My goal for today was to get a few pairs of lungs breathing independently, or at least visually distinct from each other. Getting instancing working in Touch took me a little while but it worked and in the end I had a little group of identical lungs breathing. But the animation on the lungs looked wrong because the instancing broke the pivot point of the objects. So my little success turned into a pretty big failure as I tried to alter the pivot on an instance basis, to no avail. I finally decided to write to the Derivative forum. Lo, I heard almost right away from one of their developers who said it's a bug. He'll be releasing a workaround in a day or two. I was almost relieved to hear that my defeat was not solely from rust. The workaround involves writing a shader to rectify the order of transformations. Since I had to write a shader for the lungs anyway, it's not such a hardship. Rather more like a prod.
Tomorrow we spend the majority of the day in the recording/listening studio. It is the last day in the studio so hopefully we will record everything we'll be needing later on.
I found one thing that Vancouver is better at than Montreal: Public Transit. I never realized how smooth and uncomplicated Vancouver's system is until I came here and tried to find my way around a maze of different systems for the bus, metro, and different regions. So many frustrations later I had to admit to myself that it couldn't solely be my unfamiliarity making this a scene out of The Castle. And it's expensive! $5.75 to go one way from where I'm staying in St-Hubert to the Plateau in Montreal.
We played the Tulip Theory production song in the studio today. This song became our theme song when Steve Nichols played it over and over again, particularly when things were tense or tedious. Here it is:
A song for this post.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Happier Here (day 274)
Getting here may have been work but being here does not feel like work at all. I find myself out of my usual context into another one that is strangely familiar. The language is familiar, people's faces are familiar, the way people move is familiar. The parts of my body that remember Quebec awaken and start dancing with each other again. It's a bit awkward at times but the dance is getting more limber and smooth. I look around and it seems that people are happier here. I said as much to Leila and she said "maybe you're the one that's happier here". Indeed, smiling people see other smiling people. I admit that being away from a steady flow of emails and being able to concentrate on production and creative work is like a summer morning after a fresh rain.
I've been trying to remember to document the experience. Documenting is not something that comes naturally to me and if I'm really enthralled by something I usually forget to document. Likewise, failed experiments rarely get any kind of treatment. Still, here is a spotty photo doc of some of the activities we've done so far. I've had to at least get this much written down before the details are forgotten.
May 25th (day 1)
We spent the day getting settled and learning about the soundfield ambisonic microphone. We had plans to take the mic to a bird sanctuary in the evening but it ended up being too windy and the Vancouver part of the team was silently grateful for this reprieve. It had already been a long day. Leila took me to The Liverpool House in St-Henri for dinner. Amazing dinner. Amazing dessert.
May 26th (day 2)
A very hot day. We spent the late morning and early afternoon recording birds (and flowing water) at the bird sanctuary in LaChine, by the rapids. A great time was had by all. When we got back we heard some of the samples in the recording/listening studio. There was some pretty great footage in there. We then made plans to go see Hubble 3D at the Imax but these plans were thwarted because the late show was in French and it was better for Miles to see it in English. We ended up at Leila's for an impromptu homemade dinner. Extreme goodness. We finished the meal at an ice cream parlour near her place where we ran into Lynn Hughes and Alain Thibault. Walking back to her place, we stopped and got a dozen St-Viateur bagels for the next day's lunch.
May 27th (day 3)
Today we recorded many sounds including:
We tried again to make it to the Hubble 3D show but last minute tasks got in the way. We made it an early night and I had dinner with my mom. Sorry, not pics. It's too bad because there were some pretty hilarious moments in there. I'll post some sounds when I have them.
May 28th (day 4)
While Leila was wrangling camera purchases at Concordia, Miles and I parallel-played on our respective computers. He played with speaker setups and sounds, and I played with lung graphics. Just as I was thinking of a lunch break around 2pm, Chantal came in and said a curator from Glasgow would be touring through at about 2:30pm. Miles said we should still have a quick lunch. As we were eating lunch Leila arrived and we told her about the curator. We decided to get something ready to show. Much like the impromptu meal of the day before, Miles and I took the ingredients we had on hand and put something together that wasn't bad at all. The previous day's recordings were very interesting when mixed with images of the lungs breathing and mapped with video. I think we surprised ourselves and it was a wonderful ramp into another stage of the residency.
That afternoon I tried the Sonic Bed by Kaffe Matthews. It's a bed surrounded by speakers which when laid upon gives a kind of sonic massage both auditory and bodily. Very interesting. There is currently a call out for compositions for the bed.
In the evening we went to a Gregorian Chant performance by the Ensemble Scholastiques Neumatiques. It was amazing. We finished the evening at an informal gathering of people performing noise music at which Zoe was performing.
A song for this post.
I've been trying to remember to document the experience. Documenting is not something that comes naturally to me and if I'm really enthralled by something I usually forget to document. Likewise, failed experiments rarely get any kind of treatment. Still, here is a spotty photo doc of some of the activities we've done so far. I've had to at least get this much written down before the details are forgotten.
May 25th (day 1)
We spent the day getting settled and learning about the soundfield ambisonic microphone. We had plans to take the mic to a bird sanctuary in the evening but it ended up being too windy and the Vancouver part of the team was silently grateful for this reprieve. It had already been a long day. Leila took me to The Liverpool House in St-Henri for dinner. Amazing dinner. Amazing dessert.
 | A sculpture I came across on my first walk towards Oboro from the Metro station. It was in front of a very regular Montreal walk-up. I wondered how it came to be. ← |
| Dessert at The Liverpool House in St-Henri. → |  |
May 26th (day 2)
A very hot day. We spent the late morning and early afternoon recording birds (and flowing water) at the bird sanctuary in LaChine, by the rapids. A great time was had by all. When we got back we heard some of the samples in the recording/listening studio. There was some pretty great footage in there. We then made plans to go see Hubble 3D at the Imax but these plans were thwarted because the late show was in French and it was better for Miles to see it in English. We ended up at Leila's for an impromptu homemade dinner. Extreme goodness. We finished the meal at an ice cream parlour near her place where we ran into Lynn Hughes and Alain Thibault. Walking back to her place, we stopped and got a dozen St-Viateur bagels for the next day's lunch.
 | Red-winged black bird at the sanctuary. ← |
| Zoe and Miles recording. → |  |
 | Zoe, Miles, and Stephane learning about soundfield workflow. ← |
| Leila with the plated food. We ate outside on her deck. Menu was Stuffed Portobello mushroom with blue cheese, basil and tomato; Grilled asparagus with reduced balsamic; Tomato cucumber salad with Tzatziki; Gin&Tonic with Basil and Mango. → |  |
Today we recorded many sounds including:
- group laughter
- individual laughter
- banter
- sounds of uncertainty
- breathing, slow and fast
- random phonemes
- singing bowl, tibetan bells
- "I like it", "I don't like it" both normal tone and whisper
We tried again to make it to the Hubble 3D show but last minute tasks got in the way. We made it an early night and I had dinner with my mom. Sorry, not pics. It's too bad because there were some pretty hilarious moments in there. I'll post some sounds when I have them.
May 28th (day 4)
While Leila was wrangling camera purchases at Concordia, Miles and I parallel-played on our respective computers. He played with speaker setups and sounds, and I played with lung graphics. Just as I was thinking of a lunch break around 2pm, Chantal came in and said a curator from Glasgow would be touring through at about 2:30pm. Miles said we should still have a quick lunch. As we were eating lunch Leila arrived and we told her about the curator. We decided to get something ready to show. Much like the impromptu meal of the day before, Miles and I took the ingredients we had on hand and put something together that wasn't bad at all. The previous day's recordings were very interesting when mixed with images of the lungs breathing and mapped with video. I think we surprised ourselves and it was a wonderful ramp into another stage of the residency.
That afternoon I tried the Sonic Bed by Kaffe Matthews. It's a bed surrounded by speakers which when laid upon gives a kind of sonic massage both auditory and bodily. Very interesting. There is currently a call out for compositions for the bed.
In the evening we went to a Gregorian Chant performance by the Ensemble Scholastiques Neumatiques. It was amazing. We finished the evening at an informal gathering of people performing noise music at which Zoe was performing.
 | Waiting for the sonic bed. It was popular. ← |
| Zoe performing in funky Montreal loft. → |  |
A song for this post.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The busyness of going (day 263)
Getting ready for the Oboro residency. The thought of being away for almost three weeks is both exciting and frightening. I've resigned myself to not being ready but being ready enough. What I most look forward to is the spark of creativity coming back, from sputter to more like sparklers you put on a birthday cake. Something happens when the day to day is interrupted by something other than tragedy or sickness. Threads are lost and others find each other. That's interesting and unpredictable. It's too bad the physical constraints are such that these kinds of interruptions are necessary. Don't think the irony of leaving such an amazing research lab to do creative work escapes me.
Meanwhile, in whatever pockets of calm I can find, and in whatever interesting company I find myself, I'm bouncing off ideas about crowds, the topic I will speak about at Smart Graphics. The management of crowds is especially interesting to me right now and I realize I've been thinking about this for a long time. I was even thinking about this during my PhD. But back then I was into local rules influencing morphology. That's still interesting but there's the other way around too - the context influencing the local behaviour. I'll be looking for a way to map the ideas and sources I've collected in the past few months into some sort of map.
A song for this post.
Meanwhile, in whatever pockets of calm I can find, and in whatever interesting company I find myself, I'm bouncing off ideas about crowds, the topic I will speak about at Smart Graphics. The management of crowds is especially interesting to me right now and I realize I've been thinking about this for a long time. I was even thinking about this during my PhD. But back then I was into local rules influencing morphology. That's still interesting but there's the other way around too - the context influencing the local behaviour. I'll be looking for a way to map the ideas and sources I've collected in the past few months into some sort of map.
A song for this post.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
More frames and nibs (day 257)
As luck would have it, someone's been reading my blog that knows a lot about S3D with prosumer cameras. He recommends either the Kodax Zi8 or the Sanyo Xacti Full HD line. Turns out the sync problem is not as bad if the frame rate is higher, which makes sense. They can be controlled with an infrared remote. Both models can do 60fps at at least 720p. I'll recommend these to Leila and we'll probably try one of them out during the residency.
On a completely different topic, I have a new addiction: Raw Cacao Nibs. Deliciously crunchy cacao goodness. Totally addictive, versatile, with a mellow stimulant. Apparently they're a healthy snack too, though I view this as a bonus rather than a reason. I ordered a Kilo from Earth Notions.
A song for this post.
On a completely different topic, I have a new addiction: Raw Cacao Nibs. Deliciously crunchy cacao goodness. Totally addictive, versatile, with a mellow stimulant. Apparently they're a healthy snack too, though I view this as a bonus rather than a reason. I ordered a Kilo from Earth Notions.
A song for this post.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Inaugural spin (day 256)
The tech session with the stereoscopic rig went really well. About 15 people came and for over two hours Marty talked about the technical aspects of the rig and took questions from the participants. There was lots of great feedback and many said they would be interested in coming back and spending some time experimenting with the rig. We ourselves will be spending some quality time with the rig in the coming days getting ready for the Western Economic Diversification announcement of the S3D Centre taking place at Emily Carr on May 20th. We'll be filming the event with the rig and showing the live footage on a 3DTV LCD (Hyundai S465D).
I taped a lot of the session today but I haven't had time to upload the footage. In the meantime here is a photo taken from an iPhone of Marty and I looking at the live stream for the first time. The next shot is an older one of my first time seeing the rig at Kerner in late March.
Many people deserve thanks for making this session happen. The Kerner team for getting the rig up here in time and helping organize some of the session logistics. Marty Brenneis especially for so generously providing so much information to the assembled group. And Rick Overington, for heroically wrangling technology and traffic to make sure everything worked in the end.
Our industry partners also deserve many thanks for their invaluable contributions and support: Panavision, Codex, Cine-Tal, Sony, Fujinon, Evertz, Silicon Imaging.
A song for this post.
I taped a lot of the session today but I haven't had time to upload the footage. In the meantime here is a photo taken from an iPhone of Marty and I looking at the live stream for the first time. The next shot is an older one of my first time seeing the rig at Kerner in late March.
 |  |
Many people deserve thanks for making this session happen. The Kerner team for getting the rig up here in time and helping organize some of the session logistics. Marty Brenneis especially for so generously providing so much information to the assembled group. And Rick Overington, for heroically wrangling technology and traffic to make sure everything worked in the end.
Our industry partners also deserve many thanks for their invaluable contributions and support: Panavision, Codex, Cine-Tal, Sony, Fujinon, Evertz, Silicon Imaging.
A song for this post.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Now in stereo (day 255)
Marty Brenneis from Kerner arrived at the lab today! He's here for a 2 day visit and to help us put the stereoscopic rig together. He's the engineer that built the rig. It was really exciting to see the rig being come together and to see the live stream from the cameras on our new 3DTV. Tomorrow we're having a tech session and Q&A mostly for internal technicians but also some technicians from IATSE. May 20th is the official WED announcement of the funding for the Centre.
We'll be filming the session tomorrow so I'll post some pics and perhaps some videos. I'll also put together a list of the rig components.
A song for this post.
We'll be filming the session tomorrow so I'll post some pics and perhaps some videos. I'll also put together a list of the rig components.
A song for this post.
Friday, May 07, 2010
A progressive discovery (day 252)
There is a glimmer of hope in our search for a low cost solution to stereoscopic video capture. One of the technicians at Concordia found the Canon Vixia HF S200 camcorder which can record progressive (24p) video in HD and has a LANC terminal. With any luck they will be better synced than the TG1s. Having progressive recording means faster motion (like sports which we've been recording) will be better quality.
We haven't addressed the issue of post-processing at all. I suspect this will be another hurdle. With the TG1 footage we ran into a lot of codec and audio issues which never really got resolved. The Canons probably record in AVCHD just like the Sonys. Hopefully the tools got smarter in the interim.
That's it for today. Just an equipment update. I've been busy planning for the stereoscopic tech session happening on Tuesday in the lab. Here's to hoping everything comes together.
A song for this post.
We haven't addressed the issue of post-processing at all. I suspect this will be another hurdle. With the TG1 footage we ran into a lot of codec and audio issues which never really got resolved. The Canons probably record in AVCHD just like the Sonys. Hopefully the tools got smarter in the interim.
That's it for today. Just an equipment update. I've been busy planning for the stereoscopic tech session happening on Tuesday in the lab. Here's to hoping everything comes together.
A song for this post.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The whale tried to warn us (day 251)
Maybe the whale was warning us of the impending stock market bungee jump. It's possible. The word on the street is that someone typed billion, but meant million, in a sell order. The risks of txt'ing your sell order can't be overstated. What better image than the fail whale for such a warning. Alas, we were all too mesmerized to listen.
And mesmerized is a good word for it. Turns out that a big sell order like that, erroneous or not, triggers android traders to sell without thinking (not that they could). Then the meat-based traders get in the action and boom goes the market. Mesmerizing indeed. We've created an unpredictable monster and someone kicked it accidentally. So fragile we are.
The stock market is the biggest hive experiment we have. I'm personally fascinated by the stories we project on the movements of our pet monster. Oh he yawned! It must mean that the crisis in Bolivia is not that important. Uh oh, he burped. It must mean that interest rates will rise. From the inside of the cage, it must be the same with just a bit more nuance. I want to know who really understood derivatives. Was it like feeding our monster some re-processed waste? I think we did that with the cows and it didn't turn out so well.
Will Friday be boring? It's hard to beat the last two days.
A song for this post.
And mesmerized is a good word for it. Turns out that a big sell order like that, erroneous or not, triggers android traders to sell without thinking (not that they could). Then the meat-based traders get in the action and boom goes the market. Mesmerizing indeed. We've created an unpredictable monster and someone kicked it accidentally. So fragile we are.
The stock market is the biggest hive experiment we have. I'm personally fascinated by the stories we project on the movements of our pet monster. Oh he yawned! It must mean that the crisis in Bolivia is not that important. Uh oh, he burped. It must mean that interest rates will rise. From the inside of the cage, it must be the same with just a bit more nuance. I want to know who really understood derivatives. Was it like feeding our monster some re-processed waste? I think we did that with the cows and it didn't turn out so well.
Will Friday be boring? It's hard to beat the last two days.
A song for this post.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
A grey in shallow waters (day 250)
A grey whale swam into False Creek this afternoon. Never has this happened before. I was in meetings all day and missed the real time announcement. No doubt, twitter was overheating in the local geo. By the time I found out, it had gone back to open sea. I went down to the docks to talk with the Aquabus guys and they told me how amazing it was to see a big animal like that so close. They say it was about 13 meters. Here is the CBC report.
The big question is why this has happened. Is the whale healthy? Is this just random? Was it a message (a la Douglas Adams)? Is this related to the whale that washed up on shore, starved to death? Is it related to what is happening in the Gulf? I have this notion that whales talk to each other over great distances. I have no idea if an oil spill would be a topic of conversation but I'm guessing it might be? Still that probably wouldn't have anything to do with False Creek. The CBC report seems to imply this is a normal migration route and the whale was just curious or something.
Anyway, I'm sorry I missed the whale but I hope it's happily swimming with some stories to tell.
A song for this post.
The big question is why this has happened. Is the whale healthy? Is this just random? Was it a message (a la Douglas Adams)? Is this related to the whale that washed up on shore, starved to death? Is it related to what is happening in the Gulf? I have this notion that whales talk to each other over great distances. I have no idea if an oil spill would be a topic of conversation but I'm guessing it might be? Still that probably wouldn't have anything to do with False Creek. The CBC report seems to imply this is a normal migration route and the whale was just curious or something.
Anyway, I'm sorry I missed the whale but I hope it's happily swimming with some stories to tell.
A song for this post.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Resounding sanity amidst frustration (day 248)
Leila tried using the Sony TG1s with the digi-dat remote but she said it was highly frustrating to have to wait for the moment where the initial sync is less than 1ms. It breaks all spontaneity and creates a lot of tension when trying to get a good shot. She was shooting a soccer game with 10 minute periods so fiddling with the cameras for 5-6 minutes was too frustrating to be worth it. She did get some footage but we didn't have time to look at it today. In any case, it looks like we'll have to find another solution, or other cameras that are better synced than the ones we have. We do have the Silicon Imaging cameras but are still waiting on the field recorder. Hopefully we'll have it soon and can use the setup during the residency. Time is getting tight but hope lives on.
We also tried to make the singing bowl resonate without being struck. Miles used a piezo vibrating at the same frequency as the bowl (~457 Hz). The results were interesting but not as successful as we'd hoped. The bowl would resonate a little bit at some specific spots but not to the point of giving the rich sound of stroking or striking the bowl. Miles will keep working at it. It's possible we could use a mix of vibrations or some kind of amplifier to create the effect we're seeking.
Lastly, today I came across this interview with Father Miguel D'Escoto, former President of the United Nations. I had never seen or heard him speak before. Sometimes the strength and sanity of older humans are awe-inspiring. Miguel D'Escoto has that awe-inspiring quality. I think there is a lot of truth in what he is saying about the way we name things to normalize them. We name wars and they become crusades. We name groups of people getting killed and we forget they were ever individuals. I also liked the way he talked about being unashamed to stand up for 'Mother Earth'. It is not us that are insane. We should care.
A song for this post.
We also tried to make the singing bowl resonate without being struck. Miles used a piezo vibrating at the same frequency as the bowl (~457 Hz). The results were interesting but not as successful as we'd hoped. The bowl would resonate a little bit at some specific spots but not to the point of giving the rich sound of stroking or striking the bowl. Miles will keep working at it. It's possible we could use a mix of vibrations or some kind of amplifier to create the effect we're seeking.
Lastly, today I came across this interview with Father Miguel D'Escoto, former President of the United Nations. I had never seen or heard him speak before. Sometimes the strength and sanity of older humans are awe-inspiring. Miguel D'Escoto has that awe-inspiring quality. I think there is a lot of truth in what he is saying about the way we name things to normalize them. We name wars and they become crusades. We name groups of people getting killed and we forget they were ever individuals. I also liked the way he talked about being unashamed to stand up for 'Mother Earth'. It is not us that are insane. We should care.
A song for this post.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Preview day and night (day 245)
Another day, another preview of things to come.
We spent the a good part of the afternoon working with the cameras and the remote again. After giving up on finding another set of cameras by going shopping locally, we decided to give our current setup another chance. We got as scientific as we could with imprecise tools and calculated the drift to be about .6ms per minute with a period of about 15 minutes. So after 15 minutes they get in sync again. Once they are in sync we have about 5 minutes to shoot before things are too far out of sync to be usable. This is an estimate and would depend on the speed of motion in the scene. So it's workable but certainly not amenable to spur of the moment shooting. Leila will test it out this weekend. In talking with Sean, he said that he's had the same issue with recording sound and video separately. The oscillators were just slightly out of sync so the sound and video didn't match up. Luckily with sound you can play around a bit and get things to match. Not so with video. We haven't found video editing software that will manipulate a sub-frame level. Changing the frame rate to be a fractional number would not work.
We spent the later afternoon brainstorming some ideas about Breath I/O. Here are the notes (not edited):
A song for this post.
We spent the a good part of the afternoon working with the cameras and the remote again. After giving up on finding another set of cameras by going shopping locally, we decided to give our current setup another chance. We got as scientific as we could with imprecise tools and calculated the drift to be about .6ms per minute with a period of about 15 minutes. So after 15 minutes they get in sync again. Once they are in sync we have about 5 minutes to shoot before things are too far out of sync to be usable. This is an estimate and would depend on the speed of motion in the scene. So it's workable but certainly not amenable to spur of the moment shooting. Leila will test it out this weekend. In talking with Sean, he said that he's had the same issue with recording sound and video separately. The oscillators were just slightly out of sync so the sound and video didn't match up. Luckily with sound you can play around a bit and get things to match. Not so with video. We haven't found video editing software that will manipulate a sub-frame level. Changing the frame rate to be a fractional number would not work.
We spent the later afternoon brainstorming some ideas about Breath I/O. Here are the notes (not edited):
Lungs jostling/bendingThe day ended with the Grad Show preview night. I toured about a third of the show before going home. I'll see the rest during the week when it's a bit less busy. It was great to see the MAA student work all in one place. The official opening is tomorrow night.
Moving around forming clusters, groups, fights, collaborations.
Number of lungs - individual to couple to quartet to nine to multitude (varying)
Environment - rain, wind, snow, vidéo windows in bg
Internal video associated with personal internal space. External video associated with public videos.
When lungs touch each other could generate traces
External videos can affect internal videos (a mixture)
Lines in space delineating groups and boundaries
Breathing patterns affecting video speed and direction
Video particles or atmospheric around the lungs maybe more visible when they are actively breathing. Somehow visualizing sharing of the same air.
Sometimes lungs not having video (tuning out?)
Death/decay (line drawing?)
Events like a bird flying through. Each set of lungs associated with an event that can get triggered. Internal event or external event.
Provoke tenderness in viewer. A sense of protecting.
Resonance, sound, visual resonance, synching, harmony/disharmony, oscillations that are sometimes in sync, oscillations that affect each other. Rhythms, ebbs and flows, events affect the patterns.
A song for this post.
Sing Dance Eat (day 244)
Matching a tuning fork with the singing bowl didn't quite work. Partially it's because the tuning fork is simply too small to make the bowl resonate and partially because the bowl does not resonate at a perfect B Flat. I think if the first thing is remedied perhaps the second would be less relevant. I think we would have better luck working with a piezo to induce a kind of resonance. What I'd like to see is the bowl getting to resonance without the need for the wooden stick. That way it becomes a kind of actuator for the interactive piece.
In the evening we attended two interactive dance performances in the IDS. Both were great and made use of different kinds of motion tracking techniques to interact with text and type. There are three other performances tomorrow (4, 6, and 8pm).
We ended the day at Boneta which we found out is part of Dine Out Vancouver. The food was absolutely amazing. A great deal for sure.
So again, not exactly a success-filled day but not a bad day altogether.
A song for this post.
In the evening we attended two interactive dance performances in the IDS. Both were great and made use of different kinds of motion tracking techniques to interact with text and type. There are three other performances tomorrow (4, 6, and 8pm).
We ended the day at Boneta which we found out is part of Dine Out Vancouver. The food was absolutely amazing. A great deal for sure.
So again, not exactly a success-filled day but not a bad day altogether.
A song for this post.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Oscillating and Resonating (day 243)
Leila and I spent the afternoon testing the LANC twin remote with the Sony TG1 cameras, then shopping for other cameras that would work better than the TG1s. It was a futile attempt. In the end we ended up with a nice assortment of chocolate from Xoxolat, and a singing bowl from Maiwa. Not a bad day altogether.
So what about the LANC twin remote. It works as advertised but our TG1 cameras have mismatched oscillators. We have yet to do the precise calculation but it's somewhere around 1ms per minute. This is a lot. And it's hard to get them to be in sync at startup. On average it seemed to take about 15 power ups to get a sync better than 4ms. We may try to make the LANC 3D Master which is capable of manipulating the frame rate to compensate for the oscillator mismatch. The 3D Master has an open source hardware design. I have no idea if the TG1 are even capable of responding to the frame rate manipulation of the 3D Master. There doesn't seem to be any way to find out beside making the remote and checking.
We went to the Sony store to see if there would be other cameras that we could test for a match. No luck there. The cameras we were interested in either had a design flaw which prevented the physical connection of the remote, or weren't available at the store, or weren't able to be taken out of the box for testing. We looked at Canon cameras too but none seemed to have a LANC connection. Maybe their higher end cameras have this. So we are a bit stuck. We could go higher end but the higher end cameras tend to be bigger so cannot have a inter-axial distance of human scale.
The singing bowl will be used to generate sounds and perhaps be part of the interface for the Breath I/O work. We will go to Long & McQuade tomorrow and see if we find a tuning fork that will resonate with the bowl. The bowl resonates at B Flat which a quick search reveals could be heart, crown, or solar plexus chakra. There is an intriguing NPR report about B Flat which claims it can stimulate alligators to bellow, and is the note hummed by black holes (yes, black holes). Guess that means black holes make alligators bellow. There's also a nice bit in there about a room that resonates at B Flat (a room mode). This site has an interactive orchestra piece in B Flat. There doesn't seem to be any agreements on a mapping between chakras and tones which makes sense I suppose. Anyway, B Flat sounds good for now.
A song for this post.
So what about the LANC twin remote. It works as advertised but our TG1 cameras have mismatched oscillators. We have yet to do the precise calculation but it's somewhere around 1ms per minute. This is a lot. And it's hard to get them to be in sync at startup. On average it seemed to take about 15 power ups to get a sync better than 4ms. We may try to make the LANC 3D Master which is capable of manipulating the frame rate to compensate for the oscillator mismatch. The 3D Master has an open source hardware design. I have no idea if the TG1 are even capable of responding to the frame rate manipulation of the 3D Master. There doesn't seem to be any way to find out beside making the remote and checking.
We went to the Sony store to see if there would be other cameras that we could test for a match. No luck there. The cameras we were interested in either had a design flaw which prevented the physical connection of the remote, or weren't available at the store, or weren't able to be taken out of the box for testing. We looked at Canon cameras too but none seemed to have a LANC connection. Maybe their higher end cameras have this. So we are a bit stuck. We could go higher end but the higher end cameras tend to be bigger so cannot have a inter-axial distance of human scale.
The singing bowl will be used to generate sounds and perhaps be part of the interface for the Breath I/O work. We will go to Long & McQuade tomorrow and see if we find a tuning fork that will resonate with the bowl. The bowl resonates at B Flat which a quick search reveals could be heart, crown, or solar plexus chakra. There is an intriguing NPR report about B Flat which claims it can stimulate alligators to bellow, and is the note hummed by black holes (yes, black holes). Guess that means black holes make alligators bellow. There's also a nice bit in there about a room that resonates at B Flat (a room mode). This site has an interactive orchestra piece in B Flat. There doesn't seem to be any agreements on a mapping between chakras and tones which makes sense I suppose. Anyway, B Flat sounds good for now.
A song for this post.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Suiting up to fight (day 242)
Is it a coincidence that there's been a few movies about vigilantes lately? Movies like Defendor and Kick-Ass that have flawed real-life superheroes take the restoration of justice into their own hands? Defendor was bittersweet. The superhero, a little slow but honest, was looking for Captain Industry. Kick-Ass I think was supposed to be funny but it left me feeling uncomfortable. The portrayal of a killer young kid (9 or 10?) was a natural progression of other violent movies we see but I don't think it's a progression we should be proud of. Surely there is a better role model for young girls between that and Britney Spears. What I did like about the movie was the fact that the superheroes found and created each other.
Someone taking justice into their own hands is a familiar theme in movies but what I'm seeing is the bringing down of the hero to the level of the every day person. I wonder if this is a response to latent anger in the population. Even the term Robin Hood tax being bandied about lately is interesting in that respect. The vigilante movies are still using very personal motivations for the superheroes so maybe I'm reading too much into them. Is there a point at which the clumsy everyday hero decides to take on more than 'bad guys'? Maybe the superhero trope is just an extension of individualism and it never amounts to much. We'll have to see where it goes.
Here's a game based on the flawed superhero theme (via pardenarden).
A song for this post.
Someone taking justice into their own hands is a familiar theme in movies but what I'm seeing is the bringing down of the hero to the level of the every day person. I wonder if this is a response to latent anger in the population. Even the term Robin Hood tax being bandied about lately is interesting in that respect. The vigilante movies are still using very personal motivations for the superheroes so maybe I'm reading too much into them. Is there a point at which the clumsy everyday hero decides to take on more than 'bad guys'? Maybe the superhero trope is just an extension of individualism and it never amounts to much. We'll have to see where it goes.
Here's a game based on the flawed superhero theme (via pardenarden).
A song for this post.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Life Support (day 238)
I took a breather today. After attending the Masters of Digital Media graduation ceremony (which was awesome), I arrived home around 4pm and decided to make some tea, eat some chocolate from chocolate arts, and spend some time with a book that I've been meaning to re-open: "The Art of Projection" edited by Stan Douglas and Christopher Eamon. A few pages in I started to get some ideas about the screenshots and snapshots I've been collecting. I started to think of what it feels like to be observed by my own computer. At the beginning I was self-conscious, then I became annoyed, then oblivious, then embarrassed, then impatient. As the shots pile up, I've become somewhat anxious about what the end game is. What will I do with all these? Steve asks me every now and then. I've always replied that I didn't know. Today I had an idea. The sketch is below. A LCD screen shows a video of the screenshots, and the top of the screen where a camera would usually be, a miniature projector projects the portrait snapshots onto a suspended concave structure (textured material, probably paper clay). In between the two, embedded in a supporting plinth is an organ-like inflatable structure that 'breathes' (mechanics and electronics inside the plinth). The sound is similar to a life support respirator in a hospital. I'm not clear on the form of the breathing structure. Probably amorphous. I'd like it to be uncanny, like an organ. With an affect similar to the organic game pod in Cronenberg's Existenz.
A song (clip) for this post.
A song (clip) for this post.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
You lookin' at me? (day 237)
Morgan Rauscher defended his thesis yesterday. I was one of the faculty members on his committee. He did very well and was an interesting person to talk to as always. The best part of his thesis is the project which has two parts: Zeugen and Mind Machine. Zeugen is a large suspended board with 32 half faces (eyes and nose) whose eyes follow the people currently looking at them. The faces are backlit and turn on and off according to an algorithm that I'm not quite clear about. There is a half-mirror in front of the faces which becomes more of a mirror when the faces are not lit. There are servo motor sounds from the eyes tracking the viewers' faces. The back of the board is open and shows the mechanics and electronics of the work, as well as the netbook that controls it. Morgan calls this open source. I've seen this work a few times in different instantiation but this was the first time I saw it with the half mirror.
After being with it for a while it started to make me think of social media. The board is a kind of screen and the faces are looking at me and I'm looking at them and at the same I'm looking at myself. And it's all quite ordered. The whole thing is self-conscious in a mechanical and somewhat unnerving way.
The piece will be on display during the Graduate Exhibition May 2-16th at the Charles H. Scott Gallery at Emily Carr University. I recommend.
A song for this post.
After being with it for a while it started to make me think of social media. The board is a kind of screen and the faces are looking at me and I'm looking at them and at the same I'm looking at myself. And it's all quite ordered. The whole thing is self-conscious in a mechanical and somewhat unnerving way.
The piece will be on display during the Graduate Exhibition May 2-16th at the Charles H. Scott Gallery at Emily Carr University. I recommend.
A song for this post.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Craigslist poets (day 234)
Penny Leong, one of my graduate students, defended her thesis today. She did really well. The topic: acts of giving on craigslist free stuff section. She analyzed the ways in which people phrase their listings and conduct the actual exchange. Her thesis project will be exhibited in the Charles H. Scott gallery from May 1st to May 14th. It will be a participatory display of objects that exemplify the categories of giving that she has identified. Her process blog documents some of the objects (and categories) that will be on display.
In came out during the defense that Veda Hille produced a musical with Geoff Berner called "Do You Want What I Have Got?: A Craigslist Cantata", that played during the Push Festival. I wish we both would have seen it! I think it might be playing again in some form on May 2nd at the Arts Club Theatre.
A song for this post (from the cantata).
In came out during the defense that Veda Hille produced a musical with Geoff Berner called "Do You Want What I Have Got?: A Craigslist Cantata", that played during the Push Festival. I wish we both would have seen it! I think it might be playing again in some form on May 2nd at the Arts Club Theatre.
A song for this post (from the cantata).
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Booked on the weekend (day 233)
I finished the book "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It was a quick and entertaining read. I'm curious about how well it works as a movie. It's the first of a trilogy but I'm not sure when I'll be able to convince myself to take a full day to read again.
The other book that I finished a while ago and forgot to mention is "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster. Jaron Lanier recommended it during his talk at SXSW. The book was written in 1909 so is in the public domain. It's set in a futuristic world where humans are living underground, each in separate apartments fully managed by the Machine, which has become something like a God to them. Birth and Death are managed and travel is not desirable. "Ideas" are the most valuable currency (if you read the book you'll understand why I put ideas in quotes). The short story is about the gradual decline of the machine as the inhabitants gradually become ignorant and complacent about its maintenance. An amazing tale even if it was written today. The fact that it was written in 1909 is almost unbelievable.
I was a panelist at the Diane Farris Gallery on Saturday. Hank Bull was a fellow panelist and Lili Vieira de Carvalho was moderating. The topic was social media and art. It was interesting to hear Hank talk about the beginning of network art in the 1970s when artists were using the telephone, the photocopier, and the precursors to the fax machine and video phone. He said something that stuck with me: when it became clear that artists would be able to link to each other in a great network around the world, the belief and hope was that there would be large collaborative works, no longer individual works. I'm very much paraphrasing from memory and I wish I remembered his exact words. He also said it's worth noting that it's called social media, not socialist media. This is after some discussion about the role of corporate interests in web 2.0. It was interesting to me that the optimism of the early 70's has been partially realized in the sense that the technology is more available than ever but there has also been the disappointment of losing control of the medium. Overall, a pretty good panel. It probably would have been more balanced if Kris Krug had been able to be the third panelist. We needed a convert I think.
A song for this post.
The other book that I finished a while ago and forgot to mention is "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster. Jaron Lanier recommended it during his talk at SXSW. The book was written in 1909 so is in the public domain. It's set in a futuristic world where humans are living underground, each in separate apartments fully managed by the Machine, which has become something like a God to them. Birth and Death are managed and travel is not desirable. "Ideas" are the most valuable currency (if you read the book you'll understand why I put ideas in quotes). The short story is about the gradual decline of the machine as the inhabitants gradually become ignorant and complacent about its maintenance. An amazing tale even if it was written today. The fact that it was written in 1909 is almost unbelievable.
I was a panelist at the Diane Farris Gallery on Saturday. Hank Bull was a fellow panelist and Lili Vieira de Carvalho was moderating. The topic was social media and art. It was interesting to hear Hank talk about the beginning of network art in the 1970s when artists were using the telephone, the photocopier, and the precursors to the fax machine and video phone. He said something that stuck with me: when it became clear that artists would be able to link to each other in a great network around the world, the belief and hope was that there would be large collaborative works, no longer individual works. I'm very much paraphrasing from memory and I wish I remembered his exact words. He also said it's worth noting that it's called social media, not socialist media. This is after some discussion about the role of corporate interests in web 2.0. It was interesting to me that the optimism of the early 70's has been partially realized in the sense that the technology is more available than ever but there has also been the disappointment of losing control of the medium. Overall, a pretty good panel. It probably would have been more balanced if Kris Krug had been able to be the third panelist. We needed a convert I think.
A song for this post.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Blog interrupted (day 231)
We interrupt this blog for a riveting novel...the girl with the dragon tattoo. We will be back after this low tech interruption.
A song for this post.
A song for this post.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Smart and juvenile (day 230)
I finished the Jaron book. He finished off with a discussion of how neoteny is the reason we are so smart and juvenile all at the same time, and a discussion of post-symbolic communication in virtual worlds. Yes the book takes a turn away from a critique and toward an exploration of the pleasures of morphing, concrete communication, and the development of language. In the end what I retain from the book is his belief that there is no need to elevate technology to the level of humans or debase humans to the level of technology. There is no philosophy that will fit all the ways in which we need to think about these things and the important thing is not to get trapped. I appreciate the way he discussed his research at the end of the book. There was something really sweet about it. Like a kid really enjoying the space to think about what is possible still.
I wonder what it would be like to tune out of web 2.0 for an extended period of time. What would I miss? What would be richer? What if the whole world had to take a 2.0 break for a month? What does that feel like? Is it like the silence you hear when the electricity goes off and nothing is buzzing anymore? Or is it the silence that makes your foot wiggle and makes you run to the nearest pub? For me, the thought of the world tuning out from 2.0 brings the most insight about the true value of what has been created through it.
Now I have to find my next book.
A song for this post.
I wonder what it would be like to tune out of web 2.0 for an extended period of time. What would I miss? What would be richer? What if the whole world had to take a 2.0 break for a month? What does that feel like? Is it like the silence you hear when the electricity goes off and nothing is buzzing anymore? Or is it the silence that makes your foot wiggle and makes you run to the nearest pub? For me, the thought of the world tuning out from 2.0 brings the most insight about the true value of what has been created through it.
Now I have to find my next book.
A song for this post.
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