist in its imagery and completely male dominated. It was also said that the Festival has worked hard to ensure equality and is doing better than most similar events. That the issue had been raised seemed to be appreciated by both audience and panelists, suggesting potential for the role of women in new media to become a topic unto itself, perhaps next year. Feels like a long way off.

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Story-Narrative Design

Mark Greenspan started things off by asking who in the audience would describe themselves as storytellers. Just before the panel, Mark had confided that he expected very few would but to our surprise almost everyone raised their hand.

The ensuing discussion focussed more on the 'role' of newmedia narrative rather than on the technicalities of how experiences are created, which was interesting given that FITC has in the past tended to feature a lot of technical presentations.

Norma Toraya and Donna Leishman described the narrative arc as a birth/life/death cycle, which made for a nice counterpoint to Brooke Burgess who viewed the arc in sexual terms.

On the use of unconventional or non-linear narrative structures, Brooke spoke eloguently about the importance of classical narrative structure, quoting Shigeru Miyamoto from Nintendo –- the world’s greatest game designer –- who said that you cannot give the user COMPLETE freedom if you wish them to experience a story. You can give them a 'wide road' but it still must travel in a specific direction.

Several people after the panel said how refreshing it was to have visible/predominate female voice on the panel. More about this in the Design Futures post.

some current narrative approaches, all at iamstatic.com:
Norma V. Toraya
Marty Spellerberg
Anton Sakara
Rogier Hendricks

seminal stuff:
short definition of non-linear narrative:
http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/TimeSpace/tsnon.html
early non-linear writer Shelley Jackson, e.g. see Patchwork Girl
http://www.ineradicablestain.com/
Einstein's Dreams: The Miracle Year, created by Daniel Canty and DNA Productions.
Alex Mayhew and Real World Multimedia produced the cd-rom Ceremony of Innocence (1997)

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Digital Creatures

There was a lot of enthusiasm on the panel for the new software developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry. Here's a description from their website processing.org: "Processing is a programming language and environment built for the media arts and design communities. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook. It is used by students, artists, designers, architects, and researchers for learning, prototyping, and production. The beta software for Processing 1.0 was released 20 April 2005 and can be downloaded here. Bug fixes are being made as we head toward the 1.0 release. Processing is free to download and available for PC, Mac, and Linux."

[How long before Adobe comes a-calling?]

Nobody really wanted to speculate on the promised improvements in processing speed of the Flash 8 player, which is going to speed up by converting vectors to bitmaps, but everyone was delighted with the ability of Processing to easily handle accumulating complex equation-generated graphics.

The panelists agreed generally on the exploratory nature of their process, experimenting, testing and often being surprised by results.

On the distinction between artificial intelligence and artificial life, everyone kind of accepts that their work is not so much about artificial intelligence as it is about emulating life forms, growth patterns and such. There is a lot of interest in the distinction though, as Jeremy noted, he is very interested in creating behaviors, as shown in his pollinating bees.

If processing capacity is a limitation, I wondered what the folks in Hollywood, with their infinite resources, are doing. Casey noted that the Ork army in Lord of the Rings was totally animated using similar techniques:

"The trilogy's revolutionary animation techniques, produced by Weta Digital, have brought worldwide acclaim for the studio, earning it both a 2003 BAFTA Award and 2003 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Headed by Randall Cook, Weta Digital's director of animation, Weta had the hefty task of creating a digital cast of thousands that would include Sauron's vast orc armies. Models up to 1.5 metres tall were sculpted, and using a hand-held laser scanner (one that was actually developed for scanning carcasses by the NZ Meat Board), the models were captured in 'real-time' at mega-high resolution. This created a detailed form guideline which the animators used for building up characters.

"To manage the movement of creatures in the huge battle scenes, the company developed Massive, a ground-breaking piece of software that simulates crowd behaviour. It allows every individual character in a crowd to move both in response to its environment, including terrain and obstacles, as well as the actions of the other characters. The Return of the King will see hundreds of thousands of these intelligent 'characters' appearing simultaneously in each frame, allowing Jackson to recreate the spectacular battle scene at Pelennor Field."
[ref]

'course Massive costs $18,000 US, while Processing is free!

Casey Reas
http://www.groupc.net/
http://processing.org

Gary Stasiuk
http://www.liquidjourney.com

Jared Tarbell
http://www.levitated.net
http://www.complexification.net

Jeremy Thorpe
http://www.blprnt.com/

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Source + Imagination II

Melanie McBride generously volunteered to moderate this panel and provided an excellent set of questions for both this group and the Source + Imagination I panelists to mull over before the event. Thanks htMel!

Snow Dowd and Robert Reinhardt participated in a similar panel last year that was focussed specifically on the relationship between art and design, commerce and creativity. This year, artists Seth Scriver and Derrick Hodgson were invited to bring some more 'non-developer' perspective on creativity to this panel. Seth kacked out on us at the last minute (the rat!), leaving Derrick a bit out in left field, but he handled it with his usual liquid aplomb.

Snow and Robert talked about the need to find inspiration outside of their client work but also how they have been fortunate enough to work with clients who are interested in exploring creative possibilities and not overly focussed right from the get go on the end product, for example, their recent project with UCLA’s Center for International Emergency Medicine, which was the subject of their individual FITC presentation.

Derrick shows his paintings and drawings in galleries and magazines as well as doing "commercial" work for folks like Burton snowboards. The distinction between commercial and non-commercial is pretty much irrelevant for him though, as this board exhbition shows. Derrick admitted to having a pretty priviledged position, with art directors coming to him knowing what they are going to get and giving him pretty much complete freedom.

The best moment, for me, came when Dan Zen asked the panelists what was their favourite creative project and Derrick talked about the great process of manufacturing custom dolls for Sony Creative, Japan. Not everybody loves plastic though. Jessie Seppi, on a different panel on a different day, decried the trend for expensive "designer toys" in NY right now.

P.S. Thanks to Melanie also for inspiring me to get back to blogging. Mel is a prodigious and expert blogger, as you can see here.

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Convergence

This panel asked the questions "What ever happened to the idea convergence, is it happening or not, and if it is, how?"

Moderator Evan Jones kicked things off by noting that the term convergence originally referred to corporations merging but now refers to multiple media messaging. Spunky Gmunk (Bradley Grosh) took up the point, introducing us all to the expression 'back in the day', which spread virally to other panelists and attendees over the next two days, by talking about the phone iPod hybrid that hasn't reached North America yet. I have to say I do NOT get phone culture, but somehow the enthusiasm of the panelists convinced me I have to run right out and start blogging on a phone while swapping mp3s and gaming while also watching Three's Company.

Loc Dao from CBC Radio 3 and Tom Muller both talked about cross-media music delivery systems. btw Radio 3 has been canned and word has is that the crew who created it are setting up shop independently... so expect to hear more about them in the future.

For me, the pivotal point came when Jesse Seppi warned of the risk that we are going to lose the craft and creativity that is so visible on the Web as the media converge.

Which got me to thinking that we have been in a very special, privileged place for the past few years, a kind of tech bubble, where the people who craft things -- designers and developers -- are at the forefront, building the tools as well as controlling the way things look and work. Having the tech visible, like in wireframe style animations, is cool because it is new. If Jesse is right, as things progress, everything starts to get skinned and the tech will be submerged, gradually more and more invisible. In advertising, for example, who pays any attention really to the designers and directors? They are truly behind the scenes. And how much do designers control content? Market testers pretty much set the agenda there now. New media doesn't feel like that at the moment but for how long?

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Source + Imagination I

The first of two panels aimed at giving outstanding creators the opportunity to talk freely with their peers about their process, goals, challenges...

Craig Swann generously agreed to moderate this panel group. Craig has moved to Barcelona recently and decided to stay on longer than originally planned, a sure sign of our increasingly global community. I'd been trying to get James Patterson on a panel for several years, and he showed, despite a terrible cold, so thanks James (earwax conversation excepted)! I hadn't met Margot Knight and am embarassed to admit I barely knew her work but over the next few days we spent quite a bit of time together. Margot peppers her conversation with insights and quotes and references to art and art history. Jared Tarbell is without doubt the sweetest guy you are ever likely to meet. Seriously, this guy is mystical in his kindness and openess. No slouch as a marketer either... check out the prints on his site.

So, what did these folks talk about? Sorry, I forget. Did the stars get in my eyes? Well, yeah! If you attended this panel and a specific thought or interchange has stuck with you, please post a comment.

I asked Craig to recap and he sent back this:
--
To me - it is somewhat of a blur, as the conversation kept moving, which is what I think made it an interesting panel. For me, the fact that to all people it was a passion - and that we loved what we were doing came through I think. That the source, inspiration and struggles all grew from an innate need to create and produce - for sheer enjoyment and for self. The work is generally not commercial work, but ideas and concepts that we envision or dream up and feel the need to bring into the real world to share amongst ourselves and others.

oh, and Jared rubbing himself with crystals ;)
--
James illustrates his FITC state-of-being in this drawing.

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Designing your business for success

Happiness is a supportive partner (husband, wife, gerbil) and... an equally supportive chair

Kevin's Aeron chair | Teknion's Contessa, nice in yellow

How much is design worth? Moderator Kevin Airgid led off by noting that everybody but everybody asks him this question. Zubin Zarin, Bill Sweetman concurred and pointed out the importance of clearly defining the scope of your work (and sticking to it), fixing a single (not hourly) fee, managing client expectations and knowing when to say no, amply demonstrated by the ever charming Hugh Elliot.

Is pricing a puzzle that can be solved? Some food for thought:



Cost of a used 1982 Subaru $750 O.B.O.
Cost of a 2005 Subaru $21,295
Cost of a 2006 Lexus GS300 $42,900

HGTV's Mike Holmes answers a question:
S@H: So how much should a full bathroom renovation cost?
MH: An average bathroom renovation - including a new tub, toilet, sink, tiles, flooring and lighting - should cost $6,000 to $10,000. Now, if you want to use more expensive materials - limestone tiles and a soaking tub, for example - or if your bathroom is larger than the average 40 square feet, you'll probably go over that.

Average salary for a Web Designer in Rochester NY according to salary.com
Base salary $59,711 71%
Bonuses $1,997 2%
Social Security $4,721 6%
401k/403b $2,234 3%
Disability $1,506 2%
Healthcare $5,390 6%
Pension $1,999 2%
Time off $6,740 8%
Total $84,298 100%
= approx. $42/hr
+ $8/hr for home office including rent, utilities, hard and software, property insurance, accounting and other professional services, credit and banking services, and a little marketing each month
= $50/hr

Estimated hourly fee musician/record producer Daniel Lanois would charge, deduced from a recording project budget: $5000

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Copyright R.I.P.

This panel was intended to serve two purposes; to give new media developers an understanding of how copyright works and how they should deal with it with respect to their own work, and to examine the issues around p2p file sharing and the critical use of appropriated materials in art projects. These are controversial issues and a lively exchange was expected.

Lawyer Greg Stephens started things off by defining copyright and how it works. Mary Barroll, also a lawyer, elaborated on the importance of using contracts to clarify copyright ownership. Mary supplied a very thorough handout, which was much apprecaited by attendees.
download the original powerpoint
download the .rtf version

Trevor Fencott, former lawyer and now President and CEO of Groove Games, described the complexity of contracts involved in creating games, where many people and many teams, some located all over the world, are involved.

Bill Klinginsmith from the Rochester Institute of Technology added his perspective as an independent developer and as an academic at RIT where the Institute owns copyright in things he creates as part of his work teaching.

Evan Roth showed examples of projects that borrow from other sources in order to make critical commentary. While these works were edgy, they were also funny and, in terms of copyright, the lawyers on the panel agreed that they fall within a safe zone of parody. Bill concluded the panel by noting that the services of a good lawyer are indispensible to the independent developer and that there are many sources and some services available to help people get started dealing with copyright properly.

Evan has posted links to the works he showed:
by Cory Arcangel, Jason Salavon, Jim Campbell, Read My Lips and DJ Danger Mouse:
http://ni9e.com/copyrightrip/

On the sampling front, Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, should be known to you all:
http://www.djspooky.com/articles.html

These two sites track so-called infringing works, many if not all of which are IMHO perfectly legal critical commentary (parodies) of existing works:
http://downhillbattle.org
http://www.illegal-art.org/
And this one is behind the second one:
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/

And you might want to check out this work by artist Shu Lea Cheang - BURN - which has been online since 2001.

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FITC panels review

Thanks to everyone who participated in this year's FITC panels. Below are summaries or just commentary related to the topic generally (the specifics being pretty much a blur now). Please add your comments. If a conversation develops, I know it will contribute to the panels next year.
tx
- Rob L., FITC 2005 panels co-ordinator

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Studio, by Thomas Demand, 1997

"Studio derives from a photograph of the 1970's television set for the German What's My Line?- a program about truth and fiction... Demand is best when his work proffers a kind of strict, modernist opulence amid the sense of loss. That's the case with the garish color bars of the vacant television studio, a kind of readymade Ellsworth Kelly, set off, rhythmically, against the four chairs and three panels on the legs of the table."
March 4, 2005 | ART REVIEW | 'THOMAS DEMAND' | Painterly Photographs of a Slyly Handmade Reality | By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN | image found at: http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/artdemand01bk.htm | originally at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/arts/design/04KIMM.html
(reproduced under Creative Commons non-profit, share-with-credit license)

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