Institute of Art and Technology

Lucha Libre has played an important role in Mexican culture since the late 1950s. At its early stage, wrestling from the United States and the French “Catch as Catch Can” blended within popular Mexican culture absorbing its social, political and mythical idiosyncrasy evolving later into what it would be known as Lucha Libre. This sport has become famous mainly due to its masked wrestlers which embed their family traditions, beliefs and fears into the design of their masks, allowing them to transform a regular person into a fearless character.

The objective of this project is to analyse and present how the visual elements within the masks are created and how they evolve through time. Utilising several visual communication methods I have been able to explore the ideas and processes behind the characters creation and its evolution inside the Lucha Libre media. This has been done through the implementation of diverse technologies which enables any user to be submerged into the world of Lucha Libre and witness that experience. Through the next interactive exhibitions, this project offers a mixture of visualisation, technology and social theory, looking to understand the anthropological complexity behind the design of the masks inside the Lucha Libre world.

During Mesoamerican times, before the Spanish colonies,Mexican civilizations believed that when somebody died, their soul continued to live in a special place called Mictlán. The benevolent gods created this pleasant and peaceful ideal site, in which the souls waited to be called to go back to their former homes and visit their relatives on particular, traditionally defined, days. After the arrival of Catholicism the new customs were merged with the indigenous resulting in a mixture of Christian and Prehispanic customs and beliefs.

The ‘data deluge’ refers to the sheer speed and volume of new data generation, outrunning capacities to manage and make use of it. A vast amount of that data is shared online in the advent of cheap internet access and a change in the attitude of both businesses and consumers to online interaction [1]. New web technologies also change how we collect, store and transmit data. While the online information explosion has the potential to transform business, government, academia and everyday lives in positive ways, risks are posed by the huge increase in the volume of personal data on the Web. In particular, personal data is increasingly being collected online in the pursuit of commercial advantage and at the risk of forsaking individual privacy.

We consider the implications of the data deluge focusing on this problem of privacy using Philosophy, Marketing and Law. We use a philosophical theory of privacy as ‘information control’ to highlight the tension between different claims over personal data. Then disciplinary perspectives of Marketing and Law have been chosen for discussion as they exemplify different mechanisms for exerting information control in the interests of different stakeholders.

This project consist in the development of an installation involving several technological elements which complement each other aiming to provide tools for interpretation and experimentation. Among other technologies, the installation uses Augmented Reality, 3D Modelling, Projection Mapping, and 3D Printing. Part of the archaeological site of Portus, Italy was presented as an example for the visualization, focusing primarily on one of the warehouses. The methodology developed here is transposable to many archaeological sites, and its main goal was to show the mentioned technology at work, which may be used to assist in the interpretation of the site. As we progressively become more multi-skilled, the boundaries between industries and disciplines become less visible and it is difficult to pre-plan when it will be required to bring other specialists into the field that is to be developed.

Museums play a major role promoting knowledge about material culture. Museums usually share this knowledge through displays. These displays occupy a physical location and are limited to the amount of information presented on them. For this reason museum displays have certain requirements and limitations. Nevertheless, when museums present knowledge on the Web, those requirements change.

One of the primary issues that needs highlighting is that all engagement with digital content occurs via an interface. Especially on the Web, experiences and learning objectives become increasingly dependant on interaction design. Interfaces have to provide all or most of the elements that museums offer to achieve a meaningful visitor experience.

There are several interaction methods that can help online museums (OM) to achieve their communication and pedagogic activities. This research focuses on understanding such interaction methods and how users might interact and learn with online cultural heritage. Moreover, it is also important to understand how online learners might approach a system when looking for a specific set of knowledge.

Although different groups are working to make museums’ digital content more accessible to the world, it is still difficult for many visitors to use it. Tangible user interfaces (TUI) may help to solve this issue. Nonetheless, TUIs are still on their infancy and require further study, especially on the Web. This research adopts TUIs as a primary method of interaction for asking questions in a linked data system provided by OMs.  This provides an innovative and alternative method for interacting with knowledge.

Museums exist to disseminate information as well as to preserve knowledge, and these institutions have recognised the potential of the Web to support this role. The Web has opened up access to information and has allowed an increased number of ‘visitors’ to museums online. However, these online visitors do not have the same experience online than they would if they were to visit the actual museum (Proctor, 2010). Disseminating such information in a meaningful way has become one of the main challenges for the Online Museum (OM); for this reason, in the past few years museums have become increasingly concerned with the way the general public and particular sectors of it (e.g. children) acquire specific knowledge from their displays and collections (Hooper-Greenhill, 2004). It is nowadays accepted that learners should be active and not passive receptors of information, where the learner is involved in hands-on activities and participatory exhibitions. Learning is an activity where the mind and body are required to work together (Gray, 2010, Hooper-Greenhill and Moussouri, 2002).

As said, the Web started an on-going transformation on how museums interact with audiences and vice versa. The way in which this is happening has not been completely understood yet due to the novelty of the Web. In addition, due to this novelty, there are many new technologies that the OM could benefit from, but that nevertheless, haven’t been identified nor adopted by the museum sector. OMs have a big challenge to provide the best experience when visiting their collections. New technologies are being used and developed everyday and many of them can provide a pathway to promote engagement in the OM. No matter how the interaction occurs in the OM, it will always happen through a User Interface (UI). Therefore, it can be argued that Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) can provide a pathway for producing learning activities where users/visitors can be active, thus constructing knowledge. Nevertheless, it is necessary to study such tools in order to understand their impact in the several communities that embrace the OM, along with technological issues that may hinder its implementation by the museum community or enthusiasts.

The Web has changed the way that organisations work around the world and the case of CH is no exception. Many Web technologies such as the Semantic Web and Design protocols have helped managing vast sets of information. On one hand, there has been an immense progress in the way people (and computers) manage and produce information. Many CH organisations have adopted Linked Data Systems as well as Open Data policies backed up with ontologies to enhance inferences and accuracy of the knowledge depicted. Such methods are becoming more widespread across the CH sector with data models such as CIDOC, Dublin Core and EDM among others, allowing their collections to be interconnected through their metadata. On the other hand, people in CH have used a wide range of technologies to ingest, manage and engage with such knowledge. Interfaces have become the main pathway between the knowledge and the user. Nevertheless, in order to interact with such knowledge, particularly on the Web, users have to navigate through interactive methods widely monopolised by Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research has introduced what can be suggested as novel and more optimal ways of interaction through Tangible User Interfaces (TUI). TUIs offer the opportunity to transform digital content into palpable objects. Therefore, TUIs offer physical manipulation of digital information and the user of sensory-motor skills.
This paper presents a Web based Tangible User Interface to explore Cultural Heritage knowledge. It discusses novel approaches to assist users to conceptualise and deliver complex queries to Linked Data repositories. The paper discusses information engagement challenges currently raised in the Cultural Heritage sector (CH) on the Web. Moreover, it introduces Europeana as a case study where Linked Data repositories are used to offer users the opportunity to explore vast sets of knowledge in museums, libraries, and archives across Europe.

The Web has changed how we interact with the World’s information and knowledge. As a result there have been several changes to the education sector, especially in online distance learning. Nevertheless, most of the e-Learning activities struggle to break the GUI paradigm. The HCI community has focused on the use of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) for pedagogic purposes thus producing some evidence of the potential that embodied cognition might bring to constructivist learning. New education movements such as the Edupunk movement argue for an empowerment of independent learners, following the constructivist perspective where learners have to have a more active role by experimenting and discovering concepts on their own. However, we think that accessing TUI systems via Web can lead to pedagogic activities that break the GUI paradigm in education on the Web.

Este articulo presenta un nuevo marco de referencia para explorar contenido de patrimonio cultural en la Red a través de objetos físicos, y su investigación se deriva a partir de un nuevo entendimiento interdisciplinario sobre el Patrimonio Cultural en la Red (PCR). Nuevas tecnologías en la Red han mejorado el acceso y la calidad de la información de colecciones digitales, y el uso de, por ejemplo, Linked Data y Datos Ontológicos ha permitido la conexión de metadatos a gran escala que permiten a los usuarios y organizaciones extender la complejidad y alcance de su información. Esta nueva complejidad de información tiene la capacidad de generar nuevas preguntas de investigación acerca de cómo los nuevos usuarios en las Redes Semánticas proceden a explorar y desarrollar preguntas sobre el contenido no solo del patrimonio cultural, sino también sobre todo tipo de información en la Red. A través de las disciplinas de Ciencias de la Información, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) y Pedagogía, entre otras, este estudio se enfoca en la creación y análisis de nuevos métodos dentro de estas disciplinas relacionados con el usuario y la importancia de los sistemas interactivos en la Red.

El propósito de esta investigación es la creación de un marco de referencia, teórico y metodológico novedoso para reducir brechas digitales generacionales y de información, donde se permita a usuarios de diferentes niveles desarrollar y elaborar preguntas complejas en las Redes Semánticas enfocadas en Patrimonio Cultural. Como resultado, este estudio presenta el proceso para resolver preguntas de investigación relacionadas con el acceso de información digital a través del uso de Interfaces Tangibles (Tangible User Interfaces/TUI). El prototipo aquí presentado hace uso de la cognición corpórea (embodied cognition) a través de actividades de naturaleza constructivista en las cuales los usuarios se acercan al PCR llevando a cabo preguntas sobre su contenido mediante la utilización de objetos físicos. La metodología utilizada se deriva de investigación previa donde se establecen diferentes niveles de necesidad de la información como un proceso de Interacción Humana con la Información (Human Information Interaction/HII) y a su vez, este proceso utiliza Diseño Centrado en el Usuario (User Centred Design/UCD). El sistema interactivo creado, permite formular preguntas complejas integrando información proveniente de un vasto grupo de diferentes organizaciones dentro del patrimonio cultural (ej. Museos, bibliotecas, archivos, universidades, etc.). El caso de estudio particular que aquí presentamos, se enfoca en Europeana (uno de los mayores proyectos de integración de información cultural digital en Europa) como proveedor de información. A través de su API (Interfaz de Programación de Aplicaciones), el sistema interactivo transforma los datos digitales en elementos físicos manipulables.

This poster aims to present the complexity of teaching technology skills in the Creative Industries. Such complexity rises from an extensive range of disciplines and sectors that are heavily affected by digital technologies. Students are shaped by the culture of the institutions, which aim to provide students with the core skills that do not commonly enable students the digital competence within a standard. This is reflected in the perspective on their needs as students aiming to achieve different levels of specialty in their own sub-dsiscipline.

This article presents a paper-based Tangible User Interface (TUI) that facilitates the production of complex queries on a Cultural Heritage (CH) repository. The system helps to easily make use of the data elements and Boolean logic that describe the collections. This research presents a design methodology divided into two main phases: A User Experience (UX) and User Centred Design (UCD) where potential users’ behaviours are analysed, followed by the development and evaluation of the TUI prototype.
The TUI uses off the shelf electronics and a paper-based set of tokens to engage the user with the system, thus facilitating the exploration with CH collections through querying.

This article discusses how new technologies and research areas such as interaction design and new resources such as conductive materials can challenge the current perception and reach of prints. As part of the Design Lab and Print Lab at Liverpool John Moores University School of Art and Design, since …. we have been running a series of experiments and workshops with a wide range of artists, printmakers, designers and makers. We began by questioning the role of the print as part of an interactive system that uses functional materials. We started our exploration from an interdisciplinary perspective, where printmaking and digital technologies co-exist, thus the engagement with the print shares many of the properties and affordances1 of a wide range of user interfaces. Our research tested the role of functional materials and the ways in which they might be used in a printmaking environment for interactive outputs.

As we transition into new technologic eras where technology seems more ubiquitous and blended with our everyday things, the need for good Design becomes compelling to ease the relationship between these things and people. In many cases, even between things and other things, as in the case of the Internet of Things (IoT). What does this mean for Designers and Artists? How are Designers meant to ease such engagement with all these novel digital and non-digital technologic services and things that aim to do things for their users or audiences. Whilst new technologies arise, so are the new definitions for them, commonly pushed by the producers of these new technologies. Whilst we try to keep up with these new technologies, in many cases we try to make sense to it by adapting it into what we know. But in many cases, we need to take a step back to get a holistic perspective of what these new technologies and definitions mean to our practice. Designers are not Makers since Design is inherently about making things… think about it.

This article is divided into two sections: First, an introduction of the new challenges that Design faces whilst encounters itself with digital technologies that facilitates and disrupts its practice. It discusses the new challenges of making and thinking as designers. Second, we invite Design (read below) students and practitioners to reflect of their practice and how this new practice challenges their perception of the things they make. This second section is sparked by a self-reflection of selected students who attended the TEI’19 Conference in Arizona, USA, and a short piece from the Printeractive Research Group.

In this manifesto, we explore the idea that Design facilitates optimal interventions to any problem that relates to human activity. This could take the form of innovating communication or usability problems, critically engaging with a concept or idea, or selling a product or brand. As diverse as this sounds, this manifesto argues that Design is about innovation through informed processes while engaging with all areas of society.