Blog | Dana Ramler : Thoughtful Design » electronics

Bio Circuit at Interactive Futures ‘09: Stereo

Dana Ramler — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:21:44 +0000

Bio Circuit at IF'09: Stereo

Bio Circuit will be a part of the Stereo Exhibit in the Concourse gallery of Emily Carr University this week.

Stereo Interactive Futures ‘09: Stereo (IF’09: Stereo) will be hosted by the Intersections Digital Studios at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver. IF’09: Stereo offers a broad thematic reading of “stereo” to include research and art works that use techniques and devices to lure the body into ephemeral spaces. Examples include stereographic films and animations, linked interactive performance spaces, simulated touch interfaces, binaural sound works, and mixed-reality art works. IF’09: Stereo has invited practitioners who are working with subtle uses of immersive techniques, illusionary space and objects, and telepresence that evoke unexpected responses and challenge the modes of creation used by popular entertainment media and technologies…>

IF’09: Stereo has invited media artists, designers, researchers and filmmakers experimenting with: stereographic projection; illusionary sound and vision; methods of co-location (ways of simultaneously mapping and representing more than one location).

If you’re interested in seeing Bio Circuit for yourself, you can visit Emily Carr University (1399 Johnston Street) on Granville Island in Vancouver. Stereo will be in the Concourse Gallery from Nov. 18-22nd. IF’09 is on from Nov. 19-21.

name revealed + garment finished! (finally)

Dana Ramler — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:05:33 +0000

It’s finally finished! And it finally has a name! For months our wearable technology project has gone unnamed, but today we are pleased to introduce you to Bio Circuit*

Holly and I got together on Friday to do some filming, and hopefully we’ll be able to post some footage of Bio Circuit in action very soon! We are working on a submission to TEI’10, a conference for Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction. Our video and paper submission will be to the Explorations category, so keep your fingers crossed for us as well.

** thank you to the beautiful and wonderful Angela Henderson for being our model

two firsts: hacking and soldering

Dana Ramler — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:56:43 +0000

I have to admit, I’ve never hacked into anything before. And, although I have been fascinated with soldering and the mercury-like appearance of it when heated, I have never ventured into that worldd either. But alas, here I am: one grand idea, two more weeks, and a whole lot of learning to do!

Over the last two weeks, Holly and I have been attempting to hack into an inexpensive MP3 player so that we can hook it up to our heart rate module.

The first attempt was to no avail – the MP3 components were too tiny to solder wire to. So, we tried another one. This one has bigger, chunkier components that were easier to solder to, so thats a start. We also had to hack into our headphones, breaking the plastic and reconnecting wires.

We have been trying to manipulate the ‘forward,’ ‘back’ and’play’ buttons so that the wearer of the garment does not need to set up the player before hand. We’ll see how that goes…