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Using virtual and augmented reality to ‘make room’ for animation practice, through practice-as-research
No full textThis paper looks at methods and processes behind the short CGI Animation film ‘The distance between the staircase and the sky’ (Athanasopoulou, 2022), which formed a core part of my doctoral research in VR, empathy, and experimental documentary (Athanasopoulou, 2023). The expression ‘to make room’ is explored in multiple ways: in the sense of creating and experiencing a virtual space/place through VR and AR; as crafting digital landscapes and architectural interiors with digital photogrammetry for a short animated film; as allowing distant collaboration through performative exchanges. Rather than focus solely on the technological ‘black box’, room is also made for the collaborator through augmenting their voice by poetry, within processes set in motion - in a very physical sense - via walking. Within much of the discourse around XR, attention is paid to technological innovation; however, the practice discussed in this paper ‘makes room’ for the body in the centre: the player’s body that animates the immersive technologies; the animator’s body translating physical space into digital space and, ultimately, into filmic space - so that the viewer can also gain a ‘sense of place’ within the space of the cinema. In these times of simultaneous enthusiasm and dread over the power of AI, can we make room for Animation to empower and enlighten technologies of immersion? Instead of repeating the often unsubstantiated empathy claims of XR, can we use its tools to move and to be moved, through films and experiences animating us as makers, viewers, players, and theorists? By sharing the hidden pipelines of an experimental digital filmmaking practice enriched by philosophy and Practice-as-Research, this paper makes room for Animation, Virtual, and Augmented Reality to play together
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, …”: Josephine Baker and modern architecture across the colonised Arab world
No full textA story that unfolded in the shadow of the Second World War is that of African American and Black French performer Joséphine Baker, who at times travelled alongside, in advance of, or behind Allied soldiers, alternately conducting acts of espionage and entertainment. Her perilous trajectory across the shifting borders of the war zones of North Africa and the Middle East is known only in broad terms. Evidence that could detail the series of places where she performed between 1941 and 1943 is almost completely lost. This installation follows a few of the faint traces, speculations, rumours, and documents that indicate Baker’s presence in military camps, clubs, cabarets, casinos, theatres, and ‘gin joints’ across the region. Reconstructing the story of a few of the locations where Baker performed the exhibition aims to untangle a web of cross-border relations that have since become hardened by national boundaries, and of trajectories now severed
Virus-shaped mesoporous silica nanostars to improve the transport of drugs across the blood–brain barrier
Get PDFConditions affecting the brain are the second leading cause of death globally. One of the main challenges for drugs targeting brain diseases is passing the blood–brain barrier (BBB). Here, the effectiveness of mesoporous silica nanostars (MSiNSs) with two different spike lengths to cross an in vitro BBB multicellular model was evaluated and compared to spherical nanoparticles (MSiNP). A modified sol–gel single-micelle epitaxial growth was used to produce MSiNS, which showed no cytotoxicity or immunogenicity at concentrations of up to 1 μg mL–1 in peripheral blood mononuclear and neuronal cells. The nanostar MSiNS effectively penetrated the BBB model after 24 h, and MSiNS-1 with a shorter spike length (9 ± 2 nm) crossed the in vitro BBB model more rapidly than the MSiNS-2 with longer spikes (18 ± 4 nm) or spherical MSiNP at 96 h, which accumulated in the apical and basolateral sides, respectively. Molecular dynamic simulations illustrated an increase in configurational flexibility of the lipid bilayer during contact with the MSiNS, resulting in wrapping, whereas the MSiNP suppressed membrane fluctuations. This work advances an effective brain drug delivery system based on virus-like shaped MSiNS for the treatment of different brain diseases and a mechanism for their interaction with lipid bilayers
Jazz the known: Artistic experiments on women of the ’20s
No full textOrganised by Ines Weizman and Belmacz Gallery, London, this event is also part of a collaboration between the Goethe Institute and the Royal College of Art. This event will bring together a group of artists, curators and historians as well as theorists of art and architecture to discuss artistic practices not only by women of the 1920s who engaged in the struggle for freedom, but also by artists who are engaged in similar struggles today. Through a series of dynamic relays, this expanded conversation will reflect on artists’ experiments that ‘jazz the known’ – that is, that deliberately refrain from using conventional methods and media or that quite specifically aim to reconnect and critique social, cultural and political histories, biographies and events. The exhibition Women of the ’20s at Belmacz gallery showcases a number of artists who embrace something of the radical freedom often associated with the ‘twenties’. Here, each artist utilises processes of material subversion in order to shake up ways of seeing. Through covert operations, observations, re-restaging, interactions, and playing with media in a spirited way, each of these artists embraces epochal subversion. And in this way, their works metaphorically sidestep what has come before, demanding that we feel the beat in life’s shift changes. On the occasion of Frieze London 2023, Jazz the Known: Artistic Experiments by Women of the ’20s will convene artists included in the exhibition as well as invited guests. During this evening of artist-led conversations, each of the speakers will share an overview of their practice and work in the exhibition, then enter into a short conversation with one of their fellow exhibitors. By exploring the exhibition in this manner, Jazz the Known will highlight the historical, methodical and personal connections between the artists as well as provide new insights conducive to understanding the potential in the reflection and dialogue that are critical to creative practices. Speakers: Agata Madejska, Hanna Mattes, Sadie Murdoch, Ronit Porat, Anna Wachsmuth & Ines Weizman Guest Speakers: Penelope Curtis & Rachel Garfiel
Set the controls to the heart of the Sun
No full textFor the 2024 Glass Biennial I produced this artwork through an experimental process which I have developed over a number of years and that lays down a vast sequence of glass powders controlled through my own unique hand printmaking methods and an adapted kiln-printer. The result of this method is a deep glass printed object. The artwork is compossed of a number and variety of these objects influenced by fictioned instruments. The accompanying gallery text is here: - ‘So much about how we imagine and experience existence is unknown to us. amic and glass. We invent tools and seek ways to be a part of the deep time and space in which we briefly inhabit. All is invention: colours made up in our minds as our star's light is absorbed or reflected by reflective and translucent materials such as glass. These colours are never seen as the same at different times of the day or by different organisms. This piece is a set of instruments to engage transcendence to the imaginary realm released through the infinite arraying of fictioned hues
Corpoveillance: Dancing with A.I.
Get PDFOften germinating in the Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley, technologies designed to generate human- like speech, text and digital imagery are advancing rapidly. It is not unimaginable that these advancements will spread to encompass human movement and affect societal freedoms or corporeal identities. In response, this research positions dance as a form of resistance to raise questions of human agency in the face of these increasing deployments of digital technologies and artificial intelligences. By using choreography as a mode of inquiry it employs the body to explore how humans may control consent, retaining ownership of their corporeal data, by asking: • What can dance choreography reveal about AI touching our bodies? This interdisciplinary, practice-based study sits at the intersection of human-centred computing, contemporary dance, and body-worn technology. The practice-as-research framework employed enabled a hybrid methodology to form, drawing from choreographic, constructivist, ethnographic and autoethnographic methods. A facilitated co-development process executed through a series of practical workshops with professional dance artists supported the development of a choreographic system designed to create new choreographic material and an adaptable, bespoke body-tech exoskeleton. Built using off-the-shelf electronics, the apparatus can remotely communicate sequences of vibration to affect choreographed and improvised movement, exploring new techniques and movement languages. Digital technology developments were reviewed alongside key artistic works, revealing that choreographic tools capable of affecting this creative process through physical contact had not yet been devised for the purposes of investigating future AI impacts. This research argues that the individuality of improvised movements and the personal interpretations of the Graham (technique) contraction embody rebellion against encroaching data capture technologies such as human gait recognition, aimed at the surveillance and capture of human identities. This research proposes new scholarship in the fields of dance choreography, digital technology, and artistic research in AI, contributing a novel choreographic method. By elevating the body as paramount within its architecture, its performance proposes a framework for integrating artificially intelligent algorithms and bodies, wherein human and AI actors possess agency in the creative decision-making process. The testing carried out during this research forms a journey of discovery and experimentation which aims to benefit industry- and academia-based creative practitioners and researchers who are experiencing the proliferation of AI
AiLoupe at London Design Festival
No full textExhibiting AiLoupe for London Design Festival in an exhibition bringing together new research and innovation projects from across the Royal College of Art that focus on materials developments, climate action and the integration of artificial intelligence with design to drive innovation and sustainability. AiLoupe allows designers and material developers to discover and assess textile materials for material identification, knowledge and selection. Identifying materials takes you to each Material Data Card, showing sensory subjective data, translating the tactile, physical elements of touching the materials digitally. AiLoupe uses the Sensory Materials Library which is an AI research project for materials selection in the product design process by improving conventional materials libraries with sensory and human experience properties of materials. We have demonstrated how AiLoupe can present sustainable alternatives as ‘like for likes’ to traditional less sustainable materials that Designers are more familiar with
Colour made manifest
Get PDFThe second annual Material Engagements Research Cluster (MERC) exhibition: Colour Made Manifest, takes place at Pumphouse Gallery in Battersea Park from the 10th to 13th of July 2024. This exhibition brings together practice-based and material-led academics from the Royal College of Art highlighting the world leading research taking place under the umbrella of the Material Engagements Research Cluster. The overarching focus, questions and offers to illuminate the paradoxical realm of colour, through research activities exploring how the immaterial notion of colour can be explored and evidenced through a number of materialising projects. It also builds from staff discussions embedded within the MA and PhD group teaching this year prompted by Neil Parkinson and the RCA’s Colour Library Collection. Through works-in-progress, finished outputs, and an attached event Colour Made Manifest will contextualise research alongside creating a generative space for research activities to happen. This will facilitate the continuing collaboration of researchers within MERC further developing routes for the creation of collaborative funding bids to be submitted over the 2024–2025 academic year
Creating affective touch with soft robotics: Designing affect-enabling interactive artefacts using an affect-, material-, and interaction-led (AMI-led) design framework
Get PDFPhysically-bodied artefacts made with interactive materials, when affording an affective experience, can unlock tremendous design opportunities to significantly improve user experience and benefit physical and mental well-being. Yet such potential has rarely been exploited within the emergent space of affective interaction design. Designing artefacts with interactive materials that enable affective experience poses challenges, both in relation to the emergent nature of affect and in navigating the unfolding properties of materials in their physical and temporal forms and their interactive gestalt. In this crossdisciplinary space, it is difficult for designers to tackle the challenges within one specific domain of expertise, and there is a lack of design knowledge to support the form-giving process of creating affect-enabling interactive artefacts. My research initiated an effort to address this gap. It asked: How can we design artefacts using interactive materials that enable affective experience? To address this question, I combined knowledge and approaches from three domains – an interactional approach, fashion practice and material-centred interaction design – to formulate the affect-, material- and interaction- (AMI)-led design framework which guided my practice. This framework is grounded in the affect theories proposed by Barrett and Massumi to consider affect as an event, an emergence that can only be enabled through interaction. Focusing on one type of interactive material – silicone pneumatic soft robotic (SPSR) material – my research took a Research through Design approach and followed the methods of studio practice, co-exploration and assessment. In order to develop an artefact with an affect-enabling outcome, my practice progressed through three phases of exploration. The initial exploration focused on the designability and affective affordance of the silicone pneumatic soft robotic (SPSR) material. A further exploration, with a broad focus, investigated designing for a positive affective touch experience. The third exploration, with a defined focus, was about creating and evaluating the final artefact – a soft robotic device (S-CAT device) which delivers a gentle stroking touch. With the evaluation results I showed that touch delivered by the S-CAT device elicited a pleasant sensation, and that it can modulate a subjective response that is similar to that elicited by the touch of a human hand or a soft brush. My research makes an original contribution to both theory and practice within the space of affective interaction design. Through a practice-based design exploration, I demonstrated one possible pathway to creating an affect-enabling artefact with SPSR material, applying the affect-, material-, and interaction-led (AMI-led) design framework. This framework and its associated methods of studio practice, co-exploration and assessment can potentially be applied for generative, analytical, communication and educational purposes in design practice and research within the space of affective interaction design. The S-CAT device has demonstrated that it is possible for soft robotic material to produce an affective touch, which opens up the field for the exploration of further design opportunities, including those in healthcare. The research produced practical design knowledge of how to design affective touch stimulation