ART Collaboration and Visualization Lab
Interdisciplinary Research Practices
Research Team and Research Networks
Technology and Application Development
The Advanced Research Technology Collaboration and Visualization Lab (ART Lab), at the Banff New Media Institute supports a hybrid research practice that integrates methods from creative, critical and technical disciplines.
Research and creative experimentation in our lab focuses on several platforms for creative inquiry including: participatory wireless sensor networks; tangible and organic interfaces; experimental display surfaces from multi-touch to mega-pixel and hand-held; and mixed, augmented and virtual environments.
We explore, leverage and develop new creative information technologies that impact our multicultural society. We design technology frameworks for cultural interfacing that encourage shifts in the perception of the self and the everyday lived world through technology-based shared experiences in spaces where we work, play, and congregate. We strive to achieve these goals with our eclectically talented research team and extended research networks who are engaged in interdisciplinary research and the development of innovative creative information technology applications.
Interdisciplinary Research Practices
The Advanced Research Technology Lab engages in research that explores synergistic methods of inquiry from the arts and design; human centered computing; information technology engineering; and critical theory. Our research process is a sandbox a combination playground, scientific research lab, innovation incubator, and locus of applied critical theory where methodological rigor and open inquiry leads to new technologies and interfaces.
We focus on research methods that transform critical thinking into critical making. The primary goal of experiments in critical making is the development of technologies and applications that have positive impact on society. Critical thinking refers to a rigor in research that includes the ability to understand, problem solve, and integrate multi-domain knowledge in new ways. This includes understanding historical and contemporary practices to support multiple perspectives and to articulate the implications of known and new discourses on society. With these skills critical thinkers are able to develop new ideas from the foundations of old, understand the political and social implications of media and technology development, and apply them to innovations of critical making.
Research Team and Research Networks
The Advanced Research Technology Lab fosters an environment of scholarship, exploration, creativity and rigor with a dedicated research team of senior researchers, research associates and work study students in collaboration with the Canadian and International network of researchers, academics, artists, and industry affiliates. Our research team, collaborators and partners work at the intersecting borders of their disciplines to discover new knowledge and new applications of existing knowledge. We maintain close research relationships with faculty and students from top research universities and colleges in the world. We actively engage industry partners in our innovative technology development projects.
Technology and Application Development
The Advanced Research Technology Lab facilities are designed to support research development of interactive applications in serious gaming; cultural mapping; computational aesthetics and interactive architectures that incorporate: wireless sensor networks; tangible interfaces; multimodal interactive systems; tracking and sensing methods; augmented, mixed and virtual reality; remote and co-location collaboration; and dynamic data visualizations.
The Lab facilities operate across three areas of research and production: 1) Organic and Tangible Interface Design, 2) Visualization; and 3) Collaboration.
The Lab is continuing to increase its capacities in rapid prototyping, mega-pixel displays, and other tools of contemporary research practice in creative information technologies and human centered computing. Updates to our Labs will be posted on this site as they become available.
