CE Manifesto

I found the 8th tenet of the Critical Engineering Manifesto to be most interesting. It says that the Critical Engineer needs to look at the past’s exemplary works in art, architecture, activism, philosophy, and invention to understand the ideas and goals that should be reconsidered and deployed in the present.

I like this tenet, and feel I can relate. My modern visual culture professor would have many examples of looking to the past for reassurance of where our attention ought to be focused on. As artists we study the pasts struggles, triumphs, and decisions in art and in the general culture of the time period being observed. It has not yet crossed my mind that I should really try to understand the solutions of the past and revamp them. That sounds like fun and I will now consider it something I should do.

 

First Word Last Word CMU3

First Word, Last Word / GH Cycle

I think First Word, Last Word is a very different approach and view of the Gartner Hype Cycle theory/graph. FW/LW really implies art and innovation is what defines something as new and unexpected (the first word) or artistically generic (last word). However I don’t see how GH Cycle is related to art except in the ways that the ideas are designed or come up with. The GH Cycle defines specific technologies, both futuristic and current-gen, and how they are perceived by people in general. Are they useable? productive? a novelty?

I think that although the GH Cycle seems accurate and thought-out, its still an opinion, however the FW/LW theory seems more applicable and all-encompassing. An example to a technology that caught everyone by surprise and people didn’t know how to react it except to buy it  from when the apple store accidentally released 33 dollars.

I think Schulze prefers the Trough because it is filled with amazing, achievable technology and ideas that just weren’t put to the correct use, or advertised right, or just thought of correctly. By using and modifying and building off thrown away and “disillusioned” ideas and technologies, he aims to create a more innovative and “catch-on” technology with this set-aside, left over bit of ideas.

Technological Art That Inspired Me

Ian Clemmer developed his software, Superflow as a Bachelor Thesis in 2010. Superflow utilizes a system of pivot points and small unique position changes and rotational patterns to create an large range of shapes and movements.

Ian Clemmer uses his software to create visually stunning detail in the form of visual art choreographed with music. He’s made numerous videos showcasing the range in possibilities his software has.

What I find inspiring is that this program, though simple in concept, can create crazy complex visual images. The art is vivid in colors and stunning in acute details. Ian Clemmer, along with using superflow to create visual music art superflow is responsible for the commercial title sequences Clemmer has made for HBO.

Superflow is an awful name for this software though, all I think of is a new top rated maxipad commercial.

 

The software is described in this link (could be useful if you want to make some patterns and similar work) http://www.superflow.co/?page_id=35

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Looking Outward_1

One project that I admire – Deep Wounds

Deep Wounds

The Deep Wounds by Brian Knep is a projection that is installed at Harvard University’s Memorial Hall. When visitors walk across these projections it opens up to reveal the names of Harvard graduates and students who died in the civil war.

This project actually is actually based on biology and nerve impulse models and where it started from. The installation’s response pattern was governed by actual biological equations and Knep’s work was conceptualised on the idea of complex patterns and behaviours arising from simple rules which was based on biology.

Deep Wounds

The reason that this art was inspiring and also admiring was that I could identify with what the art was trying to say. The art itself portrays the unfinished healing that the war had brought and the losses that it caused. Whe there is an action taken by the person the wound is formed, just like how the war created by a person makes the wound. The healing process of the projection takes time and as Brian says that “You need to do some work to heal it.”. I think his idea of the relationship between “wounding” and “healing” is not just history but also something happening right now; it is not restricted to some people but everyone has there wounds and healing. The viewer’s interaction re-opens the wound and the past is finally reconciled.

http://www.blep.com/works/deep-wounds/

 

One project that surprised me – The E-Static Shadows

The E-Static Show

The E-Static Shadows  is a project by Zane Berzina. This project explores electrostatic meaning it works with the slow moving electric charges, which happens to be everywhere that we live in today. The light installed on the textile interact with the electronic charges that are produced when there is a person interacting with it. What surprised me about the project was the interaction between the light and human. This project actually tried to portray the relationship between space and people, creating electronic charges that we can’t see to something that we can sensor and interact with.

The E-Static Show

This project had opened a new possibilities for the artists and scientists to search and explore the potentials of the hidden electrostatic forces in modern life. I see the potential of this in making the modern lie easier with sensors that can react to human by electrostatic forces and maybe using this to create new energy forms that we might use in the future. As I looked upon the internet, I found that electrostatic was something that as far as it goes, Greeks was studying. I think that this long interest had made this artwork possible. Also this was not a single person project but a mixture of engineers, architects and designers. I think this project shows that the art nowadays are not really a single criteria but rather a mixture of everything and that artists need to know other fields too.

http://www.zaneberzina.com/e-staticshadowsproject.htm

 

One project that could have been better – Device for Drawing the Movements of a Ballerina

Device for Drawing the Movements of a Ballerina

I do admire Alan Storey for her various concepts of drawing machines throughout his career. However, his recent work of “Device for Drawing the Movements of a Ballerina” had disappointed me. In his work, she traces dancing ballerina over a series of performance through computer mapping. The final work is a paper with a series of lines which portrays the ballerina’s movements. The concept of this art was very interesting from the fact that one art was transformed into another art, not directly through a person but rather an art form. So dancing, which is art, was transformed into a drawing, and art, by a machine that was created by the artist, which is also an art.

However, it disappointed me on the fact that there is rather not a lot of interaction between the viewer and the art when it comes to the final product. Rather, if there was no context the audience could see it as “just a bunch of lines and dots” rather than the art itself despite the time and effort that was put into it. His devices are wonderful since there is unlimited amount of possible outcomes because it is based on live actions. I think that this live action and the drawing can be related in somewhat different way rather than showing in a gallery to pull the full potential out.

http://alanstorey.net/drawing-machines.html

 

Nathalie- Looking Outwards (1)

A project I admire profoundly is the Rain Room (http://www.momaps1.org/expo1/module/rainroom/), which was an interactive art installation at the Museum of Modern art.

https://vimeo.com/51830893

The purpose of the piece, which allows people to walk through a simulated field of rain and manipulate its fall, serves to inform people how technology and innovations in science could help stabilize the environment.

I think this is an absolutely gorgeous way to allow people to experience art and innovation: through full immersion. I wish I could’ve seen this in person.

A project that surprised me was a set of street art pieces by the artist Pejac, done in Paris, which depict what seems to be one thing at a distance but upon closer inspection is something completely different.

http://www.streetartnews.net/2014/08/pejac-ants-new-street-piece-paris-france.html

I love street art, and no matter how many times I see something thought-provoking or innovative painted on a public wall , I still somehow manage to be surprised by it. It’s the fact that it’s occurring in a medium that’s usually expected to contain tags, graffiti, vandalism and gang signs that always draws me in, because it’s not shut up in a museum. You have to look at it whether you intended to or not. Putting meaning into public art is always a pleasant surprise, and even more so when it’s something that seems silly or funny and ends up being very thought provoking in addition.

I can’t say it’s a complete disappointment, but a project that kind of disappointed me is the app “Planetary,” which allows people to view their music in orbit around stars and planets that represent artists and albums.

http://planetary.bloom.io/

It’s a gorgeous idea with lovely, nice-looking graphics, and I’m always a fan of visual representations of music-but I’m super disappointed because it’s only for iPad; I can’t even use it on my phone, and I otherwise only have Windows computers. So essentially, it’s a fantastic idea, I just wish it reached for a broader user base than just Apple iPad users.

CRITICAL ENGINEERING MANIFESTO – TENET 3

Tennet 3
“rich user experiences”
I think I know what this means, but perhaps it should be unpacked just a lil bit. Varying levels of immersion, persuasion, and the ability to distract/aid dissimulation define the esteemed ‘richness’ of user experiences and whose legitimacy is brought into question by this manifesto. To dismantle this paradigm for creating user experiences is to dismantle the pervasive norms of design itself, to critique the monetary structures that underlie these design tropes, to tread lightly or offend sensibilities relating to the sociological disparities that stem from the manic-yet-steady history of narrowing involved in designing user experiences. You should be suspicious, people aren’t subjects responding reliably to the attentional demands of different media nodes. Experiences aren’t reaction times and accuracy rates, psychometrics, or any other amalgamation or ‘assemblage’ of quantified sense data. [and I’m gonna just ignore how this sort of tenet might run into some compatibility problems with tenet 9 in the “real world”].

Anyway this CAVE joystick-controlled installation-video by earlyish VR artist Maurice Benayoun,”Is the devil curved?,” and actually a lot of [awesome] early VR art confronts some of the issues in qualifying user experiences [at least partly unintentionally, but in a way which I think is highly relevant to the youth’s apathetic/kawaii/infantilizing/qt zeitgeist rn]. Also, it’s [badly-chosen] sound component “raises issues” about sexist defaults in tech work.

More info at ARS ELECTRONICA’S ARCHIVE

Blog/Reading: Manifesto Tenet 2

Tenet 9: My views

I believe that among all the engineering tenets, this is the most important, relevant and in my opinion, impactful. I say this because the code in anything defines how digital technology works, and digital technology is by far the biggest, most influential, life-impacting and ever-present form of technology, innovation and invention since the start of mankind.

Its very important to maintain a balance between human and machine interaction. If one confuses the other the balance will be broken. This tenet is saying how engineers should not write code purely for function but for the response and perception by people that interact with it. They should delve into psychological and social realms as the tenet says, and should work to create the most immersive digital experience possible without ruining the harmony with the physical world. There are a few large corporations that seek to create a seamless communication between the two, “perfecting” the experience, such as Apple (during the years Steve Jobs was in charge). The company has always aimed to create a simple-to use (to minimize frustration) yet powerful operating system experience on all of the devices they own, from mobile devices like the iPhone to desktops and laptops. Not only do they strive to minimize the friction between person and machine interaction, they have developed a tight and invisible connection between all of their own machines, creating a machine-to-machine environment that creates an even better experience as you switch from one to the other without problem.

First Word, Last Word

 

Gartner Hype Cycle, the GHC, is related to the First Word. The first word is something that is put out to the world for the first time and not yet fully rooted into the field. Like the stages of “Technology Trigger”, people try the First Word for the first time and yet not sure how it will turn out. I think the “Last Word” belongs to the peak of “Plateau of Productivity” since last word comes out only when the first word is already made and is accepted.

My interests are right now rather belongs to the “Technology Trigger”. I think that Technology Trigger has a more chances of exploration and searching since you don’t really know the potential of it yet.

I think that Schulze prefers to work in “Trough of Disillusionment” because there are things that can rise up into the “Slope of Enlightenment” and “Plateau of Productivity”. When it comes to Technology Trigger I personally think that he need to have investors and funding. Since new technology and new things also follows a lot of failure and a lot of money is spent without knowing wether it will succeed commercially. Also at Peak of Inflated Expectations a lot of people will run into developing the same product or research about it, making the field over flooding with people working on it. However, in the trough of disillusionment there will be a lot of work already done by others who have gave up on that specific field. So the base is already done and all you have to do is to think about a creative way to use the technology.

 

Critical Engineering Manifesto #10

I find the 10th manifesto very interesting. I think that this manifesto explains even if the programming or the engineering is good and useful to the society it is no use if no one uses it.

I think that for instance computers can be one of the best examples. Computer is a technology and machine which is used by almost everyone. People use computer from the simplest task such as researching to something more complicated as making new programs or technology and art. This technology has been exploited over the years and even creating more Critical Engineers during the time it has been exposed to the real world. The technology wouldn’t survive nowadays if no one is using it or looking for it. That is why I think that the 10th manifesto is important and interesting.

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Technological Art/Design Inspiration_Epiphyte Chamber

Epiphyte Chamber

Epiphyte Chamber is an installation made by Philip Beesley an architect with help from engineers and designers in his team. This archipelago of interconnected mass mimics the human sensations through movement. When there is one or more people at the scene the installation starts moving, lighting and also send out scents when people are close enough so they could actually interact with this seemingly alien atmosphere.

Epiphyte Chamber

What I admired about it was the fact that it mimicked the movements of human body but at the same time it formed a totally different atmosphere. Even thou one part of the installation looked like the human movement, when all the installation was put together it formed rather an outer space alien-like atmosphere that made the audience forget about the human aspects of it. I like the fact that the artist was playing with this idea of galaxy, outer space and human movements.

It was work of a group of engineers, designers and architects were involved in it. They worked together since this installation required both artistic and engineering skills at the same time rather than separating into two parts. Through this cooperation and through the art work, I think that there are more possibilities of the technology and art combined together that can form unusual experience for people especially when it comes to indirect experience in the future.

http://www.philipbeesleyarchitect.com/sculptures/1312_MMCA_Epiphyte-Chamber/index.php

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