BigDog Interactive becomes part of the Research Councils UK £40 million investment in the Digital Economy Programme. Read about the current project I'm working on at the London Knowledge Lab in Bloomsbury, London designing next generation devices for play and learning on my project page.
People call me Jenn (two 'N' Jenn!) - and I'm somewhere between an Interaction Designer/Software Developer/Hardware tinkerer with expertise in HCI. My interest is in the intersection of Computing, Human-Computer Interaction and Live Art - or what I call Digital Live Art. I direct, design and produce interactive installations and performance events using sensors and mobile and embedded physical computing technologies to mediate ‘wittingness.’ Mediating wittingness allows people to step in or out of a live performance based on their knowledge or awareness of the performance frame. You can read more about this in the various publications available on my publications page. My PhD thesis "Digital Live Art: Mediating Wittingness in Playful Arenas" (2006) introduced the concepts of "wittingness", "tripartite interaction" (interaction between bystanders, participants and performers) and "Digital Live Art". During my thesis, I designed, developed and performed several Digital Live Art pieces including iPoi.
I have explored many areas of Human-Computer Interaction, including wearable computing, decision-support systems, tangible interaction, exertion interfaces, interaction with large-screen displays and camera phone interaction. I produce Digital Live Art which explores these areas and you'll find a list of projects on my project page. I have designed projects with and for varying groups of people and contexts including: children, special needs, art practicioners, the general public and for museums, galleries, art exhibitions, music festivals, next generation sensory studios among others.
I've recently branched out into iPhone application development and in 2010 I am collaborating with several UK partners to pilot some exciting trials at UK festivals and events - watch this space! I'm also piloting acceleration projects based on my previous and PhD research which explored wireless acceleration and accelerometers (see publications and iPoi/uPoi project page for wireless music festival performances, Analysis of Algorithms and the Hoverflies project page). Dr. Nick Bryan-Kinns from Queen Mary, University of London has become a key developer and we work closely on many acceleration projects.Last year I built the Institute of Education's first interactive surface - a tangible interactive table based on reactivision software and infrared technology at the London Knowledge Lab. The table was evaluated by lots of excited school children and result have been published in various journals and conferences.
One of the most important and rewarding research outputs is my involvement in the (re)Actor conference series. (re)Actor is an international conference on Digital Live Art which I began in 2006 after writing a workshop paper for HCI 2006 based on my PhD research. Now in its fourth year, the conference is quickly becoming a recognised forum for exploring live art, performance and playful arenas.
My thesis was supervised by Professor Alan Dix, Dr. Gerd Kortuem and Dr. Jen Allanson, and was partially funded the EPSRC Equator Initiative. The local (Lancaster) Equator pages say some nice things about me here or read more about the Equator initiative led by Tom Rodden, here. I also have to thank Professor Ian Sommerville for encouraging me to work under the supervision of Jen Allanson.
