I got a shock coming face to face with myself on World of Warcraft. I'm rather relieved that I wasn't undead. As in hindsight, it's only natural that I should exist virtually, albeit unknown to myself and at least was not a zombie or otherwise nonexistent.
Existential angst.
All animals, including people, experience the world in different ways. Every animal has unique sensory equipment and a unique way of processing the information it receives. Some animals sense things that people are unaware of, and others sense the same things people do but interpret them differently. For example, bees can see in the ultraviolet range, some starfish have "eyes" all over their bodies, flies have multi-faceted vision, and sharks and some birds can sense electromagnetic fields. The SIGGRAPH 2009 Research Challenge problem is to choose a specific animal, or a specific animal's sense, and develop a system that will enable a person to experience the physical or social world as that animal does. Individuals and teams develop innovative solutions to a challenge problem, demonstrating their creativity, design, and execution skills. Selected finalists will present their work to a panel of distinguished judges in a public session in competition for final awards. ** I still really want to go to TEDGlobal in Mumbai/Mysore but SIGGRAPH sounds really good. At least this challenge sounds good. However everything else I've read is privileging visual art in a way that I find is not at all critical (in so far as I'm aware). And is also heavily code geeky, which is making me feel inadequate. And if I mention Panda3D I'm going to have to get it and learn it or msdramagirl won't forgive me. 
via siggraph.org
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SIGGRAPH 2009's Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in many fields, including displays, robotics, input devices, and interaction techniques. The demos are available for attendees to try out and discuss with the creators. ** are we going? ** 
via siggraph.org
Emerging Technologies includes a mix of works invited by the organizers and works selected from juried submissions to the SIGGRAPH 2009 online submission system.
A Multimodal Floor for Virtual Environments
A New Dual-Clickpad Remote Controller for Consumer Electronics
AmbiKraf: An Embedded Non-Emissive and Fast-Changing Wearable Display
An Interactive Retrographic Sensor for Touch, Texture, and Shape
Anthropomorphization of a Space With Implemented Human-Like Features
Baby-Type Robot: YOTARO
Back to the Mouth
Bloxels: Glowing Blocks as Volumetric Pixels
CityMurmur
CRISTAL: Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems Using Touch-Based Actions in Living Spaces
Crystal Zoetrope
Digital Decal
Embodied and Mediated Learning in SMALLab: A Student-Centered Mixed-Reality Environment
Funbrella: Making Rain Fun
gCubik: Real-Time Integral Image Rendering for a Cubic 3D Display
Graphical Instruction for A Garment-Folding Robot
HeadSPIN: A One-to-Many 3D Video Teleconferencing System
ILoveSketch
Interactive Cooking Simulator
Jhai Sustainable Telemedicine Solution
Pen de Touch
PhotoelasticTouch: Transparent Rubbery Interface Using an LCD and Photoelasticity
Pull-Navi
SCOPE
Scratch Input
Sixense TrueMotion
Sound Scope Headphones
Texmoca
The Sleighing Simulator 2.0
The UnMousePad: The Future of Touch Sensing
Touchable Holography
Twinkle: Interface for Using Handheld Projectors to Interact With Physical Surfaces
Versatile Training Field: the Wellness Entertainment System Using Trampoline Interface
Virtualization Gate
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The emergent field of information aesthetics combines a rich variety of technical and artistic disciplines. Designers and new media artists are joining scientific visualization, informatics, and medical imaging specialists to create purposive, predictive, and creative representations of information. SIGGRAPH 2009 is highlighting this field in recognition of the increasingly prominent role that information visualization and data graphics are assuming in our digitally mediated culture.
The Information Aesthetics Showcase includes 2D and 3D prints, interactive and presentational screen-based works, multimodal installation environments, and physical objects that reveal information. In keeping with this year's theme, Networking the Senses, the works shown here engage not only the visual, but also auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile modalities. The relationship to information expressed in these exemplary pieces ranges from straightforward visualization of data to fanciful re-invention and transformation of it. Presenters include computational journalists, visual and material artists, biological researchers and neuro-scientists, graphic designers, scientific visualization developers, historians, cultural theorists, and digital media center collaborators.
Posted via web from AmIArt
The emergent field of information aesthetics combines a rich variety of technical and artistic disciplines. Designers and new media artists are joining scientific visualization, informatics, and medical imaging specialists to create purposive, predictive, and creative representations of information. SIGGRAPH 2009 is highlighting this field in recognition of the increasingly prominent role that information visualization and data graphics are assuming in our digitally mediated culture.
The Information Aesthetics Showcase includes 2D and 3D prints, interactive and presentational screen-based works, multimodal installation environments, and physical objects that reveal information. In keeping with this year's theme, Networking the Senses, the works shown here engage not only the visual, but also auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile modalities. The relationship to information expressed in these exemplary pieces ranges from straightforward visualization of data to fanciful re-invention and transformation of it. Presenters include computational journalists, visual and material artists, biological researchers and neuro-scientists, graphic designers, scientific visualization developers, historians, cultural theorists, and digital media center collaborators.
The SIGGRAPH 2009 juried art exhibition showcases work by artists who engage technology and the natural world in their creative processes. Like a forward-looking cabinet of curiosities, the exhibition brings together artworks and installations that demonstrate, celebrate, critique, and conjecture about the flux of natural and technological forces. Plants and animals, insects, even the weather, have long served as subjects for study as well as metaphors for human experience. Mechanical equipment, electronic instruments, and robotic devices amplify our understanding of organic processes and enhance our natural capacities. BioLogic focuses on projects that graft these together - biological forms and systems with digital code and networks - to explore expressions of life as we know it or imagine it to be.
Works exhibited in BioLogic relate closely to those in Generative Fabrication, the Design & Computation exhibition. Together, the two exhibitions present an enthralling range of art and design projects that incorporate biological information and processes.
Works exhibited in BioLogic are published in a special issue of Leonardo, The Journal of the International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology. The issue also includes publication of the SIGGRAPH 2009 Art Papers. Publication of this special issue coincides with SIGGRAPH 2009.
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The SIGGRAPH 2009 Design & Computation Gallery explores non-linear and biological processes in design and digital fabrication through selected works of art, architecture, and design. The work's inherently generative nature encourages many lines of investigation along two main paths:
- Generative design - algorithm and process, explorations of phase space and path-dependent emergent phenomena, form-making versus form-finding, and iterative design such as simulation, analysis, and optimization.
- Digital fabrication - the interplay between digital representation and the crafting of physical objects; formation of structures by aggregation, weaving, and layered manufacturing; and exploitation of organic and composite material properties.
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