Team Obsurveillance

Contact Details

2011-06-03T07:52:00.000-07:00

If you would like to contact any of the Obsurveillance Team our email address' are as follows;

Blaine Rennicks: rennicks@gmail.com

Ben Ryan: benryan51@gmail.com

Baptiste Madeuf: baptiste.madeuf@gmail.com

Keith Way: keitho300@gmail.com

Obsurveillance at the Fís

2011-05-26T12:48:00.001-07:00

Dont forget that you can come and see Obsurveillance for yourself at this years Fís Exhibition in Dunalk IT.

Dundalk IT’s Fís Exhibition runs from June 1st to 3rd in the newly refurbished PJ Carrolls facility on the college campus. Admission is free and all are welcome to witness a showcase of the student’s finest multimedia, film and computer games work.

Exhibition times are as follows:
Wednesday 1st June: 18:30 - 20:30
Thursday 2nd June: 12 Noon - 21:00
Friday 3rd June: 14:00 - 19:00

2011-05-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

To learn more about the topics brought up at the Obsurveillance exhibit, such as the level of information gathering which takes place online as well as what simple steps you can take to protect your information, simply click on some of the links below:

Adjusting your privacy settings on facebook:

http://personalweb.about.com/od/makefriendsonfacebook/a/faceprivsetting.htm

The dangers of Tracking Cookies

http://www.ehow.com/list_6914475_dangers-tracking-cookies_.html

9 'Friend-Finder' apps that essentially turn your phone into a tracking device:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/finding-your-friends-via-gps-9-free-mobile-apps/

Big Brother watching you could become a reality very soon

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391081-george-orwell-big-brother-is-watching-your-house.do

What is spyware?

http://www.spychecker.com/spyware.html

Gmail's intimate targeted advertisements

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10453226-71.html

What can you do about Gmail Target Advertising?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/askjack/2009/nov/19/gmail-adverts-privacy-scanning

What is Wikileaks?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10757263

What are the dangers of Data Mining?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/technology/10pri

vacy.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5088&en=83281de60f5340aa&ex=1362801600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Article on Data Mining agency 'Double-Click'

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996366,00.html

Ghostery - Protection from spyware and information gathering.

http://www.ghostery.com/

Obsurveillance Trailer Online

2011-05-26T01:37:00.000-07:00

Check out the new trailer for Obsurveillance, just posted today.

http://vimeo.com/24257606

The Evolution of our 3D Background

2011-05-24T02:31:00.000-07:00

The interface will feature a 3D animation playing behind the video clips to give it a more floating feel. Here's a look at how the concept for this animation has evolved over the last few months:

Version 4: May 2011

Version 3

Version 2

Version 1

Working on Final Video Sequence in Motion, and General Updates

2011-05-07T04:01:00.000-07:00

Is it as complicated as it looks? Yes.

In other news, we had our Demo with all the lecturers of the department yesterday, where we had to present our progress 3 weeks ahead of the deadline. They seemed quite happy with the fact that we now have a fully functional application, with all video clips loading and unloading as needed. They also seemed impressed with the GUI and interactive hardware (we presented the video which was posted here on this blog earlier).

Most importantly for us at this stage, they seemed to be on board with our two main requests ahead of the exhibition; supplying us with a power-house Mac Pro with Flash CS5 installed, and also with our own room some distance from the centre of the exhibition. We await confirmation of either though, so stay posted.

Our 30x40 " Screen

2011-05-06T10:03:00.000-07:00

Our Prototype Interface

2011-05-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

We hope to have our interface animations completed by the 6th May (for the demo), they will each correspond to users actions. Will keep you posted! Laters

Our test Screen

2011-04-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

We have been testing over the past few days with various types of glass and we have come to a decision to go with class1 frosted glass. Here are our results; Our 40 inch glass panel will be ready on tuesday and we will post up more pictures. Until then, here are our test examples.

Messing about with Different Graphics

2011-04-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

The first version of our working app with conceptual interface

2011-04-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

A Clean Up

2011-04-25T13:38:00.001-07:00

In the spirit of Spring, we've cleaned up our Actionscript code very nicely... With a new video construct function we no longer have 43 lines of code for each of out many video feeds, so that our total code came down from 1400 lines to just under 300! Slightly more managable... We hope to have a fully functioning App ready for the end of this week. It will be a mountain to climb, but we have our hiking boots on! We will keep logging progress...

The bones of how Obsurveillance works... Flash CS5 cue points

2011-04-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

TESTING

2011-04-21T04:39:00.000-07:00

Currently getting our screen working with the wiimote, here are a few pictures of the 'testing' stages!!

More to come very soon! :D

Laters'

Bansky CCTV graffiti; done under CCTV!

2011-04-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-559547/Graffiti-artist-Banksy-pulls-audacious-stunt-date--despite-watched-CCTV.html

We are still working... Updates to follow soon!

2011-04-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

Updates

2011-03-16T04:46:00.000-07:00

Some limited progress on the hardware side... Finally figured out why all the work trying to get the kinect to work with AS3 was going nowhere; we need to be on CS5, not CS4 as have been testing on for weeks.. Frustrating to find such a core problem but it improves the chances of getting it working all the same.
Audio recording has also been delayed due to equipment issues, but we will be recording next week for sure and are using this week to record test clips to try out different effects and have a comprehensive recording list for next week.
Shooting our final video clips; those of the commander figure giving orders to the User, has also been delayed for the same reasons, but it works out well actually as now we have an extra week to review the just completed rough cut non-interactive edit of the previously shot footage from the Marshes. It looks good, but we have found plenty of holes that can be filled with our foster shoot next week. So glad we had these discoveries.
We have a meetig with the supervisor today, for which we have plenty to show; A new improved interactive application, new interface designs including 3d background animations, and the previously mentioned fixed cut of the video elements.
We will keep you updated right here.

Interaction Hardware/Programming Update

2011-03-05T15:35:00.000-08:00

Keith and I have been doing yet more research on utilizing the Kinect for our interactive exhibit, but progress is admittedly slow... It seems most of the work being done (and made available through open source libraries) by online collaborative efforts to hack the hardware has been done through C or C++, both programming languages which we have no experience of. Because the tech is so new, the SDK is only just available, and even this doesn't help us much as we are limited almost entirely to developing in Flash and AS3. The hunt is on for an easily editable library of open-source Flash files available online that work with TiuoKinect... We wont give up until we are sure they are not out there! It seems the online community, although plenty in numbers, is limited to coders and developers, and not many multimedia artists like us.
In light of the difficulties, we are continuing to look at using multitouch touch-screen interface options by publishing from Flash as an Air app. Since we have the backup of the wiiMote/IR lights touch-screen, now the mission on that side is to get this working with multiple IR lights.

General Updates - Pre-Rag Week Deadlines are on Schedule

2011-02-24T07:12:00.000-08:00

So with Rag Week around the corner, we have only a few precious days to reach our pre-Rag milestones. But big progress has been made on all fronts.
The video footage has finally all been organized and converted and is now completely ready to go through and make a plan of which takes to use. Then they go straight to compression to into the application. Casting ads go up this evening for our final shooting to take place in 2 weeks, that of our commander figure in the narrative, Foster.
We have a working prototype app with 3D backgrounds and test video clips within. And it looks sweet.
We are compiling a list of all audio to be recorded the week after Rag Week so that we will have all assets needed for the final piece with 3 weeks from now.
And finally we have reached that point of progress with the Kinect that we were hoping for: We have a basic Flash Air program working with Kinect inputs. We also discovered the possibilities in working in Air for multitouch elements, so that even if, for any reason, the Kinect was to fall through, this provides more concrete confirmation that we can utilise multitouch with the alternative interaction method: the touchscreen using wiiMotes.
All looks good...

1st Adobe AIR application

2011-02-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

Hello Again!

We are almost 100% going ahead with using Flash/ Adobe AIR as the platform for our project, reason being; it supports multi-touch functionality and we can make our .fla into an .app to run on any desktop. We are at the early stages at the moment but the AIR programme doesn't seem to be much different to Flash CS4, just publishing settings but it seems easily manageable.

***UPDATE***

Just create

d first Adobe AIR application and is available for download by public. Cannot seem to post on blog but its there anyway! Its merely just a link to our blog but getting there. Now to get the multi-touch functionality working...

We keep you posted with anymore updates.

hmmm...wonder what our project would look like as a phone app???

Flash and Adobe AIR

2011-02-21T04:00:00.000-08:00

Hey All...

While we are still experimenting with the Xbox Kinect we're not forgetting about our tactile interaction method with the wiiMote and Flash. However we have recently found out that our two finger tactile interaction may only be compatible with Adobe AIR. Moderately new software that allows flash developers to make phone applications compatible with apple and android operating systems. We have not worked with Adobe AIR so we are relatively new to the programme. However. . . .

We are in contact with a newly formed company/business, consisting of a 3d Animator, Sound Engineer, and a highly skilled programmer who have received an investment for their skills, from entrepreneurs to develop phone applications. We will hopefully be meeting up with this team later on in the week to see if they can give us a step in the right direction in regard to Adobe AIR and our application.

We will keep you guys posted of any advances with out project.

Laters...

Video Capture and Conversion...

2011-02-16T16:10:00.000-08:00

Oh I knew it was going to be a pain but but I didn't really consider the total extent... Between converting the h.264 compressed footage from the 7D and 5D to ProRes using a custom Compressor droplet and having to recapture the DV footage without timecode auto-cuts (oh and not to forget converting and de-interlacing the HDV 1080i stuff), it has been far from fun sorting our multi-cam, multi-format footage issues. But almost there now, capturing the last DV tape as I type... Now all I have to do is name and sort haha! Oh fun. At least all camera formats are converted and tested in FCP and looking good!

CCTV - a threat to freedom?

2011-02-16T10:33:00.000-08:00

Yes Because...

The House of Lords have expressed their view that privacy is an "essential prerequisite to the exercise of individual freedom". We can no longer say that we live private lives when every move is being watched by one out of the four million CCTV cameras in Britain. Our every move is being watched. Such surveillance renders our society as equivalent to a large scale big brother. Our every move can be traced and information can be gathered about our daily activities. If this information were to be misplaced, which central government seems to do frequently, then who knows what other breaches our freedoms will endure.

(1)http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/06/surveillance-freedom-peers

No Because

'Freedom of privacy' is a redundant concept. Just as a celebrity cannot claim privacy when they are out walking the streets, neither can we. We accept the high level of protection and we accept the Crown Prosecution Service help in building a case against a magnitude of criminals; just as celebrities accept the magazine deals for photos and money for high exposure. In accepting such protection, such financial reward for the celebrities, we impliedly accept the fact that hand in hand with those positive aspects of society comes the negative side of being watched.

The media have hyped up CCTV's in our society to make it seem like an Orwellian state. It is a fact that CCTV's are a huge aid in catching criminals, for example if not for CCTV's the perpetrators of 7/7 would not have been caught. This is the same for the Jamie Bulger case. New legislation is also being introduced so that the data protection act will protects people' s freedoms and liberties.

So what do you think…

Sorting and Sounds

2011-02-15T16:25:00.000-08:00

Now that we have (almost) all the footage we need, we are currently sorting all the takes so that to select the best one for each set-up.

The audio captured in the Marshes was good quality, but we still have to lip-synch one of the actors, because of the impossibility to use some of the mics we borrowed. The good think is that DKIT has everything we need to do that.

We are starting to have all the elements getting in place... All that allow us to already picture what our final project can look like, which is kind of exciting, don't you think?

Keeping our Options Open. . .

2011-02-15T15:52:00.001-08:00

Kinect VS Wii:

As you may know from our previous post we have the wiiMote hack working with flash.

We are very excited about that but we are currently ahead of schedule in relation to our interaction research and development. So... we have decided to give the xbox

kinect a go to see if we can get that working too, and if so, how well can we get it to work.

Currently, we are experimenting with various source codes on the internet. We are in plentiful supply, in terms of the software out there so we are really working hard to try and have two

forms of interaction working by the 27th of February. We have Actionscript code for flash, now it is just a

matter of breaking the code up and manipulating it our way to best suit our needs. We will update very shortly with any progress made.

Laters...

File Conversions and a 3D Background

2011-02-15T14:10:00.001-08:00

After some concern earlier today about the compatability of using animation created in 3ds max with flash we were slightly worried that we would be unable to use a 3d animation as our interface background. Im happy to say that after a little research and some file conversions it looks like any animation created in 3ds max can be used in flash, and with no loss in quality and in a small file size too. Getting closer to that ideal interface...

Interface Design

2011-02-14T05:20:00.000-08:00

The stylistic element to the movie 'Minority Report' was heavily referenced when we were pitching ideas on how we wanted our end product to look. Given the healthy progress of the interaction using motion tracking, it's important that the design of the interface doesn't let us down. While we may not have holographic technology to work with we want to our interface to appear as technologically up to date as possible. In the 'Minority Report' interface one of the key elements to its futuristic appearance is the obvious lack of a monitor, allowing the user to see the surroundings lying behind the interface. In order to try and create a similar feel to our interface we hope to create a constantly moving background to the icons and video clips. We hope that this will create an environment behind what the user sees on the screen in front of them, creating a more modern feel.

The key to a smooth shoot...

2011-02-11T06:59:00.000-08:00

Im hardly a pro DOP just yet, but I've a fair bit of experience on shoots at this stage, and I know the value of good homework. So before we headed to the Marshes with our 8 cameras myself and Baptiste did a MASSIVE amount of preproduction. It really paid off in the end because it was easily the most hassle free shoot I've been on, despite the amount of cameras, the lack of radios, and the RAIN! So I thought I'd upload just one example of how much detail we went into, other than pages and pages of storyboards and shotlists... This is what I had on my wall at home; a map of the Marshes, with sat maps printed from Google Maps for the carpark scenes, along with recce shots and a step-by-step walkthru. And ignore the crossed out €2,000,000 figure... it was just too tempting to imagine ourselves planning a heist!!

Major Script and Filming Shoot - all in 2 weeks!

2011-02-11T06:09:00.000-08:00

Wow, what a couple of weeks... So much has happened since the last posts but it was for this reason that we never got around to updating the blog! Firstly our 'Script', the single biggest submission before the finished project itself, was due on Wednesday this week. It was almost 100 pages long, and detailed every single aspect including Narrative, Interactivity, Programming, Audio, Application Design, Video Production etc etc... A massive body of work; and my thanks to the rest of the team for putting so much into it (Especially Ben who took the awful job of searching through headings looking for every small 's' and 'r'... long story!).
Secondly we had our major shoot this week, on Wednesday and Thursday, in the Marshes SC down town. We shot with no less than 8 cameras! Fantastic work, and despite many dropouts and struggles with castings, we even managed to finish a whole 9mins ahead of schedule! A big thanks go out (in no particular order) to Leah, Randal, Alan, Roger, Eamonn, Ronan, Gocky, Karl, Peter, Fin in HMV, the Marshes management, Roy for doing CSI Dundalk perfectly, Ben's bro and Keith's Dad for trusting us with their shiny cars, and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone else, for all the help during the shoot. And of course to the Obsurveillance lads, well on the way to Best in Show!

Programming and Interaction

2011-01-26T15:23:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, just a small update on the programming and interaction. Currently making great advances with the programming and are very happy with the progress.

Still researching into the interactivity side of it and what form of interactivity our exhibit will have.

At the moment gestural movement seems a great possibility and also tactile interactivity is a definite.

Below are a few links to what we are currently looking at so feels free to have a look to get a better understanding of what were talking about.

More updates soon!

Laters

Gestural Movement

Head Tracking with wiiMote

Finger Tracking with wiiMote

Multi-Touch screen projection

Project Maestro

Time to put the head down... and not up again til June!

2011-01-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

Things have been busy over the Xmas period, but unfortunately not all on the Obsurveillance front! It's time to get going again now though, and we have a new (and appropriately condensed) schedule in place to catch up.
We will be shooting in 3 weeks, and we almost have our locations finalised. Talent acquisition is in progress, and preproduction in full swing. Once we get a start on the post-prod before Rag Week we will be back on schedule in terms of the video production. Then we will be ready for the rush to Fis in getting everything working together. Don't worry the schedule also allows appropriate hangover time from Rag Week... Keep posted!

Programming

2011-01-19T09:05:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update on the programming. We are currently placing HD video footage into flash to see how much it can take basically. By this testing we can determine what compression has to be done to the footage before importing it into flash. Also by doing this we can determine what processor will be needed to run all our footage without glitches, (more than likely a powerful one). We are recreating cctv footage so the HD aspect of it is not an essential. So for the moment we are just testing, testing, testing.

Will keep you posted with any more progress!

Data Mining

2011-01-19T08:39:00.001-08:00

So what is data mining? Data mining is basically advertisers autonomously gathering information about people as they search though the web. The best definition I could find for data mining was actually on wikipedia (not a site I like relying on but how and ever). It defines data mining as "the process of extracting patterns from data. Data mining is becoming an increasingly important tool to transform this data into information. It is commonly used in a wide range of profiling practices, such as marketing, surveillance, fraud detection and scientific discovery". The main goal of advertisers who use data mining is to create a world thats like that scene in Minority Report where every time tom cruise walks by a shop it recognizes him and offers him products based on his previous purchases. So while this might look like an awesome sci-fi way of shopping it actually requires people giving personal information to unknown sources, not something we'd do happily to some randomer on the street. Anyway the article below (which isn't too long) is a good description of data mining and points out its advantages but also its obvious potential pit falls, enjoy.

http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/buffalo-news/mi_8030/is_20100716/growth-data-mining-threat-privacy/ai_n54461179/

Anyone can play detective...

2011-01-19T08:16:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine told me about this website www.spokeo.com. It basically markets itself as a kind of online phonebook so if you type in your name or email address it basically searches throught the internet to pull up any data it can find about you. Now it's an american site so typing in your name probably won't do any good, but your email address is worth a shot. When he typed his email address it pulled up some of his facebook photos (his privacy settings shouldn't allow anyone to see his photos though even on facebook). So I typed in my email address but it found nothing on me. Baptiste though typed in looking for info on a friend of his in america and it pulled up family members, phone number etc. the kind of stuff that shouldnt really be made public. Once the site pulls up information about you it then says that you can pay to find out more! Its crazy that search engines like this exist, where their sole purpose is finding out information about you. Obviously it started with great honest intentions but it can lead to your personal details ending up in the wrong hands. The main fear I have with sites like this is that this is just one we only discovered recently, how many more similar sites are online which give anybody the ability to easily determine someones personal information, without having to 'friend' them on social networking sites. Our lives are becomming more and more public and without our knowledge, scary stuff.

2010-12-02T05:20:00.000-08:00

An update on current progress;

We are taking a new line with the narrative; one that has been finalised this time! We will highlight the extent and dangers of information-gathering and people-profiling in the inline domain by creating a real-world analogy of similar tasks being carried out by a surveillance team which the user is part of.

Ben and myself are drafting up scripts at the minute and hope to have one ready at the end of the week, at which time we will post ads for auditions and begin the rest of the preproduction. Keith is flat out programming working prototype programs for the interactive application and Baptiste continues to research the extent of what THEY KNOW ABOUT US...

Things are developing quickly...

2010-11-30T11:58:00.000-08:00

Just a small update on the actionscript. We have begun the drag and dropping with movie clips. Its straight forward at the start, just have to tweek a few things on it. Were looking at coding transitions at the minute so the drag and drop function runs more fluently. Creating more of a 3d environment with all the movie clips.

We're also working on the script at the minute, in regards to the narrative. We hope to have this completed by the end of the week so we will keep you posted.

Laters

Another mood board version...

2010-11-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

This one we used in the presentation:

Presentation Success!

2010-11-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

First big Group Project day over... We had our presentation in the Dragon's Den today and I'd say it was a big success. We put alot of work into it (one of the reasons the blog has been quiet last while...), and it paid off. All the lecturers seemed to get the whole concept and were excited about the project, especially the core ideas of highlighting the issues of information leaks, media bias and the dangers of surveillance. There was some criticism regarding the narrative, but we cant win 'em all!! Overall we are delighted with the response.

We also learned later today that Glenn Doyle will be our supervisor for the year. Given his extensive knowledge in the area of media theory in particular, we look forward to working with him.

We'll keep you posted...

Updated Mood Board

2010-11-08T01:42:00.000-08:00

I updated the mood board since we did the mock presentation last Thursday. The image here on the left is the updated version of the mood board, with the original version directly below it. As per the suggestions and recommendations of the team and of the lecturers, I tried to make it appear less "Hollywood" and give it a more gritty and real appearance. To achieve this I removed a lot of the futuristic cinema stills and also included more Irish references, such as the Garda crime scene tape. I also converted all of the images to black & white so now they all have a CCTV kind of effect. Hopefully this version is a better reflection of the style we hope to achieve with the project.

2010-11-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

An other current affair in France..

To sum up the case, L'Oréal heir, Liliane Bettencourt, may have given money to Sarkozy's Party during his campaign.

And now, three newspaper's offices has been robed, and everything seems linked...

http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/271010/bettencourt-tapes-stolen-mystery-break-ins-target-mediapart-le-point-and-le-mo

Update : mediapart.fr is a french online newspaper that bet on the "pay to see" formula. You have quality information, but you have to pay 9€ per month. They already revealed some crucial information and this is why they have been robed as well.

Twitter

2010-10-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

If you are following our blog, follow on Twitter as well! Lots of interesting links that are relevant for our project are being shared through tweets from all four team members. Search 'Team Obsurveillance'.

links

2010-10-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

Hey guys got a few links below of bbc news stories.. think they could relative to our narrative..

Also they are in the news at the mo so be good to have a quick look just incase we get asked next week maybe??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7872425.stm?lsm: danger of surveillance society

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11646562 : police filmed punching 'stabbed' man

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-11650112: woman killed accidentaly by US as she was held hostage

MASSIVE Progress!

2010-10-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

Delighted to announce (as per our Tweet earlier) that today we made major progress on the narrative for our project. Nailed it in fact! It means we can really turn our focus now to the presentation in two weeks from today and start preparing straight away!

New story involves two Irish gangs, one Gardai Surveillance Unit, multiple layered surveillance feeds, multiple controversial info leaks and media cover-ups. Going to be awesome...

By sorting the new story, we also sorted a much more intuitive interactive element than previously envisioned; instead of sorting through live surveillance footage, the aim for the User is to find the truth in previously recorded footage. However the truth is never that simple...

Wikileaks Spokesman possible smear campaign

2010-10-27T23:17:00.000-07:00

I remember this case being all over the news when I was on holidays this summer. The guy the article refers to is Julian Assange, he is the main spokesman for Wikileaks and sits on its main advisory board, he is also credited as being one of the founders of the Wikileaks website. Anyway within the space of about 24 hours a warrant for his arrest for sexual misconduct was very publicly issued, only to be revoked by the end of the day. Alot of people (including me cos im paranoid) think this was a smear campaign just to blacken his name, especially given the nature of the website, and the fact that prior to these claims Wikileaks was about to release alot of sensitive documents about the US. Anyway you can check out an article about thsese claims here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/25/julian-assange-wikileaks-sweden-investigation

The article raises a few issues, like smear campaigns, which maybe we could bring into our narrative. It also raises a few questions about what makes the news, when this story broke it was the first time i could remember Wikileaks actually being featured on prime time television. I think this is a bit strange becuase given all of the documents Wikileaks have released, it takes sexual misconduct claim for them to become newsworthy.

Research Topics

2010-10-27T22:56:00.000-07:00

regarding todays class a couple of things were brought up that we should really know about. the first link here is to the article which appeared in the guardian last week about how sensitive documdents were leaked via wikileaks about how the us ignored torture in iraq. you can read the article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks

also brought up today was David Lyon, whose a professor of sociology and a leading expert in the field of surveillance and information society. he's wrote quite alot about surveillance society, ive put a link here which has a short review of his book "The Electronic Eye, The Rise of Surveillance Society". It also gives a brief background on David Lyon at the bottom of the article as well.

http://www.mightystudents.com/essay/David.Lyon.Electronic.51934

2010-10-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

Met with Ronan Lynch of 'Tactical Control Force' today. TCF was an exhibit at the Fis in 2007 that won best in show, and Ronan was the programmer. Of particular interest to us was just how similar it was to ours, as it similarly involves current affairs, elements of media coverage of events unfolding, and a tactical control centre. However we found out there are significant differences; user interaction is completely different (TCF was really 3 games, Epifect will be a more serious, less fun, exhibit based more on the narrative and message), and the subject matter is not so stereotyped in our exhibit. Ronan was extremely helpful in giving us much advice. We meet again tomorrow, when he will show us files from the exhibit, including the video clips and the director file. Looking forward to it!

Posts

2010-10-27T04:15:00.000-07:00

Ive just noticed that since I have moved all posts from the old blog at http://kenainiste.blogspot.com/ it says that I am the author of them all! Please note that I am only one of four contributors, and some of the posts below are from the others! To see exactly who wrote what, please check out the old blog.

New Focus

2010-10-27T04:05:00.000-07:00

Ok so we have had our group project class this morning and we got clear messages regarding where we should go next from the lecturers. They seem happy enough with the new narrative, but are concerned how we have moved away from the wikileaks/media coverage element (although it is still there to an extent), and made it more 'hollywood'. I think describing the presentation of the peice in more detail tomorrow will help them understand more what we want to do; 'hollywood' this exhibit is not! Anyway we seem to have got less of a grilling than other groups so I guess its ok! Plan is to focus now on bringing the media back into the narrative more, continuing the research and bringing the knowledge that comes with it into the narrative, and continuing to look into ways of interaction. We can only move forward from here!

Major Progress

2010-10-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

Ok so there are some changes tonight: Firstly the temp team name 'Kenainiste' has finally been abolished! We are now team 'Obsurveillance', as the Blog title suggests. We also decided on a product name (at least for now) of 'The Epifect'.

In other equally as important news, we have come a massive leap forward in our plans for a narrative. At the minute we are looking at creating an interactive surveillance hub from which the user views a twisting and turning narrative involving the surveillance people being spied on, a multimedia hacker mastermind and a supposed terrorist plot that turns out being anything but stereotypical. Theres way too much to explain in a post here but it is finally coming together anyway so we speak to the lecturers tomorrow; lets hope they are as excited as we are about where its going!

Research: Updated

2010-10-23T03:43:00.000-07:00

Hey guys... Iv been researching the ways and modes of interaction. I got a playlist on youtube with all surveillance movies and different modes of surveillance. Im watching through some of them but I reckon it would be good to have a look at these. Also I have some notes taken down from the drama on channel 4 on thursday. I was more focusing on the narrative more so than the ethics of the story. There was a good bit of information on what government agencies do and how they would act if a kidnapping like this happened, a few interesting ideas for the narrative and what would happen in real life. A few good facts on the media also, relating to the story.

heres the link for that drama if you want to watch it on 4OD: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-taking-of-prince-harry/4od#3130750

Talk soon.

Narrative Progress

2010-10-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

The team has been busy working together over this two weeks behind closed doors on an exciting and compelling story for our exhibit. We are creating an interactive (but fixed, i.e. NOT multi-threaded) narrative centered around the theme of surveillance and the sometimes-sinister media. We just wanted to update everyone watching that we are making good progress and that we have finalized a few key things:

The subject matter will be current affairs/mass media relevant.

We hope to change the User's opinion, or for them to realize something about the real world that they didn't think too much about before.

It will be presented and probably interacted with through a surveillance-themed constructed environment.

The hard-hitting, twisting, and possibly controversial narrative is the key element to holding the immersion of the User, along with a unique physical experience.

All still very general, I know, but specifics coming soon!

Surveillance Everywhere

2010-10-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

Found a couple of articles out there about surveillance which might interest you guys. The first 2 are from last year but still relate to what we're doing. The first is about the police in the UK using unmanned drones to tackle gang crime and smuggling, and the ethical questions it raises. You can check it out here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/24/police-unmanned-surveillance-drones

The second is about a proposed introduction in 2013 of in-car surveillance equipment as a "safety" measure. Agains it's a UK article but relevant to us too given that its an EU thing. Check that article out here:
http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=856

The last one I found was about the drama Anya was talking about last Thursday. Channel 4 are going to show a drama about the hypothetical kidnapping of prince harry by the taliban this thursday so it could be worth a look. The article makes some good points about what makes entertainment, and the merits of a gritty drama. Check this article out here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/10/taking-of-prince-harry-drama

Panopticon

2010-10-20T10:09:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

This is the Panopticon that Anya mentioned, its a prison design based around pre-CCTV surveillance. I think she said that it was a also project in the Fis a few years ago but I cant find anything on it... Anyway the real thing is an interesting idea and the psychology behind it is very relevant for us!

welcome in 8th wonderland!

2010-10-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, just found the 8th wonderland adress... I think we could get some inspiration from it...

Anyway, would you like to become an 8th wonderland citizen?

http://www.8thwonderland.com/

Team/Project Name

2010-10-20T03:31:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, the more I see Kenainiste, the more I wish I came up with something more creative... I know we should focus our attention on the narrative issues etc but lets also have a think about the name too!

Baptiste made a really good suggestion with the general idea of 'What you see is not always what you get'. This is perfect except for the length, so I was trying to find a word or pair of words that summed up that phrase... thought of 'Deception' but that has more than a little similarity with a certain major motion picture... So what about 'Eidolon' (means delusion) or the slightly over-the-top-but-still-cool 'Deceptio' (Latin for deception)... Anyway I strongly suggest a one/two word name that sticks out. Suggestions?

Contacting Tactical Control Force People

2010-10-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

Hey guys when I was googling this project I found a lady named Sinead Rafferty on LinkedIn who worked on this project. I sent her an invite explaining briefly what we were thinking of, so hopefully she gets back in touch!

2010-10-20T03:01:00.000-07:00

This is a conversation with the guys from 3 years ago who won best in show at the Fis... http://ww2.dkit.ie/about_dkit/podcasts/dkitalk/department_of_music_and_creative_media_fifth_annual_fis_multimedia_exhibition/tactical_control_force_exhibit_at_fis_showcase_13th_june_2007_department_of_music_and_creative_media_dkitalk_com

Blast off!!

2010-10-18T03:11:00.000-07:00

love the name-fusion for the title, although not exactly catchy, still its a work in progress. I set up a twitter account today so you guys can follow it at mr_ben_10. there's no tweets up there yet apart from one advertising this blog. anyway back to business, i found this clip ages ago but it shows how television stations are at the end of the day run by people, and people have agendas whether we like them or not. What we watch on television and what we are told is news can be manipulated to favour say for example, the financial backers of a particular tv station. Obviously all news is not some kind of mental manipulation but it does make you think....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K2pLo8JV5Y

Sorry its only a link, ill try and upload the actual video later.

2010-10-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

So, I just came accross a video that kind of scared me..

I don't know if you are aware of what's happenning in France right now, but the whole country on strike (I know you would say again, but still...).

A journalist has "hit" by a policeman... Well I don't know what happenned but, I was astonished by the video.

Well, this is current affairs, so...

LA POLICE FRAPPE UN JOURNALISTE D'INVESTIGATION DE CANAL+
Uploaded by MOASPRESS. - News videos hot off the press.

2010-10-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

Hello Guies!

I really like the name. I think we should keep it as a code name for our project (until we come up with the actual name of the project).

I guess we'll brainstorm a lot in the few next days..

So see you around!

Getting started

2010-10-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

you guys should have the ability to post; test it out. The team name is obviously just a temp amalgamation of all our names, although its catchier than i imagined! Of course this can be changed, and the URL also.