First of all, we are very excited to show our team photo to everyone!!

This week we had 2 internal meetings including one for the initiation of week 3 and retrospective of 1/4 and one for summarizing the workshop. We had a research design workshop that get to know more about the artist we will collaborate with throughout this semester. There was also one weekly meeting with our instructor and one with our research leader/client Erica.

Research Design Workshop (Art across Realities at the Pop District Research Study)

Attendees: Erica Cruz, Tiange Zhou, Chenguang Deng, Haiyun Wu, Wenbo Guo

The team had 4 members participating in the research design workshop. They communicated with 3 artists who will help with the research and development throughout the semester.

The team prepared a question list for the artists, and the answers considered will potentially help the team to define the project and to produce the prototype more precisely. 

The question list includes:

1. How do you want to show your work to the public and what is your expectation from the public? 
2. Do you have any expectations for what your artwork could bring you to the exhibition? (Profitable, reputation, etc.)
3. Do you have any concerns about showing your work through a virtual museum? 
4. Any barriers or concerns and how do you want them to be presented or addressed? 
5. Are you expecting any change or challenge for the materiality, authorship, and craft when the artwork steps into the virtual space?
6. Do you expect interaction and co-creation with the audience? Or, are interaction and co-creation important to your work? 
7. Are you willing to try new technology-supported art creation? 
8. What kind of disadvantage that you expect a virtual exhibition will lead to?
9. What do you expect from the audience (e.g. communication, interaction, profits)?
10. What are the core values of your artwork?

After the workshop, the team discussed the current direction and confirmed that the target audience will be focusing on the artists. The designers are going to design the full service, and the prototype will be an editor that enables artists to upload, edit and publish their artwork at the pop art district. Haiyun created an initial storyboard based on this idea.

Feb 3, 2023 Meeting with Mo

The team discussed the updated idea of focusing on artists as the target audience with Mo. Mo suggested that it would be much clearer by using this idea, and the team also introduced the format of the artwork the team will be working with. From the given information, the main formats of the artwork are digital 2D images, photographs, and a few amount of 3D models. This would be challenging as the AR experience is going to happen in the 3D space. The team considered cases like making the surfaces (walls) of the buildings located in the pop district as the canvas so that the artists could select where to put their artwork. However, this is less feasible since the recognition algorithm is not as perfect as what the prototype needs. Also, for compatibility, this case may cause performance issues due to the lack of hardware on some models of cell phones. 

Feb 3, 2023 Meeting with Erica – XRt

The team discussed more details with Erica:

1. It is good to include 3D models in the prototype.
2. Artists talked about the barrier, such as “if they could be artists”

• Our project is going to make the barrier not exist anymore
• Our prototype makes the gallery from “is about a small group of people”  to a more wide range
• Our development and research happen parallel before meeting with the artists, which is good

3. Erica will provide us with a written version of the placement location, and give us the answer to the questions that did not get answered in the workshop. 
4. Erica will need to contact the artists to get the specific file types. 
5. Erica is going to pass the place vision. John wants the gallery “Visibly have a connection with the pop district”
6. Project alignment activity

2.16 LoFi activities:

• Show them a sketch, storyboard, and basic ideas
• 1/3 hour is going to be communicating about the LoFi prototype
• 2/3 hour talking about whether they are or not changing it, their opinions.
• Not as intense as the workshop was
• Show the demo if there is one (whatever we have)

7.  Can we invite art students (like from the School of Fine Arts) who have their work?

• Week 7 is half, mid-fi alignment activities (online)
• Yes, have extra insights into the Mid-Fi prototype
• ETC students/SFA students could be considered as “internal” testing. These are not reported as activities. Data should be 0-tight to the person. Informal. Focus the data collection for insight only, not on an extension of what we are doing. (Unofficial part of the research)
  • The informal test should be “does this make sense to you”, and “do you feel any barrier from this”.
  • Could do this at the pop district
  • If we need a room, Erica would apply for us.
  • Pictures and notes (collected internally) are all for the insights as well.

8. How long will the internal testing take?

• 10-20 min per person
• Very informal

9. Do another internal testing between MidFi and HiFi, but do what we need 
10. Make AR explicitly. In the scope of this project, AR is better. We should be very comfortable talking about the platform. The choice is up to us. 

• Maybe should be low-poly? – Johnathon
• Tell the artists how to do it -> Google doc tutorial to tell the artists