From body challanges to augmented reality art beauty | Ramy Al-timimi | TEDxBasra
The speaker asserts that confronting life's difficulties requires courage, illustrating this through a personal journey marked by a rare spinal disability and professional challenges. Rami demonstrates the integration of art and technology by using augmented reality via the Instagram app to bring seemingly inert artwork, such as an envy-themed painting, to life for non-specialists. He concludes by advocating that technology can be used to democratize creative expression across various fields, accessible to all.
## Speakers & Context
- Unnamed speaker (Rami Al Tamimi); giving a presentation on overcoming life's challenges and integrating art and technology.
- Audience context: Unspecified, but the speaker addresses non-specialists when discussing technology.
## Theses & Positions
- Confronting life's difficulties, both big and small, requires courage.
- Passion for creating and sharing work ("bringing something to the world") must persist despite physical and academic setbacks.
- Art and technology must be integrated to make creative concepts accessible to non-specialists and for applications beyond mere entertainment (e.g., education and medicine).
- The technology for these creations is not monopolized, and the speaker is willing to teach others how to develop similar projects.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Slanted spine:** A rare physical disability where the spine is not normal, potentially leading to quadriplegia if the spinal cord is damaged.
- **Augmented reality (AR):** Projecting virtual objects onto reality (the real environment).
- **Envy:** Represented in art by the color yellow; an abstract concept that the artwork symbolizes.
- **CCI:** Cultural Creative Industries.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Personal perseverance:** The speaker survived a rare disability, managed school challenges, and continued to work artistically despite setbacks.
- **Artistic realization:** The process of developing physical artwork, some involving optical illusions.
- **AR projection:** Utilizing technology to overlay virtual elements onto a physical scene (e.g., scanning a barcode linked to Instagram).
- **Accessibility fix for AR:** Instead of requiring users to download a dedicated app, the system is routed through existing platforms like Instagram, removing the barrier of app downloading.
- **Educational application:** Using the AR principle to model complex systems, such as the internal parts of a computer (RAM DD4), without needing physical hardware.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **20-5-1994:** Year the speaker was born with a rare physical disability.
- **Childhood/Early Life:** Initial difficulty with spine disability; family insisted on encouraging studying over drawing.
- **Age 5:** Initially taught by a homeschool teacher; later resisted entry to formal school due to the principal's belief that home education was better.
- **Elementary School:** Speaker's mother quit her job to accompany him to school due to the principal's fears.
- **Middle School:** Overcoming the physical challenge of transferring from a wheelchair to a cane due to bullying.
- **College Years:** Focused on Computer Science while continuing painting; developing skills and interacting with people via live sketches in parks.
- **Post-Graduation Challenge:** Facing the dual path of employment vs. graduate study; developing the personal website for art/tech portfolio.
- **Four Years Ago:** Beginning to integrate art and technology, recognizing the need to explain complex AR concepts to non-specialists.
## Named Entities
- **Sinbad Magazine** — A project/publication the speaker was involved with.
- **BBC** — A television channel where the speaker appeared in interviews.
- **France and Turkey** — Nations where the speaker exhibited internal and external art.
- **Dr. Dhurgham** — A person whose greeting was acknowledged by the speaker.
## Numbers & Data
- Birth date: **20-5-1994**.
- Age initially when the disability manifested: **5 years old** (losing a school year).
- Age group for challenges: **Middle school** (transferring from wheelchair to cane).
- Academic grade achieved: **95% and higher**.
- Timeframe for technological development: **Four years ago** (when questioning the two-job role).
- Exhibition scale: **twenty paintings**.
## Examples & Cases
- **The Disability:** Being born with a slanted spine, leading to initial concerns about cerebrospinal fluid leakage and potential brain death.
- **Early Encouragement:** Family's decision to pursue formal schooling despite initial difficulties.
- **Middle School Challenge:** Training and suffering to transfer from a wheelchair to a cane to face people.
- **Artistic Showcase:** Creating art that includes Da Vinci’s use of Optical illusions that moves in response to the viewer’s eye.
- **The Envy Painting:** An old, broken wall representing health and personal growth, which is incomplete until AR reveals its layers of meaning.
- **AR Demonstration:** Using the Instagram app to scan a barcode attached to a painting to watch the illusion activate, completing the artwork's narrative.
- **Technical Demonstration:** Using AR to model computer parts (e.g., RAM DD4) on an ID card for educational purposes.
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **Camera/Equipment:** Rented camera gear, laptop, camera, and other specialized equipment.
- **Internet/Social Media Platforms:** Instagram, Facebook (used as the deployment environment for AR).
- **AR System:** The core technology used to project virtual objects onto the real environment.
- **Barcode:** Used as the physical trigger mechanism for the AR experience.
## References Cited
- None explicitly cited as formal academic works, but the speaker references:
- **Da Vinci’s use of Optical illusions.**
- **Computer RAM DD4 details.**
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- **Difficulty explaining AR:** The speaker acknowledges that the non-specialist is unfamiliar with augmented reality.
- **Technology access/difficulty:** Concerns raised about the necessity for visitors to download apps, which the speaker states was fixed using Instagram.
- **Professional scope:** Acknowledging that the scope of professional work is vast, requiring "more than one TEDX talk."
## Methodology
- Integrating traditional artistic mediums (painting, sketching) with modern digital technologies (AR).
- Addressing user experience (UX) challenges by using readily available platforms (Instagram) rather than requiring dedicated app downloads.
- Developing educational content through AR modeling of abstract or internal systems (computer parts).
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- Be brave enough to face difficulties, as illustrated by the speaker’s own journey.
- Do not assume that the disabled are helpless, as many have achieved significant things.
- The goal is to create a model where art and technology serve not only entertainment but also education and medicine, accessible to all.
## Implications & Consequences
- The failure to integrate art and technology limits the ability to communicate complex ideas to the general public.
- The current technological landscape favors centralized, specialized tools, but the model demonstrated shows how decentralization (using existing social platforms) solves usability barriers.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"Do you have the courage to confront reality? to challenge reality? to challenge difficulties the big and the small ones that pass through our lives"*
- *"I was born with a Slanted spine"*
- *"My family’s determination, which began during the first two hours of my life"*
- *"The twelfth grade is now the new challenge."*
- *"Passing my final score and which college would get him into?"*
- *"I continued to improve my skills and interaction with people in society."*
- *"The idea remains incomplete until augmented reality completes it."*
- *"Assume that I assist 500 people with downloading the application. The visitor finds the process boring and difficult."*
- *"Every hue has a particular meaning; yellow, represents envy"*
- *"Do not assume that the disabled is helpless how many disabled have achieved what you were unable to achieve"*