As journalistic storytelling has migrated from print to online, the structure of the magazine profile has remained largely unchanged. The goal of this project is to create a fully interactive magazine profile demonstrating ways in which Unbound might be able to re-conceive the form in a media-rich, networked environment. To some degree, of course, the fact that users can access online content through external hyperlinks already means that they might enter a linear story at someplace other than its beginning, and exit at some point than its creator’s understanding of its end. This project seeks to use that fact as the central element of its storytelling strategy.
The story that is the focus of this project, “Fashioned by Love: The Life of Nancybelle Valentine” is well-suited for our purpose. As Liz Claiborne’s patternmaker, Nancybelle Valentine, 71` played a central, but previously undocumented role in the success of the Liz Claiborne fashion empire. In an interview, a senior Claiborne executive described Valentine was “a legend” within the company. Remarkably, this African-American woman overcame blatant racism to climb to the top of the fashion industry.
The initial material for this project was collected and created as part of a faculty-student collaboration in Spring 2005, supported by a mini-grant from the School of Culture and Society. Some of that material can be viewed at http://www.kimpearson.net/Elder. There is further material that is not online, and some material still to be gathered.
Students participating in the summer research project will help with the final stages of the reporting. We will then devise an interactive structure for the content and build a database in Macromedia Director through which it can be presented. It should be noted that the final product of this project has already attracted interest beyond the campus. An archivist at the Schomburg Center of the New York Public Library has already asked me to consider donating the completed project to its Black Gay and Lesbian Archive.
Project II: A Networked Interactive Media-rich Environment“Studio” is a networked interactive media-rich installation that considers relationships between art, communication, and technology, which have influenced each other since the rise of modern human culture 30,000 years ago. Incorporating digital media and networked virtual spaces, it examines art and technology from rock art to contemporary workflows. Viewers explore QuickTime VR panoramas and linked digital media accessed across a network, using a client/server system. Authoring includes 2D and 3D imaging, the construction of interactive QuickTime media, an interactive user interface, and the implemention of network and server technology. Flash is embedded in HTML, and communicates via XML through a socket-server. This triggers JavaScript functions that talk to the QuickTime media, triggering simultaneous results on all systems. This project introduces students to the process of designing and producing an interactive media-rich networked installation. They will investigate intermediate/advanced digital media tools such as Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Maya, Combustion, and Flash in a professional context, and authoring tools such as Action Script, JavaScript, HTML, and QuickTime scripting in order to determine optimum means for creating a networked system for real-time interactions and distribution of digital media. These explorations are beyond those available in regular classes. We expect synergistic developments with the other research projects that will incorporate new ways of conceptualizing and developing interactive digital media, user interfaces, secure networked interactive media systems, and communication. Students will develop skills in advanced digital media production, an understanding of the relative merits and disadvantages of specific authoring systems such as Action Script and JavaScript, critical awareness of the factors involved in implementing a real-time digital installation, and experience in designing experimental user interfaces for a complex interactive system. This research will be utilized in an installation accepted into the 2006 ACM/SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, and similar applications.
Project III: Integrating information security into multimedia databasesDatabases today provide the backbone for a wide variety of applications. Content stored in databases can range from textual data, like names and addresses, to multimedia, like music, videos, etc. The complexity of managing content increases sharply as the complexity of data itself increases. Factors that contribute to complexity include the size of individual data items, amount of data, type of data, whether or not several users can simultaneously access the data, etc. Privacy and security of data has recently gained considerable importance particularly in the light of crimes like identity theft. Ensuring security of data stored in databases must start at the design stage and continue through implementation, testing, and subsequently usage and maintenance.
In this project, we will research the issues that impact management of interactive multimedia data that can be accessed over an insecure medium like the Internet. This is still an area for ongoing research. Our primary goal will be to apply our findings to the design and implementation of a database system for ‘unbound’, an online magazine created, and managed by the magazine writing students at TCNJ. The design of this database system is complicated by the fact that it must store large amounts of multimedia data, and that contributors from across the globe must be able to securely access the system. We will explore in particular the interactions between information security, storage of interactive multimedia data, and online collaboration. This work will require close collaboration with the faculty and students of the Interactive Multimedia Department as we try to understand their requirements and issues better.
Students working on this project will read relevant published literature to understand the state-of-the-art with respect to storage and management of multimedia data, and ensuring security in database systems. Based on the results of the research and analysis, a multimedia database system will be designed and a prototype implemented. Students will design and execute experiments to evaluate the performance of the prototype database system. Students will maintain a journal to track their daily research activities and progress. Collaborative system design and development, brainstorming sessions, and weekly project meetings will all help students strengthen their research, communication, and teamwork skills.
Project IV: The Influence of Credibility in Ad-Hoc Shared Media VenuesMulti-user on-line environments such as conferences, lecture/discussions, and even games are accepted venues for sharing information. Mediation is a problem most notably evident in “chat rooms” where the linear interweaving of multiple conversations often creates a tangle of confused threads. Typically the mediator must be a human being who filters information presented, determines who may use any available fixed resources, and whose voice will be heard next.
At TCNJ, students in both computer science and interactive multimedia have developed software called r-MUSIC (http://www.tcnj.edu/~rmusic). The system automatically adjudicates turn taking in an ad hoc network, that is, any collaboration among a group of users where fixed resources must be shared without human mediation. Credibility of individual users is critical part in mediation. The r-MUSIC system allows a group of users to share music from their personal music players (e.g. i-Pods) through a single set of speakers without illegally sharing files. The software allows users to vote on the order of the play-list. However, user credibility (based on whether others like a user’s musical taste) influences the play-list order.
The credibility algorithm as applied to music sharing was implemented and results have been published in two juried conferences as well as two student research events. The question of credibility in adversarial settings (e.g. video games) has also been addressed and in turn raises the question of how credibility can be applied to visual media. During this summer project we propose to consider how venues such as Unbound can be expanded technically to allow mediated shared experiences. We propose to build the interface that allows a group to dynamically construct an Unbound article as they engage in an on-line discussion. They will be able to select from a variety of media (e.g. video, text, flash-animation, voice recording) in order to contribute to the discussion. We plan to formally test how credibility influences whose choices are viewed, and then included in the piece.