27 August 2014

Engineering Dependency

Tenet 5 of the Critical Engineering Manifesto states:

“The Critical Engineer recognises that each work of engineering engineers its user, proportional to that user’s dependency upon it.”

Every engineered object has the potential to change its user through dependence. If a user becomes wholly dependent on an engineered object, say a computer, than that person has been engineered by the device itself. The computer has molded the user into an all knowing, powerful being by no longer being used as a tool, but rather as an extension of the self which the person must live through.

Every engineer must realise that they are creating extensions of the self, rather than simply products with which a user can live.

I find that this tenet brings up a good point, but fails to realise that high dependency on a single engineered work is less powerful than even a minor dependency on multiple engineered works of the same theme. A single work may change a primitive aspect of a person’s life while a collective of engineered works, say a gallery of interactive displays, can create dependency on a metaphysical idea by causing some extra-sensory overload.

27 August 2014

Inspirational Art/Design: “Wooden Mirrors” by Daniel Rozin (1999)

The “Mirror” projects by Daniel Rozin first caught my eye upon going to the Children’s Museum in Pittsburgh for the first time. To see something as recognisable and personal to me as my reflection in such a rough form was incredible. Not being able to see any of the technology behind it, and seeing it interact so flawlessly with the crowd was even more interesting. While “Wooden Mirror” Was the version of the piece I saw, Rozin has created multiple different mechanical mirrors which range from actually reflective surfaces to simple gestural representations.

Rozin’s project has so many possibilities due to the fact that any type of material can be used for the surface of the mirror. Since the actual piece is made possible through computation and live gestures it can be ever-evolving without worry. On Daniel’s website, you can see many of his other “Mirror” works.

27 August 2014

FW/LW

The GHC is a wave-like diagram that displays the popularity/trendingness of certain technologies that are being produced. The FW/LW article discusses the idea that if the first piece of art that is produced in a newly discovered media/genera the true art or is the later/last work of art produced in that genera the real one? These two concepts are related one is able to apply the theory of FW/LW to the GHC and ask why certain starting technologies are more or less popular than the other technologies that utilize the older technologies. I find myself to personally be on the “innovation trigger” and the “Peak of inflated expectations” side of the GHC. I am fascinated by 3D bioprinting because I believe that it will be able to help not only in surgery but also in any medical field. I believe he prefers that area because he likes the challenge of building a reputation for technologies stuck in that trough.

27 August 2014

Immersion of Ryogi Ikeda

The first week I arrived to CMU, I saw the Ryoji Ikea installation titled data.tron at Wood Street Galleries, which was an audiovisual installation where every pixel was calculated by mathematical principles. It was completely immersive, as these numbers were projected onto a large screen taking up half of the dark room. It was captivating, being able to view numbers as though they were bugs or bacteria, rapidly moving with this deafening sound to accompany. There was something purposeful in numbers which one could not relate to, and while previously seeing myself as someone who was not interested in numbers, The very fact that they were able to form feelings and sensation left me in awe.

27 August 2014

First Word Last Word

The GHC measures how people perceive the potential of technological enterprises during our present time in order to help facilitate which technologies are right to pay attention to during the current time. First Word Last Word art describes the relationship between art that is novel and never seen before (first) and art that had the last thing to say about a certain era/style/technique. I believe that he innovation trigger would be the fist word technologies while the latter half of the peak and the trough would contain the last word technologies.

The trough of disillusionment to me is like the island of lost toys. Accessible products that no one else is paying attention to. Schulze sees the potential in these works. He’s like a Last Word artist, he chooses the ideas that have been developed but have also possibly been executed wrongly. Like those that agree with the argument stated that First Word Art isn’t true art because no one can be the best at something when its a totally new idea Schulze would probably agree that the ideas that are overlooked after their initial popularity still have new, possibly better applications.

27 August 2014

Isabella Antolic-Soban- Looking Outwards- 1

One project I admire.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Spiral

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LVvxywPQZI&list=UUN8Aax8XICzHJzLScciViWQ&index=155

The project is a responsive biofeedback sculpture that is made from 400 lightbulbs arranged in accordance to an equation of a spatial distribution found in the arrangement of leaves and cells in plants. The sculpture responds to the heartbeat of the participant, who holds a sensor beneath the piece.
What interests me is the ability to visualize the presence of a person. A certain intimacy is derived from feeling other people’s heartbeats, but this augmented no longer remains something intimate, but rather overpowering.
I would like to see what this sculpture could become if it involved more than one person interacting with it. What would become of it if it responded to two or more heartbeats? I think the sculpture missed an opportunity to play with chaos. Also, while the link between plant and animal is created through the equation’s structure, I feel as though this bridge between the two could have been built a bit stronger, and more comparisons between plant and animal could have been expressed.

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One project that surprised me.

Anna Dumitriu’s Cybernetic Bacteria 2.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQTdvvVH-kk

Cybernetic Bacteria is an installation and an ongoing project exploring the similarities between digital data communication and bacterial communication. Within the gallery space, digital networks such as wireless and Bluetooth activity are taken in real time along with the chemical communication of bacteria within the space and combined into a new form, creating a somewhat hybrid of the two, through the exploration of their respective complexities. This new life form is a result of both data forms placed through a computer program, with access to both our biological data as well as communicative.
This project pleasantly surprised me as it provided insight to the overlooked fact that there are always various interactions taking place at microscopic levels, and we as humans have developed our own separate system of interactions, one that has little interaction with the rest of the ecosystem. It is, however, a theoretical life form, and there is no ‘real’ new form.
The artist Anna Dumitriu had a previous version of this project which was a performance piece a plastic tube of liquid agar jelly was stuck into the earth, and the artist manually placed a hormone used by bacteria for communication upon speaking the words “I’m here.” While I admire both projects, there is something more fleeting and intimate about the performance. It is more of an interaction rather than a creation, like the 2.0.

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One project that could have been better.

Richard Harvey’s Floating Forecaster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdUtKpxX_sg&list=UUN8Aax8XICzHJzLScciViWQ

The Floating Forecaster is a display consisting of balls placed within a grid which responds to patterns and sequences from an iPhone interface. The display reinterprets weather information (or at least that was the initial intention of the artist), with the balls forming in the air what can be interpreted as clouds or sunshine or storms.
While creating a very present and lively piece, as a representation of weather, the piece fails to deliver and comes off as more toy-like. The uniformity of the balls and their restrictions don’t particularly allow for a sense of weather and atmosphere. The idea of condensing an entire feeling of atmosphere into minimal pieces and space is beautiful as well as functional, but it had only managed to become a collaborative toy. Even as a collaborative toy, it is restricted in interaction.

27 August 2014

GDB-LookingOutwards-1

Murmur Study – Christopher Baker

Murmur Study from Christopher Baker on Vimeo.

Murmur study is an installation consisting of thermal printers that constantly search for and print Twitter messages containing common emotional utterances, such as argh, meh, grr etc. These Tweets are printed continouosly on reels of paper, forming a waterfall of information that ends in chaos on the floor. I’m fascinated by this idea of giving social media, which is so transitory and ephemeral, a physical space where it dominates. It succeeds beautifully in its goal of pointing out the quiet rise of social media, but I feel that the work could have been made more visually imposing; The printers themselves seem too spread out, and Baker chose a white wall to set them against, making the paper blend into the background.

Baker himself was trained a scientist, and only recently turned to artistic expression, which likely led to his observation of society of and through technology.

Rock Paper Scissors – weAREmedienkuenstler

Rock Paper Scissors from weAREmedienkuenstler on Vimeo.

Rock Paper Scissors consists of two computers who play the titular game, randomly selecting a move, and keeping score ad infinitum. This is a surprising way to play with both chance and play, and the piece openly points out the essentially ‘brainless’ nature of Rock Paper Scissors. There is also something reminiscent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to these two machines. I would like to see this piece bring up the computer’s inability to be truly random.

City Symphonies – Mark McKeague

City Symphonies – Westminster from Mark McKeague on Vimeo.

City Symphonies is a concept for sound generation in electric cars, which relies on the vehicle’s interaction with the surrounding vehicles and environment. I find the idea of using traffic data to generate music very interesting, and the traffic simulation McKeague uses to demonstrate the program is nice, but I feel that the implementation needs more refinement. The data could be better processed, an I don’t think that a car is the right setting for this kind of experience.

27 August 2014

Inspirational Technological Art

One computational project I knew before entering EMS 2 is a Darwinian approach to fractal art called Electric Sheep. The project was founded by Scott Draves, and was originally released in 1999 as free screensaver software. Currently, there are approximately 500,000 monthly electric sheep users.

Each fractal is referred to as a “sheep”, and the group of these fractals stored on the server is called the “flock”. When an electric sheep user’s computer screensaver is activated, one of the sheep is selected out of the 100 or so in the flock. This sheep is displayed as the screensaver for a short amount of time, during which the user has the option to up-vote or down-vote the sheep, depending on whether they like or dislike the fractal. The voting process is used to create new sheep for the flock with characteristics of the most popular fractals.

I find this project incredibly inspiring, because of its interactive component, as well as the aesthetic preference of the community that’s reflected in the newly generated sheep. I think one of my favorite aspects of this project is that they’ve given the viewer an active role in generating new sheep. I think Electric sheep is a great example of how user data can be utilized in the creation of new media art and animation.

27 August 2014

First Word, Last Word and the Gartner Hype Cycle

Both the GHC and FW/LW explain the same spectrum of how we view objects and innovations around us in terms of being accustomed to them and how much they pique our interests. They both provide us with a starting point of something new. FW/LW is a very undefined spectrum, with only two points of reference. GHC is more complex, providing us with what might be fluctuating between those two points.
GHC has an ending plateau, which is the equivalent of the Last word, where things continue to exist, but have been entirely resolved and suggest no need of further development. The First word, however, does not exactly equate to the technological trigger. The trigger is something seen through research or very early developments, sort of the taste of possibility. The First word is the first mark of something, by someone. It seems as though the First word would be accredited to a body, whereas the trigger is something more equated to a certain sphere of research. Schulze prefers to work in this Trough of Disillusionment because it is inexpensive, as the tools to develop are easily accessible. Things have been made in excess.

27 August 2014

Critical Engineering Manifesto #8

8. The Critical Engineer looks to the history of art, architecture, activism, philosophy and invention and finds exemplary works of Critical Engineering. Strategies, ideas and agendas from these disciplines will be adopted, re-purposed and deployed.

Realms other than the ones of engineering are recognized as important and fundamental to further development and innovation. It is necessary to look back and assess history and use it for our benefit. This, I feel, is a very significant view to have in the world of engineering; to not ignore the fact that all other facets of life not only require engineering, but influence it. History provides us with the ability to view problems in retrospect, and taking advantage of this viewpoint is what allows engineers to learn more about humankind and what humankind requires of the field of engineering. For example, master painters used a device called the Camera Lucida, which was a glass prism in which to view what was in front of you onto a sheet of paper or canvas in order to trace it down. Golan Levin just recently re-purposed this device in order to make it more accessible for current artists who would have interest in using it by engineering it in an affordable way. This was an invention of the past, slightly forgotten about, but was able to be redesigned for present day.