Artist: Viveka Weiley

 Technologist: Doreen Ee

 Exhibition Dates: 23 June - 13 August 2008

 Exhibition Times: 10am - 5pm Daily

 Beta_space is located in the  Cyberworlds Gallery in the Powerhouse Museum

About the Artwork

Magic Hopscotch is an interactive artwork that mixes real and virtual environments. Though specifically designed for children, both children and adults alike can control the system by playing the familiar playground game.  As they hop through the squares, participants begin discovering a magical journey along the way inspired by the popular children's book Where the Wild Things Are. 

This first version of the work installed is a prototype - an unfinished sketch to be filled in by visitors who participate as experimenters in the living laboratory of Beta_space.

About the Artist and Research

Viveka Weiley is a PhD student with the Creativity and Cognition Studios at the University of Technology, Sydney and ACID (the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design). He was inspired to make interactive artwork for children by his wife Shan Weiley, an early childhood researcher, and by his daughter Violet (who is nearly eight) and his son Axel (who is four and a half). Viveka sports a Bachelor of Design from the University of New South Wales’ College of Fine Arts, and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Information Technology with First Class Honours and the University Medal from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Research blog: http://ba.viveka.id.au

About the Technologist

Doreen Ee is a part-time MIM (Master of Interactive Multimedia) student with the Institute for Interactive Media & Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney. She works part-time with a financial institution in Sydney, and has over 10 years of IT industry experience as an application developer and Business Analyst.

Doreen has interests in Human-Computer interaction, in particular user research and application design, and her aspiration is to utilise her IT skills in creative and artistic work.

Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the Creativity and Cognition Studios, the Faculty of Information Technology and the Institute of Interactive Media & Learning at UTS, an Australian Postgraduate Award and an ACID scholarship.