Posted on

Well Rounded

Leslie E Ruckman

Well Rounded is a concept for a digital giving-app that makes funding positive social, political, or environmental projects part of daily life.

https://itp.nyu.edu/thesis2017/project/ler377

Description

I’m working on a mobile donation-app that engages users in funding positive impact in causes they care about. Well Rounded “rounds-up” to the nearest dollar every time a purchase is made through the user's corresponding account. Change is collected, and donated to vetted organizations representing causes selected by the user.

Classes

Thesis

Posted on

The Ticket

Pearl Basinski

This is a non-linear interactive video where one event destroys or re-constructs friendship depending on choices the user makes.

http://stevenraysimon.com/itp/nonlinearVideo.html

Description

“The Ticket” is a short film which incorporates interactivity to make the user empathize more with the protagonist. The choices the user makes affects the outcome of the video. The framework behind the videos is structured in a way that scores the choices the user makes. While this process is not displayed to the user, one choice will result in the adding or subtracting of points. These points determine the film’s ending. Unbeknownst to the user, the final interaction leads into a unique ending depending upon the user’s score. Each of the choices affects the development of the film, but flow seamlessly together, allowing the user to stay immersed in the narrative. A “callback” to a choice made earlier on in the story manifests towards the conclusion, reminding the user of the agency they have over plot developments.
Three friends buy a lottery ticket together as a weekly tradition. This week, they win. The problem is, one doesn't want to share. The user chooses how he decides to act around the other two friends. The interactions are designed such that when the protagonist acts consistently selfishly — trying to hide the truth and keep the money — the decisions will tally up, resulting in the less desirable of the endings: He loses the money and his two closest friends. If the user chooses to act less selfishly, these choices will add up and present the viewer with the more heartwarming ending, where the protagonist retains his friendships. There are multiple points of interaction that create unique storylines at each viewing.

Classes

Storytelling with Non-Linear Video

Posted on

A Ritual that last Forever

Fengyi Franklin Zhu

This project is an attempt to use technology to reinterpret the traditional dragon dance practice in the form of a kinetic sculpture.<br />

fengyizhu.com

Description

From the calculator to the computer, mobile devices to the Internet, advances in technology are creating monumental changes in our lives and in turn in the way religion is practiced. In many ways, our dependence on technology is beginning to replace the need for traditional religion and the practice of going to traditional houses of worship.

For my thesis project, I wanted to explore this phenomenon. I selected the dragon dance as the form of traditional worship to work with because I am familiar with it through my personal cultural background. The dragon dance is traditionally performed in a serious manner, like a ritual in which people worship the dragon for its fictional power over the sea and the sky. By making the dragon dance, worshippers symbolically wish that the dragon will protect them from drought and bless them with sufficient water for their crops. Today, we still perform the dragon dance, but more for the purpose of celebration. Now we count on technology and machines to save us from drought and bring us rain. This transformation intrigues me. It seems as though we are losing the dragon.

“A Ritual that Lasts Forever” is a metaphor in the form of a kinetic dragon sculpture, with allegorical power to tell the story of humanity’s relationship with traditional religious worship and technology, a story of the now and a prediction of the future. The piece features 11 robotic arms that control 10 segments of a long, acrylic dragon suspended below them, as well as a ball that the dragon is chasing. With a customized algorithm, the team of 11 robotic arms move the dragon form suspended below to perform the dragon dance endlessly. In this way, the dragon is back again, aided by the very thing that has been taking the dragon away.

Yesterday’s people would have a hard time understanding today’s narrative, and likewise, we will find it difficult to construe the narratives of the future. As time moves on, traditional practices are replaced by those more modern. This is because technology, as an integral part of our knowledge, is continuously changing and correspondingly accelerating the changes within us. It is an endless interplay of entanglement and containment between humans and their technology: they both take advantage of each other and progress with each other.

Classes

Thesis

Posted on

Sound Objects

Or Fleisher, Scott Reitherman

A sonic VR experience allowing players to orchestrate a musical soundscape thru interactions with dynamic objects and playful physics.

http://orfleisher.com/portfolio-item/sound-objects/

Description

My partner Or Fleisher and I have populated a desert landscape with variously shaped bounceable objects where each object is tied to an array of ambient music sounds. Related sonic clusters of sound which span the eq spectrum are grouped and tied to objects, and the sounds are triggered as their corresponding object bounces on the ground. By bouncing the object harder it travels higher, effectively stretching the cycle length of each array’s loop. And as each object pulls randomly from an array of note values, unpredictable melodies and combinations of harmonious sounds unfold and play out as the user travels around the desert tending to their dynamic soundscape in motion.

Classes

Project Development Studio, Interactive Music

Posted on

Greenly

Jessica L Scott-Dutcher

Greenly is a webapp to get New Yorkers into the outdoors

Description

Greenly is a web app that helps New Yorkers discover the green space around them. Greenly has suggested hikes in and around the city, short trail skills tips, and text alerts that let people know when it’s going to be nice out.

Greenly is a valuable tool for New Yorkers looking to know more about how they can get into the outdoors. Spending time in natural settings can help connect you to the history of the place you are in, both in terms of the short term human history of the place and the longer geologic history. To truly know yourself, you must go exploring.

Classes

Thesis

Posted on

Let Go Machine

Fan-Hao Tseng

Let Go Machine is an interactive installation that can liberate people from the negativity of regret.

https://vimeo.com/217017107

Description

Let Go Machine is an interactive installation that provides a guided meditation experience for people who suffer from memories of regret. The participant will experience a mindful meditation practice through deep breathing, intuitive drawing, an embodied cognition exercise, and finally release the negativity of regret.

Classes

Thesis

Posted on

Subdex.org

Kenzo Nakamura

Subdex is a crowd-sourced reading list platform.

https://www.subdex.org

Description

Subdex.org is an online reading list platform.

Similar to Wikipedia, the website is characterized by pages dedicated to subjects.

Instead of written content by the crowd,
Subdex has links to media that relate to that content.

These links are up-voted by the crowd.

The best media (articles, books, videos) that relate to that subject will rise to the top,

creating an excellent reading list from which you can begin your studies.

Classes

Networked Media

Posted on

Reactions

Roi Lev, Sharif Al-hadidi

Reactions explores our physical reality by changing the way physical objects react to our touch.

http://sharifhadidi.tumblr.com/post/160451386813/nothing-in-space-an-illusion-of-reaction-to-our

Description

In a world where our new technologies have the name “reality” in them, it seems as we are trying to tweak and change the reality we live in. Using image recognition technologies, Reactions explores the way surface react to our touch.

A floating frame with transparent acrylic is hanged from the ceiling. From above, a camera is detecting the user's touch of the surface. On the floor, a projector is projecting a grid on the surface. The users can use their hands to create ripples on the grid and making sounds.

Classes

Nothing: Creating Illusions, The World, Pixel By Pixel

Posted on

Wilde Eastern VR

Chris Hall

Wilde Eastern is a film noir, cinematic virtual reality experience. Depending on how observant you are in a missing person's case, you may get a different ending from your counterparts

http://wildeeasternvr.com/

Description

This project is a interdepartmental collaboration between both the Graduate Film Department and the Graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. As such there is a partnership made between two students from each department as co-creators of the story. Additionally, they will fulfill their specific roles in the project in accordance with their perspective disciplines. We are also excited to include several high level industry professionals as creative partners. Thus this project is representation of the collaborative process and experimental nature of technology and storytelling.

Classes

Directing Virtual Reality, Directing Virtual Reality

Posted on

Simulacra

Baris Siniksaran, Chang Gao, Michael Kripchak, Roi Lev

Simulacra is a mixed reality Sci-fi experience about the tension between the virtual and the physical worlds.

simulacra.roilev.com

Description

Simulacra is a mixed reality sci-fi experience about the tension between the virtual and the physical worlds. The experience takes place in a futuristic apartment where the visitor follows an introduction tutorial to the OS of the future. The OS takes the visitors on a tour presenting and encouraging them to interact with the main features of the system. The environment consists of 3 centers to answer every aspect of our computers – Desktop for productivity, Pillows for communications and Picture for entertainment.

The virtual room is perfectly mapped to a physical furnished room, allowing the user to walk freely in space. By combining Vive headset with leap motion, the visitor can interact with the virtual world simply by touching the physical objects in the room. The current technologies allow us to immerse ourselves in new environments and stories rather than watching them on a 2D screen. By mixing interaction with physical objects, virtual environment and augmented reality techniques, Simulacra creates a world of representations that blurs the definitions of real and fake.

Technical Director: Michael Kripchak

Interaction Designer: Chang Gao (Chloe)

Animations: Barış Sınıksaran

Written and directed by Roi Lev.

Classes

Worlds on a Wire: Narrative Storytelling in VR