Archive for August, 2006
Project Development, visualisation & flight tests
Commissioned for the Singapore Biennale 2006, Open Burble is the most recent public art work of Usman Haque. It is a further development of his earlier well known Sky Ear project where a non-rigid carbon-fibre structure, embedded with one thousand glowing helium balloons, mobile phones, sensor circuits and LEDs responsed to electromagnetic waves creating a floating "cloud" of light that revealed the natural electromagnetism of our environment, and also how our mobile phone calls and text messages delicately affect the new and existing electromagnetic fields.
Sky Ear 2004
Open Burble adopts the technology of Sky Ear but explores a more intuitive way to enable people to engage directly with the tactile experience of flying the cloud. 'Participants will divide into groups in order to assemble about 140 hexagonal "clouds" into a complete Burble, built to such a scale that, when inflated with helium, it will soar upwards like Jack's beanstalk.'
Building a module of Open Burble structure, the final construct will be 10 times as big
Just as the participants are the generators of the Burble's 60m tall form, so too are they the ones to control it. They hold on to it using handles with which they may position the Burble as they like. They may curve in on themselves, or pull it in a straight line - the form is a combination of the crowd's desires and the impact of wind currents varying throughout the height of the Burble. The Burble will move, rustle, tangle, fold in on itself and create turbulence as the wind catches it like a sail. Suddenly, the entire construction will ignite with colour, sparkling in the evening sky.
These images some some night testing of 1/10th of the whole piece.
As people on the ground shake and pump the handle bars of the Burble, they will see their movements echoed as colours through the entire system. They will see their own individual fragments, perhaps even identifying design choices they have made. Their invididual contributions will become an integral part of a spectacular, ephemeral experience many times their size that they have come together to produce.
Concept image
Open Burble will premiere this coming Friday September 1st. at the opening of the Singapore Biennale. I wish I could go but I'm at Ars Electronica so if anyone does get to see it please let me know what you thought of it and send me some images.
Also involved at stages in the project were Rolf Pixley - algorithmist / dynamic chromaticist; Fred Guttfield and Kei Hasegawa - detail designers; & Susan Haque - logistics
The Burble is constructed from:
- Over 1 km of 6.35mm carbon fibre rods
- Over 1 km of Excel D12 high performance sailing rope
- Approx. 1000 latex balloons (24" and 36")
- Approx. 1000 fishing lock-swivel clips
- Approx. 1000 Sky Ear boards by Senseinate/Seth Garlock
August 30th, 2006
I'm off on a small holiday tomorrow to the Ars Electronica Festival held in Linz, Austria. I say holiday, infact its more research, never the less I'm looking forward to seeing a number of projects in the flesh that I've seen online.
The opening gambit for Ars Electronica Festival this year by John Maeda - SIMPLICITY is a complex topic that has no single, simple answer. We live in an increasingly complex technological world where nothing works like it is supposed to, and at the end of the day makes all of us hunger for simplicity to some degree. Yet ironically when given the choice of more or less, we are programmed at the genetic level to want more.“Would you like the big cookie or the smaller cookie?” or “Would you like the computer with ten processors or just one?” The choice is simple really, or is it? For the Ars Electronica Symposium on SIMPLICITY we think together about what simplicity (and complexity) means in politics, life, art, and technology. Expect more than you can ever imagine, and less.
One talk in particular that I'm looking forward to will be 'When Cybernetics meets Aesthetics' especially because Jasia Reichardt the curator of the famous exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity held at the ICA in 1968 will be speaking. Below is information on the talk
When Cybernetics Meet Aesthetics is the title of a conference that will bring the revaluation of cybernetics to bear as a potentially decisive contribution to the dialog focused on the necessary redefinition of the status of media art. Can the ever-more-blatant contrasts between the “two cultures” attain convergence in artistic work with media? Can the modern-day “art of complexity” of simulating social networks, natural systems of rules, and the dynamics of feedback effects at work in the economy be understood as cybernetic processes? Which current prospects are opened up by reviewing the theory and practice of the cybernetic art of the 1950s and ‘60s?
August 29th, 2006
P2P highlights the ubiquity of the most basic symbols of the electric age: the household switch and bulb. Significantly situated in a public forum, P2P puts the marquee, a now-ubiquitous and iconic tool of corporate communication, into the hands of the general public. By engaging in the everyday unconscious activity of flipping a light switch, citizens are able to communicate directly, without the oversight of a centralized authority.
125 switches, 125 corresponding bulbs. The public are in control and can flip a switch and instantly see the response, creating any patterns they choose in the hanging marquee. Some enjoy seeing their names in lights, others post expressions of emotion or affiliation. Solo interaction blends with group dynamics as messages are created and changed. Ultimately, P2P encourages dialogue about the use of technology as a communication medium and appropriate limits on public speech.
P2P was created by Matt Gorbet, Rob Gorbet and Susan Gorbet.
August 27th, 2006
Cell Phone Disco is a recent project by the guys at informationlab. They have created a space to experience the invisible body of the mobile phone. Flashing cells basically consist of one or more LEDs, battery and a sensor that detects electromagnetic ( EM ) radiation transmitted by an active mobile phone. When the sensor detects EM waves it sets off the LEDs to flash for a couple of seconds. In general the flashing cells are enclosed in a plastic casing on a strap and sold as a fashion accessory for a mobile phone.
The Cell Phone Disco installation has two parts:
MOBILE AURA Flashing cells with sensors of higher sensitivity are used to detect electromagnetic radiation of active mobile phone in a range of approximately a meter. This way a sort of aura appears around the phone, revealing a part of it's invisible body. While the user moves around talking on his cell phone, this aura follows the conversation as a light shadow through the space.
MOBILE DRAWING Much less sensitive cells are used to create a canvas for an inkless marker. The LEDs get activated only by an extreme proximity of the electromagnetic source. Moving the phone close to the cells therefore leaves a trace of light, an electromagnetic drawing.
via wmmna
August 27th, 2006
Since I'm going Robot crazy this week, I thought I'd show another project from a while back that I really like by another one of my favourite artists, Natalie Jeremijenko .
Feral robotics is an open source robotics project designed to enable distributed and co-located teams of lay participants to 'upgrade' low-end commercially available toys with chemical sensing equipment, additional microprocessor hardware to enable environmental data collection and coordinated flock (or pack) behavior. The adapted robots 'sniff out' environmental toxins, that is, they follow concentration gradients of toxins sensed by their dog's noses. Not dissimilar to popular robot wars events, this project instead involves the release of 'packs' of feral robotic dogs that are designed and modified for release on sites of community interest, including public parks, school grounds and industrial sites. This creates mediagenic events, coverage, and discussion on contaminants in the local environments.
Because the dogs display concentration information through their movement, the exploration engages people who may otherwise find the scientific information illegible.
August 26th, 2006
I thought after a week mainly showing some robotics based projects, I'd post a little about one of my favourite pieces of work by one of my favourite artists, Ken Rinaldo.
Autopoesis 2000
Video
Ken Rinaldo is an artist and theorist who creates interactive multimedia installations that blur the boundaries between the organic and inorganic. He has been working at the intersection of art and biology for over two decades working in the catagories of interactive robotics, biological art, artificial life, interspecies communication, rapid prototyping and digital imaging. Rinaldo teaches interactive robotic sculpture, digital imaging, multimedia and Directs the Art and Technology program in the Department of Art at The Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio.
It consists of fifteen robotic sound sculptures that interact with the public and modify their behaviors over time. These behaviors change based on feedback from infrared sensors, the presence of the participant/viewers in the exhibition and the communication between each separate sculpture. This series of robotic sculptures talk with each other through a computer network and audible telephone tones, which are a musical language for the group. Autopoiesis is "self making", a characteristic of all living systems which was defined and refined by Francisco Varella and Humberto Maturana. The interactivity engages the viewer/participant who in turn, effects the system's evolution and emergence. This creates a system evolution as well as an overall group sculptural aesthetic.
In Autopoiesis the robotic sensors compare their sensor data through a central-state controller, so the viewer is able to walk through the sculptural installation and have the arms interact both individually and as a group. Because each arm has its own on-board computer control, the overall speed of reaction is rapid and therefore, life-like. Local control always supercedes group control when a local sensor is aware of a human nearby. This also allows individual arms to show accuracy and delicacy of approach and avoidance when encountering the viewer/participant. At the tip of two of the arms, lipstick cameras project what they see onto the walls of the space. This gives the viewer/participant a sense of being observed by this artificial life robotic sculpture.
Also see Regine from wmmna's recent interview with Ken Rinaldo
I'll put some more of Kens more recent work up soon
August 25th, 2006
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