A series of works exploring the miller moth migration of 1991 in Colorado.
We Go Together is a story of instinct, travel and collisions of nature and technology. It consists of a series of works which unravel the image of the moth's attraction to light, the metaphorical meeting of minds, and the implications for understanding our own.
The pieces are generated with a custom javascript library which runs on the web.
VidCode is a website designed to ignite girls' interest in computer programming through video art. Users can choose video filters, learn how they are built in JavaScript, edit them within a responsive code editor, and then share their creations.
VidCode aims to create a conversation and a community of coders among teenage girls. The idea is to pair a medium in which they are already fluent—creating video content—with learning to program. VidCode also allows teenagers to be social as they learn about code: to take videos of their life, edit code with friends, and share information with each other. In my research I found that girls' interest in CS increases when they can pair programming with self expression. The experience begins by creating a video, uploading it to the site, then editing it by scrubbing values, mixing and matching filters such as "grain" or "blur". In the future, advanced video programming tracks will be available in algorithmic art, motion, and storytelling.
A multi-user musical interface and physical audio visualizer. Users interact with multiple controllers to create soundscapes and realtime physical visuals.
Kinetisynth is part musical interface, part physical parametric display. Participants use various controllers and sensors to make music together and simultaneously control a real-time physical visualization of that music. It uses analog circuitry and MIDI to generate soundscapes while simultaneously analyzing and quantifying audio signals to create a real time mechanical frequency spectrum that reflects the soundscape.
A smart remote scheduling device for setting daily reminders to make life more comfortable for people living at home with early-stage Alzheimer's.
There is no cure for Alzheimer's, and most available devices that aim at making daily tasks easier are intrusive for the daily routine and a constant reminder of the disease the person lives with. 'The Art of Living' seamlessly integrates this technology into people's everyday lives. Family caregivers can set up reminders through the web and upload images and sounds that, in line with recent medical research, can subconsciously trigger memories and thus enable the person to remember things on there own (e.g. make a phone call), leaving them feeling empowered and independent. Environmental sensors in the home tell the system if the reminders have been completed and otherwise trigger a more proactive prompting should this not be the case.
Fictioning, or the Confession of the Librarian is an immersive interpretation of the Jorge Luis Borges story, "The Library of Babel" via the Oculus Rift. The experiencer will move within the tale as it unfolds and comments on itself.
Three-dimensional, physically interactive technologies such as the Oculus Rift are changing gaming and will change other forms of entertainment, including book publishing and theater. Fictioning, or the Confession of the Librarian utilizes numbers, letters, abstract shapes, lines, objects and animated text that change as the experiencer moves. Words and images derived from the text emerge. A reading of "The Library of Babel," will play over headphones, at times changing with the user's movements. Fictioning, or the Confession of the Librarian blends fiction, theater and physical interaction to offer a new art form for the the technological landscape of the future.
How do humans remain spiritually and emotionally authentic in the face of impending societal and environmental collapse? My thesis is an invitation to be alive and present. It is liberation technology.
A browser plugin that deprecates your internet experience.
A cell phone jammer that blocks signals.
A browser plugin that clarifies power structures on the internet.
A receptacle for all signals.
I find that many solutions using technology are accomplished through destruction rather than creation.
As such, one Firefox add-on slowly deprecates the internet, removing images, links and text until there is nothing left. The cellphone jammer used in the woods provides a gap in space, a place where people might eventually find something to say. The other Firefox add-on clarifies; it appends corporate sponsors to brands and politicians, providing complex information about power.
You can view my work at www.allisonburtch.net.
My thesis is a design plan and presentation for a site specific parametric sculpture that utilizes local narratives in its procedural design.
Through research, I created a comprehensive framework for site specific parametric sculpture. The framework uses parametric design and location narrative to create formal possibilities within a family of possible outcomes. This process framework was used to design a parametric sculpture for fabrication and installation in the atrium of 644 Putnam Avenue, a commercial office real estate development in Greenwich Connecticut. The design uses procedural growth algorithms and parametricly designed shapes drawn from audio spectrographs as if it had been grown from the location narrative. Fabricated utilizing Transitional Light Film, the sculpture interacts with the sun and architectural lighting to create an ever changing form and reflection.
TacTag is a fast-paced, technologically enhanced physical game. It features a more direct interaction between players than traditional videogames: players have to face each other, move and try to make or avoid physical contact between them.
It is a physical game, made possible by technology.
Each player wears two kneepads and gloves, and tries to make or avoid contact with the other based on a rock-paper-scissors mechanic.
The format is an installation-style game, to be played at exhibitions like Indiecade, or at children's museums. Its main audience is gamers. The goal of the project is to show gamers that a different type of games can be made with technology: games that don't necessarily rely on a screen, but instead involve direct contact between players, and make them move around instead of just pressing keys on a joystick.
The scope for thesis is a two player game, but rules and technology where thought to be playable by two teams of 2 or 3 players per team.
Good Care Calls is a proposal for a service that provides caring phone calls to reduce costly hospital readmissions. Volunteer callers check on the wellbeing of recently discharged patients to promote healthy behaviors and ease emotional distress.
Every year, 2.6 million Medicare recipients are readmitted to hospitals at a cost of $26 billion. Using human centered design methods, I learned about the needs of patients and care providers to design a solution for reducing readmissions.
The neediest patients are often the most underserved. An effective solution must be affordable and quickly distributable, which is why Good Care Calls only requires patients to have a phone.
Patients opt-in to Good Care Calls at discharge, and their data is shared via the hospital’s electronic health record API. Students preparing for degrees in health services gain valuable experience as volunteer callers and also act as a triage service to busy clinics, flagging issues in the patient's EHR.
I wanted to make a large assemblage of connected every day objects, but that was beyond my budget. So, first, I made my own homemade wireless microcontrollers.Then I designed an intuitive in-browser interface to connect my objects together.
My thesis is a collection of found objects turned connected, each simple on their own, but reimagined through their links. Homemade wireless microcontrollers are built for each device, done at a fraction of the cost of ordering online . A touch interface allows users to patch links between separate objects, using any browser. Combining affordable production with easy links gives way for heightened experimentation while making the internet of everything.