The Invitation
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals, or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true, I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you are, or how you came to be here- I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
May 1994
http://idallen.com/ncf/the_invitation.html
The Little Wallet that Could
My wallet took a swim in the ocean during a New Years VW bus road trip to northern california. 11 year old detectives found it and sent it to me a month later. When I picked my wallet up, sand fell out… I’ll keep it forever.
My friends and I on our road trip, shortly before losing the wallet.
Digital Flux’s diverse appeal
Digital Flux, which was on display in the Telfair Museum of Art (Savannah GA), came down for new festival installations this month (February 2012). Digital Flux was up for over a year! Here’s a picture demonstrating Digital Flux’s diverse appeal to numerous audiences.
Finalist in SXSW Interactive Awards Festival
My physical computing installation, Digital Flux, has been selected as one of the 5 finalist pieces in the student category in the SXSW Interactive Awards festival.
“This category is devoted exclusively to the student designers who are refreshing this industry with new talent and new ideas.”
Plunker’s Deep Dive
iPhone game by Whitney Taylor
DESCRIPTION
Plunker is trapped in an elevator, his only way out is to jump. Based on accelerometer input, tilt the phone to move plunker around the elevator shaft, dodging and hitting speed arrows along the walls. If Plunker falls too fast, he will squish on the bottom floor. If Plunker goes too slow, the falling elevator will crash down on top of him. Navigate to the bottom floor at the correct speed, in order to get Plunker out safely.
COMPONENTS
- OpenFrameworks
- Objective-C
- iPhone SDK
Meet Whitney Taylor
Meet Whitney Taylor, interactive design and game development alumna and Zynga designer
Published: Nov 15, 2011
When Whitney Taylor finished her undergraduate studies in technology two years ago, she found herself struggling to incorporate more programming into her interactive web designs. “Instead of enabling my work, programming proved a roadblock, because I really didn’t know how to fully control it yet,” says Whitney. She began researching graduate programs to help her turn this obstacle into an asset. “I came here because SCAD offers a balance of programming and design, so I can stay true to my aesthetic while I work on my programming.”
Her time learning the ins and outs of interactive design at SCAD has provided Whitney with more than just the programming skills she came for. “I definitely feel like I’m kind of a one-stop shop now,” says Whitney. “I can take a product through the entire cycle, through the idea generation phases to the sketching to the prototyping, to the testing to the final output. Before SCAD, I could come up with good ideas, but I couldn’t make them happen. I never really had the tool set to do that. Now, I feel like I’ve truly gained all the skills I need.”
Whitney has put her new skills to the test through her freelance work for clients like Nickelodeon, creating interactive games and online quizzes. She has also teamed up with other SCAD students for some of her class assignments; in one of her favorite projects, Whitney’s team used an actor and a green screen to create a user interface that simulated a real person moving through the display.
She says the professors fuel the fresh concepts behind these kinds of projects by encouraging the students to work outside their comfort zones and then following up the results with thorough one-on-one feedback.
Working outside her comfort zone has led Whitney to jump into many new areas for the first time, including the fine arts. “It was a new experience, learning to call myself an artist, because I always thought of myself as just a designer and programmer,” she says. She recently exhibited a new media art installation called “Digital Flux” at the Jepson Museum. The piece allowed viewers to move cubes around an interactive display to produce sounds; each time a cube moved, a different combination of audio clips resulted. “It’s really a whatever-you-make-it type installation,” says Whitney, who found watching the way different people interacted with her work fascinating. “Some musicians made really interesting compositions with it,” she says. “Other people just had a good time playing with the computer display.”
After becoming involved in this interactive sphere of digital media, Whitney began to notice that more and more of these kinds of installations were surfacing in the public arena. “It’s really neat to see how this work has emerged from the museum art space for a more commercial purpose,” says Whitney. “You see things now like interactive clothing advertisements in store windows, where you can walk by and move your hand to scroll through the different dresses that they have in stock. So I’m really glad to have these skills, because that’s where things are definitely going.”
In her time in the program, Whitney has also acquired the skill of observing those around her to analyze what new services may be needed and putting that knowledge to work in her projects. As an avid snowboarder, Whitney says she has seen many annoyed boarders continually take gloves off and put them back on again to use touchscreen phones while they’re on the slopes. After observing this problem repeatedly on her snowboarding trips, she began working on a solution. The result is an app she is developing for her thesis project: SNO Touch. The app allows users to bypass their touchscreens altogether using the built-in accelerometer; tilting the device navigates through the menus and shaking it activates the camera function. Whitney has obtained a provisional patent for this system.
Before her recent graduation, Whitney received several job offers. After lengthy consideration, she accepted a position with game developer Zynga, where she now works as a user experience designer. She is excited to continue working in the interactive field, and hopes eventually to grow her freelance business XCentric Design into a fully staffed design company. “Because of SCAD, I feel set up now for my life,” says Whitney. “I can enter the industry comfortable and confident in my skill set. It’s a great feeling to know you’re ready.”
River Rage – iPhone Game
River Rage is an interactive kayaking game that allows the player to maneuver down a rushing river while attempting to avoid obstacles such as rocks, rapids, and waterfalls.
To steer the kayak, place two fingers on the screen. A line forms between the touch points, representing the kayak paddle. Move your fingers as necessary to steer the kayak. Tilt the device forward and back to control the direction of the avatar’s paddle strokes.
River Rage provides a thrilling experience full of exciting moments and quick decision-making that simulates the extreme kayaking experience.
“A game is an activity not simply about accomplishing something, but about the beauty of the activity itself… It is not only about reaching a destination, but also about enjoying the journey.” - Jasper Juu
Thesis – Shake Gesture
Implemented to provide users with an appropriate interaction model in order to take photos in wild environments that do not facilitate touch interaction with the mobile device screen.