Blog of the Creative Technology bachelor at the University of Twente
- reflection(s) — the creative technology war(s)
There is an obscure dividing line between the creatives and the technologists. However, many do believe, with me, that innovation requires joining forces, or what some prefer to call co-creativity. Another observation is, that in a deep sense our culture is playful, but in need of people that can draw a magic circle, and create games or playful applications, that allow us to experiment with technology, reflect on technology and have new and/or old experiences. These people, the creative technology students, are now united in the CTSG network, ready to draw their magic circle(s) wherever they see fit!
- The good, the bad and the worst
In order to learn to do things well, it can be very useful to do them badly. Last weeks’ New Media assignment: make the worst web page ever. Some students succeeded very well, since some of the most horrible pages were published. See for yourself and add a comment to let us know your personal favorite.
- Together they Create
Ever saw a walking fridge in real? Last week students Creative Technology occupied Smart XP and expressed theirselves in an exhibition called ‘Together we Create’. It was the final assignment in the course ‘We create identity’. It was an exiting exhibition. With different kinds of applications – like pong-on-bike, a walking fridge and a touch table - students proved to be creative technologists by nature. UT news wrote an article about the event. Be also sure to check out the clip from Ineke and Reinout.
- The time has come!
Creative Technology has started! Last week, twenty students attended the first lectures. We are thrilled to start with a whole new group of students, exploring new ideas, inventing new applications that will hopefully change the world in one way or another.
The year 2009-2010 will be exciting. We will witness the birth of a bachelor program which differs substantially from the usual programs offered at technical universities. In November, we will know if Creative Technology gets a formal accreditation.
- Opening toss for Chess Tournament
Creative Technology was asked to make a toss game for the Euro Chess Tournament 2009. A processing applet was made which let a ball bounce around a square field with a given start velocity and direction. At every bounce the ball will change color. The output is not totally random, only very hard to control :)
The applet and source can be viewed at this site . In the final version an arduino has been used to generate the start input and direction.
- Live streams of the Second Life panel discussion
This afternoon, a live stream of the discussion about Second Life in Media Café Berlijn is available via http://streams.live.nu (live stream to SL) or www.qik.com/planetart. Check out this earlier post for more information about the Second Life panel discussion this afternoon. The Second Life discussion is organized by PLANETART and Creative Technology, the new bachelor at University of Twente.
- Intake day
The Intake event was organized as both an informal get-together and evaluation event, in order to exchange views, get to know each other and to participate in two workshops: game development and DrawDio building. All in all it was a very positive experience, and we’re certainly looking forward to the start in September!
Pictures of the event taken by Job can be found here. The manual for the drawdio workshop is available for future reference at this wiki.
- How many lives can a person have?
June 12 – Media Art Café Berlijn Enschede
15.00 – 17.00 uur
Our life and our relations are increasingly influenced by online social networks and virtual environments. In particular, multi-user virtual worlds like Second Life, World of Warcraft and Half Life are starting to occupy an increasingly dominant part of many people’s lives, but actually maintaining a second life parallel to their so-called real life is still reserved for the few.As a consequence, the media and public imagination harbor a number of misconceptions about how the use of virtual worlds might impact our lives as well as an often stereotypical portrayal of why someone might choose to live parts of their lives in a computer-mediated environment.
What is it really that makes some people spend hours daily in a virtual world? What are the conditions for finding virtual worlds rewarding and enjoyable? What kinds of experiences motivate people to live a second life? Is it about experimenting with that which is physically or ethically forbidden in their normal life, to play around, to meet others, to do business, or collaborative scientific or artistic work? What is the effect of a virtual life on the real, and the other way around? Will the popularity of virtual worlds increase further in the future?
We will explore such questions in the form of a panel, with 5 people around the table who have experience with Second Life as scientist, artist, philosopher, computer technologist or educator. The panelists will introduce themselves by showing different examples. Then the moderated discussion will start, with the opportunity for the audience to comment, ask questions or share (or even show) their own experiences.
The participants
Piet Hut is Professor of Astrophysics and Interdisciplinary Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, USA. His work in astrophysics is focused mainly on stellar dynamics. He founded a virtual institute, MICA, the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics, with a presence in the virtual worlds of Qwaq Forums, Second Life, and OpenSim. MICA is unique in being the first grass roots organization of professional scientists in Second Life. Current MICA activities include: professional journal club talks; popular astrophysics talks by professional astrophysicists for the general public; daily “coffee-time” gatherings where professional and amateur astronomers mingle; and lab-like experiments with OpenSim, where the physics engine is used to let stars fall to each other, rather than to the ground.Anton Eliëns is coordinator of multimedia @ VU University Amsterdam and involved in setting up the Creative Technology curriculum where he leads the New Media track. His current activities focus on the application of game technology in serious applications and the development of serious games for education and business training.
Johnny Hartz Søraker is a PhD Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Twente. Currently, he is doing research on the philosophy and ethics of virtual worlds as part of an International research group on “Evaluating the Cultural Quality of New Media”. He received his MA degree (Cand. Philol.) in Philosophy from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, then working on philosophy of mind and AI. Since then he has published and lectured extensively on philosophy of technology, philosophy and ethics of virtual worlds in particular.
Viola van Alphen is Multi Media Artist, Curator, Organiser, Business Consultant, Nerd and Managing director of the yearly festival GOGBOT (Art, Media, Technology, Music) and PLANETART, organization for the multi media art that organizes festivals and innovative cross media presentations. During Transmediale Berlin, international festival for Digital Culture, several international artists (i.e. the Australian bionic performance artists Stelarc) chose to participate choosing the medium of Second Life. Art is not only about showing beautiful pictures and crafts, but about philosophy, criticism, hacking and innovation. The past is a kind of future already happened…
Zsófia Ruttkay as a mathematician and computer scientist has been working in Artificial Intelligence, recently on creating engaging communicative behaviour for Virtual Humans. She has been fascinated by the new interaction, communication and expression forms the computer technology is offering – in her view giving rise to a new ideal of the Renaissance Man in the 21st century. She has been the driving person for the design and development of the new, interdisciplinary education Creative Technology at UT.
- new program for our tree of knowledge
Our “tree of knowledge” has a new program. The colour change is more slowly (gives a more intensive experience :), the short range of red colours is extended by passing red even more slowly, and the tree is now communicative: the lights turn all red and do not turn out when someone appoaches. The arduino code is below.
#include <Wire.h> /* * Tree Of Knowledge -- * Tree with 30 BlinkM led modules * The modules are connected using I2C. The blinkM routines are taken from * the blinkM website: http://thingm.com/ * Tree connections to Arduino * PWR - -- gnd -- blue -- Gnd * PWR + -- +5V -- red -- 5V * I2C d -- SDA -- yellow -- Analog In 4 * I2C c -- SCK -- green -- Analog In 5 * * original version from E. Dertien with changes from A. Mader, 3 june 2009 */ #include "Wire.h" #include "BlinkM_funcs.h" #define BLINKM_ARDUINO_POWERED 1 int hue[32], stap, sense; // each ball has now its own colour variable int sensePin=0; void setup() { BlinkM_begin(); Serial.begin(9600); BlinkM_stopScript(0); // addr 0 means to all blinkm's. This command stops pre-programmed sequences. for (int ball=1; ball<31; ball++) //check all balls visually { hue[ball] = 3*ball+100; BlinkM_setFadeSpeed( ball, 255 ); BlinkM_fadeToHSB( ball, 25, 0xff, 0xff ); BlinkM_fadeToHSB(ball-1, 0x00, 0xff, 0x00 ); delay(100); } } void loop() { int ball; sense = analogRead(sensePin); if (sense>350) { // case: someone is approaching the tree, the apples turn red for(ball=1; ball<31; ball++) {hue[ball]=int(ball-25)%255; // this is approximately the range of red colours BlinkM_fadeToHSB( ball, hue[ball], 0xff, 0xff );}; } else { // case: stand-alone tree where colours are changing for(ball=1; ball<31; ball++) {if ( (hue[ball]>235) or (hue[ball]<25)) {stap=1; delay(10);} else {stap=3;}; // in the red range the colour cange is by step of 1, hue[ball]=(hue[ball]+stap)%255; BlinkM_setFadeSpeed( ball, 1 ); // this is a slow fade BlinkM_fadeToHSB( ball, hue[ball], 0xff, 0xff); } } //Serial.println(sense); delay(400); }
- reflection(s) — on creativity
Obviously, in the Creative Technology curriculum creativity plays an important role. The best definition, I found sofar, gives the following characterization:
- The product of thinking has novelty or value, either for the thinker or his/her culture.
- The thinking is unconventional, in the sense that it requires modification or even rejection of previously accepted ideas.
- The thinking requires high motivation and persistence, taking place over a considerable time span (continuously or intermittently) or at high intensity.
- The problem as initially posed was vague and ill-defined, so that part of the task was to reformulate the problem itself.
This definition was originally given in Newell & Shaw (1962), and quoted from R.L. Glass Software Creativity 2.0. How to teach creativity is an altogether different issues, with (many) dilemma(s) and pitfall(s). In Creative Technology we will primarily proceed from example(s) and inspiration(s), encouraging our students to discover what Brancusi called rethorics of the material.
Anyway, using whatever method(s) prove to be adequate, we
will encourage our students to explore technology
and design, and overcoming
any obstacle(s)
they encounter in realizing (y)our dream(s).
