Jennifer G. Sheridan PhD
Jan
08
Big news in the newest year! My company BigDog Interactive Ltd. is now open for business in London, UK. We're located in the heart of the city around Old Street tube station so drop us an email if you want to find out more. I've also accepted a large contract with the London Knowledge Lab in Bloomsbury, London. I'll be working with Dr. Sara Price and Dr. George Roussos on the project titled "Designing Tangibles for Learning". Finally, the Hoverflies project went down swimmingly (or should I say 'swingingly') well in Leeds in December 2007. I'll post pix and info soon.
About Me
People call me Jenn and describe me as an Interaction Designer/Developer with expertise in HCI. My interest is in the intersection of Computing, Human-Computer Interaction and Live Art - or what I call Digital Live Art. I direct, design and produce interactive installations and performance events using sensors and mobile and embedded physical computing technologies to mediate ‘wittingness.’ Mediating wittingness allows people to step in or out of a live performance based on their knowledge or awareness of the performance frame. You can read more about this in the various publications available on my publications page. My PhD thesis "Digital Live Art: Mediating Wittingness in Playful Arenas" (2006) introduced the concepts of "wittingness", "tripartite interaction" (interaction between bystanders, participants and performers) and "Digital Live Art". During my thesis, I designed, developed and performed several Digital Live Art pieces including iPoi.
Current Research Interests
I have explored many areas of Human-Computer Interaction, including wearable computing, decision-support systems, tangible interaction, exertion interfaces, interaction with large-screen displays and camera phone interaction. I produce Digital Live Art which explores these areas and you'll find a list of projects on my project page.
Sciency Stuff
The recent addition of accelerometers in mobile phones and game controllers (such as the Wii) provide new ways of exploring tangible, physical and embedded computing for Digital Live Art. As I have been researching/exploring acceleration and accelerometers for the past few years (see pubications and iPoi project page, Analysis of Algorithms and the Hoverflies project page). Dr. Nick Bryan-Kinns from Queen Mary, University of London has become a key developer and we work closely on all of the acceleration projects. I am also continuing work on acceleration through "Hoverflies" which is part of the Design for the 21st Century: Emergent Objects project at the University of Leeds, led by Mick Wallis. I collaborated with Alice Bayliss (Lecturer in Theatre and Performance) from the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at Leeds for a number of years which led to futher publications and development of my iPoi project. Since then, I've further developed iPoi with Nick Bryan-Kinns and the latest version (uPoi) made its rounds at UK festivals and unanticipated performance spaces in 2007.
Bringing It All Together
One of the most important and rewarding research outputs is my involvement in the (re)Actor conference series. (re)Actor is an international conference on Digital Live Art which I began in 2006. Now in its second year, the conference is quickly becoming a recognised forum for exploring Digital Live Art.
Acknowledgements
My thesis was supervised by Professor Alan Dix, Dr. Gerd Kortuem and Dr. Jen Allanson, and was partially funded the EPSRC Equator Initiative. The local (Lancaster) Equator pages say some nice things about me here or read more about the Equator initiative led by Tom Rodden, here.
I also have to thank Professor Ian Sommerville for encouraging me to work under the supervision of Jen Allanson.
