Blog Archive for Online Interactive

Emergent Game progress

For me, one of the most fascinating things featured in the NGA has been the Emergent Game.  The levels of imagination, playfulness and collaboration that have been sustained throughout have been so impressive.

Things in the land of the Lupens continued tonight with a tea party hosted by egorbeaver.  I good time was had by all by the sounds of things.

In other news… well, lots has been happening and the daily commentary for Sapiens has been useful - otherwise we may have missed that Loki has opened a shop and Leon Herring has written a song.

There’s no indication of when, how or, indeed, whether the Emergent Game will end.  I’m rather hoping that news of the Ludens’ escapades carries on for a little while longer.

If you’re still scratching your head over the whole thing, this explanation of the five qualities by Leon Herring might give you an idea of the purpose, or at least the spirit, behind The Game.

Animation - Digital Utopia or Chinese Whispers

Chinese Whispers and Digital Utopia were the twin themes that informed pieces of animation by three groups of students.

The animators discussed themes and were aware of what the others were creating but otherwise worked individually, creating an opportunity for themes and messages to develop or get lost when the pieces were run together.

In group one, Shi Jin Lim Kelvin and Bin Liu lean most heavily on the digital theme, with a piece that looks at the way technology increasingly pervades our lives.

Group two comprised Chloe Ince, Ben Evans and Sook Rong Wong.  Combining the two themes, their work reflects on the frustration and irritation caused when messages don’t get through.  System failures, viruses and distortion are rife.

Group three adhere most strongly to the ‘chinese whispers’ theme.  Laura Rayner starts with a hand-drawn depiction, followed by Soh-Eng Zhe’s abstract take which brings in elements of digital technology.  Wayne McCauslin continues the strong focus on messages becoming distorted as they are passed along and also explores the sentiment, prevalent in many of the works, that:

we are unable to communicate and express human emotion through something that is inert as technology

All three composite animations, with notes and ponderings by the animators themselves, can be seen on the NGA website.

The Big Debate - round-up

Aside from other measures, if generating discussion was an aim for The Big Debate then you could call it a success.

If you missed out on the event at the time then you can still watch it on this Bambuser channel. Live-blogged transcripts of the debate are also available on The Birmingham Post courtesy of Pete Ashton and on my own personal blog.

While the debate was going on, the emergent back channels for discussion were recognised, with Pete’s live-blogging projected on a screen behind the panel. His chat featured some of the discussion taking place via Twitter and the relevant tweets can be seen on Summize.

So much for the live reporting of the debate. I often find the value in these things comes after the event itself when people get a chance to digest what they’ve heard, discuss things with others and put down their own thoughts.

And so, over this afternoon and this evening blog posts have cropped up in response to the debate.

David Harte used his Birmingham Post blog to opine that, as far as social media is concerned, useful or useless’ is a more pertinent question than ‘more power or more powerless’.

Nick Booth gave a round-up of several others with some of his own input on the issue of the digital divide.

Stef Lewandowski started writing a comment under Nick’s post which turned into a bog post of his own. Following events in New York, he found the debate unfocussed. He referred to the notion of ‘usefulness’ and would welcome a discussion on the ‘why’ of digital media.

Jon Bounds also picked up on the issue of the digital divide and sees much more room for discussion there. He’s critical of two of the panel and identifies topics that were skirted over, that of privacy in particular.

Jason Norris considered many of the topics raised, saying “perhaps the Digital Revolution has redistributed the power, but to both parties”.

A couple of quick points were made by Simon Howes and Russ L. The former points out why it’s ironic that BBC and BT representatives were sat side-by-side discussing on-demand services. The latter claiming that there wasn’t much new said.

Adding some variety, cartoonist Alex Hughes was there and made a few sketches of the panel.

Finally, after reading what everyone else has said, I made some notes of my own on my blog. You can see that by clicking Chris Unitt.

If you’ve put down your thoughts about the debate somewhere then please link to them in the comments. Not got a blog to air your views on? The comments are waiting for you too.

The Big Debate - today

The summary:

The Big Debate takes place at the ICC at lunchtime (well, 12.30pm to 2.30pm) today. From what I hear the big, shiny ‘places strictly limited’ button has done it’s work, meaning there are plenty of spare places available. If you can make it, take a sec to register and pop on down.

Although the debate is taking place in the middle of the working day there’s actually more opportunity to see it and get involved than in previous years and that’s down to, yup, online interactivity.

Joanna Geary has applied the kind of thinking and innovation that’s got her noticed in journalism circles and, as a result the debate will be broadcast live on Bambuser (a natty little video service) and Pete Ashton will be live-blogging (making notes/commenting about the debate live) using a service called CoverItLive. You can follow this on the Birmingham Post site.

So that’s the broadcasting covered, what of the interactivity? Well, people can comment on the Bambuser site in a chat-box next to the video. Also, for those that use Twitter (essentially a groovy online text messaging service) Pete will be monitoring any messages that include ‘#bigdebate’.

Noteworthy Bambuser comments and #bigdebate tweets will be fed into CoverItLive which, as well as being on the Birmingham Post’s site, will also be projected on a screen behind the panel.

So, bearing in mind the panel are expected to be largely technophile and this is a debate about the pros and cons of digital (’more power or more powerless?’) a few cynical voices from the audience might be needed to prevent a huge back-slapping sesh.  I do appreciate that it’ll be digital interactivity giving voice to such cyncism, though.

Information overload

Although I’m generally a fan of new digital shenanigans I appreciate that it’s not all fun and games for everyone. For example, I accept that it’s possible to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information available online.

At a conference on digital media I attended earlier this year, a delegate asked the panel despairingly “how do you deal with information overload?” The term ‘infobesity’ was used, adding a nice, quasi-medical twist.

The panel pointed out that this isn’t a new problem. How many books are printed every year? How many films are released? How many TV shows are broadcast over how many channels every evening?

Germaine Greer is now posting here on the New Generation Arts blog and gives a similar answer to this question:

“Communication overload was around long before we had digital technology. We’ve had to pick our way through too much information for a generation”.

So there’s a sense that there is ‘too much’ information out there but it’s nothing to get stressed about. That’s good to know, but we still need a way to manage the unmanageable. How do we do that?

Without thinking about it consciously, we’ve each developed systems to navigate through high volumes of irrelevancy and dross. Our systems may use guides, reviews, recommendations, experimentation and dumb luck. These systems can apply to news, books, TV, film, music… and the internet.

For example, we trust in search engines to bring us the information we need. Friends tell us about websites or email links to things we might like. Bookmarking service like del.ici.ous can be used to save and share links to websites

Large communities gather on sites such as Digg and Reddit to sift through articles, promoting the best. Stumbleupon caters for the experimentation/dumb luck end of the internet browsing market.

Increasingly, trusted curators are doing the digging so others don’t have to. Many blogs (such as the one I run, Created in Birmingham) do this job, as does Mahalo, a human-powered search engine.

It’s true there’s a lot out there but it’s nothing to worry about, honestly.

Emergent Game - Missions for Ludens

As you may have gathered from the title of this post, the missions for the Ludens in the Emergent Game have just been released.

There’s plenty there for the Ludens to get stuck into, including making a garden, delivering a persuasive speech and bartering (and receiving) something from another Ludens.

Sapiens who are observing the Game are encouraged to stay involved by suggesting missions and providing feedback to the Ludens on their missions.

The Emergent Game will be adding some playful fun to the New Generation Arts Festival schedule, and perhaps beyond - who knows where this one’s going to end?

The Big Debate - who is leading the way?

Details of the panel for The Big Debate, taking place at the ICC on 9 June from 12.30 to 14.30, are available on the Big Debate website. What struck me is that, of the five people involved, only one comes from a small, digitally-minded company (and even then a relatively old one).

The other organisations represented are BT, Trinity-Mirror and the BBC (twice, including the Chair). All large, blue-chippers that are being compelled to develop their existing business models to incorporate the effects of the recent digital explosion.

My question is, are they best placed to lead a discussion about the direction of this brave new digital world?

Of course, their experience will provide valuable lessons for others adapting to the opportunities and challenges associated with digital media. The panelists are all doing smart, digital-related work within their organisations so they certainly know their stuff.

However, a characteristic of the recent digital boom is that much innovation has come from the smallest (at least initially) of start-up companies (Google, Last.fm, Twitter, Facebook, etc) or through massive, open source collaboration (Mozilla, Linux). In many instances, large corporates have been outpaced by smaller, more nimble innovators. To catch up, funds have been allocated to acquisitions, rather than R&D.

So I’d like to hear from those whose whole business (rather than just the odd department) is concerned with operating at the cutting edge. I’d like to hear from those who have caused change, rather than those that have reacted to it.

When it comes to discussing the pros and cons of the digital age, who would you like to see at the heart of the debate?

The Big Debate on The Birmingham Post

Big DebateThe Birmingham Post, have launched a Big Debate blog in the run-up to The Big Debate itself, with an introduction from digital journalist Joanna Geary and a piece by BCU’s lecturer in journalism and new media, Paul Bradshaw entitled ‘Why human contact is still essential in the digital age‘.

Joanna Geary, who will be on the panel at the ICC on 9 June at 12.30pm, is garnering a reputation for digital innovation and online community-building as a result of her work at The Post. She coordinates some 30 blogs from a wide variety of contributors and leads the paper’s use of wikis (for internal communication) and Twitter (for external communication).

A self confessed ’social media addict’ she says

I lean strongly towards seeing the positives of this technological revolution

but remains

very open to being dissuaded and value alternate opinions

which is an odd (but desirable) trait in a panelist and is encouraging in terms of a developing debate.

As mentioned, the first opinion piece is from Paul Bradshaw. He has seen first-hand the impact of recent technological advances in his field, from the mobile phone images of the tube tunnel on 7 July 2005, immediate text messages following the Chinese earthquake and a Facebook group communicating info about the Virginia Tech shootings.

He believes that the binary language of digital amounts to a universal language of ones and zeroes which

creates the opportunity for conversation. And digital, for me, is all about conversation

Click for the rest of Paul Bradshaw’s piece.

As the pre-debate continues on the Post’s blog I’ll be following the discussion here.

The Big Debate - panel members announced

On 9 June at the International Convention Centre four digital media luminaries will be debating the big question - Digital revolution: more power or more powerless?

The panel will be chaired by Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology Correspondent for the BBC. The panel members are:

  • Anthony Rose, Head of Digital Media Technology at the BBC. Previously at Kazaa/Altnet he moved to the BBC where he is responsible for delivery of the next generation iPlayer.
  • Chris Cooke, of UnLimited Media (where he is the head of the content, design and marketing divisions) and Editor of CMU and ThreeWeeks.
  • Dr Doug Williams, project director at BT leading research projects concerning new communication and media applications.
  • Joanna Geary, Digital Journalist at the Birmingham Post where she is innovating with using online social media to build communities around the regional newspaper.

Entry to the session is free but you will need to register on the Big Debate website as places are strictly limited.

I’ll be attending and will report back. I expect there’ll be a Q&A session so, if I get the chance, are there any questions you’d like me to put to the panel?

Emergent Game - Reconnaissance Assignment

The instructions for the next stage of the Emergent Game are as follows:

“Document the 24-hour period you have nominated and then share the results with the other Ludens. Real-time updates are preferable but not essential.”

Further details are available on the Emergent Game website itself.

If you’re not acquainted with the Emergent Game, it’s an alternate reality game commissioned by the New Generation Arts Festival and was conceived and is being overseen by Nikki Pugh. There’s plenty of time to dive in and catch up with what’s been happening so far - it won’t take you long at all.

If you’ve no idea what an alternate reality game is then there are two ways to find out. The first (and best) is to take part in the Emergent Game. The other, less fun, option is to wait for me to explain the concept in a future blog post here on the NGA blog.

I’d go for option 1 if I were you.

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