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September 28, 2006
networked objects week.03
Rocio and I (in the absence of Chris Paretti and Kati London) presented our concept of "The Future of the Clock Radio in a Networked World":
Ultimately we decided to flesh out the "Around the World Clock" from last week's notes. The clock has now been dubbed "RadiUs."
We got some good feedback, and Rocio and I both expressed some interest is exploring the project further.
A pdf of the presentation can be found here. Although without the notes we read from it doesn't really do you much good now does it?
Posted by andrew schneider at 11:27 AM
video workshop week.03
thoughts on this weeks reading from Database as a Genre of New Media by Lev Manovich
The Database Logic
Lev Manovich opens with a fairly agreeable series of statements that read as follows: "Many new media objects do not tell stories; they don't have beginning or end; in fact, they don't have any development, thematically, formally or otherwise which would organize their elements into a sequence. Instead, they are collections of individual items, where every item has the same significance as any other." There are two ways of looking at this statement. The first, is to agree: traditional narrative cannot live and grow contained within the structure of many new media objects. The second, is to take a realistic, albeit relative, approach and assert that this is presicely the place to where story telling has evolved (or devolved).
"They don't have beginning or end." The stories we tell today are sound bytes and youtube snippets, one-liners, here-say, and sensational headlines in the Post. The "story" today is precisely what Manovich will later go on to define as "database" -- a random compiled assortment of non-related objects. That is how we live our lives now. Either the majority of culture no longer tells stories in the traditional sense, or we need to attend to just what constitutes a story in today's media hyper-everythinged culture. Linear time in the era of the all-pervasive hyperlink is no more.
"...it is also appropriate that we would want to develops poetics, aesthetics, and ethics of this database." This is what will usher us fully into the database as story era.
The web as an un-editable medium will assure that a story will never have to be complete, it will not (unfortunately) assure that we tell stories in any more engaging ways than they are already being told.
Data and Algoritm
We start to get a little more interesting here, but only a little. Manovich opens this section talking about games and narrative. Whether or not a game has a narrative structure doesn't necessarily impact the engagement with the game, although more often than not, this could be the case. Which is more engaging, Monopoly or Chess? Both call for algorithmic play within the structure of the game, and this is what makes it engaging. Manovich writes, "An algorithm is the key to the game experience in a different sense as well. As the player proceeds through the game, she gradually discovers the rules which operate in the universe constructed by this game. She learns its hidden logic, in short its algorithm." What can this tell us about the success of engagement that is possible with interactive video? What about narrative interactive video? Here we are back to the fundamental question of whether video can be engaging without a narrative, and whether a narrative can provide any sort of real interactivity. I am still rather pessamistic about both of these queries outside of the artistic community.
"The computerization of culture involves the projection of these two fundamental parts of computer software - and of the computer's unique ontology - onto the cultural sphere." I believe this wholeheartedly. The tools we use to hold conversation change the way in which we hold that conversation and are influential enough to even change the content of that conversation.
"Steven Spielberg created the Shoah Foundation which videotaped and then digitized numerous interviews with Holocaust survivors; it would take one person forty years to watch all the recorded material." I often wonder as we fully enter the "authorship" era whether any of us is listening, simply waiting for our turn to talk, or just focusing on putting out our own stuff. This very writing will be "published" to a blog that I am keeping for my Interactive Video Workshop class at ITP. It may never be read by another person for the rest of time. It is doubtful that even I will read it again. Manovich continues, "Jorge Luis Borges's story about a map which was equal in size to the territory it represented became re-written as the story about indexes and the data they index." When I first started my studies here I worried about adding to the "trash heap of history" by writing things that would never be read, producing projects that would never be seen, but as all of my work is archived on-line, and my website maps out the contents on my small partition of the server, at least I can be confident that even if no one ever sees another thing I produce, there is the possibility, however slight, that...i still feel that way.
Database and Narrative
"With new media, the content of the work and the interface become separate. It is therefore possible to create different interfaces to the same material." This is true and may hold some interesting possibilities for future work. It also goes hand in hand with the notion of the never-done piece of art. "New-media objects" as Manovich calls them, are more often than not, infinitely editable.
It may be an interesting project to create some kind of "new-media object" that is not necessarily stagnant, but one which can never be rethought, or changed in any way once it is "completed." A closed loop. An ever *present* time capsule.
"...traditional linear narrative can be seen as a particular case of a hyper-narrative." I agree with Manovich here, however this statement shouldn't be anything new. Hyper-narrative (analogous to hyper-text, as Manovich defines it) will *always* play out into traditional linear narrative. Interactive narrative can rarely rise above the level of a souped-up "choose your own adventure" story. In fact I am hard pressed to think of any examples as of this writing. If we think of a narrative as hypertext and halfway through the second chapter we link off tangentially to find our just what the historical lay-out of Narnia is, the narrative degrades into either exposition or database.
Manovich delves into some fairly subjective territory when he asserts what does and what does not constitute narrative, "Another erroneous assumption frequently made is that by creating her own path (i.e., choosing the records from a database in a particular order) the user constructs her own unique narrative. However, if the user simply accesses different elements, one after another, in a usually random order, there is no reason to assume that these elements will form a narrative at all." I suppose there is also no reason to assume that these elements will not form a narrative then. Manovich goes on to give the confused impression that a database is always a database and sometimes a narrative, which would be obviously more engaging than choosing "different elements, one after another, in a usually random order," which constitutes nothing more than just a database. He is then startled that "narratives - still exist in new media." Of course we are trying to squeeze these old forms into new media. It is what engages us. Too bad it doesn't seem to work.
Posted by andrew schneider at 11:07 AM
September 20, 2006
video workshop week.02
thoughts on this weeks reading from Film Art Phenomena, by Nicky Hamlyn
II Interactivity
"Seeing is the decisive act, and ultimately it places the maker and the viewer on the same level."
Sure seeing is decisive, as in it produces a definite result in one's mind, but as far as placing the maker and the veiwer on the same level, i'm not sure that is any more true than saying, "reading is a decisive act, it places the reader and the writer on the same level," or, "hearing is a decisive act, it places the hearer and the speaker on the same level." They say that seeing is beleiving, but this is perhaps no more true than hearing, reading, or dreaming.
On "interactive cultural products:" I suppose this is what makes for good interaction, that the user is able to be a creative as possible, while still being engaged. After all, total creativity, or authorial control in an interaction can be much less engaging than assisted creativity. Especially if the user is not especially creatively inclined or talented. The goal is to make the user look good.
As in the severed heads emample, there may exist a prerequisite of context whereby the user's engagement is enganced because they know they are meant to be engaged, i.e. they have come to the gallery to see this space. Whether or not this interaction and the things that can be gained from it are more or less than those things that can be gained from a discreet interaction whereby the 'spectator' may or may not realize they are meant to be engaged.
Hamlyn writes, "...this interactivity is is acheived at the cost of the insight and understanding achieved through contemplation." Perhaps, but much insight can occur with "static art" after the 'spectator' leaves the gallery. Much 'static' art also works on a very visceral level.
Hamlyn continues, "If anything, the activity of interaction renders contemplative consideration of what one has done impossible." Impossible? I'm not so sure about this. I tend to relise more profound things about systems when I am involved within them, when I experience them, as well as taking an objective stance. I do however agree with the possibility that "being able to rearrange elements within a work in any way that one wants, one is effectively talks to one self," but that does not necessitate that meaning "drain away." Comparing as Hamlyn does interactivity to traditional "non-interactive" painting he states, "...the rectangular form of a painting can seem limiting and arbitrary...until we realise that most good paintings use those rectilinear boundaries as compositional boundaries to energise and focus the picture." I am interested in how this notion then translated to the letterbox of film and video. Veiwing a film in a theatre is certainly a different experience than viewing that same film at home on your television or even on your iPod while riding the train. And film is certainly a different medium than television. I will argue however that the rectilinear form of film and television is be limiting and arbitrary, simply because it must conform to the absolute homogeny of the television and film aspect ratio. With a few exception such as IMAX, and some projection techniques, the compositional nature of television's 4:3 aspect ration is a direct result of how we have always made TV's. This is beginning to change with the gradual increase in the 16:9 aspect ratio, but I would argue that in terms of compositional innovation and experimentation on a widespread basis, television is era's behind painting. Television's constraints, in this way, do not become "(inter)active elements in the compostition" in the same way as Hamlyn thinks of them as doing so for painting.
"The spectator is not wholly absorbed, to the point of self-forgetting...but becomes a tentative self-conscious intervener..." This is why interactive art is very hard. And yes, not all interactive art needs to be narrative, in fact none of it does, but as we are thinking about interactive art within the context of video, narration seems hard for me to avoid in some way, even if it is expressionistic. Empathy causes self-forgetting. There is no empathy without connection. Narration is the easiest form of connection. Everyone loves a good story.
In "Two Sides to Every Story," Hamlyn goes on to describe Michael Snow's film of the same name in which the same story is essentially told in two different ways and projected back to back so that a viewer is unable to view both simultaneously. This inevitably took place in a gallery. The infrastructure of movie theatre obviously dictate exclusion for this kind of content, and so it refrains from the mainstream and becomes "art" in a gallery. What if this weren't the case? I can almost picture Snow knowing his film would never be screened in a conventional theatre to large audiences and so that affects the working content. But what if a mainstream film could work in this way. You have to see the movie twice. Once on one side, once on the other. Less interactive? More engaging? Hamlyn goes on to state, "...we could never, in principal, experience all of it. The most we cojld ever experience would be less than half of a version of a whole thing." I would add to that, "at one time," and also say that while this may be true, it seems that the piece is giving us double the experience to begin with.
Release of tension.
This may be the single most important element in entertainment, and one might argue engagement. A satisfying experience, tension release.
The piece is fucking called "ARBITRARY LOGIC." The idea that it "challenges this drive" of mastery and completion of a system in any active way is in the mind of the Hamlyn, as I see it.
Thoughts about Jensen's 'Interactive Room 12':
If no one know's you're doing conceptual art, the art can't mean anything. Art does not exist without an audience. In speaking about 'Interactive Room 12' Jensen states, "only very few members of the audience even knew they were interacting." Yes, in an interactive work of art, change is somehow initiated by the viewer. But for it to be meaningful art, *someone* has to know about it. If it's the viewers of the viewers, that's still valid. In this piece, because the feedback from the interaction is so gradual and subtle it fails to work. It falls below the case-specific threshold of knowledge of self-awareness of a viewer within a work of art. To negate this is to claim also that *all* art is interactive. My presence, by body heat, breath and vibration of movement all affect the object of art in some miniscule way. Is this interactivity? In the simplest example, If I push a button labled "shut off in 3,000 years" and in 3,000 years, a light above an "interactive painting" shuts off, is this interactivity, or does interactivity require the user to know and experience tangible evidence in some way of the change they have affected on a thing?
If art happens in a forrest sort of thing...
It seems that Hamlyn was with us the whole time when he states of both video games *and* much interactive art, "what has the participant really gained?" This, he argues is due to the fact that the viewer, and the subject, essentially remain unchanged.
This feels like this is all to say something, to come to some sort of conclusion or argument on interactive art, but I will refrain from doing so, as I don't see it in any way valid.
Posted by andrew schneider at 07:38 PM
video workshop week.01
here we go.
Posted by andrew schneider at 07:30 PM
September 18, 2006
networked objects week.02
The Future of the Clock Radio in a Networked World :
This week's project actually spans the next two weeks. Woking in groups, we are come up with a paper project implementation of the alarm clock of tomorrow. I've put an order in for a flux capacitor, but it looks like Sparkfun is all out. Here are our groups initial outlined ideas:
All of our project proposals seem to deal with this subject through awareness -- alarm as carrier of information rather than closed alert system.
All of our project proposals seem to deal with this subject through awareness -- alarm as carrier of information rather than closed alert system.
* BRACELET
WHO:
-wake up with out audio
-doesn't mind sleeping with bracelet
-doesn't mind vibration
-needs multiple users (choice or random)
WHAT:
-soft, wearable, networked bracelet and pulse sensor
-internal clock
-temperature sensor
-time display (for confirmation / feedback)
-e-ink?
-buttons?
WHY:
-human to human connection
-non-audio
-warmer
-disappear the device
-social pressure as a mechanism for waking up
HOW:
-flexible pcb
-wireless
-bluetooth
-802.11
-galvanic skin
-peltier junction
-vibrating motor
* AROUND THE WORLD CLOCK
WHO:
-audio heads
-interested in waking to intimate others
-around the world
WHAT:
-international
-networked
-automated
-synched
-couplings
-audio to audio
-1 to 1
-stand alone
-standard alarm clock
-song failsafe
WHY:
-make connections
-social pressure
-unique experience
-mutual interests in waking up
-creative authors
HOW:
-socket connections
-social contract
-ambient modulation
-connection happens
* FUTURE CLOCK
WHO:
-reminds people of externals
-timesavers
-masochists
-egotists
WHAT:
-facts
-programmable
-stories
-taxi cab confessions
-story corps
-pseudo harper's index relating to the amount of sleep you had
WHY:
-content driven
-juxtaposition of realities
-wake up call
-observe
-update
-connecting with others
HOW:
-subscription
-feed reader
-user specific / tailored content
-text to voice
-automated system able to pull data from anywhere and apply time equation to tailor content and drive text to voice wake-up info
WHAT:
-wireless
-asterisk server
-microphone
-speaker
-voice activated
Posted by andrew schneider at 11:19 AM
September 16, 2006
sustainable energy::open proposal
An open proposal to the Sustainable Enegy class & the whole of ITP:
I was thinking-on-paper (as opposed to thinking out loud) after our first Sustainability class, and thought that I'd post the result, get your thoughts, start a dialogue, generate ideas.
This is in re: the possibility of individual projects of the members of the class as subsets (sub-projects) of a larger scale project involving the whole class and it's unique position (talent / resources / specificity of the course topic).
Sitting in the first sustainability class on Thursday, I was prepared to be non-plussed regarding what were about to discuss. It's a shitty thing, but I'll admit that I only signed up for the class because it was a two-credit class that I happened to signup for before it closed.
As the class got underway, and as we started to circle the room, talking about what our backgrounds in the subject were, what our passions in the subject were, etc., I was surprised to find that I actually had something to say, and more so the feeling that actually welled up within my angsty teenage-ey thoughts on the subject.
It became apparant to me at that moment that this was a special course being taught here, and moreso that we as the participants in the class were in a position to do something special. Other courses offered this semester may approach a specific topic, and the resulting work and projects are bound to stretch the limits of that subject and that form in very disparate ways. Other classes tend to output a range of product, from art-piece to big-game to social-networker. This course "Sustainable Practices," seems to be about one thing. Change. And, change, for the betterment of all.
The more people that want something to change, the more likely that change is to occur.
What I am about to suggest then, may negate individual projects, being worked on by individual people, that have been dreamed up in individual minds.
I believe that we have a unique opportunity to use and pool the resources of our class as a whole to affect change on a large scale within our immediate environment.
What could happen if we, the whole class, worked on the same project:
Getting ITP, or a section of ITP "off the grid."
It is an enormous undertaking, and one which I believe would necessitate the participation of the majority of those enrolled in the class. The scale of the project would also have the benefit of a broad spectrum of topics and techniques to be covered. In other words, the project is broad enough to include many of the topics that may otherwise be covered as parts of individual projects. From the negotiations with Administration to the research of the tech to make it happen, the project would need to be broken down into sub-projects with committees assigned to each. In this way, individuals can work on specific things coinciding with their specific interests in taking the course in the first place. These smaller projects would be in service of the "whole." I also think, we would need a "director" of sorts to manage the project, simply for the reason of scale. As the instructor of the course, I think Tom would make a good candidate.
Is this at all feasible, to work on a class project that spans the semester, and involves the entire class?
I would appreciate any thoughts you may have. At all.
Thanks.
Andrew.
Posted by andrew schneider at 07:46 PM
September 14, 2006
unveiling
huh.
Posted by andrew schneider at 10:07 AM
September 12, 2006
networked objects week.01 | PROJECT:
moonwalkers
For this week's project we chose from a list of three simple parameters: ACTIONS/THINGS/RESPONSES.
My respective choices:
-dancing
-sneakers
-music
The initial idea involved a pair of old sneakers, repurposed, to dynamically manipulate a sound file.
Basically I wanted to build shoes that would BOOM! when you walked. The louder you stomp the louder the BOOM! In a sense -- "giant" shoes.
The two FSR's I was working with broke at the eleventh hour, and the trouble-shooting that insued, reinvented the project for me.
The Input:
Using my believe-it-not-only-about-a-year-old Saucony's, the first step is deciding on the connection between the sensors and the microcontroller. (As a side note, my professor, Tom Igoe has switched to using the Arduino programming interface ove the PIC when teaching this and other physical computing courses). Since the original FSR's I used were resistors and not potentiometers, I only need two lead wires connecting the sensor to the Arduino board. I know I want to keep the functionality of the shoes intact when not in use as stomping around like a giant (and eventual moonwalking awesomeness), so a detachable connection is a must. I originally thought of using CAT5 cable for it's low cost, but then I realised i had fifty quarter-inch connectors sitting around from a project that went a different direction. It also compliments the theme of music and dance nicely.
tip: don't use a drill press to drill through shoes.
I've embedded the jacks in the shoes after carefully drilling through the material using a hand drill and a utility knife. The tricky part is making sure the thickness of the sole is enough to entirely embed the jack, and still be able to lay the insole back into the without the jack digging into my heels. I made sure the jacks fit right before I solder up my sensors.
Since my FSR's kicked the bucket, I've decided to use simple photocells - or photo-resistors, since they'll give me the same analog values that I need. It is amazing how a simple logistics change such as this can change the course of the project so drastically. Now, since I can no longer measure the force of the foot coming down, I am going to have to measure basic distance from the ground, based off the "brightness" values I will get from the photocell. Because of this, I won't be able to change the volume of the "giant" sounds, so I'll have to switch to a different mapping of values. Well...what about moonwalking.
The basic assumption is, on a very small scale (about one foot), barring my presence on a light up dance floor, the further my foot is off the ground, the larger the values I will see coming in. This is what will determine whether I am actively moving, which is now what I am looking for over force. Having worked with photocells before in other projects such as Relay1 and Relay2, I feel confident the little variable resistors will work well embedded in the heels of the shoes.
The process is simple enough. I've used nails to make a sort of pilot hole in the rubber and then pass the two legs of the photo cell through to the inside of the shoe. I've also "counter-sunk" the sensors in the sole so the surface of the photocell doesn't get damaged by my walk to the disco.
Solder up some leads connecting the photocell to the jacks, make sure I've got nothing poking out, slap the insoles back in and my moonwalkers are kickin! now for the fun stuff -- how do I control Billy Jean?
The Brain:
I didn't want to spend too much money on a one week prototype, so the Nestle's Quick box I found laying around was a literal sweet find. Stylin' and protective the box proves a durable and cute housing for my Arduino and bread board.
A couple of holes for the 1/4" jacks and one for the USB out and I'm ready to start programming.
Like I said, I'm in Arduinoland now. Similar to Processing in evvironment and syntax, it's an easy pick up for a beginner like myself. It doesn't hurt that I'm only doing an analog in reading.
here's the code:
#define leftLed 13
#define rightLed 12
int leftShoe = 2; // select the input pin for the shoes
int rightShoe = 3;
void setup() {
pinMode(leftLed, OUTPUT);
pinMode(rightLed, OUTPUT);
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
int serialVar1 = analogRead(leftShoe);
int serialVar2 = analogRead(rightShoe);
if(serialVar1 > serialVar2){
Serial.print(serialVar1, BYTE);
}else{
Serial.print(serialVar2, BYTE);
//Serial.print("\t");
}
if(serialVar1 > 100){
digitalWrite(leftLed, HIGH);
}else{
digitalWrite(leftLed, LOW);
}
if(serialVar2 > 100){
digitalWrite(rightLed, HIGH);
}else{
digitalWrite(rightLed, LOW);
}
}
easy as pie. This gives me some nice scalable int's into MAX. It turn out that most people use MIDI to communicate in MAX. Well, it turns out that serial isn't so bad either. So long as your send the values from the boArduino in BYTE format, you've got some happy patches.
It also turns out that Michael was right, Billy Jean is not my lover, and neither, I thought was MAX. For some reasons beyond my control and other well within my control, I was unable to read serial data in to Processing. I was also unable to read serial data into Java...and Isadora. I just want to dance, and these already i've exhausted the three programmng languages I have become comfortable authoring in. It's time to turn to MAX/MSP. As a first time MAX user, I am already somewhat comfortable using the graphical programming environment I've grown used to in Isadora. However, the project has a short deadline and I am finding it inefficient to troll through every help page. GabeBC and Chris Kairalla (both somewhat newbies to MAX themselves) came to the rescue with a few examples to help me out. With my new MAX skills I'm able to format the data to give reliable foot action reading and damned if I'm not moonwalking everywhere I go.
The MAX patch basically loads a file (in this case Michael Jackson's 'Bad"), then scales the volume and speed relative to the values it sees coming in from the Arduino, and subsequently, the shoes.
The result: hot.
Here's a screen shot of the simple patch:
The Output:
watch that hot little clip one more time.
Posted by andrew schneider at 09:09 PM
September 10, 2006
sustainable practices week.01
week.01
I look forward to learning as much as I can from my fellow class-mates in a subect I know little about, and gaining the resources neccessary to educate myself further on the broad topic of sustainable practices.
Specific things I am interested in tend toward the technological side of the spectrum. I hope to research and experiment with solar technology, among other things. Of course, I say that. But I really know nothing about it.
Design as a sustainable practice also interests me. How small changes in an environ or work flow can drastically modify the way in which people live and work.
I also hope to propose a very-large scale and evolving project that may surpass the scope of the semester, and could possibly be an ongoing project at ITP.
more to come...
Posted by andrew schneider at 08:44 PM
September 06, 2006
project development studio week.01
From the course description:
"This is an environment for students to work on their existing project ideas that may fall outside the topic areas of existing classes. It is basically like an independent study with more structure and the opportunity for peer learning." more>>
I will be teaming with Michael DelGaudio for this class.
The original proposal for the class:
Summary
"Everyone is familiar with the idea of ambient music and sound. As we move though our environment sound sets the mood creating a transparent emotion quality over the space. We are aware of the sounds in the background but are not paying attention to them. Television, on the other hand, and the act of watching a screen engages viewer in a direct fashion. This independent study aims to investigate how screen can play a passive role in creating an emotional quality in a space."
There is still some ambiguity and openended-ness in terms of where this project's direction will initially begin. A meeting with Michael on Friday, and we should have most of this cleared up.
more to come...
Posted by andrew schneider at 05:16 PM
September 05, 2006
networked objects week.01
Throughout the course of this class, I plan to dedicate "week.n" entries to progress on related projects, thoughts about that week's readings, and other miscellanea related to the networking of objects.
The four main projects however, as detailed in the syllabus, will all have their own dedicated entries which I will link to from week to week.
That said, our first project is due week.02:
Project 1: Physical Computing Improv
Posted by andrew schneider at 06:04 PM