P u b l i c a t i o n s :

LOGS: The Portage Handbook

Abstract
Portage is an aesthetic, technical and social research
and development project that had, as its objective,
the installation of a Broad Locative Environment.
The BLE was installed in an outdoor, streetscape
setting and was interactively accessible to users of
mobile devices. The elements allowed users to
engage in various activities that are completed
individually or in collaboration, including: playing
musical instruments via mobile devices; viewing
themselves as surveillance subjects on their phones;
or setting off a series of visual and aural feedback
loops based on the presence of mobile devices. The
development and implementation of the BLE
required a range of software, hardware and process innovations. These are detailed in this Handbook.

The Mobile Urban Experience: Art and Social Interaction in The PORTAGE Project

Paula Gardner & Geoffrey Shea, 2008

Abstract
The ongoing research of academics, artists, designers, students and engineers at the Mobile Experience Lab at the Ontario College of Art & Design has created a broad, flexible and inclusive methodology that seeks to address the impact of emerging media technologies, current theoretical discourses, and the value of user participation in the resulting creations. In our current artist/designer driven research project, PORTAGE, a short street in downtown Toronto will be converted into a virtual theatre. Users with a range of mobile devices will be able to interact with participatory content experiences: spraying virtual graffiti on wall, turning surveillance cameras back on themselves, collaboratively remixing music tracks through choreography, or exploring the history of the specific locale. Users equipped with highly capable devices (e.g. with Bluetooth and GPS) will have one level of engagement, but others with simple voice or text capable phones will be able to access the experiences on another level. Even visitors with no device will be able to participate: by banging a drum for example, and creating a digital signal in collaboration with other online users. This paper discusses the relationship between our lab-as-studio methodologies and the interactive project experiences that emerged. The purpose of this discussion is to query our own methodological assumptions for their effectiveness in creating innovative user experiences and to understand the ways in which they diverge from other current practices in mobile labs, both academic and industry-led. As well, we seek to understand whether these inherently artistic and collaborative methods in fact result in user experiences that are phenomenologically distinct from what would otherwise be produced and result in innovations that wouldn’t be possible with other approaches.

EMF Detector

Peter Todd, 2008

Abstract
A way to detect the RF energy emitted by operating cellular phones and other mobile devices. Here's my first attempt, using a LT5534 RF log detector, including contruction comments and testing results with various RF emitting cell phones and devices.

i = i + 1

Geoffrey Shea, presented at InterPraxis, 2008

Abstract
The practice of research in the context of a university with industry partners and government funding is necessarily pulled in multiple directions at once. But underlying the research of the PORTAGE project is the fact that we are art and design practitioners first and foremost.
Practice-as-research is increasingly important in both the academic environment and in standalone art practice. The understanding in graduate and post-graduate studies is that the singular form of knowledge resulting from art production has value comparable to the general form of knowledge coming out of traditional research endeavours, while art theories like Relational Aesthetics extend the unformed and inquisitive nature of the Dadaist project with an obvious social imperative. The methodologies of practice-as-research are as varied as those of art per se. This presentation will reflect on some of the strategies we have employed in PORTAGE to arrive at innovative forms of expression and production for the rapidly changing mobile media domain.

Art, Design, Education and Research in Pursuit of Interactive Experiences

Geoffrey Shea, accepted at Designing Interactive Systems, 2008

Abstract
In the development of mobile and location-specific experience creation, artists, designers and researchers at the Ontario College of Art & Design are developing new approaches to creation and collaboration that take into account the realities of artistic, academic and technical cultures. These included iterative creation strategies, co-evolution of technical platforms and cultural content, and rapid prototyping through charettes. This paper will examine some of the strategies employed across several projects which all focused on creating new content and new types of content delivery for users of mobile devices, particularly cell phones. It will draw examples from games, sound compositions and virtual theatre experiences.

Mobile Publics

Paula Gardner, presented at Mobile Nation Conference, 2007, publication forthcoming

Abstract
A reimagination of the public sphere must take into account the various impacts of transnational flow on the communication possibilities for ‘publics’ of varying scales: local, national, diasporic, transnational, etc. This paper considers how a radicalized public space might be facilitated via mobile technologies and experiences and the methods by which they are designed.

Inside Out Experience Design

Geoffrey Shea, presented at Mobile Nation Conference, 2007, publication forthcoming

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