Press Releases

Team Ahurei from the School of Computer and Mathematical Sciences at AUT University were placed second in the 2009 Microsoft Imagine Cup for their project fire notification system based on mobile phones. CoLab resourced this initiative by providing SunSPOT sensors. The sensors were remotely deployed around a defined area sending signals to a central software program based on changes in temperature. The program processes the signals and sends an early detection warning to the appropriate agencies via mobile and software channels.

What happens when 21st century digital media meets Shakespearian theatre?

Actor Ross Brannigan and his audience will explore this question at his performance of Holding the Digital Mirror up to Nature at the Auckland Fringe Festival.

In the show Brannigan, who has been a professional actor for 22 years and a digital communications lecturer at AUT University for nine years, explores whether digital techniques can sit with Shakespeare’s work. Are they useful or just gimmickry?

2 June 2009

Singing shirts, purses with inbuilt touch alarms and cycling jackets that indicate when you turn are a few of the spinoffs of technology that allows fabric to respond to stimuli like light, sound and touch. This week, international electronic textiles expert Dr Leah Buechley will be in Auckland to show how it is done.

A partnership between AUT University and Deakin University in Australia is set to redress the shortage of local talent trained in motion capture technology.

King Kong and Gollum owe their screen lives to motion capture technology perfected in New Zealand but creators Weta Digital say they typically have to employ motion capture specialists from overseas because of a lack of local training.

It looks like a dimple but the indent in Matt Kenyon's left cheek is actually a hole through which he threads a cable connecting a video camera in his mouth to a barcode scanner. The digital artist then walks the supermarket aisles, mouth wide open, 'consuming' barcodes and sending the data to a Nielsen Homescan scanner.

MIC Toi Rerehiko is pleased to present an exhibition by digital media collective SWAMP. This will be the first instance of SWAMP showing in New Zealand and follows the Colab residency of member Matt Kenyon. Kenyon has collaborated with Doug Easterly as SWAMP since 1999.Originally formed in the United States, the collective has exhibited extensively over the past decade, most recently at Exit Art in New York City, ISEA2008 in Singapore and Videotageedia, Hong Kong.