K-Spot

2005-12-28T11:46:00.000-08:00

Influential Ish

Visual Art
Bill Viola - Video artist
Paul Debevec Interesting work with computer graphics and light manipulation.
Golan Levin Amazing artist and pioneer of interactive art. His partner Zach Lieberman is another talented computational artist.
Jeffery Shaw Pioneer of imersive interactive video environments. Creates 360 degree environments user-controlled by sensors.
Michael Naimark Interactive media artist.
Luc Courchesne Explores use of 360 video in immersive environments, panoscope 360. 'The Visitor: Living by Numbers'

www.sensingplaces.com
www.electronicshadow.com
ARS Electronica Event

Movements
Situationists & Psychogeography - The idea of living in stimultating instances or situations. The world around us is experienced by our psychology directly, the map in our minds differs greatly from the actual geography around us, we can reconstruct it.

Architectural
New Italian Blood - They explore the idea of physically representing motion through space. DECOI is a member of this group who explores many of these concepts.
Fuller
Rodchenko
James Clarr An ITP grad that has deeply explored light's properties of design and architecture.
Dan Flavin - Another fascinating architect of light.

Philosophy
Kant

Science/Mathematics
Marvin Minsky - Pioneer of artificial intelligence
Gobel
Riemann - Developed non-euclidian mathematics
Edward Tufte

Music
Luciano Berio

Photography
Muybridge - A pioneer of early photography experimentation with motion. He analyzed taking imagess that moved in succession he was very close to discovering how movies work but never quite made the connection.
Clifford Ross

Film
Orson Wells
Stanley Kubrick
Chirs Cunningham
Michel Gondry
Pedro Almodovar

Gaming
Pierre Molyneux

Issey Miyake

Frederick Kiesler
Louise Bourgeois

2005-12-21T11:04:00.000-08:00

3 1/2 Months Forever...

An intense energy has been unleashed these last 3 1/2 months. Amazing ideas have entered my mind and a sensitivty to creating artistic/functional media. These are a few of the most vital of the lessons that I have learned or been reinforced with...

1) Collaboration is Key Collaboration is the true route to a project that is something greater. Competition has advantages in some settings, such as athletics, high pressure decision-making and other situations I can't perhaps think of at this moment. However when the issue at hand deals with creative, conceptual thinking and multi-level visualization of an idea, a collaborative appraoch is far superior to a competitive one. By bouncing idea of of others you recieve extremely valuable feedback that strengthens your original idea, it shapes it into a stronger idea by reflecting the collective eperiences of other talented individuals. Sure collaborating with a stupid moron probably won't help! But collaborating with amazing and creative people makes your own work more amazing and creative. It enriches your own work to be something better by gaing vital insight and critique, it also makes sure your idea holds water and can stand up against stringent settings.

2) Idea Building Bringing ideas together from all different boundaries and landscapes. In the current mediated society we need to pitch ideas that are more developed and more all-inclusice. This will happen on both the private and business level. For example, a broadcast tv spot is created for a business client. This will exist on a TV screen, and interactive website, a mobile phones, an experiental physically interactive piece, kiosk, larger format public digital signage, and probably more.

3) Collective conscious Relating back to the collaboration ideas from above. This powerful and spiritual philosphy has become so much more apparent. The idea taht Turbo and I explored on our travels through Europe really does exist. I have had a few situation where I thought about and idea or individual and then someone brings up the same person or idea a second later. We are linked and shaped by each other. The introduction of Meme Theory this semester in a way mirrors this same idea; we are all reflecting similar ideas back and forth between one another that we all have some understanding and reference too, therefore shaping each others thoughts collectively. I cant forget that music to drives idea builidng.

4) A shit load of Tech skills! Java based programming in Processing. Electrical engineering in the form of creative electronics, I can now read circuit schematics, control motors, use any type of analog or digital sensor and communicate it either serially, w/ midi, bluetooth or RFID to my computer. Building with my hands.

2005-12-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

Party & NYC Livin

This section needs updates, this city is an experimental mass of opportunity, wealth, madness, creativity, electricity, all kinds of different worlds here... I haven't gone out enough though, and I've done more than I've had the time to document here so far...

Most of my partying has been on Thursday nights at TNO - here are some Pics -
Rocios Pics

Brendan recently had the amazing idea to post up his latest protest art piece on the front of the army recruitment building at the center of times square. What an amazing way to defy the atrocities of our government, than with a powerful piece of art. In one of the most advertsiing saturated places on earth, Brendan stuck it to the in Times Square, right under their ignorant noses. It was beautiful, definitely the highlight of my week.
QT video - Sticking it to 'em in Times Square

Other Events -
- Trashed with the Faery King... - Totally bombed hanging out with a bunch of random people that looked like they were on LSD, while playing the bongos and bboying. A bunch of giant mechs and other mechanical art was in the back room - F'ing Nuts!

- Golan Levins performance - I was lucky enough to experience Golan Levin's world premiere performance of 'Scrabble' with Ilteris at Monkey Town in Brooklyn. It was an intimate crowd where we sat around Golan as he played video through a motion slit-scanning system. As objects or marks where put on the dry erase surface notes were played based on height on the board, length and shape. It was sick!

2005-12-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

Applications with Red Burns

This class opens our eyes to the world through the words of a variety of moving presenters. Each one works in their own way, pioneering their respective field by working at an expectional level.

Week 1 - Heather Graham - Media Creator/Social Worker A former ITP student, she is a strong example of how technology can have a strongly humanitarian purpose. Her DP work on 'The F Word' was nice, it introduced the idea of merging documentary film with fictional elements... I think this can be an interesting technique although it distorts any hopes of reaching actual truth.
Her interviews with poor southern families was also quite interesting and made me realize the extreme poverties that exist in America, the mothers she interviewed made 3K - 8K per year and survived. One lady had 2 sons that died in Iraq... with little memory of them except for a cassette tape that was left behind which Heather helped to get to work.

Week 2 - Vito Acconci - Renowned Artist/Architect Vito is a passionate beast by all measures. Porbably the most amazing of all of our speakers. He began his speech by reading a poem he wrote for a proposal to design some type of space station or something in the Antarctic. The poem was dripping with rich metaphors of a city constructed of light and ice... it was sick!
He's done a variety of art beginning in the '70s, mostly famous for masturbating under floorboards as viewers walked through an empty gallery room. He explored other concepts of self mutilation, interactive spaces and a whole lot of other things. He is currently an architect in NYC creating unbelieveable structures, highly futuristic... he's innovating the idea of interactive architecture. He also spoke of viral architecture that infects its viewers.

Week 3 - Steven Johnson - Writer The author of 'Everything bad is Good', he described the idea that most of the media everyone considers bad actually has a good side. Videogames and TV are improving our cognitive processing abilites and helping us wtih - patience, decision-making, probing, and telescopic thinking. Some examples included the increasing complexitity of videogame interfaces, and popular TV shows. Although content might not be advanced the amount of layer plots and sub-plots is.
I presented the following week with Gilad, Terrance and Angela for our group project. Our reaction took place in the form of 'life as a videogame'. It takes place in the future where videogames have become as real as real life and a program dubbed 'Real Life v.3' has taken over peoples lives. The main character 'ROM I/O' roams through a digital world where he meets his true love 'Joule @' in a comical satire about online living. *******I'll post a link for the video we did soon.

Week 4 - Ze Frank - Comic/Media Guy - www.zefrank.com Ze was one funny SOB. He ranted on about the age of authorship, bursting theory and prime patterning. He was absolutely hilarious, although it was a bit difficult to find some of the main points of his speech. Essentially he accidentally created a silly flash site of himself dancing years ago and it ended up going viral. For the next 2 years he became obsessed with keeping this massive audience he'd acquired. He gave 'age of authorship' examples in the form of people becoming obsessed with airline safety, barf bags, and stewardess outfits. He seeks a core language that can unit all things... says that a practice of methor associations within your own head will help with handling media and language, it reveals a fundamental way of thinking. Context and content are bundled together. He currently teaches a class at ITP.

Week 5 - Andy Carvin - Policy Makerwww.digitaldividenetwork.org This guy discussed the 'media divide' across the world and issues relating to accessability. His speech was done with a dry powerpoint presentation and lacked in the zest that we're used to from other speakers, but still an important topic. In America and throughout the world the poor population suffers largely from lack of access to technology, mainly the Internet. His group has been lobbying extensively to improve the technological accessibility of populations. Andy represents a positive force in empowering the worlds right to information access.

Week 6 - ???? - OS Designer Another former ITP Grad she is the lead interface designer for Microsoft and discussed her past life and current role in designing the new Windows OS' Vista & Longhorn. She prohibited the use of cameras and showed us several images from the upcoming OS, including many of her own ideas that are going to implemented into it. Surprisingly, she used to work for Apple before Windows, WTF. Her past dealt with architecture and spatial design. Her skills then transferred over to GUI design and media technologies. Her main points related to the layered complexitity of living systems and how this is incorporated into the OS. The main new windows innovations we'll see are improved searching, redesigned interface and ability to locate things by usage and common associations... OS X was already there a year ago....

Week 7 - Daniel Rozin - Interactive Artist smoothware.com/danny/ Daniel Rozin is ITP's current artist resident and an ITP grad. He's a master of fussing code with physical computing to make somethign called art. He designed the famous 'wooden mirror' , which gained him international popularity, including the Bitforms gallery. Most of his works have a mirror concept behind them, including trach mirror, shiny balls mirror, and circles mirror among others. His work is very interesting and speaks on a very basic level... it just reflects you, no other language is attached to it. "Retain essence of what you're trying to do by scaling down"... interactive design does not have to be digital in nature.

Week 8 - Curtis Wong - Interactive Technologistresearch.microsoft.com/nextmedia An interactive media pioneer and a senior employee of Microsoft's Next Media Research Group, which focuses on exploring what new consumer media experiences are possible with the growth in computing power, connectivity and storage in a compelling, elegant and transparent way in the 3 to 10 year timeframe. He designed the first ever interactive CD-ROM about Beethoven in 1992, although aesthetically a bit crappy by today's GUI standards it still had an amazing degree of complexity and was extremely well done for the time. It had a variety of different non-linear navigation methods based on, index, history, story, gallery, reference, and documents. He also created interactive content for laserdiscs back in the day. Some of his other works include an online VR interactive art gallery, an interactive online piece called "Commanding Heights" for PBS and an upcoming special for frontline about AIDS.

Week 9 - Clifford Ross - Photographerwww.cliffordross.com Clifford Ross is a world famous photographer and artist. He had an inspiring presentation discussing what truth really is and how close artists strive to reach the 'Reality Quotient'. He describes this as the essence of what's really 'out there' , this is dictated by the medium and something taht must always be kept as high as possible. He revealed this philosophy in his latest piece of photography about a mountain in colorado. He needed to capture the essence of this mountain but could not do it with his current equipment so he decided to create the largest photo ever created using a custom built camera that took him 1.5 years to build. He's now working on a new age 'psychlorama' that will be the largest wall of pixels in existence, over 12 feet high in a 260 degree circle using about 180 digital projectors and about 60 billion pixels (something like that)... insane. He recently met with the guy who designed the now famous touch interface from 'Minority Report', which the guy was commissioned to develop using gloves with sensors.

Week 10 - Clay Shirky - Technologist, Intenet Veteran, Social Software Guru www.shirky.com Clay has been partially credited with coining the term 'Social Software' and is now a professor at ITP. His presentation was very well put together and his strong words enlighted me on a few issues, mainly on the classification of the Internet. Our library of congress' current classifaction system is an utter failure, the idea of a 'Top Down' classification system, i.e. sub-dividing content into increasingly smaller and smaller categories make work in a library with 'shelves' but makes no sense in a digital setting. These types of traditional classification systems have traditionally failed on the internet. Only within the last 1-2 years have people been figuring out a more effective system of classification known as 'tagging'. This has been hugely successful with sites such as flickr, de.lici.ous and live journal. This is a system with no hierarchy that uses user definied tags to guide user interest in a non-linear fashion more reflecitve of the Internet itself, it thinks about the community as a whole. Clay is a true Internet beast and I hope to take one of his classes.

Week 11 - Michael Holly - Engineer This MIT grad told us about some of his random adventures around the world in a rather unorganized but enjoyable presentation. He's won a variety of awards and nominations for his work as an engineer. He talked about the great works of Polaroid inventer Edwin Land, and quoted him "Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess." His main point had to do with the idea that great success is a combination of luck & tenacity, which I feel is accurate. If you wrok tenaciously you will find yourself in situations where you meet extraordinary people that will help guide you in the right direction. He also touched on the concept of counterintelligence, subvert existing technologies, and developing machines that think, networked objects can save or destroy us...

Week 12 - ???? - Creative from Intel - www.intel.com/research She mostly spoke about the process of gaining grants for your work. Most business' in the US provides very little grant's for artists. However, in today's world science and art are combining more and more, ITP is the perfect example if this phenomena in action. Often times artistic expression will lead to an advance in science and vice versa. This former creative director for Hanna Barbara has pushed Intel to provide more grants for artists, her ability to see the value in art has led her to convince Intel to be one of the few American corporations to provide funding for artistic endeavors.

Week 13 - Alex Rainer & Dennis Crowley - Mobile Developers www.dodgeball.com These 2 recent ITP grads developed the mobile based social software system known as Dodgeball. This proved that a social app using a low tech approach could be viable enough for Google to purchase them. They also developed Conqwest, a barcode web linking system. They listed some great points -
1.) Document everything
2.) Build Early & Often
3.) Don't be afraid of what you don't know
4.) Fake it if you have to
5.) Don't be afraid to go outside for help
6.) Find the way you work best
7.) Package it up for mom.
8.) Get the word out
9.) Don't think of your work as isolated projects
10.) Don't be afraid to start from scratch

Bob Greenberg - CEO RGA - www.rga.com The CEO of one of the world's leading ad agencys, with 400 employees he had some exciting words about the future of the media landscape and good concepts of business practice. His resume is massive, including post work on Predator, Alien, Sevem, nikeid.com, and a ton more, he's recieved hundreds of awards. He renforced how important collaboration is and the need for media to go beyond a narrative and be more in depth. The line between creative and producer is blurring, a synergy of mediums will take a place. He mentions the beginning of a new 9 year innovation cycle in advertising beginning now. The different merging mediums include, mobile, Internet, broadcast, and experiential. Personally, I feel that the mobile and experiential markets are rife with potential exploration and new avenues. The use of barcode cellphone snapshots, optically interactive public displays, neetworked clothing, and bluetooth reactive media are a few examples of the future media landscape. The tech bubble is beginning to re-inflate rapidly...

My Journey on the M5 Bus -

M5 took off and we went forward. We rode along on a river of black tar that rolled on infinitely. As we merged onto ‘Avenue of the Americas’ we entered a canyon of concrete forming a narrow passageway that intersected into a single vanishing point on the horizon. These massive structures formed a perfectly straight tunnel, guiding the bus in the right direction. The sun was bright, but mostly blocked by the tall shadows of buildings to our left. Hydraulic pistons lowered to allow in new passengers.
The further we went the more my stomach churned from the tainted Pakistani food I ate the night before. As my mind got cloudier from sickness I allowed my mind to drift, things became all that much more surreal, the buildings blurred into one massive connective fiber, a hall of mirrors, mammoth caverns, endless futuristic expanses. I was worried why I was going somewhere I didn’t know and for no functional purpose. I wondered about this place that I was in. This was a completely fabricated expanse, it is a topography terraformed to mans desires; or maybe it doesn’t match my desires exactly. My perception of this space is heavily layered, it’s rich with so many different sounds, images, bits, thoughts, stomach pains… This experience is tied to an emotion purely mine. Do these structures all around me unite us or not? I kept wandering onward debating going home and sleeping or focusing my mind on an unknown destination that seemed far away from me. I touched my forehead and felt the inkling of a fever coming on.
By one definition, “psychogeography, is the active search for, and celebration of, chance and coincidence, concurrently with the divination of patterns and repetitions thrown up by the [meeting/collision] of the chaos and structures of cities, personal histories and interpretations. It is based on the technique of the "dérive", an informed and aware wandering, with continuous observation, through varied environments. It can be sought and can lead anywhere (Unknown author, describing Situationist thought).”
Situationist art dealing with psychogeography embodies a connection between points in geography that don’t normally intersect in the physical sense. Classic examples come from Guy Debord and Constant Nieuwenhuys. Everyone has a psychogeographic map rich with connections unique to our own emotional connections with that space. Reinterpretation of everyday spaces can reveal a complex layering of moments, a layering of culture and individuality that creates richness in life. The situationist movement attempts to create these rich moments, or situations for viewers to indulge in, it gives us an experience that’s unique and fulfilling beyond a functional value. Moving outside of established areas, also described as ‘deriving’ or ‘drifting’ can invoke experiences more visceral, and in opposition to the mainstream pathways set from the top of the hierarchy. This philosophy has a strong feeling of experimentation, encouragement to link different levels of being, and resisting authority; all of which particularly excite me. The surreal and the real can often be a thin veil separated only by our own complex imagination.
As the bus drifted on the buildings seemed like they would never end until we finally made a left turn to ride along the west coast of the island. Finally, sky, trees, water and sunlight were visible. The road became less linear and curved along Riverside Park. My sickness seemed to be getting worse, and my nauseous and feverish physical reactions distorted the seemingly beautiful vistas around me. I watched the driver bob up and down with the hydraulic springs of his seat. I forced myself to ask him questions because I knew if I had felt better I would have been really interested in understanding his life more, so I asked him. I wondered what things could improve his experience as the driver. He spoke in short brief phrases on a variety of regulations relating to passenger safety. Next he blurted out, “2 people die per day in each borough from a public transit bus”. He made this statement with such casual confidence that I could hardly believe my ear. I asked him if that was really true and he nodded and repeated that quite often people are hit by buses, often times being stuck to the front of the bus for many blocks before anyone notices. One proposed solution to this was the application of a button that the driver hits which controls the upcoming traffic signal. I was hearing such bizarre tales form this driver that it made it difficult to understand if this was true or not. I tried to ignore the unsettling feeling of physical sickness, images of people killed by buses and drifting forward into the unknown.
The situationist father, Guy Debord, described psychogeography as “The study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.” Ivan Chtcheglov had declared, "It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings.”
As exemplified by Jean-Marc, when seen under a microscope, the veins of a plant leaf resemble an intricate web very similar to the complex infrastructure of a city. This comparison conjures up an almost magical connection between 2 amazingly opposite objects. Does order exist in this chaos, or does one cause the other in some way? This journey has led me through a direct dissection of the NYC labyrinth. It was a straight line up 6th avenue, Avenue of the Americas. The M5 lines was one of the original 8 bus lines from the early 19th century, according to the bus driver who has spent the last 15 years driving along it. We were traveling over years of history. It was back in this history when the original plans for this concrete mountain range were set in to motion. The path I was following was a path originally created by people probably no longer living. The modern architectural structures around me were designed along the paths of this combination of history, culture and individuals. These numbered blocks, encasing skyscrapers, and traffic signals, to name a few constructions, attempt to create order in a place of layered complexity. These layers exist in many forms: The layers of shuffling people in all directions, many coming from other cultures and speaking other languages. The layers of history and time are visible on the stone surfaces of buildings and streets. Layers of bureaucracy exist in the top down approach in which move of this environment was created. These layers combine to create an eternal feeling of something brewing, something experimental, a vision for the future. Order and chaos drift, continually nudging into each other, collectively barely holding the life around us together.
“Our public spaces and our life in the city should be rich with history; they should be dynamic, exciting and sublime. When the commoditization and cooption of everything we experience in the city becomes the norm, the absolutely particular and individual spaces we can and should create become our post-industrial cities most vital assets. (Unknown author, on the Construction of Situations)”
Even with technologies we see a layering of old upon new, a traffic light that’s user controlled from a bus. The people getting on and off of the bus also showed me a layering of culture and personality. As we moved further north culture and language seemed to shift along with it. Slowly minorities became the majority of people on riding the bus. Once the bus hit broadway most of the riders were Black and Latino in appearance and Spanish became as common as English. As the M5 line cut its path through Manhattan Island I experienced the socio-geographic trends of this part of the city. The further north we went the more space became slightly less condensed and human demographics shifted. Buildings became less tall, medians with trees were visible on the roads, and things seemed more breathable. I felt feelings separate from the canyon made of skyscrapers that I felt earlier. A north-south axis exists in New York City that creates a spectrum of different people and culture as u got up or down it. The spectrum is gradual yet varies quite dramatically on both ends of the extreme. Harlem has a different psychology than midtown. Midtown has a different psychology than Chinatown. My feelings feel different than the woman next to me. Seeing this cross section of the city created by the M5 line revealed a visible example of my time in history. This bus line was a tangible timeline of our place in history, passengers faces and the sights around me painted a clear image of the complex collective psychology of space around me, each location being charged with different energies. The seemingly unpurposeful ‘wander’ on this bus revealed “a symbolic order of the unconscious (Michel de Certeau).” Areas of unknown bring us a step closer to finding out our true connections with the space around us. Breaking free of typical patterns and stepping into overlooked corners can invoke imagination and transfer from the mundane into an imaginative playground.

2005-12-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

Spatial Design

Class 1 - Painting with Space
Class 1 PDF
We analyzed the relationship of light in a space the size of a shoebox. Somehow my project resembled a bizarre late night rendition of a cracked out rave... Jean-Marc commented that it "resembles Puff Daddy's brain"... well not exactly i don't think. It was an intense feeling to be exploring concepts in a purely physical sense. I had to deal with forces of gravity, glueing things, cutting out, measuring and not having an undo button. I created the back light of my piece in after effects.
>>QuickTime Clip - Light

Class 2- Development of a three dimensional form
Class 2 PDF
I located some interesting looking pipes in Chris Hardings warehouse loft staircase. It was tricky keeping this thing from falling apart towards the end but I liked the idea of interconnected parts that support each other and look completely different depending on your viewing angle.
>>QuickTime Clip - 3D Form

Class 3- Motion in space : the dancer and the architect
Class 3 PDF
I busted out some moves on the ITP floor for this one. My groan was pulled hard since it's been weeks of zero athleticism. I limped into the TNO in Chinatown that night. Analyzing an underlining principle behind something, or examining in depth an aspect of somehting can yield some amazing answers; this is the foundation of the idea of a process,... rather than going directly towatds the answer.
>>QuickTime Clip - Spatial Motion

Class 4- Dynamic spaces - equilibrium and oscillations
Class 4 PDF
I spent a night lacking sleep to try to build a 3D form of my windmill motion. Initially, I attempted to piece by piece assemble the 3D representation and realized that that was impossible. I ended up making a form that was roughly accurate to the windmills volume over time. Its distinctibe shape resembled a figure 8 pattern over time, the center line going steadily through the center represented my gait point. After seeing the shape it made perfect shape in my mind and led me to gain interest in the idea of slit-scanning and find volume in a place where volume does not obviously exist.

>>More Stills

Class 5- Kinetic sculptures and collapsible structures
Class 5 PDF
I was exhausted form the first wave of grad school at this point and really didn't put in the time that was necessary for this one. Just toss 3 CD cases together at 3:00am and voila. Unfortunately it was a miserable morning, I was soaked in rain and my contraption feel apart once I got in front of class. I think the concept could have been taken in a strong direction, by creating a potential hand cranking system (Jean-Marc's favorite mechanism), and interwined pulley system, but this would have probably taken a long time that I didn't have. I still like its implied kinetic movement at least, it resembled a sort of mash-up between Rodchenko & Fuller's work.

>>More Stills

Class 6 - Global structures and ergonomics
Class 6a PDF
Class 6b PDF
Class 6c PDF
The infamous 'Buckyball' invented by the late designer, architect, writer, etc... Buckminster Fuller. I'm sure he could never understand the amazing glory within my buckyball, completely created with paper clips and diced up rubber tubing.

Class 7 - Labyrinths

Class 7 PDF
The discussion of labyrinths conjures up a metaphorical with ever increasing complexity and interchangable existences, different nobes of connection between separate parts. My project for this week was an exploration of the labyrinth that exists in everyday life in NYC...
>>QuickTime Clip - Labyrinth1

Class 8 - Designing a labyrinth- designing by segments, difference and repetition
Class 8/9 PDF
In the second attempt I decided to team up with a classmate, Aaron. We built on his original idea of mapping hidden government documents on top of a map of Los Alamos. We took it further by projection another layer on top of the cut up originial document. This created an interesting layering, merging the original shape of the map extruded into 8 levels (Dantes Enferno) and covered in the images of the bombs architect in order from low level of hell at the bottom to higher level employees of the infamous exploding lab.
>>QuickTime Clip - Labyrinth2

Class 9/10 - Screens
Class 10 PDF
This class was excellent, I'm very interested in pursuing these concepts more. Jean-Marc introduced the idea of an immersive environment, an environment where you are surrounded in imagery.
I tried to experiement with images on multiple surfaces for my assignment. I ended up partially reusing some moves I';ve done in the past to save on time.
>>QuickTime Clip - Multi-Screen

Class 11 - Final Review
I had to present my final in class after staying up for yet another all-nighter. My idea was decent but maybe not conceptually developed enough. I think I'll team up with Mang, Josh Dickens and David on this one. I posted my slightly convoluted pitch below...

Final Idea#1 - Histographical
Keywords - Video, image, touch, sensation, discovery, histogram, remapping color, physical, texture

Zoom out - Discovering hidden layers within a moving image. Dissecting a precise portion of something can yield a novel idea. This was inspired by the concept of slit-scanning and a recent performance by Golan Levin called ‘Scrabble’.

Zoom in - My Idea specifically deals with projecting video onto a moving surface that is driven by the video. Scanning a frame at a time of video reveals histograms that are physically recreated form left to right across an actual surface. This takes video color values and maps them across a grid of small pistons, potentially revealing a new sensory depth within the video medium. This will cause visual imagery to be thought of in a position of our brain more closely related to touch, by crossing senses.

Technical Summary:
The RGB or HSB values of the video are taken and feed to a 5x6 grid of pistons that are driven up and down by a series of motors. The movement of the pistons up and down will represent a movement of color values within the image. Each column of the grid is a frame of video, with the heights of those five postons in that column representing a simplified version of that video frame’s histogram. The pistons burst up in succession from left to right, the formations of the column of 5 pistons will then be repeated in the row next to it, always moving places from left to right. The histogram reveals a graph of the video that is represented for each frame of the video in physical form. The video that is getting histogram slit scanned to the pistons is getting projected onto the pistons at the same time to give the projection texture that it creates it self. It has a kind of recursive and reciprocal quality to it.

Although this idea was interesting, Jean-Marc criticized it's appeal and I ended up agreeing with him and joind up with Micheal and Josh's team.

Final Idea #2 - Found:Connections
Check out the official website for more info - Found: Connections Homepage
Through the use of the ARToolkit we created a solid augmented reality piece using the show 'Lost' as the content. It was featured in the ITP Winter Show, go to the end of the clip - Winter Show Video

Spatial Blog Entries -

9/11 - Noguchi Museum
Noguchi's sculptures left a definite impression on me. I remember leaving the museum with an urge to get a giant pick axe and start smashing rock with it!

The boulders in the first room had a primal sort of rawness to them. Seeing such massive structures carved and cut open to form new forms jogged my mind. The idea of an unbelievably gigantic and dense surface warped to Noguchi's liking evoked strong sensations in my mind. It was very difficult not to touch the stone! I had a strong urge to feel those textures as the stone went from rough to smooth and back again. I like the fact that these rocks contained imperfections, much of them left in their raw form. This allowed space for nature itself to become intertwined with Noguchi's interpretation. I also believe that great art can come from imperfection.

The sculptures in other rooms successfully explored a wide variety of textures and materials, all providing a different feeling to them. In the case of some of the smoother surfaces, Noguchi was able to mold rock into liquid. The spaces these sculptures created was strong, but very dependent on many proximate factors. The way the spaces were felt depended on different factors such as, the way the light fell on them from above, the angle and distance at which you observed them, and the amount of space between them and another object. I tried to make myself sensitive to these considerations. From further away some of the different coloration's on the stone appeared to be textures within the stone, however upon closer inspection they were actually shadows created by portions of the stone jutting out. The ability to walk up close to the stone was essential to making the exhibit successful.

Overall the exhibit revealed a forceful energy revealed through the clash of textures and materials along the complex curves and crevices of a sculpted surface. I noticed that many of these surfaces left unseen directional lines that would irradiate out of the sculpture itself. For example, the sculpture with water in it literally spilled it's material onto the earth. Others had visible shadows traced along the wall behind them or invisible implied masses extending outward.

After analyzing this exhibit I remember having a slightly different perception of my surroundings as I biked home.

9/19 - Bill Viola's "Statments'
This writing attempts to reveal detail about the essence of art and what truely makes this world around us real. When struggling with and attempting to solve a creative idea it is essential to find an answer to this problem. To find an iteration of your concept that 'works'. I enjoyed his description about grappling with this issue or "great ball of doubt". Something artistic and abstract is often answered differently by each individual; but what is it that solves this calculation of our imagination? The more I pay attention to detail, and escape the rational and physical world, the more I am able to access this ability to see "through objects". For this is essential for succeeding in any creative endeavor. Some techniques I've developed to help open my mind to this conceptual understanding are: 1) Writing down dreams, since they directly inject these emotions at an extremely real and sacred' level, and 2) Using my down-time, i.e. standing in the subway, sitting on a bench and walking around, to try and ponder these ideas.... this cloud of unknowing can only be resolved by rolling the idea around in your mind, and re-sculpting it through infinite imaginative calculations. Often conceptual clarity can come about through inspiration as well as divine analysis of the ordinary.

Overall, Bill Viola's writings told me that it's ok to embrace the unknown and learn to embrace and indulge in it. Analyze a medium, in this case video, and play it to its strengths. The use of time really is of essence in video and architectural creations alike. Put typical perceptions on their head and you may find something sacred.

9/28 - Stanislavski Reading
This reading puts a magnifying class to our body's motion and attempts to find the absolute truth of an expression. Combining both authenticity of form and content captures the essence of an expression in acting according to Stanislavski. This without a doubt holds true across all mediums and represents the same 'sacred spirit' that Viola referred too...

10/10 - Rodchenko's Constructions
Rodchenko was able to express himself using the most basic of geometric shapes. As the beginning of the article mentions, his work seems to embody a similar structure to nature in its expression of the basic laws of nature and their codependency on one another. The idea of a 'conceptualization of interdependency' is quite fascinating and apparent within his work. His sculptures reveal an intrinsic relationship between each part and shape within the design. The laws of physics are shown as 'artistic fact' within the kinetic energy of the sculptures, each piece helping the other stay in place through symbiotic relationships.
Rodchenko had an ability to strip nature down to these simple building blocks and then reconstruct them into complex looking kinetic shapes. I enjoyed the volatility of many of his works, each one shifting within a space by altering shadow and form. Most of his works have interconnecting parts which imply strong movements that cause the sculpture to extend outside of it's space; they almost force a connected line or arc between the spaces around them.
Many of the lines and shapes that exist in his work seem to be classic forms of graphic design that are still very apparent in today's designs. Capturing kinetic energy within a sculpture without the use of a machine is highly provocative. The manipulation of sharp angles, perspective and the interconnectivity of parts is what causes much of the energy within his sculptures.
If it weren't for the preservation of a few photographs, much of his work would not have been preserved in any way. I also found it interesting that he transformed into more of a designer than a fine artist with the creation of some of his work for film titles. Had the technology been more accessible he may have made a strong use of the film medium in the context of his work. Overall, his use of universal laws in his work is still a current and powerful process.

10/24 - Infinite Libraries & Stone Veils
John Hejduk writes with visual metaphors. His writing related to parts of my brain that normally deal with visual concepts rather than written language. Rather than trying to follow plot lines and character developments I became solely occupied with creating massive multi-dimensonal landscapes in my mind. With every paragraph the words seemed to paint large abstract emotionally charged vistas into my imagination; it seemed as if his words related more to subconscious thought patterns as experienced in a dream rather than anything at all literal. I agree with the idea that architecture and spatial constructions speak to each of us on a different personal level. In the part of the text where he describes the man going through the Hedge Maze, "He remembers the ruins of Delos and the cries of his beloved Angela... He leaves the maze with unease; she leaves it with a sense of comfort." This shows us how a space can trigger particular personal emotions based on our own worldview and life experiences. For him the Hedge Maze caused distress, for her it caused comfort. Experiences in such a place are subjective to the individuals' history.

The infinite library had a similar metaphorical style, but was written within a different context. This library represented a universe with its own set of rules which all its inhabitants were bound to. To me it revealed just how bound we all are to our own fabricated consciousness. Scientific and logical reasoning can only explain a small portion of the world around us, yet our minds make us believe that things must happen in believable and predictable patterns. Our laws of physics are completely relative to earth and our existence as humans. On a molecular level our laws of physics break down into mere guess work of probability. The same infinite chaos exists in the library as well as on earth.

I also liked the idea of using books in the library as the connective fiber within this created universe. It seems that all these texts formed a collective consciousness for all people. Together these books are all knowing of everything, they are God essentially. He mentions the search for ones 'Vindication', the idea of finding the meaning of all things, which is a similar quest of people in our world. This is the ultimate question which we all seek to answer in one form or another. In physics it's string theory, in religion it's God... I believe a universal connective force must exist on some type of metaphysical level.

11/04 - What is Really Real?
Understanding the fibers of reality is no easy task. Whether it’s attempting to build a sensing machine in Pcomp, an artist illustrating the reality quotient (As exemplified by Clifford Ross) or our own brains interpreting the world around us. The brain is constructed in a specific format, although it is an unexplainably complex system, it does have a specific method of relaying information. This network of nerves and brain tissue does have a method that dictates how we learn and perceive reality on deep almost unnoticeable level. Marvin Minsky’s study of how our mind perceives space reveals some of these hidden connections within us. The majority of human processes exist within Minsky’s framework. Science really only explains the world as connections between things rather than at a single point. “In fact, there’s nothing to be said about a single point, except how it relates to other points.” This is only true because that’s how our mind is constructed to sense. Even within a single point in time or in a space around us, infinitely complex processes are occurring on a molecular level, yet this has no real advantage on the larger human scale and therefore goes unnoticed by human thought and still remains relatively unexplained in modern science. It is really in the connections between a simple point and an infinite array of points where we find the fascinating complexity of life. Our whole frame of reference in life is based on our own sensory limitations.

Artists are the true explorers of what is actually ‘real’ around us. This ‘Reality Quotient’, which Clifford Ross describes, is a measure of how truthful a piece of art is. The closer something is to this almost indescribable truth the closer it lives in the realms of our metaphorical imagination and subconscious, distant from logic, and the closer it comes to truly surpassing our senses and becoming the real truth of reality. Art can create sensations that force us to break free from these obvious relational connections between things, enabling us to expand to other metaphysical realms of
ourselves.

2005-12-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

Intro to Computational Media

Enter computational thinking and the world of Processing... timelines no longer exist and the user interface consists of a blank screen with a blinking cursor...

Attempting to descrbie things through Processing, a Java-based programming language.

Current interests are video tracking, sensory input, 3D interaction, live image processing and image manipulation, and data visualization.

Processing has been a major challenge to learn, eventhough it's one baby step at a time, I've gotten a solid grip on the fundamentals of computational thought. I do hope to gain a strong understanding of programming so that I can implement a more efficient workflow into my visual design work, whether it's after effects, interactive 3D, or anyh other multimedia project, it's vital to understand code, when understood properly it can hugely decrease project development time when compared to doing all the work visually through an authoring environment. Having the ability to create work that is reactive rather than timeline and/or render driven is a powerful ability to create open, reactive relationships between the human and the machine or networked entity.

Programming Concepts
Understanding an ArrayAn Array is a key concept of programming and it can be performed several different ways. Below I've simplified the creation of an array in Processing into a few basic steps that I understand -

1.) Declare the array. Also declare a number or variable for the size of the array. These are both global.
Things[] myThings; // This creates a myThings instance from the 'Things' class.
float[] myThings; // It could also be done just like this with out referencing an object.
int num = 20; // This will be used in the next step to set the limit of the array, I initialized it here in the same step.

2.) Finish declaring the array using the constructor method.
myThings[] = new Things[num]; // Based on the Things class.

3.) Initialize the array with values using a 'for' loop to go through each slot in the array. Typically done in the setup function.
for (int i=0; i num; i++) { // Begin for loop that gives Things its values.
myThings[i] = new Things(random(0,60),45,10); // Any class parameters are given values through the array.
}

*Alternatively, variables can be given within a for loop that's in setup, draw or somewhere else that is then passed into the object or item that's being called in the next step. This allows for each step of the array to differ (look at the pixelites example below to see how this works).

4.) Call the array with using another 'for' loop to call each element in the array and apply it to something (i.e. rect, ellipse, object, etc...). This is done within the draw function this time.
for (int i=0; i num; i++) {
myThings[i].drawThings(); // myThings movements are dictated by its class and what iterations I gave it when I initialized it. Was each iteration the same or did I give random values or incrementing variables to it...
}

Sample Works -
Basic 3D Cube - 3D Cube
Moving Pixelites - Particle Drawing
Playing with Physics - Physics Using Mouse Drag
3D image search visualization -3D Searching
I scraped the Google API to find images and redisplay them in 3D. Use the mouse to move along the Z-Axis.

Midterm - 3D Motion tracked Racquetball (mouse version) - 3D Paddle Ball Ilteris and I put in some long hours understanding how to play a pong-like game in 3D space using a video tracking to track an actual physical racquet. After many initial failures we were able to come up with a working version (unfortunately we don't have a gameover screen).
Thanks to Golan Levin, a true visual performance master, for helping us with the processing code on his site - Golan's Homepage

Final - Camera input VJ-ing (sorry won't work in browsers, requires serial and video inputs). Raudia and I both had a strong interest in VJ'ing so we decided to explore what we could do using processing. The result was a combination of user participation using light reactive particles, and sms cell phone photos. We using an entourage script that dropped imported jpeg photos into a selected folder and then created a string array that picked up the photos and displayed them in a 3D envirionment. We also had a number of QuickTime clips of tripped out visuals and bboys that we loaded in. We developed a system where the user is able to load in a clip in the background and then a hit a button to specify what transition they want to use, either cut, dissolve or wipe in the new clip. Effects we had included, pixel explode, 3D rotation, buffer zoom, audio waveform, TNO still loader, physics manipulation and a particle drawer. Wendy and Raudia created a custom VJ glove for their Pcomp final that allowed the VJ to have a much stronger ability to perform in front of a crowd. It allowed use to explore many ideas about how much more immerxive a club VJ performance could really be - non-square projection surfaces, crowd participation, a standing VJ with an enhanced wearable mixer that allows him to perform more than sit.

Other links -
http://www.processing.org
http://www.complexification.net
Visual Complexity

Valuable Code -
ICM link

2005-12-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

Intro to Physical Computing

Todd's homepage - www.toddholoubek.com/pcomp/
Forget about the mouse and keyboard and embrace the world of a sensing computer. We explore the possibilities of using physical connections based around the PIC 18F452 chip to enhance the human experience of technology.
Todd Holoubek is the professor of our class, he is definitely the most entertaining professor I have ever had. He has the ability to make a subject which could be dry and technically overwhelming into an engaging and laugh-filled experience. If anyone remembers the old MTV sketch comedy show 'The State', well he was the writer of that show, he had his beginnings in showbiz and acting.

Currently I'm most interested in studying motion tracking, realtime video manipulation, sensing/reactive tactile surfaces, and data visualization. I'm interested in physical computing in designing a more powerful interface/ controller to aid in the expression of my work.

Observation Project Proposal - Tracking people on a floor using wifi signals and RFID tags. This presentation could have probably been a bit better, but I think the idea has merit.

Midterm Prototype - Reactive Lighting
The original plan was to have an entire room with reactive lighting based on peoples movement within that space. However, in typical Pcomp fashion we realized our idea was far too difficult to pull off in a week and we were forced to scale it down to the area of a tabletop. The main issue here was getting the shift register IC to work or as we like to mistakenly call them - 'Bit Shifters'. These are tricky to understand at first, professor Dano Sullivan describes them as a bucket brigade that takes your serial data and converts it into binary. It then passes the binary outputs to the desired load. The main trick is that the entire array needs to be filled, whether you are using the remaining bits or not.
We created a system that tracks movement in a specified area using a webcam. It's uasing a video sensing technique called 'background subtraction', which essentailly takes a screen capture of a set location and registers any change within that area to trigger some other event. The original Processing code was taken from Golan Levin's great webpage - www.flong.com - and then modified to our liking. I pasted it below for everyone's viewing pleasure. This project helped us understand some of the dynamics of using a videocamera as a sensor and enabled us to trigger simple LEDs to turn on.

Final - Segment Tags
Check out our final project blog - Segment Tags
This project has taken on several different iterations and is finally shaping into a tangible piece of work. Our initial concept was to create a massive 10x10 grid of seven-segment displays (those are the little number displays, you know like in your alarm clock). We realized that getting these little fuckers to work was a lot more than we expected. Just to get one number up takes at least 9 wires and a bunch of trial an error to figure out which pin to hi or lo to get what you want.

These are the homepages of my 2 Pcomp partners in crime -
Jenny Chowdery's Homepage
Michael DelGaudio's Homepage

VJ N9ne
This was my ICM final. I aided in the creation of a custom mixer in the form of a glove. We felt this freed up the VJ to perform much more freely. The idea initially started as a custom VJ mixer pad.