Networking with knobs and knats ? Towards ubiquitous computing for artists

Ubiquitous computing technology enables new forms of creative expression, but the exploration of ubicomp in the arts and entertainment communities requires unique design considerations. Specifically, this paper suggests that the myth of interface independence and the assumption that authoring comes for free are particularly problematic for artistic applications, and summarizes guidelines and implementation details for a middlewarelevel control system and scripting language for artists under development at the UCLA HyperMedia Studio. Ubiquitous computing as a catalyst for new artistic expression Ubiquitous computing technologies provide a fascinating new arena for creative expression that extends beyond more immersive gaming environments or new methods of accessing traditional content. One of ubicomp’s most intriguing qualities is how it can create connections across modal and geographic boundaries. The technologies of ubicomp allow artists to create systems of relationships between sensed events in the physical world, digitally controlled elements of an experience, and purely virtual components. The UCLA HyperMedia Studio investigates the impact of new technologies on traditional production in theater, film, and television, as well as the new forms of expression that they inspire and enable. [7] For the past several years, we have developed installation and performance projects with students and faculty from film and television, theater, electrical engineering, and computer science. Based on this experience, and after incorporating the results of this work into several courses, we have concluded that one of the most significant roadblocks to the exploration of ubiquitous computing in the arts is the lack of appropriate middleware. Artists exploring digital technology find negotiating the multitude of protocols, conventions, and metaphors for the physical world daunting. By impeding experimentation, this prevents artists from tackling the more relevant problem of expressing creative desires algorithmically in order to implement them on digital devices. The tools’ basic affordances remain largely inaccessible, in contrast to those of traditional materials: paint, paper, speech, the body, and for some, even Adobe Photoshop. For the author without an intuitive feel for a ubicomp device or system’s intrinsic capabilities, it remains a provocative novelty and not a useful tool. While high-level multimedia programming environments like Macromedia Director, Cycling 74’s Max/MSP, and even Microsoft Visual Basic, are accessible to technically savvy artists, their inconsistent interfaces to the external world make them difficult environments for ubicomp experimentation. We would like to enable artists to explore ubicomp with at least the ease with which they use existing screen-based tools. Art as a laboratory for ubiquitous computing At the HyperMedia Studio, we use creative projects to drive technological development. One current multiyear research collaboration, The Iliad Project, is the “driver application” for a control system that tries to answer the challenge described above. The project aims to create the architecture for a new performance work that draws its context dynamically from the audience and the surrounding city, wherever it is performed. For this piece, we must integrate radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems, a database of audience information, media control and routing, stock and live media, as well as large-scale theatrical lighting and sound control. † This work is funded in part by the National Science Foundation grant IIS-0207869.