SITEspecific

Real Story Time Bus Blog

2006-05-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone this is the link to my site for my final. enjoy. and please give me feedback if you have time. http://dada.cca.edu/~ahy/

cheers,
alvin

My website

2006-04-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

http://dada.cca.edu/~wabbott/

W

I need your CELL PHONE NUMBERS!

2006-04-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

In case you didn't get my email, I am collecting cell phone numbers in preparation for my final project presentation. Please post them as comments, or email me at:

sacohen@cca.edu

Thanks so much, and good luck finishing your work!

Sarah

mobile phone booth

2006-04-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

dada.cca.edu/~smurray/

Globbing

2006-04-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

www.jacobalanwhite.com/dos_pinas.html

Link for now.

2006-04-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

http://homepage.mac.com/justinhallman/clp/
content will change over the weekend.

Steve's new webpage

2006-04-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Here is mine:

http://dada.cca.edu/~sshogan/indexsshogan.htm

new webpage_ania

2006-04-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

http://dada.cca.edu/~awagner/

WIP

2006-04-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

Im still working on it, but here's my url.
There's a diagram and some data up right now.

http://dada.cca.edu/~dgonzales/

okbuh

Final Project Proposal_The Re:Project

2006-04-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

http://pomo.cca.edu/~sacohen/thereproject/home.html

in process

2006-04-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

my flash website is still in progress, but here's a gif to give you a sense of what it will look like:

https://people.cca.edu/jkleinman/main.gif

openingNetWorks

2006-04-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

http://pomo.cca.edu/~npitney/networks/

smile?

2006-04-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

patrick's final project

web site

2006-04-26T03:10:00.000-07:00

http://dada.cca.edu/~awagner/ania.html

enjoy. ania

uploading web page

2006-04-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

I got a couple of question about posting today. I can help people tomorrow after class if they need it

yes I will actually be there.

powerpoint tip

2006-04-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

I know there is a setting to disable slide animation, you make have accidently clicked that?

look at this web site http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/Publishing_files/v3_document.htm.
it may help.

moving gifs

2006-04-23T00:04:00.000-07:00

Hey Jacob, I put moving gifs on my ppt/web page, and they don't play when the web site shows up. Is there anything I should pre-set to have them move when I the page opens online? Thanks
Steve

blogger mobile

2006-04-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

A few of you are interested in using SMS messaging and blogs. Although I am sure there is other software out there, posting to a blog from your cell phone is supported in blogger. Check out the blogger mobile FAQ for more details.

The Re:Project

2006-04-12T14:06:00.001-07:00

To help with my final project, will all of you, upon experiencing a moment of deja vu, please email me, or comment to this posting? Let me know the location (address OR intersection) as well as any relevant words describing whether your experience was visual, emotional, geographical, or felt (the latter being the most common). Thanks!

Sarah
thereproject@ipipi.com
http://pomo.cca.edu/~sacohen/thereproject/home.html

Connectivity Personas

2006-04-10T11:56:00.000-07:00

It seems as though our only way of identifying our own levels of connectivity is five bars, a simple and generic that nestles itself in the upper corner of everyone's phone. Hertzian spaces are signaled only when connectivity is lost, often times when it is too late, and calls are dropped.
Through flash animations and a series of mapping techniques, indivisble landscapes can be created, and then reflected in the individuality of a cell phone or a PDA. Certain zones that are discovered will be emitted in these animations, and a dynamic that exceeds a five bar system will be seen. Though triggering certain animations to coincide with connectivity is not yet possible (it requires a lot of collaboration with GPS, the service, etc, etc..), examples of this dynamic will be exhibited on PDAs.

final project status

2006-04-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

So the only major change i'm making to my project is figuring out how i can create a catalogue of comments people make about the projected work. I've been researching keywording, which I think will be the way to go.

Urban Encounters: derives from Surrealism

2006-04-10T01:01:00.000-07:00

David Pinder

Urban Encounters: derives from Surrealism

Debord developed a map called ‘The Naked City’ in 1957. He cut out areas of interest from a typical geographical map and constructed a new one with the selected pieces, leaving blank space between each piece. The cut-outs are connected by red arrows to show people’s movement from one selected area to the next. This map simply shows which areas were occupied by people and how people move between those areas in Paris during 1957.

By creating this map, Debord tries to show the interaction of people in a particular time and space. He would observe a single street or a single block and try to convey the feeling of the space, culture, and philosophical idea behind the physical space through his arrows on the map. The map shows the connection, tension, and juxtaposition of the cutout spaces and gives a sense of how the city actually functioned in that period.

Debord’s map is important because it presents a different way of thinking about the meaning behind a physical space. He represents the non-physical space of a city and emphasizes people’s movement and density. Debord chose to simplify the concept of a map by representing one or two significant aspects only, and to explain a non-physical part of the city. This makes the map more important and easy to understand.

My question is how can we explain non-physical and abstract elements using the tools that we learn in the class.

/ city lights project . working title /

2006-04-09T23:09:00.000-07:00

I have not yet figured out how to respond to the comments that I received in class. I don't want to just make a tech demo, and even if I did, I wouldn't know how. Onward...this is what I presented last week, cleaned up a bit.

"
This is a simple idea. Similar to other projects discussed, it is interested in live public expressions of the mood of the inhabitants of an environment. Unlike other projects which filter moods as sight and/or sound into a central destination showing only a single aggregated value, this project would essentially leave the data where it is gathered. The mood in anyone one place is shown by the coloration of the lights above where it is measured — a different color for every condition, immediately visible to the inhabitants nearby.

Data gathered using wireless technology and hypothetical sensors in common digital devices like cell phones and PDAs is anonymously transmitted to nearby listening lights which then compare the new data with gathered data and adjust the the coloring, intensity, and possibly the strobing of the light as necessary.
"

All comments are helpful.

Social Thinker

2006-04-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

Jwhite project

The Social-Thinker
Eduardo Kac writes: “Dialogic art employs media that enables real dialogues, electronic art is uniquely suited to explore and develop a radical (literally) dialogical aesthetics.” I am planning on making a (literally) dialogic web encyclopedia. Even the most “dialogic” hypertext (like Wikipedia) presents it self as static, truths and is still very “monologic.” We need to draw inspiration from our lived experiences and build web media that reflect this.

I want to continue to further investigate how social acts (like drinking) can be re-used. And how to compose a digital expereince that more accurately reflects an urban one. My project is hybrid of a probe and an intervention. It not only uses ubiquitous technologies like Wifi and cell phone networks to augment an experience it questions the outcome of doing so.

The 180x120 and Jetsam projects from Urban Atmospheres (Eric Paulos) are two projects that augment everyday in “meaningful and playful ways”

Why the Bar?
One, The bar is what Eric Paulos would call a third space, one that isn’t work or home. I find it unique because it is both apart of and an escape from the urban day to day.

Two, The bar is space of socialization. Not lonely computing. It is a space of multiple viewpoints and conversation. The bar is not an apparent member of Hertzian space, Laptops are not common in the bar, like the café or the park.

Third it provides a very everyday transfer and debate of knowledge, and I believe provides an excellent model of dialog in an urban environment.

Class Project
For the puropose of the site specific class I will focus on these last points, and create an experience that will test these thoughts. Can I co-opt the experience of the bar and turn it into the controls of creation?

http://www.semapedia.org/

2006-04-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

"Our goal is to connect the virtual and physical world by bringing the best information from the internet to the relevant place in physical space.

We do this by combining the physical annotation technology of Semacode with high quality information from Wikipedia"

http://www.semapedia.org/

Cerari and Smithson Readings

2006-04-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

Francesco Cerari "Anti-walk"

How the futurists attempted to capture movement in one image is similar to the challenges locative media artists face in capturing the essence of the Hertzian landscape – How do you think such images will come into fruition? (Donnie – I think this relates a lot to your final project).

I think though what distinguishes locative and new media though is the idea that it directly intervenes with the urban environment, unlike the futurists who remained removed. Walter Benjamin hit it on the nose when he described the Parisian walk and how it relates directly to time and space, unlike the canvas or the sculpture.

So then in regards to the unconscious walk, meander, or drift, is the experience more about the place or more about the person?

Robert Smithson, "A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic New Jersey"

The monumentality of objects that are representative of decay or the questioning of our conventional understanding of monumentality seems to be at the heart of Smithson’s image capturing tour. I really appreciated how he perceived the “retired” quality of objects in the landscape and the irreversibility of their current state.

Besides time, what are other subjective means of defining monumentality?

beating jeans

2006-03-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

link to audio of Motley fool interview with
Charles Fishman Author of 'Wal-Mart Effect'

Note the story about the "Beating Jeans"

The Motley Fool, March 24, 2006 · Wal-mart is a business with 1.6 million employees in the United States alone. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. And more than half of all Americans live within 5 miles of a Wal-mart store. David Gardner talks about the big, big business of Wal-mart with Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works -- and How It's Transforming the American Economy.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5301103

Eric's Projects

2006-03-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

Here are a few links to the projects Eric showed in class:
Street Stripes with Memory
Yellow Chair
Life Theater Project

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces

2006-03-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

For those of you that were interested in finding out more about the video that Eric showed, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William H. Whyte is available on DVD from Direct Cinema Limited. There is also a book available.

RFID virus

2006-03-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

BBC article on tampered databases

Reading Paulos

2006-03-15T12:05:00.001-08:00

What I gather, overall, from these articles and Eric Paulos' works is an overarching sense of rationality. By this I mean that he is proposing, creating, and hoping to implement projects that seems doable. He has not just grabbed onto an idealistic notion of an improbable tool to explore social/urban interactions, but set up a state of mind combined with a medium to actually address the issues he has talked about. I appreciate very much the attention paid to the limitations of his projects - what social gaps they bridge, and what areas of social discomfort to poke at.

With this said, I wonder about how his Jaberwockie program is actually used by people. Is it used as a tool to simply support existing notions of personal space by internally reflecting on who you encounter? Or are people actually acknowledging their familiar strangers by a nod of the head, or a knowing glance? Are people more likely to ask a familiar stranger for the time because of this program? I see how it can be intersting in order to just see who I may pass each day on my usual route, but in terms of actually overcoming the already prevalent anti-social, technology ridden city, I do not fully see how users are encouraged to overcome these issues by just knowing who s/he has passed more often than others.

Paulos Readings

2006-03-14T15:20:00.000-08:00

There is only one major comment I have about both readings which has to do with the notion of work and how in both pieces Eric referenced the workplace as a starting place for emerging technologies. I'm curious how this idea correlates with the idea of public and private that we have been discussing. I'm also curious how over time the idea of the workplace as a catalyst for innovation may change. This is especially so with younger generations who experience technology at home and at school so much more so than we did.

site of interest.

2006-03-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

http://infosthetics.com/

Intervention: Probes

2006-03-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

Of most interest to me in the experiments of Eric Paulos & Tom Jenkins is the incorporation of time into the mapping techniques they have employed.

With Jabberwocky, the accumulation of encounters with other Bluetooth enabled devices builds a database of passive interactions with others in the urban environment. The intervention works to reinforce the existence of the phenomenon of Familiar Strangers, but stops there. Paulos acknowledges that, "we are therefore not interested designing a friend finder or matchmaking tool." To me, that is problematic. How do others feel that Jabberwocky could be improved upon? I recognize that that is what Paulos is calling for (a platform from which future works can build upon), but I still feel as though the experiment stopped short.

I found the discussion of Urban Probes to be exciting in incorporating the desire to quickly gather a data-set from which to design urban interventions. Paulos states, "This research investigation must begin before urban inhabitants acquire strong mental models and expectations from the current emerging suite of standardized urban applications." This is where projects like Jabberwocky need to be quickly deployed so that they may be incorporated into the learning curve as these technologies become more widely adapted.

Familiar Strangers: Socializing or Surveillancing?

2006-03-12T17:53:00.000-08:00

Do you think that the urban computing provides more free space to have social interaction with familiar strangers? Does this new computing device generates awarness and anxiety in individuals' surroundings? And does this social computing intrude personal privacy? If the public space become a place of survelliance, do you think is save to know someone's identity that you are not familiar with? In Eric Paulo's article Our Emgerging Urban Computer Landscape: Familiar Strangers, his research investigates how this future fabric of digital and wireless computing will influence, disrupt, expand and be integrated into the social patterns existent within our public urban landscape. In the author's opinion, people reach for their mobile phone that decreases the chance of social interaction with individuals outside the social group. The "face-to-face" culture has become less popular, but rather the "face-to-monitor" culture becomes a new identity in urban environment. Nevertheless, the emergence of mobile phone uses brings more oppotunity into acceptable social contacts with strangers. More cautiously, this very essence of individual and community and urban spaces depends on the existance of strangers. Eric Paulo reveils Jackerwocky and Urban Probes as the experiments to explore out the social relationship between individuals. What unknown resources will the individuals get? If the objective of Jackberwocky is on "digital scents" and "digital tagging", what affects will produce in term of socializing? What is/are the advantage or disadvantage? If a stranger is being tagged or being labelled, is that stranger inside a enclosed space?

link to north's final project ideas

2006-03-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

http://pomo.cca.edu/~npitney/wireless/

The Situationist City

2006-03-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

It is an interesting idea to think about maps as both a tool to navigate the city as well as a tool to represent a particular experience in that city. The situationist desire of "piecing together an experience of space that was actually terrestial, fragmented, subjective, temporal, and cultural," was approached though the medium of existing, traditional, and accepted maps. But, it seams like it is really more about the personal experience of drifting, getting into that state of mind where you can let the urban topography push and pull you. Although the maps are intensely altered, is there even a need to use the traditional map as the base, when it is really about the experience? I guess it is referenced because there is an attempt to not only experience the city that exists, but to actually redevelop the urban landscape.

The identification of plaques tournantes, junctions in the drifting experience starts to identify a true landscape. A discovery of center points that would not function as such in the tradition maps of routes and lots. I guess, I wonder if they are redeveloping the city or developing a representation of experiences in the city, and if so is it about these representations or is it about the drifting itself.

Presentation Topics

2006-03-05T19:20:00.000-08:00

These links may be helpful for anyone looking for a group/artist that relates to their final project topic:

A list of locative media projects compiled by Steve Dietz_
http://www.yproductions.com/info/archives/000375.html

and_
http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/cat_locative_media.html

Enjoy

2006-03-05T19:13:00.000-08:00

David Pinder's bio

2006-03-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/staff/pinder.html

this might be of interest as well.

2006-03-01T00:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/hiding_in_plain_sight
" Adam Greenfield: “Everyware” is computing that is everywhere around us, yet is relatively hard to see, both literally and figuratively. Broadly speaking, it is what you get when you take the information processing we associate with the personal computer and distribute it throughout the environment—embedding it in walls, floors, appliances, lampposts, even clothing. I also use the word to refer to the relatively novel interface conventions everyware requires: gestural, tangible and haptic interfaces, and to some extent, voice recognition."

Situationist Adventues

2006-02-28T19:05:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist
-----
I've just deleted the few paragraphs that i've written about this excerpt. As I back and forth from screen to text, I realize that the disagreements with the situationists philosophies are based on my own erroneous conclusions about their ideas, which, despite this admission, seem to often lack plausible solutions outside the realm of mystifying abstraction.
For a more direct version of the group's history and philosophy, I turned to the wikipedia link above and to the conclusion of the article where there is more extensive coverage of the philosophy in practice . I think the most significant residual for us is the situationists' desire to find amusement in the urban space we live in, individually and communally. In truth, there is so much detail and density here that I think any of us can find something to spark interest. Since we cannot move the walls, I think the question here is can we implement the systems at our disposal or design new hypotheticals that allow for some version of this so-called "drifting." The situationalists realized that the urban 'hardware' was there, but can we create software to make it work?

ania's project

2006-02-27T21:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, here it is. The number to call is 415 626 9226 and for each location there is a different key to press. when the answering maching picks up it will tell you to choose # 1, # 2, or # 3. so to hear each of them you need to call back. Location 1 is the taco truck on capp @ 16th, the second one is the smoke shop and the third is a store on valencia.

sorry my project wasnt working when we were out today. enjoy.

ania

Reading Response

2006-02-26T11:21:00.000-08:00

For Ali’s piece:

I like the notion of re-working or re-arranging the “basemap” for locative media projects because it allows for a hybridization of conventional and contemporary thought. However, it becomes difficult for me to construct ideas of how to turn a basemap that has been re-arranged or re-worked into something than can reflect an event. Perhaps time is the missing component, here? And, if so, the question then arises: how does time interweave itself into conventional basemaps?

For Jo Walsh’s piece:

The influence of socio-economic issues as the result of locative media mapping is incredibly interesting to me. Moreover, I appreciate how such maps are used to establish connections between varying groups of people. I wonder though if this will only be limited to progressive institutions.

Lecture Rich In Content but Poor on Delivery

2006-02-23T08:23:00.000-08:00

Although Steve Dietz's lecture was long and monotonous, and seemed a bit washed out as if he was speaking to investers, he definitely touched on a wide array of topics and some of the ones that I found interesting was when he was describing the goals that the City of San Jose wants to achieve and has already achieved. I found this extremely intriguing because although I have been a resident of the south bay area for the past 16 years, I've never come to realize the passionate innovative drive for San Jose of all Bay Area cities to be technologically profient and progressive. It gave me new interest in not only the city but the events that are taking place (ie: Zero One) and the type of projects being attracted to that locality. At the same time, when he spoke about the history of the San Jose and the Silicon Valley, it made more sense and leads one's curiousity to question where will it potentially head next? It also made me question if the residents in and around the City of San Jose are aware and what their opinions are. Are they willing to participate in these projects and events? Are they willing to experience and experiment or would they much rather take a more passive approach? How do they feel about the emerging invisible landscabes that are being integrated within their pre-existing landscape? Do people even care? I don't think that Steven's lecture touched enough on the subject of how people feel about these projects and events and if any attention has been given to that area, because afterall, it is the community who will be interacting and experiences that these events/projects have to offer. I think he wasted too much time speaking about the people involved and not enough time about the projects or their concept or what brought them about.

Some of the projects/events that he mentioned which caught my attention definitely included Zero One and the more dynamic projects like films/videos that were shown and some of the projects that utilized elements that are already present within the urban environment, such as the pigeons.

Like the others who mentioned beforehand, I share their opinion of the Lecture and that Steve's lecture, although rich in content, had a delivery not only disappointingand lacked enthusiasm in his delivery, but it made it hard to not have the audience's attentions wander off to a speaker who was only reading words off the slides failing to really connect to his audience which was observed by most people present at the lecture.

pigeon blog spoof

2006-02-22T11:01:00.000-08:00

http://pigeonblog.wordpress.com/

Lecture

2006-02-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

I agree about the tone of the lecture; centered more on the event than the art. I did think that he concluded the lecture with an interesting thought about the blending of fact and fiction. His concern about the attention to the input vs. the outcome of art formerly known as new media projects. How many parameters need to be, or should be set? It seemed to me that he was suggesting that the more tightly controlled projects were more successful. I tend to think the projects with unknowing contributors (pigeon blog, recordings of people listening to headphones) are more interesting and can teach us more about the dynamic aspect of the landscape.

Exploring the Eurospatial Cartel, Written by Jo Walsh

2006-02-22T00:12:00.000-08:00

This article presented some good information and really interesting facts about what is going on with maps and the context within them. Part of evolution within urbanized communities of the first world involves the wireless landscape and all that comes with it. What I mean by this, and what can be found in the article, is that private and government agencies are taking it upon themselves to create another infrastructure concerning its citizens. Through snooping into personal technologies and census data, agencies can map people from an individual level, community level, city level, regional level, and state level through GPS triangulation and your activities in such an area (a money transaction for example).

Those who can afford it can only access the collected data. This data can include location, travel, and even spending habits. This leads to the high possibility that personal info can be sold to ad-agencies so that they know how, when, and where to advertise to you. This in itself is very bad.. Ad-agencies could claim that this is market research made easy to find out more information about certain demographics. I find it to be an invasion into privacy. Usually, when someone is part of a market research they are aware of it. Through interviews, observation, and surveys people willingly participate in research. However, with the geographic information system and its contextual mapping and tracking this eliminates the willing consent of the individual. Privacy is now bought by the highest bidder to pay back the agency that gathered the raw data in the first place. It is the ultimate private investigation into people’s routines and interests. Fundrace is the best example when they have the records of political party donations from single personas, to big organizations. They easily create a map of how people donate and hence, how people think and how some might even be swayed one way or another.

What I see here is a social experiment gone wrong. There seems to be so much more to contextually mapping areas rather than just invaded personal info and possible marketing espionage. My question is, if you had the power to contextually map a city what would be worth the while to mark and record? This can be anything from restaurants to the best public fornication locations, anything! Also, how far should the government and private agencies catalog, follow, and mark people and areas to better contextualize and understand them?

Exploration or Advertisment?

2006-02-21T23:22:00.000-08:00

Is art about creativity or about commerce? To my point of knowledge, art can be fit in both categories. In today's lecture, the speaker Steve Dietz did mention the themes ---included Pacific Rim, Edgy Product, and Pigeon Blog --- for the Zero One San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge. Although the event, which will host on August 12th to 13th, is a great opportunity for many artists to explore the field of media art and technology, however, I think Steve Dietz was little bit over advertised the festival. He was more selling the event, but rather not talking about how is the interface relationship between media technology, artists, and society. I especially want to know how the media technology changes the way how artists understand about physcial and virtual landscape. What kind of reaction will present? If I were Steve Dietz, I would show many artists' works and many artists' idea first. And then I would focus on their ideas in order to creat a specific event. Of course, the aritists' research and inspiration will be very helpful to change the way how human beings think about technology. Anyway, I think that the Zero One San Jose will definitely be an exciting festival. That event will definitely be one of the milestone for the next generation of art media technology.

Dietz's Pitch

2006-02-21T22:59:00.000-08:00

I shared Sarah's observation that the lecture seemed like a bit of a sales pitch - which I'm sold on. But one bit of insight that we have not yet discussed in class is the topic of "transvergence". Thus far a lot of what we have mapped have been controlled landscapes and I think it would be interesting to address more chaotic situations such as those that Dietz referred to.

That being said, I think it would be incredibly interesting to propose a route for our GPS project that deals with verticality - something that produces a sense of confusion in terms of reading coordinates. In other words, since GPS is only from an aerial/plan perspective how does the indecipherable z-axis come into play? Can your vertical position be fictionalized? I'm not sure how this would logistically work, but thought I might throw it out there ...

Assignment Three

2006-02-21T22:08:00.000-08:00

Can anyone track down the project three description ?

Redefining The Basemap (Ali Sant)

2006-02-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

This article seems to be a call to artists. A challenge, almost, to push established notions of mapping techniques, and even more importantly, of how we experience the space around us.

The largest idea that I came away with was the idea of redefining the word/term "map". Time and time again we see literal, physical and spatial representations of the world around us. Yes, it is amazing how accurately advancing technologies can depict the space we live in and experience every day, but so what? This says nothing about our experiences, nor about the technology at hand. So, from the article, I take that I should almost inject myself into the space, and cite my reactions to the environment utilizing my senses other than sight. What does the walk from home to school sound like, and how does the audio change over the course of a day, a week, a semester; what does the taste of an orange look like as I walk from my kitchen to the living room, or from my house to the bus?; what does the face of a stranger feel like to someone who can't see? The translation of these experiences into a visual form, or mapping, can yield some pretty potent, and interesting, results. Or do you think they are far to poetic, and not worth the exploration?

But what about advancing wireless technologies? Ali poses the question: "Can we use wireless technologies to reflect back on themselves, revealing the emerging hybrid landscape of the material and the "hertzian"..." This I don't know. To deal with things physically is something second nature to us all by this point - but what about this intersection of the material and the invisible? Can the taste of an orange be represented and/or explored using some kind of wireless heart rate monitor to map levels of stimulation? What does this comment about the experience, and furthermore, what does this say about the material technologies used? Are they fulfilling their purpose? Would someone argue they are being misused or wasted?

Lecture

2006-02-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

I agree with Sarah about Steve making the event more like this thing he was selling, in an unconvincing way. However, the event sounded really exciting once you got past him reading from a sheet of paper. There was a comment made in the end about how it seems like a lot of visual stimulation, which could potentially be overwhelming and exhausting. I could see this being a problem as well. Steve answered that it would just create more excitement and want people to stay. I don't know.
Overall, the projects that were presented seemed exciting, although it was hard to grasp because there were so many that were shown. I enjoyed the secret video a lot. I think because it wasn't so complex to me.

Sell me this lecture

2006-02-21T20:57:00.000-08:00

The Zero One San Jose project sounds awesome. I would really love to experience this event. It sounds like there are so many totally interesting things to experience and see, all ranging from technologically simple to complex (you got to speak to a large audience, right?). While Steve Dietz presented a totally interesting project/event, however, I was being sold a product, like a crappy car by a questionable salesman. I know this is not a fair representation of the festival, but his presentation of it was far too corporate, and his detachment from the audience's attention (or lack thereof) of his delivery was disappointing.

With that said, I wish he had spoken more about the extension of all of the projects into the community. I thought this was by far the most interesting thing about this entire festival. This notion of an "interactive city" and "community domain". This is just so great. Why spend the time/effort/money on a temporary event with the single hope that it will inspire? Make it inspire and make it react - to establish some of these projects elsewhere is great.

The best example of this that I found in his presentation was the experiment with attaching a microchip that records various types of data to pigeons, and letting them free. The unexpected outcomes is completely intriguing, and how this idea has reached scientific communities, in addition to quirky on-line, some-what literary, blogs is just great. It's exciting and inspiring to think that an experiment can have ramifications such as these.

Reconstruction and Remediation

2006-02-20T19:45:00.000-08:00

Alvin and Steve propose a route that encompasses the newly developed UCSF Mission Bay Campus, SOMA projects, as well as other recently constructed housing projects near CCA. The route follows 16th Street East to 3rd (a route through the campus may also be utilized), and up to Townsend, Brannan, and King Streets. There are multiple projects under construction during the 3 mile tour, and are valuable reference points in a varying urban landscape, especially in an area with this considerable growth. From King Street, we will head southwest back towards CCa and the other housing projects in the vicinity.

route proposals for "three hour tour"

2006-02-20T16:51:00.000-08:00

Please post your proposals as comments here.

Burritoeater

2006-02-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

By Ania and Sarah

We propose a route as determined by ALL taco trucks/restaurants/spots in the Mission are of San Francisoc, CA. The route is determined by locating each burritoeating location, and connecting them in a loop, meant to be walked. It spans the general area between school and Valencia, between 16th and 25th.

We have noted 34 locations, which means each student can choose one restaurant, or any point along the connected burrito path.

Annotations do not have to specifically relate to tacos and/or burritos, but we strongly encourage it.

See attached map, or visit www.burritoeater.com/taquerias.php?order=neighborhood

Steve Dietz lecture Tuesday, February 21 7:00 PM (Timken)

2006-02-20T10:36:00.000-08:00

Steve Dietz is director of both the Inter-Society for Electronic Arts (ISEA) 2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge, the largest and most significant gathering of the digital arts in North America—ever. This new biennial, to be held in August 2006, will present more than 200 artist projects, 10 exhibitions, additional programming by more than 40 collaborating Bay Area/Silicon Valley institutions, and 5 days of talks, panels, and debates. Dietz's lecture will introduce the ZeroOne San Jose events and make the case for the importance of an ongoing festival devoted to "the art formerly known as new media." Dietz is the former curator of new media at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where he founded the New Media Initiatives department in 1996.

Book: Cybering Democracy

2006-02-18T23:54:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I just recently got a book called Cybering Democracy. I think that this book would be a great addition to Anthony Townsend's research. The author Diana Saco looks at the relationship between democratic participation and spatial realities both actual and virtual. She investigates recent and ongoing debates over cryptography, hacking, privacy, national security, information control, and Internet culture, focusing on how different online practices have shaped this particular social space. In her opinion, the cybering network in the invisible landscape has to be considered as a produced social space, one that fruitfully confounds the ordering conventions of our physical spaces.

A means of creating a story...

2006-02-16T19:39:00.000-08:00

In Pall Thayer’s concise proposal, he lays the tracks for what has the potential to become a technologically advanced, yet simply imaginative technique for storytelling. Thayer states that just by looking at the field of recorded data—the coordinates, time, and distances—there exists an inherent story. He also affirms that a more abstract and, in my opinion, more interesting, story generates from the less research you conduct about the actual location. The work given provides a timeline and clues with as much or as little information as the artist decides, reinforcing that the list of coordinates and distances are unnecessary, and thus puts a much higher emphasis on the time when the trackpoint was recorded. If this method is investigated further, possibly for a final project, the challenge for the artist is to always realize that the imaginative storyteller’s meaning will never fully comply with the artist’s experiences when recording the data. Because the initial recording experience and the imaginary story will always be different, does this marginalize the experiences of the artist, or does it simply emphasize the imagination of the storyteller? Is an artist’s initial experience even necessary? Can’t the artist just write a series of locations and times and let someone’s imagination create a story?

Upon investigating the coordinates (67 degrees North by 12 degrees East), we actually end up about 30 miles off the coast of Norway in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The location now revealed, this raises the question—are the precise coordinates irrelevant to the story about to be told (without a notion of an real location), or do they simply act as preliminary settings for a story (WITH the notion of a real location)?

I suppose the question is answered at the discretion of the storyteller, who has the capability of using the coordinates to serve an exact geographic setting, or disregarding them entirely, making even locative data imaginary. The narrative needs only to pertain to the thirty-two trackpoints and their respective times within the seven-minute duration. The events may have occurred on a ship, or may have been 32 different experiences of someone stranded in the ocean, or may have happened in a Kansas wheat field. The experiences need only be factual to the storyteller. The truth is, according to Thayer, there is no right or wrong story.

wireless graffiti

2006-02-16T16:49:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, this is an excerpt from David Thackara's book "In the Bubble, Designing in a Complex World" under the chapter entitled "Locality."
"...another unexpected application of mediascapes by media artists is called collaborative mapping. This is what takes place when GPS devices track the routes users take--and the information is shared or collectively developed. Handsets allow users to 'geo-mark' a location and then send details to other people, who then can use their own handsets' positioning capabilities to go to that spot....in experiments called wireless graffiti, augmented-reality technologies connect locations, people, media, and objects to unlock the 'living memory' of a place. Public physical spaces become 'containers' for traces of fragmentary personal histories. Digital graffiti or wireless graffiti have the potential, in time, to be attached to any object on Earth with an accuracy of a meter or less...such a system, dubbed 'Worldboard,' is a proposed planetary augmented reality system that facilitates innovative ways of associating information with places, and allows users to post messages on any of the six faces of every cubic meter (a hundred billion billion cubic meters) of space humans might go on this planet."
It's a really interesting book that pertains to what we are about to get into, I think, so check it out at the library.

billboards + urban screens

2006-02-15T21:27:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to add a few links to the blog referenced in our discussion today.

Billboard Liberation Front
Urbanscreens which has a good mailing list

Considering Benefits and Consequences...

2006-02-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

Anthony Townsend brought up some very intriguing cases and potentials for exchanging information digitally as well as the basic categories that they would influence. His points ,especially regarding New York's Times Square and Seoul's Digital Media Street, particularly illustrated the way how crucial it is to plan out the urban environment inside out, visible and invisible, in order to really be able to fully appreciate and utilize those resources as well as the technologies that are increasingly becoming a part of our private/public spaces in which we interact with on a daily basis. Another point he's brought up in the first reading, is the importance of considering the benefits and consequences from all angles, then planning accordingly...in order to prevent the technologies in these environments from being misused.

Relating this question back to a short discussion from last week, can we as designers, architects, and urban planners have the ability to designate and moderate information flows and flexibilities within certain areas of our environment? Or designating particular spaces of an urban environment for specific funcitons, which perhaps can be based on the types of crowds that linger there? Can there be information hubs that just provide files to automatically upload into devices (ie: maps, bus schedules, advertisements...if this, then it's giving the user the choice of willingly accepting and looking through advertisements without it just floating around causing nuisances to disinterested people). If we were to strictly moderate, even disable, some of the functions of the exchanging information, are they possibly open to legal ramifications (ie: freedom of expression)?

Ultimately, we cannot deny that the issues brought up in the reading will be growingly relevant in the growth and progression of our future environments, but can we anticipate their impacts in our culture and society? Can we possible aim to moderate it and direct it to lessen the chances of it being misused?

Interesting articles to look at

2006-02-08T13:35:00.000-08:00

I thought this was interesting and related to some stuff we are talking about.

-ania

Podcasts reach Peruvian villages

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4688882.stm

Global wi-fi plan gets $22m boost

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4686914.stm

Cell Phone Etiquite

2006-02-08T00:25:00.000-08:00

I was reading on AOL how some businesses are dealing with cell phones in public area but within private locations. The link is below.

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/business/article.adp?id=20060207075209990028&ncid=NWS00010000000001

I think that there needs to be a new etiquite taught to the new generation of children on how to interact with personal digital technology. Obviously those who are using the technology now were not introuduced on how to act in public with this technology because it is so new. I am not saying people should act a certain way all the time but there should be some consideration of others.

Electronic Panopticon or Mnemonic Oubliette

2006-02-06T16:12:00.000-08:00

Experiences are a fourth economic offering, as distinct from services as services are from goods, but one that until now has gone largely unrecognized. They’ve always been around, but consumers, businesses and economists lumped them into the service sector with such uneventful activities as dry cleaning, auto repair, telephone access or banking. When a person buys a service, he purchases a set of intangible activities carried out on his behalf. But when he buys an experience, he pays to spend time enjoying a series of memorable events that a company stages as in a theatrical play to engage him in a personal way.

From: B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage, published in April 1999 by Harvard Business School Press.

“In this fashion, a whole city becomes a vast, collectively constructed memory palace that divulges it contents to inhabitants as the circulate through it.” (end of middle paragraph on page 128 of Me++)

Is there a difference between the personal or internal use of spaces as mnemonic devices (or tags for unique experiences) and the purposeful “augmenting” of space with mediated information?

Are there opportunities for this conscious control of the parole that go beyond branding or “brandscaping”? And does this make us rethink the value of the transparent Prada store as creating a memory or erasing our own?

Cantenna

2006-02-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

See Jonathan Foerster's cantenna web site http://manifestcontent.com/cantenna.html for more details

Measurements of ingredients:
Copper (Cu) wire length: 1.22"
Distance of Cu wire from the back of the can: 1.91"
Ideal diameter of can: 3.65"
Ideal length of can: 19.12"

2006-02-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

Questions/Ideas regarding "The Poetic of Augmented Space: Learning from Prada", Lev Manovich

Is Alberti's window translating wave to points?

"Thus augmented space is also monitored space." -LM
How does this affect a persons behavior in such a space? Is the panopticonic metaphor valid here? If so, what is the behavior that is being enforced by an augmented space?

I would also be interested in developing a more concise model for the way in which information is available in space. That is to say; There is a mixing of metaphors in allot of discussion so far between waves and points.
"... in the cellspace paradigm every point in physical space can be said to contain some information that can be retrieved..." middle of page 8

"...a series of ebbs and flows." bottom of page 8
Waves have no borders in real space, but only different effects on the mediums with which they interact (We have all heard the idea of aliens, millions of years from now watching "I Love Lucy" episodes the 50's ). Cell phone bars are a measure of wave interaction with space.
On the other hand, Data Points are conceptualized as being specific to one location or another but they are not specific to the point of reception, they are specific to the point of broadcast. Everyone in a neighborhood that is served by the same cell tower can be said to be in the same place. This is important only if you are interested in how much we can really interact with theses data points.

Apropos our conversations today

2006-01-30T17:24:00.000-08:00

shhh

2006-01-25T14:33:00.000-08:00

Hertzian Hide and Seek

FLIRT: more reading questions and things to think about.

2006-01-24T23:17:00.000-08:00

I think Justin covered the questions and other things i had been thinking about as well. Here is a little something else.

The first paragraph states that, "[they wanted] to explore way in which mobile phone technology could be utilised and extended for non-buisness and recreational users" (FLIRT 1). This stuck with me reading the entire way through. Why is it that we have to have our cell phones be our internet, a camera and phone? It seems to me, and Jessica mentioned it last class, that these devices affect social interaction. So, why create a project with this intent, making people even more into their phones? Do you feel this is what they are doing?

Bluejacking

2006-01-24T23:04:00.000-08:00

Article from CNN, mentioned in class on Monday.

Another.

San Francisco Cell Towers

2006-01-24T22:56:00.000-08:00

Google Mashup

FLIRT Reading Points

2006-01-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

Flexible Information and Recreation for Mobile Users

1. What makes these experiments unique to Helsinki? What obstacles prevent similar experiments from being conducted in a city like San Francisco ?
2. The developers devised a set of three categories for potential services, but decided no "daydreaming... [an idea] that drew both from reporting the factual city and our imagination." What if the interacting device was less limited than a cell phone? What if the metrics relayed by the device were enhanced? [high rez v low rez]
3. What are the important properties that distinguish the three services?
4. I think the last paragraph is most resonant for what our goals are in the class (as I understand them). The cooperation of engineer and designer is one that our own interventions will probably need to evidence if they are to be successful.
5. Other services and applications...

City tops in hot spots: S.F. offers more wireless access than any U.S. city

2006-01-24T08:55:00.000-08:00

See today's article in the SF Chronicle reporting San Francisco as offering more wireless access than any other city in the country.

how to post to blogger

2006-01-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

posting under a new heading
1. go to www.blogger.com
2. login with your user name and password
3. select SITEspecific from your "dashboard"
4. under "posting" select "create new post"
5. write in a title and your comments and select "publish post"

commenting on a previous post
1. under the comment you are interested in responding to select "comments" and then "post a comment"
2. enter your comments
3. select login + publish

first reading ...

2006-01-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

Digital Divide: The article is directed towards those who are dependant upon knowledge and familiarity with digital media. What happens with respect to those who either dont know, or choose to remain separated from 'herzian space'?

Geography of herzian landscape: Where is it? What is it? How can one keep removed or isolated from it?

Private vs. Public: The article posits that private expansion is bad, and public expansion is good. How can either exist wihtout the other given that expansion is dependant upon private & public funding.

security: who has access and how much access should they have?

psychology: what are some implications of the sometimes overwhelming access to information?

Dorkbot SF

2006-01-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in class; Dorkbot is a great chance to learn all sorts of esoteric things first hand from your fellow artists and activists while drinking beer. It tries to happen every month. On a Wednesday night.
-north

http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsf/

This Wednesday:

WHEN: jan 25 2006, wed, 7:30pm

WHERE: rxGallery
132 eddy
sf, ca
http://rxgallery.com

WHO:

Jennifer Grannick | Securing Civil Liberties, or Why Geeks and Hackers Should Run the Government
Learn about mass surveillance and the designing interoperating legal and technical systems that are secure and free. Also, possibly tips on what to do about copyright infringement or 'the cops are at my house, what should i do'....

and

Marc Powell | Food Hacker's Guide to Molecular Gastronomy
Learn to cook with liquid nitrogen, how about meat glue, liquid noodles and the growing role of science in the kitchen

SITESpecific

2006-01-08T16:10:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the class blog. This is where we will post comments on readings, links, etc.