User:Themsen/SDR-7

What has been done so far

• [TRIM1] Artificial Voice Expriment 1
• [TRIM3] Artificial Voice Experiment 2
• Mushroom Sketches
• WAT Collection: The Distortions of Transition

Developing Interests

TRIM1

• Technically:

Trim1: In the first trimester I focused more on the play with digital media using unconventional yet simple methods for getting my message across. I was more interested in learning than doing, I nonetheless made some memorable presentations like "Skype & Cigarettes". But I felt uncomfortoble in my simple approaches to media, even though they were fun they didn't have a conceptual frame. What I made were merely manipulations on the physical sphere through the digital (for example, our perception of communication in 'Skype & Cigarettes', and our perception of space in 'Virtual Kidnapping').

• Conceptually:

There was no real cohesion between my work and the goal of finding a focus. What I made ('Skype and Cigarettes' to a lesser degree) did not feel grounded in a larger theoretical frame, which I wanted it to be. I also wanted to make a larger project where I could collect my media exercises into a coherent model, but my media experiments seemed so seperate, so far apart that I couldn't begin to imagine how I would make a collection. I found an interest in the concept of "Societies of Control" by Deleuze as it had similarities with ideas I'd investigated in my bachelor thesis (a structuring of 'free' space, feedback loops).When Annette suggested Insect Media I tied my basic interests in cybernetic theory with a darker atmosphere of unescapable control.

TRIM2

• Technically:

With the photobook exercise I began to work more with a solid narrative, literally. I found that making what was physical, a photobook, but connected to the virtual was a fresh breath of air. I had such big ideas for how I was going to do it! I wanted to create a narrative, what developed into Media Blight, which was both grounded in the physical and the digital; the photobook as printed media with a message about what the digital 'actually' was (according to the fictional Media Blight narrative).

• Conceptually:

But something kept me from doing work, I began to doubt myself; whether I could actually do this; and this doubt went from a nuisance in the middle of trimester 2 to a full-on paralysis at the end. I could not put my thoughts in text without immediately coming up with a 'better' alternative that would save me. As time went on I spent more and more time on trying to order my ideas, focusing on one thing, which was a lost cause and it consumed all my energy. The ideas were too large, and remained too vague to put into a larger context. My doubt spread to other areas of my life until I was completely cocooned in doubt. I was afraid of telling you tutors that I didn't know what I was doing, but, of course everyone noticed. I was insecure, and so I took to stubborn pride as I suppose I thought I could solve it myself.

TRIM3

• Technically:

At the beginning of Trimester 3 I was hard-pressed to regain coherency as the 'Networked Image' course had come to an end, and because of my computer (a piece of crap Windows), and my aversion to code (ironically, an aversion I wanted to overcome through Michael's classes, but I was too distracted). Now I realize that my drawing practice, and my interest in studying mycellia can only work as a support for my play with media. Traditional drawing and digital media are too far apart for me, according to what I've experienced.

• Conceptually:

Networked societies and networked mushrooms as analogies for each other might be closer, but I've found more analogies with insects and society in current literature than I have with mushrooms. And so, the analogy becomes mute. I also realize that I should depend on forming ideas which relate to my work, rather than first collecting ideas into concepts (a bad habit I took from my drawing practice), to make it easier for myself (concepts consist of ideas -right?). I was trying to focus on hobbies and I ended up banging my head against the wall. This has affected my practice and my studies, and has taken alot of energy. I have split my brain again, and my only concern is with collecting the bits again.

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Individual Research Work

The research I've done has mainly involved the attempt to cultivate and to study mushrooms, a small tour into the art and study of cybernetics & second degree cybernetics, art and studies involving evolutionary algorithms and their use, a short article on integrating human neurons onto computer chips, art pieces critical towards media- and machine culture. I will continue studying art pieces critical towards media and machine culture, and also cybernetics.

Mycology/Technology

• Neighbour-Sensing User Manual, D. Moore: [[1]]

Evolutionary Algorithms

• Evolutionary Visual Art and Design, M.Lewis: [[2]]
• Bioinspired Evolutionary Algorithm Based for Improving Network Coverage in Wireless Sensor Networks: [[3]] (not very useful)

Media

• Conways Game of Life: [[4]] (simple Evolutionary Algorithm game using 4 rules to simulate cellular life)
• Electric Sheep [[5]] (a screensaver using distributed calculation of equations to create samples for evolutionary algorithms)
• Oxidizer for Mac: [[6]] (program using rendering of fractal flames through variable values)
• The Electric Sheep and their Dreams in High Fidelity: [[7]] (goes deeper into what Electricsheep actually is.)

Biopolitics

• Insect Media, Jussi Parikka: [[8]] (politics and technology using insect metaphores to design and describe society and technology)

Biotechnology

• Researchers get neurons and silicon talking: [[9]] (seeing if I could allow mycelium to interact with machines)
• Cultivation requirements and substrate degradation of the edible mushroom Gymnopilus Pampeanus - A novel species for mushroom cultivation, M.Colavolpe, E. Alberto: [[10]] (to investigate the scientific method of studying mushrooms)

Cybernetics

• Book Review on 'The Soft Machine: Cybernetic Fiction by David Porush', Kevin. L. Cope: [[11]] (I'll look up this book)
• An Introduction to Cybernetics, W.R. Ashby: [[12]] (I'll continue with this one)

Big Baby Web

Concept: The Monitorial Citizen

Monitorial citizens tend to be defensive rather than proactive…. The monitorial citizen engages in environmental surveillance more than information gathering. They are not gathering information; they are keeping an eye on the scene. They look inactive but they are poised for action if action is required. The monitorial citizen is not an absentee citizen but watchful, even while he or she is doing something else. (Michael Schudson)

What: Distorting a tweet through a web of listening and talking baby dolls. The networking artifacts create a noisy result much like the game 'Chinese Whispers'.

Tools

1. Twitter acc @BigBabyHears (input)
2. Text-to-speech application
3. Small Speaker to record in intervals or on command(arduino?)
4. Small Recorder to record in intervals or on command(arduino?)
5. Speech-to-text application
6. Twitter acc @BigBabySays (output)

How: Using twitter, and amplified audio distortion by feeding artificial sound from one computer to the other. The physical space becomes the interruption as visitors add more noise by their presence, or through direct action: by talking to- or around the installation. The initial sound is created artificially from a tweet post fed into a text-to-speech interpreter. The main (middle) baby of the network speaks what the speech-to-text interprets. It is then recorded and respoken by the two closest babies in the network, and so forth. With each artificial recording and speech the message becomes more distant as it reaches the outskirts. At the outskirts of the network the last four babies record the second-to last babies' speech and then send it onto a speech to text application on a desktop computer. The message then returns to its original form, in text, but distorted.

Why: The way we connect is through our hands -our keyboard and mouse- and we tend to stay connected quite extensively these days. The custom of connectivity has become part of our culture, perhaps out of complacency? Or out of naivety. The baby dolls express the naivety and artificiality with which we can't help conducting ourselves on the web. In many cases, like babes, we react to our environment according to our own reality. The vastness of the web goes beyond what we can manage, and so what we do with this potential may seem like childs' play.

When the outside world seems like noise, artificiality can be very comforting.

Influences

• Jean Tinguely: [[13]]

Jean has a passion for uncovering the alternate functions of machines, and through that knowledge he makes art which speaks to the world not on words, but in mechanical action and inaction.

• Jon Kessler - The Web: [[14]]

His style reminds me very much of my own way of building and forming physical objects. They have a kind of make-shifty character to them; what I need to do is make them as aesthetically pleasing as my drawings (even though some of them might not be considered aesthetic, or even counter-aesthetic, like Giger's).

• Alvin Lucier - I'm sitting in a room [[15]]

Mock-up

1. Tweet in Twitter
2. Copy tweet to Text to Speech
3. Speech while recording on phone
4. Record recording, while interrupting
5. Record recording, while interrupting
6. Record recording, while interrupting
7. Speak recording into Speech to Text
8. Copy & Tweet text

First Draft and Dummy

Draft Sketch

Dummy (Hung on ceiling)