Application deadline: January 31, 2006
Program Duration: Immediately to March 31, 2007
The Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) is a world-class research and content innovation Centre, celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2005. The BNMI focuses on the cultures of expression and use, enabling the creation of applications and technologies for participatory culture. New media at The Banff Centre converges art, design, architecture, dance, performance, computer science, engineering and science research with education, health, cultural industries, social sciences, humanities, and other constantly emerging forms of content. Fundamental to the BNMI is the belief that the creative sector, artists and cultural industries, in collaboration with scientists, social scientists and humanists have a critical role to play in developing technologies that work for human betterment.
Position Description
The Mobile Digital Commons Network requires an Interactive Designer for the Global Heart Rate research project at The Banff Centre. This project will develop software applications for a variety of mobile devices (e.g. cell phones and PDAs) using GPS positioning and sensor input to drive the playback of rich-media content as users move through the Banff National Park. The applications will focus on enriching the real-world experience of those visiting the Town of Banff and or the National Park through game-play, informative interaction, and narrative overlay.
This role will design the interactions that lead or accompany users through the landscape, together with graphics and user-interface components to implement the interactions. Working closely with a sound designer and reporting to a Lead Artist/Producer, this role will pay close attention to the human experiences of using a mobile device within such an environment as the Banff National Park. Integrating, as it does, both next-generation mobile device based content, and absorption in a stunning natural environment, the challenges and opportunities for this role are exceptional.
The applications are being developed as part of a Canadian Heritage funded research project, and so the interactive designer will have the opportunity to work exploratively. Nevertheless, final applications will be deployed in public spaces and for use by the general public, so a focus on completeness and appropriateness for audience will be essential.
Specific Duties
- Explore and capture the naturally occurring and human-generated landscape of the Town of Banff and the Banff National Park, identifying in particular potential relationships between natural features and interactions with mobile content.
- Working with audio designers, artists and engineers, contribute to the design of mobile applications, including helping to define the roles of graphics and video within the application, visual style, key interactions and user-interface elements, and the relationships between the mobile content and the natural world.
- Iteratively research potential outcomes by creating simple demonstrations for use in the Town of Banff and Banff National Park to explore the effectiveness of proposed interactions and to test visual style as viewed in the park and with specific user groups
- Working with audio designers and the Lead Artist, produce or contribute to treatments to communicate intended interactions.
- Working with engineers and the MDCN-designed software toolset, create the interactivity and graphics output as agreed with the Lead Artist, to schedule.
- Working with the engineers, make suggestions for toolset development, and ideally, begin to use the toolset directly for prototype and final application design and development.
Qualifications
- A portfolio of interactive visual art projects, ideally covering a range of interactive media, tools and styles.
- Demonstrated competence with professional interactive graphics editing tools.
- Experience working in a team, with proven ability to tailor visual style according to artistic direction, meet production schedules and interact fluently with other designers and a lead artist.
- Experience working in a research context would be very beneficial, as would any academic training in interaction design.
- The ideal candidate will have experience and comfort in using simple software languages, such as HTML, XML or ActionScript, but this is not essential.
This project extends work performed over the last year. Please visit http://www.mdcn.ca for further information.