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education

game design

games

health

health metrics

serious games

Experimental Publishing and Curation Assistant

Maisha is an Applied Cognition and Neuroscience graduate student at UT Dallas. She works in memory and aging research at the Lifespan Neuroscience and Cognition lab. She’s passionate about writing and talking about behavior, cognition, and tech. She hopes to use her background in research and her work at the ArtSciLab to help further science communication among diverse audiences.

Maisha Razzaque

by Maisha Razzaque



Looking
to regulate your sleeping habits? Searching for a way to teach sexual health?
There’s an app for that. In today’s web-based world, games for health are
rocketing in popularity. These “serious” games are specifically designed to
encourage behavior changes to treat a health threat. Naturally, we are inclined
to ask about the validity of the games: do they work the way they were designed
to work? Can serious games be used to improve health outcomes? However, we may
not consider the important role of user experience — how easy and pleasant the
game is — factoring into the game’s influence. Paying attention to how a game
is designed and what human interaction factors considered during its
development may hold the key to the future of health-based games.



Gamification
in a Nutshell



Using
games to affect change in real life isn’t a new concept. Educational games have
been a prominent feature in the integration of technology and grade school
learning since the early days of <a href="https://www.funbrain.com/">funbrain.com</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ3B1PUwr0I%60">Mavis Beacon</a>. These games use the theoretical
approach of teaching and testing content in small quantities — having student
pass a level before moving on to the next one. The late 90s birthed the
exergaming (exercise + gaming) industry — utilizing movement tracking and
virtual reality to turn movement into play. In 2013, we saw the integration of
health metrics, heart rate and a pedometer, into these “exergames” with
Nintendo’s Wii consoles. The most visible case of implementing health goals in
game design today can be found in trending augmented reality apps like Zombies,
Run! and Pokémon GO. One study
assessed the walking and sedentary habits of young adults before and after
downloading the game Pokémon GO. The
GPS-based game requires players to use their phones to search for virtual Pokémon
characters as they walk through real-world locations. They found that Pokémon Go was associated with increased
walking and decreased sedentary behavior. Some unexpected negative side effects
of a semi-virtual game that the experimenters found included the dangers in the
environment as the user is walking right into it, too immersed in his/her phone
to notice! This is an example of a real-life “bug” that needs to be addressed
in these mobile exergames by the developers of the programs. Perhaps the lesson
here is that the health benefits of resulting increased physical behavior can
only be a priority if the safety of the user in any potential semi-virtual game
is accounted for by the designer. After all, what good is an app that raises
your heart rate and encourages exercise if the trade-off is mistakenly walking
off a cliff? 



Psychological
Models in Games 



Encouraging
health-positive behavior and tracking metrics are a great start. However, to
delve deeper, we need to start at the conceptual design stage of the game. The
question of gamification pivots from “does the existing design work” to “how do
we design it to make sure it works?” This is where experts toy with the idea of
implementing psychological models of healing in health game design—specifically,
the Health Belief Model.



According to the Health Belief model, an individual’s intention to “engage in health behavior” — this includes both positive and negative behavior — can be determined by their perception of their own vulnerability to health threats and consequences. In more technical terms, the user will behave based on self-perceived strengths and weaknesses. So how do you go about using the health belief model in conceptual design: in serious games that use role-playing and sci-fi/action themes to encourage diabetes management, users are rewarded when health landmarks are met.  This offers incentive for health record integration in the game — all to ensure that metric and therapeutic goals are accomplished in the process of playing the game.



Researchers at Johns Hopkins examined design
principles of serious games (for patients with chronic illnesses) based on the
Health Belief Model and their influence on the games’ effectiveness in health
outcomes. Adolescent
participants were recruited for user experience evaluation of the games, and they
found that implementing the Health Belief Model in healthcare game design
increases usability in games, improving the efficacy as a health tools. But
that’s just one model. In the context of future experimental design for other
chronic illnesses, it’s important to gauge the value of implementing
appropriate models when designing games. However, if there’s one thing that can
be taken away from this study, it’s that it sets an essential precedent. If our
end goal is to improve health outcomes using games, then we need to use
professionally developed tools for healing while designing them. The
psychological model is an a necessary perspective during the design of
health-motivated games.



One
Dish, Many Cooks



The
idea of different perspectives comes into play (no pun intended) in game design
when we talk about the human factors behind health-based gaming. Recent studies
have found evidence that may explain the convergences as well as conceptual
differences between the different experts. Obviously, game design experts are
most sensitive to the mechanics of the game, but they tend to prioritize the
player’s autonomy during the experience. They view the integration of gameplay and health behavior in terms of
two distinct concepts. On the other hand, health experts interpret player
autonomy in the context of health. They are more likely to comment on the “fun”
games in contrast to the “serious” games, and they are more likely to discuss
game and health concepts less in the context of integration but rather in terms
of a causal relationship — game mechanics were to model health behavior. In
contrast with these single-discipline groups, games for health experts view content
and interaction of the while emphasizing the outcomes and objectives of both the
games and health behavior. According
to games for health experts, the game mechanics — its own separate entity — are
responsible for producing health outcomes. These findings can be applied as
conceptual tools during the design process to make sure games are made with the
intent to produce desirable health objectives.



Why Do I Care? Why Should You?



I’m nearing the end of my master’s program
for applied cognition and neuroscience, and I’ve been spending its duration
performing cognitive tests (testing memory and attention) on volunteer
participants during a cognitive training regimen. What is the cognitive
training in question? Any guesses? 



If you thought “games,” you thought right.
And since taking a special interest in human-computer interaction theory during
my undergrad years, I can’t help but speculate on the relationship between the
user experience of the games that we use for cognitive training and the
behavioral and neurological effects that we investigate.



Are games the future of cognitive and
physical health? I can’t definitively say that for sure, but I can be pretty
confident that digitizing and gamifying health is and will continue to be an
important tool in a holistic approach to manage health. The studies I mentioned
earlier make it evident that the technological component of health games is not
only important in terms of validity but also usability. If we plan to continue
implementing games into behavioral health and cognitive training as aids in
metrics, management, and even enhancement (in the terms of cognitive training),
we have to pay attention to the multiple factors that go into designing the
games themselves. At the risk of sounding corny, I feel like the conclusion I
drew from this little investigation could be summed up in a little phrase:
better game design allows for better user health. 







Barkley, J. E.,
Lepp, A., Glickman, E. L. (2017). “Pokémon Go!” May Promote Walking,
Discourage Sedentary Behavior in College Students. Games for Health Journal, 2017, Volume 6, Issue 3. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2017.0009




Kelley, C., Wilcox, L.,
Ng, W., Schiffer, J., &amp; Hammer, J. (2017). Design
Features in Games for Health: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Expert
Perspectives. DIS. Designing Interactive Systems (Conference), 2017, 69–81. doi:10.1145/3064663.3064721 



Kharrazi, Hadi &amp; Faiola,
A &amp; Defazio, Joseph.
(2009). Healthcare Game Design: Behavioral Modeling
of Serious Gaming Design for Children with Chronic Diseases. Human-Computer Interaction: Interacting
in Various Application Domains. 335-344. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-02583-9_37. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Importance of User Design in Games for Health

Thanks to more than a decade of experience working in the realm of film entertainment (ranging from film festival management to independent film production) and in the entrepreneurial world (in the tech, non-profit, and media sectors), Garcia Topete's research and practice cover and converge in three main areas under the broader scopes of Art-Science and Experimental Publishing of the ArtSciLab: transdisciplinary intelligence, innovation and collaboration theory, filmmaking research, and public engagement design.

Alex Garcia Topete

Chaz is interested in alternative modes of scholarship and publishing. As a PhD student in the ArtSciLab, he is designing experiments that tease out new ways of knowledge production, curation and dissemination.

Chaz Lilly

Roger F. Malina is a space scientist and astronomer, with a specialty in extreme and ultraviolet astronomy, space instrumentation and optics. He served as director of the Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence and was NASA Principal Investigator for the Extreme Ultraviolet Satellite project at the University of California, Berkeley.

He is also a publisher and editor in the new emerging research fields that connect the sciences and engineering to the arts, design and humanities. Since 1982, he has served as Executive Editor of the Leonardo Publications at MIT Press. He founded, and serves on the board of two nonprofits, ISAST in San Francisco and OLATS in Paris, which advocate and document the work of artists involved in contemporary science and technology.

He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Art and Technology and Professor of Physics, at the University of Texas at Dallas and Directeur de Recherche for the CNRS in France. He serves as the Associate Director of ATEC, and founded the ArtSciLab in the ATEC program fall 2013.

Roger Malina

Frank Dufour

ArtSciLab Colleagues:



I would like to draw your attention to the Recent YASMIN WWWASP discussion (the Who, what where of our artscience community of practice)- Led by Guillermo Munoz with several colleagues across the world (see at end of this post). The YASMIN list is an international list of artscience professionals and amateurs and observers.



The discussion is now open to any colleague on the Tasmin list- we look forward to your thoughts: If you aren't on <a href="https://ntlab.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr">YASMIN</a>: 



I just posted this to YASMIN



"I would like to pick up on Salome Cuesta proposal for ‘micro-actions’ in our art-science communities of practice, and Diamond Berverly’s idea of a ‘continous conundrum (see below).



After 30 years as Executive Editor of Leonardo, for the first time I am now deeply engaged as a practitioner in art science collaborations. I like
 to joke that astrophysics was so easy ! We all agreed on the success 
criteria and used the same concepts, methods and terminology. Plus we 
were very well funded in comparison with artscience research.



 Thanks to Guillermo Munoz and colleagues at the University of Valencia I received a PhD in Art, so I am now an ArtScience ‘postdoc’ with a PhD in astrophysics and a PhD in art !



As James Leach pointed out in his Leonardo article <a href="https://cnrs.academia.edu/JamesLeach">(Extending Contexts, Making Possibilities: An Introduction to Evaluating the Projects - James Leach)</a> many many art science collaborations ‘fail’ in achieving their original objectives.



In our ArtSciLab we have been arguing that there is a very big step between inter/multi disciplinary collaborations and ‘trans’ disciplinary collaborations which bridge very very different disciplines with very very different personal and collective success criteria, and very very different often contradictory methods, concepts , terminologies-



These are in Diamond Berverly’s term ‘conundral;- see Merriam Webster



“The exact origin of conundrum isn’t known with certainty. What is known is that the word has been in use since the early 1600s, and that it had various spellings, such as conimbrum, quonundrum, conuncrum, and quadundrum, before the current spelling was finally established sometime in the mid-17th century. One theory of origin suggests that the word was coined as a parody of Latin by students at Oxford University, where it appears to have enjoyed particular popularity in its “word play” or “pun” sense. While the prevalent sense in this century is that of the seemingly unanswerable question or problem, frequently applied to heady dilemmas involving ethics, sociology, or economics, the word is sometimes so loosely applied to anything enigmatic as to be synonymous with puzzle or mystery.”



One of the strategies we have been 
trying is “micro-projects” in Cuesta’s terminology- we define them as 
short duration ( weeks), projects which require no money or cash, only 
gift exchange of time and access to facilities, expertise etc ( the gift
 exchange vocabulary comes from James Leach )



In the ArtSciLab we are approached continuously by ‘stem’ professionals who want to collaborate. Interestingly these range from physical sciences and engineering to the brain and Behavioural sciences to business and social sciences…



Often the stem professionals who reach out to us, “they” have antiquated ideas of what making art involves or results in today. Often they view art as less primary in the ‘tree of knowledge” (i.e. in a branch not in the trunk). 



Often they have very different methods , concepts, terminology (we are trying to develop transdisciplinary apprenticeships as part of the approach). Mauricio Mejia at ASU, Alex Topete, colleagues, and I are currently submitting a workshop proposal on applying translation studies methods to transdisciplinary collaborations.



If a micro-project doesn't succeed, its likely that a significant project won't in our experience.



I am delighted that a student research in our ArtSciLab , Diamond Beverly, has proposed: “how do we go about including diverse voices and fostering heterogeneous approaches instead unconsciously excluding people from the conversation and thus creating a continuous conundrum.” which highlights the implicit bias of the artscience community towards people in academia with its ethnic, gender, socio-economic and other implicit social biases.



Maybe the non -academic and younger members of Yasmin should weigh in, just as from Diamond Berverly: I was very intrigued with your post last week when you emphasized educational spaces and work shop methodologies. I would like to know how you define micro-actions. I also find such maker spaces and hackathons a good step into the future of collaborative educational space. A question that persists however is how these spaces find their audience?



And by this I mean how do we go about including diverse voices and fostering heterogeneous approaches instead unconsciously excluding people from the conversation and thus creating a continuous conundrum.



So all Latin students on Yasmin go at it : "One theory of origin of ‘conundrum” suggests that the word was coined as a parody of Latin by students at Oxford University, where it appears to have enjoyed particular popularity in its “word play” or “pun” sense. While the prevalent sense in this century is that of the seemingly unanswerable question or problem, frequently applied to heady dilemmas involving ethics, sociology, or economics, the word is sometimes so loosely applied to anything enigmatic as to be synonymous with puzzle or mystery."



Or maybe living in a continuous conundrum is a desirable state ? Certainly it is a state that drives our ArtScience work and is generative of desired outcomes.



Roger Malina



P.S These are the invited discussants:



Jadwiga
 Charzynska: I am the director of LAZNIA CCA in Gdansk since 2004 and in
 our program, one of the most important points is the Art + Science 
Meeting project, which we organize regularly from 2011. It’s really 
unique program in Poland presented Art / Sci projects. Links: <a href="http://www.laznia.pl/instytucja/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">http://www.laznia.pl/instytucja/</a>



Joao
 Silveira: Brazilian entrepreneur, choreographer and pharmacist. Was a 
Harvard Fellow (Le Laboratoire/ 2017-2019) and currently is a research 
fellow at the ArtSciLab – UT Dallas, and CienciArte Lab – Fiocruz. Jing
 Chen: Associate professor of Arts and associate director of Art and 
Cultural Innovation and Creativity Lab of Nanjing University. Gustavo
 Ariel Schwartz.: Physicist and writer. Scientist of the Spanish 
National Research Council (CSIC) at the Materials Physics Center. 
Founder director of the Mestizajes Program, at the Donostia 
International Physics Center, whose purpose is to explore and cross the 
borders among Art, Science, Literature and Humanities.

Micro ArtScience Actions (MASA)

<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://youtu.be/lJlBJ-NagLM
</div></figure>



<a href="https://medium.com/@looplogic/halloween-transmissions-machine-listening-from-the-diary-of-ana%C3%AFs-nin-276f67d71068?sk=336e1b3958336f3ee0952e0bbbb3d4f5">Full article @ Medium.</a>

Halloween Transmissions: Machine Listening from the Diary of Anaïs Nin

The ArtSciLab has named
 Dr. Kathryn Evans, Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of 
Arts &amp; Humanities of UT Dallas, as Co-Director of Education 
Initiatives, while also promoting Dr. Yvan Tina and Alex Garcia Topete, two of its longest serving ATEC researchers, to the positions of Deputy Co-Directors of the lab. The leadership promotions come as part of a major re-design of the systems and processes of the ArtSciLab
 as it adapts to the challenges of managing research, strategy, 
organizational culture, and operations among a growing group of student 
lab members and external collaborators.&nbsp;



Dr.
 Evans, as Co-Director of Education Initiatives of the lab, will oversee
 the ArtSciLab’s projects that merge diverse disciplines in learning and
 teaching settings, particularly those involving the growing trend of 
turning education from “STEM” to “STEAM” education through the arts. Dr.
 Evans brings to the position not only her years of experience as an 
educator, but also her many talents as an academic researcher, singer, conductor, director, and producer. The ArtSciLab’s current education initiatives include CDASH (Curriculum Development in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities), ToTTS (Tale of Two Thinking Systems), and Arts-Based Learning for Business (ABLB)--all which were originated by Dr. Evans as a lab researcher.&nbsp;



Dr. Tina will now serve as Deputy Co-Director of Performative Research of the lab. Dr.
 Tina's expertise is in performance studies and he will oversee the 
research projects related to new forms of representation and curation of
 the arts, with an emphasis on scenic practices involving artificial 
intelligence and biotechnologies. His role will be to stimulate and 
strengthen the artistic output of the ArtSciLab. As a performative researcher, he is a founding member and manager of the multilingual and international podcast platform Creative Disturbance,
 which requires the coordination of a team composed of UX/UI designers, 
sound designers, and web developers.&nbsp; Dr. Tina is also a member of the Laboratoire d'Études en Sciences des Arts (LESA) of Aix-Marseille University and the artistic director of the Virtual Africa initiative of Leonardo/Olats. He lectures in a number of different venues and conferences and will participate this year to the Next Einstein Forum.&nbsp;



Mr.
 Garcia Topete will function as Deputy Co-Director of Transdisciplinary 
Strategy and Collaboration. His main duties will include overseeing the Experimental Publishing and Curation (ExPuCu)
 efforts of the lab, implementing systems and workflows with the aim of 
fostering creativity, innovation, and collaboration, and designing 
transdisciplinary strategies for teamwork and successful knowledge 
management. His almost two decades of experience in the creative 
industries as an international filmmaker and film festival organizer, as
 well as more than a decade in the entrepreneurial and non-profit world,
 make Mr. Garcia Topete particularly equipped with a multifaceted 
understanding and transnational perspective of knowledge exchange and 
social impact to deal with the current and future challenges of the ArtSciLab.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“As
 the African proverb says: if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want
 to go far, go together; and we’re definitely trying to go far in our 
lab,” said Founding Executive Co-Director Dr. Roger Malina about the reasoning for the lab reorganization. With these new leadership positions and overall redesign, the ArtSciLab
 seeks to improve not only its operations and management, but also 
provide a better learning environment and culture in which its members 
and collaborators share knowledge more effectively, mentor each other in
 their areas of expertise with more ease, and develop further both 
professionally and personally through their lab participation. 
Ultimately, the ArtSciLab continues to pioneer in transdisciplinary issues—this time looking to boost the careers and development of everyone involved.&nbsp;

ArtSciLab Promotes Three Researchers to Leadership Positions

Dr. James L. Carter, geoscientist, and associate professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Dallas, passed away on September 21, 2019, in his home at the age of 82. To honor James Carter, ArtSciLab member Ayen Deng has written and performed a spoken word poem in memory of the way he inspired all those who attended his last lecture on September 20, 2019. The slides in this video are from his lecture to accompany the performance. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uKqRuyxdZw&amp;feature=youtu.be
</div></figure>

A Spoken Word on Life and Death

by Michael Warner



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">Virtual Menageries puts us back in time amongst the collective elites. Berland forms a cohesive genealogy of the “menagerie” to encourage, challenge, and deconstruct our modern perception of non-human animals and their relationship to human meaning and existence. Virtual Menageries looks through the lens of mediation to draw affective and emotional weight to animals as symbolic messengers in the digital era. From the giraffe, to the beaver, virtual art, digital communications, cats, birds and music Berland maps out how animals have become not only the mediators that bridge worlds together for good, but also as the trafficked subjects of terror: tools made to control, methods for silencing, opportunities to proliferate a message, and catalysts in profiteering. &nbsp; The book begins with a question that led to a series of other questions: “Why are there so many cats on the internet?” (Pg. 1) Which then led to thoughts about the roles of animals as symbols and figures in contexts. “How do animals help manage our perception of the Anthropocene? How do they disrupt our own relationship with digital technologies if they are so abundantly apart of them? If they are mediating in new ways, what content are they mediating, and in what context?” (Pg. 1) These are all questions that threw the book and Berland’s project into fruition.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </blockquote>



To read the full review: 



<div class="wp-block-file"><a href="http://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/02/Leonardo_Review_of_Virtual_Menageries.docx">Review_of_Virtual_Menageries</a><a href="http://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/02/Leonardo_Review_of_Virtual_Menageries.docx" class="wp-block-file__button" download>Download</a></div>

A Review of Virtual Menageries: Animals as Mediators in Network Cultures

Dr. Frank Dufour will be pursuing research at the intersection of transdisciplinarity, learning, and emerging technologies through the ArtSciLab's existing projects, such as HERMES and Experimental Publishing.



Frank is a researcher and artist exploring in both scientific and artistic practices the poietic aspects of perception. In a recent publication, “Musical composition as a lived experience”, he proposes a description of the particular perception of time arising during the process of composing music. 



<a href="http://links-series.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/La-composition-musicale-comme-exp%C3%A9rience.pdf">http://links-series.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/La-composition-musicale-comme-exp%C3%A9rience.pdf</a>



Frank is currently developing a phenomenological method
to study the relationships and exchanges between Arts, Technology, and Sciences.
As part of this project, he is interested in imagining a radically new approach
to interdisciplinary education.



Frank is the co-founder with xtine burrough of the
Laboratory for Synthetic and Experimental poetry, LabSynthe.



Portfolio: <a href="http://agence5970.com/frank-dufour-portfolio">http://agence5970.com/frank-dufour-portfolio</a>

Frank Dufour joins the ArtSciLab as a Researcher

Cyber security refers to
the body of technologies, processes, and practices designed to protect
networks, devices, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized
access. Cybersecurity may also be referred to as information technology
security. These cyberattacks are usually
aimed at accessing, changing, or destroying sensitive information; extorting
money from users; or interrupting normal business processes. 



As we continue in our Redesign phase, we have established
the idea of having a cybersecurity team. We have so much vulnerable files and
data which are prone to serious attack. I was informed about the recent attack
on Creative disturbance, where the hacker demanded bitcoin payment. If we had a
Cyber security plan, we would have had better methods of not only handling the
attack, but also preventing the lab from future attacks. 



Cybersecurity is typically divided into two parts. The software, and the human behavior. The latter is the more difficult part. This plan will not only touch on software, but also the human behavior, teaching lab members what to do in order to prevent attacks, and generally safe computer and internet practices.



<div class="wp-block-file"><a href="https://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/04/ASL-Cybersecurity-Plan-v1.pdf">ASL-Cybersecurity-Plan-v1</a><a href="https://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/04/ASL-Cybersecurity-Plan-v1.pdf" class="wp-block-file__button" download>Download</a></div>

Cybersecurity in the Times of Pandemic

Experimental Publishing and Curation

Culture and AI

Experimental Publishing

biofeedback

Cognitive Science

data visualization

Emotions

thesis

Call for Involvement

covid19

pandemic

Gray Literature

Projects

Publications

Research

cybersecurity

Deputy Co-Director of Transdisciplinary Strategy & Innovation

Franklin Osuagwu

Art-Science

alex-garcia-topete-1-450x450

Paulina Antoinette grew up both in Mexico and in the US, and is currently working towards her MS in Economics at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is interested in breaking down cultural barriers and working towards bettering the welfare of society, whilst creating a more inclusive world both socially and economically. During her free time, she is an avid cook, yogi, and rock climber.

P. Antoinette White

Project HERMES looks at how researchers and expert practitioners work together in interdisciplinary (across institutional departments) and transdisciplinary (across stakeholder communities) contexts through the framework of Transdisciplinary Intelligence. The framework includes knowledge and aptitude metrics, good practices, and transdisciplinary training modules to improve collaboration among artists, designers, engineers, scientists, and other experts in order to boost innovation through tool sharing and idea exchange. Project HERMES is currently underway internally at the University of Texas at Dallas among its 100+ research groups and will expand to industry partners in 2020. 

HERMES

HERMES-logo

Researching how researchers and expert practitioners work together in inter- and trans-disciplinary contexts in order to tackle complex problems with creative solutions, ranging from the environment, to new ways of learning, to technology and society.

Joao Silveira

Kofi S. Latzoo

Kristen Deupree

Lauren Bernal is a graduate from the Bachelor of Science program in Psychology at the University of Texas at Dallas. During her academic career at UT Dallas, she has Research Assisted Dr. Walter J. Dowling’s Music Perception &amp; Cognition Lab as well as Dr. Karen Prager’s Couples Daily Lives Lab. During an independent study, she investigated positive affect induced by musical tempos in the fall of 2018. Over the summer of 2018, she interned for UT Southwestern’s Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care where she researched Cognitive Impairments Influenced by Parental Relationships in Major Depressive Disorder.

In addition to research, she has been President of the Sigma Kappa Delta English Honors Society and founder of Eastfield’s Outdoor Club. She is also a member of Psi Chi International Honor Society in Psychology, Phi Theta Kappa, National Honors Society, and The National Society of Leadership and Success.

She began her journey with the ArtSciLab as Dr. Kathryn Evans’ Research Assistant during the implementation of <a href="https://cdash.atec.io" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CDASH</a> curriculum at UT Dallas in spring 2019. Her other projects: Art-Based Learning for Business (ABLB), eSport Therapy (ET) in collaboration with Mavs Gaming, and Tale of Two Thinking Systems (ToTTS).

Lauren Ashley Bernal

Michael Hart is a summer intern in the ArtSci Lab. He is currently studying Computer Science at The University of North Texas. His interest is in Video Game Design and Video Game Development. He has started working in the lab since May 2019 and has been involved with the Mavs Gaming collaboration.

Michael Hart

Semra Zamurad is a graduate from the Bachelor of Science program in Psychology at Texas Woman’s University. She has been involved in research throughout her academic career, contributing to studies investigating sexual and gender minority representation within psychology, impact of American culture on Asian American self-esteem and identity development, and online authenticity. In addition to this, she also completed a Capstone project that explored how immersive technologies can and are changing how we conduct psychological research and practice. It is this interest that led her to lend her expertise in studying human behavior to the University of Texas at Dallas’s ArtSciLab Esports Co-Design Group, where she works to provide a biopsychosocial perspective to the investigative efforts of the team.

Semra Zamurad

Sylvere Boussamba

Thouseef Syed is a graduate student pursuing his MS in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience specialising in Computational modeling and Intelligent Systems. He’s a researcher in computational linguistics and deep natural language processing, and has recently published an IEEE paper which focused on prediction of Mutual funds using cascaded Support Vector Machine (SVM) models.

He is currently developing a virtual interactive lab assistant called BESSO which essentially provides an academic, research and admin support to the distinguished members of the lab. Over the past, he is mentored several students in hackathons in the field of Internet of things (IoT) and data analytics. He invests his free time in developing a deep learning approach to facial perception using computer vision that could potentially enhance the current technologies.

Thouseef Syed

<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter is-resized"><img src="http://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/01/ARTSCILAB-TALKSHOW-LOGO-1024x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-3475" width="294" height="294" /></figure></div>



Produced and created by Maisha Razzaque, a new series has launched on The Bold Roast: Student Conversations channel on Creative Disturbance.



The ArtSciLab is home to collaborations between artists and scientists who investigate topics such as experimental publishing, data sonification, data visualization, and the hybridization of art and science. This series is an audio experience that allows the spotlight to fall on its members as they talk to us about their careers, contributions, and passions.



<a href="https://creativedisturbance.org/podcast/pilot-ft-lauren-bernhal/">Click here to listen to the first episode of </a><a href="https://creativedisturbance.org/podcast/pilot-ft-lauren-bernhal/">The ArtSciLab Talk Show. </a>

ArtSciLab Talkshow: A new series on The Bold Roast

The Initiative to Enhance the Esports Player Cognitive Performance &amp; Wellbeing. 



<div class="wp-block-file"><a href="https://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/10/ESportCyberathleteDevelopmentAnnotatedBibliography-October2019.pdf"> Annotated bibliography: The Emergence of Esports. (v. 1.0)</a><a href="https://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/10/ESportCyberathleteDevelopmentAnnotatedBibliography-October2019.pdf" class="wp-block-file__button" download>Download</a></div>



This Esports Cyberathlete Development (ECD) project launched by the University of Texas at Dallas’ ArtSciLab aims to contribute to design one of the first new sports of the 21st century.



Our efforts aim to: (1) Promote positive values obtained from participating on an Esports team; a. Investigate the enhanced cognitive abilities through the strategically-complex gameplay of Esports b. Investigate the positive social developments that occur in and out of the Esports environment (2) Focus on relieving the stigmatized universe of Esports concerning gender stereotypes and effects on intellectual performance; a. Our research aims to increase overall inclusivity among various demographics and how its benefits are not discriminatory towards any gender (3) Help to integrate the skills learned by the Esports players into their lives during and after their Esports careers; a. Analysis of cognitive skills acquired by gamers during their gameplay, how such skills can generally transfer to real-world application, and to increase their executive longevity.

Esports Cyberathlete Development (ECD): An Annotated Bibliography

by Semra Zamurad



As an avid gamer myself, I was drawn to the Esports
Cyberathlete Development (ECD) co-design group’s mission: to gain a better
understanding of how gaming supports positive social and cognitive growth in
cyberathletes. My educational background is rooted in psychology and I am
interested in how technology can be used to benefit psychological background
and research. To learn more about this, I am lending my expertise in studying
human behavior from a biopsychosocial standpoint to the efforts of the ECD
team.



As we move forward on our academic journey, we have
discovered the necessity of operationally defining the behaviors we seek to
understand and making sure that those definitions remain consistent across
raters. To operationally define a behavior essentially means to define a
behavior in a specific, concrete, and measurable way. This is especially
important when more than one researcher will be taking part in an observation.
For example, if we were looking for signs of exhaustion, one observer may
consider rubbing eyes to be a sign of exhaustion while another observer does
not. High levels of inter-rater reliability (referring to how similar the data
collection is between the observers) are imperative to the success of study
that has key qualitative components. As such, I was tasked with looking into
places that the ECD co-design group could practice observing gamers in their
natural environment, as well as compiling a list of non-academic resources
members could use to supplement their general knowledge of gaming culture.



The following list refers to several locations within the DFW complex that offer gamers and those interested in learning more about Esports a site to gather at and to take part in the experience there.



<ul><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ggezgamingcafe">EZ Gaming Café </a><ul><li>Vibe: minimalistic; snacks and drinks offered from deep freezer, metal shelves<ul><li>Hosts local tournaments</li></ul><ul><li>Offers PC gaming and consoles (Nintendo Switch, PS4)</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>



<ul><li><a href="http://nerdvanafrisco.com/">Nerdvana</a><ul><li>Vibe: “Games with your coffee” kind of place; café/bar first, with games you can play while eating/drinking<ul><li>Café and board games</li></ul><ul><li>Bar and videogames</li></ul><ul><li>Free to play with minimum $10/person purchase</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>



<ul><li><a href="https://geekletes.gg/">Geekletes</a> <ul><li>Vibe: grassroots Esports competitions that serves as a training ground for aspiring gamers<ul><li>Host local tournaments</li></ul><ul><li>Provide courses on how to navigate and excel in the industry</li></ul><ul><li>Recruiting and exposure</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>



<ul><li><a href="http://javagamingcafe.com/">Java Gaming Café</a> <ul><li>Vibe: minimalistic but luxurious<ul><li>Serves drinks to players at their PCs</li><li>Two floors</li><li>Hosts local tournaments</li><li>Offers PC gaming and consoles (PS4, Wii U, Xbox One)</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>



<ul><li><a href="https://playlivenation.com/">PLAYlive Nation at Stonebriar Centre</a><ul><li>Vibe: social gaming
lounge housed in Frisco, powered by Simplicity Esports (merged); high-tech
aesthetic (blue neon lights, generally dark, leather seating)<ul><li>Specializes in Xbox One and popular table games (e.g., Magic the
Gathering)</li></ul><ul><li>Offers VR gaming</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>



<ul><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/AK.PCCAFE/">AK PC Gaming Café</a><ul><li>Vibe: similar look to an
office building; identifies as an Internet café<ul><li>PC gaming, web browsing, workstation</li></ul><ul><li>Offers food and drinks (snacks, soft drinks, coffee, fries)</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>



<ul><li><a href="https://esportsstadium.gg/gaming-center/">Esports Stadium Arlington Gaming Center</a><ul><li>Vibe: largest dedicated
Esports facility in North America<ul><li>Offers PC gaming and consoles (PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One)<ul><li>Must bring your own controllers and headsets, or rent some from
them</li></ul></li></ul><ul><li>Hosts local tournaments</li></ul><ul><li>Offers food, drinks, and merchandise</li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>







However, simply being aware of the existence of these places may prove to be insufficient in supplementing our comprehension of gaming culture even if we were to visit. In order to effectively supplement our collective knowledge on Esports and gaming in general, I also put together a list of non-academic resources that are easily accessible and may explain cultural concepts in a simpler fashion. This list includes apps, attractions, and movies to gain a better understanding of Esports’ evolution.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright is-resized"><img src="https://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/02/image-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3514" width="66" height="66" /></figure></div>



<ul><li><a href="https://www.webtoons.com/en/action/no-scope/list?title_no=1572">WEBTOON: No Scope by ZOYANG</a><ul><li>A webcomic about a fictional Esports game called PSI BOND and high school players attempting to become pro players</li></ul><ul><li>Gives insight into player housing, recruiting, team building, basic aspects of Esports, women in Esports, Esports in Korea</li></ul></li></ul>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright is-resized"><img src="https://dev.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/02/image-2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-3515" width="58" height="62" /></figure></div>



<ul><li><a href="https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/letsplay/list?title_no=1218">WEBTOON: Let’s Play by Mongie</a><ul><li>A webcomic about a game developer whose game is given a bad review by an Internet celebrity (“lets-player”).</li></ul><ul><li>Gives insight into different types of games and gamers, impact of a gaming-centered career on mental and physical health, skills necessary to excel in a gaming-centered career (mainly game development)</li></ul></li></ul>







<ul><li><a href="http://www.nvmusa.org/">National Videogame Museum</a><ul><li>Provides history of gaming and the industry as well as interactive
exhibits</li></ul></li></ul>







<ul><li>BBC documentary: The Supergamers/Rise of the Supergamer<ul><li>Looks into the lives of select teams and players as they train, live together, and learn to play together, striving for the common goal of making it big as a cyberathlete</li></ul></li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF52roUWkFM
</div><figcaption>Preview</figcaption></figure>







<ul><li>Netflix documentary: League of Legends Origins<ul><li>Details the rise of the popular MMOBA game League of Legends, its start as a free demo to an Esport game</li></ul></li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_59wZ27ROE
</div><figcaption>Trailer</figcaption></figure>







If you or someone you know enjoys
visiting any of the aforementioned gaming points or is aware of more
non-academic resources that can help explain gaming culture, please feel free
to contact the Esports Co-Design Group Project Manager, Lauren Bernal, at
Lauren.Bernal@UTDallas.edu.

Local Esports Gaming Hubs!

This Esport Player Development project launched by the University of Texas at Dallas’ ArtSciLab aims to contribute to design one of the first new sports of the 21 st century.

Esport Player Development

cyberathelete logo_LB Edited

This E-Sport Cyberathlete Development project launched by the University of Texas at Dallas’ ArtSciLab aims to contribute to design one of the first new sports of the 21 st  century.

Jacob is an undergraduate student at the school of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communications at UT Dallas with a focus on product + graphic design and emerging technology.

Jacobs interest in product design flourished in high school when he founded a longboard company with his twin brother. The twin pair designed and built custom longboards out of their garage for over 3 years. Over these years Jacob designed everything from the production pipeline to the website.

Currently, Jacob works for the lab as the international ambassador in Europe. In pursuit of his research goal Jacob travels Europe to meet with collaborators, attend events, and create new connections. He is the first official lab ambassador and hopes to pave the way for future international work with his program "ArtSci Abroad".

Jacob Hunwick

Ritwik Kaikini is a sound designer, musician and artist studying Arts and Technology at University of Texas at Dallas. After graduating with a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from BMS College of Engineering in India , he completed the Film Appreciation Course at FTII (Film and Television Institute of India). While working in radio advertising at Shankh Studios, Mumbai, India (Lingo India Pvt Ltd), his interests eventually coalesced into the multidisciplinary world of cinema, arts and sciences. He is presently involved in music, sound design, film, art-science, phenomenology and philosophy of sound. Presently, he works as an Art-Science Communicator for ArtSciLab and a Producer for Creative Disturbance, a multi-lingual podcast initiative for the arts and sciences hosted by the ArtSciLab at The University of Texas at Dallas. He is also an active proponent of sound art practice at LabSynthE, under the direction of Dr. Frank Dufour and Xtine Burrough. LabSynthE is a laboratory of experimental attention combining new media, sound art and poetry.

Ritwik Kaikini

Christina Mai

G. Mauricio Mejía

February 2020, the University of Texas at Dallas&nbsp;ArtSciLab&nbsp;appoints Jacob Hunwick as Lab Ambassador for the duration of his study abroad program in Germany. He starts at Phillips University Marburg on February the 18th and finishes on June the 12th. In addition, lab director Roger Malina appoints Jacob as an intern representative for the Leonardo Journal in Europe.&nbsp;



Jacob will work to research, discover and document exemplars of art-science and well-being. Through his studies in ATEC at UT Dallas, Jacob has found a passion for technologies that prioritize the preservation and promotion of healthy habits and lifestyles.&nbsp;



Through his weekly blog posts, he will report on interviews, events, and interactions with new organizations and people related to technologies that prioritize human health.&nbsp;



The following is a summary of his research interests that he will pursue and write about in his weekly blog.



<h2>Research Goal for Lab Ambassador Position</h2>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-default">Ideally, interaction designers want interfaces designed for everyday use to develop into healthy habits. Unfortunately, screen-based interfaces and modern city infrastructure trends promote sedentary habits.&nbsp;&nbsp;Infinitely scrolling pages and endless content tunnels enable users to over-dose on screen-time. Common use of screens for education, entertainment, and leisure time encourage people to abandon physical activity. And lastly, American city infrastructures discourage walking with a hyper focus on the automobile.&nbsp;Through my research, I seek interfaces with modern technology that improve human well-being. I seek infrastructure that empowers us to&nbsp;rely on our legs, not motors, to travel and navigate urban environments. I seek products that involve motion and break through the 2-dimensional touch screen barrier. I seek educational tools that encourage children to learn through active motion and participation rather than passive consumption.&nbsp;&nbsp;Trough the theories of embodied cognition, designers know that external objects can influence our cognitive processes. Now, the field of interaction design has realized the power that designed objects and experiences has over how we understand the world.&nbsp;While abroad, I will search for and document exemplars of health-conscious technologies that use the theories of embodied cognition to build healthy habits.&nbsp;To those interested in my research goal contact me via email at&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="mailto:jmh170830@utdallas.edu" target="_blank">jmh170830@utdallas.edu</a>. I look forward to traveling all around Europe in pursuit of my mission.&nbsp;-Jacob Hunwick&nbsp;</blockquote>



ArtSci Abroad logo created by Jacob Hunwick.

UTD ARTSCILAB Lab Ambassador Appointed to enable ArtSci connections Abroad

Aahlad “Al” Madireddy is a Full Stack Engineer and Software Engineering Manager who works with almost all the teams in the lab to create compelling websites and software for their research projects.

Al believes in the importance of creating software that is not only functional but intuitive, beautiful, and compelling for the user. He believes that the point of contact between the user and the software, whether it be a website or a command line interface, is one of the most important aspects of a software product, and puts a lot of care into making it great.

He works at the ArtSciLab during the school year, and interns during the summers. He has interned at Toyota Connected and the New York Times, and plans to continue that exploration of software, technology, and design after college. He currently works with technologies such as React, Node.js, Go, PHP, and Python in his projects, and plans to learn and explore more. In addition to being a software engineer, Al is also a photographer and calligrapher in his free time.

Al is currently pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science as a National Merit Scholar from the University of Texas at Dallas, planning on graduating in 2021.

Al Madireddy

Cassini Nazir is a designer of conversations, curriculum, and interfaces. He is a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at UT Dallas where he teaches classes in interaction design. He is also Director of Design and Research for the ArtSciLab, a transdisciplinary research lab helping the arts, science, and technology communities by pursuing initiatives of societal urgency and cultural timeliness.

Cassini Nazir

My work focuses on designing and developing platforms for experimental publishing.

Joel Ewing

I recently graduated from The University of Texas at Dallas specializing in Arts and Technology(ATEC) with a keen interest in UI/UX design, information architecture, graphic design, product design, and photography. I currently work as a UI/UX designer at the ArtSciLab (artscilab.utdallas.edu) at The University of Texas at Dallas. I was in charge of designing and improving the user interface and user experience on the ARTECA (arteca.mit.edu) platform in collaboration with MIT Press &amp; Leonardo Journal. In addition, in my master thesis project, I designed an application, ArtSide (kuoweilee.com/artside), enhancing the connection between cities and citizenship, that demonstrates my knowledge about interaction design, user experience, and information architecture.

Kuo-Wei Lee

Yusra Khan

<h1 style="text-align: center">Arteca</h1>
ARTECA is a digital space that supports scholarly materials that explore the intersection of arts, humanities, science, and technology. The portal serves as a virtual art-science community resource and critical content provider for scholarly and experimental publications, including gray literature.

The project is a collaboration of The MIT Press, Leonardo/ISAST, and the ArtSciLab at UT Dallas.

ARTECA acts as a valuable hub for academic librarians and researchers, and aids in raising the art, humanities, science, and technology community’s visibility when other monodisciplines have already established such services.

ARTECA

ARTECA is a digital space that supports scholarly materials that explore the intersection of arts, humanities, science, and technology. The portal serves as a virtual art-science community resource and critical content provider for scholarly and experimental publications, including gray literature.

Veronica Liu

A collection of multidisciplinary exemplars of science, engineering, art, design, and humanities.

The SEAD Exemplars exhibit will comprises a collection of exemplar works demonstrating effective intersections among the sciences and engineering with art, design, and the humanities. The works represent international diversity as well as diversity of practices and disciplines. The sections of the exhibit reflect the different purposes and impact of the exemplars:
<ul>
 	<li>Pioneering: Individuals and groups whose careers have transcended disciplines and paradigms.</li>
 	<li>Exploring: Projects that have pushed the boundaries of both arts and sciences.</li>
 	<li>Bridging: Projects that seamlessly connect and merge the arts and the sciences.</li>
 	<li>Engaging: Projects that seek to express and communicate to the public at large.</li>
 	<li>Questioning: Projects that ponder about the implications of arts and sciences themselves.</li>
 	<li>Educating: Projects meant to both teach and encourage learning.</li>
 	<li>Innovating: Projects that led to discoveries and inventions.</li>
</ul>

SEAD Exemplars

A collection of multidisciplinary exemplars of science, engineering, art, design, and humanities.

Director

roger-malina

The CDASH (Curriculum Development in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities) website was established in 2012 by Kathryn Evans and Roger Malina as both a resource for faculty who engaged in or were interested in engaging in art-science-humanities curriculum; and as a data collection point where these types of curriculum could be surveyed for innovation and sustainability. Our new site will include graduate, undergraduate, primary/secondary and informal curriculum.

Our new website allows you to easily enter your course and all the relevant details. Please log in or register before you submit your course. You may also access the other areas of the site. Those who submit syllabi will be admitted to the Cloud Curriculum, where you can download other syllabi and resources.

For more information, contact <a href="mailto:cdash@utdallas.edu">cdash@utdallas.edu</a>.

CDASH

Researcher

Frank-Headshot

Alumna

JoaoSilveira

Research Collaborator

__mmejia__

International Lab Ambassador

profile-img-lrg

Creative Disturbance is an international and multilingual podcast platform that facilitates collaboration between individuals in art, science, and technology communities. It was created in 2014 by the ArtSciLab of the School of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication of UT Dallas, with the support of The MIT Press and Leonardo/ISAST. It is primarily run by UT Dallas students, with oversight and assistance from faculty.

Creative Disturbance has been made possible thanks to the success of a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign and the generous contribution of donors. On December 8, 2014,133 backers pledged $21,511 to keep Creative Disturbance running. The podcasts are since then recorded and produced by individuals who have an interest in art, science, design, education or technology. As promised during the campaign, the funding generated through this initiative has served to award international grants to students and young professionals across the world (Canada, China, Columbia, Egypt, Kenya, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, and Turkey so far). In return, the students have created a series of podcasts of their interests.

After four years of activity, Creative Disturbance has covered a wide range of topics such as the advancements of generative art and virtual reality, the ethics and aesthetics of artificial life art, the field of sonification, the meaning of Persian sculpture and mythology, the aesthetics of Chinese contemporary new media art, the dynamics of African diasporas and the Afrofuturist movement, the evolution of digital art in Latin America, the emergence of interactive architecture and synthetic biology, the impact of climate change in environmental art, the story of women engineering, the relationships between gender and economics, technology, race, and sexuality, etc. Today, more than 40 channels have been created by a network of local and international collaborators in the fields of art, science and technology. Creative Disturbance is 480 podcasts published in 16 languages listened in more than 145 countries for a total of 94,408 downloads. We intend to continue this effort by promoting multilinguism, transdisciplinarity and experimentation in the next phases of our development.

Creative Disturbance

Alumnus

<h2>Listening to Bioluminescent Bacteria</h2>
<h6>by Ritwik Kaikini</h6>
Ritwik Kaikini (MA’ 18) and Brian Merlo (BE’ 19) presented one of the iterations of the project, which is now leading its research pathway into diagnosing a bacteria’s life cycle phase just by listening, instead of seeing. During the presentation, Ritwik explained that Woody Hastings—who was one of the founding fathers of the field of circadian biology—during his experiments with bacteria Aliivibrio Fischeri and Vibrio Harveyi, concluded that these bioluminescent bacteria “made light only when they had high cell density, they made no light when there was low cell density.” Pursuing research to determine why this happens, Dr. Bonnie Bassler, a molecular biologist, discovered that the time of light generation and the phenomenon of bioluminescence is closely related to genes. She explained the concept of quorum sensing, where each bacterium votes based on their nutrient availability and depending on the votes, these bacteria decide to manifest genes into certain forms of behaviors like bioluminescence, virulence or bio-film formation.
(Listen to Dr. Bassler’s talk on quorum sensing here: <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=saWSxLU0ME8">youtube.com/watch?v=saWSxLU0ME8</a>)

&nbsp;

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amUgaVZ3cjY[/embed]
<h6>Students in the ArtSciLab presented Micro Lux Chants, a collaborative project from the lab, at the 2018 Research Art and Writing (RAW) conference held by the Department of Arts and Humanities. The panel was chaired by Dr. Sabrina Starnaman, a clinical assistant professor teaching history, philosophy and literature at the department of Arts and Humanities.</h6>
<h3>Ideation</h3>
Brian explained that Dr. Jeremiah Gassensmith had approached the ArtSciLab, initially in the interest of understanding what phase of the life cycle, the bioluminescent bacteria (Aliivibrio Fischeri) is in, by listening instead of visualizing the growth. Every bacterial cycle has four phases, namely: lag, log, stationary and death phase. The goal of the second phase of the project was to ‘sonify’ the rate of change of the population growth of bacteria. Sonification is the process of translating any data change into sound outputs for the user to be able to understand and absorb information just by listening.
<h3>Auditory perception in everyday life</h3>
Humans use auditory perception in everyday life.
Brian went on to explain one such example: “Imagine yourself searching for water inside a dense forest during a hike. When we try to navigate or search for running water, we listen for the sound of water. This sound is built so strongly in our memory, that we know it is the sound of running water somewhere in the distance. As we walk closer to the river, the sound begins to change and evolve in terms of its frequency, amplitude or pitch”. We are able to locate the source of water using just our ears. Similarly, we can study or identify stages in a phenomenon having data changes using our ears.
<h3>Data Capture and Patch construction</h3>
The team conducted iterations of time lapse photography of the bioluminescent bacterial growth from August to December 2017. The bacteria were observed over a life cycle period of 5-6 days, and images were captured every 5 minutes. These images were compressed to form time-lapse videos which were roughly 1-minute long.
In January 2018, the team wrote a patch (a block of visual code) to demonstrate the concept of ‘listening to a rate of change’. The visual time lapse video footage of the bacteria is fed into this patch, which converts it into a binary footage (only black and white). The blue bioluminescent spots are converted to black spots on a white canvas. This helps us determine the number of blobs of bacterial colonies and their degree of growth over a period of 5-6 days.

[caption id="attachment_2758" align="aligncenter" width="300"]<img class="wp-image-2758 size-medium" src="https://artscilab.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/07/Ritwik1-300x168.png" alt="" width="300" height="168" /> Figure 1 A block of written code (patch) in MAX/msp[/caption]
<h3>Metaphor of the Maraca</h3>
Brian came up with the idea of using the maraca, a traditional instrument filled with pebbles and used as a shaker or a rattle. Each bacterium can be treated as a pebble inside the maraca and as the bacteria grew in number, so did the intensity of the rattling of these pebbles inside the maraca. Ritwik also explained that we could treat each bacterium as a coffee bean inside an empty coke can and shake the can. Once the bacteria grew in number, then number of coffee beans inside grew and the sound changed.

[caption id="attachment_2759" align="aligncenter" width="186"]<img class="wp-image-2759 size-full" src="https://artscilab.atec.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/07/Ritwik2.png" alt="" width="186" height="186" /> Figure 2 Maraca, a musical instrument (commonly known as shakers)[/caption]
<h3>Q&amp;A</h3>
Q&amp;A Video Link:  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLWJLDoj-Rk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLWJLDoj-Rk</a>
The audience listened to this ‘sonification’ and we had a variety of reactions from different people. A biology student asked how this project can lead into cancer research. Ritwik explained that these bacteria are like indicators of health within various regions of the body. Bioluminescent bacteria can indicate whether the regions of our body have been attacked by cancer cells or not, depending on their characteristic of giving out light. If they give out light, the region is healthy, if the light dies out the region is infested with cancer cells. He gave the analogy of the colonies of bacteria being like an army or a civilization that lives managing nutrients for the entire colony. Once the civilization is thriving in a healthy condition with sufficient nutrients, they are able to make light. At this point, Roger Malina and Sabrina Starnaman brought up the point of the anthropocentric nature of explaining concepts in science and how it sometimes makes the concept more familiar to understand, though ethically debatable. Another member of the audience also pointed that the sounds reminded him of the lost musical genre of ‘blip-hop’.

The presentation ended with a holistic discussion of how the field of art-science is evolving and reaching a realm where art informs science through its experimental unorthodox ways and science informs art through its own disciplined methods. In the process of striking the equilibrium between the two fields, there’s a vast array of research areas to be explored and new innovative solutions to be found.

Chanting the Change

IMG_3626-1-180x180

MicroLux Chants

ambassador

learning

phenomenology

Managing Editor

chaz-lily-300x300

art-science

artscience

machine listening

Kathryn Evans, Ph.D., is a singer, conductor, director, producer and researcher in arts and science. Dr. Evans was the Associate Dean for the Arts of the School of Arts and Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas from 1995 to 2010. Dr. Evans holds M. A. degrees in Mathematics and in Music and a Ph.D. in Art and Technology, with an emphasis on arts education in the 21st century. She is a member of the Art-Sci Lab in the School of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication, under the direction of Dr. Roger Malina, conducting research in music and science education. Her doctoral dissertation “ Does musical study enhance academic skills in undergraduate non-music majors?” studied skills transfer for music study to academic skills in STEM subjects. Her current project CDASH (Curriculum Development in Arts, Science and Humanities) explores the current state of cross-disciplinary curriculum at the college and high school level. She is currently developing curriculum for a music and science minor at UT Dallas, including her course “Music, Science and Technology” which will serve as the core course for the minor.

Kathryn Evans

Yvan Tina is the Deputy Co-Director of Performative Research of the ArtSciLab and a PhD candidate at the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at UT Dallas. Yvan holds a PhD in performance studies from Aix-Marseille University, in France. His dissertation focuses on the notion of theatrically and how it is affected by the use of artificial life in performance art and installation. Additionally, he is in charge of developing the Virtual Africa platform which seek to promote the encounters between the arts and the technosciences in Africa and within the African diaspora.

Yvan Tina

This web site is the web companion of the Leonardo e-book Meta-Life: Biotechnologies, Synthetic Biology, ALife and the Arts (MIT Press, 2014). It aims at documenting and promoting the key works and concepts of the arts of artificial life. Each section has been conceived to provide the reader with a maximum resources about the topics discussed in the book. Feel free to propose new material and email Yvan Tina at yvantina@gmail.com.

With biotechnologies, synthetic biology and Artificial Life, artists have opened new avenues in the artworld, going from still to autonomous objects to living creatures, exploring the thin border between animate and inanimate, confronting the grown, the evolved, the born and the built, raising aesthetic but also social, political and ethical issues. In this ground breaking collection, the editors have commission new original essays by key figures in these fields and collected document the ideas and practice of artists involved in these areas as well as theoreticians and historians.

Chapters include: Between Bio, Silico and Synthetic: Of Life and Arts; Artificial Life and the Arts; Bioart; Bio-Fiction, Design, Architecture; DIY Biology-Biohacking (see below for full Table of Contents). An exo-life may not come from outer space hitting the Earth riding a meteorite but very well from the lab, designed by a scientist — unless it is an artist— weaving biology and computing in a petri dish or a bioreactor as a vessel.

Meta Life Web Companion

Ayen Kuol works in the Art Sci Lab as Artist in Residence and coordinator to the Physics department. She holds a bachelor of Science in Physics and Interdisciplinary studies from the Florida International University. Her current interests lie in experimentation of multimodal ways to present scientific knowledge in intimacy to human perception.

Connecting Arts and Sciences

News and Events

The Importance of User Design in Games for Health

Digital Emotes

Helping Comets in Times of COVID19

Cybersecurity in the Times of Pandemic

Frank Dufour joins the ArtSciLab as a Researcher

There Is An App For That!

Connecting Arts and Sciences

News and Events

The Importance of User Design in Games for Health

Digital Emotes

Helping Comets in Times of COVID19

Cybersecurity in the Times of Pandemic

Frank Dufour joins the ArtSciLab as a Researcher

There Is An App For That!

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