Sunday, August 9th – 5:40 pm PDT

Wrapping up things in our booth now. It’s been a great opening day for us. Looking forward to meeting more people tomorrow.

 

Sunday, August 9th – 3:20 pm PDT

Spending time with conference goers in our booth who have a personal connection with someone commemorated within the Quilt. For me, it’s an extremely powerful experience to listen to their stories. The Quilt elicits strong emotions, and through our initial interactions with people I’m beginning to understand how our technologies enhance the Quilt beyond the communal act of being together bonded by a common cause. Our mobile app has been an interesting source of engagement with those who come into our booth. In addition to those who are looking for someone specific, it’s served as a launching point of discussion. People want to know how it works and are interested in what software is supporting the meta-data that is available within the digital representation of the Quilt. Many of our visitors want to know about the entire process of how a physical Quilt block comes to be represented in a digital form. Some want to talk about the social aspects of the Quilt and how it came into being within the political climate of United States in the 1980’s. In that context, one visitor described the Quilt as strongly oppositional but somehow also soft at the same time.

 

Sunday, August 9th – 1:10 pm PDT

A report from PIRT research assistant Letícia

One of our first visitors was someone who had a relative who worked with AIDS in a different country. This person FaceTimed with the relative, to show the Quilts and tell about our project! Best thing is the relative can check it out by themselves by accessing the AIDS Quilt Touch website. It is so exciting to have visitors that can relate to the Quilt in a personal way.

Sunday, August 9th – 12:05 pm PDT:

And we’re live! SIGGRAPH 2015 is officially underway! Conference goers are streaming into Hall G. We are situated in a pretty high traffic area near the entrance of the hall allowing those who are coming in to stop by to check out the quilts and chat with us. We fielded a very interesting question early on from a conference goer, that being “Is there another project that is similar to the AIDS Quilt Touch Digital Experience as a whole”? For me, it’s hard to find something that compares to AQTDE because of the fact that the actual, physical size of the textile quilt is so large it’s hard to compare it to something else in the physical world. The question is something to ponder going forward, what can we compare this project to…. I feel my initial answer would be a map or live document that allows for community contribution. But these are difficult comparisons given the socio-cultural content of the Quilt itself.

 

Sunday, August 9th – 9:10 am PDT:

Good morning. SIGGRAPH 2015 kicks off today! We’re pretty excited after all of our preparation to finally get underway. The team will be heading down to the convention center shortly to open our booth and check out the show. Stay tuned here for first impressions.

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