The construction on the new AGO building is finally completed and it will be open to the public starting tomorrow! My grandaunt happened to land on a few tickets to the preview last Sunday. After wondering in the galleries for the entire day, I have to say the new building is really amazing. While the ROM’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal is shocking and dynamic, the AGO’s new building is clam and comfortable. The extensive use of naturally coloured wood gives the gallery a warm glow and an organic feeling that the visitors can relate to. Galleria Italia wasn’t entirely completed when I was there but everyone was just looking at the bright hallway in awe.

I only have five more words to say “You should go see it!”

The ROM is currently having a series of mini exhibits. Each month, they are showing one special item out of their vault for a few short weeks. For this month, they are showing one of Marie-Antoinette’s court dresses. The dress dates back to the 1780s and it was designed t be worn with the support of wide panniers under the garment. I am quite impressed that the detail silk floral embroidery on it is all done by hand. Even nowadays, with all the technological advancement, we can hardly find anything quite like it. The only thing that strikes me as being odd is that the dress seems to fit a rather small woman and I am definitely not tall.

Closeup of Marie-Antoinette’s Dress at the ROM.

Last night, the ROM was also showing the Hollywood version of the Marie-Antoinette movie to accompany the exhibit. For a half-priced Friday night admission, it is actually quite a good deal. However, the movie doesn’t quite live up to my expectation. The movie tries to show Marie-Antoinette as someone that is different than what she is being remembered. It portrays her as a lonely woman who might not understand the suffering of her people but she is more down to earth than our history books have portrayed her. Probably, this movie is a pretty good tour supplementary to Versailles as well since most of was shot in the real Versailles. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t have much of a story. It seems to be a rather elaborated music video. As the person who introduced the movie has said, it’s all about dresses, cakes, and shoes, then more dresses, cakes, and shoes. And I agree. That’s probably the main things that are interesting in the movie.

Curtains in Marie-Antoinette’s bedroom in Versailles.

Want to see the dress? You better hurry since the dress will only be on display till October 26. If you miss that, you might need to fly to France to see something similar.

Nuit Blanche has been a successful contemporary art event in Paris and it has finally come to Toronto! The literal English translation of Nuit Blanche is “White Night”, a term used to describe a natural phenomenon that occurs at high latitudes where the dusk meets the dawn. My friend, Linda and I set out to discover Toronto’s public spaces in this special sleepless night, geared with only an umbrella and an open mind.

Our first stop was the Zone B area where we saw the exhibition titled “Position Yourself in a Network of Possibilities” by Samuel Roy-Bois. It is basically a dance floor with flashing lights placed on Queen Street. The dance floor itself probably was not very impressive. You could probably find similar things in clubs and discos. What amazed me was that once the regular dance floor was placed on a busy street, it transformed itself to a gathering place that welcomed the community to spend time dancing or to simply enjoy watching others moving in an environment with lively music. When you couple everyday items with an unfamiliar counterpart, sometimes it can give you unexpected results.

While we were still mesmerized by the energy of the dance floor, we wandered into the National Film Board of Canada where it was showcasing a project called “In the Moment” by Theo Buvhindksd. It was basically an interactive video art where the DJ mixed music to enhance a series of video clips. This independent project reminded me of Mario Klingemann’s presentation at the FITC where he demonstrated how to create VJ Tools with Flash. Visual DJ seems to be getting really popular nowadays. Everyone is trying to create visual experiences with random sound and videos. Randomness might be fun at the beginning but after awhile it can get pretty blend if the work produced cannot draw resonance with its viewers. The creator of “In the Moment” tried to resolve that problem by introducing some familiar content to his video clips. He used a street camera to capture images of the surrounding and added these elements to the video mix. The result was not especially amazing but it might be able to serve as an ambient background in some indoor social events that helped to energize the atmosphere.

When I saw the location, Harrison Baths, on the brochure, I was expecting to see people swimming in the pool in the next installation. However, the exhibition, “Roy and Silo’s Gay Divorce, 2006”, turned out to be something rather different. The artists, John Greyson and David Wall, presented their work in the change rooms, shower stalls, and pool where a series of video projections told the story of a gay penguin couple, Roy and Silo. This piece is an investigation into the hyper-commodification of the ties that bind, both straight and gay.

While we were entering Grange Park, we saw two people who were engaged in a Mortal Combat style pillow fight. Of course there was no real violence involved. They were hitting each other with all their might but you could see a huge grin on both of their face. At the end, everyone was a winner in a pillow fight since everyone got a good workout from it.

There was a huge lineup for the project titled “Ballroom Dancing” by Darren O’Donnell. To truly enjoy this party, you can forget about your tiny black dress or your high heel shoes. All you need is an open mind, young at heart attitude because this ballroom is not your typical ballroom. When they are saying ballroom, they want you to actually interpret the word literally – a room filled with balls. Once you enter the gymnasium, you will find thousand of plastic balls. Everyone is invited to throw these colourful balls under the disco light and playful music.

After roaming through the crowd at the ballroom, it was time to relax. In Grange Park, there was an exhibition titled “Model for a Public Space (speaker), 2006”. The artist, “Adrian Blackwell” created a social site. This piece reminds us that even in the middle of an era filled with rapid technology advancements; we still need to have face to face conversations.

The information hub at Zone B probably should be the first place to visit in order to get some brochure and information. Unfortunately, it took us quite some time to find this place. The main focal point of this area was a large-scale artwork by an Alberta visual artist, Derek Michael Besant. Taken from his innovative “Fifteen Restless Nights Collection” was a surreal photograph that had been enhanced through advanced photographic and print technologies. The image of an unmade bed with ghostly folds gave its viewer a dream-like, surrealistic feeling. Next to the huge tapestry, you could find a public space with comfortable pillows where night dwellers were invited to sit down and relax. There were also some over sized board games where people could exercise their mind or just to mingle with their friends.

Our next stop was OCAD – one of the most famous art schools in Ontario. They were having an event called “A Glow in the Dark” where they featured some of their alumni’s work. We saw some interesting foam sculptures, watched a rather strange video, looked at a multimedia installation, and we also saw a couple of rather interesting paintings. Next to the college is Ontario’s art gallery, AGO. To be honest, I have only been to one of their gallery openings. I have never really seen majority of their artifacts. This evening is actually a good opportunity for me to discover what is actually in the gallery. There were a variety of artworks that could be found in the gallery. Some were historical; some were modern; some were serious and some were fun. You will definitely find something that suits your taste. I found the exhibition, “Swing Space” by Kim Adams to be rather interesting. He built mixed media sculpture using parts from cars, wagons and even cupboards. The result was an engaging artwork that invited its viewers to a world of imagination and endless possibilities. We also saw an extensive collection of Henry Moore’s sculptures. Henry Moore was one of the first sculptors that I learned in my childhood. One of his works had been a main focal point at the atrium of Hong Kong’s Exchange Square. The sculpture that resembled the number “8” was believed to bring the city good fortune and prosperity. After seeing the exhibition, I am really amazed by Henry Moore’s ability to create these over sized abstract forms and shapes out of bronze.

After browsing the art gallery, we suddenly realized that it was almost three o’clock. My watery eyes told me that it was definitely time to get some caffeine. While we were wandering on Dundas Street, I was thinking it was really odd to find that all the popular franchised coffee shops to be all closed! Eventually, we found a placed called Art Square Gallery where we enjoyed some freshly brewed coffee in a cozy café.

While we were feeling rather puzzled about how to get to Zone A without using the subway system, we were surprised to be informed that the shuttle bus was free during the Nuit Blanche event. The bus passed the Trinity Bellwoods Park area where we briefly saw an exhibition titled, “Electronic Sky” which consists of a large light sculpture in the sky consisting of an office-like grid of fluorescent fixtures controlled by a computer that mimics cloud-like voids. This piece of work reminds me of my first visit to Tokyo. It was the first time in my life that I feel isonomic. The fluorescent signage were shifting to different colours at a maddening rate that I had great difficultly getting to sleep. I am not sure what the artist is trying to say with this piece but it definitely reminds me of the issue of light pollution that has been a problem with major cities. Birds hunting for food at night often crashed into brightly lit office buildings because they mistaken the light as open space. There has been a great initiative from the City of Toronto aimed to raise awareness of light population. For more information regarding how you can help, visit Lights Out Toronto.

I continued to admire the peacefulness of the quiet streets while the bus moved slowly towards our destination. When I saw the huge display juxtaposition against the construction site of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, I knew that we have finally reached our stop.

While we were walking along the Philosopher’s Walk, we found a “wishing tree” which was a project called “One Garden One Night One Wish” by Andrew Zealley and Chrysanne Stathacos. The brochure claimed that “A wish made at night may be answered by dawn”. It was quite a sight to find a tree decorated with aluminum foils, lights, and hundreds of paper strips containing various wishes. I wished I can live creatively without being pushed to walk paths that have been walked before. There is nothing more horrible than to be a technical robot stuck in an aimless corporate culture.

As we walked further down the Philosopher’s Walk, the fog in the area got thicker and thicker. It was no accident that the fog suddenly appeared in the area. It is actually an artificially produced fog installation called “Fog in Toronto”. The artist, Fujiko Nakaya, has created a distinctive artifact that is as unpredictable as the weather. Unique imageries are created by the shadow of trees, people, lights and wind. The information booklet accurately described this installation as a bonsai of atmosphere. It is a simple idea yet truly amazing.

“Counting Sheep” is an altered version of an original video installation that is initially shown in New York. The video was projected onto the dome of the Planetarium which gave its viewers an illusion of an over sized night light with sheep. The only problem is that the Planetarium is a bit grayish in the dark that I have mistaken the sheep as rhinos.

As we entered the Yorkville area, the aroma of sweet corn filled the streets. The artist, Ron Benner, was preparing grilled fresh corn on his corn roaster for the hungry night dwellers in his installation, Maize Barbacoa. Laminated black and white photographs of the corn roaster traveling around the world were placed alongside with the word “corn” in 45 different languages.

After looking at an edible installation, we went to see an installation titled “Pharma©opia” on Yorkville Avenue. It is an installation consisted of three illuminated helium-filled blimps that resemble three giant pills. This installation is one of a series of works by General Idea where they use sculptures to bring out a message regarding the AIDS pandemic. You can find a sculpture in front of the Royal Ontario Museum that is in the same series. Unfortunately, that one just looks like a grey block with crazy graffiti. In my opinion, “Pharma©opia” is a more successful sculpture because the bright colours of the giant pills give its viewers a stronger message with impressive visual impact.

At the Toronto Heliconian Club, there was an exhibition called “Bedtime Tales: Fables and Fantasies”. I was hoping to hear some favourite bedtime stories told by Toronto’s literary stars. However, our timing was not right; therefore, we sat on the bench to take a break. While we were looking at the interior décor curiously, we saw the Automatonic Bedtime Fourtune Story Teller. The performance artist, Sally McKay, dispensed two-sentence bedtime stories from her Dream Time Story Booth when clients deposited pennies into the machine. A stranger gave me a dime to have my story told…

“You are often restless. There is an idea growing in you but you don’t know what it is yet. When you are finally ready it’s going to be great. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen all at once, sometimes the best ideas show up over time in bits and pieces. I see a dream in which you are laughing like a happy little kid and splashing puddles. Some of them are muddy, some of them are blue, and some of them are silver, reflecting a silver sky.”

There are often countless of ideas in my head but they are like misfit puzzle pieces that never seems to go together. I do hope that eventually they will fit together to reveal something great!

It was almost six in the morning and we still have a little bit of time to kill. We wandered into the Gardiner Ceramic Museum. I have visited the museum before and I was disappointed that only the special exhibition was available. However, this time around, everything seems to be different. I was surprised to find the previously empty shelves were now filled with colourful ceramics. There were carefully decorated tableware from various ancient civilizations, beautiful figurines from European countries as well as unique ceramic artifacts that are created in the modern period. To be able to visit the museum in the wee hours definitely had its advantage. There galleries were so empty that you could spend as much time as you wanted to examine whatever that caught your fancy.

When we got out of the museum, it was almost seven and there was one more exhibition that I wished to see – “Garden of Light” by Jamelie Hassan. Locating the pond turned out to a bit of a challenge due to the enormous campus ground that is owned by University of Toronto. After studying in the university for four years, I still do not realize that there is a pond next to the Pratt Library. After wandering around aimlessly, we heard the sound of water flowing from a waterfall. And that was how we have discovered the water garden that was illuminated by floating lilies as a symbol of peace. It offered its visitors an opportunity to do reflections in a place of beauty.

The arrival of sunrise signaled an end to this unusual event. Workers and volunteers were anxiously hiding the displays and trying to put everything back to normal, as if to tell people that nothing unusual happened the night before. The secret is only revealed to those who made an effort to stay up all night. A passer-by discovered the reminder of the fog installation and she eagerly told everyone she saw about it. Little did she know that it was only a small portion of a full night of fun filled events. Nuit Blanche is definitely a great opportunity to get to know the city a little better and to explore contemporary art that is created by Canadians as well as world renounced artists. I am looking forward to another crazy adventure that is as unique and interesting as Nuit Blanche.

* Unfortunately, my ancient 2.0 mega pixels camera cannot take quality pictures in the dark. Most pictures turned out to be kind of blurry. It might be a sign that I should really invest on a new camera. To view more photographs of the event, I would recommend a trip to Flickr. You can also play this interactive sudoku with photographs from the Nuit Blanche event. It is rather challenging but it gets easier once you get used to it.

The entertainments available at the Sweets Expo were quite good.  There was a dance performance by Natan Rositsan and Andra Vaidilaite who are the IDSF Junior II Latin American Champions, Junior and Youth Salsa Champions.  We also saw a baking demonstration by Christine Cushing from Food Network.  She made a chocolate cannoli with lemon mascarpone cream and mango coulis.  I had this desert at a restaurant but I didn’t really like the taste of mascarpone cheese, so it is unlikely that I will attempt this compilcated treat.  If you want a challenge and to impress your friends, this might be a recipe that you might want to try.

Chocolate Cannoli with Lemon Mascarpone Cream and Mango Coulis

Tuile batter:
4 oz. butter, melted (125 ml)
3/4 cup sugar (175 ml)
4 egg whites, room temp.
1/2 cup flour + 2 Tbsp. (150 ml)
2 tbsp. cocoa (25 ml) Zest of 2 lemons, grated
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla (2 ml) Melted butter for baking

In a medium bowl, combine egg whites, sugar, vanilla, lemon juice and zest and whisk until smooth. Add the flour and cocoa and whisk gently until combined. Lastly, ass the butter and whisk again until combined. Cover and chill for 1 hour.

Filling:
2 tbsp. Lemon juice (30 ml)
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 cup mascarpone cheese (250 ml)
1 cup 35% cream (250 ml)
1/4 cup icing sugar (50 ml)
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Blend the mascarpone cheese in a medium bowl with a hand mixer on low speed until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and blend on low speed until smooth.

Mango Coulis:
1 cup mango nextar (250 ml)
1/4 cup apricot nectar (50 ml)
1/4 cup sugar (50 ml)
1 tbsp. lemon juice (15 ml)
Combine ingredients for the coulis in a small pot and cook until reduced in half. Cool and serve with Cannoli.

To bake the Cannoli:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and brush with melted butter. Spread the Tuile batter 2 tbsp. at a time, use the back of a spoon and created disc avout 4 1/2 inches round. Bake 4 at a time. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until edges are browned. Remove immediately and lift with a knife. Roll each round. Bottom side into a cigar shape, making the opening about 1 1/2 inches across.

Fill the Cannoli with the cream filling and serve with mango coulis.

For more recipes and ideas from Christine Cushing, visit http://www.christinecushing.com/

After the baking demonstration, there was a cheese cake fight where there were around two dozen of kids throwing cheese cakes at one another.  I will give you a tip if you ever want to watch a food fight up-close and personal:  “Stand behind people who are tall and big”.  You might not be able to see everything but at least you will be spared from having food stains all over your clothes.

The last thing that we saw was the circus from “Wonderful World of Circus” and you can view some images here:

In my opinion, the products available at the show are just too limited.  Even the One of a Kind Show has food products that are way more interesting and delicious.  The entertainments availble at the show were good but it really shouldn’t be the main reason why people should come to a “Sweets Expo” when most of the shows are not sweets related.  It would be better if the event is promoted as a family event instead of an expo.  If you ask me if I will go again next year, I think I will skip it.  Twelve dollars of admission fee is not really worth it when there are not a lot of things to see. 

What if you really want to surf the net using television?  According to Robert Reinhardt, you will still need to get some additional hardware and the Microsoft Media Center software.  The easier and cheapest way is to get an XBox since it comes preloaded with the software and you can connect that directly to the television.  The presenter then tried to demonstrate various things that you can do with the Media Center, such as playing music videos and online games.  But he tried several times without success due to the slow connection that we had at the hotel.  His problem with the connection in the hotel actually showed one important point:  when are we going to internet that is fast, reliable, and cheap so that a regular family can afford to surf the net on the television?  Robert could not really answer.  If you are interested in Microsoft Media Center, visit the Microsoft website.

While the marketing material on the Microsoft Media Center did not impress me much, especially with a failing demonstration, Robert Reinhardt did provide a few useful pointers on how to create websites that are suitable for viewing through the television.  Similar to the problem on designing webpage for the cell phone, it is important to remember that we need to design across multiple viewing distances.  It would be impossible to create a website once and publish it everywhere.  Effort must be made to change the design and make navigation as easy as possible for screens with different sizes.  When designing for television, one must be aware of the size of buttons since people who are sitting on the couch are usually far from the television.  Tasks that require drag and drop would also be impossible if people do not have a mouse.

Personally, I think that surfing the net on television would be a nice feature but it might be an idea that is too advanced for its time.  The technology required is still not be readily available to reguar people.  With the Mayor of Toronto’s effort to make downtown Toronto a wireless hotspot, hopefully it won’t take long for the future to arrive. 

Joshua Davis is one of the most prominent artists in the Flash community.  He is famous for creating graphic designs with the use of ActionScript.  I was at his presentation two years ago at the FITC and was totally amazed by the complex designs that can be generated by a combining simple graphics and ActionScript.  While most people view design and programming as two separate entities, he views them as an inseparable couple.  One cannot live without the other.  This concept is especially true in web development.  A website without good design would not attract any visitors; while a website without good functionalities and interesting content cannot keep any visitors.

Since the work that is shown in the presentation is actually an extension of a personal project that he has started 2 years ago, I think it would be important to get familiar with his previous personal project called “Once Upon a Forest”.  This project is built upon a really simple concept.  Joshua Davis wanted to experiment with creating artwork by using pieces of graphical assets that he had been collecting throughout his daily life.  It might be a pattern that he found on a piece of glass or the flowers that he saw in his own garden.  He then started to digitize these assets so that he could import them into Flash and he randomly placed them on a “virtual canvas” using ActionScript.  He continued to add on to the canvas without removing any assets.  From time to time, he took snapshots of his canvas and post them on the once upon a forest website.  The images are definitely eye candies and you should go and check them out!

In FITC 2006, Joshua Davis showed us the project that he has been working on for BMW’s Z4 Coupe along with the Director Designer at BMW, Adrian van Hooydonk.  Unlike any corporate projects, BMW actually allowed the designer to create artwork that is related to the product but in a tasteful way that does not throw the product right into the viewer’s face.  Joshua used a similar approach to the “Once Upon a Forest” project, but instead of using any everyday items, he replaced the assets with shapes that he could find within a BMW Z4 Coupe.  He followed a similar process of creating assets, defining the assets’ behavior, and mapping the system so that the state of the image could be recorded.

You might have noticed the wavy pattern that is in the center of most of the prints for the BMW Z4 Coupe.  The pattern is actually generated by using perlin noise, a new feature in Flash 8.  Grant Skinner used the same feature to generate a fog effect.

 

The resulting artworks are very eye catching.  You can simply feel a swirl of colors that move on the canvas.  And the most interesting thing is that he can create hundreds of unique copies since the placement of assets on the canvas is generated by ActionScript; therefore, the assets are placed on different locations every time.

One might argue that if the images are generated by a computer, are they really a piece of art?  In my opinion, if it looks good, then it is art.  Moreover, it probably takes as much creativity to create the code that generates these interesting effects than a regular classical artist.

The presentation was wrapped up with the following messages:
“Love and believe what you are making.”
“Think and grow rich.”
“The only obstacles we face are the ones we place in front of ourselves.”

For more information on Joshua Davis’ work, visit his website.  You can also purchase one of his unique BMW prints from the Z4byDJ website.

The new Flash Player 8 includes an automatic update function which helps to make adoption of the plugin a lot faster than before.  During the first 8 months, there are more than 600 million successful installs.  Improvements in Flash 8 include Flash video and tools integration.  Adobe has made efforts to integrate AfterEffects into the Flash workflow by allowing AfterEffects to export flv video directly.

The representative, James Talbot, talked about FlashLite 2 - a lighter version of Flash Player that is suitable for mobile devices.  They have developed emulators that allow developers to experiment with creating content without acutally having to own one of the supported phones.  (* The emulator is only available on Flash Professional 8.)  FlashLite 2 is based on ActionScript 2.0 and Flash Player 7.  It has XML and image support, dynamic media loading, text enhancement, as well as device video.  Verizon Wireless has committed to use FlashLite 2 to deliver interactive experience through mobile devices.  Some practical uses include allowing users to watch various movie trailers, then allow them to order tickets using their cell phone.  For more information, visit the FlashLite Development Centre.

Another representative, Sho Kuwamoto, talked about how the Flex framework works with Flash Player.  He mentioned that the new Flash Player 9 will have a new virtual machine that supports ActionScript 3.  For ActionScript 3, they are looking for ways to further standardize the language into a ECMA Script Standard language, add a debugger that does runtime error checking, and add in support for regular expressions.  Sho Kuwamoto then introduced the Flex Framework which is a class library for building RIAs.  It uses tags (similar to xml) to include different components of the application.  The good thing about Flex is that you can develop flash application without using Flash since Flex can create swf files that are ready for publishing and the Flex framework is free!  If you are interested in Flex, you can download it through Adobe Labs. 

The next topic is on Adobe Apollo.  It is a project in its early stages that is focused on creating a client that allows developers to create and deploy applications and content using a combination of Flash, HTML and PDF.  The applications created can be installed from the web browser or on a file system and it will launch like any desktop applications.  The aim of the project is to integrate Adobe’s products with usual desktop functionality.  The main problem with a lot of the online application is that it cannot be run offline and/or it cannot have access to the file system due to the security sandbox.  I wish I can find more resources on this but google does not really give much meaning search results. 

This is the first year that Adobe has participated in FITC since Macromedia has finally merged with Adobe.  Hopefully this power couple will continue creating excellent products.

Grant Skinner talked about how experimentations can help to advance yourself and your career options.  There are three reasons why he does experiments:  enjoyment, education, and exposure.  He believed that experimentation helps to develop passion in what you are doing.  “Love what you do, even when you don’t.”  Moreover, focued experimentation is one of the best (and cheapest) methods for learning new techniques.  It is also a great way to get noticed so that you can get more interesting clients.  He further emphasized that experiments do not have to pretty.  They are exercises that push yourself out of your comfort zone and force yourself to apply best practices.

After a brief introduction, he presented some of his experiments.  Most of them involved the use of the bitmap data obejct which is a new feature in Flash 8.  The bitmap data object allows you to work with individual channel.  The value of each channel consists of a number that is between 0 and 255.  If you exceed that range, you might get into the problem of modifying the neighboring channels.  You might ask why bother with the bitmap data object when I can modify each pixel on an image by using the getPixel and setPixel methods that are available in the previous version of Flash.  The problem with those functions is that it actually involves a lot of math when those functions are executed; therefore, it is very slow and when you need to do some complicated modification on an image, you might get into some performance issues.  With the bitmap data object, you can use filters and bitmap methods that are very fast since they run in machine level.

When you are trying to create dynamic images in Flash, Grant Skinner hightly recommands the function, BitmapData.draw().  The advantage of using this function is that you can create infinite number of movieclips without reducing CPU usage nor RAM requirements.  He then demonstrated his point by showing an animation with infinite number of sprites.  According to my own experience, if you try to animate too many sprites in Flash, the application will eventually slow to a halt and froze.  The trick for animating infinite number of sprites is to keep only one real sprite.  The sprites in the background can be converted to bitmap animation.  That way, the CPU does not need to make computation for every single sprite on the screen.

Grant Skinner also showed ways to do pixel perfect collision detection in Flash 8 by making use of bitmaps.  For example, if you have a red ball which you can drag it along within a grey map and you wanted to know if the red ball has collided with the map.  The trick is create a separate bitmap for the ball and the map and then put them together.  If there is any point on the resulting bitmap is cyan, that means there is a collision.  That is a great improvement since in the previous version of ActionScript, you can only specify the collision area as simple geometrical shapes.

 

Perlin noise is another feature that is new in Flash 8.  It provides a more controlled, organic form of randomly noice.  You can use this feature to create many different kind of effects, for example, a fog effect.  It can also be used to produce partially random data.

Many experiments that were presented involved the use of webcam.  Grant Skinner has written a morphing application that can morph images and even videos.  He has used a colour tracking system that finds the differences in the blend mode.  He is very interested in the concept of getting active with the computer without touching.  He created an experient called Curious George where the eyes of George Bush is allways looking the object that is moving in front of the webcam.  He has also created other experients where users can interact with flash applications by using the webcam, for example, drawing on the screen without touching the computer, playing the drum, playing a two player pong game, etc.

This presentation is definitely very inspiring.  I have seen some of the webcam experiments from GestureTech before.  This company builds a lot of interactive games that involve the use of webcams but they are usually heavy weight programs that are intended for kiosks.  This presentation shows that these kind of applications are possible in Flash as well which open up a lot more possibilities for creating engaging applications online.

If you are interested in the slides that are used in this presentation, visit http://www.gskinner.com/talks/play/.

Brandon Hall then introduced a research project that he is working on.  The project is called “flow”.  He tried to organize his code by creating code in the form of patches.  A patch is a swf file that contains a single class.  All patches extend from a single base patch class and interfaces are used to categorize patches.  Due to inheritance, each patch has access to its parent’s canvas and/or sprites.  The advantage of creating your own event patches is that it gives you more control over how things are rendered on the screen.

Personally, I found this presentation a bit confusing since there are no examples of how his ideas can be applied to real applications.  I guess the most important message that I have got from this presentation is that “If you don’t know OOP, learn it now!”

*  For some reason, he has mentioned comtastic in his presentation but I can’t remember what is it all about.  Regardless, check out the comtastic website.  It has a neat application that allows you to play with puppets online.

Here are some links that Brandon has provided:
http://www.automatastudios.com
http://www.automatalabs.com
http://www.waxpraxis.org

Dan LaCivita from firstborn multimedia talked about strategies that we can use to extend the reach of our data.  In real life, we are overloaded with information.  How do we grab people’s attention if the information is so dry and unattractive?  Dan suggested since graphics is a universal language, if we can transform the data into a visually meaningful experience, then the data will have more global power.

He then proved his point by showcasing three of his company’s recent projects:  a website on Edison, a new version of the firstborn multimedia website, and a prototype for McGraw Hill.  All of these projects are currently in progress; therefore, links are not available at this moment. 

The first project that he showed is a website on the inventor, Thomas Edison.  He was an inventor who had accumulated 1500-plus patents worldwide for his inventions.  Dan’s challenge is to find a way to present the information regarding Edison’s patents.  He approaches this problem by selecting a subset of all the patents and presents them in a visually engaging way.  In order to take advantage of the limited screen space, he has placed part of the content on the navigation, i.e. the names of the patent were used as the navigation, and arranged them into interesting compositions.  In one section, all the links were arranged into a spiral formation, while another page might have an arrow formation.  Interesting transitions are used to carry data from one section to another other section.  Since there are a 6 different sections, the entire project requires a total of 30 transitions.  Personally, I don’t especially like this project.  First, the project only shows a subset of all the patents and of the ones that are shown, the text is so small that I can hardly read what is on the link.  Secondly, the transitions are amazing and they are definitely an eye candy; however, the transitions do not add any significant value to the data.  I can see why a timeline needs a linear arrangement, but I don’t see why we need a spiral or an arrow arrangement.  How is the arrangement relevant to the data?

For the second project, Dan went over it fairly quickly.  It is a new version of the firstborn multimedia’s corporate site.  I have not visited their site before the presentation; therefore, I can’t really tell the difference between the old site and the new site.  But there are a few pointers that I have got from this part of the presentation.  Dan mentioned if we want to take advantage of the full screen, it is very important that we do not create animations by simply using static motion tweens.  We should store the data externally in some database or xml file, and load the data into a calculated coordinate on the screen whenever it is required.  Another interesting point that Dan mentioned is that when we are making an admin tool for a site, we should create it in such a way that it mirrors the look of feel of the real site.  That way, we don’t need to create an extra layer for previewing the webpages.

Personally, I think the third project is the one that really fits the topic, “Magic, Deception & The Data Experience”.  McGraw Hill is a publishing company who wants to make a some of their resources available online.  These resources might include pdfs, audio, videos, etc.  Dan thinks of this problem as transforming chaos to order.

In the prototype for McGraw Hill, he uses marbles to represent assets.  The top level represents all the assets that are availableto the user.  Users can choose a specific category of information that they are interested in and pushes those marbles to the second level.  At this level, users can view a detail description on the asset and even sort them into different order.  After the users has review the assets, they can further drag and drop assets to the bottom level, where Dan referred to as a lightbox.  The assets in the lightbox can then be ziped and download to the user’s computer.  Dan’s idea of showing the filtering process is an interesting way to engage users to interact with the data.