Thursday, December 31, 2009

A year by any other name (day 125)

2009 was an interesting year.  I am grateful to have been there.  And as Woody Allen says, "80% of success is showing up".  As a buddhist I find this quote extra funny given the apparently very slim chance of being born human.

Here are some highlights for the year:
  • My resolution last year was to be more public.  To me this meant taking steps such that the things that I am working on are more visible.  In some ways it meant being less quiet but with the added reality of the expectations of an online world.   I made good on this resolution by posting to this blog almost everyday, posting to the Breath I/O blog, being more diligent in processing emails, answering more phone calls (those who know me well, know that I have phone aversion).  It was good to have this focus for the year and I'll keep working on it in the next year.
  • I received two SSHRC grants, one for the Interactive Futures conference which happened in November, and one for the Breath I/O project.
  • The school received an NSERC grant on which I am one of the principal investigators.  This will fund many projects including some in stereoscopic video, mobile narrative, and design for health care.
  • Two of my Masters students graduated, Alex Hass and Kara Pecknold.  Both have continued their practice and are very successful and beautiful human beings.  I take no credit for this.  I am simply delighted to have been along for the journey.
  • A new Centre of Excellence for Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) was started as a partnership between Emily Carr University and Kerner Optical.  This will allow students and independent filmmakers to have access to state of art equipment for live action S3D, and professional instruction.
  • I quit caffeine (though I must admit chocolate is still very much part of my life).
  • I bought my first Mac laptop (and I'm in love).
 There is so much to be thankful for and I am.

A song for this post.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Gravity of time (day 124)

I saw my friend Yutai today.  He was visiting from San Francisco with his girlfriend.  Many of us met at a pub to see him.  Looking around the table it struck me how we are all aging.  That's what happens when you only see people every few years.  It's as if the context of the friendship stays frozen and the realization of change is a cosmic joke tinged with sadness. 

Sitting around the table looking at everyone and hearing the plans everyone has to say goodbye to the decade, I remembered how ten years ago saying goodbye to the decade had been a much more even mixture of hello and goodbye.   True it's hard to compete with a new millenium but this year has also had quite a lot of bad news on a global level.  Who could blame us for not being super positive about the year ahead and for not wanting to think in ten year terms.  Not one person asked about New Year's resolutions.

Yutai claims this year has been 42% less fun.  Surely that's reason for hope for next year and a reason to look for ways to brighten someone's day.

A nostalgic song for this post.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Norwalk with me (day 123)


One of the hazards of hanging out with young kids is germs.  Kids touch everything and then they touch you...on your face, on your hands...it's a germ heaven.  On this particular bliss-filled vacation with my niece and nephew, a Norwalk-type virus found its way in.  I started feeling sick as we rolled out of the driveway and it took all the will power I had to keep everything in until we rolled onto our street.  I barely made it to the bathroom.  Then ensued the harshest ten hours of purging I can remember, including all my childhood (perhaps my mom would differ in opinion).   So this is why two days of blogging were dropped.

I am now getting back on solid foods and wondering why the world looks so bleak.  It's an interesting side-effect of being sick - a sort of dead zone where all your plans were dropped and now the threads are nowhere to be found.  I'm actively looking for the threads -- trying desperately to restart the routines but so far this blog is the only thing that's been restarted.  Before this I hadn't been sick in fifteen months...I'm out of practice.

I figure I can view it as a type of rebirth into the new year.  A clean slate.

A song for this post.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

T'was the day after christmas (day 120)

The strange world of being implanted into a young family continues.  Today we were all a little hungover from the sugar and chocolate rush of the day before.  Schedules were disrupted, tempers were short, and naps were needed all around.   We all recovered long enough to walk to the beach, make sand castles and watch a beautiful sunset.   One of us is now quite sick though and the rest of us are living in fear of contracting whatever it is.

Yes, it's a christmas hangover.  The upshot?  The environment is so different I feel like I've rebooted my brain.

A song for this post.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Chaos Collage (day 119)

Tickling monsters
make you run
your voice stretches
scares all who run past
freeze!
can I have another cupcake?
five more minutes?
'nightie night

A song for this post.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

I caught many weasels (day 118)

I wasn't sure how it would be spending the day with a four year old.  I was out of practice.  The last time I visited was August.  But she made it easy.  Catching weasels, playing with glue sticks, hide and seek, tickle games, catching monsters, making princesses, making tea -- there was a full range of fun from an unencumbered imagination.   My favourite part was gluing stuff together.  What could be more fun than collage on christmas eve?

Looking at her, listening to her, I could believe that violence is not our true nature.

A song for this post.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Talking peace (day 117)

This is the first post away from home.  After spending the last 10 minutes trying to remember my brother's wireless password, I've given up and I'm writing in Evernote so I can post the entry tomorrow.

It took almost seven hours to go from my doorstep in Kits Point to my brother's doorstep on Bainbridge Island.  That's a cab ride (15 minutes), a wait/customs/wait(1 hour), a train ride (3.5 hours), a wait (1 hour), a ferry ride (30 minutes), and a car ride (20 minutes).  That's long enough to listen to an audio book almost in its entirety ("Speaking Peace") and get through a big chunk of a physical book ("Open GL Shading Language").

"Talking Peace" is an audio recording about non-violent communication (NVC) that was recommended by a couple friends of mine (independently).  NVC is a fascinatingly simple yet effective way to communicate without judgement.   At its core is the belief that human beings like to make other human beings happy, and also like having their own needs met.  It's an optimistic belief but I reason that it is less depressing than the alternatives so why not.   Plus it seems to work.  The idea is to state what we feel, need, and want (in that order).  Then listen and empathize.  And repeat. 

One problem is that most of us have poor vocabularies with which to state what we feel and need.  Another is that we often want to state our wants in terms of negatives ("don't do that") and demands ("if you don't...").  So NVC is hard and requires a lot of mindfulness and awareness, not to mention trial and error.

I wonder how many people come to a point in their lives when they realize that they could use better communication skills.  When they realize that conflicts never seem to quite resolve and relationships stagnate because of it.  Is this the same as coming to the end of my twenties and realizing that now the expectations were going to be much higher going forward?  In my forties, I believe I'm expected to have better communication skills. 

A song for this post.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Avatar (day 116)

Color me blue.  I just saw Avatar.  We were first in line so we got the best 3D seats in the house.  The whole outing took 5 hours.  As long as a flight to Montreal.

Verdict:  Absolutely go see it, for the visuals.
Subtext: It's no Matrix but it will have a generational impact nonetheless...maybe similar to Toy Story.

Here are some observations in no particular order:
  • Patriarchy in movies is getting really annoying.
  • Beautiful visuals, light as a theme, networks, greens and purples.
  • Headless robots as avatars for military men.
  • Blue lithe bodies as avatars for peace-loving, planet-connected, people.
  • The blue people never eat.
  • Great body movements.  Wonderful choreography.
  • Great flying scenes.
  • Standard Hawks vs. Doves story.  Hawks attack doves, doves initially retreat, eventually become hawks.  No one really learns peace.  A sequel would be another war.
  • Movie was long but not noticeably.
  • 3D was extremely well done and for the most part, for good effect.
Getting out of the movie there was a feeling of coming out of a dream, like disconnecting from an avatar.  Christopher and I had a discussion about how long we would stay in a movie for, if there were options of say day long or week long movies.  An accelerated life, like Total Recall.  In fact, Avatar is very much in the same vein as Total Recall, Strange Days, Existenz, Matrix.  The difference is that Pandora is a world you might actually want to stay in.   And of course the possibility of fully letting go of your human body is different.  A rebirth from hawk to dove (ostensibly...though in practice the affect was not exactly that).

There are so many parallels to be drawn, it's hard to put a finger on why it misses the mark exactly.  It's a dark film with lots of suffering, lots of fighting.  You should maybe get out thinking about the earth differently but instead you wish to escape it, to go to a better place.  It seems hopeless at its core even though we are shown the protagonist finding his way 'home'.  Because the vast majority of humans are shown as vicious, and heartless, going back to earth -- no doubt preparing for another battle.

A song for this post.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Look for certified organic GBs (day 115)

Between 1980 and 2008, the number of bytes consumed by Americans increased 350 percent. The average annual growth rate was calculated at 5.4 percent.
-- Don Reisinger (CNET news story: "Study: You'll wolf down 34GB of data today )
I don't think Canadians fared much better.

How many GB for a healthy body?  What proportion of news, twitter, fiction is ideal?  Should one ingest any TV?  Is there a difference between wolfing down words or images?  Are images really worth a thousand words?  Is reading tweets the equivalent of snacking? 

Here is my recipe for a healthy information day:

Total GB: 14.84-17.3
Preparation Time: Pre-packaged
Cooking Time: Pre-cooked

50 tweets - 6.8 KB
50 emails - 600KB
3 videos (10 minutes each, HD) - 2 GB
1 hour of podcast - 25MB
one of:
   1 tv episode - 550MB
   1 movie - 3GB
2 hours internet browsing - 88MB
2 hours of virtual reality - 12 GB
1 hour of reading print -5MB
background music (3 hours)- 180MB

I know it seems like a near starvation diet but a good choice of media will make you feel full with less.  You'll thank me later when you slip in to that accessorized story full of just the right references, perfect for a late night conversation.

A song for this post.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

No dead air please (day 114)

Multitasking was a desirable trait back in the early 90s.  Saying you were a multitasker was a winning interview strategy.  Multitasking meant you got a lot done.  Now the word is old and the belief is waning.  Whatever way it's sliced, the time to do something is the time to do something.  The real killer quality is the ability to find the minimum amount of time to do something particularly amongst other things.  Optimization is key.

If I had an app in my iphone that could somehow tell me the most efficient thing to do given:
  • the list of things pending
  • deadlines
  • the time before my next meeting, lunch time, etc.
  • proximity and availability of resources
  • time of day
  • location
  • energy level
...I would be very efficient.   My friend Christopher gave an example of an app that would be aware of all the gifts you need to buy in the next year and the state of your bank account.  It could then suggest that you stop in at certain stored based on proximity to a store, state of bank account, and the other person's preference.   It may start to feel like an onboard gps navigator: "please turn left.  turn around.  turn around. "  Maybe it could be a once a day schedule suggestion based on previously entered data, which would be less annoying.

It is based on a notion of slotting in the appropriate thing at the appropriate time which is the hardest problem most of us face in our work lives.   But it comes with an assumption of complete quantifiable data.  Even if that assumption were satisfied, someone would have to enter that data.  Would it be worth it?  Perhaps if some learning was taking place over time and the dependence on the app lessened. 

I can't shake the idea that the solution may be in doing less though.

A song for this post.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Change for feed's sake (day 113)

I got sidetracked today.  I spent an entire afternoon porting my blog from my custom site (www.marialantin.com) to blogspot.  If all worked well, you're looking at this post from the site.  I've set up redirect links from the old site so I'm hoping everything mostly works out and 404's are limited.  If you are reading this from a feed reader,  it is obviously still working with the old address.   But if it's not too much trouble, I would love it if you could change your rss feed to the newer one by using the drop down menu on the actual site or by copy&pasting this address:
http://marialantin.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
to your reader.
(if you go to the address it'll redirect to feedburner which is not as desirable)

How did this happen?

I was reading IEEE news and there was a news story about URL shortening services.  Apparently Google is releasing their own but it will only work with a limited number of services, Feedburner among them.  I had been hearing about Feedburner from some other sources and I got curious.  Turns out it's a kind of analysis service for bloggers.  It was simple enough to sign up so I decided to try it out.  To my dismay I couldn't get it to work to my satisfaction unless I was hosting my blog on blogger's own server space.  So I made the ambitious decision to port everything over.  That part is actually easy...it's the making sure the links and stylesheet are working that is not so easy.    There was another reason to switch over:  the ease with which I could change my stylesheet by adding widgets.  Just for that, the switch was worth it.  I know a lot of people swear by Wordpress and I have a couple of blogs on Wordpress too.  But I do like the simplicity of Blogger.  Fewer things can and do go wrong.

Anyway, I hope things work out ok.  Let me know if there are any issues.
The search feature won't work until Google gets around to indexing the site.  For now it always returns an empty set.

A song for this post.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Missing the gap (day 112)

Yesterday I listened to a Stanford lecture on depression.  It was a link from the Open Culture blog (which I highly recommend).   The lecture was an hour long and fairly engaging but throughout I couldn't shake the feeling that the facts we currently hold to be true are in fact quite brittle.  He kept saying "it's not a matter of just getting over it...there are real physical obstacles, physiological changes...".   The experiential gap there is so massive that it's really hard to believe him.   I cannot picture a mental state that I couldn't affect by doing something different...however small.  I can't imagine not being able to bootstrap myself out of a situation.  It's almost like in hearing his presentation I lost touch with the idea of free will (which I know is a problematic concept but let's just say free will with a very small f).  Surely there remains in a depressed person a small gap where something different could happen?   It seems that the manipulation of neurotransmitters is a pretty coarse tool, and not a sustainable one.   It seems that by saying 'it's not their fault, they can't do anything about it' we confirm the helplessness they feel.  The professor in the lecture anticipates my reaction and says we would never say something like that about a diabetes patient.  He has a point except he's relying on an arbitrary definition of disease.   There are lots of diseases that weren't diseases just 5 years ago - especially diseases of the mind or behaviour.  To be clear, I have no qualifications to be saying anything categorical about depression.  I just want to believe in personal agency for change and I'm suspicious of the language we use around depression.

The same applies to alcoholism.  The accepted fact is that an addict is an addict for life, there are recovering addicts but they can never take a drink again because they can't control it.  They appeal to a higher power, etc, etc.   I know it is useful to draw a strict boundary between drinking and not drinking, to help break the habit.  But is it sacrilegious to think an alcoholic could ever return to normal social drinking patterns?  It seems so.   A quick search on google points to circular definitions - "if you are able to go back to social drinking, you were not an alcoholic to begin with".  It's suspicious.  Again I have no deep knowledge in this area, just wondering how something can be such a one way street.

On the other hand, lately there's been lots of talk about the plasticity of the brain and how much we can change.  We've come a long way from the story that was around when I was young when neurons died every day and were never regenerated.  Every day you became less smart.  At least now we know that the brain is a bit more resilient than that.   So how does one resolve the plasticity with the unequivocal statements of inability to change?

A song for this post.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Embarrassing nudge (day 111)

I started the self-surveillance project almost a month ago now.   At some point I was telling someone about it and they asked if I was also taking a picture of myself every 15 minutes.  I had thought about it but decided against it because I thought it was a bit tacky to include pics of myself in an art context.  But after talking with this person, I reconsidered.  I reasoned that one can never be too rich or have too much data.  So last week I started taking pictures of myself on the macbook, the only one of my computers with a built-in camera that could easily be coaxed into taking the picture. 

This experiment has not been good for my self-esteem.  But it may be good for modesty.   Almost none of the shots are flattering.  In almost all of them I'm looking absent-minded, bored, or just unhealthy.  Granted, some of this is from the camera angle and the bad lighting but still looking at a computer is not the most embodied experience, and it shows.  The best pics were when I was watching a TEDxSV talk...I think there was some sort of performance that I was really enjoying.  There were also some pretty intense pics when I was updating my web site profile.

But here is the upshot of all this.  Knowing that the camera will spring to action every 15 minutes, I've become more conscious of my body.  By virtue of seeing shot after embarassing shot, I've trained myself at least a little bit to stay present -- an unexpected benefit from an unlikely source.

And now to conquer some of my fear...here is an example of an embarrassing shot.  It's not the worst.  I'm not that advanced yet.  The next shot is one of the intense ones.



A song for this post.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Identity maintenance (day 110)

It's getting late for a long post.  I spent a little bit of time tonight updating my page at the new Emily Carr website.  It's actually a pretty cool website that functions sort of like a social network and allows some nice linkages based on tags.    I don't think I've seen any school sites that well integrated.  It'll be great to see how it evolves.   I still have lots of work to do to make my page shine.  It's a start.

A song for this post.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Who thought it first (day 109)

I wonder about ideas and who they belong to.  I've been listening to talks from the TEDxSV symposium and I can't help but be impressed with the insights and talents of some of the speakers/performers.   Today I also scanned the Top Ten Products of 2009, many of them having to do with social networking, idea spreading, the cloud, and so on.  I also listened to Spark talk about copyright legislation.  We are becoming very good at knowledge spreading and with that, there seems to be an anxiety about acknowledgment and reward.  The cold fact is that the larger the spread of an idea, the more likely it is to be appropriated.

But I'm also interested in where the ideas that eventually spread like crazy come from.  Because when we are talking in the hive we are thinking collectively, bouncing ideas around to see what sticks.  No different than brainstorming in a physical group in concept, but quite different in possibilities because of the sheer numbers involved and the potential reach of a sticky idea.  The issue is that even though the hive may have produced the idea, the authorship remains important.  Authorship is what gets people paid and promoted.  Having been in the academic world for a while I see the anxiety of authorship, I sometimes personally feel it.  I see people getting included or cut out,  getting scooped, getting copied, getting cited.  When information is free as is mostly the case with academic works, authorship is currency.

Obviously there many shades of grey in what I'm talking about here but in a general sense I wonder about what will happen to authorship in the future.  I wonder if the performance of information spreading will become more important.  We see this trend already with 'star' bloggers and tweeters.  We probably also see it with TED speakers that are chosen based on their ability to perform in front of an audience.  There may be someone out there with deeper knowledge of the subject but without the ability to perform that knowledge for half entertainment and half edification.

If authorship fades in favour of performance, then we are faced with the same problem as the recording industry:  who pays the knowledge producers, the ones that are not necessarily performing the knowledge?  When authorship becomes separated from the means of spreading the product, there is a problem of credit distribution.   This gets even more complicated when authorship is muddled by the means of production as is the case for mash-ups and other collage type of activities, not to mention the hive thinking by sharing.

I have no solutions or even predictions for any of this, just observations.  I see individuality being eroded for the benefit of the collective.  At the same time I see performance gaining some ground.   These are contrasting trends.  Their co-existence is of interest to me.

A song for this post.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Sleep before snow (day 108)

Just a quick post today.  I have to go to bed so I am at least partially awake for the defense tomorrow.  This student may have an advantage for having scheduled a morning defense with me as external.

So they said snow and everyone get excited.  I got excited.  But there is no snow, just rain.  I was so hoping to wake up to a quiet snow covered city.  Maybe next week.

I'll end with a video of the wearable technology I'm going to hear about tomorrow morning:



A song for this post.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Tale of an inefficient review (day 107)

I spent the day reading a thesis today.  I'm an external on a MSc defense on Tuesday.  I'll read it again tomorrow and formulate some questions.   As I was reading I wondered how I could be more efficient at making notes on what I was reading and formulating questions from the notes.  Also wondered how the system could in turn be useful for the student when revisions are necessary.

I prefer reading the thesis on paper and make notes in the margins.  I would prefer the notes be stored electronically with appropriate context.   I don't really want to stop reading to open up my computer and type so perhaps an e-book type of idea would work.  Adobe has done lots of work on a system for review and annotation of documents but I can't say I've ever used it officially.  I've left tons of comments on grad student papers submitted to me as pdf but I haven't enabled a shared review of any kind.   I think it would be useful for my students to dialogue back and forth on the comments.   It's like all the pieces of the puzzle are around but they are just not integrated. 

Ideally, the thesis would be submitted to me on an e-reader with a stylus and could write my comments in the margins.  The review would be shared with the student and other committee members but only after the defense is finished.  While the defense is going on, I would have easy access to my comments (visual list) and could modify them based on the student's input and the input of the other committee members.  After the defense she can look at my comments and ask me more questions.  Each time I open up my e-reader I could see comments that are awaiting a reply.   This would be my ideal situation.  As it is, she will do the same thing that I did: take 3 paper copies with her and flip through to consolidate and address each point.  This is tedious and it may actually miss some crucial points like sections of the thesis that were flagged individually by all committee members for slightly different reasons...pointing to a general problem with the section.  Add to this the fact that I used a black pen to make my comments (should have used red!) and her revision task will not be as efficient as it could be.

A song for this point.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

A collective cozy (day 106)

I feel Christmas less than I used to.  Every year it feels a little more arbitrary than the year before.  I watch the lights go up and hear the peripheral chatter about gift buying.  The cards trickle in.  The party invites beep into my inbox.   Most of it feels like someone else's concern.   Despite feeling it less, I do love this time of year.  Especially right after school ends when there is a quiet anticipation of the silence in the city on Christmas day.   For a few days there is a collective relaxing that I really appreciate.  When it's ok not to check email because we've collectively agreed that business can wait.  It's a magical time but it has nothing to do with the usual descriptors of christmas.  It's a magical time because culturally we're taking time to look around.

January 1st marks the end of the magic but the start of a slightly different direction -- sometimes subtle but always hopeful.  It's hard for me to imagine that feeling of renewal right now.  Like many people who are tied to an academic schedule, this time just before the Christmas break is frantic and a bit hazy from the accumulated exhaustion.  It's like seeing the finish line accentuates the tired but also triggers a kind of third wind.  I am curious how it will feel on January 1st.

I'm looking forward to taking some time to work on my projects and read some books.  I might even do nothing for a couple of days.  Let it snow...

A song for this post.

Friday, December 11, 2009

What does online feel like (day 105)

I had an interesting discussion with Miles today about what the feeling of being online.  I've been thinking about this a lot lately because of my self-surveillance project that snaps a picture of my desktop every 15 minutes on all 3 of my screens if they are active (and sometimes my iPhone too, though that is not automatic).   I've now collected close to 500 screenshots and looking at them in a fast (10 screenshots/second) sequence it doesn't even get close to the feeling of being online.  I'm going to investigate varying the duration of each frame by random amounts and see how that changes things.  I've added a bit of blur to the movie for privacy but here is what the movie for one my screens looks like for now:


226 screenshots (test) from Maria Lantin on Vimeo.

The feeling of being online is hard to describe.  It's not embodied but it can feel vast and rich.  It sometimes feels social but sometimes anxious.  Much of my time is spent processing the information that is coming at me (the social network as recommendation engine).   Making decisions about this information seems to be the source of a low grade anxiety stemming from a reluctance to spend time and the fear of missing out (FOMO).  There are moments of relaxation into a time commitment such as watching a show, scanning family albums, or programming an application.  There are quick smiles like interesting pictures in twitter.  There are lots of interruptions, little blips and popups.  Email anxiety is never far but seems to ebb and flow depending on time of day and how much the physical world needs my attention.  There is a both a satisfaction to answering email and an anxiety about the conversation progressing too quickly from there.  There are moments of boredom when there is not enough will to separate from the online but not enough interest to continue (the feed has slowed and the stand-bys are exhausted).  There is definitely a feeling of being in the flow of information but it is usually interrupted by having to click or type which brings me back to the screen.  A bit like being into a novel and someone asking you a question about work.

The more I think about it the more the rhythm seems to be important.  I'll see about adding different timings.   I also thought about doing a character recognition scan which would give me a data set to maybe assign an emotional 'score' to an image (many of my screenshots are mostly text).  Either way I'd like to play around with adding an emotional curve which can then be mapped the lung breathing pattern.

A song for this post.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Empty bookcases one day (day 103)

e-ink had been just over the horizon for so long it seemed like it would never get here.  But here we are at Christmas time with more e-readers than we can shake a paper-cut finger at.   I read a lot but so far the urge to get an e-reader registers at about a 2 on the gadget Richter scale.   First off, the Kindle is gimped in Canada because we can't download over 3G (who decided that?  I dunno...but it smells suspiciously like a BRT downer...)  What's the use of a reader without a connection?   The Nook is a possibility but it's not out yet.  The Sony reader is out but it also has no connectivity (by design, that one).  But it does have a stylus for notes.  Then there is the mythical Apple tablet which may make a miraculous appearance next year.  As always, the urge to commit is hampered by the imminent.  My wish list for an e-reader:
  • easy on the eyes, good in the day and night.
  • some cue about how much I've read, how much is left
  • a nice page-turning feel or something completely different than page turning...either way something to cover the length of the book with some sense of context within the book.  This may have to do with book design more than interface, or maybe both.   Maintaining contextual awareness without the physical cue of the book is an interesting design problem.
  • annotation for reviewing papers, and making marginal notes.  A way to add voice annotation. 
  • good interface for browsing annotations, including a group's annotation if need be.
  • wireless connection
  • ability to lend and borrow books
  • good collection browsing...ability to browse my friends' collections
  • durable and light
  • private
  • open
  • interoperability with my other devices
  • color (though I'll deal with b&w for now if the above features are there)
  • video (though I'll deal with static for now if the above features are there)
I do love the smell of paper and the feel of a book but I'm quite willing to trade them in for the benefits of e-reading.   I sure won't miss moving boxes of books.

A song for this post.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

The phone is smarter than its carrier (day 102)

I think today is a rant day.   The best rant topic is cell phone companies.   Have I already ranted about this?  Probably.  I'm convinced that whoever runs Bell, Rogers and Telus (BRT) are just not passionate about the cell phone business.  They're big and got fat on another technology.   They are just not that hungry.  Add to this the fact that we have a sleepy CRTC that got fat on the crumbs dropped by BRT and you get a public that is getting extorted for the sin of wanting a smart phone.    I have limited data to back any of this up.  I have no idea to what extent the CRTC is getting lobbied.  I have no idea how hard it is to run a cell phone network.  Intuitively, though, it seems that having a smart phone shouldn't be an automatic $90/month.   And even if the profit margin wasn't %30 (I do have a news report to back that up), surely a mandatory 3 year contract is just over the top arrogance for a market that has almost no competition.  Before the smart phone,  you could refuse the contract, buy the phone and get yourself on a month to month plan.  With the iPhone (for example),  there is no good way around the contract.  Even if you buy the phone full price, you still need a contract to get on a data plan.   The iPhone is not very useful without a data plan.  I find the whole idea of a contract offensive.   Being tied to a company means they have stripped you of a pretty fundamental power as a consumer - the power to walk away if the service sucks or if the price is too high.  Not only am I not getting the service I want, I have to pay to switch.  Injury+insult.  A further insult comes when I realize that the phone I bought is useless on another company's network unless I commit the illegal act of 'unlocking' the phone.  That's even if I paid full price.  If I complain about my indentured servitude,  I suspect their internal dialogue is a version of "Oh well, I see you're still with us for another two years...oh you're still talking?".    They have a steady stream of new contracts that basically means they don't have to innovate to keep people around.  The consumer feedback loop is sluggish at best.   It's a lazy approach to business.  With so few players in the market, don't tell me they need contracts to stabilize their business.  Even gyms have done away with contracts.  I suspect if contracts were declared unacceptable business practice, prices would come down and service would go up.  I don't know what the CRTC should be doing, but this seems like pretty easy pickings for some great PR. 

A song for this post.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Inside/Outside awareness (day 101)

I created another test of the lungs breathing.  The breathing pattern is the calm breathing that I had worked out with the egg.  The videos are the same two videos of the pelicans and garden.  One video plays on the lungs and the other on the trachea and bronchi.  The lungs fade out at the top of the in breath and fade back in at the bottom of the out breath.  The video slows down at the in breath and goes to normal speed at the out breath.


I was trying to emulate a feeling I have when I meditate of the out breath being a little anxious with only a slight pause at the top, and the out breath feeling more relaxed with an extended pause before the next in breath.  In that pause there is lots of space and a feeling of being more aware of the outside.  This is why I ended up with the fade in at the bottom of the out breath.  I initially had tried it the other way (fade in at in breath) but it somehow didn't work. 


The next step is to get the video to slowly come in to the trachea/bronchi as the breath comes in.  I have to write a small shader to do this.  I'm hoping to have some time tomorrow.


Here is a video.  Unfortunately it's only 2 minutes long.  It's really  nice to keep breathing with the lungs.  Very calming.  Next time I'll make the video loop.  It's too late right now to rectify that little oversight.



fade out lung test from Maria Lantin on Vimeo.


A song for this post.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

But I don't want to know (day 100)

Michael Boyce tweeted "i resent knowing about tiger woods without even trying to know about tiger woods".  So well put.   In talking with some friends at a party last night we figured that the metaphor is of the information superhighway super crowded with billboards.  You can't help but be assaulted with drive-by celebrity trivia.   But in this case, the Tiger Woods story I think was more of a celebrity crash where we were implicated as implicit if not complicit rubberneckers.  You see, Tiger crashed from a great height.  He wasn't exactly a jumper...more of a tight-rope walker that we watched with fascination waiting for the stumble.  Even those that weren't watching couldn't help but overhear the story of the one that fell from a great height.

There's not much I can do about celebrity drive-by's but I do improve the scenery by using a firefox plug-in called Add-Art.  It replaced ads with art.  After I first installed it, I sort of forgot about it.  I still catch myself thinking things like 'what IS that?' when I see a piece of art where an ad should be.  It's such a strange thing to be seeing that it catches my eye almost every time.  I highly recommend it.

No I'm not linking to Tiger Woods.

A song for this post.

Friday, December 04, 2009

When can you move in (day 98)

Sometimes you get what you wish for but time has passed and you don't want it anymore.  That happened to me today.  I think it did anyway.  I will re-evaluate my degree of want in the morning when I've had time to contemplate my future with or without the thing that has come.   The 'road not taken' situation is so hard.  This one is particularly hard because this crossroad has come up before and at the time I wanted to take the path that is now offered but it was denied.   Priorities change and the heart warms to the current situation.  It's harder to change when it's not necessary.  It's always best not to resent choice but at this very moment I wish this situation had come up about six months ago.

A song for this post.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Google waved and people craned their neck to see (day 97)

Google Wave made a splash.  It broke on the beach of cloud tools.   It was a private beach though everyone could see something was going on from the parking lot.  Soon there were paparazzi posting unauthorized pictures, and who you knew became something to be evaluated and mined.   This has happened before.  I remember not having a gmail address.  I remember who did.  I remember how I became in.  How early was I into the wave?  What number was I?  I want to know but much like my Francis Bacon degree of separation (2),  I wonder what such a number really buys me besides social anxiety.  Soon everyone will be in the wave and we'll all be wondering what we're supposed to be doing.

I don't think I've ever opened a tool that confused me as much as Google Wave did at first glance.  It really stumped me.  The feeling was uncanny...like familiar and foreign at the same time and mixed with a unsatisfied anticipation.  I clicked and felt really lonely.  I added some people to my wave.  I said some mundane things like 'what is this for'?  I forgot about it.  I read a report about it.  I came back to it.  There were more people so it felt less crazy to say something less mundane.

I've now figured out that Google Wave is a sort of mix of email,wiki, google docs, and IM.  It's a mix of synchronous and asynchronous.   It may be a replacement for email but the average wave message seems to have more commitment than the average email.  There seems to be more purpose to the wave and more community.  There also seems to be more longevity to the conversations.   So maybe the workflow is that you 'move' email conversations to the wave when they become too complex for email and you need more collaborative authoring.  

The best part is that it's a protocol so it can be reskinned.

A song for this post.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Breathe with the egg (day 96)

I've started to animate spheres stretched into egg shapes (as stand-ins for lungs).   They breathe.  I'm trying to simulate regular breath, calm breath, excited breath, anxious breath, and so on.  So far I've got calm breath down I think.  I'll post a video soon.  It's an interesting process.  I tweak the animation curves and breathe with the egg.  I keep breathing with the egg and notice how I'm feeling.  Sometimes I end up out of breath and feeling like I need to breathe more often or more deeply.  Sometimes I feel I have to get up and do something.  Sometimes I feel light-headed.  Sometimes I even feel good.  It's an interesting process.

Just looking at the eggs breathe makes me think that we might want to consider a more stylized model for the lungs.  Not necessarily cartoony but maybe something with more personality.  I'm not sure which would be more effective.  Certainly the anatomical look of the current lungs gives a kind of visceral feeling.  Something would be lost with a more drawn look.   May be worth a try though. 

A song for this post.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

No matter what, I want cleaner air (day 95)

I came across an article in the BBC talking about the new role of science in the democratic process.  It's a well written article with lots of insightful comments about the possibility of science becoming corrupted when faced with a high stake issue like climate change.   We've had separation of church and state for good reasons and it's worked out well.   But we don't have separation of business and science.  Maybe we should.  Perhaps all science should be publicly funded.  The issue is further compounded because predictions coming out of climatology are easily attacked on the basis of potential biases from the choice of data sets and methodologies.  It's too easy for factions to form on the basis of beliefs in a particular set of ingredients to the complex system.   Add to this observers which have a stake in shopping for the right climate change answer and you have an explosive mix which leads one's belief (or not) in climate change to be treated as a religion.  It's a sad state of affairs and it points to the general fear around what we we might have to change about our lifestyle to be kinder to the environment, to breathe easier.  Seems to me no matter why or if the climate is changing, we stand to gain a lot from decreasing pollution.  Unfortunately lots of money has been made on the fast pace enabled by oil.  Many have been successful with the current system and understandably want no change.  But we go faster than anything else, to our detriment.  We forgot the rhythm of the earth.

A song for this post.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Random learning, things that stick (day 94)

Some random things I learned today:
  • you can become addicted to your own stress hormones
  • stay away from chiggers (they'll make you sick and dissolve your flesh so they can eat it).
  • Corelam is a very good sound absorbing material (amongst other things) and it was invented by one of Emily Carr's Industrial Design faculty, Christian Blyt.
  • CMHC allowed an exhibit of small houses ('Homes for Less') designed to help homelessness but drew the line when one of them became inhabited.
  • The repetitive nature of the commute (or the running track) can be exploited for narrative design.
A song for this post.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

New is beautiful (day 92)

I get a special little thrill when I think about learning something new.  It's a similar thrill to opening up a novel already in progress.  The moment of anticipation of something unexpected and engaging.  It's different but similar to the thrill of creating something which feels exciting and risky all at once.  Learning something new feels hopeful and young.

I know a lot of people don't have this experience but I liked school so much when I was a kid that I would miss it in the summer.  I would ask for extra homework.  I would read books from the grades above me.  I particularly loved looking at algebra books and later calculus books so I could figure them out.   I loved things that had answers and were self-consistent.  Playing with coloured shapes and grouping them together was fun too.  Anything that was well framed and logical.

Looking back now, it doesn't seem crazy that I ended up in computing science.  Though at the time it wasn't such an easy decision.  The hard sciences like Chemistry, Biology, and Physics were much more respected.   And computing science (I'm not even using capital letters), in my mind, was for play...not serious business.  I was so serious.

I still love cracking open a computing science book though I would never immerse myself back in the field as I was.  I love the frame of a system that is logical and responsive.  It's a refuge from the open-ended and much more arbitrary art world (I don't say this pejoratively...I mean arbitrary in the same way that the law is arbitrary...complex systems built over time and highly contingent).

This weekend I'll learn something new about GLSL.  I look forward to it.

A song for this post.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Self-surveillance (day 91)

I just started taking a snapshot of my computer screen every 15 minutes.  It's all automated on all three screens I typically use (mac laptop, PC laptop, PC desktop).   It's actually fascinating to see the shots at the end of the day.  How long I spent on something.  The tidbits I read during the day.  The videos I watched.  The emails I wrote.  Sometimes I don't remember having looked at a particular thing.  It all goes by pretty quickly and somewhat compulsively.  It would be neat to get a snapshot of my face as well...and to record my breathing pattern.  For now, it's just screenshots.  It's for the Breath I/O project.  I'll collect hundreds of screenshots and make a quicktime to map into the environment and onto the lungs.

For those that are interested, it's pretty easy to set this up.  It's easiest on a Mac because cron runs natively.   All you have to do is issue the command "crontab -e" and edit the file that opens.   I run the following script in mine:
#!/bin/bash
/usr/sbin/screencapture -x $(printf "/Users/mlantin/Pictures/screenshots/macscreen-%04d.png" $((`ls ~/Pictures/screenshots| grep -c ''`+1)))
On a PC it's not as easy.  I downloaded and installed the MiniCap application.  Then I made a script in cygwin, again using bash.   Then I made a batch file to run the bash script.  Then I made a shortcut to the batch file so I could set it to run minimized (so it wouldn't pop up the svchost.exe window). Then I used Scheduled Tasks to make the script run every 15 minutes.  Here is the bash script:

#!/bin/bash
/cygdrive/d/Program\ Files/MiniCap/MiniCap.exe -capturedesktop -exit -save "$(cygpath -w $(printf "/home/mlantin/screenshots/desktopscreen-%04d.tiff" $((`ls /home/mlantin/screenshots | grep -c ""` + 1))))"
Here is the batch file (called takeashotdos.bat):
D:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe -l /home/mlantin/takeashot
exit
Here is the command in the Scheduled Task:
D:\cygwin\home\mlantin\takeashotdosshort.lnk

A song for this post.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Efficient language (day 90)

My friend Nathalie said something interesting tonight at dinner.  She said that religious language is very efficient.  It bypasses the frontal lobe and goes directly to the limbic system.  It creates affect without trying very hard.  It's efficient language.   I wonder then what the relationship between art and religion is.  Perhaps other people have wondered this and there is a whole discourse for which I have a blind spot.  But tonight marked the first time I'd ever really parked my awareness on the question.   It seems that art is related to religion in their desire for short-cutting preconceptions to create emotional insight or affect.   Art can be very efficient communication.  I suppose when people talk about the sublime and sublimation are referring to that efficiency of state change.

A song for this post.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Tribal misbehaviour (day 89)

Today on my twitter feed there was a news article about being tweckled.  A nice word that belies the extent of damage it can bring.  It's basically bullying on a mass scale in a conference backchannel.  If someone is daring to bore you at a conference you can blow off steam by insulting the speaker with your closest backchannel friends, loudly, in the public twittersphere.  The backchannel group referred to in the article, retrospectively feels justified based on the grounds that the speaker was obviously disrespecting them so they had the right to disrespect them right back.   In the moment, I doubt the thinking even went that far if anywhere at all. Another oft-stated argument was that this is the new world and you better come prepared to face the backchannel.   It rewards richly and punishes harshly.  It's the new world.  Hardly.  It's the gauntlet, revisited.  I've seen this behaviour in snowboarding terrain parks too.  It's not so new.  It's, in fact, as old as the hills.

As evidence of their good nature, they pointed out that they had collectively bought a new laptop for someone in their group who had lost theirs. Seems to be the same tribal behaviour flipped over.  I wonder which felt better.  It's a real question.

There is so much to say about why their tribal misbehaviour and lesser forms of it is harmful.  Part of me refuses to even spend the time thinking about it.  My high horses are so ready to ride but the real argument is based on a humble principle of generosity.
'the world owes me nothing, we owe each other the world'.  -- Ani Di Franco
A song for this post.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Theatre in a box (day 87)

I mentioned Sid Fels project, the "pCubee" in my last post.  It's a five-sided lcd display that simulates the appearance of something inside the cube.  It tracks the head of the person looking and gives them a realistic rendering of what is inside.
I'm not a fan of the name but I am a fan of the thing.  It's like having a cell phone in your hand except it's a cube.  I know that sounds a bit simple but I make the comparison because I remember the first time I watched a video on my iPhone, how personal it felt.  I'm imagining the same thing could apply to the pCubee with different types of content.
My suggestion to Sid was to investigate live action video in the cubee.   Right now it's just CG scenes.  I'm not sure how many cameras would be needed (16-20?) but you could probably capture 3D live theatre and show it in the cubee.  People would download an e-play for the pCubee in the same way people are now starting to download e-books on their readers. 
I like the idea of theatre in a box.  There could be something so intriguing about watching little people perform for you in a little box.   I'm not sure if it would be like a parlour game or something serious like watching an art film.  Probably more parlour game.  Either way I'd love to experience it.  It reminds me of music boxes.  But then there is an edge to it with live content...like looking at a bird in a cage.  Not so pleasant.  Holograms in Star Trek are not boxed in so they don't suffer from the cage metaphor.
He does have a bigger version of the pCubee which would significantly alter the experience.  Perhaps lends it more to games or puppetry than theatre.

A song for this post.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The physical world called more strongly (day 86)

I naively thought I could keep up with my daily writing practice during the week leading up to the Interactive Futures  conference.  I thought to myself 'I'll have lots to talk about'.  Indeed I had lots to talk about but I had more to physically do.  The physical world simply called more strongly than my digital world.

So here I am a week later wondering how on earth I'll write about all that happened.  I'm afraid it will fade fast as the days progress.  Because those types of whirlwind experiences always do fade fast. 

I'll just make a list of the feelings and outcomes that stand out right now on a Sunday evening after 11 hours of deserved blissful sleep.
  • Excellent art work and performances at the E-Mixer/opening reception at the Surrey Art Gallery.  Was an absolute treat to see Ryoji Ikeda's Data.tron.
  • Paula Levine's 3D print got done.  Amazingly enough the superposition of The Wall on San Francisco was processed in time, printed, and prepped for display.  It is currently on display in the Concourse gallery for another day.  Thanks to Thomas Groppi for processing the mesh data, and Sean Arden for taking care of the print.
  • Leila and I gave a pretty good talk, considering my total lack of preparation.  I was sad I didn't have more tests to show but the one test I did manage to render out was interesting enough to spur some discussion.  I rather liked the ambience in the venue which was dark except for the podium.  It felt like a radio experience where I was broadcasting out to an unknown audience.  It also felt like a comfortable living room kind of experience.  Leila and I tag-teamed about the story of Tulip Theory and how the lung project came about and how it is currently progressing.   Many people came to us afterward and expressed interest.
  • Meeting Munro Ferguson was such a treat. His work has been an inspiration to me for a long time.  He gave an excellent keynote talk with lots of animation and video clips.  His screening was absolutely delightful and a real highlight for the conference.
  • Perry Hoberman gave a retrospective on his stereo work which was both awesome in scope and depth.  The whole talk was light and humourus.  In some ways I would compare his body of work with Norman McLaren in that it has a certain lightness of being that is contagious.  Though Perry has a touch of cynicism that brings everything to a sardonic point.  I was particularly touched by the scale of some of his work.  The feeling of intimacy as you looked in on the sculptural worlds he created.   It made me rethink what the scale of the lungs should be relative to the media landscape they are surrounded by.
  • Perry Hoberman and Julia Hayward also gave an amazing performance on Saturday night with singing, acoustic Guitar, synthesizer, and stereo visuals.  Really too bad that wasn't recorded for the Interactive Futures archives (though they have documentation).
  • Really enjoyed Marten Berkman's screening.  Very quiet beautiful landscapes interspersed with manufactured and industrial landscapes.  The stereo effect really enhanced the experience.
  • Julie Andreyev and Simon Overstall's Animal Lover performance.  I was skeptical about a performance based on a dog vocals but it was absolutely amazing and evocative.  You could feel the joy of her dogs as they ran and experienced the world.  It stands as an animal appreciation work as much as a great digital art performance.
  • Sid Fel's P-Cubee was interesting.  A display in the form a cube that simulates internal space.  More on that in an upcoming post.
  • Open Ended Group's demo of Field was very inspiring in the quality of line and stroke they achieve in software, and using motion capture data.  I hope to join in on one of their workshops as some point.
  • George LeGrady's retrospective on his data visualization work was great.  I especially like the Pockets of Memories work.  A lot of his work is documented on the Langlois Foundation archives (including an interactive CD rom).
  • Henry Daniel and his team of dancers,musicians,and digital media programmers created an amazing co-located dance performance (located in the lab and the concourse gallery).
  • JoAnn Kuchera Morin spoke of the Allosphere in such a way that we all become believers.  We got to see Hydrogen orbitals in stereo (how cool is that?)
  • Catherine Richards gave an excellent talk on Sensory illusions including a flicker animation at the end which was totally trippy.
  • Paula Levine spoke of places becoming conflated as we go more global. 

There is so much more to say but I'll leave it at that for now.  I'll try to write more in the following days.  But I'm sure life will start again and other things will take over.

A song for this post.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Infopong (day 79)

Informavore is a term that Frank Schirrmacher uses to describe our current propensity to ingest information.  It's obviously a term that relates to information overload but without a negative connotation.   I like the term and I'm certainly a fan of food and eating metaphors but I wonder if it's the correct metaphor.   Obviously I'm biased here because of the Breath I/O project but it seems to me that a breathing metaphor may be a little more apt.  I say this because the act of digesting is inherently a one way transformation  (not to get too graphic) whereas the act of breathing is one of exchange and shared environment.  This is an excerpt of a response from Daniel Kahneman to the Frank Schirrmacher interview on Edge.org
The interview vividly expresses the sense many of us are getting that when we are bathed in information (it is not really snippets of information, we need the metaphor of living in a liquid that is constantly changing in flavor and feel) we no longer know precisely what we have learned, nor do we know where our thoughts come from, or indeed whether the thoughts are our own or absorbed from the bath. The link with Bargh is also interesting, because John pushes the idea that we are driven from the outside and controlled by a multitude of cues of which we are only vaguely aware — we are bathing in primes.
I think too that the metaphor of ingesting information implies the right of first refusal -- that we are not being force-fed.  In reality, it's a combination.  We can choose what information we take in by choosing our context (who/what we follow, who we friend,  what we surf) but the information bits that are presented to us are not of our own choosing.  For certain, this can be a great thing, rather like christmas morning when you get a particularly relevant tidbit you weren't expecting.   But there are also many instances where our context may be chosen with a particular purpose in mind (shopping for food, for instance) but is usurped for another purpose (selling celebrity lifestyles or diet fads).  So we are forced to hold our breath or just breathe and deal with the cough later.

For sure neither metaphors go far enough in describing the affect of having a multitude of information feeds that we somehow process, pass on, and contribute to.   There is something too crude with food, and too insubstantial with air.  And both suffer from a certain amount of passivity.  A better metaphor might be a game of pong with thousands of balls in play.  But then we're back with the no-body problem.

It seems too that any metaphor should have a dual, a metaphor to describe the negative space of what's happening -- what is not felt.   In the case of processing information, I feel this may have to do with space itself.  A sense of the bigger context that comes with a moment of reflection.

A song for this post.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

How tweetly they fall (day 78)

I've been on Twitter for a few days now so I feel qualified to give my first impressions as someone who resisted the very idea of Twitter for so long.   I got an account and got into a strange loop when adding contacts such that all the contacts that it gathered from my gmail were included in my follow list.  No big deal I figured, I'll just prune later.  Well it turns out that most of them got an email from Twitter saying I was following them.   I surmised that this was the case when I started getting emails saying they were following me back.  This was somewhat disconcerting.  I wanted more control right off the bat.   Then I downloaded TweetDeck for the iPhone and logged on.  I immediately got overwhelmed by the number of letters on the screen and proceeded to ignore Twitter for a few days.  Then I installed TweetDeck on my macbook and things seemed more manageable and I noticed someone had written me a message, which helped.   I started tweeting a bit and doing some searches.  Kinda fun but with a certain amount of discomfort coming from a general lack of understanding of the Twitter language -- the format that things need to be in to properly direct, credit, and link tweets.  Compound that with the use of SMS type of abbreviated words and it becomes a lot to absorb all at once.  Half the time I think I'm doing it wrong and that I'm pissing off lots of old timers.   I screwed up a couple times but there is a delete tweet button so I could redo.

Twitter has a different feel than Facebook, must more about conversation and little observations, less about media collection or persona building.  It's more about linking people together around topics, than around pre-existing cliques.  I am following people that I don't know based on recommendations and searches.  So far I feel that Twitter is more about expanding your network than keeping your existing network up to date.  There is less commitment there than 'friending' someone so it's not such a big decision to link to someone.   Of course one of the biggest differences there is that you can follow without the other person's permission (though there are safeguards).

Sometimes it feels a bit like a cross between messaging or  texting.

I'm still learning the etiquette around twittering.   It feels like it's worth a learn and that's somewhat surprising to me.  But Facebook has taken a back seat.  It already was getting squeezed out but now even more so.  I don't like people that crosspost from Twitter to Facebook.  Seems like an intrusion.  I don't want to be that person.   We'll see if even that barrier falls.

A song for this post.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Email Apnea (day 77)

An unexpected find today had be smiling all the way to the bus stop.  I was listening to the Spark podcast of November 3rd (which is a great one btw, two longer interviews both on fascinating topics).  Nora interviewed Linda Stone who coined the term 'email apnea' to refer to the lack or shallow breath that happens when we are anticipating the next email, tweet, or txt.  This is wonderfully in line with the investigation in the Breath I/O project.    This is an excerpt from our grant application:

We have chosen to work with lungs as a visceral representation of personal interior space that is in a direct relationship of exchange with the environment. Even more directly than the heart, the lungs are a link to life and health. They offer the first clue to the quality of the surrounding environment, and breathing patterns are in a reciprocal relationship with emotional states. With these traits in mind, sounds and image streams are added to the environment of the lungs to mimic our modern situation of being surrounded and sometimes overwhelmed with images and sounds. Our relationship with media sources competing for our attention is often one of unconscious ingesting in a constant search for meaning, connection, diversion. This can be compared to shallow breathing where the body is forgotten and left to react to a starving mental state. Conversely, images and sounds may bring attention to the body by matching its rhythm or otherwise bringing the mind out of its usual patterns, triggering curiosity or calm attention. This can be compared to deep mindful breathing. Breath I/O intends to investigate the individual and collective act of apprehending media spaces as it relates to personal history and the physical body.
I was so happy to hear/read Linda Stone talk about her breathing practice and how she noticed that when she sat down in front of the computer her breath became shallow and sometimes stopped.  She has since studied the phenomenon and how it relates to the sympathetic nervous system.  She has written an article about this in the Huffington Post and this is an excerpt from her interview with Nora Young (starts at about 28 minutes into the podcast).

...email apnea means...temporary cessation of breath or shallow breathing in front of any screen it could be a computer screen it could be a television set it could be a mobile device.  ...with anticipation most mammals humans most certainly do a sharp intake of breath like that and so between the inhale not exhaling because of our posture we were breath holding and many people think of breathing really as an inhale take a deep breath and they go but the really most important part of breathing is the exhale...There are a number of things that begin to happen when you cumulatively over time shallow breathe or breath hold the first is that it kicks sometimes low level sometimes not so low level flight or fight stress response.  The part of the autonomic nervous system that is all about flight or fight is the sympathetic nervous system so this breath holding up regulates or really activates the sympathetic nervous system sending us into flight or fight.  A few things happen when we're in fight or flight.  The part of our brain that creates habit is activated, it blooms so to speak. and we become more compulsive in all our bevaviours and I'm sure that we've experienced and those listening can recognize gee I just can't stop texting or I just can't stop checking my email.  It activates actually the part of our brain that compulsively behaves.

The interview is really interesting and I highly recommend hearing it in its entirety.  I completely relates to what she is saying and I would love to integrate some of the thinking into the Breath I/O project, particularly integrating some of the sounds of our devices that call us to immediate attention: the small chirp of TweetDeck, the trill of the iPhone when a new txt comes in, the ding dong of a new email.  The moment where there is nothing happening and we wait for it like a kid anticipating the movement of a monster in the closet.  Or we stop waiting for it and turn on the light and look everywhere.   For me the sounds are much more evocative of what she is talking about than the actual content of the information that is constantly pouring in.  It would be great to bring the affect of that anticipation into the chorus of lungs.

A song for this post.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Shut out the shuteye (day 76)

I'm so tired my short term memory is going.  I'm so tired because I punch through the tired to the second, third, and fourth wind.  Eventually I run out of wind and I have to collapse into bed.   I can almost hear the bed berate me incredulously.   I want to be one of those people that can do 4 hours of sleep a night.   My brother and I used to fantasize about what it would be like not to sleep.  Think of all the things you could do.  We didn't think about the fact that it would be more but that everyone could do more too.  It's all in the contrast.  So really we just needed even just a one hour advantage.   People that only need even 6 hours of sleep have a serious advantage over the rest of us.  Evolution, where are you?  I need to need to sleep less!

A song for this post.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Lark envy (day 75)

Days when I don't have to go to work trigger a slide toward my true nature of night owl.   I am not a lark, have never been a lark.  I do enjoy the smell of early morning and the sun's first shine of the day but I rarely get to see either.   Unfortunately (and unfairly), the world is made for early risers.   And oh I envy them.   People who gladly wake up at 5am and saunter in to work a leisurely 4 hours later.   I wake up at 7 usually groggy after an indulgent late night and struggle to work out, eat, shower and get to work by 10.   On vacation I settle in to a rhythm of going to bed at 2am and waking out at 10.   Part of me can see understand the rationale of an early start.  Part of me feels out of step and unnatural.  But I honestly prefer the evening to the morning.

I once went to Tuktoyaktuk way up north.  The most northern town before hitting the research outposts.  It was June and the sun went around and around the horizon.  I totally loved feeling of not aging resulting from the lack of reference points.  The best part though was the lack of schedules.  People slept when they were tired, got up when they were rested.  Shops opened when they opened.  Babies were walked at all hours.   In Tuk, I was not a night owl or a lark.  I was just someone that could enjoy any hour like any other.

A song for this post.
Update: This is the song I really wanted to post.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

I'll bump that +1 thread and rt (day 74)

Recently I asked Steve 'what is the difference between ice cream and gelato?'  He answered the question and added that he knew because I had told him.   Somehow I had transferred the knowledge to him and deleted my cache.  I was behaving as an information conduit with limited storage capacity.   Looking around I see that this is not an isolated phenomenon.  The proliferation of social media tools means that we are spreading information around more than we are storing it.  We've all become information amplifiers and dampeners.   The benefit to this is that we don't all have to read or experience everything.   We can read and experience our part and amplify what we think is interesting and then let the rest of the crowd filter down what they think is important toward us.  The detriment is that we may be less able to synthesize new knowledge.  If we are not holding deep knowledge in one or more areas, it's hard to understand how information from another field may be applicable to what we already know.   We are in danger of becoming dilettantes.   And this is the conundrum: there is more information than ever before but because it is not housed in our brains, it's not deeply held knowledge in a way that it can be productive.  It's as if we went from being experts at making things to being experts at networking.  I'm not making a case for more or less networking.  There just needs to be a balance between knowledge acquired and information sharing.  If we are all busy sharing information but not enough new knowledge is being acquired, it quickly devolves into a solipsistic exercise...a kind of cabin fever.

I've made a distinction here between knowledge and information.   I think of knowledge as something that an individual has.  Something borne out of experience, trial and error, experiment.  In contrast, information resides outside of the human body and can be stored, on a hard drive, for example.   Knowledge then becomes information as it gets shared in writing or speech.  It can become knowledge again as it gets absorbed and integrated by someone else.  Facts are a type of information which for the most part have never been knowledge.

We'll continue doing, recording, and sharing as always.  And as always, we'll wonder what and why.  What's changed are the proportions and the media.

A song for this post.

Monday, November 09, 2009

As the river flows (day 73)

Spending time with Alex has made me realize how crucial information management is.  She showed and spoke to me about how she organizes her emails and her notes and her blog posts.  She talked about the tools she uses, the filters, the habits, the idea cache.   She spends a lot of time with social media so in some ways she has more need for these techniques and tools than I do but still there were some really useful tidbits of information.  I've started using Evernote more since she showed me how she uses it.  I've downloaded an application called Skitch for taking snapshots.  I'm seriously thinking of filtering my mail more seriously than I have been.

At the conference there was a talk about the digital divide in which the speaker mentioned that after the distribution of technology is relatively achieved, the divide is more about the skills it takes to cope with the onslaught of available information channels.   After speaking with Alex I can see that it's a continuum with some people surfing the information flow with glee and skill.  Others (like me),  swim and splash around but definitely not with glee.   Having just joined Twitter, not only do I have to learn a new language but I have manage yet another stream joining in to the raging river.  I still haven't faced up to it.

I must say there is something exciting about meeting Alex.  Like downloading another application or buying a new tool.  I can't wait to see how it changes my life.

A song for this post.

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Rant + Celestial Beauty (day 72)

I bought myself an Apple Airport Express.  I connected it, went through a short setup process and was able to play songs from iTunes on my speakers in the living room, remotely.   I was happy.  But the next step was not so easy.  In fact, it seems to be impossible.   All my music is hosted on a NAS which permits all my computers to store it once and share it with all the machines on my network.  So far so good.   iTunes on my machines can connect to the shared library on the NAS.  But if I try to use the Remote app on the iphone to see the shared library, I can't do it.  I can't pair with the library on the NAS because there is no way for me to enter the pairing code on the server (there seem to be some hacks out there that might work, but it certainly is not easy or sanctioned).  Even if I connect with the itunes client running on one of my machines, it doesn't see the shared library.  It looks like my library is empty.   So I'm stuck.  Apple does not provide a proper iTunes client on the iPhone, and does not allow the browsing of share libraries on the Remote App, and does not allow pairing with servers without a GUI.   This is a sad state of affairs.  The only other solution I've found is to buy an expensive media player that would be paired with PlugPlayer which can see my NAS (but not the Airport Express).  There is an application called Air UPnP which will make the Airport Express look like a proper device to applications like PlugPlayer but it needs to run on a PC which defeats one of the purpose of having the NAS in the first place -- not to have any other machines on besides the NAS.  My real beef is with Apple for not providing support for externally hosted libraries with the Apple Remote app.   It would make the Airport Express so much more useful.

I may still find a hack around this mess, but for now the frustration of being so close is driving me mad.

I will redeem this post with a picture of a beautiful animation I saw the IDMAa09 conference exhibition : Celestial Clock by Anson Call.  I can't find any information online about it unfortunately.  No video, no pictures.  What I'm posting here is a snapshot from my iPhone.






















A song for this post.

Friday, November 06, 2009

IDMAa eh? (day 70)

I'm astonished to say that I have no recollection of not blogging on Wednesday night.  I was up until 2 working on Paula's The Wall project again and I guess I just tuned out at some point.  Last night though I was exhausted from a travel odyssey to Muncie Indiana to the IDMAa conference (which Emily Carr is hosting next year).   It was a conscious decision that sleep was better than blog.

The conference started early with a keynote from Tom Kelley of IDEO.   He was...umm...perky.   We came in late so I'm not sure what the red queen is was going on about was, but it seemed to apply to a lot of things.  To be honest I didn't get much out of his talk but that may be because I have a block when it comes to that kind of presentation.  It's a sort of inspirational tone that just says "nothing deep here, move along".   But let me be clear.   I have nothing but respect for IDEO and what they do.   Many people seemed to enjoy his talk a lot.

The next talk I totally missed because of jetlag.  I slept through most of it.   The little bits that I remember were fascinating.  That talk was from John Fillwalk from the Digital Intermedia Arts Institute which is part of Ball State University.   Turns out the Institute was part of the campus tour later so I got to see some of what he talked about in his talk which was great.   The best part was a Second Life instrument that rang the real life bells in a bell tower on campus.  It was amazing to walk down the street and hear the seemingly random bell sounds, like a postmodern concert.

The next panel I attended was about the Future of Interactivity.  I was impressed with the work of Richard Elaver (Indiana University - Purdue University Fort Wayne) who is using generative patterns based on nature to create 3D printed forms.  Some beautiful modular jewelry and other objects.  I can't find a website unfortunately.

The last talk I attended was at the Museum of Art where they also had the conference exhibit.  I toured about half of the exhibit before having to break to go to the panel.  It's an awesome show.  There were two highlights to the panel session.  One was Lindsay Grace (Miami University) talking about Critical Games.  He did one game a week for six weeks, all critiquing particular aspects of game play that are pathologically repeated and not often questioned.  He demoed one game called "Wait'  where the details of the game (and points) only come if you remain in one place in the game space.   As soon as you walk, the environment goes white.  Another is game was 'Black/White' where all characters are visually the same except for colour and behaviour.  There is no way to tell if the characters are enemy or not.  The other talk that caught my eye was from Tammy Brackett (Alfred University) who uses cellular automata to remix video feedback.  She has some great images that were generated from a seed of a musical score derived from chromosome six.  She had work installed in the exhibit but I didn't get to see it because when it was closed after the talks.  I was very disappointed about this.  Particularly because it's doesn't open again until 1:30pm tomorrow at which time I'll be on my way home. 

My biggest regret of the day is not having toured all of the exhibit.  My second biggest regret of the day is not being able to attend all of the afternoon panels.  My possibly third regret of the day is joining twitter.

A song for this post.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Feather magic (day 67)

When I was a child, I was fascinated by the story of Dumbo the elephant.   The feather that helped him fly fascinated me.  The triumphant moment of letting go of the feather was not so important.  The fact that the feather helped was the bit that gave me joy.  I knew nothing of placebos at the time but I loved the magic of it.  I still use the analogy of Dumbo but most people don't know the reference and just look at me thinking I just called them dumb.   Still feathers are reminiscent of power for me.  I collect them during forest walks if one catches my eye.  I've used one as a stand-in for a weapon in a warrior figurine.   I've offered them as gifts of courage.  I've used the bird as gift bearer in one of my 3D class projects (pictured below).   It's a romantic superstition but a very soft gentle one.















A song for this post.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Hello first day (day 66)

Anticipation is key. A first day is fun. She popped her head in and I barely recognized her in my fog of email, phone calls, and worry. Still I'm happy and mostly curious. Yet another one in the mix. Like a good recipe, you hope it's the spice that was missing. I am anticipating.

Here's to you Alex.