In the beginning of this week I joined a whole day of presentations and talking about research in new media, at the Institute of Design AHO, Norway. More specifically it dealt with research into the complex interrelations between the phyical and the digital in new media today. The day was the initiative of the gRig network. gRig (the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators) is a guild that mixes realities and brings new realities into existence. The Belgian co-founders of this international network are FoAM and Nadine. The members are all organisations and individuals commited to “research and creations of meaningful situations in hybrid reality“.

The researches and projects that were presented in Oslo were carefully chosen by Andrew Morrisson. He did a good job in “curating” the program, because the stories of the different presenters wove beautifully together during the day. Morrisson is – amongst others – an expert in communication design, participatory design, electronic narrative, locative media and mixed reality arts. The first day of the gRig presentations in Oslo had the goal to open up the discussion about ways of doing research in new media. The days after that were mainly focussed on the interrelations between new media and narratives.

Since I only attended the first day, I limit my report to that.

Ramia Mazé started the day with a reflection on the ways the Interactive Institute in Sweden tries to innovate arts research, using media. They use an approach which is very close to critical design. They design artefacts and experiences via design research methods and processes. Than they try to “stage” the resulting artefacts and experiences for the public in ways that – hopefully –  reflect their critical and reflective value. The institute did some very interesting projects around energy awareness, called Switch, Static! and Aware?. These projects show clearly that it is possible to reflect critical research in the artefacts and experiences, staged for an audience.

Geska Brečević is an artist who creates very poetic “performing pictures”. He reveals to the public how he works in locations, when he explores new ways in which images can perform in a specific context. He is related to the Interactive Institute in Sweden. http://www.performingpictures.se/. His work can be experienced in Brussels these days at OLVrouwekerk van Goede Bijstand – Kolenmarkt/ Marché aux charbons – 1000 Brussels. It is a production of Nadine, also part of the gRig exhange network.

Than Cheryl Ball presents some issues that are related with the aesthetics and editing of digital media scholarship. She is editor of the digital journal Kairos that asks authors to translate their texts in meaningful and experimental digital environments. She notices a difficulty relating to publishing and evaluating digital scholarship, namely the fact that the vision about what digital scholarship is, constantly changes. This implies that there are no easy rules to evaluate the works/texts that are sent to Kairos for publication.  Ball often uses the strategy to constantly negotiate with the authors about their contributions. The editor thus takes the role of a guide in digital publishing. This is important because Ball wants to encourage interesting authors, who are scared of visualising their texts, to publish anyway. In this way Kairos stimulates a the digital literacy that would enable more authors to publish in a digital and challenging way.

Idunn Sem & Andrew Morrison (InterMedia, Univ. of Oslo, Norway) discuss their experiences in mediating multiple activities in the gRIG network. They question the ways in which the activities of a rich, but complex European network of media organisations can be disclosed via a common platform. They observed that this not an easy job, but by trying out different formulas they learned a lot about alternative ways of distributing complex ecologies of information, research activities and actors to the outside world.

Jon Olav Eikenes (Institute of Design,AHO, Norway) speaks about his ongoing design research on digital navigation. Through observing existing practices in digital navigation, Jon tries to create new forms of navigating via new media. He writes his observations on his very interesting blog: http://www.navimationresearch.net/

Paul Prior (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA) gave a challenging theoretical presentation on semiotic remediation in new media production. He is head of the Center for Writing Studies, which “facilitates research and promotes graduate study in the areas of written composition, language, literacy, and rhetoric”. He tries to grasp the functioning of interdisciplinary research processes via theory, but also via some fascinating ethnographical observations of interdisciplinary work in research labs. Via the gestures that the different disciplines make to each other, he analyzes how communication proceeds in these contexts.

A college of Prior from the Centre of Writing Studies is Gail Hawisher. She talks about her experiences with digital media and research practice. She worked with international students and asked them to express their daily lives via video. In the videos the students explored their relation to technology and the different cultures they are part of. There is much to say for research that provides people with the tools to express their own lives, instead of other people expressing it. Just like Prior she uses video as her main research tool and – as we noticed during the day –  it can be used in many different ways.

Anthony Rowe (Squidsoup, UK / Institute for Design, AHO, Norway) of the organisation Squidsoup mixes the physical and the virtual in architectural installations. Squidsoup does fascinating formal research into the boundaries between the physical and the virtual, and into the potential spatial qualities of digital information. They push the boundaries of digital experiences and explore ways of interacting with digital information in physical space.

Timo Arnall & Einar Sneve Martinussen (Institute of Design, AHO, Norway) presented -much like squidsoup – their research TOUCH on how to design the mediation between the physical and the virtual. They start, however, very explicitely from the RFID technology. The aesthetic of their work and research is also quite different. While Squidsoup researches more spatial experiences of digital information, Arnall and Martinussen have a more playful and DIY approach to this mediation process. Interesting is the way in which they disclose the research process to the outside world. They create very professional videos of the research material, with a high attraction value for a broader public. They also strategically post their work on social networks sites. It is no suprise that their work is widely distributed and quoted in the net, which gives great attention to critical and experimental research work in the field of RFID. This raised also a discussion. Editing the research process in such a way, may present a sort of ideal image that does not represent the pitfalls. For example, Arnall shows a movie of a girl playing with RFID toys. In the movie it appears that the girl finds the ways the toys work intuitively. It might be that some trials in using the toys by the child are not displayed, since the video is higly aestheticized. Anyway the video – and also their other videos – are very much worth to have a look at.

Sniff from timo on Vimeo.

Skål from timo on Vimeo.

The final presentation was by Peter Dobrilla (KIBLA, Slovenia). He gave a very overwelming presentation of his rich experience in the media art field, the changes in the field and its possible futures. He is part of the media art center KIBLA in Slovenia. A hub for experimental research and presentation work.

In my own presentation I focussed on the way critical media art and media design contexts inspire and reshape the development of a perspective on new media research. The artists, designers and projects that I foregrounded experiment with using provoking prototypes that trigger critical discussions about new media artefacts and experiences and their social en cultural implications. They use critical media artefacts (in different iterations) as important triggers for innovative research.

There were some similar discussions to be found in the different presentations. All dealt with the
-ways in which new media researchers can observe the use people make of new media in their daily lives, using video (used by the researcher or the research subjects) or prototyped artefacts
-ways in which these researchers disclose their processes via blogs, video, “staging” of research processes (and the resulting artefacts and experiences) in exhibition settings or via online journals

It has been a rich and inspiring day. Thanks to the gRig network!