I used the pot sensor to trigger a different light to HIGH as the reading increased, but when I changed the output from analog to digital, the lights lit, but not brightly.
Hmm.
here's the program...
SEE Nathan, Patrica, Scott, Allistar and Roger find their theatrical voices as Performance Art-meets-Electronic Assembly...
Link to the 20 minute video http://omorphy.com/videoclips/Applications%20GRP%204.mov
While visiting “Out of Time” at MOMA, I waited for a few moments in front of each piece. Each was another layer of some person’s opinion about the concept of time. Time is often depicted as a variable in these pieces, a variable poised to change the viewer’s perception of an object or idea. Time flows past a place or an object or a group of people, now long dead. Some of the work made me think of how much time had passed since the work was created, reminding me that some art is not so timeless, remaining as a stale reflection of the time in western culture from which it was created. There are limits to its social appeal.
The work that affected me very quickly, thought (no pun intended here), is Dieter Appelt’s “The Field,” (1991). The piece is a series of 10” x 12” framed photographs arranged in a grid. The images are of a section of river surface taken from a bridge above the water. The camera is locked off so each shot is the exact same framing of space, yet each shot is as unique as a fingerprint, showing a slightly or dramatically different pattern of swirling water. The surface of the river is dark with silver reflections of daylight. The grid of photos is perfectly square, allowing me to perceive that there is either no particular sequence to the arrangement of the photos, or that the photos are arranged in an unstated pattern from first snapshot to last. I could imagine the rows of photos are going forward in time left-to-right and that the rows are framed progressively top to bottom signifying some other time sequence (days? seasons?). I don’t know which it is, but I’m aware that these momentary arrangements of water flow are instantly changed the moment the photo was taken. I saw the piece as a metaphor for life passing second by second. The nature of time itself is constantly moving, creating an entirely new set of circumstances with each second that passes. Each unique experience, each vibrant personal perception arrives and passes, instantly replaced by the next progressive experience.
The changing progression of these “unique experiences” is probably affected by a thousand factors. As I looked at this perfectly arranged grid of “surface moments,” I thought I could change the progression, rearranging the moments any way I wanted. If I thought I saw a pattern in the swirls, I would have the power to rearrange time to be more aesthetically pleasing or arresting. I could also make patterns that were more deliberately different. What if I inserted one repeat image? How would repetition affect perception of the experience as a whole? Then I thought this grid is just a sample; it goes out in all directions endlessly and never repeats. A theme emerged of a universe of unique experiences happening constantly all around us. We are part of a constantly unfolding series of events. And we have only a limited ability to observe or evaluate it all with any objectivity. Even a series of photos captures only a fraction of the total experience.
This first chapter Of “The Language of New Media” made me want to read the rest of his book. Manovich gives us a great outline of the background for the digital story, then brings up questions about how new and old media are both ill-defined and closely related. “Old media” has many key features we attribute to “new media,” and visa versa.
He defined basic principles of digital revolution, breaking it down for us to understand the qualities it possesses (numerical value, variables, scalability, reproducibility without degradation, etc.).
I thought his perspective held that mass media has always been an extension of human experience. The “digitization” of that experience (or “converting analog experience to numerical values”) creates this dynamic condition where users of media are in a position to create their own unique experience of it. In essence, users have become one of the variables in media. We access it in different ways, through different means, and with different goals for it. It makes sense that the result of ubiquitous new media will be an unfolding of infinite human-created versioning.
I was also fascinated with the ideas he brought up about database structure. He talked about the modular nature of databases and how data modules are designed to be completely interrelated, scalable, and navigable through hyperlink structure. Then he drew a parallel with the processes of human thought that is dynamically associative with new information being integrated into the entire body of a person’s experience. We are the databases that our computer databases are trying to emulate. Eventually the similarities between artificial database design and human learning patters and intuition will become less and less distinguishable as two forms of intelligence (human and artificial).
Overall, I think his theme is that computers and the interactive media they make possible are progressing in a natural manner, based on the human needs they fulfill. The computer has made the speed and dynamism of communication more breathtaking, but it has not invented principles of media interactivity. The computer simply brings these principles to the forefront, forcing man to address the responsibility of managing an accelerated media stream wisely.