scruffy days

The theme of sensing visitors’ presence and colors is a topic a number of ITP projects touch on. The scale of it is visually interesting, but the response left us a bit disappointed. It wasn’t clear at first where you had to position yourself for the installation to react to your presence. We eventually saw the iSight, and even waved Tikva’s red jacket in front of it, but still the color shift was really subtle, and the faint pink hue slowly traveled up through the rest of the LED tiles.

But it made me think about why these types of pieces are still fascinating - we like to affect changes in our environment, and people are drawn to visually responsive/mirror like pieces. We like gadgets and technologies that DO things for us, respond to our touch, get info for us, tell us where we are, show a trace of where we’ve been… Danny Rozin’s mirrors and similar camera sensing/abstract mirroring projects are so appealing, I think, because you see yourself in another form, you affect change in this particular piece, and for a moment you are the main focus and actor in this piece. You actively become part of the project itself. What was missing from this installation seemed to be how limited where you had to be in order to become part of this experience. It would’ve been more fun to see how my colors could meet/mesh/clash with someone else’s and what that could imply. But maybe it just wasn’t working properly when we visited, since these Gothamist pics depict an entirely different experience.

CONCEPT:
Take live measurement of power usage at ITP and make it visible in the form of an inflatable space or light fixture. The idea is to make people more aware about the power we’re consuming by having the inflatable respond to increases and decreases in current/voltage readings. In the inflatable space scenario, when power usage is very high, balloons inflate within the space, becoming too invasive, i.e. no fun.

Why inflatables? They change form easily, fluxuate often - characteristics very similar to energy as well. We felt it would be an interesting and tangible visualization to communicate how we consume energy. Expanding and contracting tie in with increase and decrease of energy values.
We also want to make use of waste material for building the object. We’re considering working with the coffee bladders Alice Planas has been saving from the morning classes.

We’re looking at mechanical systems to handle the inflating - ideally, low power is the goal here since sustainability and energy conservation is what we want to build awareness of. The preliminary sketch below shows a bellow to inflate (think accordions).

Possible additional features:

• Switch readings to pull data from usage in other rooms - if I’m in this chair/environment and want to experience what’s happening with the power in another space, I hit the switch for “Lounge” and suddenly, the chair squishes me.

INSPIRATIONS:
Inflatable architecture/art [1] [2] [3]
DIY Kyoto’s Wattson
Interactive Institute Flower Lamp
Inflatable rabbits

IMPLEMENTATION:

1. Build ammeter circuit for measuring current draw
2. Record values to database via XPort (allow for usage by other projects)
3. Gather range of values, calibrate for use within our circuit
4. Feed values to motor/mechanism handling inflation
5. Design and build inflatable object (small scale first; then build up)

Feedback?

• Does the connection between energy usage and the inflatable make sense?
• Would you sit in this “chair”?
• Would you want to see actual numbers to understand what’s happening?
• Other material ideas (reusable/recycled preferred)
• We’ll also be gathering voltage info from the solar panel - but not sure how to, or if we should incorporate those values into this particular project

Adam Greenfield was also part of a lecture series at Conflux. His presentation was titled “Killing the Fathers, Or if you meet Jane Jacobs on the Road”. He’s referring to Buddhist philosophy in which you must destroy or remove anything that hinders you from achieving your own enlightenment, even if Buddha is standing in your path. For Greenfield, his Buddhas are his own urban theory heroes: Jane Jacobs, the Situationists and Archigram.

I found his approach to everyware/ubiquitous computing very interesting; to grasp how it will affect urban environments and personal space within that, we must be aware of influential viewpoints in urban theory’s history, but also understand that these particular frameworks don’t suffice in guiding us to “fully understanding the ramifications of everyware”. Instead, he suggests we look at gaming and mapping environments (specifically mentioned SecondLife, Grand Theft Auto, SketchUp), and seeing how these have altered how we interface with space, both virtual and real.
There’s the issue of privacy and user control. How do we prevent it from becoming like the Panopticon as Greenfield mentioned? How technologically adaptive will one need to be in this environment in order to have a handle on what’s happening?

This event took place at The Urban Center and featured the following projects: Alvin Lucier’s sound experiments, Hearways and an interactive installation in Washington DC. All three demonstrated unique relationships between sound and space.

Alvin Lucier played some of his sound experiments from, I think it was around the 60s. He recorded his voice, played it back in the space and recorded it again as it was playing back. He repeated this process until his voice morphed into a reverberation of the space he was in. This was fascinating; however, he was extremely rude and conceited. He failed to give the camera/audio staff proper directions on how to playback his piece and gave them a hard time. It was very off-putting to see him display this attitude.

The next project was Hearways, an experimental design for a home, incorporating new methods of treating sound and visuals. Behind the plans are three architects: Joel Sanders/JSA, Ben Rubin/Ear Studio and Karen Van Lengen. Their plan alters how sound is experienced by funneling certain sounds through canals built into and throughout the structure. They also plan to use transducers to turn walls/windows into speakers. They presented some interesting issues about how architects design space, more often than not, with an ignorance of how sound is treated within and that many modern spaces present sound and visuals in a homogenous manner.

The last project was really fun to see, as it looked like a real world example of a P-Comp project. Meejin Yoon and Erik Carlson created an installation for the Athens 2004 Olympics entitled White Noise. It was a 50′ x 50′ grid composed of fiber optics and speakers. Their current project, Lo-Fi, Hi-Fi, is planned to be installed by next summer in Washington DC. Here they explore some interactivity with light, sound, touch and motion sensors. In both projects, they noted the unpredictability of users’ interactions with their installation. They had designed it with a certain action/reaction in mind, but people tested it, took it further, and played with it in unexpected ways.

For more details, check out Min Lee’s blog!

I checked out Culture Exchange in Mentoring: Across Generations and Borders held at the Center for Architecture on Saturday, Dec 3rd. There were interviews with two artists who were mentored by leaders in their field. First to be interviewed was Sahel Al-Hiyari, a successful architect who was mentored by architect, Álvaro Siza. He returned to his native country of Jordan to give back to his community, and his designs were elegant, minimalistic intermingled with traditional Middle Eastern themes.The next interview was with Federico León, an artist from Buenos Aires who has written and directed plays, films as well as ventured into multimedia installations. His mentor was stage director, Robert Wilson. His installation entitled Artistic Shantytown Project featured large print photographs, video and a website on a shantytown community in Buenos Aires.

The installation was accompanied by a short documentary on the lives of people from this community and how they’ve taken ownership of their identities - rather than being ashamed of living in these run-down towns, they’ve turned the tables, begun to use technology and market themselves as actors. Their story was so unique; I was amazed to see how they embraced what they had, took humor in their approach to life, and ironically used the film industry not only for creating jobs, but also to express themselves. One man in the community took it on himself to start organizing a database, collecting pictures and acting as an agent for the others in the shantytown. They wanted to be depicted as content with what they had, their lifestyle, that they were proud of their community, and their extremely positive attitude amazed me. They had accepted that the government would be of no help to them, and that they wouldn’t see a radical revolution within their lifetimes, so by accepting their status and utilizing what made them unique empowered them as a whole.