Interaction Design Catalogue 2023

Introduction from Professor Stephen Bottomley, Head of the School of Design

Welcome to the 2023 School of Design Degree Show at the Glasgow School of Art.

In your hands is one of a dozen graduating catalogues that have been lovingly assembled for each of our exhibiting programmes in the School of Design for their shows this year. Within these sheets you will discover the exciting work of our graduating students in image and text, alongside reflective snap shots that capture the energy, and concentration within our studios in the run up to this exhibition.

We believe making a physical catalogue to accompany our excellent digital on-line showcases is both important and relevant. Research has revealed what we intuitively knew, that making, and art is good for our mental health and can positively improve the quality of life by alleviating symptoms of anxiety, depression, loneliness and even dementia. In our busy lives, we all spend an increasing amount of time in digital environments, yet we remain alert to the important of reinforcing a balance between the virtual and the real in our teaching and specialist practices.

In the 1850s the Glasgow Government School of Design changed its name to The Glasgow School of Art, while in the same time John Ruskin, the most influential critic of the Victorian era, spoke of an education where the ‘hand, the head and the heart’ were interconnected. As you will witness, those values are still very much alive and true today.

We hope that this guide accompanies you on your journey be it at our Glasgow degree show, or at later events in London and that the work reflects the passion and attention of our students, as well as the care of the staff who have guided them.

To all our graduating students on behalf of all the staff, academic, administrative and support, we wish you every success in this, the exciting start of your careers. Please continue to stay in touch with us, remembering us in your hearts and minds, as we will you.

Professor Stephen Bottomley

MPhil RCA, MA Design, BA Hons Head of the School of Design

Design History and Theory

Nicholas Oddy

Head of Department of Design History and Theory

Interaction Design

Paul Maguire Programme Leader

As part of their degree, all BA Hons School of Design students submit a substantial piece of written work to the Department of Design History and Theory (DH&T) and a synopsis of every one is included in these pages. Students may opt for either a shorter (5,000 word) or longer (10,000 word) submission, the latter being a third of their overall degree submissions. In addition to the two lengths, there are three different modes of submission; essay/dissertation; critical journal (exploring the author’s studio practice in a larger critical and cultural context); or curatorial rationale (an in-depth proposal for an exhibition with its subject and venue the choice of the author). All DH&T staff are involved in the supervision of Honours submissions, which is on a one-to-one basis, and it is always a pleasure to guide what is always a wide range of fascinating and challenging projects.

DH&T is independent of studio, with its own external examiner, and upholds a principle of free subject choice. Therefore, while some write on topics directly concerned with their studio practice, others explore topics that seem to have no bearing on it, often personal interests or socio-cultural issues. This does not mean they are unconnected with studio, however, as the creative process is one of thought and all these submissions are deeply thoughtful, often informing practice in intangible, but significant ways.

Finally, congratulations to everyone who has submitted this year. On behalf of all in the Department, good luck in whatever the future holds.

Interaction Design at Glasgow School of art is a multi-disciplinary programme of study which explores the use of technology in an art and design context. We craft experimental digital artefacts using a broad palette of software and hardware workflows. Students on the programme not only learn digital craftsmanship but also develop deep criticality, interrogating themes such as data privacy, surveillance capitalism, authorship in the face of Machine Learning and AI, the attention economy, and other powerful narratives of the early 21st century. Graduates from the programme leave as well-rounded ‘creative technologists’, fluent in the language of new media design. This generalist approach is highly valued beyond education – multi-disciplinarity, agility and responsiveness are vital to the survival of any creative practitioners amid the incessant flux of our technological media age.

This year’s graduates explore a diverse range of media, themes and approaches – brain interface-controlled soundworks, modern reinterpretations of ancient storytelling traditions, data textiles, interactive physical and kinetic sculptures, multi-dimensional data visualisations, haptic interfaces for pirate radio broadcasting, generative light-based music sequencers, virtual immersive installations expressing mental spaces, and more.

I am indebted to the efforts of the Interaction Design teaching staff who have been hugely supportive of the students in their project ambitions this year. hope you enjoy the exhibition as much as we did working with these students throughout their time at GSA.

I’m an Interaction Design student at Glasgow School of Art. My work is inspired by a takeaway accident, starting from people’s most prone to inertial thinking, and using arcade games and arcade game boards as carriers. Throughout the work, used unity to make game files, and arduino to control objects in the game. At the same time, I added some unconventional things to the two, such as wasd disruption, game clearance conditions, etc. The purpose is to allow players not only to experience the game process beyond people’s imagination during the game, but also to reflect on whether there is inertial thinking during the game and challenge their own thoughts to correct the incorrect thing of inertial thinking. In addition, it is presented in the form of a game because it is one of the most well-known things in the world. For game enthusiasts or those who have been in contact with it for a short time, it has formed some mindsets, such as character control, attack methods, and game clearance conditions. So starting from this aspect will greatly increase the player’s doubts and challenges to their own ideas when playing this game, so as to achieve the goal that this entire work wants to achieve. And some changes to the arcade game board that controls the movement of the ball in front of it also have the same reason.

My project began in the psychological connection we have to music. Research shows the outstanding effects that music can have on the brain, from altering mood, to having a profoundly positive effect on some people suffering from illnesses such as dementia. wanted to harness this musical power and turn it into art. First, starting off by visualising it and then seeing how a computer could replicate such effects. This led to generating code that would create musical scores and then be transcribed into emotive and evocative musical pieces.

My interest in audio as a medium stems from my own love and practice of music. I have been playing in orchestras and on my own from a young age and consider my connection to music to be a key part of who I am today. Because of this, ‘An AI Orchestra’ is a deeply personal piece to me, and in a way, reflects who am as not only an artist, but also a musician. Through my research I discovered that audio and audio-based visuals, and the ensuing reactions, are entirely down to personal opinion. There is no formula to create music that everyone will enjoy and so, these pieces are made ever more interesting based on people’s experiences of them.

As a creative technologist, I want to empower people, and encourage dialogues concerning the impacts of technology on society. I approach digital tools in a hands-on manner; blurring the conventional boundaries of interface, whilst considering the intangible and ephemeral properties of digital material, tools and platforms.

This project converged from practical research pathways into modular toys, sandbox video games, and tactile interfaces. New Media and Information Architecture theories, such as Remediation and Semantic webs provided a critical backing to my experiments.

My final piece is a mixed-reality installation in which audiences re-organise fragments of virtual worlds by interacting with a series of tactile blocks. The resulting 3D patchworks represent the three interacting worlds of my creative practice- studio, computer and mind (following Karl Popper’s ‘three worlds’ theory). The physical tiles act as draggable icons-creating a tangible, sensory interface between the audience and the technologically augmented gallery space.

As someone who is passionate about art and technology, was drawn to the field of cybernetic arts and cybernetic engineering this year. Through writing my essay, ‘Holographic Icarus: A study on the failure of cybernetic socialism’ I gained valuable insights into the challenges of applying cybernetic theory to complex systems, allows me to explore two cases where cybernetic theory failed due to our limitations. I was able to understand the importance of taking human factors into account when designing complex systems.

In my artistic work, have a particular love of physical computing skills for collecting and visualizing data. I have previously built a non-invasive braincomputer interface that collects EEG signals and converts them into MIDI signals and music. I am continually exploring new methods and technologies to enhance my ability to create art that integrates technology and design.

In my most recent project, incorporated multiple sensors into my installation to collect diverse human data such as pulse, temperature, and pressure. The ultimate goal of the project was to showcase this diversity. I am confident that my background in Interaction design, as well as my interest in physical computing, will inform and enrich my future work.

Boheng Yin

Danielle Mcculloch Domme Ewan Hanning Wang

Inese Verebe James Robinson

Kvartira-11 / New New is a sound installation responding to the ambiguous situation in my motherland, where 50 years of Russification left Riga, capital of Latvia, with a population 50% Russophone, including myself. Living with proletarian ideology under Soviet Rule impacted how people identify and express themselves artistically, before and after the collapse of the USSR.

With the death of Joseph Stalin, restrictions in the USSR eased. That was a perfect time for Soviet people to learn how to break rules creatively. The Ministry of Culture still strongly controlled censorship in the Soviet Union, and the nation was not satisfied with the offer of cultural life under the Iron Curtain, causing the black market to become the main source for exploring Western trends. Illegal recordings would spread like a virus on DIY vinyls, cassettes, and even pirate radio stations.

As an amateur musician who collaboratively worked in Rock bands since my youth, am interested in the concept of the DIY artist and bedroom producer. With the development of technology, recording and promoting your music is easier than ever, but the main challenge for Soviet people was limitation. By limiting sounds you can produce at the installation, creating simple and fun interactions, such as a pirate broadcast to a Soviet Radio, am hoping that the public will reinvent themselves.

Theory and experimentation exist in conjunction with each other, tools act as a catalyst to this creative process. My work aims to offer people an access point to using cybernetic systems as a creative space, focussing on embracing the unique benefits of the digital realm, instead of simulating our previously un-broken analogue environments.

Inspired by the process-oriented approach of the New Brutalism movement; form follows function in this work, with a simple box drawing attention to plan. The shuttered concrete and welded steel are both products of the processes used to make the structure. The time-based element of the work is expressed using light acting as a spatio-temporal translation, with circles referencing the looping behaviour of early dance music. The light interface for the pattern system is an abstracted diagram of the workings of system itself, depicting its cyclic nature.

Through manipulation of cyclic patterns, non-linearity is introduced by the user, shaping the composition over time. Two simple processes are chained together to produce a complex behaviour greater than the sum of its parts: inner circles producing step lengths for the outer circles’ events. Participants are encouraged to engage with the piece by interacting with the touch-plates. Being informed by light and sound, a feedback-loop is created by the users, adding entropy to the system creating unique experiences.

When the rubbish is combined with marine life, the final jellyfish is born. As people pass by the sculpture, the jellyfish seems to come to life. People are drawn to its glow and stop to take a closer look, discovering that the jellyfish is made from marine debris. Using sensors to detect when people pass by, it also suggests that the ocean changes with human behaviour.

The choice of jellyfish as a sculpture prototype is because of its translucency, and because I once mistook a jellyfish saw in shallow waters for a piece of plastic. I also witnessed a sea turtle eating a plastic bag, mistaking it for a jellyfish, which led to its death. This means that the similarity between jellyfish and plastic bags can put marine creatures in danger without them realizing it due to human activities.

The creation of the jellyfish sculpture aims to remind people of the issue of marine pollution through the form of art, raise public awareness of environmental protection, promote eco-friendly behavior, and encourage sustainable development. Furthermore, the jellyfish sculptures can also showcase my love and concern for marine life, allowing viewers to better understand and recognize the marine ecosystem.

As an interaction designer, my recent focus has been on exploring the complex and evolving relationship between humans and intelligent machines, particularly in the context of autonomous driving. Throughout the year, I consider the role of autonomous driving as an assistant, security and traffic accident/congestion solver and explore what the future may hold such as ethical problems on roads.

Keep your hands on the wheel is a phrase often heard as a command in current semi-autonomous driving. Through my work, aim to gather the emotional attitudes of the general public and to provoke thought and discussion around the ethical implications of autonomous driving. Questions such as whether machines replace humans in making proper judgements, how safe is safe enough, and who will be responsible for any consequences that arise, are all questions that need to be explored.

As visitors engage with my work, they are invited to consider their own views and opinions on these important topics as characters in different paths. Choices and votes are made in a simple touch format, adding their opinions to the wall. Ultimately, my goal is to spark conversations that encourage individuals to consider the potential impact of autonomous driving. By tapping into public opinion on these ethical issues, together we can shape the future of this technology in a way that is safe, responsible and beneficial for all.

↘ @inese_voyager_art

↘ jamierobinsondesign.cargo.site

↘ jtsr@btinternet.com

Jiani Pan Jingjing Ke

Gallacher Piri-Zoé V́agvolgyi

‘Wires, veins and tears in rain’ explores concepts of chance and allowing for external intervention in the process of art creation. This project involved multiple different methods of passing over control in various ways, as well as encouraging the mess and error which comes from not having full control of one’s fate. A large part of this exploration was in capturing specific moments, movements and actions that would otherwise go by unnoticed and become lost to time and memory.

These works vary widely in media and material but range from studies like, dropping sticks onto a page and spray painting where they land, or blowing bubbles onto a canvas with a soap and ink mix solution. The final artefact will be a pinball machine which shoots different coloured ink over the area of the box, acting as a designated space for art to be created within.

My work often aims to question human systems and ways of doing. For my dissertation consider the role that artificial intelligence has in regulating content, and art, on social media platforms and the problems that this poses for the artist. Technology and its place in art is a subject area that always find myself going back to, with its continuous development bringing around new issues and challenges to wrestle with.

My work focuses on data art. I use my personal data from Facebook to show my story.

I bring together both modern computer art and old traditional methods, such as Textiles and tapestry. find interest in these contrasts between old and new. I play with the idea of non-tangible data and turn it into a physical textile form. These two unexpected methods when brought together create an interesting discussion.

The subject of my work is based on Facebook data. have gathered the events that have been invited to throughout the years and compared it to the events that attended. I want to create something that shows what influenced my youth. I have been on Facebook since 2009, started using Facebook when I was a young girl now, I am in my early adulthood. I find it fascinating how this virtual space has grown with me, and how it holds sentimental value, which makes me question the impact of the meta space.

I have made a blanket of my Facebook data. Turning my memories of my youth into a physical object which is associated with comfort. The final piece will carry a sense of nostalgia and reminiscence.

Rayhan Ahmed Théo Pontoizeau

My work this year has been a result of my different paths of research and trying to combine them in an effective and meaningful way to communicate and evoke emotions while finding connections between people, using computational and generative tools.

Exploring the foundations of interactive artwork and the evolution of design tools and systems. Looking at their place in a creative world, and how these techniques shape creativity in the world of art and design. Combining this with my research of identities through memories and lost connections, my work tries to evoke feelings of the fragility of our memories we consider to be foundations of ourselves and then represent them in a physical space. Inspired by my own experiences of having a rich cultural heritage that had a profound influence on my upbringing, but now have no connection to.

My work looks at warping and changing perspectives in physical space where people can explore and integrate the space which is also shaped and changed by those in it.

Using abstract visuals that have been influenced by research of the relationship of memory and identity, my work aims to evoke feelings of a distant connection or familiarity that many people can relate to.

Before undertaking study at GSA, I completed a technical University degree in Multimedia and Internet at the University of Bordeaux. Here I met fellow graphic designers and developed his understanding of visual design. I started an ongoing collective, Beth Design, with two other students.

During the past three years, I have developed a multi-disciplinary approach which attempts to create and incorporate innovative visuals into his practice. I have consistently maintained a broad approach concerning aesthetics to tell stories and create innovative and communicative design systems. Depending on the project, my design style varies between controlled chaos and minimalism. Collaboration has always been part of my making process, and this is something am trying to highlight in my final year.

Last summer, I realised the vast number of people who, despite having no background in design or art, were interested in creating design visuals. This led me to create a tool with which people could play and create various types of visuals. Shaper focuses on generating visuals with a simple interaction. Each time a user interacts with the piece, they become the central part of it, making the experience unique to each person who stands before it. The shapes created by the installation make the user both the subject and the maker of the work.

↘ jordangallacher.co.uk

↘ jordangallacherart@gmail.com

↘ @jordangallacher

↘ vagvpirizoe@gmail.com

Jordan

Vytautas Bikauskas Xinye Shen

My work revolves around time, rituals, and labour. In ‘Someone Has to Be Counting’ respond to my aunt Dalia’s daily notebooks she has been filling for the past 20 years. Each day takes a column, while categories range from hours worked to irresponsible behaviour. The notebooks are interpreted as her way of grappling with temporality, identity, and the need for structure. Enveloped in my aunt’s cosmology of theatre acting and maritime journalism, this project is a tribute to a life of transmission.

The piece is an expanding multimedia archive of responses to Dalia’s labour, involving prints, calendars, photographs, interviews, audiovisual and interactive media, as well as sculpture and performance. Performative elements were developed in collaboration with Royal Conservatoire of Scotland students whose interpretations shape their form. Collaboration is foundational to this work, and the knowledge of others marks every strand of the archive.

Reflecting on my own context, my dissertation research examines the critical role of performativity in academic lectures. question the potential of multidisciplinary practices like lecture performances to expand the current conversation surrounding lecturing. The dissertation assumes the form of a script for a pedagogical discussion to happen in due time. Both the project and the dissertation act as starting points for greater personal research as the archive remains in a continuous process of accumulation.

This project focuses on modern innovations to traditional shadow theatre and explores the ever-so-familiar topic of war.

Both war and shadow theatre has been evolving with humankind for thousands of years throughout history because people are aware of the brutality and negativity of war to be constantly on the lookout for it. Dictators, oligarchs and political groups are forever committed to waging proxy wars from the safety of their bunkers. And the ordinary people ravaged by war are manipulated like puppets by invisible things, unable to escape from this dimension just as the shadow puppeteer hides behind a curtain and uses the puppets to move the story forward.

I explore the relationship between shadow theatre and modern digital art and try to build on this to think about the relationship between war and people. The shadow puppet participants themselves can become protagonists in the process of storytelling. The audience is allowed to watch the shadow puppet play and, through its limited content, find a way out of the soldier’s situation, face it, or escape from it in the face of harsh reality. In this way, I give the audience an opportunity to better and more deeply appreciate the impact of war on people and their lives and to think about it.

Cover image: James Robinson

Studio photography: Shannon Tofts

Design: Kat Loudon and Phoebe Willison

Headline typeface: Rules by Freddie Guthrie

Printed by The Newspaper Club on 55gsm improved newsprint.

All work shown remains the property of the designers and may not be reproduced in print or any other media without written permissions. Contact details for all work is provided on each page for any enquiries.