INTERFACE: Perceptive Pixel

Perceptive Pixel is a company and the name of a proprietary multi touch solution, particularly aimed for wall and large table interaction. The company is founded by Jeff Han, researcher and developer with a particular focus on “multi touch sensing” and visualization of data, connected to the New York University’s (NYU) Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences

The Perceptive Pixel solution offer a wide range of uses, its applications ranging from visual geographical navigation (i.e. Google Earth/Nasa World Wind), boradcasting, medical visualizations, digital content creation, storyboarding and ideation.

Perceptive Pixel entered announced this summer their collaboration with Aqumin (a financial service company focusing on integrating large and diverse data sets into meaningful and informative environments, hence the integration with the displays of Perceptive Pixel.)

INTERFACE: Adam Tablet

Demonstrating a Android based tablet from Notion Ink entering the marked in June 2010, as a competittor to IPAD and the rumoured Google Tablet (NYTimes).

Adam Tablet vs IPAD specs:

INTERFACE: G-Speak

An promotion video of the G-Speak spatial environment prototype, developed by Oblong Industries. The technology company is founded by the crew behind the well-known Minority Report interface, headed by John Underkoffler.
Using gloves and gestures to maneuver in a multi screen environment – the prototype promises a range of interesting features.
Live editing of video-objects from various sources. 3D zoom, multi-task
I wonder at what cost. Are the users embedded in a CAVE that hides a monster machine in the back? And how particular is the software and applications running on this system?

Find out more about Oblong Industries and the G-speak.

INTERFACE: Sixth Sense

Pranav Mistry, Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab, has developed a prototype for a new computing environment integrating physical objects in the digital realm and vice versa, through the use of video and gestures.
In this TED talk he gives us a glimpse of the possibilities inherent in the Sixth Sense technology.

I draw immediate associations to the works of Myron Krueger in his VIDEOPLACE installation back in the 70′s, and the many virtual reality applications of the early 90′s. This guy, however, is bringing out the best of the worlds. Usable, simple and non-restricted.

Enjoy!

For more information on projects and works, visit Pranavmistry.com

REPOST: SPACESHIP OR TRANSPORTER?

You may choose between the following 2 objects:

1. A fully functional personal Transporter. It will instantly beam/transport/delocate-relocate you to any desirable location on the Planet Earth.
Limitations:
* Only functions on Earth
* Only you may use it (and smaller objects you have on you)

2. A fully operational Spaceship. It can carry 200 people, of your choice.
It travels 400 x Speed of Light (as an estimate you will need 20 years to reach the closest planet where current astronomers don’t rule out the possibility of some kind of life). The Spaceship is completely self-sustainable with a fantastic renewable energy solution.
Limitations:
* Does not have a Transporter

So, which is you?

I am an advocate for the Spaceship. To boldly go where no man has gone before. To leave something established behind. To be an explorer. And risk all you have had, uprooting, for the possibility of something extraordinary.
I just quoted Star Trek.
And yesterday I found the musical theme. For choosing the Spaceship.

Thanks to Manuel playing every Monday @ King Kong Bar (Berlin) for bringing this wonderful track to my mind.
Jan Turkenburg and his pupils of the Catholic Geert Grote School delivers beauty with the track In My Spaceship.
(For those who wants to sing along.)

IN MY SPACESHIP (Lyrics)

(Ashes to ashes, funk to funky,
we know Major Tom’s a junky…)

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one, lift off!

Watch out cause I’m taking off, in my spaceship
Well farewell and lot’s of love, in my spaceship
Yes, I’ve had it up to here
It’s best to simply disappear

I will meet T’poll and Dax, in my spaceship
Take a holo to relax, in my spaceship
I’ll shake hands with Miles O’Brien
Says my engine’s doing fine

And to boldly go where no-one’s ever gone before
I’ll just won’t be back no more

Have a drink with doctor Who, in my spaceship
To the Interstellar Zoo, in my spaceship
Singing Klingon having fun
Start a fight and then be gone

No more lessons, no more work, in his spaceship
Gone is Mister Turkenburg, in his spaceship
Yes, I’ve had it up to here (Beam me up, Scotty!)
It’s best to simply disappear

And to bouldly go where no-one’s ever gone before
I’ll just won’t be back no more

(Wooooow! Houston, we got a problem!)

Bye bye school and bye bye world in my spaceship
Jesse Klundert taking off in my spaceship
No more moaning say good-bye
See my brother no more cry in my spaceship
No more busy, always quiet in my spaceship
I will travel through the night in my spaceship
No more home work, no more home work!
No more tidying up my room, in my spaceship
We will travel on the moon, in my spaceship
Gone is Missis Hoogerman, in her spaceship
No more science, no more maths
Gone is whole the f***** mess!
No more home work, no more school, in my spaceship
Go to space are very cool, no more home work
In his spaceship, in his spaceship, in his …

Yes, I’ve had it up to here (Get off my bridge!)
It’s best to simply disappear (Energize)

And to boldly go where no-one’s ever gone before
I’ll just won’t be back no more

Tien, negen, acht, zeven, zes,
vijf, vier, drie, twee, een!
Dag Meneer Jan!

(You like, eh? This track come from the compilation Interplanetary Materials. Weird, new, exciting, about space, old electronic organs and voices. Both audio and cover art is available, gratis, CC-licensed)

//M/E

REPOST: 3 MOMENTS

three cities
three points in time
three sound patterns

HAMBURG, outside the main train station, 04.00 pm

BERLIN, Mauerpark, 11.00 am

OSLO, Sjokoladefabrikken, 08.00 am

NB: Can be played simultaneously

//Mostly

MOSTLY MASTER PLAYLIST 1109

Heinrichs & Hirtenfellner – Down EP – 01 – Down
Valmay – Radiated Future – 01 – Radiated Future
Hans Bouffmyhre – I’m A Freak EP – 02 – No Trace
Adam Beyer & Pär Grindvik – Seq 1 – 01 – Living Wheel
Burnski – Poker Flat Recordings 10 – 05 – Species
Ben Klock – Remixes – 02 – Subzero (Function-Regis aka Sandwell District Remix)
Clark – Turning Dragon – 01 – New Year Storm
Valmay – Radiated Future – 02 – Old Dog
Valmay – Radiated Future – 03 – Distrust
Pan Pot – Confronted
Adam Beyer – London – Who’s Got The Virus

Check them out on Beatport

REMIX CULTURE | NATURE: The Video

The final video for the Remix Culture course, a teaser and introduction to my exam paper “Remixed Culture/Nature – Is our current remix culture giving way to a remixed nature?” DOWNLOAD: Remixed Culture|Nature (PDF)

Video and music credits:
¤ The introduction by Dr Michio Kaku from BBC series: Visions of the Future – The Biotech Revolution.
¤ The ad for products by the biotech company Eppendorf International.
¤ D-Scape’s brilliant remix of Aphex Twin “On”

BIOLOGICAL REMIX: Project draft

When remix culture enter nature

Man seem to be in a constant struggle against nature. We don’t want to wait for natural selection and evolution to present changes we have imagined. Some fights have been more successful than others, and the last decade have fostered initiatives that aim to work more closely with or build upon principles of nature. Science is turning to nature to deocde the source of various functionality that then are implemeted in human design.

For my academic paper in my Remix Culture class, I want to see to what extent remix culture as an activity has entered the natural domain.

This means that I need to find way to define remixing as a cultural activity, and for this I will draw on the curriculum and research we have explored in class (particularily the work of Jenkins, Barthes, Dawkins, Foucault, Lessig)
Based on these works and various discussions in class there seems to be some elements connected to this activity:

¤ Deconstruction: The ability to see new elemental pieces in a work, that carries their own specific beauty, intent or meaning.

¤ Reconstruction: The ability to choose specific parts for their meaning to construct a new narrative or context.

¤ Referral to the original work/s: The extent to which, and the various ways the remixed work is referring to the original.
Here I will explore the definitions provided by Eduardo Navas on his Remix Theory site, and Zachary McCune’s suggestion for a remix taxanomy. Both rely heavily on music as their source for definition and it is interesting to see how these definitions work in a greater realm of remix culture.

¤ Mixed media: with digital technologies, we see a a rise in mixed media remixes as well.

¤ Spreadability: the connection between the new narrative in a remix and its referral to the original seems to

¤ Amaterus and professionals: New media technologies have lowered the threshold for creation. Production equipment is not longer controlled and owned by professionals, and Internet has provided us with a forum for sharing that is unpresedented.

¤ Ethical framework: attribution, economic compensation, respect for the original work.

Having created a framework for understanding what “to remix” can entail, it is time to look into whether the current activity that exist in bio technology, bioengineering, gene technology etc. can be translated into remix.
I have found the best sources for exploration in the realm of biological art, where artists move into a domain previously occupied by specialised scientists, and will look into how their work introduces permanent or cosemtic changes in the biological setup of simple bacteria, plants, insects, animals and even humans.

DECONSTRUCTION

In terms of looking at deconstruction as an element of a remix activity in an biological realm, I have turned to the
various genome projects, especially the Human Genome Project, which is the highly ambisious scientific goal to identify the 20-25.000 genes in the human DNA, and their functionality, as well as tranferring this knowledge and technology to the private sector.
Scientists have already identified large parts of the genome of various animals (fully utilized in breeding technologies), insects (the fruit fly’s genome is now fully sequenced), even the neanderthals.

RECONSTRUCTION

Reconstruction in biological remix has to do the ability to bringing already isolated elements or qualities into a new composistion or maybe even narrative.
The performance artist Stelios Arcadiou aka Stelarc is preoccupied with the identity of the body, and in 2006 he comitted to surgery to have a third ear attached to his left arm. As he describes it “a facial feature has been replicated, relocated and will now be rewired for alternate capabilities”. This ear has the functions of the normal ear, and in one stage of the project (althoug now removed) a microphone was attached at the end of the ear (inside the arm) to transmitt the sounds caught by the ear.

REFERRING TO THE ORIGINAL

Here I am still looking for concrete sources to work from, although one can say that most reconstructions seem to be heavily relying on the source material. From works based on pure appropriation (e.g the DNA portrait visualizing your individual DNA sequences as visual art pieces, that you can buy, or Gary Schneider’s Genetic Self Portrait) to complete reformations of original intent of the building blocks, elements earlier viewed as part of a biological whole, are set together in new, cultural constellations based on the specific sets of functionality. One example is the student project led by assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF, Chris Voigt, creating living photographs produced through genetically re-engineering e.coli bacterias to respond as pixels in a SLR camera, the amount light exposure will trigger the production of pigment in the bacteria, thus producing the levels in a picture.

MIXED MEDIA

In terms of the question of mixed media, it might be frutiful to discuss interspecies mixes versus cross-species creations, or transgenic works basing itself in recombinant DNA technology – the composition of DNA sequenses that do not occus naturally together in a cell. This technology have been used to create insect resistant crops, to introduce genes from fireflies in tobacco plants for the plants to glow in the dark, to the latest creation of Eduardo Kac – the Natural History of Enigma, that he proudly names a plantimal – as this cross-hybrid Petunia (labeled the Eduania) expresses the genes of Kac in its red blood veins. There are discussion as to whether this is a true plantimal, as various bacteria and virus from different species explode and crash with our own human DNA (causing small, but often unimportant mutations). Here I need to find some good sources for discussion.

SPREADABILITY

Spreadability in biological remix might be transferred to the question of fertility. Whether the new work/creation is fertile and will live beyond its single appearance, or it the alteration is cosmetic, even superficial.
In case of the Eduania, this “plantimal” is fertile, its seed will give rise to a new series of Edunias.

AMATERUR/PROFESSIONAL

Biological engineering is no longer an activity reserved scientists. Although there are strict ethical guidelines framing the practise of biological research and engineering, off-lab organisations and networks of artist, hobby-biologists are forming, e.g. DIYBio who just held their DNA extraction Party and present themselves as:
“DIYbio is an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety”
or the more open source activist group Hackteria. Many of the projects in these groups are still simple in concept, and often concern with building the equipment required to work with micro-organisms in an off-lab setting. Still, they give an indication of bringing the technology, ethical guidelines and knowledge required to take nature’s potential in their own hands.

ETHICAL FRAMEWORK

I also want to look more closely into the ethical guidelines and discussion arised in the human genome project and will use discussion material presented in the project as a starting point.

Research material

I have benefitted from the article Gene Culture – The Molecule Metaphor in Visual Art by Suzanne Anker.
This article presents Anker’s research on how biological metaphors are appearing in visual arts, and how cultural hybrids (or “chimera’s” as she labels them) are appearing in biology through work of both scientists and artists. Particularily she is interested in how “genetic imaging operates as aesthetic signs” – and looks at examples of replication in art vs cloning (and other methods of copying gene material) and immaterial copyrights vs gene-patents. Of particular interest her presentation of bioartist George Gessert whose work have been labeled as genetic grafitti – where he let “fictional” genomes intervene in an ecosystem dominated by natural selection. (2000). She also touches upon the application of ethics that quite automatically seems to enter the conversation when biological engineering is focused on augmentation of man (e.g in the principles behind breeding versus eugenics).

REFLECTION: DAWKINS’ MEME

Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene, Chapter 11 (1976)

THE MEME AS A SELFISH REPLICATOR

Richard Dawkins introduces the notion of the meme, and uses characteristica of the gene from his theory of the selfish gene to explain another kind of evolution than the one proposed by Darwin in the theory of natural selection – namely the development of culture.

He states that genes propagate/breed/spread through the capacity of being a replicator, and the success of the replication is based on longevity – the life span of the gene, fecundity – fertility of the gene and copying-fidelity – ability to be copied
Dawkins translates these properties to the meme, and argues memes to be the driving force behind cultural evolution – an evolution not controlled by genes.
The process of meme replication is that of imitation, and any brain that is capable of imitation can also hold a meme.
He is arguing that memes aren’t high-fidelity replicators as memes slightly change or mutate when it is copied from one brain to another.
Finally he argues from man’s ability to “defy” the selfish genes that results in natural instinct of survival through e.g. our use of contraceptives, in the same way that man can escape the indoctrination of particular (and selfish) memes through “discuss[ing] ways of cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism”.

SOME UNCLARITY

Dawkins speaks of memes as cultural genes, and to some extent is in unclear to me whether he considers all ideas and concepts to be memes or clusters of memes, or only those that are not based in rational argument and evidence.
How else can a discussion liberate us from the indoctrination of selfish meme?

He is also using the metaphor of the virus to explain some of the properties of the meme, which is confusing as he originally translated the meme’s qualities from the gene. Viruses are not natural replicators, but “parasites” that attach themselves to the replicating ability of a gene, which causes them to spread.

MEMES, MARKETING AND THE FREUDIAN SUBCONSCIOUS

In the British BBC documentary seriers “Century of the Self“, the writer, Adam Curtis, is explaining the starting point of modern marketing with its utilization of Freud’s psychoanalytical principles, especially the theory’s of the subconscious being dominated by primal desires and aggressions. The effect of a marketing campaign was measured by its ability to connect to the primal desires of subconscious, however in a clever and covert way, to attract people to a given product – and in this way “engineer the concent” of the receiver – turning him/her into a passive consumer – a controllable receptor.

There seems to be some similarities between the perspective presented in this documentary and the indoctrinative effect of the meme, as well as an ingredient in the discussion of how media spread.

NEIL STEPHENSON’S UR-MEME OF ENKI

In Neil Stephenson’s Snowcrash we are introduced to mixed reality world, where virtual technology and the real physical enviroment of man is overlapping. In this future we confronted with the invention of (audio)-visuall virtual software program/virus that speaks in the language of Enki. Enki is the Sumerian god of Technology, who introduced tools to mankind. Enki re-programs us with new functionality, by speaking directly to our hardwired brain, into the firmwire so to say. This new knowledge is not granted us through a reflection and emerging understanding, it is rather an upgrade of our system. In “Snowcrash” a group of people have gained knowledge of the language of Enki, with interesting consequenses…

I wanted to add this assosiation as well, as it made me think of a hardwired version of Dawkins’ meme, and one that we can’t resist under any circumstance, because it is introduced before reaching an rational mental capacity of the mind.

« Older Entries