Light up the trails was an event organised by Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland (DMBinS)

They wanted to create an event that opened the mountain bike  trails at Glentress to families at night.  My colleague Zack Moir led the project and invited myself and Sarah Taylor to take part.

I built several electronic devices that responded to people.  Videos and pictures don't do the project justice.  We lit several kilometres of trail and created a fun and inclusive experience.

None of this would have been possible without considerable help and input from several people.

The team was:

Zack Moir Project Lead, producer, experience & Sound Design.

Sarah Taylor producer, experience design.

Tom Flint producer, experience design.

Design Assistants: Anakah Vikraman Sobha and Gisela Prawira.

Production Team: Harry Doherty, Ewan McAtier, Theo Black, Aiden Harvey, Hossein Paeizi.

We couldn't have done it without Kirsten Stutterheim and Debbie Bentley.

This was another collaborative project with WHALE Arts. The project was funded by a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious award. The academic team were myself, Gemma Webster and Kenny Mitchell.  The project team from Edinburgh Napier University were myself, Fiona Stewart, Tanis Grandison and Jessica Strong.  Craig Tyrie ran the project for WHALE Arts.

We used bespoke arcade machines built by my colleague Felix Jarvis with some help from me.  The arcade machines were the focus of a summer school and in class activities.  We encouraged children from Wester Hailes to create games for the arcade machines.

As part of the project Amber Miller created a series of tutorials for making games with Scratch.

Creative Cred is a project exploring an alternative currency for the creative industries.  The project was funded by Creative Informatics (AHRC). The project was in collaboration with Mary Michel (Ostrero)  and Juli Huang  (University of Edinburgh).

The project was communicated through an exhibition at Inspace.  Animations and illustrations were produced by Andrew McKelvey.  We communicated our ideas through a bespoke software experience coded by Samuel Grech.

I was invited to take part in the R&D for this project, a collaboration between Unlimited and Upswing.  This was funded by Without Walls  through their Blueprint R&D scheme.

Ancient Futures is imagined as a large-scale, Afrofuturist, durational event that builds to a spectacular aerial performance enhanced by augmented reality technologies.

The project was led by Jon Spooner and Dela Victoria Amedume with poet and creative Oneness Sankara.

My role involved the exploration of augmenting the live performance space with data and AR.  I also worked with a host of creatives on projection mapping and technical solutions to various parts of the project.

The final output, a pitch video for further funding, can be viewed here.

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MEmorial is a collaborative project with Beverly Hood, Sarah Rose Graber and Morna Young. 

MEmorial is a project that explores post digital memorialisation and the significance of being remembered.

The project was initially developed at a residency at The Museum of Loss and Renewal in Collomacia Italy funded by Creative Scotland.   One output from the residency was a contribution to the publication Taking Time / Prendendo Tempo 2018.

The most recent output from the project was a performative installation at InSpace Edinburgh.  The performance involved Virtual Reality, 360 scanning, software, a bespoke chatbot and live performance.  The performance was developed during a 2 week development workshop funded by the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

This project with WHALE Arts  and Tanis Grandison explored local areas with the children who live there.  In a series of creative workshops we built a physical interactive map.  Touching the children's pictures on the map results in audio recordings made by the children to play.

The map has been displayed in several fora including British HCI 2018 and Engage 2018.  We displayed the map at the 2018 Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire and the children led the live creation of an interactive map of Scotland.  We have now produced maps with each primary school in Wester Hailes.

The full 8 minute video can be viewed here.

Eidolon 360 was created with Bev Hood as part of her larger Eidolon Project.   

The reclining viewer inhabits the point of view of resuscitation manikin Resusci Anne, set within a resuscitation training room. A medic (actress Pauline Goldsmith) approaches Resusci Anne and tenderly recounts her origin story, an intriguing tale of a mysterious drowned young woman, L’inconnue de la Seine, found in Paris in the late 1880’s, who became the face of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). Resusci Anne, and has since been revived by over 300 million people worldwide. The film attempts to present an emotionally resonant anecdote, as an immersive experience, scrutinizing the overlaps between real life and simulation.

This bespoke VR application provided a window into the workings of Dovecot Tapestry Studios.  The work was funded by an Innovation Voucher from the Scottish Funding Council.

A video of the interior of the studio loops presenting an inside view. Touching hotspots presents the viewer with a short video detailing the work being undertaken.

This project was in partnership with Dovecot Tapestry Studio and Kenny Mitchell.  It was produced by me, videography was by Andrew McKelvey, development was by Zoe Wall.

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I have worked with Jupiter Artland for a number of years developing various digital outputs including an audio guide and iPhone app.  This project was a mixed reality game developed in partnership with children from Ratho School.  Aga Banach developed a Minecraft map of Jupiter Artland as an internship and a mixed reality game as her honours project.

The Minecraft map has been developed further and is used to explore remote connection with Jupiter Artland in schools.  The mixed reality game was made into a stand alone Android app.  There is a page about the work on  Edinburgh Napier's website.

Giant Eyeballs was developed for the Making it Exhibition as part of the 2014 Edinburgh International Science Festival. The exhibition was on display in the grand gallery of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Giant eyeballs was co designed with Yann Seznec and Matthew Wright of the Edinburgh international Science Festival. The installation was built with Felix Jarvis. 

Those who encounter Giant Eyeballs look through peepholes and see their own eye. The view of their eye has coloured dots on top of it, as they move their eye, the dots move and sounds that are playing change.

On the exterior of the installation is a projection of the eyes that are peeping through a hole. When in full use, there are two different eyes looking in separate directions. The installation is particularly successful in creating intergenerational social interaction. As children peep through the holes, older members of the family look at the display and discuss the installation with the children

The Aide Memoire was a collaborationwith Tommy Dylan. Our design fiction sessions sessions involved discussions around the theme of memory and nostalgia and the construction of small working prototypes. A fictitious service company was devised that would visit, interview and record members of a family. Edited versions of these memories are stored in the device and made available to members of that family. The physical object has the appearance of a family heirloom, handed down from one generation to the next.

Participants are able to listen to the memories of family members by tuning with a large radio dial. Participants are able to use smaller dials to add sound effects. In this way they are able to listen to the memories on a simulated walk or in a crowded pub.

Aide Memoire was exhibited at Sonica 2009 and was on Slovenian television.

The aliens are homesick, can you code them better? 

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I was given the brief to "come up with an activity to engage girls with computing.  The homesick aliens were developed as a playful way to engage with programming.

Over the next 5 years the aliens toured schools around Edinburgh and were the basis for much of my work on appropriation.

The aliens were a regular feature at the Edinburgh Mini Maker Faire becoming one of the mascots on the promotional material.

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