Presenting data to a group of people that are interested in arts, creativity, and narrative.  But, Bloxham, says, this really is about people.

The original VCM study in 2003 made it into the first iDMAa journal in 2004.  How quaint.

And Dr. Holmes killed the microphone.

Dr. Holmes realizes there’s a gap between the data and the creativity.  But the designers at iDMAa are designing and creating for these people being studied.  This research gives you a glimpse into the media world of people and consumers.

1969 – media environment is very simple and limited

2009 – 40 years later; many more platforms; blurred borders

The one thing that hasn’t changed is the length of the day: 24 hours.  Makes it harder and harder to find out what the media consumer is doing.  Multi-platform, multi-place challenge.

The Video Consumer Mapping Study (VCM) helps to tackle this challenge.  Nielsen has funded the Council for Research Excellence (CRE).  They wanted a snapshot of the current media world to give them a sense of what is going on.

What did the VCM do?  Examined participants for a full waking day across 6 cities in the US, following them all day and observing; so cross-platfrom, cross-location.  Data measured every 10 seconds.  An observer stays in the background with a small hand-held palm pilot-like device which tracks the life activity, location, and media consumed (15 major platforms) all day long.

Expensive, time-consuming, labor intensive research.  Allows you to create a graph of participants’ entire day that incorprates all of this information.

Now Mike Bloxham coming back to give the analysis (Dr. Holmes gives the boring data, Bloxham gets the fun part… or at least, that’s how Mike and Michael characterize it).

Analysis divides media use by screen type:

• 1st screen – TV which includes DVD, video games, etc.
• 2nd – computer
• 3rd – mobile devices
• 4th – everything else

This is undoubtedly the largest media research study in the US, perhaps the world.

Common notion is that TV is dead, 30-second commercials are dead, everyone watches video online, and it’s all related to age.  VCM debunks pretty much all of this.

Average time spent watching TV is 309 minutes across all demographics.  65+ have greatest numbers (421 min). 18-24 has least (which is still 210 min).  DVR use is fairly uniform and low across age demos.  DVD/VCR avgs to 23 min across demos (much higher than avg. of 15 min for DVR) – when will DVD advertising take off?  First screen totals 353 minutes per day across age demos.

Web averages to 49 min.  35-44 year olds have the highest use (remember they follow people to work).  Email is also higher among 35-44 and 45-54 y.o.  IM even among 18-24, 35-44, and 45-54 y.o.  Software avgs to 46 min across age demos; much of the use comes from being at work.  Computer video averages to 2 minutes across all demos.  2 minutes.  Flies in the face of conventional wisdom, doesn’t it?  Second screen averages to 143 minutes.  At this point, total media usage is highest among 45-54 y.o.

Third screen (mobile content) averages to 20 minutes across age demos (includes mobile talk, as well).  One of the major findings in this project was that people grossly over-report media usage (more on this later).

Fourth screen (everything else) averages to 8 minutes across age demos.  Most age demos spend 8.5 total hours per day consuming media.  Except 45-54 y.o. that use media for 9.5 hours per day.

Concurrent media exposure (CME) – exposed to multiple media at the same time; when accounting for CME, total media usage time drops by nearly 30% for some age demos.

When looking at media that people spend 10 minutes or more, 65+ have 5 media, 18-24 have 10.

When compared against Nielsen’s 3-screen report, VCM came out nearly identical.

When discussing reach and duration of media use…  Gives a great scatter-plot graph that groups most media to the left, spread between top and bottom; with TV to the extreme right, top corner.

TV users were exposed to roughly an hour a day of live TV ads and promos.  This is the first time an objective study found out (with precise granularity) how much [TV] advertising people are exposed to daily.

Self-reporting.  Most people are grossly wrong of their estimates of how much media they consume.  Some forgot usage of media entirely.  Some give wildly inaccurate periods of use (one man thought he used his iPhone for 2 hours/day and it turned out to be about 25 minutes).  And the amount that is over/under reported is completely random.  There’s no generalization or correlation that can really be made about what is recorded and what is self-reported.

For tons more information on this study, check out this website.  They’ve got presentations, reports, and even raw data.  Lots to look at.

Final thoughts… Again, I’ve heard this presentation (or at least iterations of it) many times, and the data and findings are always fascinating. I think many of the people here in this room watching the presentation are also fairly blown away by all of this.

The notion of the symbiotic work – when we reach the point of everyone is an artist.  Web memes as a rise-o-matic medium.  What are the implications of everyone as an artist?  Suggestion for further research.

On the digital divide – even Matt at Columbia College has started to poll his students on access to computers and software.  Finds that many do have access to the hardware but not the proper software.  Brings up the issue of when everyone has the access to the software on their own computer and software leading to no one working in the lab and the students losing out on the social experience of creation and collaboration.

Inter-media and symbiosis operate on a continuum.  Also happens within creative thought.  Brown suggests to Faber of a symbiosis between her art and the science.

The digital divide – we’re already assuming the kids are in college; however, there are people that don’t have the proper access to everything during K-12.  And it’s even worse in third-world countries.  Griffin responds that in many third world countries, they’re still grappling with the economic divide (the first part of the digital divide).

Taking slides of various microscopic stills and turns them into art.

• Water lily leaf with sea-like constructions
• Water surfaces
• Rust formations
• Spore cells

Using scientific work as a template/foundation for her own work.

Carol went to another lab that specializes in taxidermy-like work.  Took make pictures and scans.

Plastination – chemical process of replacing the fat with plastic

Incorporating various animal parts into artwork; overlaying different images, colors, and mediums.

This is a neat presentation, but seems sort of out of place at iDMAa.

Dr. Griffin comes from a small liberal arts school (Wesley College) that can’t place a lot of emphasis on tech since the school can’t really afford it.

In response to the affordability issue of the digital divide, computers were placed in public spaces like schools and libraries.

Second part of digital divide – basic ability to use technology isn’t there.  Again, this is economically related.  So when these kids arrive to school, they’re already behind.

The first element of the divide is considered closed.

Using software increases familiarity with computers which then leads to great levels of analytical and critical thinking.  The entire Wesley College has 10 iMacs with plenty of software.  The lab is always open IF there are no classes meeting there (however, since it’s the only Mac lab, there are a lot of classes in there).

Dr. Griffin polled her students and found that 38% thought they need to own the software to succeed.  These students were the ones that were NOT able to afford it.

Dr. Griffin tries to give her students options.  Freeware via download.com.  Dr. Griffin finds good software for her students and have come up with cheap/free alternatives to Pro Tools, Final Cut, and the Adobe Creative Suite.

Gordon Moore in 1965; projected development of integrated circuit.  Moore’s Law: doubling computer capacity and speed every 2 years, while cost goes down (this has proven true, and has held true for 40 years).

Resulting for the high pace of tech evolution, what is the role of the artist?

Intermedia – described interdisciplinary art activity prevalent in 1960’s.  Everywhere today.  Fusing of ideas, theories and materials are ubiquitous.  Video art, concrete poetry, installation, etc.

Platypus is a great example in nature of intermedia; it’s DNA contains everything from amphibian to strangely human-like.  Acoel Flatworm – part plant, part animal

“Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.”

Even the human body is a self-contained eco-system – 12 lb of bodyweight is other organisms.

Will the artist be absorbed into other areas of creative inquiry thus making the utpoian phrase “everyone is an artist” a reality?

2005 project – looked to insert video art into urban spaces.  Matt’s interest is to open it to a social context.  As the piece evolved, they found that longer videos (ie, 10 min) didn’t keep viewers engaged; they kept walking by.

Throughout 1960s, as TV is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds, artists and activists started looking at TV as a way to spread messages.

In general, the business model for TV is to generate audience; create ads that resonate with the audience.  The artists/activists from the 60s were simply trying to make socially relevant ads/programming.

Using architecture as a medium. 2 conditions: distraction & habitual.  Architecture is experienced in fragments (individual buildings) and habitual (it’s always there).  Just like TV today.

different types of video installations:

• screen – more about TV models
• projecting – overlay, meshing one image over a stucture
• performance – fairly obvious
• interactivity – the user has an affect on what is displayed

This is some very cool stuff.  You can really make people think.  One of the interactive pieces in Chicago brings up word-clouds connected to the 1968 DNC riots.

for more…

www.v1b3.com

www.meme01.com

A little bit of an introduction….

Philip Beesley Architect in Toronto (Beesley’s own architecture firm).  He’s also associated with University of Waterloo (isn’t Waterloo, Canada where the Blackberry is from?).  ”A true renaissance man.”

8:52 – Beesley takes the stage.  ”Responsive architecture” and post-humanist discourse.

Building that follows and absorbs energy from the sun, outputting twice as much energy as it takes in (why is this technology not everywhere?)

Thinking of objects as an anchor; transitional objects & transitional fields.  Babies have security blankets before we understand what it is.  We treat them as a part of us.  These things are with us as we become ourselves; helps separate us from others (does this come from our intense individuality?  Is it that ingrained in our culture?).

Hylozoism – from Lucretius – life comes out of material; it’s not transcendent, but from material qualities.

Chthonian Projects – the deep underground; “the underworld.”  In Canada, the ice has scrapped away the crust and the mantle is exposed.  Presents a unique architectural opportunities.

9:03 – Haystack Veil – Deer Isle, Maine; 1997 – created a “second skin” over the earth; a sort of lattice work over the ground to shelter new growth in a forest.

Orpheus Filter – this is hard to describe… but essentially an artificial lung made of synthetic material; rhomboids connected together in a semi-periodical pattern.  Literally breathes.

Cybele – somewhat similar.  These individual pieces of this and the Orpheus Filter are connected enough to hold themselves up and give themselves structure, but loose enough to allow a lot of movement.

9:09 – Endothelium – robotic geo-textile – individual hooks and barbs set up on tripods (these tripods “cover the Earth”) – driven by tiny motors (like cell phone vibrator tiny).  It then spreads through the field of tripods and grows.

These are funky art projects, and I don’t think my descriptions are doing any sort of justice to this presentation.  And I don’t think Mr. Beesley’s presentation is doing any justice for his actual art exhibitions.  From the looks of things, you really need to see these art installations in person.

9:16 – Carbonate formation in a proto-cell; compares this process to a 1525 painting of a knight transcending into Christ who then transcends into the ether.  In the Carbonate formation, the cells look to be feeding off each other; Beesley anthropomorphizes them.  This anthropomorphization is then further compared to the relationship between Frankenstein’s Monster and the little girl with flowers.  This gets to the idea that we should not hold natural life over engineered life; it’s all life.

9:20 – Implant matrix (another exhibition; from 2006).  Very similar to the Orpheus Filter; however it’s more complex in its “lung” functions.  Utilizes shape-memory alloy wire.  Tracks your position and it sort of “breathes” in waves relative to your position.

Epithelium – displayed in quite a few places (Ball State being one) – tracks your motion and delivers an “emotional” response.  Crowd behaviors.  One part responds and then, like ripples in a pond, it spreads throughout the rest of the installation.

9:27 – Hylozoic Soil – combines many of the systems described so far – “symphonic immersive system” – probe-like fronds listen then respond, and this response, like Epithelium, spreads.  Through weak actions chained together, we get quite coherent motion.  It’s quite beautiful to see the videos.  Very ephemeral.  ”soft, intimate”  It does not do one’s bidding; it will respond to you, but perhaps not the way you intended.  ”…lingering sense of being consumed while at the same time being served…”  Compares the whole thing to a coral reef.

9:34 – summing up – architecture through self-generating systems that appear to be living.  responsive architecture.

Q&A…

Mimicking the deeply inter-woven systems of the human body – a good way to describe his responsive architecture.  Instead of just putting a building in an environment, and having a very disconnected relationship; buildings should be interconnected with their environments.  A mutual relationship.

9:45 – power generation and self-replication.  power inside and outside are a fundamental Q along with how does the environment affect it (and vice-versa).  Even the Osmiotic (sp?) Filter is a basic example; you’re bringing in turbulence which then affects the system

During the Q&A session, I had the epiphany.  The spark of realization of what this technology could really do.  Mr. Beesley is using this tech in art installations to get the initial idea out there, however, I suspect that he has great things in mind for how this could be used more in the future in actual buildings and housing once the tech is more developed.

Final thoughts… Again, I don’t think my blog post does any true justice to Beesley’s work.  Check this out to get an idea of Mr. Beesley’s artwork.