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SARC PhD student secures funding for 'PatchBlocks' project
SARC PhD student Sebastian Heinz secures funding for the establishment of Mindflood LTD and the development of the PatchBlocks through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Creative Industries Innovation Fund.
The product PatchBlocks has been developed as a research project at the Sonic Arts Research Centre during the last two years. It takes advantage of the flexibility and customisability of software, while taking the form of a physical device. Its design and interaction theory is based in the field of Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs), a new research area that has gained popularity throughout recent years. The product encourages collabora- tion in a shared physical space, as well as a shared virtual space. This collaboration centres on the sharing, inspiring and developing of creative content within a community. The launch of PatchBlocks is planned for early 2013.
Sebastian Heinz is a researcher from Stuttgart, Germany. After he graduated with a BA in Multimedia Arts, he worked for 2 years as a cross-media publishing, and content management system developer in the German advertising industry. He then decided to devote himself to more artistic and creative applications of computer systems, and obtained his Masters degree in Design for Interactive Media at the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts in London. There he explored his interest in software and hardware systems for musical expression, which then led to his PhD studies at SARC. Currently Sebastian is working on micro-controller based Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) for collaborative music making – a fusion between the versatility of software and tangibility of hardware.
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