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Current Research
ACTLab TV- ACTLab TV is a research/open source project between
the Foundation for Decentralization Research and the New Media
Initiative. ACTLab TV uses Alluvium Media Player, an open source peer
to peer media player, to broadcast video content developed by UT
students, filmmakers and videographers and other material released
under the Creative Commons license. Part of this effort is directed to
documenting the demographics of users of the software, as well as
writing user-friendly instructions on how to create broadcasting
stations. A unique and fortunate aspect of ACTLab TV is that the
project is situated in a major university. We capitalize on this by
encouraging parallel work in the social and critical studies of
innovation in general and the ACTLab TV effort in particular, offering
student and faculty researchers the opportunity to be part of an
ongoing examination of current debates over open vs. closed source
software, digital rights management, multinationalism, corporate
control, and the limits of privacy. For more information on ACTLab TV
Click Here
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Anonymous Computing- As part of his Master's thesis, New Media
student Brandon Wiley is currently engaged in research related to the
theoretical and practical aspects of Internet security, with
particular attention to implications for personal identity in a world
in which pervasive surveillance is the new reality of everyday life.
Peer To Peer Gaming Engine- In 2003, Brandon Wiley also initiated
development of a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game
(MMORPG) engine which is not based on the central server model.
Instead, each peer shares bandwidth dynamically to exchange game information in
an acephalous, distributed manner. The project is currently in the development phase, and
is part of the NMI's mentoring effort for Summer of Code 2006.
Multimedia Discourse Research- This project began with
Joseph Lopez's Masters Project/Report, in which he explores human
interaction and multimedia production. For more information, his
project and report may be viewed here .
Future Research Projects The New
Media Initiative is always accepting new research proposals. Here are a few
of the research projects now under consideration or scheduled to begin:
3D Virtual Worlds- Our experience with virtual worlds dates
back to the mid '90s when the ACTLab hosted several experimental
virtual communities on its own servers. Initially, 3D virtual world
technologies were extremely resource hungry and required powerful
hardware and software. Since that time, substantial improvements in 3D
hardware architecture, increased CPU speed and bandwidth have made 3D
virtual worlds reasonably affordable and practical, but virtual
communities based on these technologies have not achieved significant
market penetration. In the near future an NMI group will research new
3D virtual world engines and environments. Music
Reproduction- In an age in which it is said that digital sound is
"perfect forever", a NMI research group will investigate
music reproduction theory and practice in terms of discourses of innovation and
implications for future high-end development of music reproduction
systems.
Past Research |
| Drew Davidson - Narrative and Multimedia Research |
| Drew's work during
his time with the ACTLab included his dissertation on
narrative strategies in multimedia, close examination of
the construction of subjectivity, desire, and humor in
hypertext storytelling, and exploring other emerging
technologies in relation to narrative construction such as
interactive CD-ROM and other optical media. His
dissertation may be viewed here
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| Vernon Reed - Art, Communication, and Subjectivity Research |
| As a graduate
student, Vernon centered his research on the complex
interrelations between social and technological aspects of
virtual worlds. Under his direction, the ACTLab hosted
several cutting-edge research virtual worlds. Notable
among these was ACTLab Traveler, in which avatars spoke to
each other in real time using actual voices, not text. In
this world Vernon studied ways in which the human voice
(and other sounds) affected communication and
subjectivity. Vernon was also the author of the Pirate
Utopias web site, one of the very first online experiments
to address the vexing political, legal, and social
problems created when traditional analog media become
digital. Vernon also created a series of wearable
sculptures incorporating integrated circuits and LED
displays which he designed and fabricated himself in a
chip foundry he built for this purpose; some of these
pieces were purchased by museums for permanent
exhibition. In his spare time, Vernon designed and built
custom lighting fixtures for the ACTLab. These are
particularly notable because he fabricated them from
Titanium, a problematic metal which is normally found only
in such exotic applications as NASA's Space
Shuttle. Vernon was also an ACTLab instructor, and taught
courses that reflected his bouyant approach to tough
technological problems. For more information about his
ACTLab research, click here
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| Honoria Starbuck - Online Collaboration, Performativity and Mail Art Research |
| Honoria's research
while an ACTLab graduate student included creating the
Electronic Museum of Mail Art (EMMA), an internationally
renowned collection which can be viewed here . She
also created the world's first cyberspace opera, Honoria
in Ciberspazio, a collaborative online project which
received international acclaim for its groundbreaking use
of digital media. Honoria and her work have received
awards from SXSW Interactive and the Global Stockholm
Challenge, and the opera was presented at the
International Shakespeare Festival by the performance
group La Fura Dels Baus. for more information, click here . |
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| Heather Kelly - Gender and Cyberspace Research |
| Heather's research at the ACTLab focused on
the intersections of discourses of Feminism and
Cyberspace. Her work led her into the video game industry,
and she has been actively involved in issues of women and
gaming at companies such as Girl Games, Ion Storm, and
Electronic Arts. To view an excerpt from her Master's
thesis, click
here . |
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| Alan Alford - Virtual Community Research |
| Alan's research was
technologically grounded in the foundational MOO virtual
community platform written by Pavel Curtis at Xerox PARC,
and theoretically grounded in Amy Bruckman's research on
educational MOOs at MIT and Carnegie Mellon. In a MOO
(Multiple-user Object-Oriented virtual world), objects and
resources the player creates persist after the player has
logged out, and are available at next login. Alan and his
team created a detailed virtual model of the city of
Austin, Texas, named PointMOOt. The original virtual world
was lost in a malicious online attack during that wild
frontier time before the ACTLab server had backup
capability, but its unique legacy has inspired generations
of virtual world builders and forged lasting alliances
among virtual world researchers. To view a description of
PointMOOt from the UT Creative Writing Research Laboratory
archives, click
here . |
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| Scott Webel - Visual Narrative and Interior Space Research |
| Scott's research
focused on the interface between narrative and power, the
consequent slippage of history, and the interface between
political power and historical storytelling. In his work
he examined how institutions such as museums mobilize
common narrative tropes, including narratives expressed as
interior space (architecture) and institutionalized
shapes, such as specimen cases and vitrines (design) in
order to construct the viewer as subject within a field of
political power. His work, which was theoretically
grounded in Donna Haraway's pioneering study of the famous
primate diorama at the American Museum of Natural History,
and practically grounded in the foundational work of
MacArthur Fellow David Wilson, extended to large practical
installations in which Scott used irony and humor to
underscore his points. As part of this work Scott founded
the Austin Museum of Ephemerata, which deconstructs the
traditional museum narrative in whimsical and edgy
ways. To view more about Scott's work, click here
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