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Drones
Last week, we ran a second event with people from arts organizations, talking about Project Daedalus. As for London, we showed them a range of applications, discussed all kinds of issues surrounding drone use, even gave them an overview of Amazon's new delivery drone patent, awarded in just April 2015. Many of the things we played are located in this Project YouTube playlist, which covers some of the things that are informing what we are doing.
In the first of our Project Daedalus events with arts organizations, we all went over to the Pleasance in London to offer some demos, talks, and sandpit style discussion, thinking about how to use drones in creative contexts. Attendees had a chance to fly some micro drones and a Parrot Bebop using the iPad control interface, while also hearing about 360 degree film making, design for virtual reality interfaces, including Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear, and generally think about how to interate a range of digital technologies around drones, to create immersive, compelling, and different audience experiences.
Project Daedalus is a Digital R&D for the Arts project, funded by Nesta, Arts Council England, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It was born from a collaboraiton between myself, Abandon Normal Devices, and Marshmallow Laser Feast.
Yesterday, Anna Frew and I spent the afternoon testing out minidrones for some workshops we have on soon with the BBC, a disability group, a school, and some arts organization employees. Each of the workshops aims to provide a flight experience and an insight into some of the things that drones can be used for within an creative setting. Here's what we got upto...
and here's the full edit of our 2hour session.
Wearable Technology, Augmented Reality, & Drone Cameras
Today's talk at #SportAccord went really well. It was the first time I'd used flight within a lecture and fortunately nobody got hurt. In actual fact, it was all very safe and I think it made much more real the way in which drone technology is becoming a part of the fabric of our lives.
Here are the slides from the talk
and finally, the lecture itself
I was out flying again yesterday and managed to capture my son playing in the nearby islands. I find it really wonderful that he will have such films about his life captured in this way and it's another reminder of how drone technology is providing new memories of our lives. In the end, the best drone cinema experiences may be those simple, personal movies that are made, which tell us more about what life we have had. Oblivious to my filming him, or the wider perspective on where he is located, the film situated him within the place far more effectively than he could ever hope to perceive from ground level. I have no idea what he will make of a film like this when he is grown up, but, as his parent, I am sure I will find it very moving to look back and know more fully that he had all of this around him growing up and I think drone film making has the potential to make us feel this way, one way or another, wherever we live. That wider perspective we have on the world around us is simply breath taking.
freeflight-3-8d9ea9-h900
We are half way through the 12 month Project Daedalus, a Nesta Digital R&D for the Arts creative technology research prohect in which we have been exploring the creative potential of drones. Over this period, I've been learning to fly drones and am at a point where I feel pretty comfortable with control sticks, the conventional way of flying. However, the new Parrot Bebop drone uses a mobile device for flight. It's a very differnt experiece. The interface looks like this on the screen of the iPhone I use. The camera of the drone is visible as the background, with the controls overlaid onto it, from which you can control flight and camera.
So, after spending a few flights practicing, including some quite hair raising moments, here you have my first effort at shooting a dronie. One of the tricky things about the dronie is that controls are back to front, but this the first time I tried to think about film making while flying, which feels like a big step. Next is to choreograph an actual story.
ps. A Dronie is the new Selfie :)
Today, I published a piece on #drones for @conversationUK, which explores some of the new applications that are emerging and which were showcased at the Drones for Good international prize in the UAE last weekend. Here's the piece in full.
This week, I've launched the 'International Drones for Research Network', an initiative that emerges from my thoughts around Project Daedalus, but also from the many conversations I have had with colleagues over the year about the utilization of drones for a whole range of research projects. Personally, I am curious to learn about new projects and want to share experiences and knowledge about how drones are developing and how they might be used. The network starts of as an email group, we will see where it goes from there.
This week, the crew from Marshmallow Laser Feast came up to Manchester for the first of our lab events. Conversations focused on the scope of Project Daedalus, and a whole lot of playing with new tech, like Google Glass, Oculus Rift, Quadcopters, and Google Cardboard to explore fist person view perspectives on drone cameras. Here's a brief overview of some of the highlights: The wonderful Museum of Science and Industry was our creative platform for the three days...
Our amazing venue for #projectdaedalus lab s @voiceofmosi an inspiring place to work!
A video posted by Andy Miah (@andymiah) on
The beauty of drone films at human eye level #projectdaedalus
A video posted by Andy Miah (@andymiah) on
This is work, honest! Testing FPV with drones. Manual mode @marshmallowlf @andfestival
A video posted by Andy Miah (@andymiah) on
A couple of weeks ago, the Scotland on Sunday published a 4-page profile piece about my work. It was written by the awesome Anna Burnside, with whom I've been in dialogue about my research for a few years. It's a really lovely article and a real privilege to have given so much space to explain what I do. It's certainly the most in depth and personal examination of my background, motives and interests. Here's the link to the full piece. The portait was taken by an amazing photographer called Ian MacNicol, who turns out to be (we think) the only Scotland based photographer accredited at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Small world!
