Karl D.D. Willis.

News

Best Presentation Award for 12Pixels at Pervasive

Our paper “12Pixels: Exploring Social Drawing on Mobile Phones” was awarded the Best Presentation Award at the Pervasive 2010 conference in Helsinki. This follows right on the heals of our Tokyo Interactive Ad Award. The project is moving from strength to strength and we will have some more big news in the near future as well…

Alchemy featured in Page Magazine

Bianca Beuttel has compiled a German-language article in Page Magazine about my former research lab at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. The article covers the labs ‘Kansei’ research and design works including the Alchemy project. A list of links from the article can also be found at the Page Magazine website. A big thank you to Bianca for putting the article together!

Tokyo Interactive Ad Award for 12Pixels

Tokyo Interactive Ad Award

I am pleased to announce that the 12Pixels campaign by Imaginative Inc. was awarded a Bronze prize in the application category of the Tokyo Interactive Ad Awards. Congratulations to everyone who worked on the project! Here are the full details of the prize winners.

Spatial Sketch @ TEI 2010

I just got back from presenting Spatial Sketch at the Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) conference at the MIT Media Lab. There were a number of interesting projects, which you can check on the site itself, the TEI blog, and Core77 also has a good article.

12Pixels ‘Color’ Released in Japan

A new version of 12Pixels has been released in Japan in association with Sony Style. This version features a whole range of new features including drawing with colour, saving ‘emoji’ for use with Japanese email, and ranking/commenting drawings.

Above is a short clip of Ivan and myself promoting 12Pixels on the TV show of Japanese talent and super-model Marie. Also a guest on the show is Sony Music Artist ‘Neeko’, who is helping us out with a bunch of cool promotions.

12Pixels is available free to download for Japanese phones (AU/SOFTBANK/DOCOMO).

12Pixels featured in Dime Magazine Japan

12Pixels in Dime Magazine
12Pixels has just been featured in a two-page article in Japan’s ‘Dime Magazine‘. The article also features a write up on 12Pixels co-creator Ivan Poupyrev and his various talents and escapades.

BoxBeat in Art World China

I just received a copy of Art World China in the post today, they have a small write up on BoxBeat – check it out.

12Pixels Japan Release / New Scientist

12Pixels Japan Release
I am pleased to announce that 12Pixels has been released in Japan in association with Sony Style. Visit the official Sony Style site to download 12Pixels for Docomo, AU, or Softbank phones.

12Pixels has also been covered in the March 7, 2009 issue of New Scientist magazine. Visit the New Scientist website to check out the article.

TwelvePixels @ Sony ExploraScience

TwelvePixels is currently exhibiting as part of the ‘Open Science‘ exhibition at the Sony ExploraScience Centre here in Tokyo. Last summer Light Tracer was a big hit at the RoboKuma exhibition, so it is nice to be back there again.

It has been fun browsing through the drawings people post, and checking out the wide range of pixel-style drawing styles. Above are a few picks of mine, but be sure to check it out and try it yourself if you are in Tokyo. Open Science runs untill September 23rd.

ADA Reader

An edited version of my Open Interactions paper has been included in the ‘Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader’. The reader shows a ’screen grab of digital arts practice in Aotearoa, New Zealand’, and will certainly be a milestone publication.

The book itself is put together really well in terms of design, printing, and content – so I a super happy to be a part of it. Definitely worth checking out, more information and ordering details can be found on the publishers website or via Amazon.