Here’s an interesting and informative TED talk on the topic of biomomicy in architecture.
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pawlyn_using_nature_s_genius_in_architecture.html
Here is some nice documentation of a DIY fresh water ecosphere that i found on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ2uTjL9Xpo keep in mind that I do not own any of the material shown. This also shows that if we are to build a fresh water sphere we may not have to specifically seek out the organisms to inhabit the enclosed ecosystem, as they will most probably be introduced via the sediment that we use to act as the base. I think that the pdf’s found here at http://www.open2.net/home/pager?entityID=1029&pagerID=eco&page=1&jsp=diyscience%2Fecosphere&sessionID=-1334041150634&entityName=object have been the basis for a fair few other DIY ecosphere projects, including the one in the linked video.
The open source Biomodd projects found at http://www.biomodd.net/ are a prime example of a creative direction involving biomimicry. Biomodd projects aim to create systems that utilize waste produced my computer systems to act as the foundations to sustain living ecosystems. I think this would be the next logical step after our completed ecospheres as you could think of it as a dry land ecosphere that is regulated by computer hardware as opposed to being a sealed ecosystem.
All ecological systems contain interactive networks of some sort, whether its the transport of nutrients or the way in which information is communicated between two natural entities. These natural networks are what we have decided to focus on and we would like to be able to develop the ideas that we research into a more focused direction that looks at the observation and application of natural processes in the environment to be applied in real world creative and R&D scenarios.
To gain a sound understanding of fundamental natural processes and networks we are aiming to create our own self sustainable ecosystem that will most probably be contained within a small glass enclosure such as a sealed pickling jar or something similar. The ecospheres found at http://www.eco-sphere.com/ probably serve as the best reference points for what we are aiming to achieve, although our attempts will be a lot less ‘commercial’ than those.
Networks
Our current project involves researching into or creating a network of some sort that can also lead on into our project for the second half of the first semester. After a bit of discussion my group of three decided that we wanted to create a physical network of some sort. We have discussed making an ecological system of some sort, and have joked around with the idea of making an ant farm, but the ideas expressed will most probably be transitioned into a more serious direction. We know at this point in time that we all have more of an interest in physical networks as opposed to the traditional data or invisible networks.
It’s 2012 and I’m back at uni. To start the ball rolling here’s my own very incomplete website that should start to blossom at some time in the near future.
http://creativetechnologies.ac.nz/BCT/2011CLASS/cbeduhn/cbeduhn.html
Now that everything is done and dusted I guess I should give a description of the final idea that we ran with. The basic idea is that we we wanted the player to participate in a series of tasks that were designed to test an aspect of the a human characteristic. We ended up working with perseverance, patience, knowledge and memory, we all feel that the final tasks accurately depicted these traits. We also didn’t want the player to be aware that the focal point of the game was to test these traits so we made up back story that the player is working for the good organization G.U.R.U. and they are tasked with heading into the building of the bad organization known as the Wardens of Truth(W.T. for short) to retrieve pieces of a manifesto that are held by certain W.T. members. These members in particular are W.T. members that have recently seen the error of their ways and have decided to aid G.U.R.U. by acting as moles and hold onto the manifesto pieces until the player can prove to them that are worthy by completing a series of set tasks. That’s pretty much it, but yea as stated in the last post we feel we could have improved the overall quality by quite a margin, but at least it’s over and were all pretty content with what we were able achieve in the small time frame :)
Ok, so today we had our practical demonstration of our game/experience with Maggie, Gabe and Roy. Although we were happy with the end result of our UN-REALITY exercise, there is no doubt in our minds that we could have taken it that little bit further to lift it to the next level. We feel that main issue with the end result was that even though the experience itself was relatively fun and engaging, it was still lacking the depth required to fully draw the participants in and make them forget that all they are doing is following a set of tasks.
The back-story that we had in place is maybe a bit too simple in its current state; it fulfils its purpose but that’s it. It does a good job of presenting the setting to the participants but to take it further than that we need to integrate some form of artistic theme into it to provide more immersion than what currently stands. As it is it seems that the only real engagement occurs once the participants have reached their current destination and are undertaking the task that they are presented with. If we were to successfully incorporate a theme like this into the experience, the engagement would be constant, and as such the participants would become fully immersed in the world that has been created for them as there would be little to nothing to pull them back into reality, much like a successful video game. An example that could be presented for this idea is to dress multiple people in blue Morphsuits and have them occupy the room where the wiki race would be played. These actors would replace the single person that we initially had and would be acting as collective parts of a single entity. The reasoning behind this is that our story revolves around these higher beings, and having this higher consciousness, collective entity manifest itself in front of the players would really aid in making the setting for the plot all the more believable.
Something else that we could have done was to maybe shrink the total area that the tasks were spread out across so that we would be able to fit that smaller area to a theme instead of having a large area that didn’t really have any visual consistency.
I feel the main reason the lack of more experimental ideas was us simply wanting to have a coherent working product that we knew wasn’t going to conk out midway through or create a scenario that caused the participants to question the logistics of the implied reality.
