PROJECT STUDIOS
The Digital Media program offers studio courses in which students work in small groups on faculty-led long-term research projects in the Wesley New Media Center. Project Studio, LCC 6650, is a required course, carrying 3 credits and involving 9 hours of lab work and 1 hour of group seminar meeting per week. It can be taken once or multiple times. Admission to any particular section of Project Studio is by permission of instructor.
Project Studios from 2009
ADAM Lab
Assistant Professor Brian Magerko
Registration for Fall 2009: LCC 6650B (82843)
websiteThe Adaptive Digital Media (ADAM) Lab has several projects that would be great for interested DM, HCC, CM, or IC students to participate in. Please email Dr. Magerko if you are interested in participating in any of these projects (magerko@gatech.edu).
Projects for the Fall semester will be as follows:
Digital Improvisation
We are currently exploring the overlapping boundaries between real-world improvisation and digital performances made by synthetic characters. The benefits of this work will be both to better understand how we as people engage in improvisational acts, such as, improvisational theater or role playing, as well the application of that knowledge to digital experiences with synthetic characters, computer games, and interactive narrative.
The goal of this project studio is to put serious work into the theoretical understanding of improvisation and performance and to apply that knowledge to the creation and evaluation of synthetic characters. It will draw on knowledge from cognitive psychology, ethnography, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction (a background in these fields is not required). We are actively analyzing our video data and designing experiments to target interesting spots in our model.
Students who are interested in the following mix of disciplines are welcome to join: performance studies, interactive narrative, cognitive modeling, computational linguistics, or the coding and analysis of multimedia performance data.
Resulting products of this work will be both academic publications and digital works based on the constructed theories.
New Representations for Interactive Narrative
Computational approaches to interactive narrative have wound up in a handful of discrete categories: relying on weakly autonomous agents that are controlled by a drama manager, strongly autonomous agents that rely on plot to emerge, and semi-autonomous agents that can act on their own but follows orders from a DM when given them. Each of these approaches typically relies on a set of logical forms of narrative that are fairly small in number (planning operators, plot points, or beats) all of which are fairly similar in representation.
This project will serve to review current logical models of narrative in interactive narrative, their implications for the kinds of experiences that they afford, and will seek to use this review to consider new logical forms for use in future possible interactive narrative systems.
A goal of this studio will be academic publications on our findings.
Adaptive Games
The adaptive games project explores how games can alter their mechanics, UI, goals, etc. based on the individual playing it.Different players have different motivations, mindsets, knowledge, game literacies, etc. that have bearing on their enjoyment of a game experience. This is particularly relevant in learning situations where a player must play a game instead of simply being able to choose not to buy / play / rent a game. We will continue our work this semester by exploring concepts in unified modeling of students for digital learning. A unified model is one that takes multiple dimensions of modeling a player (e.g. predicted behavior, mindset, motivation, knowledge, etc.) and allows a system to reason about the synergy between different modeling dimensions (e.g. reasoning if a student has little knowledge about a task AND has a lot of experience with the game genre being played AND is highly stressed).
Students interested in model-driven HCI issues, cognitive psychology, game design patterns, game development, or theories about players and their individual differences are welcome to join.
Resulting products of this work will be both academic publications and developed game/game technology prototypes.
THIS COURSE IS ALSO OFFERED IN SPRING
Designing the City as Learning Lab: Explorations in Participatory Sensing
Assistant Professor Carl DiSalvo
Registration for Fall 2009: LCC 6650D (82845)
websiteHow will robotic and sensing technologies affect public life in the city and how might we critically and creatively interpret and intervene in the design and development process? These questions motivate the City as Learning Lab project. In this project studio we will design speculative and critical prototypes, toolkits, activities and events to support cooperative inquiry and participatory design on the topic of urban robotics and sensing. Activities will include: visual and interaction design of print and online media; the design of physical artifacts and interactive systems; the development of programs for informal learning and fostering D.I.Y prototyping and design; and field research with local communities. In addition to these activities, there will be weekly readings in both theory and practice, and all students will be expected to contribute towards research papers and/or presentations.
This Project Studio is designed along a two-semester timeline. Fall semester will be devoted to background readings and research and design. In the Spring semester we will deploy and assess our designed artifacts and systems with local communities.
THIS COURSE IS OFFERED IN SPRING
Digital World & Image Group
Assistant Professor Michael Nitsche
Registration for Fall 2009: LCC 6650M (87335)
websiteDigital Performance
The "performative character" [Aarseth] of "computers as theater" [Laurel] has been accepted in otherwise often opposing research on digital media. We express ourselves and gain access to expressions of others through social media and digital technology. In this Project Studio, we will investigate this overlap of digital media and performance and look beyond the surface parallels to discuss fundamental implications for design, analysis, and usage of these media from a perspective that we will gradually develop based on Performance Studies. We will cover topics such as:
How digital media turns us into performers and assigns us new roles.
What are these roles that we play? And how do we perform them in our society?
The dicta of "usability" and "optimization" have been among the most important ones for HCI design. Can we offer different paradigms based on the way we interact in a performance situation? And can we identify new approaches to critique and analyze HCI based on the findings of Performance Studies? Digital media practice blurs the borderlines of virtual stages and non-stages. We can "play" anywhere at anytime. What happens to the idea of the stage or performance space in ubiquitous computing?
The main goal of the Project Studio is to foster open discussion, and the studio meetings are driven by debate and exercises to stimulate our thinking about the topic at hand. However, we will incorporate the ongoing projects at the Digital World & Image Group into the course, and students are encouraged to join them.
Imagination, Computation, and Expression (ICE) Lab
Assistant Professor Fox Harrell
Registration for Fall 2009: LCC 6650F (88692)
websiteSynthesizing art, computing, and cognitive science, our unique practice called Imagination Computing combines three approaches to computational technology: subjective, cultural, and critical computing. Our systems use meaning representation as an expressive resource for new forms of storytelling, identity, AI-based art, and related forms of digital cultural production. This semester we will focus on an interdisciplinary approach to the imagination, cognitive science approaches to computational narrative, and real world social impact. A special art project this semester will be conducted collaboration with Dr. Mike Best (International Affairs/Computing) using digital video narratives of personal experience to implement an interactive narrative digital memorial for The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, West Africa.
Journalism and Videogames
Associate Professor Ian Bogost
Registration for Fall 2009: LCC 6650I (86174)
websiteThis project studio conducts research on the intersection of games and journalism. Despite the changes introduced by the web, journalism remains mostly the same online. News sites still publish written stories similar to those inked onto newsprint. They upload video segments like those broadcast for television. They stream monologues and interviews like those sent over the radio airwaves. The tools that make the creation and dissemination of news possible have become simpler and more accessible, but the process remains similar: stories still have to be written and edited, films shot and cut, radio recorded and uplinked.
The purpose of this project studio is to survey, document, and analyze all the historical, contemporary, and potential ways that videogames (and game-like media) have or can contribute to journalistic practice. We will strive to understand both "journalism" and "games" in the widest way possible, including news, editorial, journalism education, even media disciplines like entertainment and fashion. Likewise, we will consider traditional videogames, emerging genres, trends, interface techniques, and interaction models.
Participants are welcomed who are interested in either games or journalism or both, or any related domain. With questions, please feel free to contact Professor Ian Bogost at ian.bogost@lcc.gatech.edu.
THIS COURSE IS ALSO OFFERED IN SPRING
Advanced Narrative Schema
Director of Graduate Studies Janet Murray
THIS COURSE IS OFFERED IN SPRING
websiteAdvanced Narrative Schema project is for PhD Students working on Quals, Dissertations, or research projects in the area of interactive narrative. The weekly meetings will provide a framework for discussing work in progress and for collective consideration of key theories and artifacts.
Focus is the representation of narrative elements in computational form, and the coherent presentation and navigation of multisequential and multiform stories.
Augmented Environments Lab Projects
Professor Jay Bolter
THIS COURSE IS OFFERED IN SPRING
websiteThis Project Studio explores various technologies to design experiences for informal education, art, and entertainment, including mobile and pervasive games. Dr.Bolter is a member of Augmented Environments Lab and collaborate with Prof. Blair MacIntyre. They are especially interested in bringing AR to a larger audience using mobile technology (increasingly smart cellphones).
Ongoing projects include:
1. A major initiative in the development of handheld AR games
2. The development of location-based tours and artistic projects, including a narrative experience in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta
3. A Digital Performance Initiative that combines AR and the MMO Second Life. This Digital Performance Initiative is a collaboration with Prof. Blair MacIntyre, Prof.Michael Nitsche, and Dr. Kathryn Farley.
Students will have the opportunity to explore the expressive possibilities of a unique technology, designed in the AEL, that combines video of live actors with Second Life avatars for impromptu and staged performances.
Experimental TV&News
Director of Graduate Studies Janet Murray
THIS COURSE IS OFFERED IN SPRING
websiteExperimental TV and News structures prototyping of new forms of explanatory interfaces for broadband and convergence media platforms, focusing on reporting news, tracking news stories over time, and, most importantly,making sense of complex issues.
Possibly in conjunction with a PBS news show and/or a major repository of TV news.
Continuing projects: Interactive story interfaces, EPGs and WiiPG's (programming guides for the expanded content of new platforms, including navigation by Wii)
Some of these projects would be appropriate for HCI MS usability studies.
Students doing MS projects on related topics or wishing to continue related work begun in other courses are encouraged to apply.
MMOG Design and Implementation (Mermaids)
Assistant Professor Celia Pearce
THIS COURSE IS OFFERED IN SPRING
websiteMermaids is one of the The Emergent Game Group (EGG) research projects under Experimental Game Lab(EGL).
The Emergent Game Group {egg} studies and creates mediated social play in a variety of genres, including MMOGs and Virtual Worlds, Alternate Reality and Big Games, Social Networking, installation, and other sorts of social play applications.
For the 2008-2009 school year, we will continue our ongoing development of the Mermaids MMOG with the goal of releasing a playable alpha of the game at the end of the Fall term and presenting a demo at the Game Developers Conference in the Spring Term.
We will also be expanding to include some new, smaller projects headed up by student group members including an activist ARG, virtual world ethnography, and documentary/historical MMOG. We are also looking for someone to redesign our web site to be both more innovative, more representative of the group's direction and process, and more easily updatable.
Synaesthetic Media Lab Projects
Assistant Professor Alexandra (Ali) Mazalek
THIS COURSE IS OFFERED IN SPRING
websiteStudents work on independent or group projects related to tangible interaction and physical sensing technologies for media arts, entertainment, and educational domains. Weekly group meetings are held in the Synlab space in TSRB.