Musings on our presentation-Team Orange

Well, yesterday our team presented our idea for an I2 collaboration in (un)usual spaces. It was very interesting, in that everything we presented ended up being completely different from our original plan!

Our plan had been to put one team member with a camera in a bathroom and another in an elevator, where we would interact with people in those spaces and with the class via the technology, and the images sent back to the classroom would be mixed with some other images online. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get decent connections in the elevators, but we were not dissuaded. We talked about the lobby, stairwells, other public "ordinary" places. But the bigger problem ended up being the connection via iChat/Skype, which over and over again, failed. We tried several computers, different logins, different configurations of cameras and computers, both Skype and iChat, and we didn't give up. Suddenly, for no reason that we could figure out, we were able to get one connection to work. So, Nick grabbed the computer, a camera, and ran out to the plaza in front of Stern, a public, "ordinary" space.

From there, he tried out several places in the library that we had considered in our group meeting-the lobby, stairwells, elevators, and bathrooms. He interacted with people in these locations and got some terrific shots of the library lobby from the 8th floor. Additionally, since we were only able to get one connection to work, Shih-Yu was able to stay in the room and record the presentation. This is something we had not originally planned on but ended up working for the best. In the original plan, she would have been in another location with the camera, but since the connection failed, she was in the room with the camera and we were able to record the entire event.

Another thing our project draws upon is the transformation of a classroom space into something extraordinary...one could say that our project is something of an extension of what we have experimented with all semester in our I2 connections with UCI, BCC, and other parts of NYU. For all of us, the classroom space is an "ordinary" space. We experimented with this in particular in our BCC connection in the Avery. Our presentation seeks to transform other, more public, "ordinary" spaces into something special by connecting these spaces with technology. The technology creates a virtual space between the spaces through which the information passes, and our experience of this virtual space is through the moments of latency.

To paraphrase from a UCI blog, we have created a virtual space through which we move...

This virtual space is created between two "ordinay" spaces, and its existence transforms the ordinary to the extraordinary, or the mundane to the divine. The transformation is the key, for as Marianne Moore reminds us: "Nothing mundane is divine. Nothing divine is mundane." The technology facilitates this transformation by creating a new, third space which allows the personal connection; in a way, adding the space in between actually shrinks the distance between the two places. Part of our classroom becomes the plaza, the library, the elevator, etc.

Yesterday, despite the technological headaches, which we are all learning are a big part of this process(!), we successfully transformed two spaces and were able to explore the idea behind our project. We were able to do this in real time, and to involve other people in the spaces. And, we were able to record the event, which is really great.

For a moment, these spaces served a greater function than normal use suggests. I think Team Orange really enjoyed the challenge of this project, the strategizing of the technical difficulties, and the commeraderie of the group dynamic, within the team, in the class, and in the interaction with the "innocent bystanders" whose participation became such an entertaining part of our presentation.

Unusual Spaces-Team Orange

In class, we have talked a lot about transforming spaces using technology, and creating and utilizing virtual spaces with I2. Our team project seeks to experiment with the use of I2 in unusual spaces, where the space is not transformed, but rather explored for its own worth. Our spaces are explored and celebrated for their normal, seemingly mundane uses. We are interested in exploring the mundane and the ways people might interact with unusual technology in a space so "normal" that we cease to acknowledge its presence as anything other than completely utilitarian. To see pictures of examples of spaces, see my webpage.

We seek to find the unusual in the usual, by flipping our perception of what is normal. To find the extraordinary in the ordinary, by first acknowledging the potential of the ordinary to be, in fact, extraordinary.

To quote Marianne Moore:

"Nothing mundane is divine.
Nothing divine is mundane."