Leeds Met Centre for Creative Technology

Knowledge Engineering for Software Development Life Cycles: Support Technologies and Applications - by Muthu Ramachandran

2011-04-06T12:54:00.002+01:00

Another book was recently published by our member of staff Dr Muthu Ramachandran: "Knowledge Engineering for Software Development Life Cycles: Support Technologies and Applications". The book is available at Amazon.

The Game Audio Tutorial - by Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould

2011-04-01T15:10:00.005+01:00

Lecturers Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould have released their book "The Game Audio Tutorial". It is aimed at Sound Designers, Composers, and Game Designers.

The book is available at Amazon.

Thiemo Kastel: "Professional Lighting for TV Production" - 24.3.2011, 14:00-15:00, LeedsMet, James Graham, LTA

2011-03-14T10:59:00.003Z

Our visitor Thiemo Kastel from the FH St.Poelten (Austria) will give a guest lecture about his work on "Professional Lighting for TV Production". In this talk he will show an overview on lighting technology that has been used in recent years in TV production of shows, concerts, and other live events.

Thiemo has many years of experience in live TV production in Austria and Germany. His CV is here.

Venue: Lecture Theatre A, James Graham Building, Leeds Metropolitan University, Headingley, Leeds LS6 3QS
Date/time: Thursday, 24.March 2011, 14:00 - 15:00

Visitor from FH St.Poelten: Thiemo Kastel

2011-03-10T13:39:00.004Z

FH-Prof Thiemo Kastel from FH St.Poelten in Austria will visit us here at Leeds Met from 23.March - 28.March 2011.

Thiemo's research and work area is in technology for broadcast, in particular professional lighting - methods and technology for TV- and show lighting", smart live media distribution (includes live video production and distribution via internet – streaming server etc.), live virtual reality production - (greenbox production with Ventuz) and TV productions with Augmented Reality.

During his stay here at Leeds Met, Thiemo will meet with interested staff and students. A presentation about "Professional Lighting for TV Production" is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, 24.March, 14:00-15:00. Details will follow.

Thiemo's visit to Leeds Met complements a visit by Reinhold Behringer at FH St.Poelten in November 2010.

If anyone is interested to meet Thiemo during his visit here, please follow up, leave a comment or contact us.

Ben Dalton: "Art in Unusual Spaces"

2010-09-06T15:11:00.003+01:00

Leeds Met Senior Lecturer Ben Dalton has together with other artists presented their work "in unusual places". Throughout August, Claire Bentley-Smith, Joseph Critchley, Matt Ferres, Ian Jackson, and Ben Dalton, displayed their illustrations, videos and installations in five empty shop units in the Leeds shopping Plaza.

Congratulation to this exhibit, Ben!

Rory McLeish featured in 3D World, Broadcast, Multimedia, Games & Animation Technologies

2010-09-01T12:59:00.000+01:00

Rory McLeish, one of our Leeds Met Associate Senior Lecturers, has received praise for his work in Games Design by the magazine 3D World, Broadcast, Multimedia, Games & Animation Technologies. In this four page feature entitled 'Effective Concept Prototyping Tips' which runs alongside 'The making of Toy Story 3' there are many top-tips from Rory. He shares his knowledge for creating outstanding creature and vehicle designs in games production with the exploration of sketches, sharpening up those compositions by avoiding image distortion, rendering and layering in Photoshop, and how to present the final character model.

Congratulations, Rory!

EchoChroma VI Concert

2010-04-26T13:02:00.002+01:00

The Music, Sound & Performance Group will once again be performing electroacoustic music with a 14-channel surround-sound diffusion system.
The evening will present laptop performances, live acoustic sets, multi-channel works, and original music by undergraduate and postgraduate award-winning Innovation North staff and students.
The event is FREE to all and early arrival is recommended due to limited seating. Join us on Tuesday 27 April, 5pm, in the Jubilee Room, James Graham Building, Headingley Campus.

Tom Jackson: Photographic Exhibitions

2010-04-13T11:52:00.003+01:00

Our staff member Tom Jackson is displaying his photographic collection of images "Converging Light" in two exhibitions. The collection features images from Hong Kong, Poland, Dubai (and even one from Leeds!).

These are Tom's first solo exhibitions, so your support would be greatly appreciated. If you're in Leeds town centre during the following dates, please drop in and take a look. The first exhibition is open now!

April 12th - May 8th
The Carriageworks
Millennium Square, Leeds

www.carriageworkstheatre.org.uk/find_us_unid80ba_page.aspx
(Head up to the second floor bar area!)

May 15th - June 26th
The Roast
Whitehall Riverside, Leeds

www.theroast.co.uk

There will be an opening event for the exhibition at The Roast but the date for this has not been confirmed yet.

Echochroma V Concert

2009-12-15T17:29:00.006Z

Yesterday members of the Leeds Met Innovation North Music and Sound Processing (MSP) Group performed a concert of electro-acoustic music in the Jubilee Room of the James Graham Building, Headingley. A new set of surround speakers provided the adequate sound level for enjoying the electro-acoustic compositions that were performed in multi-channel surround sound.

The first half of the program contained music by staff and students from Leeds Met and the Leeds College of Music:
Nikos Stavropoulos: Nyctinasty
Stephen Kilpatrick: Oceana
Alasdair Auchincloss: Untitled 1
Adam Stansbie: Parenthesis
Dale Perkins: Cuckoo-borough

The second half of the concert was performed at the mixing desk by guest composer Manuella Blackburn:
Manuella Blackburn: Vista Points
Sam Salem: Poor but sexy in Berlin
Diana Simpson: Papyrus
David Berezan: Frosty

Echochroma Concert: 14.Dec., 17:00

2009-12-02T17:31:00.001Z

Echochroma is proud to present an evening of electroacoustic music on Monday the 14th of December at 17.00pm in the Jubilee room (JG G06), James Graham, Headingley Campus.

The concert will feature special guests: Manuella Blackburn (MANTIS, Manchester University) and Dale Perkins (Leeds College of Music). The evening will also feature music by: Adam Stansbie, Nikos Stavropoulos and Stephen Kilpatrick (Innovation North).

All music will be performed using a 16-channel surround-sound diffusion system.

Please arrive early as there will be a limited number of available seats for this event.

The MSP group from Innovation North is looking forward to welcoming you.

Digital Libraries and Digital Preservation: EU Funding

2009-12-01T15:12:00.004Z

On 24.November 2009 the European Commission has released the 6th Call in the Seventh Framework Programm (FP7)in the ICT Challenge #4 (Digital Libraries and Content). The topic of this call is: Digital Libraries and Digital Preservation.

Deadline for proposal submissions is 10.April 2010. A total of 69 M Euro will be distributed through this call.

Overall information about the objectives is available in the Digital Libraries Initiative.

Additional documents for submission and procedures are also available online.

Nokia Developer Event: 17.11., 5pm

2009-11-11T09:46:00.002Z

Screen Yorkshire and Nokia are organising an event about software development for mobile phones. The event takes place at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday, 17.November, 17:00 - 21:00.

Registration and further details are here: http://screenyorkshire.eventbrite.com/

First Innovation North Newsletter

2009-11-06T17:47:00.003Z

Ash Mann from the Marketing Team in our faculty has just published the First Innovation North Newsletter, highlighting events and activities thorughout the faculty.

Nikos Stavropolous' Composition "Nyctinasty" Won First Prize!

2009-11-02T14:10:00.004Z

The electro-acoustic composition "Nytcinasty" by our staff member Nikos Stavropoulos won the first prize at the First "Punto de Encuentro Canarias International Composition Competition" in Spain.

Congratulations, Nikos!

MScape no longer supported by HP

2009-10-30T14:22:00.003Z

As I have learned through "inofficial channels", Hewlett-Packard has made redundant the group that developed the MScape platform for Windows Mobile. This is really a pity, because now there is no further support for this very nice mobile geolocation platform. You may remember that in summer 2008 our Leeds Met staff won funding for developing the Our City, Our Music application.

I am not yet aware about how future support of MSCAPE will be made available. It would be great if the software for MSCAPE would be released as OpenSource, so that the Mscape community can continue to develop it.

My best wishes go out to the former members of that now redundant group! You have done a great job developing the MSCAPE platform and making it publicly available.

Adam Stansbie's Music Composition Accepted at EMM 2009

2009-08-10T11:33:00.004+01:00

Adam Stansbie from Innovation North has been selected to perform at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival (EMM) which is held in Kansas City 5.-6. November 2009. Over the last 9 years, EMM has programmed over 250 new electroacoustic compositions to audiences in the United States. Due to its success and reputation of excellence, EMM attracts participation from a number of high-profile composers from around the world. Adam's composition, Point of Departure, a 23-minute acousmatic piece, was selected from a pool of over 200 submissions through peer-juried selection process.

Adam's selection for EMM follows a number of high profile international performances, including appearances at: the Bourges International Music Festival Synthèse, France (2009), selection for the International Computer Music Conference, Canada (2009), Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey, USA (2008), Seoul International Computer Music Festival, South Korea (2009), FILE Electronic Language Festival, Brazil, (2009), International Electroacoustic and Polymedia Art Festival, Serbia (2009). In addition to these international performances, Adam's works continue to be performed regularly in the UK, including a recent performance at the Glastonbury Festival (2009).

Richard Stevens is Appointed Chair of IASIG Game Audio Education Working Group

2009-08-03T14:45:00.003+01:00

Senior lecturer Richards Stevens from our faculty Innovation North has been appointed chair of the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG) Game Audio Education Working Group. In this role he is to coordinate an international team of academics and industry representatives in developing guidelines for a curriculum for teaching audio for games.

The Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG) exists to allow developers of audio software, hardware, and content to freely exchange ideas about 'interactive audio'. The goal of the group is to improve the performance of interactive applications by influencing hardware and software design, as well as leveraging the combined skills of the audio community to make better tools.

Congratulations, Richard!

Music and Media Educators Conference

2009-07-20T14:49:00.000+01:00

On Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 September 2009 Leeds Metropolitan University in partnership with JAMES (Joint Audio Media Education Services) will be holding the second annual Music & Media Educators Conference at our Headingley Campus, home to our £2million recording studio complex. JAMES is the educational arm of the Association of Professional Recording Services and the Music Producers Guild. Leeds Met has long and successful working relation with JAMES.

This exciting two-day event will include master-classes, seminars, workshops, product demonstrations, lectures and networking opportunities and is open to industry professionals, music educators and students, but anyone with an interest in music technology education can attend.

Keynotes addresses will be delivered by Dennis Weinreich (Managing Director Post Production for the Pinewood Group) and Steve Lawson.

Day 1 will cover issues concerning music technology and education in areas such as Mastering and ‘Long Distance Mixing’.
Day 2 will address issues relating to Film, TV and Post-Production with workshops from Foley Artists and Sound Design Editors.

For further information, or to book your free place, please email:
[Email]innevents_at_leedsmet.ac.uk[/Email]

Live from the Conference "Mathematics and Computation in Music" (MCM 2009, New Haven)

2009-06-22T13:46:00.003+01:00

The conference Mathematics and Computing in Music has been held over this weekend since last Friday at Yale University. Today is the last session. This conference has been an excellent event, with very interesting approaches shown for music analysis and mathematical models of tonality. I purchased the proceedings band with the paper presentations. My own poster presentation which I showed on Saturday was well received. I received encouragement to publish this as a journal paper. I also implemented an MScape version of the Tonnetz on my mobile phone, allowing participants to walk around the Yale University campus and experiencing the Tonnetz as a walk-through, with consonant triads being created as one moves from "note to note".

This is the poster which I showed here at MCM 2009:

Launch of "Our City, Our Music" this weekend!

2009-06-17T19:40:00.001+01:00

Our City, Our Music Launch Events - Leeds 2009!

Saturday 20 June
The Party! - Official video release and live music
Doors open at 7pm – FREE @ Leeds Met Students’ Union, Civic Quarter, Calverley Street, LS1 3HE

Breaking The Illusion
Ellen & the Escapades
Cari Flower

Sunday 21 June - 11:00 – 16:00
The Tour! Music videos made by Yorkshire’s best! Shot in top secret spaces around Leeds.
Come pick up a GPS device from us and follow an interactive musical map around Leeds or join one of our walking tours departing from NTI at 12:00 and at 14:00.
@ NTI Leeds – Old Broadcasting House, 148 Woodhouse Lane, Lees, LS2 9EN

Musicians & Filmmakers featured include:

Breaking The Illusion & Patrick Garrigan

Cari Flower & Ben Waddleton

CHOPS & Ben Halsall & Dave Lynch

Ellen & the Escapades & Niki Naroz & James Rhodes

Eskimo Twins & Ben Waddleton

Gary Stewart Band & Ben Davis

Japanese Fighting Fish & Paul Emery

Superpowerless & Anna Palmujoki

TANK & Ben Waddleton & Ben Belmar

The French Defense & James Rhodes

Yonderboy & Tara Atkinson

Check out our site for more details.
http://www.OurCityOurMusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/ourcityourmusic

Prof. Nick Childs' Inaugural Lecture

2009-05-31T19:07:00.006+01:00

On last Friday, 29.May 2009, the head of the Black Dyke Band, Prof. Nicholas Childs, gave his inaugural lecture as Visiting Professor at the Faculty Innovation North. His talk was titled "History of Brass Bands - The Golden Period". He did illustrate the points with life performances of selected works by the Black Dyke Band.

Innovation North: Annual Student Showcase

2009-05-12T22:30:00.003+01:00

This Tuesday, the annual Innovation North Student Showcase was held in Gandhi Hall at the Leeds Met Headingley Campus. Students in their final year presented their group project, linking multimedia, internet, computing, and music together to a variety of interesting and impressive products. Several of those groups actually had clients outside of the university, who were very pleased with the professional results they got from the students' work.

Pictures from the Showcase event.

In autumn 2009, the annual networking event will link again external clients with the new last-year students cohort, for a new set of exciting projects.

Announcement: Innovation North: Annual Student Showcase

2009-05-11T12:52:00.005+01:00

Tomorrow, on Tuesday, 12.May 2009, Innovation North hosts the Annual Showcase in which students present the results of their group project work. It is organised in a tradeshow style and will be held in the James Graham Building at the Leeds Met Headingley Campus. An evening reception is from 17:00 - 21:00, but the showcase is open for daytime viewing from 9:00 - 16:00.

More details are here at www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/news_innovation_north_showcase_2009.htm

Yorkshire Post Environmental Awards: Rivers Project

2009-05-07T23:33:00.005+01:00

On 7.May 2009, the Yorkshire Post awarded the "Rivers Project" an Environmental Award in the category "Climate Change". The award trophy was handed out by Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, during the dinner celebration which was moderated by TV presenter Julia Bradbury.

The Rivers Project has been initiated and led by publisher, artist, and writer Brian Lewis (Pontefract Press). The goal of this project is to create awareness of climate change, through means of art and poetry. The project focusses on two regional areas in two different parts of the world, which have felt the effects of the changing climate in different ways: Yorkshire (UK) and Gujarat (India). The intended outcome of this project is a collection of paintings, poems, and other writings and artworks which are drawing on the individual and collective experience of the effects of climate change. A special focus has been on rivers: the river Aire (Yorkshire) and the rivers Sabarmati and Narmada have significant meaning to surrounding communities, which depend strongly on them. Flooding and drought have in recent years created headlines. This project intends to build a virtual link between these rivers, showing similarities and differences of those climatic effects.

Reinhold Behringer (Leeds Metropolitan University) has been involved in this project to provide technology components in capturing experiences and disseminating them through digital media: one aspect has been to track geographical locations for geo-centric interfaces and to integrate the art works with online multimedia distribution. He has participated in a travel to India, to the rural community of Vallabh Vidyanagar, where a set of workshops had been organised by the local academic and cultural partners of this project.

In June 2009, our project partners from India will visit Yorkshire, to learn about the issues and problems here in our region: a workshop is planned to be hosted at the Northern College Barnsley, and several site visits are being scheduled.

The project seeks currently further funding for those activities and for reaching the envisioned goals.

Announcement: Echochroma IV Concert, 14.May

2009-05-07T11:26:00.002+01:00

The EchoChroma IV concert will take place on 14.May 2009 in the Jubilee Room of the Leeds Met Headingley Campus, 17:00 - 19:00.

The concert features original works from Leeds Met Music Technology staff and students as well as work from the Arts and Society "Chris Watson Project". The programme includes live laptop improvisations by Kingsley Ash and Dave Raybould.

Seating is limited so please arrive early.

At EPSRC Workshop "Maths of Life"

2009-05-06T23:30:00.003+01:00

In April, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has issued a call for Proposals with the topic "Maths of Life". Reinhold Behringer's submission was accepted, and he attended this workshop on 6.May 2009 in London. His initial intention was to propose the study of artificial creativity in the sense of artistic creativity, as outlined in this Leeds Met research reflection. At the workshop itself, however, this idea was modified towards a more open approach for a mathematical model of all human creativity. There were 74 registered participants at this workshop, and nine different challenge topic emerged from the discussions, "Artificial Creativity" being one of them.

A call for a Sandpit with one of the challenges as the topic will be issued by EPSRC within the next 2 weeks.

Games Republic Win

2009-05-06T18:18:00.000+01:00

Innovation North students have been successful in the Annual Games Republic Competition which was held on 5.May at Sheffield Hallam University. "Team Croake" won the first prize in the Games Art category, and "Team Hotchpotch" won the 3rd prize in the Games Technology category. Congratulations to all winning teams!

www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/news_games_republic_competition_win.htm

Paper at Electronic Music Rewiew

2009-05-01T12:25:00.000+01:00

Members of the Centre for Creative Technology have published an online paper at the Revista eletrônica de musicologia - Electronic Musicological Review:

Reinhold Behringer, Adam Stansbie, Nikos Stavropoulos, Michael Ward. Information Computing Technology (ICT) for Music Composition and Seamless Performance Interfaces Electronic Music Review, Vol.12, March 2009.

EXPO Leeds: 24.-29.Sept.2009 - Call for Submissions

2009-03-23T17:22:00.001Z

Expo is the hub and playground of the experimental music and sound art scene in the UK and beyond. Free and open, the event mobilises a national network of artists and engages with communities from all backgrounds – placing sonic art and the people who make it in direct contact with the public. Expo steps out from traditional venues and into spaces that lie at the heart of the community - inspiring practitioners and the public to reconsider their environments.

Expo will land in Leeds in September 09 for a long weekend of performance, exhibition and presentation which will take place across a variety of physical and virtual spaces.

The weekend aims to highlight the broadest possible range of approaches and thinking that surround the sonic arts. We welcome submissions of all kinds. Alongside international artists, the festival has previously showcased work by young people, disabled adults and those with learning difficulties, students and hundreds of emerging UK artists. We want all work of all kinds that has sound as a central element.

As well as asking for all kinds of submitted work for its programme Expo Leeds is offering £4000 of commission money towards the creation of a new installation work that will sit within the Leeds Arena space at Leeds City Museum during the festival weekend.

Please visit www.expofestival.org for details on how to submit and updates on the programme. The closing date for submissions and commission proposals is 29 May 2009.

Northern Design Competition 2009

2009-03-03T16:24:00.004Z

The fourth annual Northern Design Competition is underway and a new search for creative talent from universities, colleges and schools across Northern England, North Wales and Scotland has begun. The awards celebrate the artistic skills of students and give employers the chance to view the work of future faces in the creative industries. This years prize fund totals over £10,000 which will be shared between category winners, runners‐up and their education providers. The competition is open to students who are studying at a university, college or sixth form
in the north.

There are six main categories to choose from and students are invited to enter more than one category; architectural design, digital media, graphic design, illustration, photography and product design. Winners from each category will receive a £1000 prize. Runners up in each category will receive £100. The overall competition winner will receive a further £2000.

This year the competition includes a new category, the Young Northern Designer (YND). The category allows students under the age of 20, in years 12 and 13, or
at college, studying an A‐level, BTEC National Diploma or equivalent level qualification to enter. There will be three winning students in this category who
will each receive a £500 prize and a further £500 for their educational establishment. Ten runners up in this category will receive £100 each and £100 for their school, college or university. All entries to the YND category must be submitted by the school or college on behalf of the student.

The deadline for entries is Monday 20 April 2009.

To organise a visit or discuss further, please contact Sarah Kirkpatrick Gandy:
s.e.kirkpatrick-gandy@leedsmet.ac.uk / 0113 812 5126.
To set up a YND account please visit www.leedsmet.ac.uk/northerndesign.

Interview of John Elliott with "GEO" (in German)

2009-03-02T09:30:00.004Z

One of Dr. John Elliott's research topic is "languageness". In this he is also investigating extra-terrestrial intelligence. Recently he was interviewed by the magazine GEO (3/2009). It is published under the title "Interview mit einem Alien-Versteher" (interview with an alien-understander")

Leeds Met NTI is one of the Innovator 09 awards finalists!

2009-02-28T14:22:00.003Z

On 24. February 2009, Yorkshire Forward announced the finalists of the Innovator 09 awards. Among those is the Leeds Metropolitan NTI Leeds.

The press release is here: www.yorkshire-forward.com/news-events/press-releases/finalists-announced-in-innovator-09-awards.

Excerpts from this press release:

Eighteen of Yorkshire and Humber’s most innovative organisations have beaten off stiff competition to be short listed in the prestigious Innovator 09 Awards.
The six awards, carrying a £3,000 prize, are aimed at recognising those companies and individuals in Yorkshire and Humber who have embraced innovation and developed, alone or in partnership, new ideas, products, technologies or ways of working in order to improve their business.
University departments and facilities that are involved with industrial collaborations were also invited to enter as they too work to overcome the challenges of today’s increasingly competitive marketplace.
...
Innovation Catalyst Award, sponsored by Institute of Directors, will go to an individual or organisation that is a catalyst for innovation, and has been instrumental in contributing to the innovation culture in the region.
...
NTI Leeds Metropolitan University is home to the region’s first co working space which supports innovation for digital entrepreneurs, fledgling businesses and those thinking of starting a business.
...

Congratulations to Linda Broughton and her team!

FIMPaC - Forum for Innovation in Music Production and Composition

2009-02-25T22:42:00.004Z

On Friday, 20.February 2009, the Leeds College of Music organised the FIMPaC event (http://www.lcm.ac.uk/research-conference/FIMPaC.htm). Leeds Metropolitan University was well represented at this event: two compositions ("Polychoron" by
Nikos Stavropoulos, and "Tokyo Yakimono" by Stephen Kilpatrick), one paper ("Utilising Aural Spatial attributes to Implement Compositional rational" by Nikos Stavropoulos), and four delegates. Overall a very interesting event and very successful for our music group.

Information about the event, the papers, and compositions presented can be obtained from Nikos Stavropoulos.

AES Conference in London, 11.-13.Feb.

2009-02-18T12:39:00.004Z

We, Dave Raybould and Richard Stevens, have just returned from the 35th International Audio Engineering Society (AES) conference. This conference was focussed on audio for games, and we presented our interactive audio tutorial. This is a learning tool that uses the Unreal 3 game engine for teaching a range of techniques relevant to audio for games. As well a our 1 hour presentation as part of the conference we also had the game tutorial set up for delegates to visit and have a go on. Our approach seemed very popular and there seemed to be a real demand for such games-based-learning interactive tutorials.

We were also involved in the panel discussion on the subject of "Education and training in games audio". Although there is a lot of interest in developing games audio curricula, we seem to be ahead of the game here with our MSc in "Sound and music for interactive games", and there was a lot of interest in the course and support for the content we described. This fed into the work I (Richard Stevens) have been involved in with the Interactive audio special interest group (http://www.iasig.org/wg/eduwg/index.shtml) and which we intend to take forward through discussions in the UK with Skillset.

Although the field is maturing this seemed to be an area ripe for further research and a number of areas were defined:

- Interactive dynamic musical systems.
- Real time mixing in game environments
- Further work relating to sound propagation systems in games – particularly in relation to sound occlusion
- Synthesis and processing for non-repetitive dialogue systems
- Multiplayer sound. When you have multiple players but only one set of speakers how do you represent their multiple perspectives ? (Some interesting work on personalised HRTF’s)
- Non-repetitive sound through modal synthesis and physical modelling
If you’d like to know any more about the conference, have an interest in these fields, or would like to have a look at our work then please get in touch!

Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould

SAGSET Conference: 22.-24.July 2009

2009-02-01T13:49:00.002Z

The 39th Annual SAGSET (Society for the Advancement of Games and Simulations in Education and Training) Conference will be organised by Leeds Metropolitan University and will be held in The Old BBC Broadcasting House in Leeds City Centre from 22nd-24th July.

Details are on the conference web site.

Event: Sonic Spatial Perspectives. 6.-7.Feb.

2009-01-24T10:36:00.003Z

Leeds Metropolitan University and the Centre for Creative and Cultural Knowledge Exchange (C3KE) invite you to attend Sonic Spatial Perspectives on Friday the 6th and Saturday the 7th of February 2009.

The two-day event features a series of concerts and workshops on the techniques, practices and aesthetics of sound diffusion; the practice of enhancing spatial components of electronic music and sound sculpture through the use of
multi-channel sound systems.

Keynote address by Professor Jonty Harrison, Professor of Composition and Electroacoustic Music at the University of Birmingham.

Showcasing:

BEAST (Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre), the concert sound system of the
University of Birmingham’s Electroacoustic Music Studios. www.beastmusic.co.uk

RESOUND Open Source software package for the live spatialisation of sound via multiple loudspeakers. http://resound.sourceforge.net

Participate in the dynamic dialogue
Debate and exchange perspectives in the area of spatial audio
Gain and encounter some of the leading research in this area

Event Venue: Leeds Metropolitan University, Headingley Campus, James Graham Building

Friday 06/02/09
12:00 – 12:15 Opening by Derek Hales, Director of the C3KE
12:15 – 13:15 Keynote address by Prof. Jonty Harrison, University of Birmingham
13:15 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 16:00 Workshop on the BEAST sound diffusion system
16:00 – 17:00 Coffee
17:00 – 19:00 Concert 1
19:00 – 20:00 Buffet

Saturday 07/02/09
11:00 – 13:00 Workshop on the RESOUND sound diffusion system
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:00 Concert 2
15:00 – 15:30 Coffee
15:30 – 17:00 Round Table Discussion
17:00 – 19:00 Concert 3

To book your place please e-mail Tie Doepel at t.doepel@hud.ac.uk or call on 01484 471364. Queries about the specific workshop content should be addressed to Dr Nikos Stavropoulos at n.stavropoulos@leedsmet.ac.uk. Directions to Headingley Campus and information on hotels and transport links can be found at www.leedsmet.ac.uk

Paper at LCEA 09 Symposium

2008-11-18T09:48:00.004Z

A paper has been accepted at the LCEA09 Symposium to be held at 19th January 2009:

Richard Stevens, Tony Renshaw, David Raybould and Paul Marchant (Leeds Metropolitan University). Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Eye tracking for the evaluation of dynamic scenes.

It describes the 2006/7 multimedia exhibition, ‘Repossessed’, during which over 400 members of the public watched scenes from Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’. The paper describes the basis of an approach to the use of eye tracking techniques, visualisations, and metrics to measure the influence of directorial techniques on film viewers’ experience.

Project with India

2008-11-17T09:51:00.003Z

Recently, Reinhold Behringer has been invited to join the project "Voices from Gujarati and Yorkshire Rivers", and he just returned from a travel to Gujarat (India) where this project was conducted in partnership with the Sardar Patel University in Vallabh Vidyanagar. The aim of this project is to "create awareness of climate change with means of arts", and the specific focus was on "linking" rivers from two local regions in the global context: Yorkshire and Gujarat. The poject involved the organisation of workshops for painting, poetry, and translation. Reinhold's role was to provide technology: recording video, audio, and GPS tracks for creating later a multimedia experience. This resulting documentation is intended to be created by L3 students as part of their final project work. In the course of the project, artists created works based on their relation with rivers. The artefacts will be collected abd may be published in book form at a later time. A development blog highlights the progress and timeline of this project.

During this visit, links have been made to the following institutions:
Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar
Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmadabad
Inter-Human Education and Charitable Trust (IET), Surat.

Mini-Symposium at Staff Development Festival

2008-09-09T18:27:00.003+01:00

Today, the centre organised the Mini Symposium "Creative Technology - An Oxymoron?", in the framework of the Annual Leeds Met Staff Development Festival Research Day. Reinhold Behringer gave an overview on a few systems which claim to be true creative technology in the artificial creativity domain. John Elliott gave a talk about the human mind, Michael Ward demonstrated the current state of the art in beat tracking, and Ben Dalton presented projects related to telepresence and robotics.

The presentations are available at http://creativetech.inn.leedsmet.ac.uk/Presentations.php.

Here are a few more links related to Ben's talk:

www.burnsideinstitute.com/robot_book/robots.html - French book 'What do robots think about?', translated into Russian. A precursor to the irobot roomba.
www.robotlab.de/bios/bible_engl.htm - robot arm as caligraphic scribe of the bible.
www.robotlab.de/bios/video_engl.htm - video of the bible robot lab project.
brl.ee.washington.edu/publications/Rep127/TE.chapt.html - teleoperation examples.
www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2007/05/soldierrobot_lo.html - people humanising their military robot companions.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1898525.stm - Chris Csikszentmihalyi's robotic journalism project as reported by the BBC.
www.appliedautonomy.com/lb.html - institute for applied autonomy - pamphlet robot.
www.appliedautonomy.com/gw.html - the IAA's graffiti writing street robot.
www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=1830 - Natalie Jeremijenko's Ooz project with Robotic Geese
www.vestaldesign.com/design/ooz-goose/ - more Ooz pics.
www.auger-loizeau.com/projects/soctel/pro_soctel.html - Auger & Loizeau's teleprescence through dog mounted robotics.
www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/pubs/teleactor-icra02.pdf -
Collaborative Online Teleoperation project that includes human teleactors.
www.pbs.org/art21/artists/wodiczko/index.html - Wodiczko's Tijuana project.
www.zprod.org/PG/machines/roboticEars.htm - Paul Granjon's robotic ears.
www.zprod.org/PG/performances/zLabTrans.htm - performance with the ears and tail video.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A6mon_(His_Dark_Materials) - Leonardo da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine" (1489-90)
www.gutenberg.org/files/22117/22117-h/22117-h.htm - Kerman and Zeris, the two Kittens who accompanied Author on his wanderings
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5alYLJS4OrE - The Golden Compass: Defining Daemons
muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Jim_Henson
www.creatureshop.com - Jim Henson's effects workshop where the Big1 controllers were developed.
flickr.com/photos/bre/208151402/ - example of puppet controller system in action
www.hektor.ch - graffiti robot

Our Music, Our City won at B.TWEEN !

2008-06-23T16:09:00.005+01:00

At B.TWEEN 08, a prize of £ 10,000 was awarded to our Ben Dalton and his team for their entry into the competition "Expoding Narratives", which was jointly organised by JustB and HP-Labs and called for project ideas for geo-referenced applications built on the MSCAPE platform for mobile phones and PDAs. Ben and his colleagues Ben Halsall and Megan Smith had developed a pitch of their project Our Music, Our City .

Congratulations to the team!

The "DoGoSee Project" at ICA

2008-06-06T15:55:00.004+01:00

On 10.June 2008, Ben Dalton (Leeds Met, Innovation North), Megan Smith and Ben Halsall (Leeds Met, Faculty of Arts and Society) will present their project DoGoSee at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London.

Their work is one of the five projects which had been shortlisted in the Exploding Narrative competition organised by b-tween to win a £10,000 prize grant for developing their concept into a product. The projects are around ideas for location-based games, stories or educational journeys, using software developed by HP Labs (MScape). The audience and a panel of experts, including Adam Gee (C4), Steve Moffett (Creative Partnerships) and Richard Hull (HP Labs), will give feedback.

See the final pitches and vote at the ICA on 19 and 20 June, or at b-tween.

More info on this project is in the blog Our City, Our Music.

Info re. the evening event on 10.June (starts at 7pm) at ICA is available from Emma Quinn emmaq@ica.org.uk
£5 / £4 Concessions / £3 ICA Members.
Advance booking advised.
Please call the ICA box office on 020 7390 3647 or visit the ICA web
site www.ica.org.uk

ICA, The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH
Nearest Tube Stations: Piccadilly and Charing Cross

Location-Based Tracking Trials at Great Student Run

2008-05-10T09:10:00.003+01:00

Today (10. May 2008, 10:30am)the Carnegie Great Student Run takes place at the Headingley Campus of Leeds Met. We have developed a simple tracking application which runs on mobile phones and allows that the position of runners (who carry their phones during the run) is automatically sent to our web server.

We have only a few participants, and we are using this to test the feasibility of a few approaches that can be empoyed in this technology field.

Check out our tracking site and monitor live the progress of a small set of runners!

Ben Dalton's MScape project shortlisted by b.tween!

2008-05-08T20:54:00.003+01:00

Our Ben Dalton has been selected to be among the finalists for developing a pitch for his project Our Music, Our City. The competition has been organised by just-b Productions and HPLabs, where ideas have been sought for developing an "Exploding Narrative" using the location-based framework MScape. This is a software development framework which runs on Windows Mobile phones with GPS. The MScape software allows to develop location-based applications in a very easy way, linking events to actions. These actions can be playing media which are stored on the mobile device.

Congratulation, Ben!

Final Year Showcase

2008-04-30T21:12:00.003+01:00

On 7.May 2008 the final year students at Innovation North will show their projects in the Final Year Show.

Viewing Times:
Wednesday 7 May 2008 10.00am - 4.00pm

VIP Evening:
Wednesday 7 May 2008 5.00pm - 8.00pm

To confirm your attendance please contact:
Email: innevents@leedsmet.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)113 812 3702

Venue:
James Graham, Leeds Metropolitan University, Headingley Campus, Leeds, LS6 3QS

Seminar Talk: Creative Technology

2008-04-24T11:19:00.004+01:00

On 23.April 2008, 15:30-17:00 a seminar talk was held at Leeds Met at Caedmon G09. The following topics were covered:
Reinhold Behringer: Recent Activities of the Centre for Creative Technology
Tony Renshaw: Eye Tracking
Tony Partington: Demonstration of using the Vicon Motion Tracking System for tracking objects

Leeds Met Students win Prices at Games Competition!

2008-04-16T16:48:00.004+01:00

On 15.April 2008 the Game Republic organised a student showcase and awarded prices to games designers.

Leeds Met students were very successful:

For the overall game concept, art, and design, the first prize of 100 pounds was awarded to the Leeds Met Team of Jason Brooke, Steven Kerrigan, Richard Hetherington, Joe Roe, and Kevin Jorge.

The 2nd prize for Game Design - 50 pounds - was awarded to David Mclure.

The 3rd prise for Game Art - 25 pounds - was awarded to Ashley Mitchell and Tim Owens.

Congratulations to all these successfull Leeds Met students!

Student Spotlight: Andy Brennan

2008-03-31T14:44:00.007+01:00

At Leeds Met, Masters student Andrew Brennan (MSc Sound & Music for Interactive Games) has been investigating a number of tangible interfaces ranging from big screen to table-top interaction. For his ElectroBurst project, Andy created a real-time interactive audio table interface using the Nintendo Wii remote.

ElectroBurst : An investigation into physical, tangible interaction with music. WingBats utilises a glass table, a projector and a Nintendo Wii control setup to bridge the gap between the 'real' and the ‘virtual'. By playing a simple game the physical actions of the user influence the resulting sound.

Andy says, "I initially wanted to be an architect and spent two years learning about principles such as conceptual design, self critique and discipline. After this period I decided to take my newly acquired skills and knowledge to sound design and production. My undergraduate course in BSc Creative Music & Sound Technology has exposed me to exciting areas of sound technology that I had never thought of before. My first audio programming experience was Native Instruments Reaktor, which I used to create various synths and samplers. From this point on I began to experiment with other programming platforms such as Max/MSP, Processing, Java, C++ and C* to create various interactive systems and stochastic performance tools. "

His masters work has continued these experiments and successes. More info is available on Andy's personal site, and his project blog.

Student Spotlight: Simon Mann

2008-03-17T17:13:00.009Z

For the 2008 Innovation North Postgraduate Showcase, Simon Mann (MSc Creative Technology) demoed his bTraffic project. It builds on boid flocking algorithms to create realistic traffic animation.

bTraffic is an easy to use toolset designed for animating traffic flow. It works within an existing 3D application and generates simulated traffic that can be used for still or animated 3D visualisations. bTraffic is customisable and aimed at animators with little or no programming skills.

Simon has a keen interest in 3D modelling and animation which has led him back into university life. He indulges in programming in a variety of languages including PHP, Python, Actionscript, MEL, SQL and Javascript as well as occasionally dabbling in a little C, C++, Virtools, ASP and Maxscript. From an artistic angle he enjoys regular life drawing sessions which help to complement his 3D modelling skills.

In the past Simon has had a range of jobs including being a web designer, web developer, applications developer, multimedia designer and technical support analyst and has been involved in creating anything from small websites up to large successful Content Management and Ecommerce systems. He has worked in a variety of companies from a small start up business through to an enormous public sector body and believes that all helped him gain a huge amount of experience and skill.

Announcement: Postgraduate Showcase: 13.3., 5-8pm

2008-03-12T17:37:00.003Z

On 13.3.2008, the annual Postgraduate Showcase for the Creative Technology students will be hosted at the Old Broadcasting House, 17:00 - 20:00. There will be the students presenting their work, as well as some staff from Innovation North. Also, there will be some finger food - bring friends and colleagues to this event!

Yahoo's Christian Heilmann - Met:space GeekUp talk

2008-02-22T12:53:00.003Z

This week Leeds Met's co-working start-up facility Met:space hosted a GeekUp talk from Christian Heilmann who is a web architect for Yahoo! UK. GeekUp Leeds like OpenCoffee provides a chance for 'grassroots geekery' - web developers and creative technologists meeting up for an informal chat, networking and a space to share ideas.

Christian's talk 'Yahoo UI - Javascript Evolved?' gave an overview of the YUI toolkit, describing how Javascript libraries can simplify web development - letting people focus on innovations in their design rather than browser bugs and basic functionality.

He talked about how a key skill he has been seeking out in recruiting for Yahoo development teams is an ability to program for others rather than just yourself. He looks for developers who can write logical code that can then be passed to Yahoo teams elsewhere in the world without difficulty. Toolkits like YUI help to do this by organising namespaces, interface elements and plug-in widgets for rich interactive web interface design.

The event was packed and interesting. Thanks to the GeekUp team and the NTI for organising the event.

Alison Mealey - C3KE visiting artist

2008-02-07T22:17:00.000Z

The Centre for Creative and Cultural Knowledge Exchange brings together creative technology practitioners from 5 Universities in Yorkshire. At our recent meeting I had the opportunity to speak with Alison Mealey from University of Huddersfield's Digital Research Unit (DRU) after we both presented our recent activities to the group.

At the DRU, Alison is currently working on a whole range of great sounding projects from 3D scanning & printing sculptural work to exploring the possibilities of text-based adventure games. However, I first discovered Alison through her work using the Unreal games engine and Processing to create beautiful generative 'atomic' collages - some abstract, some portraits.

The artworks are made by setting-up maps and computer AI 'bots' in Unreal. These automatic players are then tracked as they move through the corridors. The temporal traces are drawn onto a digital canvas using Processing to create final 'pointillist' images. The project is well documented online, and you can download Alison's code from the Unreal art site.

This visualising the unseen and mapping out of spaces reminds me of some of the eye-tracking research at Leeds Met. Tony Renshaw, for example, has been using the eye tracker recently to study usability in computer game play. While David Raybould and Richard Stevens re-working of Vertigo - a Hitchcock classic - for the RePossessed show in their piece ReViewed made visible and explicit the normally unseen audience engagement as viewer.

Concert: Echochroma 3: 29.2.2008

2008-02-07T10:32:00.000Z

Another "Echochroma" concert is planned for 29. February 2008:
17:00 - 19:00 in the Jubilee Room, James Graham Building, Headingley Campus, Leeds Metropolitan University.

The concert will feature student works from the Electroacoustic Music module (level 3) and perhaps a few pieces from Creative Music Skills (level 2).

Contacts:
Adam Stanswbie a.stansbie@leedsmet.ac.uk
Nikos Stavropoulos n.stavropoulos@leedsmet.ac.uk

Student mobile game ideas

2008-01-31T17:55:00.000Z

I like this quote.

interviewer: How do you get your bosses to let you do what you want?

Keita Takahashi: I don't think it's anything special. I just write down my ideas on paper, present it to them, and if they don't really understand, I say, “Well, you'll understand if I make it.” Then I make part of it, and they understand. But I don't really have any kind of marketing plan when I put this stuff together, I just propose what I think might be fun or exciting. I don't really have a good knowledge of what will sell. All I can really do is make it and see what happens!

- Namco's Keita Takahashi designer of Katamari Damacy in a recent gamasutra article.

Each January I have the privilege of sitting down with groups of my students to hear them present their final mobile game proposals for the Games Development module.

Students are free to express their ideas however they think best, from paper prototypes to functional Flash, Java or Processing demos - and we always get some really interesting and thought provoking results.

Some pitches drew on the unique features of mobile devices, like Martin Blackburn's Mobile Processing demo of a mobile chase game in which one player tries to stay within bluetooth range of another. Others, like Peter Walker's gambling & gangsters game 'Mobs' focused on how to develop compelling narrative and addictive game assets with a limited screen size.

James Roberts discussed a long-term social big game in which players must contract digital viruses through bluetooth proximity to develop anti-bodies and survive. This game had the added twist that players could plug in their phones to charge as a way of halting their scientist character's deterioration - "Can I make it to the plug socket in the library from here while keeping my character alive?".

Finally, Ben Dare proposed a quirky tale of a misunderstood man in a mask battling his way around the city (with peaceful weapons - a pea shooter and a megaphone). The initial spark of inspiration came from GIMP - the free digital creative tool he was using.

C3KE Meeting at Leeds Met

2008-01-24T15:51:00.001Z

On Monday, 28.January 2008, Leeds met will host a lunch-time meeting with the "Centre for Cultural and Creative Knowledge Exchange" (C3KE), held at the Old Broadcasting House in Leeds. At this event, an overview will be given about the research activities of the centre, presented by a few of the researchers.

The proposed agenda is:
11:00 - 11:30 registration
11:30 - 12:45 presentations by Leeds Met staff
12:45 - 13:00 Derek Hales, Director of the C3KE, will present about the Huddersfield DRU.
13:00 - 15:00 demos, lunch, networking

The presentations are planned as follows:
Tony Renshaw, Richard Stevens: Eye Tracking
Steve Wilkinson: VR and Motion Tracking
Nikos Stavropoulos and Kingsley Ash: Music Composition and Interactive Performance
John Elliott: The Search for Extraterrestial Intelligence

Tentative:
Ben Dalton: Interaction with Big Screens

Demonstrations:
Bal Singh: Interaction with Game on Laptop Computer
Tony Renshaw: Eye Tracking Experience
Kinglsey Ash: Interactive Music Performance
Andy Brennan: Camera-Based Interaction (on DVD)
Rana Gangari: Interactive Video (on DVD)

Please note that your attendance needs to be registered at the NTI:
call 0113-81-21720 or 0845-122-155
or email info@ntileeds.co.uk with your name, event (=C3KE) and dietary requirements.

Concert ECHOCHROMA 2

2007-12-18T10:02:00.000Z

Our second concert of the Echochroma series will take place on Thursday the 20^th of December at 5 pm in the Jubilee room of the James Graham Building, Leeds Met, Headingley Campus.

The concert features a variety of tape and live works performed over a 12 channel surround sound system. The programme includes live lap top performers, 5.1 surround sound audio, saxophone and live electronics and soprano and 8 channels surround sound work. Please arrive early as seating will be limited to 60-70 only.

For more details contact Nikos Stavropoulos at N.Stavropoulos@leedsmet.ac.uk, Tel: 0113 8127333

To view the terms under which this email is distributed, please go to http://disclaimer.leedsmet.ac.uk/email.htm

Participating in MELD Lab

2007-12-14T22:46:00.000Z

During the week from 10.-14.December 2007, the MELD lab was organised at University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) in Preston. The goal of this workshop was to bring together journalists and technologists, for exploring the possibilities of creating projects in New Media domains and to produce pitches of these projects to three media stakeholders. The event was held at the newly set-up venue "Sandbox" in the Media Factory of UCLAN. From about 40 applicants, 15 were selected to participate in this workshop.

From Leeds Met, I (Reinhold Behringer) took part with proposals for applying information technology and human-computer interaction systems to information gathering and presenting. At the workshop, I worked together with journalist Garth Haley to produce the pitch to the industry partners. One of the days was devoted to visit BBC Radio Manchester and ITV Granada News - providing a fascinating insight into the workings of today's media and news production.

The event was a great opportunity for networking between technologists and journalists, bridging the gap between these two different work environments. I look forward to further discussions about joint projects.

C3KE Seminar: U. Leeds, Dance Performance and Technology

2007-11-30T23:50:00.000Z

On Friday, 30.11. the "Centre for Creative and Cultural Knowledge Exchange" (C3KE) organised a lunch-time seminar for its members at Bates Mill in Huddersfield University. The topic of this seminar was a presentation by Sita Popat and Scott Palmer from Leeds University about their work on the interrelation of dance and projective technology. Very interesting was the option of using an IR camera to track the motion of the dancer and feeing this back into a computing system, which in turn would then present visual projections into the environment of the dancer.

At USAB 2007, Graz

2007-11-22T23:59:00.000Z

In Graz the 3rd Symposium of the WG HCI&UE of the Austrian Computer Society took place on 22. November 2007, devoted to the theme "Usability & HCI for Medicine and Health Care". A very interesting day of parallel sessions with presentations from various areas within this large domain. Leeds Met was represented by myself (Reinhold Behringer) - I gave a talk on our paper "Some Usability Issues of Augmented and Mixed Reality for e-Health Applications in the Medical Domain" with the authors Reinhold Behringer, Johannes Christian, Andreas Holzinger, and Steve Wilkinson.

Visit at Goldsmiths College, London

2007-11-15T23:50:00.000Z

Professor William Latham is an authority in the area of evolutionary graphics, with his groundbreaking work on organic shapes and graphical mutation. He just recently had accepted a post at Goldsmiths College after being a Professor here at Leeds Met, and I (Reinhold Behringer) wanted to catch up with him and discuss joint projects. So I took a southbound train to London and spent an afternoon with him and his colleagues discussing artistic and technological issues and possible collaborations. Especially of interest is the area of morphing between video and audio / music: how can the aestethical principles of the visual domain be translated into the aestethical rules of the acoustic domain and vice versa?

At ACM Multimedia Conference, Augsburg

2007-09-25T21:44:00.000+01:00

The ACM Multimedia conference is one of the major conferences in this domain - bringing together multimedia technology and art. This year, it is held in Augsburg, from 24.9.-29.9.

I (Reinhold Behringer) from Leeds Met am currently attending this conference, to get an overview over the latest developments and to network with researchers in related areas. The Leeds Met Centre for Creative Technology is very interested in partnering with other institutions for joint projects in multimedia, computer games, mobile games, computer music, computer graphics. We can provide core expertise in computer music, composition, human-computer interaction, software development, and computer games. If anyone who reads this, wants to discuss such potential joint projects, please look for me during the conference.

Course on Max/MSP: 30.8.-31.8.2007

2007-08-19T14:38:00.000+01:00

In the Leeds Met Summer School program, a two-day tutorial is held on 30. and 31. August about using Max/MSP and Jitter. This software is an essential tool for the creation of interactive electronic music.

Details about this tutorial and the registation form are available on the Leeds Met web site: http://www.lmu.ac.uk/inn/summer_school_max_msp_jitter.htm.

The tutorial is given by Leeds Met members of staff Richard Stevens, Dave Raybould, and Archibald Rees.

Launch of the Centre for Creative Technology

2007-08-09T18:00:00.000+01:00

On 9. July 2007, one month ago, we officially launched the Centre for Creative Technology with an evening of demonstrations at the Leeds Met Headingley Campus.

The evening began with a welcome address by Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean Cath Orange, followed by an overview over the centre activities given by myself. The core of this talk was given by members of staff who gave a brief overview on their work related to the centre topics.

The presentation was followed by two hours of technology demonstrations, shown in the music studios in the James Graham Building. More information about the event and descriptions of the demonstrations are available on our website.

These demonstrations showed a wide variety of technologies and development prototypes, ranging from sensor interactions to artificial intelligence, from visual processing to electro-acoustic music compositions.

Papers at HCII 2007 Conference

2007-08-01T01:21:00.000+01:00

Two of our members of staff attended the 12th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 2007 (HCII) in Beijing. Marc Fabri chaired the session "Emotions in HCI: Theory, Synthesis and Evaluation" and gave the presentation of his paper "Emotionally Expressive Avatars for Chatting, Learning and Therapeutic Intervention". This paper was co-authored by Innovation North staff David Moore and Salima Y Awad Elzouki.

Reinhold Behringer chaired the session "Gesture Recognition" and gave a presentation of his paper "Gesture Interaction for Electronic Music Performance". He also presented the paper "Virtual and Mixed Reality Interfaces for e-Training: Examples of Applications in Light Aircraft Maintainance", where he was a co-author. The principal author Johannes Christian (Leeds Met) was unable to attend the conference. Further co-authors of this paper were Horst Krieger (ipcenter.at) and Andreas Holzinger (Medical University Graz).

Student work showcase

2007-05-30T12:38:00.000+01:00

The final year undergraduate Games Design students have just presented their team projects in our Innovation North showcase. Work ranged from industry strength character modelling to casual games prototypes to architectural visualisation of our new Rose Bowl campus building to a museum guide for the Royal Armouries - some really exciting and professional stuff. I have all of their business cards if you need to contact any of them about an injection of fresh talent.

My friend Imran Ali visited the event, and has blogged about it here.