September 30, 2005
Rigidity of Fear
Stanislavsky's writings bring us back into and remind us of the wonder of our bodies. His exploration of motion continues a general push in this class to explore the beauty and power of the every day. The fantastic is very near at all times, magic and power. There is an encouragement to empower ourselves with what we have, to not feel like the answers lie elsewhere. The human experience is so strong that it affords us the ability to do absolutely anything we want. The process only requires effort and a re-connectedness. We have to move back from the distance we have created from our bodies and our minds.
The essay discusses how to undo the damage but it doesn't address how people end up the way they do. Not only their posture and their constricted way of walking but their general outlook. Is this like a subcounsious Harrison Bergeron? Is it that we have lost a context for our inner strength and run away from its power? Is it that it is not encouraged?
I also love the idea of the unbroken line that connects and is the definition of art. It's the connections between fragments which create meaning and beauty.
Posted by mb2811 at 02:19 AM
September 29, 2005
Spacial Design: Week 3 Movement
As i'm working through the weekly projects I need to remember that the design process isn't a hit and run. It's important to remember where I am coming from and to reuse elements from previous projects.
The reading is Stanislavsky. Before Stanislavsky, acting was something just anybody could do. Actors would practice in hiding so that their secrets of technique would not be revealed. Stanislavsky's revolutionary ideas are the ones we take for granted. You may be a terrible actor but if you are a human being you should be able to learn how to act. You are an artist because you are human, you are in charge of your own destiny and can learn new things. The human experience is rich enough for you to relate to others, living is art.
We followed with a long discussion of Marey who studied motion pre-cinema. He used many methods, including multiple exposures on the same emulsion, to map out motion. With our technology it is much easier to emulate his work using video capture and frame by frame playback.
In studying and analyzing motion, look for something benign. The most common motions are the most interesting.
Think of Barneys like a gallery and consider Issey Miyake. He reminds me of a Will Self novel. His designs show the history of the motion of the cloth before it was turned into the garment.
Muybridge is a contemporary of Marey.
Posted by mb2811 at 03:10 AM
Apple Slice
For the first half of the motion assignment I decided to try to map out the motion of an apple being cut in half. The slice of the knife sends the apple halves in opposite directions. Curved, they end up wobbling back and forth until finally settling.
My knives are so dull that the force required to cut the apple in half sent the apple halves flying. I had to first cut the apple in half and then put the slices back together to simulate an apple being cut in half. Also notice that I covered the apple in thumbtacks to accentuate reference points.
The final segment, from release to no motion, lasted a little over four seconds. I had 16 sheets of plastic which came out to about eight frames a sheet. I proceeded to hold my sheets of plastic to the monitor and trace the apple. Lined portions are the outside of the apple, clear portions are the inside of the apple. As I proceeded I realized some segments were more interesting than others so some of the plastic sheets are less than 8 frames apart.
Below is a photo of the final stack of plastic sheets. I haven't figured out how I am going to spread them out but even flat on each other the motion is visible. Neat.
Posted by mb2811 at 02:24 AM
September 28, 2005
Week 3 Notes: Physical Computing
We spent half the class discussion our 'observation' assignment and the other half going over analog and digital output. The observation assignment is a precursor to us proposing something to augment or improve a space.
My group evaluated the ITP lounge but didn't get a chance to propose this week. We will be doing that week 4 with the second half of the assignment. We jumped the gun a little bit in the proposal stage so this extra week has given us time to go back and properly observe.
Tech Part
The capacitors that Todd added to my board are there to even out the circuit. The capacitors act as a sponge. They collect and then evenly release the electricity so that it flows at a constant rate. They compensate for any surges.
For our lab this week we are going to take analog input and output to a serial device hooked into hyperterminal. The analog in is initially going to be a pot.
I also (finally) got a copy of Physical Computing so i'm getting into that. Good stuff.
Posted by mb2811 at 03:51 AM
Week 3 Notes: Communications Lab
We spent most of this week's class looking at everyone's websites. Some looked like they had taking a spin through the Wayback Machine. There was some interesting discussion about window size, image size and relative versus absolute positioning. Things I take for granted and glaze over when i'm working for the QuitNet.
I thought this one was very smart.
I'll probably mention this for all my classes but it's getting harder and harder to take notes in anything. Everything is so interactive and free flowing that it's very hard to pin down as a line of notes. Just thoughts everywhere so this format may change. Which is fine.
Posted by mb2811 at 03:41 AM
Donald Norman
Norman is great. I read most of design of everyday things before I got to ITP and it’s neat to read ‘emotion and design’ as the continuation to his earlier ideas. He comes across as so reasonable and down to earth it makes me wonder if he isn’t slipping something by.
Everything comes back to emotion. If a particular tool makes us feel good we will forgive certain usability or design flaws. This ‘feeling good’ is completely relative to the individual. A certain item may make one person feel good because it is easy to use and someone else feel good because it is pleasurable to look at. Function is not necessarily the primary ratings scale. Since there is no single proper way to use anything, people will overlook glaring usability issues with an item if it balances out on the aesthetic end. Of course there are always the manufacturer’s suggestions on proper use but with multiple affordances, re-appropriation is common.
I think it’s interesting that designers may not want to make a tool which generates too much positive affect. It could be argued that creative is a positive of any task or conversely too much creativity, say with something like surgery, may be a negative. In that case the implement might be better suited to have less positive affect.
Attractive Things Work Better
Design of Everyday Things
Posted by mb2811 at 03:30 AM
September 27, 2005
Steven Johnson
This week's speaker was Steven Johnson, former editor of feed and recently the publisher of Everything Bad is Good For You. He followed our reaction to Vito Acconchi. Though entertaining, I just don't buy where Johnson is coming from. Either he is maverick and too out there for me or he just isn't saying anything substantial. I would say that he has proven that television and video games aren't as bad as we all think they are, which may be true, but so what? He only briefly touches upon all the other things kids have been doing for years. Going outside, reading, music, etc. He doesn't have a metric to compare video games to reading nor has he done a thorough evaluation of activities which aren't mass media. His ideas are interesting but there isn't enough time for everything and video games should be lowest on the list.
Some ideas an quotes:
"Popular culture commentators say two things: Mass media is either Bad or it's so Bad the government should step in"
Games are getting harder, television stories are getting more complex due to the DVD market. There is more cognitive engagement.
You cannot judge a new medium by an old one. (true. But we do have to judge it somehow...)
Reading a book is not making judgements like in video games. Kids play game together, reading isolates more than games.
Television is getting more complicated. The old rules of television were established by Postman (taught at NYU):
- do not induce perplexity
- no prerequisites in all programs
- avoid exposition
Hill Street Blues was the first complicated show. Economics reward shows that require multiple viewings.
Posted by mb2811 at 03:18 AM
Week 3 Lab: Serial Ouptut
It took a while to solder the serial port together. Eventually I realized that the serial port that came with the store kit was a piece of crap and everyone else had bought an individual serial port with coupling 'half pins'. I broke off all of my pins and then it was easier to solder on some angle pins. My first serial port program:
SEROUT2 portc.6, 16468, ["Hello World!", 13,10]
I then attached a variable resistor to the PIC and ran the following code for output to the serial. Basic stuff. I did burn my finger on the voltage regulator when I misalligned the PIC. Always check twice.
DEFINE ADC_BITS 10 ' Set number of bits in result
DEFINE ADC_CLOCK 3 ' Set clock source (3=rc)
DEFINE ADC_SAMPLEUS 50 ' Set sampling time in uS
ADCvar VAR WORD ' Create variable to store result
TRISA = %11111111 ' Set PORTA to all input
ADCON1 = %10000010 ' Set PORTA analog and right justify result
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
main:
ADCIN 0, ADCvar ' Read channel 0 to adval
serout2 PORTC.6, 16468, [DEC ADCvar, 13, 10] ' print it to serial out,
' with linefeed and carriage return (10, 13)
GoTo main ' Do it forever
I then added a motor to my circuit. Instead of just getting a numeric read from my pot, I wanted a physical actuator to convey the POT value in the physical world. In hindsight, my problem is that I put the motor on the same circuit as the pot which diminished what was going to serial out. As my motor revved up, the numbers stopped appearing in hyperterminal. Tomorrow I will try to put the motor on different output pins and see if hyperterminal and the motor can run at once.
Posted by mb2811 at 12:14 AM
September 26, 2005
Week 3 Activity: Wooster Group
For this week's outside activity, I saw Poor Theatre at the Wooster Group. The Smithson activity didn't work out. We waited for well over an hour at Brooklyn Bridge Park and then left. I checked the website with my phone and it said due to heavy river traffic the floating island was running forty five minutes late but it must have been running even later than that.
Poor Theatre - a series of simulacra
The Wooster group performance was an experimental multimedia show which blurred all the artificial lines we are used to in the theatre experience. 'Poor Theatre' blurred the line between audience an actor (common occurrence) but it also went out on a limb with other delineations. The line between sound, lights and actors, the line between reality and television, the line between reviewer and reviewed, the line between the living and memorialized, etc. Accidentally, it was a great thing to see relative to what we are reading and talking about this week.
Posted by mb2811 at 09:54 PM
September 25, 2005
Manipulated Images
1. your hair will come back
2. dead kennedys album art
3. adbusters
(bang! bang! bang!)
Posted by mb2811 at 10:30 PM
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
"The equipment-free aspect of reality here has become the height of artifice; the sight of immediate reality has become an orchid in the land of technology."
-- Walter Benjamin
In his essay, Benjamin densely touches upon the current evolution of art with respect to its definition, authenticity and means of production. Art isn't necessarily diminished by new technology and mass production as much at it is irrevocably altered. Several things of interest:
To be art as art with it's wholeness and intention intact, art must be considered with its whole aura, the time in which it was created as well as the physical aging that has occurred to the art as it passes through time. This view of art is bound to an art that is a unique physical manifestation, created in a certain time. Art which cannot be created in any other way or at any other time.
Art that can be mass produced (films) or the art of ideas (conceptual) has no place in this way of thinking. In some ways art that is pure idea has always existed and will always exist. It cannot be bound to a particular time, only a particular interpretation relative to a time and a zeitgeist.
Writing a letter to the editor allows anyone to voice their opinion in a newspaper, everyone has now become a writer. The craft of writing or the granting of a voice is no longer the domain of a group of individuals deemed writers. Everyone has a voice. This shift that Banjamin highlights is the initial seed of the interactive media that has become part of our popular culture. Stanislavski tells us that because we are human we all are actors, we all can convey the human experience. iMovie encourages all of us to be film makers, we all have a story to tell. Blogging software invites us to all be writers. All the lines have been crossed and criss crossed, the boundaries between professional and amatuer, between artist and audience have broken down.
Finally, it's interesting to note that art in the age of mechanical reproduction begets new art. Technology allows us to slow down, deconstruct and then reassemble anew. Technology also allows for the construction of a form before the art. A photograph may be the art, the negative being the tool used to construct the art. Alternatively, in art as process, the negative becomes the art and photograph becomes an afterthought. Technology, in creating space between the details, creates possibilities.
Posted by mb2811 at 09:02 PM
September 23, 2005
Bill Viola Reading
Bill Viola's "Statements" (1989 & 1985) overlap nicely with Marshall McLuhan, who I am reading for 'communications lab'. In my first few weeks @ ITP, i've found that there is a heavy overlap in all my classes, a strong common undercurrent that is driving all we do and everything we are striving for.
Viola mediates and zooms in on the conceptual delineations we take for granted until they fall apart and show themselves for what they really are, arbitrary. In different words, mimicking McLuhan, he is proposing a "medium of sense" which he calls experience. The true beauty is not in manifestations or implementations of experience but in experience as experience. Just as McLuhan isn't interested in light when it is used to perform brain surgery Viola isn't interested in hearing or vision, but the unified raw material that we call sense.
It may not be too far fetched to say that ITP as ITP is the medium, the true vision of emerging technologies. Classes and floor collaborations are only useful in that they allow us to travel back up and see the unified, originating whole.
Posted by mb2811 at 02:17 AM
Perspective Model
Updates: After talking about the model in class, some ideas:
- the box i used to take the model on the mta as part of the piece. a three dimensional postcard to the future. fifty years from now you would go to a place and open boxes to see what things looked like. or even now sending a 3-d postcard.
- don't be constrained by what the space looks like. it's all about what the lens sees. consider building a sphere so it's harder to see outside the space and putting mirrors on the ground so that there is more a wholeness and feeling of dimension.
- consider having someone voice over the space as you pan through it. the story of the space, tony talking about the block and growing up on it a la miranda july. or even take photographs of someone walking through the space so that they are in every shot. they are talking about themselves in the pictures.
For my perspective model I replicated the view from my stoop on 12th street in Brooklyn. I haven't spent much time on my stoop, i'm too busy running around, but people are out there all the time. Even as I write this I hear people on the stoop. It's a distinctly urban phenomenon that's new to me.
Some people live their lives from the stoop, in the same four block radius. The stoop and the view from it is their world. Personally, I think of it as a place you pass when you are coming home or going out into the world, not a place you stop.
For this assignment I thought I would slow down and stop on the stoop, take a look around. From the stoop I took photos all the way around. Since you are sitting you cannot see behind you and you cannot really turn your body, only your head. When you turn your head you are blocked off by the first floor apartment windows on both sides.
The model was implemented as an overlapping collage of two dimensional photographs. The cascade of fences, cars and building pass through the 270 degree arc. The street is blocked off my the buildings on the other side. You cannot see over them, the world from the stoop ends there. You can look up and see the possibility of some other place, but there is no actual manifestation, you are blocked off on all sides.
I'm excited to see what happens when we put a camera at stoop level. The photos look like a shtetl. Like they could be a set for an animation about ukraine before the war.
Posted by mb2811 at 12:54 AM
September 20, 2005
Electronic Push Button Menorah
I was waiting for my bulk parts from Jaemco to arrive so I could build something interesting with levers and switches when I realized I wasn't thinking about my work the right way. The goal here isn't to neccsarily build a gizmo but to incorporate technology into the everyday. So I went home to see what I had lying around and the first thing I saw was a menorah which was a great fit since we are playing with LEDs.
I've built out the menorah on the breadboard with the intention of embedding it into an old menorah with a broken music box base. The old mechanisms were analog and I could make the menorah digital with my new circuit.
The menorah starts with all nine lights off. As you hold down the button the shamesh and the first light turn on. If you keep on holding down the button the lights slowly turn on one by one until they are all on. Then the mechanism cycles.
Specs:
A push button (stateless switch) will cycle through all the different light settings. The push button is on portc.2. The LEDs can be mounted on an analog (candles + fire) menorah.
The shamesh, the center light, will light with the first light and stay lit.
'// shamesh (center light)
output portb.7
'// memory slots & slights (total of 16)
output portb.6
output portb.5
output portb.4
output portb.3
output portb.2
output portb.1
output portb.0
output portd.2
input portc.2
main:
'// init
'// Going in a CLOCKWISE U
'// Shamesh RB7. the shaemsh is initially off
LOW portb.7
LOW portb.6
LOW portb.5
LOW portb.4
LOW portb.3
LOW portb.2
LOW portb.1
LOW portb.0
LOW portd.2
LOW portc.2
startagain:
'// Light
'// 1 - RB6
'// 2 - RB5
'// 3 - RB4
'// 4 - RB3
'// 5 - RB2
'// 6 - RB1
'// 7 - RB0
'// 8 - RD2
'// if the button has been pressed
if portc.2 = 1 then
'//i don't think there is an elseif
'// first is the last one on? if so turn them all off
if portd.2 = 1 then
LOW portb.7
LOW portb.6
low portb.5
low portb.4
low portb.3
low portb.2
low portb.1
low portb.0
LOW portd.2
goto bottom
ENDIF
'// now just one at a time, moving backwards
if portb.0 = 1 then
high portd.2
goto bottom
ENDIF
if portb.1 = 1 then
high portb.0
goto bottom
ENDIF
if portb.2 = 1 then
high portb.1
goto bottom
ENDIF
if portb.3 = 1 then
high portb.2
goto bottom
ENDIF
if portb.4 = 1 then
high portb.3
goto bottom
ENDIF
if portb.5 = 1 then
high portb.4
goto bottom
ENDIF
if portb.6 = 1 then
high portb.5
goto bottom
ENDIF
'// if we made it this far, nothing is lit turn the first one on
HIGH portb.7
HIGH portb.6
low portb.5
low portb.4
low portb.3
low portb.2
low portb.1
low portb.0
LOW portd.2
ENDIF
bottom:
pause 500
goto startagain
Posted by mb2811 at 05:23 AM
Week 2: Spacial Design
Bill Viola
This week's assignment is to consider perspective and to read Bill Viola. ITP is a descendant of Bill, his experimentation in the sixties with television and video is what we are doing now with new technology. Now people get video but they don't get ITP, interactive media. Viola is the grandfather of what we are doing in 'spacial design' and overall at ITP.
Forty years ago, television was a purely broadcast medium, there was no forum to react or re appropriate. Viola started by placing magnets on a television screen to manipulate the image, to make it his own. He came from an analog world and was the first to create video installation. He was one of the first to take cameras outside the studio. What was important was to create a relationship with the viewer instead of to reach a mass audience. The individual was what was most important. The viewer would be up against the television, crawling through a tunnel with televisions, a religious experience.
More importantly, Viola is an artist who writes. Reasons for knocking on an empty house. He writes texts about himself and the creative process. We must make him our Picasso (if Picasso did video).
This Week
Think about a place in terms of perspective, about what you can actually see. Consider obstacles, put your back against something and think about what you can see. Think about the physical space in between and what is around your line of sight. Turn your neck but not your body. Think about other people. The short, the tall, the fatigued, the wheel chair bound. What do they see? Think about throwing things, giving a physicality to the space. Not just a here and a there but also the in between.
Paleolithic and Magdalenian people lived thousands of years ago but we can recreate their environment by their trash cans. Their line of sight and how far they threw the bones of the animals they ate. Embrace and consider the everyday spaces you ignore.
Moments of Perspective
Link to different perspectives, especially Kieesler playing around with the concept of gallery space.
Posted by mb2811 at 01:19 AM
September 19, 2005
First PIC Lab
This is the first PIC assignment. I have to make sure I learn how to sequentially debug my circuit for when it gets more complex. My PIC circuit wasn't working because the voltage regulator was fried and also because I wasn't using a 10k resistor for my reset.
I tried to use the random number generator but Todd told me it's much better to use ADCIN to generate random numbers. Here are his code samples:
http://toddholoubek.com/pcomp/examples/code/allcodeindex.html
The analog out on port one generates a one or a zero. I'd like to incorporate something from the house as my switch/sensor because I don't have any parts right now. I think i'd like to incorporate organic elements into my design to counteract the coldness of the technology. Here are some basic things I got done:
A basic traffic light. The different leds alternate at a predefined interval. It would be cool if I had two traffic lights that talked to each other. If someone was coming in one direction (motion sensor) and no one else was coming the other way, the traffic light would automatically turn green.
Lights connected to a potentiometer. The code regulates the light and a physical action manipulates the pot.
Posted by mb2811 at 01:38 AM
September 17, 2005
Week 2: Physical Computing
Multimeter: Make sure you are plugged into COM (common ground) and v/horseshoe (voltage / resistance). A straight and dotted line measures DC and a wavy line measures AC current. Always start by measuring something you know to see if the multimeter works.
Student Question: A potentiometer has three prongs while a photo resistor only has two prongs because a photo resistor only has one value when the resistor is initiated. With a pot, the outside legs are the maximum resistance. The middle leg creates a shortcut to increase or decrease the resistance. This range runs from zero to the maximum resistance of the pot. A pot doesn't need ground.
First Project, Week 1: Observation stage. This is the time to dream. Get a feeling for the physicality of a space and how it can be improved. What are people's existing activities in this space? Look for a good interaction scheme, for levels of communication. The interaction doesn't necessarily have to be complex, it is about design mastery. Remember, good design tends to be cyclical.
Switches: Switches that remember their state are toggle switches. Remember the basic building blocks. A switch is nothing more than two wires touching.
PICs: Make sure you buy DIP packages because they are the right distance to fit into breadboards. Some chips are too close together and are meant for machine soldering. The PIC has a clock. Every time it oscillates another instruction is executed.
We're putting code on the chip. Here's a simple routine:
main:
HIGH portb.7
PAUSE 500
LOW portb.7
PAUSE 500
GOTO main
Posted by mb2811 at 11:08 PM
Reading: Marshall McLuhan 1, 8, 9
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The Narcissistic Trance
McLuhan articulately encourages us to take as many steps as we are comfortable taking out of the everyday manifestations and see what is really going "on". In the realm of ideas, his analysis is solid as he encourages us to glance at the a priori movers, the true actuators of change. Analyzing the result of a medium is a valid enterprise but we shouldn't mistake that analysis for true analysis of a medium. When a medium is ubiquitous and recedes to the background of ideas as its manifestations become prominent we must not forget about the origin of those manifestations. Otherwise we trap ourselves in Abbott's Flatland and forget about the possibilities as possibility.
The McLuhan reading connects nicely with a reading from physical computing on the The Art of Interactive Design (my notes can be found here). Crawford says that interaction and reaction are not on a degree continuum. A very strong reaction does not break into the realm of interaction just as a very bright neon sign does not enter the realm of light as medium.
Reevaluating the language of a medium implementation has correlations to synesthesia. From the pure medium's perspective, all implementations of the medium are arbitrary and equal. From the perspective of 'light as light', it doesn't matter if the light is used to sell beer or perform brain surgery. It is then possible to apply descriptive words from one implementation to another and have the potential for them to make sense. If we think of the senses as a reaction to an encompassing medium, it no longer seems so strange to see tastes or feel sound just as a surgical procedure could have a 'grammar'.
As we submerge ourselves in medium as implementation we must not loose sight of what we are loosing or what we may gain if attempt to retrace our steps. Language is a detachment as is consciousness and any layer that prevents us from experiencing the world as World. Running water may advance industrialization and convenience but it breaks down the family and clan structure. As the Chinese move from ideograms to a more western phonetic alphabet, their world view and cultural nuances are altered in favor of a more linear, abstract forward motion of ideas. These are not necessarily value judgments, they are what is.
As a final note, we can also see a transition with emerging technology as they move us closer to a Tower of Babel, removing the need for languages. Maybe the cultures we are so quick to preserve are in fact barriers to ultimate understanding and connection?
Posted by mb2811 at 07:24 PM
September 16, 2005
ITP Message Board
Introduction
We are proposing display screens which will show a queue of people currently on the floor that need some sort of assistance. These people have a specific question which is preventing them from completing or proceeding with a task. This 'help application' should facilitate physical interactivity. It's important that a person be present on the floor to submit a question (no email via SMS unless we use GPS to verify proximity).
Help Queue
A person adds themselves to the help queue. The system collects their location (main floor, physical computing, etc.), their problem category and the details of their question. As it stands the queue is prioritized by time, it's LIFO (last in, first out). There will be a limit on the queue size. Once the max queue size is hit, any new additions to the queue will bump the last in person off of the list. We might add the ability to then mail the student's question to the itp-students mailing list.
The application is built to facilitate immediate interaction. If a question stagnates in the queue for an hour it is no longer relevant. The individual needed the answer 'now' to get their work done. An hour later is no longer 'now'. For that reason, individuals will be removed from the help queue if they are not helped within a predefined period of time (e.g. ten minutes). This help system will also have to be sensitive to different use traffic volumes.
Physical Device
It's important that the interface to this helper application is a custom physical device and is not confused with an all purpose terminal. It should only contain the functions necessary for the helper application to run. Possible components include a card swipe, buttons which singularly correlate to the functions of the application (add, delete, help, etc.) and a simplified screen and keyboard. Touch screen may also be a possibility.
Having said that, physical device development would definitely be phase two. It would be much easier to rapidly prototype it using existing all purpose technologies.
Posted by mb2811 at 10:33 PM
Light Box
For the first assignment, I built a light box. I cut holes in a foam core box and filled those holes with different colored gels. I took the pieces of foam core that I cut out and put them on pins inside of the box. I then shone an ikea desk lamp through the gels and recorded the light transition on a one chip camera that records to mini-dv. Anna did the camera work.
I did an ok job. The light changes did not appear too well on tape and I should have spent more time investigating the light and shadow transitions. I'm glad I took a camera out instead of just using the video option on my digital still camera. In class one of the neatest projects was a set that was actually a mirror reflection. The student filmed the reflection and to throw us off the trail he colored some of the mirror.
Posted by mb2811 at 10:17 PM
Week 2 Outside Activity: 9/11 Site
For this week's outside activity, I visited the site of the 9/11 tragedy. Four years ago, when the planes struck the twin towers I was in Boston. I was working next door to the John Hancock building, one of the biggest high rises in Boston and no one knew what was going on. Since my building was next to such a tall building we were evacuated and sent home. I rode my bike home to Wachusett street in Jamaica Plain and along the way I saw lines snaking out of and around churches. People thought the world was ending.
Last Sunday, I saw the twin memorial lights from my apartment in Brooklyn and finally went down to the financial district to see the memorial. There were signs requesting that people not solicit or be solicited to preserve the solemnity of the area. People obeyed. I sat down and watched people read from the book of profiles, the biographies of all those people who died four years ago.
I don't have anything else to say. I'm glad I went. It's always important to remember.
Posted by mb2811 at 09:45 PM
September 15, 2005
Week 2: Communications Lab
Class materials can be found
here.
Reading: "Blogs of War" (blogging in the military)
The "blogs of war" brought up the point that military on-site blogging cannot be stopped by the military because the technology is so pervasive and has a low barrier for entry. I contend that the military doesn't stop soldiers from blogging because they would rather keep their enemies closer. The fact is, although blogging software is pervasive, software like wordpress and movable type have a recognizable footprint that can be stopped in a generic and templated way. The real shift and potential first amendment revolution would come from an easily deployable combination of movable type and anonymizer.
Reading: Video Game Violence
The interesting thing about the video game rating system is the level of trust between the game makes and the ratings board. A video game has hundreds of hours of play and a rater could not possible play every path in a video game to completion. Subjectively, a video game maker sends the ratings board a thirty minute video of the most objectionable material in the game and the ratings board uses that video to assign a rating to the game. The ratings consortium was actually established by the video game industry, while stores will not sell games that do not have ratings. It's a complete back room deal with no accountability.
Ironically, the big scandal in the industry is not that someone murdered someone else due to grand theft auto but the 'hot coffee' (hidden sex scenes) scandal.
Image Discussion
Generally, photos should be scanned at a very high resolution, 400-600 dpi, but those image sizes are way too high because designing for a screen limits us to 72 dpi.
GIF - losless format
JPG - lossy compression used for web. Use photoshop and 'save for web' but do not use the web safe pallet. that is a relic of slower baud connections.
Color/Image Discussion
Link: Lynda Weinman
There are two hexadecimal values for each of the three colors in the color wheel, RGB. For example, pure red is FF0000. Specifying height and width for an image was also more important when connections were slower. The browser could block off an image and proceed to render the content below the image.
Alt tags are important for accessibility. section 508 contains information for government standard regarding accessibility/usabiility. For example, the ITP website is not accessible because it is written in flash. I cannot load it on my cell phone. The Tisch website is accessible but not usable. The main navigation is on every page. Since a screen reader reads from left to right, the top level navigation is 'read' over and over again on every page. It would be interesting to use a screen reader.
ImageReady
ImageReady comes with photoshop and has lots of neat tools for manipulating images and creating html. For example you can slice an image into multiple table cells and ImageReady will generate the html for you. This is useful for creating a clean server side image map.
CSS
Stylesheets are phasing out tables. They allow for much more explicit control of font and style. The basic CSS tag is specified with a selector, declarations and properties. For example:
selector: H2
declaration: color
property: red
Dreamweaver is useful for designing and maintaining styles.
Posted by mb2811 at 01:30 AM
September 14, 2005
Week 2: Vito Acconci
This week, Vito Acconci spoke @ Red's class. We were all taken by his insight and vision. The class ran over and then students stayed after to ask him questions. He had a hypnotic quality, an accessible and enchanting presence. His delivery, with the rocking and repeating of words pulled me in and opened me up to his ideas.
My group's challenge is to react to his presentation for next tuesday. Acconci's career as an artist has a clear emergence and it would be ideal if we could match it with a strong, distinct, well grounded presentation.
Acconci presented his career as a series of chapters, a concept usually associated with the written word, something his work led him to reject. He came to believe that the world is best described through symbols and diagrams instead of words. That the world is best described using a medium that can be manipulated and used by the individuals experiencing the art as 'description'. With his current work in architecture, he builds spaces that empower people to exist in their own personal way within a public space.
Beginning his career as an experimental poet, it became difficult for him to write poetry about things that could not exist on the written page. A poem about a tree is about a thing somewhere else, a fleeting glimpse of a thing that cannot be shut down and quantified with the written word. Soon his poetry only contained words that could be closed off on the written page, words that were not problematic.
In the late 60s, he moved on into an art context. Art was something that was open, that you could import from other fields. You could apply sociology, psychology, any discipline and interpret it in the context of art. His efforts were spent traveling away from the page. He began by taking pictures of basic motions, his "street works". He was looking for a way to move, motion rejects the page, the written word. For a month he followed a new person every day until the entered a private place. Sometimes they would disappear immediately but sometimes they would go to a public space such as a movie theatre or restaurant. In those cases Acconci would keep on following them.
After turning outward, Acconci began to scale back and turn inward, his body being a fertile ground for experimentation. He applied stress to his body to study reactions and transformations. He produced a series of three 'adaptation' films: one where he is blind folded and he attempts to dodge a ball thrown at him, one where he dunks his eyes in soapy water and then spends the rest of the film cleaning out his eyes until he can finally see and one where he stuffs his fist into his mouth until he cannot do it anymore. Acconci adapts until the fist is suffocating and he cannot adapt. At this final point, he symbolically dies.
In a film called "conversions", the only light in the film comes from a single candle. Acconci uses the candle to burn hair off his body. With the hair singed from his breast, he reshapes his breast to be more like a woman's. He does not become a woman but what is important here is the conversion process, the manipulating of his body.
From traveling inward, Acconci moved onto the city and person to person interaction. A public space is occupied by private bodies. A public space creates the thin illusion of civilization. Why aren't these people fucking each other or ripping each other to threads? They do it in private and they do it in public when their sense of public space is destroyed (when they are drunk or overcome by rage) but at all other times the concept of public space keeps them at bay. What is it about public space?
He proceeded with a number of projects which study and explore interaction. In one, two people in a gallery space are blindfolded and deaf. With their feedback loops cut off, they attempt to imitate each other with 'sense' being their only utility. In another, Acconci and Cathy Dillon are in separate boxes. They can view each other only through television screens. Acconci attempts to hypnotize Dillon through the television screens into tying herself up.
Moving his interaction exploration to another venue, Acconci reentered the conventional art space but on his own terms. Before the late 60s, galleries looked like rich people's homes. The art was better than you. In the 70s, with the rise of minimalism, galleries began to look like laboratories. Now they implied experimentation. People didn't know where the art was anymore. Is that a sink or art? etc.
One of my absolute favorite pieces has Acconci spending an eight hour day under the floorboards of a gallery. While people browse the gallery, Acconci attempts to masturbate to the student of the person in the gallery. As he masturbates, he visualizes and talks to the footsteps above him.
I didn't write much down about Acconci's current architecture work because I was trying to film it but there is a common thread. Public space only exists in America because of the 1% law. Acconci's form, only allotted that 1%, attempts to create public space that is parasitic and viral. Public space that infringes and converts the private property that it is part of. Acconci comes at this from his 'prankster' beginnings. He turns structures inside out, upside down, misuses and re-appropriates. Sometimes he gets away with it and sometimes it's just too much.
One of the best examples is Queens College and the monumental domes that adorn the enterance. Acconci turned the front entrance into a whimsical public space.
Acconci thinks that the architecture of the future is in clothes. Skin covers bone, clothes cover skin, chair covers clothes, house covers chair and so on. Soon we will be like turtles, carrying our private spaces with us everywhere. Home is an arbitrary construct and we won't have to go home if our home is always with us.
Posted by mb2811 at 04:28 AM
September 11, 2005
Outside Activity: Food Coop
For this week, I joined and shopped at a Food Coop in Brooklyn. We have Coops in Boston but you can still shop at them if you aren't a member, you just don't get a discount. The one in Brooklyn is the oldest one in the country with over 10 thousand members. You can't shop there unless you are a member and to be a member you have to work there for three hours a month.
The whole place is a bit culty but there is a great vibe there. When you shop, you don't have the "us and them" mentality of a regular supermarket. Everyone who is working that day is a member just like you, you're doing this thing together. Even while shopping, when you aren't on a work shift, you know you'll be working eventually so you try to be careful with everything because you wouldn't want to clean up someone else's mess.
Clearly i've been converted :)
Posted by mb2811 at 11:36 PM
Noguchi Museum Visit
Reflections
This saturday, September 11th, I visited the Noguchi museum in Queens. The only cross town train to Queens from Brooklyn is the G which I have been told is best to avoid. I took the F from Brooklyn, which took me through Manhattan and back east into Queens. All roads here seem to lead through Manhattan like a star network cluster. To get anywhere reliably, you have to go through the center of the star.
The Museum is a still sanctuary situated within an industrial zone. The charm of New York, where the most wonderful thing can be hidden behind a pile of garbage. No one shopping at Cosco or fishing off the back pier had ever heard of the museum.
For me, the most enchanting part of the Museum was the first room and the outside garden. I've always enjoyed buildings that break the lines between inside and outside. Buildings that are turned inside-out, where the outside structure feels like you are inside and the "entering" makes you feel like you are coming outside. The first room, allowing nature to enter from all sides, helped the sculptures to become something greater than museum pieces. Without any barriers between the viewer and the piece (except for the 'do not touch the art' signs) the viewer exists alongside the sculptures.
The piece existing as is, without a roped of barrier, an artist statement or even a name leaves us with just the piece. The artist isn't meeting us half way with an artist statement or an idea of their personal intentions. We are alone with the piece and either it moves us or it doesn't.
With the initial experience in the front room, the rest of the museum was much less inviting. Although the pieces were powerful, they were enclosed within conventional walls, air conditioning and artificial light. Experiencing Noguchi's works as he intended them to be experienced is detrimented by the curators' attempt to preserve the pieces.
Noguchi's furniture on the second floor was very elegant, simple and functional. I especially liked the chair made of two wooden pieces at odds with each other. When an individual sits in the chair, the balancing structure that is the chair is reinforced as the individual is placing pressure on both pieces of wood in opposite directions.
Notes
Noguchi wasn't challenged by marble and moved onto granite and basalt. He sculpted by drilling small holes along the natural cracks of the rock. Then he would insert bamboo dowels and fill them with water. They would slowly expand and split the rock.
Posted by mb2811 at 10:53 PM
September 10, 2005
Art of Interactive Design: Chapter 1 & 2
"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand." --Chinese Proverb
The discussion of interactivity is reminiscent of our class discussion on analog versus digital. The Art of Interactive Design is a reaction to the digital revolution but ironically, interactivity is more granular if it is examined as analog. Interactivity involves three elements, input, processing and output. These three elements are on a degree continuum and for optimal interactivity these three must be in proper balance relative to each other.
The first thing that comes to mind is a red-green-blue color wheel (here is a web safe one). For optimal interactivity we are looking for the perfect combination of these three colors out of 1.67 million possibilities. How much input should we take before we respond? How should we think about the input? These questions will help us reach optimal interactivity. Just as close colors on a color wheel look almost the same, especially to an untrained eye, so does interactivity design exist in a gray area of possibilities. Blue is not orange, but #121212 is pretty close to #0F0F0F.
Are rugs interactive?
Inanimate objects will become interactive once we grasp their -ness. Some people may claim to "speak rug", and for those individuals a rug is interactive. For the rest of us a rug is reactive. We react when we see it (This person can afford a rug! I should ask to borrow some money.) and we react when we step on it (This rug is very soft. I wonder if i should take off my shoes?). A rug isn't interactive as rug but it is a proxy for an interactive human. Owning a rug and putting it on the floor is a "speaking" and a form of interaction only possible when interactors are available.
Speculatively, a rug may be able to interact with another rug using its own personal language.
Posted by mb2811 at 08:06 PM
Less is More
Reaction
It is interesting to ask why has technology advanced so rapidly while thinking about technology is stagnant and has not advanced since the development of mainframes. For reasons most likely grounded in social Darwinism, recently-alive people like to think that they are living through something momentous, a time and place that no other generation has ever experienced. A real revolution happening outside their door while they are on this planet. That is rarely the case. Revolutions take time, incredible disruption and discomfort. The truth is we may think we are part of the 'computer revolution', but we've only scratched the surface.
To me, real technological revolution would be much more threatening. Every new version or advance of an operating system or software platform is delivered via a comfortable paradigm. My terminal and basic i/o devices are my point of reference. You go to the terminal when you want to do computer-y things and you turn off the computer when you are done. There is a predefined mental distance. Real change comes with Buxton's proposal: rich, single function complex systems should appear in the physical, social and relative context we are accustomed to. These computers, if that's what they would still be called, would cohabitate with us and imply some loss of control and autonomy. We would be letting them in and allowing them to partially take over as in Buxton's wireless car radio example.
The scenario outlined above would be a true advance. G-d's principal shows that it would take millions of years for our brains to enhance their processing ability and technology's promise is that it can meet us half way.
Other Reflections
Buxton talks about a wireless functional appliances within a car that talk to each other. Mostly for work reasons I have been a PC user my whole life. I bought a new powerbook for school. Once when I was listening to iTunes and my iChat started ringing, the iTunes song actually faded out! When my phone call was done the music faded back in again, almost like a call waiting system in a pbx. This little feature blew my mind. I think I may have called friends to tell them about it. On a PC I couldn't even tell you what would happen. I know i'd be messing around with IRQs or two sound cards.
Buxton also talks about playing music out of a device that looks like a radio versus using a terminal as a music player. Whenever I see internet enabled radios, they always have to look like a star trek prop, as if the designers are saying, "don't worry i may look like a radio but really i'm a computer. i'm advanced!" That kind of garish design is a big turnoff. We'll make progress when internet enabled radios stop having inferiority complexes and more importantly when society lets them in.
Less is More by William Buxton
Posted by mb2811 at 06:02 PM
September 09, 2005
Spacial Design Week 1: Notes
My goal for this class is to explore and think critically about the third dimension. There are insights and perspectives everywhere of one cares to explore. For example, Manhattan, a metropolis on an island, has a culture of density. People find personal space in a crammed city and feel like kings when they are riding in a cab at four in the morning.
Light
There are two assignments. First, visit the noguchi museum. Of interest: the Japanese consider shadows independent of light, their own entity. They aren't a consequence of light but instead are complementary to light.
Secondly, create a box made of foam and push pins to analyze light. Videotape as you move a light source of your box to analyze how the light moves. Film the set as well as the shadows. Bring the model only if you want to. Consider:
Supplies
Otherwise
Urtech on Lafayette between 11th and 12th
Pearl Paint on the West side of Canal Street
Across from Pearl is Industrial Plastic
Home Depot / Lowes (Brooklyn)
Posted by mb2811 at 11:38 PM
Physical Computing Week 1: Notes
The course is about moving away from the screen because the screen doesn't compensate for the wide range of human physical expression. Our body can interact in many more ways than the mouse and the keyboard. The question is, why does digital technology have to be so cold?
We went around the room and talked about a satisfying tool we have used. It didn't have to come from a metal toolbox.
Analog vs. Digital
Digital is on and off while analog is a continous progression limited by a finite set of inputs and outputs. Analog can be reproduced with digital but something potentially could be lost in the transition. It's relative to the application.
Digital: Is the Cat on the Mat?
Analog: How Fat is the Cat on the Mat?
To interact with analog, we need a unit of measurement. To create a system you need input (sensors) as well as output (actuators). Sensors mean listening to the user, really listening.
Electricity
There was a basic discussion of electricity and Ohm's Law:
Voltage (V) = Current (I) * (R) Resistance.
The analogy used was a water hose. You can either increase the amount of water coming out of a hose or hold your finger over the opening to make it go farther. We are talking about the amount of water versus the water pressure. Current is the amount of water and that's what kills you.
Components
A diode (for exampled a LED) only allows energy to flow one way. That's why a LED has a long and a short leg while a resistor can go in either direction. A variable resistor is also called a potentiometer or a dimmer switch. The pins are from left to right IGO. In, Ground, Out (Information).
Posted by mb2811 at 11:14 PM
Communications Lab Week 1: Notes
We covered basic HTML. Two books I need to eventually get, one for next week:
Understanding Media and Film Directing Shot by Shot.
As a reminder. Archive was for FTP and Veronica was for Gopher.
Posted by mb2811 at 11:04 PM
Communications Lab Assignment 1: Basic Portfolio Site
I made a very basic HTML Page with links to my homework assignments. I find a database driven blog a much cleaner and easier to maintain system for content. All the links to my homework assignments (including this one) go to the ITP blog.
I'm proficient in HTML so this assignment wasn't difficult. I may know all the HTML tags but I don't know how to put them together in an aesthetically proper way. That's why I am here, to improve on my front end and design skills. My HTML page is just a placeholder for the content I will make once I learn flash, photoshop, final cut and the like.
Now that I think about it, i'd much rather just maintain all of my work for this class in my blog (with external links to content). It's almost a pleasure to maintain when you are used to pico and .html files.
Posted by mb2811 at 10:56 PM
Basic Electronics Lab
I had brought a power supply from home to try to use on this project. It was rated at:
120V IN
9V OUT
400 mA
The dongle of the power supply didn't fit with the provided plugs from the cabinet so I decided to just clip off the end of the power plug and try to wire it in myself. I used the multimeter to figure out which end was positive, soldered some leads onto the two wires from the power plug and finally glue gunned the whole thing. It didn't work. With Caryln's help, we decided that the power supply was faulty. I ended up borrowing someone else's 12v for the work.
I completed all the projects. I took a few photos and will attach them to the bottom of this page. Here are some notes for interesting things that came up with particular steps:
Step 2
The circuit lit up two lights but the third one didn't light up. Since the lights were acting as resistors, they convert electricity to heat and light. The circuit was only five volts due to the voltage regulator and that wasn't enough power to light up three lights. I tried putting resistors between each one of the lights but that didn't help. When I took each of the lights, gave each of them their own resistor and ran them directly to power they all worked. I think I have demonstrated the concept of serial versus parallel but i'm not completely clear on that. I think seeing a physical parallel versus series circuit would be useful, not just a diagram.
Questions:
Part of my original problem was that I was misreading (or getting malfunctioning) multimeters and I just assumed there was something wrong with the circuit. I'm not clear on all the extra switches on the multimeter and need help using it. I think other students have the same problem. Our circuits worked but without fully understanding the multimeter we cannot debug them intelligently, only with trial and error. Right now they are very simple but that won't work for the more complicated ones.
I am also not clear on what the output is on the voltage regulator since my understanding is the whole circuit becomes five volts when the regulator is added. Other students weren't even using the output on the voltage regulator (just power & grnd) which defeats the purpose of it, right?
3 Photos from the lab. Once i got into it I forgot to take pictures.
Posted by mb2811 at 06:13 PM
September 07, 2005
Flashmobs
"Margarethe Muller, emerging from a nearby department store, sensed that something was happening. She just wasn’t sure what". -- New York Times, 8/4/03
Flashmobs, still in their incubator stage, have the potential to progress the shift of power and lead to true social change. Their absurd nature helps them move under the radar as they evolve into a general forum for freedom of expression and individual empowerment. Flashmobs envelop individuals in a crowd that expresses itself in an unconventional way, not easily quantified or explained. Much like the Daily Show is given latitude because it is on a comedy channel, or an animated series can be offensive because it is a cartoon, the absurd actions of the Flashmob mask their true potential. What’s the harm of a thousand people simultaneously eating a banana?
The strength of Flashmobs lies in their decentralized power structure and their speed. Leveraging email and cell phone technologies, Flashmobs have an unprecedented time to action and element of surprise. Interestingly, Flashmobs have emerged at the same time as the popularity of distributed mesh networks. As power clamps down on freedom of expression and dissent, whether it is our president or the MPAA, systems evolve and disperse to protect themselves and their beliefs. Correctly avoiding centralization flashmob.info, mentioned in the New York Times article, is an unregistered domain. Other sites like flashmob.com and flashmobs.info dilute the strength of the Flashmobs phenomenon by centralization. Everyone wants their street cred but they forget the revolution will not be televised.
A current weakness of Flashmobs is the taking up of physical space. With the element of surprise, a mob may have achieved its goal of expression, but the mob is collectively in a space and must follow the laws of physics. Understandably, creating a crowd and confusion for a physical "denial of service" attack may be the Flashmob’s goal, but the Flashmob is that much more powerful when both the initiators and participants are distributed. Flashmobs where everyone jumps up in their own individual space at a predefined time to physically move the earth are heading in the right direction. As the type and robustness of available mediums for the message to be transmitted evolve, Flashmobs will become an empowering balance to centralized authority.
Direction:
Flashmobs can adapt to any new technology which supports a decentralized approach for expression. If TV-B-Gone was on everyone's keychain, a flash mob could disperse and turn off every television in a city.
Related Links:
New York Times: Berlin Journal; What: Mob Scene. Who: Strangers. Point: None.
Interview with "Bill"
Wikipedia Flashmobs Entry
Posted by mb2811 at 04:59 PM