Research
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Research
In the Critical Media Lab, XDM students have access to many resources to aid their Major Research Projects (MRP), creative installations, conference submissions, coursework, and many other opportunities. See our Research Archive to find the research projects that the Critical Media Lab has completed.
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Heads-Up User Group (HUUG) Research Project
The “HUUGers”, six students from the MA English and undergraduate Systems Design Engineering programs, wore Focals by North smart glasses for three weeks while blogging about their experiences with the glasses. The participants then discussed their experiences with the glasses in a focus group. Abstract Augmented Reality Smart Glasses (ASRG) are a recent development in…
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A Program for Posthuman Fitness
By Andy Myles, MA XDM Transcending the limits of our fleshy husks: this attitude – that the fitness and wellness industry uses to target you – has a lot to do with how we got into this mess in the first place. But that’s not what this guide means by “posthuman.” Rather, it’s about understanding…
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Technically Buddhist
By Megan Honsberger, XDM MA Graduate. From the state which pioneered Zen Buddhism, California’s Silicon Valley has a new spiritual beacon: mindfulness. Technically Buddhist calls attention to the curious instances of technical products and experiences seeking to remedy the ‘disconnect’ of technoculture using decontextualized Buddhist philosophy and digital technology itself. For this installation, an augmented…
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Waterloo Region Cyborgs
By Miraya Groot, XDM MA Graduate. How do pedestrians’ behaviours differ when they pass through Victoria Park versus Charles Street Terminal? Sitting in eighteen outdoor locations across Waterloo Region’s three cities, I observed over 50 paths where cyborgs revealed themselves. The resulting speculative data enables the comparison of digital technology usage in various urban environments. Ultimately, Waterloo Region Cyborgs aims…
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mindflUX
By Megan Honsberger, XDM MA Graduate. With the advent of wearable technology like fitness trackers, XDM student Megan Honsberger’s mindflUX explores what it means to be online and continuously connected. mindflUX combines a capacitive touch sensor bracelet with visualizations from neopixels which show how often and when an individual uses their device.
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Sleep Mode
By Julie Funk, XDM MA Graduate. Sleep Mode is a digital media project for those who are so connected to their phones they take them to bed. This project emphasizes how attached we have become to our mobile devices, and the separation anxiety we feel when those devices are inaccessible. Sleep Mode asks users to…
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Greyfield/Brightfield
By Julie Funk, XDM MA Graduate. In Canada, “A greyfield classification is applied to shopping malls with less than CDN $150 in sales per square foot [per year] and a vacancy rate of at least 10-15% (Parlette and Cowen 2011). A greyfield indicates a dead space. An infrastructure void of life. Inspired by the dead…
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Pacetaker
By Julie Funk, XDM MA Graduate. Pace-Taker is a bio-art and digital media art project that challenges the user to recognize their own feelings of anxiety through interaction with digital technology. Borrowing the notion of “pleasing anxiety” from Soren Kierkegaard’s ontotheological work, The Concept of Anxiety, Pace-Taker aims to create an experience of mindful anxiety…
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iAbstain
By Caitlin Woodcock, XDM MA Graduate. Take your non-use on-the-go with iAbstain. Place your phone in the mobile carrier and proudly display your choice to actively resist the distractions of digital technology. While your phone is out of use, its battery will slowly deplete, allowing you to focus on the world beyond the screen. Go…
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Basket Case
By Caitlyn Woodcock, XDM MA Graduate. Inspired by local Mennonite communities, XDM student Caitlin Woodcock’s BasketCase is an experiment in digital abstinence. When a mobile phone is placed in the handwoven basket, a sensor measures how long it rests there. When the phone is removed, the screen displays a percentage comparing the length of time…
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Quilters Can’t Be Users
By Caitlyn Woodcock, XDM MA Graduate. Grab a few friends and catch up without the compulsive need to check your mobile devices. Inspired by the communal nature of quilting bees, Quilters Can’t Be Users only works if all four pockets are filled. Watch as your time to BE together adds up, then compare that to…
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Sifter
By Tyler Crick, XDM MA Graduate. Sifter is a browser toolbar that displays meta-information for websites, fact-checking of content by scraping Snopes and Politifact, fake news website detection by querying established databases, and performs light linguistic analysis of internet content. The underlying goal is to help make the internet a bit more transparent and draw…