Category Archives: looking-outwards

pedro

20 Apr 2015

I hold my last LO post to find interesting works that are related to my current interests for the final projects.

First, I’ll talk about an interest on agents as a platform for creativity that emerged in my first LO and also unfolded in my data viz proposal – in which I try to de-contextualize buildings and make them behave micro-organisms under a microscope.

In this context, I discovered a series of workshops called The Abyss, by Andreas Gysin, which took place between 2011 and 2012. Not only the workshops produced a very interesting result but also Gysin stated a very smart pedagogical approach to engage different students with different skill sets in a shared experiment. During a workshop session, each student can develop a customized kind of micro-organism life-form with its own behaviours. In the end, all these micro-organisms would share the same space in a kind of ecosystem. What is interesting is that this pedagogical approach allows the emergence of unexpected situations in 2 levels. It provides a good degree of freedom to the development of agents, so each student can do completely different stuff. Furthermore, even if you know the agents, their interaction in a common environment could also ensure the emergence of novelty.

The second topic that I will address is not directly related to IACD course, but to my general interest in spatial arrangements. I am interested in using bubbles as a support for spatial exploration. Particularly, I am interested in the capacity of a flexible bubble to behave as an agent and also to adapt to the adjacent boundaries. This extrapolates agency and takes me to physical simulation. I couldn’t find advanced projects in this area, so I will show two videos of small experiments.

The first is a processing arrangement of 2d blob-like cells that adapt to their context.

Looking for the name of the author (Muehl Seife), I found this blog with a variety of projects with swarms and particles. Paricularly, I find the Interactive Swarm really provocative. WIth the support of correlations library the author developed a bubble attraction field for swarms that the user can customize in real time.

I think these different agent-based techniques (combined with some basic physical simulation) could be used for design exploration. In particular, these systems could be embedded with an enough amount of intelligence to explore new spatial patterns.

Yeliz Karadayi

18 Apr 2015

“Being the Machine: Reconfiguring Agency and Control in Hybrid Fabrication” by Laura Devendorf, Kimiko Ryokai. 2015

Great paper about a few ways to automate analog creation. Projectors can map out lines showing where to place objects, anything from candy to grass, to build models. This is a much freer version of prototyping, allowing for a high level of control regarding the materials. The process is limited however in the steps taken, as you have to hit ‘next’ for every next instruction from the application outputting to the projector. Hmm.

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“CreoPop Pen” by CreoPop

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VERSUS

“Lix Pen” by Lix

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Well, this is a tough one, so I’m going to get BOTH! WHY? Because after watching both videos I see they both have imperfections but benefits. You see, the Lix pen is slick and small. Also, the Lix works with 1.75 mm plastic, which incidentally I ordered a lot of last semester and never put to use. So…I kind of need the Lix to make my purchase of a LOT of 1.75 ABS plastic worth it. Also it being smaller makes it an attractive choice as an attachment to the existing pen as to not get in the way of the movements and hurt your hand as you hold it like the 3Doodler is doing to my hand in the current experiments with my project.

On the other hand, the CreoPen oozes “future” for me. UV-drying polymer? Multiple material capability? Glow in the dark? MAGNETIC? Sign me up. Actually, I already signed myself up. For pre-order. The Lix isn’t available for order yet so I’ll get that when it comes out. But I’ve got good feelings about the CreoPen for its new printing method, and I suspect it will have more rigid models than the Lix which seems more suited for very fine drawings on 2D and less refined for wire-frames. The point is, I don’t know enough about either pen, and they’re both enticing enough, and I have the means to get both, so I should. Woohoo!

Amy Friedman

13 Apr 2015

3d Scanning

Londons Abandoned Underground Mail Rail Network

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I dont know if this is as much an innovative project, but the other week UK-Scan ScanLab Project was called to create a 3d scan of the tunnels, which were abandoned in 2003, to help create images of their current state. A museum honoring the postal system is being created, and the tunnels will be trains to gain access to the museum. The resolution is impressive of the scanlabs as the article states you can see the abandons offices, even dart boards that were left. This project can exemplifies information we dont know, but can gain access to. In movies we see intruders scanning the room or using heat maps to see where people may be located, but 3d scanning allows you to understand the spatial relations and even what is in the space and where. With resolution this high it will be impressive to see what is found, or what can be scanned. The only issue is the 3d scan looks as though it x-rays through a building, but people must understand you need to be in the space to 3d scan, it can uncover unknown secrets.

Human Scanning by Marshmallow Laser Feast 

For the Memex music video by Duologue, they utilized a 3d scan of actor Beryl Nesbitt. The entire video is close ups of the 3d scanned body, and the imaging is very realistic. This video begins to blur what is real and what is a scan, how can we tell the difference in the long run when 3d scans are having high quality resolution. What does the future hold, and can 3d scans be used to manipulate other videos or falsify advertisements? What if they used 3d scanning to create false messages in political advertisements?

dsrusso

06 Apr 2015

NAVIGATION USING POINTING GESTURES // ROBOSOFT FRANCE

 

KINECT LASER GUN // JUNGLETRONICS

chen

31 Mar 2015

Nomis is a musical instrument to create loop based music. It uses light and sensor installations to become more expressive.

Jonathan Sparks, the artist created Nomis, used Ableton, Max MSP, and Arduino to implement his idea.

I think the significant drawback of this instrument is the limited keys, and I still trying to figure out how it used only several keys to produce a complete music work.

Except for that, this instrument is fascinating. And I like the idea to implement loops like this.

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Music Boox is also a loop creator and it uses a book cover as its disguise. Songs were transferred by punching holes in the paper loop.