Posts
January 18, 05:05 PM
Hello All,
I'm super stoked to be finally getting the greenhouse documentation up here and to be moving forward this PLSS this winter!
Now that the structure is up and ready to go, we're looking at organizing a few things for the next two months:
1) We'll be planting a new crop of herbs very shortly :) I've ordered an fantastic array of medicinal herbs from http://www.saltspringseeds.com/
Anise (Pimpinella anisum)
Echinacea tennesseensis
Sweet Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare dulce)
Wood Betony (Stachys officinalis)
Arnica (Arnica montana)
Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum)
Marshmallow (Althea officianalis)
Spilanthes (Acmella oleracea)
St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca)
Greek Mountain Tea (Sideritis syriaca)
Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis)
Rama Tulsi (Holy) Basil (Ocimum sanctum)
The range of health benefits from consumption of these plants is really fantastic (I'm pretty into the immune system boosters for this winter season!) I will be composing a short info guide for these seeds and the plants' health benefits that we can post online as well as keep in the lab. Also, this has gotten me thinking about the idea of the apothecary/pharmacy...could be a new branch of thinking for PLSS.
2) Gearing up for an open-house/skill share to reach out to the rest of the Concordia student body and share the design plans we've come up with for the portable greenhouse! This will also involve hosting a 'tea' from our 1st harvest of herbs.
3) Constructing a simple hydroponic system for the greenhouse. I've found some great instructions here: http://www.hydroponics-simplified.com/support-files/mini-lettuce-raft-pdf.pdf I'm going to build two of these - one for the TML and one for the portable greenhouse.
4) Looking into mycology! It would be wonderful to get this started. I know Tyer is enthusiastic about this idea and so am I. I found out there's actually a legit mycology store right here in Montreal: http://www.mycoboutique.ca/en/
I hear they have everything one needs to cultivate mushrooms so I'm gonna check it out.
That's all for now! Looking forward to a little more green and a little less slush/ice/whathaveyou ;)
October 19, 11:38 PM
I realized that my email this morning may have been misinterpreted because I wrote it so hastily. I think that the plant work, and Zoe and Katie's work in particular is part of the most profound evolution of the TML's research direction since I started the atelier lab 10 years ago. As I said to people in a seemingly different line of work -- the lighting group (Morgan Sutherland, Harry Smoak, Navid Navab ... - it is crucial that we do things step by step, that in fact that we start with the humblest, the most modest, and the most mundane applications of our unusual technical and technological prowess. The mundane, the everyday is in fact the very heart of what I am hoping will be the application of the Topological Media Lab's most sophisticated experimental art and philosophy. As with the use of our Ozone media system to inflect the household halogen lamps, so with the hosting of "ordinary" plants in the lab...
This work must be more than a few brave words or occasions, it must be the tending of living things week after week by enough of us. It should be us, not some work-for-hire gardener paid to tend some ornamental plants. I am vitally interested in experimenting with the sociotechnical ensembles of the TML to find out, because I think our programmers' and media art students' very inattention is itself a microcosmic symptom of the catastrophe that is Technological Progress. I'm happy to be part of this as much as I can to help launch this and recruit people -- current and future TML people -- with you and Katie.
I started this conversation with Flower Lunn <floramarialuna@gmail.com> 3 years ago, a wonderfully thoughtful, gentle and determined artist who studied with me as a wise "undergrad" and did her MFA in Fibres. And later with Josee-Anne Drolet <joseeanne@gmail.com>, Elena Frantova <frantovka@gmail.com> and Timothy Sutton <timsutton@fastmail.fm>. It is a risky path because it can make the lab look unflashy, even naive. It may even bring the lab down in institutional power, which could mean its closure. But this is the heart of the ethico-asthetic experiment that is the lab itself as a socio-technical organism.
I think that media artists who are in a hurry to make machines sit up and make 3D this or that in OpenGL have a lot to learn from working with earth and vegetal life. The challenge is how to blend the attention, then the habits of everyday work, across the artists and philosophers hosted here: those who code Max/MSP/Jitter, those who solder, those who handle paper or fibres, those who work earth, and those who work words,... Laura Boyd-Clowes <l.boyd.clowes@gmail.com> is a word and earth worker, who I value as much as the Ozone creators. She would be the natural student leader of the philosophical thread intertwined with the living sculpture work. But she may be too busy to do much this year. Nonetheless I would invite Laura to come continue the discussions from Spinoza, through Bateson and Guattari in concert with the gardeners and programmers among us.
I'm sorry that now I am (we are all) stretched thin. But in the end that should not matter because the initiative, the power, authentically can only come from you and friends. I do hope to be more present in this aspect together with the domestic phenomenological experiments after Dec 3. I very much appreciate Zoe's careful attention and Zoe and Katie's principled thought behind the work, which will twin together with Jane Tingley and Michal Seta's exquisite work. I find delightful, for example, the taut lines Zoe pinned neatly across the tops of the earthen bins to train our seedlings, some of whom have sprouted from the sixth generation of morning glories that Josee-Anne tended with so much care and hope, seeded from Flower Lunn circa Remedios Terrarium.
This is part of the story that I tell about the TML when I talk about the future. We will want to share this also with for example, Lina Dib <linadib@rice.edu>, the anthropologist with whom I am composing an invitation to the TML during the Anthropological Association of America conference Nov 16 - 20 here in Montreal.
The problem we face as an atelier is that those who are students are fragmented into the classes and the hundreds of distractions that students must entertain. And those who work or have families to tend have insufficient the energy or time perhaps to tend yet another space full of lives. But caring for plants is a mark of integrity and depth in an institutional and social field still hurting with postmodernity's flatness and frictionlessness. I would like to learn how we may collectively conduct philosophically informed creative research over the long term in a way that accommodates students as well as working people, not just those few who happen to be lucky or political enough to be funded by some grant to do just this at the TML. This may be impossible, but as Badiou may have argued 2000 years after Zhuangzi and Laozi, paradox can be generative. The plant project is part of this sociotechnical / institutional experiment, and its very mundaneness is our risk, our tactic, and our method.
So, thank you, and let's proceed.
Xin Wei
One who knows does not speak;
One who speaks does not know.
Block the openings;
Shut the doors.
Blunt the sharpness;
Untangle the knots;
Soften the glare;
On Oct 19, 2011, at 2:08 AM, Sha Xin Wei wrote:
Dear Vincent, Adrian,Thanks a lot for the intros!The best would be to talk directly with the PLSS vegetal research group. This year led by Zoe Yuristy. Last year's Spinoza - Bateson - Guattari reading group was led by Laura Boyd-Clowes. Now we are doing very very mundane beginning -- just to plant seedlings in fresh dirt, then get humidity sensors to semi-automate the watering system. Our philosophy seminar is suspended, although that is the most promising in terms of ground-breaking research, we simply are too busy to push that forward for now. Maybe with your intervention, we can advance the philosophical investigation in a rigorous way!Natasha Myers @ York University (Toronto) brings together her training as a botanist, and dance, as well as her wok in science & technology studies. There are fascinating works with plant chemical signals, chemical memory, plant movement + human movement, etc.. She should be part of the more research oriented conversation.Let me suggest that Adrian make the translations :) I'll do that too after my deadlines ease up a bit Dec 2.Xin Wei
On Oct 16, 2011, at 4:28 PM, Julian Vincent wrote:Well, hi y'all! Great introduction from Adrian!Here's a one-pager which summarises the second subject Adrian mentions: <The selective advantage.doc>. If the idea has a fault, it's that the model is so strong that it explains too much! I'm collecting press cuttings, quotations, etc, which is the only way I know to accumulate information in this sort of area. My ideal would be to interview some practising artists, but I fancy I need a bit more credibility before I can persuade someone to give me the cash to travel. Ideally I would interview a couple of dozen of the current top artists (all categories) in the world - maybe more. If any of you know someone of sufficient standing and compliance who would agree to do it for free, I'd love to run them through the system! And your comments, too. At present I'm putting the data into an ontology which is my current way of filing and assembling data. You can have a copy if you are interested.The first subject which Adrian mentions requires a bit more background since it's not published and needs some understanding of botany and engineering. The bending stiffness of a rod depends on the diameter of the rod (or, more generally, the shape and size of its cross section) and the material it's made of. A small-section rod made of stiff material will bend to the same amount as a large-section rod made of less stiff material. We were working on tobacco plants which had one of the three pathways producing lignin (= 'wood') downgraded. In the greenhouse (a wind-free environment) they were trained up pieces of string, and looked exactly the same as the controls which had full lignification. But the ones with reduced lignin were more floppy (lower bending stiffness). However, if a plant is stimulated mechanically it tens to stiffen up (thigmomorphogenesis) by changing its dimensions. We tried this with both normal and downgraded plants and found that they grew differently such that the stem of the more floppy one grew bigger in diameter than the control plant, resulting on both plants having the same bending stiffness. In other words, they both ended up with the same mechanical properties. I adduced this to mean that the plant had a 'concept' of how stiff it should be, correcting for and short-comings in the material it's made of,and therefore has a self-image, or is conscious! I have to admit that this interpretation of a well-known phenomenon was created in order to wrong-foot those who believe that only man is capable of consciousness and self-knowledge, but it also means that, perhaps, one should think a bit more clearly about what consciousness means and how to define it!The basic data are published and is kosher, but the above argument is not published.Comments welcome!JulianOn 16 Oct 2011, at 05:06, Adrian Freed wrote:I would like to introduce you all to Julien Vincent who I met at the the Fiber Society Conference last week.http://www.ted.com/profiles/43903http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/biomimetics/people.htmlJulien's work and his interesting peridisciplinary thinking intersects themes of the PLSS project and the TML in general.Our conversations ventured far and wide but a couple of relevance are:1) An ingenious interpretation of a specific plant biomechanics experimental as evidence of plant self identity. I heard about this post-Guiness so perhapsJulian can refer us to a paper for the details. As you all know I am just an interest tourist when it comes to biology but I keep getting a lot of Julian's field. For exampleI used the locomotion of wild wheat awns in a recent paper as an example of entrainment. I suspect there is much in the mechanical aspects of plants to stimulatediscussion of agency at the boundaries of the living/and non living.2) The following idea of his:"The selective advantage of art. Art (all varieties) is a safe method of allowing people to rehearse alternative futures. The engagement is to guess what will happen next, which relies on pattern recognition (well known) but demands projection of the pattern into the future (commonly not appreciated). The person who 'knows' what will happen next is the most likely to survive. Therefore art, apparently totally useless in terms of evolutionary advantage and so strangely persistent, appears to have a central role in our survival mechanisms."As you can imagine this second point has received insensitive resistance from the usual places. Rather than add weight to the obvious critiques I would like us to engage in conversation with Julianto deepen, broaden and sharpen this insight of his.I referred Julian to Lucy Suchman's work on situated action.Simondon is also relevant because he uses the language of evolution in considering the evolution of the technical object.Heavy-hitting scientists who have considered evolution and social patterning include Varela,and for music we have Attali's argument (in Noise) that society tests new technologies first in music and sound becausethese modailities have fewer material constraints. Andrew Pickering has started to look at art but his early work on this was not met very sympathetically in the DART503 seminar last year.I am sure some of you biologist/philosophers and artist/biologists have some more useful suggestions for Julian.Please share them.Thanks.p.s.Julian knows the RepRap inventor Adrian Bowyer so it might be interesting to share your experience on how the TML plants entrained you to build them a RepRap.
September 08, 01:58 AM
"Sara Reichert" <sarareichert@web.de>...
August 13, 07:47 AM
Date: August 13, 2011 6:56:17 AM EDT
Hi Michal, Hi Morgan,
This is all great -- can't wait ti see the data come trickling into Ozone soon! But let's design for a world in which we have dense set of sensors, where dense means approximately continuous in space, time, as well as data-space. Practically speaking, this means on the order of video density, i.e. tens of millions of channels per unit time. In the face of such density, it makes sense to use a minimax design tactic: minimum bandwidth needed to maximally intercalate vegetal / soil activity with social activity.
Another design tactic I would us to try in most of our sensor work is to use a push model instead of regular polling (a pull model). This means I'd like the sensor to emit data when there is a change above a delta. Ideally that delta should be tunable by an application programmer. This means the sensor data should arrive from the analog world with irregular intervals of time. (Thanks to Joel Ryan and his work with gestural musical sensing.)
Tim and Flower's timelapse data show us that our fastest growing plants -- the morning glories -- had a "frequency" of about one macroscopic (human legible) cycle of creeper per hour. (Ask Natasha Myers @ York for a technical term :) I don't know what the frequency should be, but I would like to work with the lowest possible frequency that we can.
The research challenge is in fact : How can we intercalate the slow rhythms of sidereal and vegetal activity (hour) with human rhythms (second) in a way that is legible to us?
This goes to the heart of the fact most "environmental" sensor art is boring or has the same affect as noise. Rather than fetishize the boring or noise as aesthetics, let's see what we can do with streams of sparse, irregular sensor data.
Xin Wei
August 13, 07:43 AM
Date: August 12, 2011 6:25:01 PM EDT
Hey Michal,
> On 2011-08-12, at 6:15 PM, Michal Seta wrote:
> I considered multicast but have not yet tried it with the arduino. It's probably doable...
Probably not worth the time/headache. Should be sufficient to put a sticker with the send/receive IP's on the box and maybe make an API over ethernet where you can change the outbound IP's if it's trivial.
Not being a plant expert, I don't know what data rate makes sense, once an hour? I can make it configurable.
At least ten time per second or so, and do make it tunable. No reason to cut bandwidth for no reason – we believe in keeping as much data as possible for as 'long' as it's practical (just don't send at max speed / w/o delays!)
> The recent version of arduino (0022) includes the RawUDP code by Björn Hartmann.
Great, then you're set.
> I know of at least 2 objects for Pd that can handle tcp. One pair (send/receive) developed at Concordia.
UDP is preferred.
> I can, right now, communicate locally with Pd (in UDP) using static IPs but the system does not rely on this communication to function. I intend to use Pd to prototype a monitoring and configuration interface.
Great! Thank you. This is a nice surprise for me – I assumed I was going to have to do this in September/October.
Cheers,
August 13, 07:41 AM
Date: August 12, 2011 12:18:04 PM EDT
What I meant to say is that it might be easier to roll your own OSC "library" since making a basic OSC message without timestamps, bundles and wildcards does not require a library to do – it's just a int/float with a string identifier and type tag appended. Like:
oscPacket = sprintf("/path/to, i, %c", number);
ethernet.udpSend(oscPacket);
I referred you to OSCuino because the functions sendOSCfloats and sendOSCthings will show you how to construct a proper OSC message w/ AVR C. So if the ethernet library is stable, no need to bother with a half-working OSC library on top of it just to do some string formatting!
For future maintenance, I'm of the opinion the things should be kept simple in terms of implementation so that people in the future can figure them out easily rather than simple of interface (which more often then not means complex implementation).
I had a look at the Arduino ethernet library and to my surprise it doesn't support UDP (only TCP). Somebody has written here a modified version that uses UDP: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1231346812 (not sure if you found this already). You can give it a try, but some people have compile errors. The other option would be to find a TCP object fro Pd. Or rather than using Pd, you could write a little Python/Ruby/C script that receives the data and broadcasts it on localhost for Pd or Max to pick up.
All that said, if you can get the OSC library working, then by all means use it. Just trying to make suggestions to make your life easier!
Thanks Michal.
August 13, 07:40 AM
Date: August 12, 2011 11:46:02 AM EDT
Yes, when Michal and I talked, I expressed a preference for an arduino box that could stand alone on our local Ethernet and send out data without tying up a whole computer (a capital gear overkill vs software library overkill :)
Sorry it turned out to be on the bleeding edge! But I look forward to seeing the data available on OSC. Can it be broadcast to all machines on local net via some usual convention? I expect the data rate to be very low so this would eat very little bandwidth.
JA watered the plants last week, said they need basic human live attention too.
PLSS will live again!
Xin Wei
August 13, 07:39 AM
Date: August 12, 2011 11:22:49 AM EDT
Thank you [Morgan] for the pointers on OSC arduino, I had a quick look at both and Adrian's seems like a very cool tool to have in one's toolbox. However, both of these solutions use serial communication while my understanding is that we want to communicate over the ethernet. The OSC library I found wraps the ethernet library and adds the OSC protocol. I do agree that OSC may be an overkill for sending 8 ints around but Xin Wei expressed interest in using OSC. In the end it all depends on the end-user/maintener who will make use of this and eventually expand on it.
I could keep it extremely simple and send just an array of 8 ints or some kind of property list or dictionary if that is what you prefer.
August 13, 07:38 AM
Date: August 11, 2011 9:57:36 PM EDT
Just quickly for now, I try to stay away from OSC libraries because OSC is just a (transport agnostic) naming profile and and the libraries are overkill for sending a few floats. You might have better luck sending strings formatted as OSC messages straight over UDP. There should be a library for that shield with a sendUDP() function. Have a look at Adrian's OSCuino and Andrew Bensons OSC Arduino sketches for inspiration. Away from a computer at the moment, so can't check.
August 13, 07:37 AM
On 2011-08-11, at 9:39 PM, Michal Seta wrote:
Here's a little update because I suppose you're back in town. I have tracked down an OSC library for the ethernet shield which turned out to be a bit of a puzzle (made for an older version of arduino). I've found an updated fork but with lots of typos/errors that I managed to iron out and made my own fork :https://github.com/djiamnot/Z_OSC
There are still some mysterious issues but I have actually had a successful OSC communication between the arduino and a Pd patch. I was a bit delayed due to some family distraction and the OSC bugs chase but I am back on the track. I think that by next week I will heave the thing working. I will let you know when I am closer to the finish.
August 13, 07:35 AM
On 2011-03-19, at 12:37 PM, Michal Seta wrote:
Thank you all for your comments, this discussion makes it all much clearer for me, especially the role of the LED indicator. I too believe that the intuitive/social aspect is more appropriate for PLSS. In any case, I had no intention of interfering with the original goals and philosophy of PLSS but I think I needed a better understanding. I was under a wrong impression, for instance, that the LED was to serve as a binary indicator.
See my other inline comments below:
(> blue Morgan, >> red Xin Wei)
On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 11:13 PM, Morgan Sutherland <skiptracer@gmail.com> wrote:
> The ONLY qualities that we should try to guarantee is that, for each given sensor in each given location:
> I think that in addition to these two qualities, we should also do our best to insure that reading the LED's is an unambiguous as possible. This is the argument for using digital – going the analog route, given that we do not have a tremendous amount of expertise or time available, will result in an effectively linear relationship between the output of the sensor (which varies linearly with measured soil humidity) and the brightness of the LED, which leads to a very ambiguous signal.
> I don't think that a reading of only one LED can be unambiguous (unless it is simply a matter of on/off situation which I don't believe is the preferred solution here). My reading of Xin Wei's comments is that letting the human interpret the LED is part of the equation.
>> This should be MUCH easier to implement, MUCH less work.
> I actually disagree here. I think that passing the sensor values through the microcontroller and back out to the LED's will be slightly more work than making a delicate analog circuit, attaching it to each sensor, and water-proofing it, especially since I think we would need to use an op-amp + a few resistors per sensor. I have aesthetic preference for simple analog solutions vs. verbose digital solutions however.
Am I reading this correctly? You mean building n copies of analog circuit and water-proofing them is less work than incorporating one more wire into the design and writing one program (with n instantiations of 1 class)? In any case, I am definitely in favor of an elegant analog solution. Do we actually need an op-amp and a few resistors? I understand that there is some concern about linear vs. non-linear solution but in the long run, if left to humans, they will learn to interpret the reading regardless of it being linear or not. I think that a simple solution (LED + resistor) will yield a reliable reading of the soil's humidity.
>> Use analog first. Digital only when you must, and understand what reductions you are incurring.
June 25, 12:39 PM
I harvested the carrots today. Only a few grew to full size
I ate two straight out of the soil.Let this serve as proof that it is possible to make sweet life grow in irregular places.
May 31, 03:35 PM
Building a Mendel RepRap 3d printer started in late January. The specific "flavor" we're assembling is a laser-cut Techzone Remix fitted with 3rd Generation electronics and a Thermocouple/OneWire heat sensor. This post is meant to be a progress report and the start of a documentation process for future references.
Here's how it look as of now :
"what's done"
You can probably see on these picture that :
- The frame and platform is fully assembled
- Electronics are installed and mounted
- *All* wiring is done (some is working but will be redone more cleanly)
What you can't see :
- All axis are working
- Sensors are working (IR optosensors and heat sensor)
- Heating element (nichrome wire) is working
- USB>>TTL connection is working and we can interface fully with the motherboard
- "Stock" host firmware (RepRap FiveD GCode Interpreter version 20100806 ) is loaded on the motherboard
- Modified FiveD firmware (on the RepRap forum) is loaded on the extruder controller board
"what's not"
- Assembly of a new extruder (the laser cut gears were too sticky and nichrome need to be rewire). The new design is a Wade Extruder and only the tip need to be assembled now :
- The Z axis drive bars (threaded) stand free in the air : that cause a lot of noise when the extruder carrier go up. We will need to make some kind of crutches to hold it still :
- The bed now stand on bolts (for spacing), we need to put springs instead. Doing so will enable us to precisely level the platform to make sur that our X & Y axis are parallel to the prinmting bed :
April 13, 04:39 PM
Here are the PLSS project description slides that Morgan put together from 2010. They should be on http://plss.posterous.com already. Just in case not, here they are again.
Xin WeiApril 04, 12:15 AM
This is a valedictory artist statement from Flower Lunn for her MFA show "niche opportunity" at the Parisian Laundry, in Collision 7:
Flower's work is relevant to the PLSS / eco-economics and Memory+Place+Identity research streams in ways that are not obvious, but substantial.
March 22, 01:34 AM
Michal and I met today to set tasks for the next couple of weeks. Here are some notes:1. we're not going to bother with the piano bed. We pushed it to one side for now, which is much nicer!2. Michal and I nailed down the requirements for the electronics. Some notes:
- 5 wires per 'branch': {3.3V, Grnd, LED PWM, Sensor1, Sensor2} – we're leaving room to add extra sensors
- 1 extra branch for the temperature and humidity sensor: {5V, Grnd, Humidity, Temperature} – I think we can use the 5V out on the Seeeduino even when its in 3v3 mode. Check this!
- temperature and humidity sensor runs at 5V, so the output will need to be stepped down to 3V3 for the ADC's.
- Potentiometers will be wired in series with the LED's (no need for extra sensor inputs)
- Jane will lend a Darlington array for controlling solenoid valves. Probably needs diodes+capacitors for kickback – check solenoid circuits online or ask Martin/Elio. (These will require its own power source, 12V! – Jane/Michal, please check whether the 3V3 voltage regulator in the Seeeduino mega can handle a 12V power supply, otherwise you might need to install a beefy voltage regulator in the box for feeding the 3V3 stuff.)
- A separate 8-channel LED driver needs to be purchased for the LED's. The Seeeduino Mega has 15 PWM outputs.
- 8 channels available for soil senors. 2 channels for temperature/humidity sensor. That leaves 6 leftover for LDRs or whatever else.
3. Michal and Jane will work together on the electronics.4. Michal will build two window boxes, aprox. 10" deep, 54" long, 11" wide. (Laura, is 10" deep enough? Want deeper?) – we can use these to grow beans up the windows again!5. Michal will spruce up the 'valve stands' by drilling holes through the bamboo.Thanks Michal! – see you on Wednesday Jane,Morgan
March 20, 08:09 AM
Hi Morgan,
On 2011-03-19, at 3:17 PM, Morgan Sutherland wrote:
Hi Xin Wei,
As you know, the emphasis on linearity in electrical engineering is there so that we can be precise about what kinds of non-linearities we are introducing. It's about minimizing unknowns, not eliminating them.
My argument is only that if we use analog components, there is no possibility to design the behavior of f. Instead, f is effectively linear, by which I mean, it's roughly a straight line and we just have to deal with it as it is (we are at the whim of the non-linearity of the measurement, or the lack of meaningful correspondence between the measurement and the salient 'parameter', which is whether the plants should be watered or not and how much).
Of course, when we consider the whole entangled system, the LED will not vary linearly with the salient 'parameter' even if the system is "linear". But since we're going into the design without any knowledge of any of the functions except for f, it's wise to make sure that f is manipulable so that we can adapt it to the situation. In this case it's actually less labor intensive and possibly less energy/material intensive to design the system such that f is manipulable, though less elegant.
Well put. Agreed. This makes sense to me. I call this "tuning" (vs calibration, which is what the "metal" system needs to do to normalize for contingent average conditions).
Again, well put.See my response to Michal Re: ambiguity.
The formula you want may be slightly different:
Your point is now clear -- I agree down the line (so to speak).
Can someone else implement this in the microprocesser, freeing you up a bit ?
Re: photocells, that's a great point. It's too bad we're not going with distributed, wireless acquisition nodes because there's going to be a lot of wiring involved (like 20 feet per sensor).
This is an opportunity for Jane and others to think sculpturally. Wire's form references the vines, twine, cables, so Jane and I think it's an opportunity to reflect "materially" on what is happening in our lab. A little flexibility in the choice of color, gauge, and length etc. may be useful, if the electricals work as well.
Compliments.
Xin Wei
(PS I won't spam topologicalmedia@gmail.com, hoping Jane can pick this up in the blog at or before the next PLSS meeting. )
March 19, 03:17 PM
Hi Xin Wei,
The fact that we can't say that the system is linear does not mean that there is no space for intentionally introducing non-linearities into the system that have a qualitative effect on the perceived output.
As you know, the emphasis on linearity in electrical engineering is there so that we can be precise about what kinds of non-linearities we are introducing. It's about minimizing unknowns, not eliminating them.
When I say system, I mean the metal stuff. The metal stuff has a linear response according to the datasheet. That means that even though g is non-linear, I know that any non-linearities in f are designed.
My argument is only that if we use analog components, there is no possibility to design the behavior of f. Instead, f is effectively linear, by which I mean, it's roughly a straight line and we just have to deal with it as it is (we are at the whim of the non-linearity of the measurement, or the lack of meaningful correspondence between the measurement and the salient 'parameter', which is whether the plants should be watered or not and how much).
Of course, when we consider the whole entangled system, the LED will not vary linearly with the salient 'parameter' even if the system is "linear". But since we're going into the design without any knowledge of any of the functions except for f, it's wise to make sure that f is manipulable so that we can adapt it to the situation. In this case it's actually less labor intensive and possibly less energy/material intensive to design the system such that f is manipulable, though less elegant.
Put another way, I think that we can introduce non-linearities that will improve the entrainment process for the same reason that one musical instrument can be called better than another.
See my response to Michal Re: ambiguity.
I'm not sure what you mean by "ceramic wicks", but as for DIY analog methods, sensors involving electrodes and some sort of filtration medium (such as plaster) can't guarantee monotonicity and are subject to hysteresis, hence our going with commercial calibrated sensors. If we wanted to avoid electricity, then fingers work fine ;)
Re: photocells, that's a great point. It's too bad we're not going with distributed, wireless acquisition nodes because there's going to be a lot of wiring involved (like 20 feet per sensor).
Morgan
"system is effectively linear"This is vague. What's the "system"? Reread Maturana and Varela, or Arakawa and Gins, or Heisenberg, Planck, Bohr. Where does the organism begin and phenomenon end? Maturana would remind us that "system" in the sense that you might mean it, meaning the electronic sensor + wires + microprocessor + code + wire + LED + battery + wire is only an artificial "god's eye view" linguistic fiction. (Read also the (in)famous essay about the artifactuality of physical measurement in gyro guidance system for ICBMs, reprinted in the Science Studies Reader, ed. Mario Biagioli.)
The mapping from soil humidity to human felt experience of the humidity is a composition of mappings, only some of which are computable, most of which are non-linear, most of which are in fact unknown. Call these mappings f1, f2, ..., fn.
If f is linear, and g is non-linear, then f º g is non-linear.If f and g are both non-linear, you have to be pretty damn lucky to find f º g linear.
Psycho-perception, alone, aside from anthropology and phenomenology, tells us that linearity is bogus.
In fact, the situation is far worse. Since at least one of the factor mappings fi is indeterminate, even if all the other factor mappings were determined, the composition f1 º f2 º ... º fn would still be indeterminate.
In fact the point of asking for monotonicity and reproducibility is precisely because that they together yield an "unambiguous" measure upon which individual humans can train. "Reading" and "unambiguous" are vague and paper over vast areas of uncertainty. (Cf. the psych-perception literature; read Husserl.) I suggested monotonicity and reproducibility as two practical qualities sometimes attainable by experimentalists with modest technical means. At least if y'all achieve these two qualities in your sensor system, then we'll be able to muddle along.
To measure soil humidity, I bet there are ceramic wicks that'll do this totally analog, with no macro-current needed. A chief value for doing digital is not so much to display humidity to the human, but its side effect: to get the humidity data into our Ozone system. Speaking of which, I think we should run photo-cells into Ozone. Maybe Claire can make some up from the Memory+Place leftovers -- asking Zohar, Patricia ?
Regards, Xin Wei
March 19, 08:57 AM
hi Jane, Hi Michal,
I agree with both Michal and Jane #1 :)
The important issue is not merely soil humidity, not whether the sensor to LED path is analog or digital - my digression with Morgan. The issue is as Michal pointed out -- reminding us of when a particular plant needs water. The delay, or anything requiring some memory is a good case for digital computation. (this is a deep practical difference between analog and digital computation)
And yes, I think it makes sense to go with Jane #1, always: people's knowing habit, tacit knowledge, is always infinitely nuanced and richer than any systematized schematized knowledge. A "scientific" study could work, but it takes years of study to get beyond naive hacker amateur, who is less reliable than either gardener or mature botanist. There's need to systematically get a degree in botany when Jane and Laura already know plants down to your fingers :)
(Mike Cooley, in Architect or Bee, has a thoughtful section about craft vs modularized info, and the mill wright.)
Xin Wei
On 2011-03-17, at 11:35 AM, jane tingley <janetingley@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi Xin Wei - this mail was sent out - you were CCed but it bounced back...Hi everyoneMichal brought up a good point.As a recap - we discussed having a little analogue circuit on the humidity detector that has a POT ( a dial that we turn to either increase or decrease the detection of humidity) So we put it in the plant when it is dry for example, to set the sensitivity. We also discussed whether we should send the info to the arduino, and have the arduino turn the LED on and off.so//there are two approaches we could take ...1) Intuitive/tech2) Science/tech1) If we have a side circuit that controls the led, with a POT - then basically, when either Laura or I put the sensor in the plants, we dial the POT to adjust sensitivity. We will use our knowledge of the plants to calibrate these sensors over a period of say a month. So for example - With a yucca - a desert plant and generally needs a little bit of water every two weeks. Let's say the green LED comes on in the yucca after just 1 week of being watered, and the plant looks healthy, we would dial the sensitivity lower. We would do this until the light goes on after what we believe - based on our knowledge of plants - is an appropriate amount of time. This approach would be more intuitive, and require a couple of people who are knowledgable of plants to set up the system - as well as a lengthy calibration period.2) We find out the actual science - what exact level of humidity a yucca needs to survive. Send the data out to a computer, and then have the program turn the LED on when the plant needs to be water - based on the science. We could then also use this data to take care of the plants during the summer.Perhaps people have some opinions about which direction we should take. I'm on the fence.
Jane Tingleymobile >> 514-245-0499
skype >> jane.tingley
************************************http://www.janetingley.com
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile//27429.html
From:
To:
Cc:
Sent: Thu, March 17, 2011 10:09:31 AM
Subject: Re: Links from PLSS Meeting (Electronics)Hi all,Regardless of the microcontrollers/hardware and connectivity issue, I
too have some thoughts about what we discussed yesterday. Going back
to the design of electronic circuit that includes indicators (LED) for
the plants, I think that the original idea of having a LED controlled
by the program/firmware, is in fact more appropriate one. This is
because the plants need to be watered not only according to the
moisture level of the soil but also according to their needs (desert
plants can last a long time in dry soil). This aspect should be
controlled either by the microcontroller or, preferably, a computer
program, which would be adjusted according to what kind of plants are
hooked up into the system. In that case, a LED will go on only after
a certain time interval that the soil would have been dry. I am not
sure about the analog dial (pot) for the circuit. For a standalone
solution (microcontroller only) it would make sense to have some
relative control. If this is going to be hooked up to a a computer
anyways, we could foresee programming a user interface which will
allow for specifying some kind of conditions per plant (I suppose this
would be preferred solution).I hope I am making sense, please let me know if I am off the track
(wrt PLSS philosophy) or if something is unclear.BestMichalOn Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:51 PM, Morgan Sutherland
< wrote:
> Hello Jane,
> If we want to use Ethernet rather than USB, I recommend using this WIZnet
> module which has an associated Arduino library so development is
> trivial: http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/Ethernet
> If you want to trade money for time, you can get the Arduino Ethernet shield
> (yes, it's compatible with the Seeeduino Mega), which is the same Wiznet
> chip: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9026
> There are four advantages to ethernet that I can think of:
> (1) the cables are cheaper and you can make them to the exact length you
> need
> (2) there is no cable length limit
> (3) if the cable is accidentally unplugged, you don't need to restart your
> software in order to re-establish a connection, it's just always pushing the
> data onto the network without any "hand-shaking" required and
> (4) if we connect it to a switch (like the one on Michael's desk) the data
> is available to any computer in the lab – that would be useful for a day in
> the future when my computer is not located near the box.
> The downsides:
> (1) more development time
> (2) $30 extra
> I'd be curious as to why you were recommended another ethernet solution
> since this one is proven to work well and has an easy to use library.
> Morgan
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Morgan Sutherland
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Jane,
>> Silicone conformal coating for protecting circuits from water:
>>
>> http://www.abra-electronics.com/products/422B%252dP-MG-Silicone-Conformal-Coating.html
>> The microcontroller we have + will use:
>>
>> http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/seeeduino-mega-p-717.html?cPath=80&zenid=22b1d4d04f39a87446605e3c6bf360ef
>> Morgan
>
March 19, 01:04 AM
[erratum]
If f is linear, and g is non-linear, then f º g is non-linear.
If f and g are both non-linear, you have to be pretty damn lucky to find f º g linear.
Posts
January 31, 10:20 PM
Andy Schmeder wrote a bunch of xyz.geometry objects. The new "o.expr" is powerful enough to do these efficiently and John and I have been
pondering what functions to add to the extensive list of basic math favorites. This would be nice to curate while John and I are on your coast. We are trying to schedule that before he takes
the April break from Northeastern....Speaking of Andy: he just told me about a tool that does 3d geometry parametrically but allows you to do convex hulls of objects not points.
It is hard to find this sort of thing that is in a plastic enough form to build into real-time engines for what we want to do but I think it is a valuable direction.I want to project various envelopes around real-time 3d models of the space and holes of people's bodies -envelopes that are predictive where the potential is layered over the actual.
The visual ghostly analog to a sonic pre-echo.
I think this is what basketball players and soccer players (and of course dancers) do. They interact with the ghosts of the past and future.
The present is too late and moving.....
pondering what functions to add to the extensive list of basic math favorites. This would be nice to curate while John and I are on your coast. We are trying to schedule that before he takes
the April break from Northeastern....Speaking of Andy: he just told me about a tool that does 3d geometry parametrically but allows you to do convex hulls of objects not points.
It is hard to find this sort of thing that is in a plastic enough form to build into real-time engines for what we want to do but I think it is a valuable direction.I want to project various envelopes around real-time 3d models of the space and holes of people's bodies -envelopes that are predictive where the potential is layered over the actual.
The visual ghostly analog to a sonic pre-echo.
I think this is what basketball players and soccer players (and of course dancers) do. They interact with the ghosts of the past and future.
The present is too late and moving.....
[emphasis added]On Jan 31, 2012, at 8:54 AM, Sha Xin Wei wrote:
It'd be a very useful learning exercise to clean up this code to calculate the degree of dispersion / clustering of a set of points.
<README_barycenter+bunch.rtf>
on to spin...
Xin Wei
barycenter.maxpat
computes the center of a set of points
scatter
computes degree of clustering or dispersion
tml.math.bunch
does the basic arithmetic, uses zl
MaxLibraries/TML/pro/lab/workshop/090115/
barycenter.maxpat
barycenter.xml
lights.maxpat
scatter.maxpat
MaxLibraries/TML/math/
tml.math.bunch.maxpat
tml.math.distance.maxpat
tml.math.range.maxpat
tml.math.distance.maxpat
January 26, 08:11 AM
Our next temporal textures + phenomenology seminar will be Fri 26 Jan 16h00 - 18h00 in the TML.
We decided to meet weekly since there's so much to work through. See the temporal textures page for a snapshot of the research, and the temporal textures blog for a trace from 2010.
I believe the section of Merleau-Ponty's PP we agreed to read and discuss is
Part One: The Body / III. The Spatiality of One’s own Body [corps propre] and Motility
(Is that right?)
Here again is a helpful analytic index that Noah circulated. (Thanks for the lucid orientations last week!)
Please email Liza and me privately if the people who couldn't make it Friday would like to stay on a "temporal textures" list for this term. We may try to arrange a Wed evening discussion for another strand. Some of us will be working quite intensely through Feb on some movement + video, lighting and acoustics experiments in the TML.
Xin Wei
January 26, 06:49 AM
TT experiment: essences of movement and form from animated halogens and from sound in TML (later BB)
Temporal Textures TML folks:
One experiment that Liza and I talked about -- which may interest others too, is the question of what kinds of room-memory (cf Ed Casey, Merleau-Ponty) can be evoked as a person walks through the TML's halogen when they are animated according to the person's movement + some simple animation logics.
First tests:
Visual
Sense of relative movement -- the train alongside effect
Dead elevator effect
Striping inducing movement (Montanaro effect)
Several of us -- Harry, me, Morgan, -- have written code to animate networks of LED's. For example, the TML/pro/esea/tml.pro.esea.control code animates a sequence of LED's scattered in an arbitrary way through space.
Audio
state: dense - loose
tendency: compressing -- expanding (any sound that person makes)
Navid pointed out with the much richer palette that we have, this quickly brings in compositional questions. It'd be nice to see this also with whatever Tyr extracts from Il y a (soon), and with what Freida creates in the course Fear of Flight (after February tests)
Note re. tracking in the TML. We cannot sense the person's orientation unless / until Freida or someone else mounts the CHR-UM6 Orientation Sensor with a radio micmodule -- Whoever does this should consult Elio Bidinost <ebidinost@swpspce.net>. I've talked with Elio -- he said just send him the link and the question.) (Some folks have pointed to iPhone apps but the iPhones are too big and overdetermined.) However, we can use our overhead cameras to get a sense of where the person is / is headed. We have several on the grid thanks to MF and Tyr. Julien has hooked the Elmo up to his optical flow sampler.
For reference, this is a well-known series of works by artist Jim Campbell
Portrait of Claude Shannnon shows the effect most clearly
White Circle is a large scale installation. It'd be more interesting to blow fog such an array of lights and see images and movement appear and disappear as the fog thickens and thins.
(Let me cc as Spike theatrical lighting design expert, if that's alright)
On Jan 15, 2012, at 3:27 PM, Adrian Freed wrote:
(Xin Wei wrote) FYI on the low-end, MM and I are buying a cheap body-worn wireless analog videocam (on order of a few grams weight, 1" cube ) to try out mapping optical flow to Nav's instruments this coming weeks. I'd like to write some mappings from optical flow to feed Julian and Navid's gesture followers, and as well as more directly Nav's sound instruments. I wrote some MSP code from 2004 that worked in the fashion show "jewelry" that surely can be much more expressive!
You may wan't want to know where the camera is in space -
a tricky problem as you know but this is the best affordable module to get the answer without losing people down the rabbit hole of Kalman filtering etc.
January 04, 12:58 AM
Carissimi TML People interested in new matter, temporal textures, movement+media,...
We have a conversation on "material computing" that's beginning to fill out with interesting references. Thanks to Adrian for this one.
- Xin Wei
Begin forwarded message:
This system already had a lot of what people are still trying to get into including physical models, arduino like processors (6809), dsp processors (TMS3210),
visual programming etc.
http://www.billbuxton.com/katosizer.pdf
October 16, 02:38 AM
(Thanks, Spike, for board info which will be useful for future.) Spike and I are on the same page about first steps: we can do well by starting as simply as possible and just wire to what we have in-house - dumb fixtures and iCue motorized mounts, and some LED components. Instead of talking endlessly about sophisticated gear in the abstract, I'd like to see actual light modulation installed in our lab, running all the time, so we can hack it live, and so people other than technical experts can participate in the design and evaluation of our lighting modulation apparatus from the get-go. (I am thinking in particular of Tristana Rubio, Liza Solomonova, David's students, Patrick & his students, Komal, and me :)
It's a challenge, but I want to intercalate tech development finely with live action studies, and minimize programming in the abstract. Here are the motivating "games" that I want to build as soon as possible, as demos and reality-checks AKA Cruelty-checks (in the spirit of Artaud).
To be concrete, let me pose some feasible first steps. Who'd like to join us in realizing some of these experiments this term? Please invite / recommend someone who can work with us on the practical and elementary makings this month. (Navid or Spike, can you invite Ted to contact me cc Morgan, please?)
(1) Wire the camera-based tracking to
regular static fixtures via our dimmer (done),
iCue motor - to make a tracking spot,
some RGB fixture.
(2) Chase spot game with kids (XW, M?) -- or we could map Navid's moving virtual sound sources to moving spots. If video then we could vary the color and texture according to sonic cues.
(3) Color spots mapped to blobs by rank . Rank by size or speed. Devise rules such as
3.1 Intersect => a third color, or
3.2 Same speed (even if different location) => blend colors,
3.3 Same curvature => blend colors.
(4) Map vegetal, solar, building (Tristana, Komal, or Patrick's students) and other non-human temporal patterns to params (ie color, intensity) of fixtures mounted behind pillars or plant boxes, or other architectural accents in the room EV 7.725. I think we should map such slow data to state rather than to actual lighting parameters. This will take a weekend of collective re-wiring, to be scheduled perhaps in collaboration with Zoe & Katie (Annex / PLSS2 plant project).
Quality of light is not important at this stage - we need to create an entire signal path first and interpolate computational modulation. "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien"
Xin Wei
July 26, 09:24 AM
The scientific thread intertwined with this one is recorded in pattern.posterous.com. (Harry's password.)
July 09, 10:14 PM
Hi Harry, Patrick,
I've had the pleasure of chatting with each of you individually. Shall we move things along by putting together some "lab" notes of experiences over the past year ?
We can generate this in three different forms -- each of us has different strands of writings to do anyway... let me contribute by re-posting two pieces of writing.
Instead of artificially making yet another bit of work, I propose to work with what we each have done or need to do anyway. So for example:
Patrick's got a set of projects with his studio over the past year, whose documentation as material to inspire the next phase. Links to the project blogs would suffice. We also talked about a Simondon essay that I'll be happy to look at soon.
Harry's writing up some thoughts about the construction of apparatus, and the relation between apparatus and experiment for the prospectus which could neatly draw from and inform the various installation experiments.
I think at some point we talked about creating a project blog. We have already two passworded spaces TML private WIKI and the posterous blog which you can re-format however you like. They can be passworded to restrict as you like. To just the three of us is fine for a start.
Here's the narrative of our FQRSC temporal textures proposal
and here's the Minor Architecture essay for AIS 26.2
Onward toward our joint article(s) I hope! I'm hoping that we can work toward publication, scientific as well as EU support. (First milestone date is Aug 15 for a Letter of Interest.)
Xin Wei
__________________________________________________________________________
____
____
Canada Research Chair • Associate Professor • Design and Computation Arts • Concordia University
Director, Topological Media Lab • topologicalmedialab.net/ • skype: shaxinwei • +1-
650-815-9962
__________________________________________________________________________
____
____
July 04, 11:44 AM
Adrian, Andy, Michael, Tyr, Sean,
Another wrinkle for our scientific research agenda discussion (at 2 today) paralleling the discussions of "temporal textures"
Terry Tao is one of the most lucid communicative mathematicians of his generation. A key point for our purposes, I think, is the more general set up in which, instead of varying a metric g{t} with respect to the parameter "t" (putative time), one varies the base manifold as well. M becomes M(t). So a flow on a Riemannian manifold becomes a flow on a differentiable family of Riemannian manifolds:
Of course all the technical difficulty is in exactly how to vary through a family of manifolds, with potentially even changing topology. Tao treats the RIcci flow, which has become a pillar of mathematics in the past 20 years, including Perelman's settling of the Poincare Conjecture.
But in the spirit of a "small mammals in the age of large reptiles" strategy*, let me suggest a reversal of point of view, and read time from the evolutionary process. I draw attention to two points that Tao makes in the passage quoted below.
We enrich the notion of time by the notion of the flow of time itself, modelled by the "time vector field"
(1) The manifold developing topology goes hand in hand with the time vector field developing singularities. Think of chocolate flowing down a donut held vertically.
(2) The "time vector field which obeys the transversality condition " gives a more precise generalization of the "directionality" of time, but this is only the beginning of the journey...
I would like to see if this can be illuminated by Adrian's discussion of lensing.
Xin Wei
(* Mammals and reptiles do not refer to mathematicians but to the unnamed ;)
"The one drawback of the above simple approach is that it forces the topology of the underlying manifold M to stay constant. A more general approach is to view each d-dimensional manifold M(t) as a slice of a d+1-dimensional “spacetime” manifold (possibly with boundary or singularities). This spacetime is (usually) equipped with a time coordinate , as well as a time vector field which obeys the transversality condition . The level sets of the time coordinate t then determine the sets M(t), which (assuming non-degeneracy of t) are smooth d-dimensional manifolds which collectively have a tangent bundle which is a d-dimensional subbundle of the d+1-dimensional tangent bundle of . The metrics g(t) can then be viewed collectively as a section of . The analogue of the time derivative is then the Lie derivative . One can then define other Riemannian structures (e.g. Levi-Civita connections, curvatures, etc.) and differentiate those in a similar manner.
The former approach is of course a special case of the latter, in which for some time interval with the obvious time coordinate and time vector field. The advantage of the latter approach is that it can be extended (with some technicalities) into situations in which the topology changes (though this may cause the time coordinate to become degenerate at some point, thus forcing the time vector field to develop a singularity). This leads to concepts such as generalised Ricci flow, which we will not discuss here, though it is an important part of the definition of Ricci flow with surgery (see Chapters 3.8 and 14 of Morgan-Tian’s book for details)."
January 22, 11:13 AM
This is very useful material, Morgan -- thanks for bringing it up. For note toward our future development and publications, I post this to post@textures.posterous.com . - xw
December 24, 04:27 AM
Hi OSC service discovery guys,
On 2010-12-24, at 4:22 AM, Sha Xin Wei wrote:
Dear Ozoners and media choreographers:I propose we dedicate most of the Jan 12 Wed TML meeting for a discussion of the 2010-2011 Ozone system. End-users -- artist / experimentalist composers -- are welcome and vital, but this discussion will run at the level of experts and system developers We should allocate 5:15 - 7:00 for this.I'd like to set the creative and research context so we can all prioritize the development effort appropriately to the lab's needs.
On 2010-12-23, at 4:48 PM, <adrian@adrianfreed.com> <adrian@adrianfreed.com> wrote:
(By calibrating I'll mean *making small adjustments** of an instrument'sparameters for contingent conditions of performance site and event*.)I'm not sure what you mean to suggest here. What are you imagining we would"incorporate" these techniques into, libmapper itself?Calibration is an interesting problem deserving of more attention. Note
that the hipper devices store calibration information in the device
(e.g. wiimote, nunchuck).
This makes the calibrated device portable. Of course some calibration is
associated with the location (e.g. lighting, AGC, white balance, etc.
for video) other
with a paricular person. My experience is that the date
management/configuration issues are harder than the calibration signal
processing.
______________________________________________________________________________
Sha Xin Wei, Ph.D.
Canada Research Chair • Associate Professor • Design and Computation Arts • Concordia University
Director, Topological Media Lab • topologicalmedialab.net/ • http://flavors.me/shaxinwei
______________________________________________________________________________
December 14, 09:57 PM
Here is my current list of potential and proposed opportunities to do workshops related to Ozone & Einsteins Dream in 2011.
Some are fundable.
I will be working on funding these...depending on who can accomplish what.
March (during intersession break) UC Berkeley
1 or 2 members of Ozone team demo Lisa Wymore's lab
Meyer Sound work
March 5 - April 30 Bain St Michel, Montreal
April 15-23 Berkeley Dance Productions 8, Berkeley
Workshop in Lisa Wymore's lab ?
Maybe only media techniques
May 1-8 Hexagram, Montreal ??
Michael Montanaro & visitors Lisa Wymore (UC Berkeley) and Sheldon Smith (Mills College) ?
August 1-10 Hawaii
SECT Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory
technoscientific knowledge production and urban experience in Asia
Xin Wei
November 17, 06:31 AM
Dear TMLabbers,
By the Critical Theory Institute (2008)
This can inform the TML's experimental work.
Thanks to Kavita Philip.
See also "phenomenological method".
Xin Wei
______________________________________________________________________________
Sha Xin Wei, Ph.D.
Canada Research Chair • Associate Professor • Design and Computation Arts • Concordia University
Director, Topological Media Lab • topologicalmedialab.net/ • http://flavors.me/shaxinwei
______________________________________________________________________________
September 29, 10:28 PM
Dear Colleagues and Students,
Prof. Ed Casey is one of the most respected living philosophers in N. America, and reputed to be a most energizing speaker. This promises to be one of the livelier talks of the year, and motivation for a topological approach to things, perhaps. Do tell your friends, and come to the top floor of the Hexagram space in the EV building at Concordia.
Philosophy Colloquium Talk
Co-sponsored by the Canada Research Chair in New Media, and Topological Media Lab
Edward S. Casey
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Stony Brook University
Friday, Oct 15, 4-6 pm, EV 11.705, 1515 St. Catherine W., corner of Guy
"On Not Putting Too Fine an Edge on Things"
Abstract:
Philosophers, taking their lead from natural and social scientists, pride themselves on achieving clarity and exactitude. This aim is indisputably valid and has been indisputable to the accomplishment of many of the enduring achievements in philosophy – for instance, Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Peirce’s semiotics, Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica. At the same time, the virtues of vagueness have been increasingly pursued ever since William James (inspired by certain strains in Peirce himself) proclaimed “the value of the vague” in his Principles of Psychology (1890). Since then, others have followed suite, however diversely: notably Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Timothy Williamson. In this talk, I consider the merits of the vague in philosophy by a concerted exploration of the edges of things and topics: those extremities where the exact gives place to the less than precisely designatable and discussable. I maintain that, far from being a defect or lack, the very imprecision has positive values of its own to which we should attend more closely.
August 09, 02:23 AM
"Texture" should remind us that time does not have to be modeled on a unidimensional path, -- though all our software tools for time-based media assume this! it's not at all clear to me where that leads, yet. Any thoughts to start?
I believe CNMAT's tools for many years avoid this trap. In CAST and OSW we use various "time machines" to index signals. Some of these use an interesting stateless scheme I developed to bridge samplings of time (events) into continuous time (and back again). I explore our interpolation spaces frequently using stored or penned traces. Andy's OSC database work allows for efficient (timely) access to OSC recordings in a "non-linear" framework. John's recent NIME work is another interesting take on modeling that allows for various polytempo textures to be created without completely letting go of control of convergence and divergence to and from events. I would be happy to share details of this towards our collective understandings of by path(s) and textures.
August 04, 11:35 AM
> Now that Fall is coming, starting to fire up the temporal textures discussions, and to plan for milestone events in Fall and Spring. Don't know about Winter... any ideas on what you'd like for midway lilypads?
I hope to map out some workshops to bring some TML folks back to UC Berkeley this coming year. Maybe you'd be interested in the larger May events, ie part of Wymore's Dance Tech symposium, but presenting more provocative work like phenomenology time or presence consciousness cir lighting induced temporal textures, working with dancers. what would you think of linking the October workshop on psychology and architecture with Drs. Helga Wild and Linnaea Tillett with the May events, en route to Einsteins Dreams as a local shaping theme, but open to a cone of possibilities. "Texture" should remind us that time does not have to be modeled on a unidimensional path, -- though all our software tools for time-based media assume this! it's not at all clear to me where that leads, yet. Any thoughts to start? Mine are informed by (1) Maturana & Varela appendix to essay 2; (2) notion of spacelike hypersurface in general relativity; (3) harmony and texture in music; (4) the poetic figure of exfoltiation from Christopher Alexander, and Le Pli...and some more stuff. Lefebvre RHythmanalysis which we read in the Alexander & architecture reading group 3 4 years ago, is suggestive but not maybe productive enough? I don't know -- Erik Conrad knew it well. eg. I've been discussing generated time -- with Marek here. His model is a very clever approach to quantizing spacetime, but I am looking for a more textural, measure-theoretic approach that discovers temporal rhythm out of live movement, live processes.Speaking of live process, please tell me what you think would be useful as guiding questions / themes/ curiosities for initial materials explorations. For my part, I propose to contribute some performance workshop scenarios from Einsteins Dreams. Id like to ask Michael as well as David Morris when we're all back in Montreal, if we might recruit some people to workshop this together with what lighting or activated materials we gather. Not only those people of course, and we can rapidly go through a bunch of other scenarios... to the limits of what can be done of course. What do you think ? Xin Wei PS Morgan and Michael are familiar with some of this already.
I'd like to share this with Linnaea and Helga if that's ok, And Navid for sophisticated, richer texturing.
April 26, 07:23 AM
May I suggest a small but important shift in the way of thinking of
imaging on the displays. Instead of referencing the image to coordinates
established from the edges of the screen, think of the edges of the
screens as addressing locations in a larger virtual world.
(i.e. "a temporal texture space")
Use the accelerometer to "move the frame" in the larger space. This is
an oldish idea that I have seen revived several times in the last
decades. (e.g., Jaron Lanier described it to me a few years ago and Sun
research did it in a PDA prototype before that). Now the displays that
are hanging like bats in a cave can be swung from pendulums or blow
around in a breeze (there are some nice energy effficent
rigs for this with muscle wire). This motion is important for me for
two reasons, it can be used to create experiences like
the shimmer of leaves blowing in the wind where the matt and shiny sides
modulate temporally (also fields of wheat) but also it defeats
a problem I have with screens in theatrical contexts which is most
apparent in the "magic mirror" trope when activity in real space in
front of the screen is transformed and reflected back behind the real
actors/dancers. The problem is that the screen is anchored
and the action isn't so when you move your head the screen reveals
itself throughout the image instead of framing the image
thus defeating the necessary suspension of disbelief for cohabitation of
the screen information and the action. This is analogous to the sweet
spot and uniform directivity problems in audio that we have been
tackling.
competitors coming out. HP has one
coming out real soon and a lot of programmers I know prefer other OS
development tools for such things.Finally, remember if you are willing to live with lower overall lifetime
of the leds (a year or two instead of 4 or 5) you can increase the
backlighting brightness considerably:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-Wi-Fi-Teardown/2183/4#s11207.
April 24, 07:34 AM
Hi Harry, Patrick,
This may be just a digression.
To complement the fine and saturated power of lighting instruments ...
if I buy iPADs for to play with in the lab for Michael,Tim and JS, I would like to invite us 3 to think orthogonally to the usual pathology of screen-based play.
What if we (when we get the budget) get many iPADs and find a way to suspend them in space? What if we think of them as
(1) addressable light panels -- expensive light bulbs -- FORGET IMAGE !
(2) windows into other parts of the same room (so we need to get a lot of inexpensive cameras and a video-mixer)
What if we
(A) Float them on aircraft cable from the grid at different heights in the air. Let's figure out what heights and densities have what effects
Finally we can try to something I've always wanted to play with more.
(B) Introduce rhythms into them by sequencing
(C) Introduce responsive behavior. a brute force but perhaps effective sketch method: map Jitter into large video matrix, then beam submatrices to iPADs?
Xin Wei
