User:Eleanorg/1.2/Thematic/Lecture notes 7 Feb

"The Information Machine" (1958) by Charles & ray eames, animations by dolores cannata

"They [computers] process information, so that it can be made meaningful at the human scale"
electronic calculators provide "the broadest possible basis for making decisions" (by making vast amounts of data useable).
Simulation of real situations - provided with "sufficient numerical data", it can become a "working mathematical model [of real events]".
"a tool for turning inspiration into fruitful prediction"

"All About Polymorphics" (1959)

http://www.archive.org/details/AllAboutPolymorphics

Looks at parralel processing as a way of making optimum use of computer resources
Anticipates networking of small parts, a la telephone system - ie internet

"Evolving sonic environment III" by Robert Davis

http://www.haque.co.uk/evolvingsonicenvironment.php

Installation of responsive audio devises, changing behaviour in response to sounds picked up by others on the network

"Money & Speed: Inside the Black Box"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMK7RhnhoU

Documentary on stockmarket trading & data visualisation

See Amsterdam documentary festival: http://doclab.org - for interactive/database documentaries

Storytelling with a series of data visualisations - read thru the statistics to see story evolving.
Example of narrative form emerging from database form

"Invisible Airs" - documentary of YoHa project

yoHa - coal fired computers & memorial piece; engage people with data
Graham harwood - no one knows how to deal with data; it's invisible
yoHa "Invisible Airs" project uses database of all council spending over £500
Experimented with various arduino-controlled contraptions for visualising/embodying expenditure; noticed that people were most engaged with ones that engaged with their bodies
"Things push in on us beyond language, and beyond gesture"
Geert Lovink - "We no longer watch films or TV, we watch databases".

Digital cultures research centre, University UK

DISCUSSIONS

Information overload - open data intitative; 'hiding in plain sight' by releasing everything - vast databases made public give the impression of 'transparency'; but there is so much of it, it's meaningless.
Is there a difference between an archive and a database? Different purposes - archive is for posterity; database is any kind of collection, not necessarily heritage intention. But now, databases become archives (eg data.gov.uk)

Michael M. presentations

studied Interactive Cinema with Gloriana Davenport, fine art background, getting into 'direct cinema'/'cinema verite' - fly-on-the wall cinema
Biography piece of Jerome Weisner, ex-MIT president. Database style grid of possible clips, tagged with different categories.
Interesting to see another example here of ppl busy in the 90s with figuring out how internet search/navigation would work. Makes me think - it's a shame that everyday search is so standardised & dull. Are artists the only ones still interested in making interesting search engines/browsing tools?
Brenda Laurel, 'computers as theatre', Janet Murray - interactive fiction. << Working at the same time in the 90s; assumption that user should have unlimited agency, 'more interaction the better'. Link to Brecht; assumption that 'interaction' with the material equates to meaningful engagement or empowerment.
Lean-back vs lean-forward styles of presenting material - active or passive? << Misleading binary; clicking through 'interactive' archive may not involve thought.
See 'Holodeck' - like Star Trek transporter; plot device to avoid having to deal with transportation/navigation thru database.
See 'lurker' project - subscribe to a mailing list on which a narrative unfolds - like withyou projects.
Project for Dutch Cancer Society, to replace informational CD Rom - 'stack' of browsable clips with tags. Interesting to see this kind of experimental interface proprosed for a practical application like this.
'video grep' - commandline tool for cutting out only the clips from a film that match certain words from the subtitle file, 'on the fly' edit

Active Archives

See slideshow intro here: http://activearchives.org/wiki/Archipel_presentation Demo: http://activearchives.org/demo/

Software for archivists
Based on premise that digital material thrives on re-use: v different from 'freezing' model of traditional archive
Developing model of the archive as a 'browser' rather than a container. HTML5 video makes it easy to embed videos from other servers.
'A tool for writing with video'. Videos are embedded from other servers, and you can annotate them yourself, wiki-style. Annotations can include other embedded images, etc. You can then export your annotation as a subtitle file, if you like.
Artist annotated a bunch of videos, only marking when the moments of silence were. Word 'silence' is made into a tag; click on it to generate an 'automatic playlist', to watch only the silent moments.
Promoting import/export model. Eg - Youtube lets you add subtitles (good for their business model of text indexing) - but you can't export them. 2.0 model of pulling everyone in to one central point. AA 'competes' with Google by indexing things from various sources w/out having to go via their service (other than using their API). Great for cultural institutions, who have expertise to give great 'search results' from their knowledge of small curated collections.
Walks the line between maintaining your own independent infrastructure, while still making use of commercial servers.
'cache' feature to retreive & download the film if it's taken off youtube for whatever reason (how does this work? where is it stored?)
Use the Pzwart install at http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/aa/
Encouraging institutions to host their own material; archivists understand fragility of storage infrastructure