Under the AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellowship scheme at the pervasive media studio, Constance Fleuriot and Jon Dovey are developing DCRC research into how we describe and define both the language and value of pervasive media. We are running a series of discussion sessions involving studio residents that will provide feedback on their practice and be of use to the community developing around the Pervasive Media Studio.

 

At the end of April we held the first of many planned KTF workshops, which we will be holding regularly over the course of the two years of the KTF scheme.

 

The workshop model was developed during Mobile Bristol, when we began developing a descriptive language for mobile media. Those workshops generated a set of very useful design dimensions for mobile media practitioners; a series of questions to inform the design process, which became an integral part of the experience design guidelines for creative producers of mscapes.

 

It is hoped that this new set of KTF workshops at the DCRC will, similarly, generate useful and interesting set of questions for pervasive media practitioners to use when planning and developing projects. The ktf workshops will explore language and value of pervasive media, not only how people describe and define them, but how people feel and respond to pervasive media experiences, and whether they value them enough to pay for them.

 

The wider framework of the KTF work will also examine the income streams and business models of PMStudio residents.

 

The method that we use is:

experience/describe/reflect

 

Workshops start with all participants being expected to 'experience' the project that will be discussed. They are then asked to describe it in a way that would be understandable by a general audience, for example, to write an advert for a listings magazine.

These descriptions are shared and then discussed. Discussion is audio recorded for later analysis and feedback to the next workshop session. When the participants attend a series of workshops, common threads develop.


The April 2010 workshop started with a presentation of the krstl project by Tim Kindberg of Matter 2 Media.

After Tim's demonstration of Krstl, participants were asked to

- describe it for an 'end user' or audience

- write a pitch to sell Krstl to people who might want to use the product for commercial purposes.

The themes emerging from the discussion will be fed back to participants at the subsequent workshops and published in due course. Language & Value workshop 2 is planned for Wednesday 26th May. 

ffi: contact constance.fleuriot@uwe.ac.uk