Linda’s Weblog

2009

December: Back to the land of X Factor and sailors going astray into Iranian waters and Tiger Woods refusing to come clean. Oh and yes the war and climate change- occasionally.

November: Interest rates go up again for the third time making Australia unique in the world for this - well it is unique any way but this is an unexpected surprise. For the record
100,000.00 Australian Dollars = 55,490.00 British Pounds a rate of 55 pence to the dollar.

In the Land of Oz while waiting for the recession to become depression we discover that Australia has bucked the trend and is coming up roses. Growth is small but the aussie dollar is king.

On September 24th 2009 the Red Centre came to Sydney turning the skies a murky pinkish brown and coating our tongues and other surfaces with a film of ‘bull dust’. People with memories of the London smogs compared the similar experience.

In Sydney we had 28 ships in 28 days including the Queen Victoria, Queen Mary 2 and the new Arcadia.

I came to Australia with my family for the second time in 1957 on the old Arcadia. I remember the Suez canal as a ten year old and the signs of conflict in Port Said. I kept a journal at the time which was lost.
Resolve to return to blogging. I blame Facebook fiddling which takes up more time than I care to admit.

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2008 Seems to have passed by without comment

And yet there was so much happening:

On August 4th Lulu Elizabeth Candy Shannon arrived in the world and made her first impact

In September the credit crunch became the bank meltdown and the global market fell into disarray from which it has yet to merge.

In November Barack Obama became President of the  USA and we all felt hope again.

2007 Highlights

July The Tour de France starts in London: the only two days of sunshine after weeks of rain and floods.

March: Uluru (Ayres Rock) and Kata Tjuta (Olgas)

At Longitude 131: 10 kilometres direct to the face of Uluru
Rain on the Rock turns it into a grey beast and the red desert into speckled green.

February
Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth 2 converged in Sydney harbour over 40 years since their predecessors did the same. QM2 blocked our view of the Opera House as she turned on her way into Garden Island to dock. When QE2 arrived and passed QM2 they sounded their horns to one another barely audible under the helicopter noise above. Thousands gathered on the many harbour foreshores and the traffic all over the city snarled up. QM2 left that night. Later in the week QE2 crept quietly out hardly noticed.
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2006
In Sydney in the summer is hot and humid. A time to stay quiet and soak in the relaxation..

The first version of a website dedicated to Emma is finished and I have put some of my diary entries on this blog and linked to the site.

The UK in springtime: where else in the word would you get daily rain combined with a constant threat of drought?

It is June 2006 and World Cup fever runs high:

The English complain about the hot weather and lack of water in their first match against Paraguay.

In their very first World Cup victory, the Aussies come back from behind to beat Japan 3:1. Later they go out to a dubious penalty to Italy.

England is out: the ten men of England- minus Wayne Rooney battle on heroically and are knocked out on penalties by Portugal. National gloom coupled with relief in quiet corners.

Now both my teams are out.

Then Italy wins the cup!

Another gloomy drug doped year for Le Tour. Landis is shamed.

No more heroes.
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2005 I went to Italy, England, Vietnam, New Zealand and Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef.

A description of Practice-Based Research is now on the CCS web site.

Topics include:
Practice-Related Research
Practice and the Role of Research
Differences between Practice-Based and Practice-Led Research
CCS Doctoral Programmes
Historical Background
The PhD and Knowledge
Outline for a Practice Related Thesis
Advice to PhD Students
Questions and Answers
Definitions and Terms
Bibliography
Ethics

The ‘ Tent’ is as far from the real thing as anyone not disposed to camping could wish for. Plump pillows, beds, cushions and an uninterrupted view to the Rock 10 kilometres ahead.

The first evening a table under the stars or rather the clouds that proved all too hard to penetrate. Our star master performed a tour de force inspite of the absence of the very reason he was there. Aboriginal and Greek stories came to his (and our) rescue. As before on Heron the Southern Cross eluded me.

The first morning we walked 7 kilometres around the base and saw the dawn strike the face into gorgeous red. Our small party trekked purposefully around the perimeter of the object of all our interests.

In the women’s cooking cave at sunset next day the rains came and all at once the Rock assumed the skin of an animate creature as the torrents poured into black stripes. The oxidised red surface turned instantly into a smooth lumbering soft grey beast. Our shivering group huddled back on the coach patiently longing for the comfort of tent city.

Here the world is as far away as you could hope for too. Only the people are there to remind you of civilisation and eveything it represents.

Uluru from Longitude 131

A proposal for a one day tutorial called ‘Understanding and Evaluating Creativity’ to be given at Creativity & Cognition 2007 was successful. Linda Candy and Zafer Bilda are joint presenters.

The aim of the tutorial is to provide the participants with an understanding of the significance of creativity for interaction design and to give guidance about the design and evaluation of systems with respect to their role in creativity support. Participants will also be provided with tools for analyzing and evaluating situations in which creative engagement and interaction may be taking place.

OBJECTIVES ARE:
• Provide up to date knowledge about creativity from research and practice
• Provide an understanding of the significance of creativity for interaction design
• Provide guidance for the design and evaluation of creativity support tools
• Provide an overview of methods, tools and techniques for observing creative activities
• Describe a video based methodology for demystifying creative processes
• Engage participants in exercises for studying and analyzing creativity and creativity support

Creativity and Cognition 2007

Everytime I go to my blog I find it has reverted to plain old blue and white instead of my lovely shades of pink and red.

What is happening???????????

Now about to ‘correct’ it…again and again….

Changed back 6 feb 2007 hopefully for last time but no iis back to blue….

Of new kinds of art works that are not readily accessible, people often say things like..but what does it mean? I liked this response:

“Meaning begins in the words, in the action, continues in your head and ends nowhere. There is no end to meaning. Meaning which is resolved, parcelled, labelled and ready for export is dead, impertinent - and meaningless.”

Harold Pinter, writer, author of The Birthday Party, in a letter to Peter Wood, its first director, 1958.

PLAY.orchestra is an interactive sound installation situated outside the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank of the Thames. 56 plastic cubes and 3 Hotspots are laid out on a full size orchestra stage, each cube containing a light and speaker.

It is a collaboration between Central St Martins, South Bank and the Philharmonia orchestra. Have a look here for details:PLAY.orchestra

I tried it while in London in September. It generated plenty of fun amongst the participants: somehow sitting down down on the cubes seemed to encourage communication.

The bluetooth interaction seemed not to be working- or maybe my phone was not picking it up. I have not had much luck with bluetooth in public installations e.g the Sydney Custom House installation recently.. has anyone had more success?

In 2005 I went to Italy, England, Vietnam, New Zealand and Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef.

2006 has been a quieter year so far. Sydney in the summer is hot and humid. A time to stay quiet and soak in the relaxation..

The first version of a website dedicated to Emma is finished and I have put some of my diary entries on this blog and linked to the site.

The UK in springtime: where else in the word would you get daily rain combined with a constant threat of drought?

It is June 2006 and World Cup fever runs high:

The English complain about the hot weather and lack of water in their first match against Paraguay.

In their very first World Cup victory, the Aussies come back from behind to beat Japan 3:1. Later they go out to a dubious penalty to Italy.

England is out: the ten men of England- minus wayne Rooney battle on heroically and are knocked out on penalties by Portugal. National gloom and relief in quiet corners.

Now both my teams are out.

Another gloomy drug doped year for Le Tour. Landis is shamed.

No more heroes.

‘Thin slicing’ is the ability of the mind to find patterns in situations based on very narrow slices of experience. It is why people can often make accurate judgements in very rapid timescales that are better, or at least as good as carefully researched results. Malcolm Gladwell gives some remarkable examples of how it works in ‘Blink’, the successor to ‘The Tipping Point’. The more I read, the more it makes me doubt the value of standard forms of research. He is not arguing that snap judgements are always better but that we should take more notice of them…

Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking

The Wellcome Trust has funded research into the relationship between music and health which has found that there is emerging evidence that music can bring about physical changes to the body that can improve our health. According to Professor Paul Robertson, physician, researcher and musician:

“We are approaching the point where a doctor would legitimately be negligent not to actually recommend music as a therapeutic intervention.”

BBC Radio 4 Website

Is there an opportunity for interactive arts here?