Every year students participating in the M.Sc. in Multimedia Systems Programme at Trinity College collaborate to create exciting and innovative projects for display to the general public. This year is no different, with students producing interactive environments that explore the diverse nature of multimedia.

We are proud to present this year's show: "Stop! Look & Listen".

Presenting this year's pieces:

Cine Chair

CineChair is more than a chair and more than a computer. It is an all encompassing multimedia experience.

Ideally positioned within its own room CineChair offers the user the invite of sitting in a large comfortable chair. It is the type of chair that perhaps one could curl up in and read a good book, stretch out and dream or simple sit in quietness. The sort of chair where one could listen to music or watch some video in comfort if only there was a TV screen and media system to hand!

But CineChair has a surprise for the user. When one sits down CineChair actively encourages participation in a Multimedia experience. The main lights extinguish and the user is bathed in a personal light system. A screen is presented in front of the user and within the arms of the chair appears backlit controls inviting the user to touch the fabric and see what occurs.

A visual interface offers a wide choice of multimedia content – some audio based, some video based and some audio-visual. In some cases having made their choice the user simply sits back and enjoys. In others the user is invited to interact with the media using specific “one function” controls within the arms of the chair or by using a navigation panel to control an on screen cursor. Users may follow the more traditional navigation approach or dispense with the cursor to choose Media type, control Panning and Zooming, turning Sound On and Off, controlling Volume, etc. all to be done by touching the fabric on CineChair arms.

When content is being viewed the room is given an ambience by backlighting the viewing screen with colours which are drawn from the visual content.

The experience is completed by the immersion of the user in Sound from within CineChair.

CineChair breaks away from the traditional way of choosing, experiencing and controlling Multimedia.

Website: http://www.cinechair.com

Faraway Tree

Our project presents an interactive children’s book based on the narrative 'The Faraway Tree' by Enid Blyton in an animated format. Our aim is to allow children to interact with the story in a way that isn’t possible with the book.

The experience is aimed at 6 to 8 year olds. The child sits at a table and is presented with a series of wooden blocks that when lifted trigger a story. By giving the child access to objects that trigger story events, they are bought in closer proximity to the narrative, as the metaphorical glass wall between the user and what happens on screen is broken down. Once the story begins, the child is in control of the narration through the use of a mouse specially designed for children. They can interact with the characters and influence or even change the settings in the story world. There are also multiple plot possibilities that can be explored by the child.

Neuro Probe

For the first time ever, Limbic Industries are opening up their laboratories to the public. Privileged visitors will be able to experience the revolutionary NeuroProbe™ system.

Memories are stored among the neurons of the brain in a relatively permanent form as physical traces, which we call memory traces. If we only knew how to decode these traces, we could read the entire lifetime of experiences and knowledge from inside the brain. This was perhaps the greatest challenge in neuroscience, but now, using technologies from the 23rd Century, Limbic Industries have been able to unlock this code.

The NeuroProbe™ system allows a visualization of memories stored within a human brain. For this demonstration, they have chosen a preserved brain from the 21st Century, thereby giving visitors an insight into a different era.

Website: http://www.neuro-probe.com

Playskip

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
-Arthur C Clarke

The objective of this project is to use an interactive installation comprised visuals and re-interpreted everyday objects to visualize the technological systems that underlie the devices that we use.

Concept:

Most of the time, we live our lives within these invisible systems, blissfully unaware of the artificial life, the intensely designed infrastructures that support them.
-Bruce Mau

This installation will consist of a seemingly chaotic but highly staged set of objects and a constructed set of monitors displaying different visuals. Some of these objects when manipulated will cause a change in events that appear on the set of monitors. The visuals created will consist of cause- and- effect themed content. The entire structure's operation will exist in a state of constant change, with each small change made by the audience generating new content in the installation.

Circuit boards, televisions, iPods and radios are all made from objects. What separates their innards from the objects we encounter in everyday life is simply a matter of scale and structure. This installation intends to represent the idea that any system, natural or technological, is composed of objects and operated by the manipulation of those objects. Stuff is all stuff. This installation aims to represent the idea that technology is mostly hidden from view in our everyday lives.

Technological items designed for a mass audience are increasingly designed in a way that disguises their inner workings. While in the past a cassette tape may have been rewound by a little finger stuck into its tape dial, now iPods must be sent away to be fixed. Users are not invited to fiddle with the insides of their digital cameras or personal music players. Their outer casing gives no indication of the operations inside. The design of items such as the iPod concentrate on maximum usability by a mass audience. Any customizing done is limited to the strict tenets of iPod objects.

This constrained use of the iPod means many of its users do not understand how the object actually works. The iPod is there, it works or does not and that is that.

This installation intends to tackle the question- if design of technology continues to develop in this way, will technology become a second nature? If we continue to use technological items without any understanding of their operation will our relationship to them become akin to our relationship with rain, grass or mountains: that is we accept they are here but we do not question why.

Website: http://www.playskip.com

A Wake-Dream

*A Wake-Dream* explores the wake-dreaming continuum, a contemporary theory that defines four different states of consciousness: (1) focused waking thought, (2) looser, less structured waking thought, (3) daydreaming, and (4) dreaming. It is the billions of connecting neurons on the brain's surface that allow us to experience our thoughts and imagery, and each state of consciousness has its own neuron connection pattern. For example, in the first state of focused waking thought, connections are made in a logical, linear manner as in A > B > C, much like the thinking required for working out a mathematical problem whereas in the fourth state, that of dreaming, connections become far less rational and self-reflective, and much more complex and image-based.

Water is the medium through which the continuum is examined in *A Wake-Dream* as 50 – 70% of an adult's body weight is composed of water, and its flow is as symbolic of blood through veins as well as the brain's movement through different states of consciousness. The four pools and their projected visuals represent the four states: focused waking thought is signified through self-reflective handwritten notes, jottings, drawings, and diagrams for the project; looser, less-structured waking thought is denoted through the combination of language and still photography; daydreaming is characterized by stop-motion animations and finally, digitally produced graphics correspond to dreaming. In the condition of dreaming, the formation of connections is guided by the prevailing emotion. Thus the content of the pools' visuals are a series of explorations of the five main emotional states – fear, happiness, love, anger and sadness. Through motion-tracking and generative imagery, the waterfall is the stimulus for the state of consciousness, i.e. neuron connections are produced when a user plays with the falling sheet of water and the extent of the interaction determines which pool (or state of consciousness) will be lit up by the extensive lighting effects.

In keeping with the user's firsthand experience of sight and touch in *A Wake-Dream*, the audio also retains a phenomenonological aspect as the sound of a heart beat is employed at speeds conducive to, and evocative of, the prevailing emotion. A final consideration of note is that the basic mechanisms of dreaming – the making of broad, non-linear connections in the mind guided by the dominant emotion – are also very similar to the mechanism of making new connections that underlies artistic creativity...* Perhaps this will be more closely investigated in *A Wake Dream II*!!

·Hartmann, Ernest, "The Psychology and Physiology of Dreaming: A New Synthesis", Gamwell, Lynn (ed.), *Dreams 1900 – 2000; Science, Art, and the Unconscious Mind*, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999, p. 61.

Wizard of rods

The thesis of this project draws on elements from Interaction Design, Perception, Mechanics, Electronics and Speech Processing & AI to create a truly interactive Multimedia installation.

We have created a 3D extrusion of a face generated by a surface of rods, a portion of which is motorised to allow for different expressions and mouth movements. The audience can interact through typing input, with the face, through an Artificial Intelligence language which processes the user's input and generate an appropriate response. By using voice synthesis software and moving the mouth appropriately, the face appears to speak back an intelligible response to the audience. The end result is an impressive display of multiple technologies working together to create an interactive piece which can provoke many possible emotions and reactions from the audience.

Website: http://www.wizardofrods.com

It opens Wednesday 24th September at 6pm in Regent House and runs until Sunday night