Many context-aware systems are designed to improve the systems' awareness of context in order to provide the user with more customized or appropriate information.Many context aware systems are designed to improve the system’s awareness of context in order to provide the user with more customized or appropriate information. For example, in the art museum environment, context aware portable guides will sense a visitor’s current location and information patterns in order to customize information about an art object that the visitor may be in close proximity with or show a possible affinity for.

The Data as Art project series looks at how we can turn the priority of context aware guides around so that instead of focusing on making the system more aware of context, the designs are oriented to making people more aware of context. In the case of the museum example, we are providing information such as patterns and preferences of visitor behavior back to visitors in unique ways positioning this information not just as input data to a system but as output ‘art’ for visitor reflection. In this way, visitors are encouraged to reflect on their movement through a social physical space as opposed to just reflection on the art objects on display. We are currently developing new sensor based projects for displaying context information back to people in public spaces in evocative ways. This research is now a collaborative effort between the HCI group, the Wireless Networking group in Computer Science, and the Cornell department of Art.There are two completed projects at this time in the Data as Art series: Imprints and Birdscapes.

Imprints:
The Imprints installation was designed to leverage a traditional handheld tour guide in a museum exhibit. In this case, a handheld tour guide was designed for a traveling exhibit of early 1900’s American Arts and Crafts from the Byrdcliffe colony in upstate New York. Visitors could use the tour guide to learn more detailed information about selected objects on display – such as how an object was made or stories about the artist’s inspiration. In addition to information about the art, we created Imprints to display information about visitors to the exhibit.

When a visitor checked out a handheld guide, he or she had the opportunity to make a personal imprint, a digital mark or insignia, that would be associated with his or her tour. The imprint was likened to the insignia’s created by many of the Byrdcliffe artists who would identify their pieces with marks such as a dragonfly or a lily. Visitors used a java-based application on a Tablet PC to select a background pattern from the Byrdcliffe collection and then use a calligraphy pen to embellish this pattern with their personal mark. Some visitors chose a background pattern of an empty picture frame and then used the calligraphy pen to create a personally meaningful symbol such as an apple (created by a teacher) or a bat (created by a caver). Other people chose more decorative patterns, such as a dragonfly imprint, and then used the pen to personalize their mark by accentuating the background pattern or adding their initials to it. Once a mark was created, when a visitor started the tour, this imprint would be automatically left behind with each object visited. Therefore, one of the questions visitors could ask about an object was: “Who else visited this object?” to see a display of all the collected imprints. This feature gave visitors an immediate impression of how many people visited the object before them giving a sense of both an object’s popularity and the presence of people and their individual acts of expression in the museum. In addition to providing the information on the handheld guides by object, we collected all of the imprints and displayed them in a photomosaic that was projected on the gallery wall. The photomosaic was designed to be a form of collective expression, reflecting the range of marks left behind by visitors.

“I went to a particular piece of artwork that I really liked and thought, 'I wonder who else has been here to look at this?' Maybe I could see a pattern…or recognize a kindred spirit.” (female, 48 yrs old)

“A museum is usually a very solitary experience,so the notion that someone was here before you, I really like that." (female, 30 yrs old)

“I went to one object with four other imprints, and I thought ‘mine is better than theirs’.” (male, 60 yrs old)

Participants: Kirsten Boehner, Geri Gay, Helene Hembrooke, Jennifer Thom-Santelli, Angela Zoss, Tucker Barrett, Justin Hall, Kiyo Kubo (from Spotlight Mobile, Inc.)

Birdscape:
The Birdscape installation is also a project within the Data as Art series created in collaboration with Professor Xiaowen Chen in the Cornell Art Department. Birdscape is a sensor-based system designed to cause reflection on visitor presence and the boundaries of the museum environment. We installed Birdscape in the Johnson Art Museum’s Asia Gallery – a space surrounded on all sides by windows with a view across the hills of Ithaca and Cayuga lake. As a gallery with many pieces in it honoring nature and with the dramatic view outdoors, we felt the metaphor of birds would be an appropriate representation of visitor activity information. The system consisted of 4 PIR motion detection sensors attached to speakers in the corners of the gallery. Each sensor would log and record information on the amount of activity within its range. If no activity occurred for a period of time, quiet bird sounds would emanate from the attached speaker. If a visitor is drawn into this space, then the birds metaphorically fly away. The bird sounds map to an absence of activity, ideally drawing visitors to undiscovered parts of the gallery while at the same time causing reflection on the boundary between the indoors and the outdoors.

Participants: Kirsten Boehner, Geri Gay, Helene Hembrooke, Phoebe Sengers, Xiaowen Chen, Eugene Medynskiy, Eric Lee, and Arun Israel.

Boehner, K., Thom-Santelli, J., Zoss, A., Gay, G., Hall, J., & T. Barrett. (2005). Imprints of Place: Creative Expressions of the Museum Experience. Extended Abstract Proceedings of CHI 2005. Portland, OR. ACM Press.

Boehner, K., Thom-Santelli, J., Gay, G., Sengers, P., & J. Hancock. (2005). Treading Uncommon Ground: Designing for New Shared Experiences through Appropriation. Designing for Community Appropriation Workshop. Computer Human Interaction Conference, April 2-7, Portland OR, USA.

Boehner, K., Sengers, P., Medynskiy E., & Gay, G. (2005) Opening the Frame of the Museum: Technology for Art and Tool. Proceedings of Digital Arts and Culture, December 1-3, Copenhagen, Denmark.