Macromedia Flash or Closer

Macromedia Flash

Author: Mighty Assembly

The award-winning designers of Mighty Assembly present advanced Flash concepts and techniques in this richly-illustrated,full-color book. Inside,Mighty Assembly deconstructs their own site,from initial inception through implementation,offering in-depth insight along the way.

Execute your most creative concepts using Flash Get a developer's view of what it takes to conceive and produce an award-winning Flash Web site. This detailed case study deconstructs the site mightyassembly.com,offering readers a rare opportunity to observe and analyze how concepts are executed by pushing the limits of Flash. Learn how the developers and designers at Mighty Assembly merged original ideas and inspired designs with solid engineering principles using readily accessible Flash processes and techniques. This beautifully designed and informative book thoroughly and clearly examines the development and use of Flash graphics,sound,video,code-controlled motion,and linear animation. In the spirit of furthering the understanding and proliferation of Flash,Mighty Assembly's proprietary code is available free in downloadable form.

"This is a great resource for anyone interested in the in-depth processes and methods involved in creating an immersive online Flash experience. " —Matt Owens,volumeone.com

"Illuminates the value in the little paths a team explores during the process of refining every thought,pixel or line of code. " —Joshua Davis,praystation.com

"Provides an insider's look at how a Web site is made. Detailed accounts of how a concept is developed and individual parts are crafted demystify the work of a digital designer. " —Yoshi Sodeoka,C404

praystation.com - Joshua Davis

Illuminates the value in the little paths a team explores during the process of refining every thought, pixel or line of code.

volumeone.com - Matt Owens

This is a great resource for anyone interested in the in-depth processes and methods involved in creating an immersive online Flash experience.

Yoshi Sodeoka

Provides an insider's look at how a Web site is made. Detailed accounts of how a concept is developed and individual parts are crafted demystify the work of a digital designer.

New interesting textbook: Mindbody Cancer Wellness or HIV and Drug Free

Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology

Author: Susan Kozel

In Closer, Susan Kozel draws on live performance practice, digital technologies, and the philosophical approach of phenomenology. Trained in dance and philosophy, Kozel places the human body at the center of explorations of interactive interfaces, responsive systems, and affective computing, asking what can be discovered as we become closer to our computers--as they become extensions of our ways of thinking, moving, and touching.

Performance, Kozel argues, can act as a catalyst for understanding wider social and cultural uses of digital technology. Taking this one step further, performative acts of sharing the body through our digital devices foster a collaborative construction of new physical states, levels of conscious awareness, and even ethics. We reencounter ourselves and others through our interactive computer systems. What we need now are conceptual and methodological frameworks to reflect this.

Kozel offers a timely reworking of the phenomenology of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This method, based on a respect for lived experience, begins by listening to the senses and noting insights that arrive in the midst of dance, or quite simply in the midst of life. The combination of performance and phenomenology offered by Closer yields entwinements between experience and reflection that shed light on, problematize, or restructure scholarly approaches to human bodies using digital technologies.

After outlining her approach and methodology and clarifying the key concepts of performance, technologies, and virtuality, Kozel applies phenomenological method to the experience of designing and performing in a range of computationalsystems: telematics, motion capture, responsive architectures, and wearable computing.

The transformative potential of the alchemy between bodies and technologies is the foundation of Closer. With careful design, future generations of responsive systems and mobile devices can expand our social, physical, and emotional exchanges.