User:Markvandenheuvel/project proposal

First Version: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/mark-project-outline

Second Version: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/mark-project-outline-def

Proposal:

PROJECT PROPOSAL

INTRODUCTION

Before modern networking technologies such as WI-FI and Bluetooth were present, people came up with methods and techniques to modulate data into sound in order to interchange digital information. By encoding binary data and high frequency signals into sound waves within the audible spectrum of the human hearing range, it became possible to store all kinds of digital information on the same consumer media formats that were used for music recording at the time such as audio cassette tapes, vinyl records, and flexi-discs. Since these media offered the opportunity for audio playback, people started experimenting with broadcasting data such as software and images over the radio. <1,2>

Because these methods and standards were created under limitations technological conditions – the internet was not yet commercially available and simple programs took a long time to load – they were quite inventive and required some physical operation. The act of capturing, archiving, processing (loading) software and images created a close relationship to the materiality of data, its source, and carrier. These methods quickly became obsolete when floppy disks were introduced which could hold a lot more data. Later in the early '90s when the internet started to enter people's homes via dial-up modems and phone lines, the modulation process started to become more concealed. With the introduction of ADSL lines and wifi, the audible traces of data modulation got lost.

In my project, I will research obsolete methods and processes of data modulation by reappropriating them and implementing them into modern frameworks. In today's wide range of networking options, I believe the affordances and value of these obsolete methods such as KCS (Kansas City Standard) and SSTV (Slow Scan Television) are still relevant. Although they are still being used by smaller groups of low-tech enthusiasts: KCS is still used today to recover archived data that was stored on cassettes and SSTV is still being used to broadcast images from the ISS over short band radio waves. Here, I am interested in the meaning of this anachronism that emerges when using low-tech methods in today's context media landscape and publishing.

PRACTICAL WORK & OUTPUT

I will be mainly working with methods that focus on the networking possibilities to transfer data over sound. The practical work I want to produce can be divided into 3 parts:

1. In the first part of my work, the goal is to create a technological networking/broadcasting workflow that uses both old and new methods of modulating data in the audible spectrum that can encode and decode audible data signals. This can be in the form of self-hosted Raspberry Pi (or invading and misuse an existing media platform such as Spotify) where people are invited to physically interact. An IRC (Internet Relay Chat) bot will be giving instructions, receiving input, and sending output. Here, the visitor can use their phone to physically capture and encode data that is being sent over sound. To expose the inner workings, I will create an interface that provides insight by revealing this process. The Pi will materialise output through speakers, text, and images for instance through a line-printer, etc.

2. I will make a physical hybrid (post-digital) publication that can hold sound, music, text, images, and code. This further investigates the meaning of certain media when it's between formats. In the publication, I will elaborate on the theoretical side of my practical research. This can function as a manual, reference book, etc. To decide what form this will take, I will research earlier artistic multimedia publications such Aspen Box <4> which contained various media such as texts, flexi-discs, cassettes, etc. (Think about a flexi-disc that plays an image feed that comes with a text.)

3. A part of the publication can also be performed live as an interactive audio-visual piece where the audience is invited to participate.

PUBLIC

The audience I am aiming for are people that not familiar with the method of networking and these particular methods of KCS and SSTV. And if they are, the artistic research will hopefully think about these processes and affordances otherwise. To reach my audience, I will make a public website with resources and create a moment the publication is presented and the performance is taking place. I think this will develop into a format for a workshop since I believe this information and experience could be valuable for students that are not familiar with these processes.

WHY (ASSUMPTION ALERT!!!!)

Due to rapid technological developments, the technologies we use every day are becoming more and more hidden in slick 'black boxes'. To not bother the everyday consumer with the complex processes that happen within the device, computational and networking processes become less visible and audible. While there is a need for faster network connections, this project will provide insight by offering a slow alternative. <5>

In contrary to the planned obsolescence we face today <6>, old technological consumer devices such as the first home computers in the '80s and '90s were built to last, designed to open up, and modify (upgrade) to certain needs of the user. When it was broken, it could be fixed. This created a sense of agency and autonomy and a close relationship to the materiality of the computational processes. Next to sound, working with textual material such as command-line interfaces also contributed to this since these are signs of mediation between the user and material. (interface)

I believe it's important to reconnect with the material side of these processes that surround us. By combining, changing carriers, and media a new meaning and insight can arise. This 'misusing' or revisiting the obsolete can be used as a method. <7> I am particularly interested in researching what meaning emerges when digital data is transferred to an analog process or medium with an eye on the future <3>. The deconstruction, the analog translation process of recording, broadcasting by amplification can distort the encoding/decoding process.

METHOD

First, I will have a deeper look into the standards that were used to store and data as sound to get a better understanding of their historical context, technological method and under what circumstances and needs they were used. For this I selected a couple of some 'obsolete' methods that are still being used today in various ways. The following standards caught my interest since they cover all a broad range of my research interests:

SSTV

SSTV or Slow scan Television – originally invented as an analog method in the late 60's but accessible to the public in the early 90s when the custom radio equipment was replaced by PC software – is a protocol for sending images over audio frequencies. The sound holds the information of what color where to place, line by line. This way, the image is slowly generated when decoding the audio in real-time. This method is still used today by the HAM amateur radio community for sending and collecting images. Next to that, the International Space station (ISS) still sends images to planet earth this way.

Note: Coming from a graphic design background, the 'amateuristic' design standards for adding broadcasting information to the images is very interesting to look into. Next to that, the way SSTV generates images is closely related to the material process of digital printing on paper.

KCS

KCS (Kansas City Standard) was used to convert code (in the form of ASCII text) into sound so it could be stored on media such as magnetic tape but became also suitable to broadcast over radio. This way, it data became more easily interchangeable. KSC is still being used today to restore large quantities of archival material that was stored on magnetic tape. There are other standards that are closely related to this standard. KCS was an attempt to standardise (For instance, the Commodore 64 had its own method however this was very much prone to errors.)

All these processes have in common that encoding and decoding from an audio signal. The audible material that can be used as input and output can contain images, sound, code, and text. So there are various ways to create new meaning by changing the material and even experiment with parallel processes. I will prototype and explore the affordances and meaning that arises.

Note 1: While already mentioned above, I see potential in working withy audio tape again. From the materialising aspect storing digital information on analog medium is very interesting. This method of data storage is currently being reinvented in CERN to store large quantities of computational data. Magnetic tape seems more sustainable, prone to decay and store much more data than hard-drives when RAM (Random Acces memory) isn't directly needed. <8>

Note 2: I also see a relation to 1-bit sound: I need to contextualise and research more if this can have a profound relation. Or it might just be a cover to add music to interface of my project.

TIME LINE

The materials I will work with is SSTV and KCS tools and scripts, a sound-card, speakers, computer (probably a Raspberry Pi because of the portable property). I will be looking into available tools for encoding and decoding that follow the standards I proposed and test them in new workflows. in these prototypes, I will pay close attention to new parallel combinations between methods that can arise. I will also look into the ways to broadcast and receive signals in real-time and explore ways to implement existing Python scripts in the background and make this process visibly using tools like Terminado. An important aspect I need to research what the role of accessing it online will be. Maybe physical interaction is always required.

Since a lot of tools are cross platforms, I will need to decide what tools I will be using since it can be a limitation since I don't yet have the knowledge to write full custom programs myself (YET). While DIY projects and resources can be found online, they are not so much used in artistic research to be critical of our everyday processes. In december, I will decide which prototypes match my criteria the most and produce the most interesting meaning when mixing up contexts and media carriers.

In the Py.Rate.Chnc I will monitor how participants interact with the deconstructing objects, record sound and convert images to audible data. I am also interested to see how people will interact with the magnetic tape and creating loops. Next to that, the participants are invited to produce sonic fiction when deconstructing objects.

People who can help me: - Dennis de Bel & Roel Roskam Abbing - Joseph Oliver Anton Knierzinger (joak) - Gijs Gieskes - Danja Vasiliev - Tutors: Marloes de Valk, Aymeric Mansoux, Michael Murtaugh, Manetta Berends

MOTIVATION

Being a teacher and working with a 'younger' generation, I have noticed a lack of understanding the technological devices and methods they use all the time. A lot of them don't have a clue what processes are running all the time and have the notion how dependent they are on it. Until recently, I was one of those people. When starting XPUB, working with UNIX, Arduino and FLOSS made me more critical on the software, tools and workflows I used and how they shaped my thinking. This reactivated a sense of autonomy and critical awareness over the technologies we use today. It made me wonder if we (and the next generation of artists and designers) want to be a passive consumer, rely on the choices and politics of big tech industry.

EARLIER WORK

In trimester 1 I experimented with reappropriating low-tech combining them with modern features. Here I focused on exposing inner workings and provided an insight in the affordances of combining analog and digital sound and the changing meaning of the material when in between formats. In trimester 2 I made typographic drawings of online publishing systems that provided an insight in the structure of these networks. I also researched the meaning of print and value of physical media in a post-digital framework today. In Trim 3, I collaborated on a self-hosted broadcasting radio platform and created new workflows that allowed image and video implementation.

RELATED TO LARGER CONTEXT

Five Principles of Zombie Media - Garnet Hertz & Jussi Parikka Computer Eats Art - Erkki Kurenniemi Sound Design for Affective Interaction - Bresisn & DeWitt Silbo Gomero: Whisteling language Canary Islands (UNESCO cultural heritage)

The topics I am adressing are digital materialism <9>, the affordances of networking over sound, media archaelology as a method to critically reflect the technologies we use today <10>, regaining autonomy and active human agency <11>.

REFERENCES

<1> Kaushik, P. (2020). People Once Downloaded Games From The Radio. [online] Amusingplanet.com. Available at: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/04/people-once-downloaded-games-from-radio.html [Accessed 12 November 2020]. <2> 8-Bit Show And Tell. (2017) 35-Year-Old Commodore 64 Easter Egg Hidden On Vinyl. 19 October. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_CZpFqvDQo (Accessed: 12 November 2020). <3> Nesfield, J. (2020). Sending Data Over Sound: How And Why?. [online] Electronic Design. Available at: <https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-automation/article/21808186/sending-data-over-sound-how-and-why> [Accessed 12 November 2020]. <4> Wikipedia. (2020). Aspen (magazine). [online] Available at:<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_(magazine)> [Accessed 12 Nov. 2020]. <5> Schneider, N., 2020. Slow Computing. [online] America Magazine. Available at: <https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/slow-computing> [Accessed 12 November 2020]. <6> Parikka, J. (2015): A Geology of Media, Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. <7> Hertz, Garnet & Parikka, Jussi. (2012). Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an Art Method. Leonardo. 45. 10.1162/LEON_a_00438. <8> Lantz, M., 2020. Why The Future Of Data Storage Is (Still) Magnetic Tape. [online] IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News. Available at: <https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/why-the-future-of-data-storage-is-still-magnetic-tape> [Accessed 12 November 2020]. <9> Casemajor, N., 2015. Digital Materialisms: Frameworks for Digital Media Studies. Westminster Papers in Culture and Communication, 10(1), pp.4-17. <10> Parikka, Jussi. “New Materialism as Media Theory: Medianatures and Dirty Matter.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 9.1 (March 2012): 95-100. Print and Web. <11> http://digicults.org/. 2020. Technological Materiality and Assumptions About ‘Active’ Human Agency. [ONLINE] Available at: http://digicults.org/files/2016/11/III.1-Bollmer_2015_Technological-materiality.pdf. [Accessed 11 November 2020].

OTHER RESOURCES:

-Kansas City Standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_standard -Slow scan Television: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-scan_television -Katherine Hayles - Writing Machines -The Sound Studies Reader - edited by JONATHAN STERNE -More Brilliant than the sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction - Kodwo Eshun