This Happened… a series of events focusing on the stories behind interaction design

As one of the first serious games created in the Netherlands, Meesters van de Macht (“Masters of Power”) put IJsfontein on the map. Winning a Bafta and a La Fletche d’Or award back in 1998/1999 helped cement their position as leaders in the field of serious gaming. In the game children have to learn about…

Lilian Henze will give a talk entitled Facilitating DIY, about the home installation of Internet and VOIP by KPN. With home observations on the problems during installation, they generated insights that helped redesigning of the packaging by Flex/the INNOVATIONLAB. With the final design KPN was able to dramatically decrease the cost of support by helpdesk…

GravitySpace is a new approach to tracking people and objects indoors. Unlike traditional solutions based on cameras, GravitySpace reconstructs scene data from a pressure-sensing floor. While the floor is limited to sensing objects in direct contact with the ground, GravitySpace reconstructs contents above the ground by first identifying objects based on their texture and then applying…

StreetPong is a concept about playful urban interactions. It’s based on the problem of waiting long time at pedestrian traffic lights. You can play during the red phase at a traffic light on a touch-screen display with an unknown, also waiting, person on the other side of the street. To look at each other across the…

The Decelerator Helmet offers an experimental approach to an essential subject of our globalized world. It is a experimental approach for thinking about our increasingly fast moving, globalized society. The technical reproducible senses are consigned to an apparatus which allows the user a perception of the world in slow motion. The float of time as apparently invariant…

To promote EOS magazine, a Belgian magazine specialized in science, ecology and technology, Happiness Brussels came up with a campaign that bundles these three domains in an interactive way. We decided to make a tree talk, in Brussels, and let the whole world know what it has to say. You can follow the Talking Tree on Twitter, Facebook, and…

Nacho will talk about what he learned in the making process of Coca-Cola Sitelets. A digital project developed in collaboration with Random for Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam.

Martin Brynskov, Ph.D., is associate professor in interaction technologies at the Department of Aesthetics and Communication at Aarhus University in Denmark. He is also research fellow at Participatory IT Centre (PIT) and Center for Advanced Visualization and Interaction (CAVI), director of the Digital Design Lab, co-founder of Smart Aarhus, and former director of the Civic…

Gianluca Zaffiro is with the Trends group at Telecom Italia’s Future Centre, part of the Strategy department. He explores how emerging technologies impacts on the Telecommunications business in order to contribute to the company’s strategic steering. He was responsible for the Market Interaction activities in the European FP6 Coordination Action PEACH on Presence from 2006…

Varun Nair began as a sound designer for film and television in India and has now found himself becoming a businessman, interaction designer and app developer. He is a graduate of the MSc Sound Design programme from the University of Edinburgh and is co-founder of TwoBigEars, a company that designs context and location aware technology…

Shenando Stals recently obtained his master degree in interaction design. For his master thesis project “Personal Relationships with the City”, which was a collaboration between Edinburgh Napier University and the Eindhoven University of Technology, he explored how people experience the city at an individual level by walking with people through the city in order to…

Ief Spincemaille (1976) obtained his master in Philosophy at the university of Leuven and studied Jazz, modern music and music and technology at L’aula de musica, Barcelona. He is active as an independent set designer and visual artist since 2006. Together with Kurt d’haeseleer he runs the organisation The Werktank since 2010, a production house…

Sandy Claes and Daan Wampers are two media artists that explore the boundaries of animated film. Their latest project ‘Exploded Film’, offers an exploded view on (animated) film. This installation consists of a rollercoaster shaped track that represents the typical story plot of a movie. A camera follows this track up and down, producing a film…

Promised Land is a web documentary on the curious role of holiday parks in the Netherlands: a common refuge for asylum seekers, migrant workers and olympic athletes. This documentary project deals with the fine line between leisure and survival. Once a holiday parc, now a resort for semi-permanent displacement. During one year, writer/filmmaker Eefje Blankevoort,…

The New Lemurs are a venture-funded app company established in Amsterdam last June with the goal of making games educational. Lemurs Chemistry: Water is their launch title, and their first attempt to not only create a new kind of game, but a new kind of company, in culture and in business, halfway between the Dutch…

Mark Florquin will talk about the transition he made from Photography to 3D.

Sylvain Vriens (les hommes de l’ordinateur) recently travelled around the globe to Sydney with a small team to work on an interactive sound installation for the newQT Sydney Hotel. An elevator that keeps track of the number of people inside and changes the music accordingly, and so changing the atmosphere and the behavioral patterns of…

Matt Cottam on Chrome Web Lab Web Lab is a groundbreaking, year-long exhibition, featuring a series of interactive Chrome Experiments that bring the extraordinary workings of the internet to life. Google Creative Lab and Tellart created the user experience design for the Web Lab, and engineered and produced hardware and software for the physical exhibition.   Visitors…

Jeroen Uyttendaele & Dewi de Vree on Ground Ground is an audiovisual performance in which graphite drawings are directly used to control several handmade electronic instruments. Drawing, erasing and touching are the main gestures for a unique audiovisual composition. Graphite is a conductor for electricity. By using graphite as a variable resistor (instead of a standard knob) the pitch,…

Franziska Hübler and Jeremy Tai Abbett from truthdaredoubledare talk about ‘Rainbug’ – A raincoat for kids. How can we address the desire in children to transform?

iPad in the hands of children Currently, Anna Mentzel deals in collaboration with urbn; pockets with digital learning application for kids. Among others you can find “This is my body – Anatomy for kids” in the Apple App Store. Anna talks about the creation process of this application and how it makes kids discover the functions of their body…

Kreek is a Kinect controlled interface which extends a normally two-dimensional multi-touch environment by the perception of depth. This allows the user to literally reach into the interface and gives applications the possibility to interprete parameters like pressure or solid distance. Kreek is a project of the artist group Klangfiguren, and realized on the Köln…

Dirk will talk about how to properly transform and rebuild the award-winning ‘BMW-Magazine’ print publication into an interaktive iPad app.

The Making of a Giant Interactive Bear! Making a simple interaction that created a childlike sense of wonder was the goal for Red Paper Heart’s Hug Party, an ongoing installation that encourages people to run and jump on a giant stuffed bear named Marvin. Landing on Marvin causes a flourish of animations to play up…

Arjan Scherpenisse en Eelco Wagenaar on PING, a face tracking automated ping-pong kanon. The installation consists of two identical separate spaces. Together these spaces form the “playground” of the ping installation. Each space contains a half pingpong-table, a pingpongball-canon, a bat with a touch-sensitive sensor, and a laptop. A network cable runs between the two…

Joannes Vandermeulen on bpost: an online information portal for counter staff at Belgian post offices. Joannes Vandermeulen is the founder of Brussels based Namahn, one of the largest Interaction Design firms in Belgium. Namahn develops the Information architecture and interaction design for large scale & complex projects. Such as an applications for road and air…

Fietslabyrint is an interactive bicycle tour. When you start the tour you will cycle through beautiful Dutch cities and landscapes. You will see other people walking and cycling, children playing and well known landmarks. You will hear sounds from outside: birds, cars and your own bicycle. When you stop cycling, your interactive tour stops as well.…

“Valence” is an interactive visualization controlled by live brainwave monitoring. The game world is an emergent system of attractive and repulsive cells made in Nodebox Opengl. When the player whose brain activity is being recorded relaxes (or is aroused), the cells in the game world respond… Valence is developed by Tom De Smedt and Lieven…

I am an artist, photographer and writer who currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. I was born and raised in Southern Ontario, Canada where I studied Comparative Religious Studies, Womens’ Studies, Literature and Film Studies at the University Of Toronto. I continued my studies in Law and Latin American Politics at the University of Auckland, New…

For the last three years the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University has entered the Edinburgh 48h Film Project, a fun and demanding international event which challenges participants to write shoot and edit a film in just 48 hours. After a whirlwind weekend the films are screened to packed out audiences in the Cameo Cinema, the…

Skye Reynolds is Dance Artist in Residence with Imaginate, North Edinburgh Arts and Dance Base. Over the past 18 months she has been developing ways to create interactive dance experiences via sound technology. This journey has included a variety of explorations and is currently focused on using the ‘Wii’ to compose music in performance. To…

John Vines is an interaction designer and Knowledge Exchange Associate at Culture Lab, Newcastle University. Whilst his training is in design, his research encompasses social and cognitive science, gerontology, and digital art. Much of his work explores ways in which the values of groups who are typically disenfranchised from participating in the digital economy might…

Benjamin Mayer and Martin Spengler are Lab binaer, they talk about ‘Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod’ (Death calls the tune).

Pieke Bergmans and LUSTlab (NL) talk about Res Sapiens.

Tim Knapen (Indianen, BE) talks about Godmode, a playful installation involving a hacked photocopier, some paper, black markers and colored pencils.

Claire Warnier (Unfold, BE) talks about Kiosk, a mobile 3D scanning and printing facility illustrating a near future in which these technologies have become ubiquitous.

Edo Paulus (NL) talks about SonOrb: a permanent, interactive sound installation for groups children aged 7 to 12 years old.

Andy Farnell is a computer scientist from the UK specialising in audio DSP and synthesis. Author of “Designing Sound”, pioneering original research in the field of procedural audio. He is a visiting professor at several European universities and consultant to game and audio technology companies. A long-time advocate of free open source software, open access…

Oli Mival Dr Oli Mival is the Senior Research Fellow at Edinburgh Napier University’s Centre for Interaction Design and Director of the Future Interaction Network. He consults for a variety of industrial clients including the NHS, RBS, Toshiba, the FBI and California State Police. Before returning to academia Oli was the managing director of award…

Dave Murray-Rust[1] is a scientist and creative technologist at the University of Edinburgh, playing with sound, music, computers and interaction. ChaoDependant[2] is a collaboration with Owen Green[3] and Agelos Papadakis[4], exploring invisibly structured spaces using a magnetic pendulum, sensors, lights and a reactive soundscape, along with tactile glasswork. It invites people to interact, to play…

Jonnet Middleton is an art activist doing a PhD on mending at Highwire, Lancaster University. Unitypanda is an experiment in panda diplomacy which, using web 2.0 methodologies for analogue interaction, created knitted pandas that the Chinese government received as diplomatic gifts.

John Wong, multi-media artist. Recognized as the CEO of DBIS Limited. Awarded by prized film work of “The Tourist”, “On Our Own”, “Drowning” and etc. Credited by hundreds of theatre performance with grand scale. Renowned by numerous multimedia designs, 3D interactive creations, musicals and concerts. Acknowledged by hundreds of both local and overseas artists and…

Rochelle is an artist, curator and educator who engaged in visual arts, performing arts and new media convergence. Currently, she teaches at Chinese University of Hong Kong. With years of working experience as creative director in new media and advertising industry, she has been appointed Chair of Art Gallery in SIGGRAPH Asia 2011.

Simon Haenggi is an interaction designer, musician, media artist and entrepreneur born in Basel, Switzerland. During his studies at institute Hyperwerk at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, he realized projects that mainly focused on human computer interaction and explored the joyful and magical sides of playing with technology. After developing a prototype of…

Toby Barnes has spent the last 18 years designing, developing and launching a number of large and small online projects; working with large brand owners and generally preparing people for the future. Toby co-founded Mudlark, an award winning digital entertainment production company in September 2008. They continue to develop and launch their own products and…

VIDEO REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF THE PRESENTER. Amy Pliszka is a recent graduate of the MA ‘Textile Futures’ at Central St Martins. She has a background in fine art and art history and worked for Agnes b for 5 years. The MA ‘Textile Futures’ course extended her enthusiasm for research where re-configuring textiles as…

Tom Taylor is a creative technologist and engineer who has worked with internationally-renowned clients such as BBC, the National Maritime Museum, Dentsu London, Innocent Drinks and Stamen Design. He is the CTO of Newspaper Club and was described by the BBC as “a group of software-coding friends”. He is also a partner in RIG London.…

Cross-discipline designer Campbell Orme has worked on projects for clients such as Ford, Samsung, SEEDA, Bonnier, United Airlines and the Dutch government, for London-based studios such as BERG, Imagination and Pentagram. Outcomes have been as diverse as interactive installations, animation, brand and identity guidelines, interiors and transient architecture. He is currently Design Director at Moving…

James Wheare is a London-based web developer who started building websites in 2000 while still at school. In 2006, he built LiveBus.org—a website that shows local bus stops on a map and tracks arrivals in real-time. The website was recognised at the New Statesman New Media Awards 2007 where James was named Young Innovator of…

Jens Wunderling is a freelance interaction designer and media artist living and working in Berlin. His work focuses on emerging techniques and social media, as well as their impact on society. Jens graduated at the University of Arts, Berlin where he had studied in the Digital Media Class run by Prof. Joachim Sauter and Jussi…

Kevin Wong is the founder and Creative Director of WHY INTERACTIVE, an independent, full service design house specializing in online creativity and interactive works. He didn’t start his career as a designer but rather a web programmer. However, his natural talent and sense on art and design deeply impressed his fellows who, as a result,…

Zoie So is currently a teaching fellow at the Visual Studies Department, Lingnan University, where she teaches digital imaging, electronic art and video art. So’s work explores the materiality and opacity of human-machine interfaces. So constructs intimate, playful and intellectually challenging spaces, using methods such as appropriation, encoding and programming, and a diverse range of…

Winnie Soon is a transdisciplinary artist, researcher and digital media practitioner born in Hong Kong. Her projects often explores the intersection of art & technology through a variety of medium & experiments with communication technologies.Her artistic practice ranges from mobile video, interactive media to installation, often examined cultural issues and oriented towards experimental networked media,…

Bryan CHUNG Wai-ching was born in Hong Kong and studied locally and in London. Currently an assistant professor (interactive art) at the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, he focuses primarily on interactive media projects, ranging from CD-ROM, interactive installations to Internet installations. His works have been exhibited widely in Europe and Asia.…

Kingsley Ng graduated in New Media Art from the Ryerson University in Toronto and Contemporary Art from Le Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France. He has received numerous awards, such as the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Award 2009 and the Gold Medal for the IFVA 2007 Interactive Media category. Kingsley will…

Keith Lam is Artistic Director of a new media art group “dimension+’, who awarded the Award for Young Artist (Film & Media Arts) of Hong Kong Arts Development Awards 2008. His artworks have been invited to numerous festivals around the world including ArsElectronica Festival (Austria), FILE 2009 (Brazil, SauPualo), Split Film Festival (Croatia), etc. Keith…

1a space is an independent and non-profit making visual art organization founded by a collective of Hong Kong art workers in 1998. It is an open platform to cultivate and nurture local artistic talents with aims to promote the critical dissemination of contemporary visual arts practices and affiliated art forms. Jason Lam, a creative programmer…

Chris Cheung (Hon Him) is a media artist who favors in audiovisual and interaction design. He also worked as a composer who involved in commercial music and film soundtrack. Hon Him will talk about his installation work named ‘The happiness of fish’, using fish as part of the performer to control the sound and visual.…

Dennis Paul is a Gestalter, has two sons, lives in Berlin and works in his design practice The Product. In his work he investigates the relation between people and technology. In recent years he was engaged in installations in public space, physical interfaces and generative systems. He specifically likes to explore the playful and narratives…

Moritz Stefaner works as a freelance designer on the crossroads of data visualization, information aesthetics and user interface design. With a background in Cognitive Science and Interface Design, his work beautifully balances analytical and aesthetic aspects in mapping abstract and complex phenomena. In 2010, he was nominated for the Design Award of the Federal Republic…

Andreas Koller is co-founder of the Viennese design studio Strukt, where he works as Creative Director and Interaction Designer. Strukt specializes in the areas of interactive design, generative graphics, motion and graphic design. Since its formation in 2007 the studio worked for renowned clients realising award-winning media installations and animations for presentations, corporate and cultural…

Christian Heidemann lives in Hamburg and works as a freelance Interactive Designer. Besides this job he conceptualizes and organizes exhibitions such as ‘Beyond Street Art’ or ‘All over the Kiez’ with regular irregularity. Before moving to Hamburg Christian had been a member of Galerie Revolver in Düsseldorf. For six years this gallery frequently presented artists…

Martin Kim Luge is a interaction designer and media artist whose work dwells between human-computer interaction, storytelling and perception. He focuses on concepts and applications for empirical processes using digital media. He is a graduate of the Digitale Klasse (http://digital.udk-berlin.de/) lead by Prof. Joachim Sauter and Prof. Jussi Ängeslevä at the University of the Arts…

Janis Jefferies is an artist writer and curator, Professor of Visual Arts at the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths University of London and Artistic Director of Goldsmiths Digital Studios. Barbara Layne is a Professor of Studio Arts at Concordia University in Montreal and a founding member of the Hexagram Institute for Media Arts and Technologies where…

Patrick Tobias Fischer is an Urban HCI researcher and PhD student at Strathclyde University. The SMSlingshot is an interventionist approach by the VR/Urban collective for reclaiming urban screens for public use.

John O’Shea is an artist who works with (and against) technology to open up unspoken questions concerning the “values” embedded in everyday transactions. Adopting open-source development strategies and understanding ‘law’ as a creative medium, The Meat Licence Proposal is a project seeking to build a bridge between citizen and lawmaker through the collaborative development of…

Brigitta Zics is an artist, interaction designer and media philosopher who investigates the creative and affective potential of emerging technologies to develop new ways of communication between human and machine. Mind Cupola explores the creative potential of eye-movement and applies the philosophical concept of the cognitive-feedback loop to trigger novel aesthetic experiences of the participant.

Daniel Schulze is a student at Universität der Künste, Berlin. “For those who see” is an installation comprising a 7 x 7 matrix display using vortexed air. This piece is the winner of the Audience Award for the Create10 Student Design Competition.

David England is Head of Computing at Liverpool John Moores University. He has been working with artists on Interaction projects for the last 20 years. Whole Body Interaction – integrating the whole person as an engineering, design and philosophical approach to interactive systems

Jonathan Hamilton is a Senior Lecturer in BA and MA Graphic Design at Nottingham Trent University. He was one of the UK’s leading 3D montage illustrators in the 90s and has worked in digital video productions in the last ten years. He is particularly interested in cross-disciplinary collaboration and the mix of old and new…

Elena Nazzi is a PhD student at the IT University of Copenhagen, looking for embodied ways of sharing information about everyday activities with everyday artifacts for social interaction. Naveen Bagalkot is an architect and industrial designer, currently attempting to do interaction design research. Senior Interaction focuses on senior citizens as everyday innovators and explores an…

Fashion-artist and inventor, Di Mainstone creates body-centric structures for experimental performance. A playful choreography of fashion, technology and performance, her work is an interactive hybrid, made whole by the intrepid curiosity of the user. Musical prosthetics, kinetic couture, wearable graffiti, body-architecture and sensory-skins are just some of the devices Mainstone has fashioned. A collaboration with…

Jon Oberlander is a cognitive scientist based in the School of Informatics at Edinburgh, investigating how to get computers to talk like you and me. Inspace is a new living lab for experimentation and public engagement, exploring the cultural significance of informatics and new media practice. The project has taken five years from original concept…

Nicole Heidtke and Stefan Baumberger / ~ in the fields was founded in 2005 in Edinburgh. ~ in the fields’ current interests focus on “borrowed time” and memorialisation – initiated by a residency at Highland Hospice. In collaboration with the poet Ken Cockburn they worked on a book project about handwiting, inscriptions and ink. ink…

John Harris is a composer, artistic director of the Red Note Ensemble, and director of the Seven Things record label. Seven Things happened to John (or maybe John happened to Seven Things). Their story is going to be offered as a cautionary tale to keep all aspiring and self-motivated musicians awake at night.

Professor Andy Miah, BA, MPhil, PhD, is Chair of Ethics and Emerging Technologies in the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries at the University of the West of Scotland, Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, USA and Fellow at FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, UK. He will discuss new…

Paul Rodgers is (from Nov 09) Professor in Design Thinking at Northumbria University’s School of Design and the author of 5 books and over 100 academic papers as well as juggling teaching, researching and doing design. Euan Winton is Course Leader in Design and Digital Arts at Edinburgh Napier University and is a member of…

Sarah Drummond is an award winning service designer from Glasgow who has a passion for design led innovation within the public sector. With an enthusiasm for service design, design thinking and social innovation, Lauren Currie believes that designers have the ability to assist social and cultural change. mypolice is an innovative online police feedback tool…

Michael Salmond is Senior Lecturer of Interactive Media Design at Northumbria University, UK; his research and art practice focus on hybrid cultures, tourism and videogame art. Hybrid Journeys is an ongoing series of video contemplations on the points of overlap in tourism, colonialism, transport and real versus conceptual space. The series covers a wide range…

Peter Pratt is a Senior Analyst/Developer for the Applications division at the University of Edinburgh, spending the majority of his career developing Web Applications, working in a range of technologies (Coldfusion, Perl, PHP and Java). The Walking Through Time prototype creates a connection between place and time using historical maps and GPS, using a web…

Jen Southern is an artist who has been working with gps, robotics, videogames and mobile phones as aspects of physical installations for the past 15 years, and is currently doing a PhD in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University. She will talk about Running Stitch a collaborative GPS and sewing project with Canadian artists Jen…

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, is a Canadian industrial and interaction designer and co-founder of Tinker.it! a design and technology consultancy in London and Milan. Alex will talk about Hop. Part game, part performance, Hop is an augmented version of the traditional hopscotch game. A chalked out version of the game invites visitors to the exhibition to play…

Andrew Spitz is a sound designer interested in how sound can be integrated in various contexts. Tweet A Sound Bio: Promoting the idea of social sound design? Tweet A Sound allows you to share sonic tweets via Twitter.

Ben Dembroski is a Glasgow based artist investigating the how to best exploit the economies of the digital without sacrificing his love of the object. Project2891 is focused on developing a series of sculptural devices (called nodes) capable of communicating with each other via the net or other electronic means.

Yann Seznec is a musician, sound designer, software developer. His work designing creative music software for the Nintendo Wii remote has garnered internet, press, and TV coverage around the world, including features in Make Magazine, The Independent, Develop, and appearances on Bravo, Scottish Television Network, and BBC’s Dragons’ Den. In addition, Yann is an accomplished…

Zoë Irvine is a sound artist who lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her work ranges from carefully crafted individual pieces for gallery spaces to the creation of platforms, inviting others to participate. DIAL-A-DIVA harks back to the period of the theatrophone, a broadcasting medium from the 1880s to 1920s. It connected opera houses and…

Henrik Ekeus is a musician, media artist and researcher associated with Edinburgh University. He will talk about his work with GPS and geo-tagged media, including some pretty intense data-mining of the rapidly growing Flickr data set of geo-referenced images. This massive repository of images forms a sort of collective ‘Memory Space’ of human events and…

Jon Rogers (School of Design, University of Dundee) has been working between the fields of Interaction and Product Design for a decade, working closely with students, practitioners and academics. His particular specialism is the integration of electronics within products/services. “Using digital technologies for products that explore a person’s needs is great. But we know that.…

Jamie Allen makes art and sound with his head and hands. He is a multimedia artist working in performance and installation, and has recently relocated from New York City to Newcastle Upon Tyne to start up a new program in Digital Media based at the Culture Lab. He will be talking about a piece completed…