Based on current intuitive and gestural interface development, such as the sixth sense devices at MIT Medialab or Microsoft's Project Natal, and our general mission statement about creating a physical experience that addresses the accessability of the archive, I developed a vision on how to browse the archive in an immersive, intuitive way. I want to enhance accessing, using and searching the archive and make it more interesting and attractive to use. The working title is (AR) CAVE: Collaborative AudioVisual Experience (with, of course, a wink to the original VR CAVE).
These pictures indicate a general idea of what the CAVE could look like
Basically, it all comes down to a space, the size of a squash court, where several people can simultaneously interact with the archive. The navigation is based on intuitive gestures and body movements, just like the way people normally interact with physical objects. The archive (a selection) will be visualized in 3D in the middle of the space. The archive will be browable/searchable with different variables, such as keywords, picture recognition, speech recognition and video concept recognition. The participants will be able to physically grab a fragment out of the archive and store it somewhere in the space (floating digital material) or on one of the walls (more screen-like). The user can create connections between the fragments, but should also be able to see previously made connections (suggestions) by archivists or other users. Users should be able to make an overview (visualized network) of their research history or results, so that, instead of having 27 tabs with 16 pdf documents and 6 youtube movies opened in firefox, there is an immediate overview of the connections/relations between the found items. One of the walls can be used as a video/audio editor to remix the found material. While researching the users in the CAVE can work together (in different roles or by doing the same thing) and discuss their findings and search methods face to face.
Some examples of using the CAVE in a collaborative way are
- Group research or education (networked overview and discussions about the content and its connections)
- Teambuilding activities: e.g. create a 3 minute news report within 20 minutes (you have to work together, probably in different roles to make it)
- Games: race against time with cryptic description to find a certain archive file, archive karaoke/roulette where you have to explain the fragments and relate them somehow.
- Political discussion using news archives
- Commercial use: inspiration for new advertisements by browsing the archive
- Archivist training: user perspective, filtering newly made connections, archivist education
Some feedback I got today:
ReplyDelete- is the cave really a better way of browsing or only a vision from popular culture? Lose the minority report reference (already done in the text above) – focus on sharing
- collaborative aspect is important
- focus: connections, overview
- actual squash game (hit harder to dig deeper!) ??