Updated the wiki page

The wiki page seems to be very tempermental when trying to edit it with the features within the wiki page, so i've had to edit it elsewhere and copy the code in, which is a pain.

I've updated it with the research that Nathan has done while being on holiday, and also included the information I then researched to help him with the academic area, which he was struggling to find any information with.

Research attempt was a success!

I decided to further the work of Nathan and dig up some information regarding academic features within pubs. Oddly, I did manage to find something out that mentioned having 'free schools' being given the ability to educate lessons within social premises, such as pubs, cafe's, cinemas etc;
http://www.mikebakereducation.co.uk/blog/298/free-schools-in-pubs-cinemas-or-bookies

There is also news that Dr Neil spencer, from the university of Hertfordshire aided to create a formula for how many pubs each region should be allowed to nominate;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/2962120.stm

Keeping contact with group members on holiday

I decided to stay in contact with Nathan while he enjoyed himself in America, by tasking him some work to do! Last week we saw a triangle diagram which showed what areas our research should cover;

Triangle of research areas to cover

As you can see, the project is in the center, which then branches off into three separate areas; Industry, Academic and Arts Practice. We had already covered the industry side of things from the initial research that I had done when we created the wiki page. As Fergus wasn't in, me and Jamie decided to split these tasks up, we'd give the Academic to Nathan as he was asking for something to do, and Jamie would focus on the research of the arts practice.

Nathan then got back to me and said how it was very difficult to find any information regarding anything Academic happening within a pub, which is understandable, as; 1. to be in a pub you need to be 18+, 2. pubs aren't for education, but for socializing. I'll do some further research to back this up however, just in case I manage to find something which Nathan was unable to.

Feedback of current research on the wiki page

Our wiki pages were presented to the rest of the group, to show how much each other had progressed and then for suggestions to be made for improvements and to mention the good points. The overview of ours was that it had some good research, but they all needed to be a little bit more descriptive rather than just a title and a link, so that it can help to describe what you'd be clicking to view. Also due to our research focusing more on technology, we would also need to try and cover Academic and Arts Practice.

The art side of public interactive installations

This week our lessons that would be with Simon Locke have been replaced with Hannah Drayson, to give a more 'arty' side to things. A suggested book to obtain was "The Fundamentals of digital art" by Richard Colson.

 We watched a pesentation fro a group called Grey World http://greyworld.org/

This group visit public areas and place certain technology features there for the public to interact with, which highly links with my brief as we have to do something similar.

Projections seem to be a very popular form of art in public places recently, as they are now more affordable. We also learnt about culture jamming, where artists vandalise other art/advertisements for a good intention, rather than an act of anti-social behaviour.

Our very own wiki page!

Due to half of our group not being in during last week's lesson, it was possibly not as productive as it could have been, but we were still able to discuss ideas and create a wiki page with some research that we did during the lecture. We created our very own wiki page!

This will act as a portal for us to post any research that we find out or progress on ideas. So far we have stuck up some technology and ideas that other pubs have used, such as a 3D television, a blow up pub, Wi-fi, and also a book that contains the "Strangest pubs in Britain". It should be one worth reading, as it said that one pub uses human skin as a door!

Our first set of research information includes;

Wi-Fi in pubs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2829257.stm

3D TV's in pubs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8483136.stm

Book of the strangest songs in britain
http://www.walking-uk.com/strangepubs.htm​

Inflatable Pub - Your very own portable pub
http://www.walyou.com/blog/2010/07/30/inflatable-irish-pubs/

A bar made completely out of ice
http://www.urbanpath.com/london/cocktail-bars/ice-bar.htm

I also found a cool style for the text that I'm going to use for the title. It gives a shadow and also looks like it's glowing;

 It's a little cheesy but it looks good! Don't you agree?

The start of the brief

We were split into groups, for the brief that we were given. This will be until the end of term, where we are tasked to plan and design an interactive installation for use in a highly social/playful space. It will need to include some form of media, and interaction so the public can use it.

My group is with; Nathan Gibbings, Jamie Pates and Fergus Casbon-Belson. We decided to choose somewhere that we could easily visit often, and that has alot of room for media interaction to be placed, that will get used alot. We agreed on the Roundabout Pub in Plymouth, as it suits those needs, as any pub would. The only worry about this choice however, is that having a task located around a pub could lead to distraction, but also the public that the interactive installation will be used on may be unfit to actually use it most of the time due to being drunk!

According to the lecture notes, there are four different working models that could be used;

• Peer

• Specialisation

• Subcontracting

• Advocate

Due to our small-sized group and the brief itself, the peer model would best suit it. This is because we are researching and designing, rather than implementing, so alot of the specialised areas won't be needed, and we will need to work closely together so that we dont disperse into doing a completely different design.

Hopefully this will be successful, we'll know within the next few weeks.