2010 IMPACT!: the 5th Dimensional Camera
"'With their evocative multidimensional camera, the designers have attempted to embody Hugh Everett's many-worlds theory in an object that adds to the cinematic tradition of The Matrix (1999), Lost (2004-10), Fringe (2008-ongoing), and Source Code (2011), to name just a few.
With researchers working to harness the the peculiar workings of our subatomic world, we, as designers, were given an opportunity to explore the implications of one of its more concrete and immediate applications: quantum computing.
Working with EPSRC, NESTA, the RCA, and a group of scientists from the Quantum Information Processing Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (QIPIRC), the 5th Dimensional Camera was produced for the 2010 IMPACT! exhibition as a metaphorical representation of quantum computation - a fictional device capable of capturing glimpses of parallel universes."
(Superflux Ltd.)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Equator: interdisciplinary research centring on the integration of physical and digital interaction
"The IRC brought together researchers from eight different institutions and a variety of disciplines which address the technical, social and design issues in the development of new inter-relationships between the physical and digital.
A series of experience projects engaged with different user communities to develop new combinations of physical and digital worlds and explore how these may be exploited and how these may enhance the quality of everyday life.
A series of research challenges explored (a) new classes of device which link the physical and the digital, (b) adaptive software architectures and (c) new design and evaluation methods, which draw together approaches from social science, cognitive science and art and design. Equator involved over 60 researchers, with a range of expertise encompassing computer science, psychology, sociology, design and the arts.
Equator aimed to forge a clearer understanding of what it means to live in an age when digital and physical activities not only coexist but cooperate. This is the age we are now entering, and it promises radical change in how we communicate, interact, work and play – that is, how we live. But to fulfil that promise requires more than new technology. We need equally new ways of thinking about technology, and thus also about ourselves.
Everyone recognises that the computer is moving beyond the workplace. As digital systems (like the Web) converge with computer networks and cellular phone communications, new devices and services proliferate – many of them mobile, or embedded in the environment. Yet few people fully grasp the potential impact of such technological fluidity and ubiquity. Most current research is still rooted in the workaday world of the desk-bound PC. But look at the possibilities – for our home life, our schooling, community care, even our city streets.
These are just some of the areas which Equator explored, through the development of coherent new systems and devices. Ultimately, however, we were less concerned with solutions to specific design problems than with the bigger picture these solutions entail. This is what united so diverse a community of researchers. For it is only by sketching the bigger picture that we can begin to fulfil the promise offered by our new age, and so improve the quality of everyday life in years to come."
(Equator)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Technology Enhanced Learning: ubiquitous access to knowledge
"Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) research aims to improve the quality of formal and informal learning, and to make accessible forms of knowledge that were simply inaccessible before. But research does not translate easily into practice, at school, in higher education or in the workplace. The forms of pedagogy that characterise learning in these settings have remained more or less invariant even when radical technologies have been introduced."
(Technology Enhanced Learning)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
EPSRC & AHRC Funding for e-Science Demonstrator Project
"In September 2006 the BVREH was awarded funding by EPSRC/AHRC to build a demonstration 'Virtual Workspace for the Study of Ancient Documents'. The three month project answered a call for 'e-Science demonstrator projects in the arts and humanities' and finished in December 2006. The project constructed a virtual workspace for research involving decipherment and textual analysis of damaged and degraded ancient documents. It forms a step to providing direct access to widely scattered research resources such as dictionaries, corpora of texts and images of original documents and enables the researcher to store, annotate and organize items in a 'personal workspace'. The workspace also supports collaboration by allowing multiple researchers in separate locations to share a common view, working as if sat together, studying the original document."
(Ruth Kirkham, University of Oxford eResearch Centre, 2006-05-09)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
