Tangible Research Artefacts: Implementing Choice

After exploring the Hemesh processing libraries, I have been experimenting with creating forms and then modifying them. The image below is a screen shot of a sketch that I uploaded onto open processing:

A lot of visualisations, like the one below and those seen in Moere, A.V. and Patel, S. paper (1.) are abstracted representations that require a level of explanation for their meaning to be understood. A researchers connection to his ‘things’ is very emotional and personal, bound by complex relationships so in the context of the Tangible Research Artefacts, the researcher needs to understand what the form means and its representation for it to be a rich resource for them to use. A researchers connection to his ‘things’ is very emotional and personal, bound by complex relationships. I want to make the form transparent in its meaning to the researcher and they can choose to share this meaning with other researchers or hide it to themselves. Therefore, there needs to be some connection between the variables that drive the form and the artefact that is produced. The researcher needs to have a role as being the maker as well as the consumer.

My proposed system for the processing software is to create an environment that associates certain modifier functions (from the Hemesh libraries) to certain attributes of the documents. For example, twisting a shape to represent secrecy. For simplicity, I am first going to focus on just pdf files in the development of my prototype and then build on this complexity.

To create this level of customisation I have been experimenting with creating a GUI (Graphical User Interface). The aim of this is to enable the researcher to quantifiably apply their emotion or feelings to the artefact.

To implement this GUI I have chosen to look at the ControlP5 libraries and I have uploaded some of my experiments onto open processing, an example of which is above.

Refrences

1. Moere, A.V. and Patel, S. 2010. The Physical Visualization of Information: Designing Data Sculptures in an Education Context. In Visual Information Communication, Huang, M.L. et al (Eds.). Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

tanagble research artefacts

Through conversations with academics in my linked research, physical artefacts in research are things that are personal to ourselves that serve as reminders of ideas to pursue, a representation of our current train of thoughts, our ambitions for the future, our achievements of the past amongst many more. How can this narrative seen in these physical artefacts be told of digital artefacts (artefacts being images, e‐books, pdf’s, music) through the creation of a generative physical artefact?

Many people have tried to explore the notion of taking data and representing it through visualisation. Through his work, Dragulecu (iv.) asks questions about how your own personal documents can be translated into “…inhabitable objects…” and even “..transformed into a small Cubist city.” Dragulecu uses his project Spam Plants (iv.) to demonstrate this, where data inputs were translated into variables that drive the creation of petals. The limits of this project however and still the confinements of a screen, relying on visualisation to demonstrate their meaning. A V Moere and S Patel (ii.) propose the concept of a data structure that is a mapping of data in a physical form. However, I feel that their definition of a data sculpture is limited to the context that they experimented in. Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts differs from that which A V Moere and S Patel (ii) propose through the metaphorical representation of the data structure. Whereas the Moere and Patel’s data structures tried to open the black box, my Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts embrace the secrecy of the data structure they create. The secrecy of a researchers artefact can sometimes be what creates its beauty in the researchers eyes. Participant A (iii.) talks about how an attractive feature of his book case is that only he understands the indexical relationship of his books. I want to capture this emotion in my artefact and the poetic nature of this. The narrative of this connection can be portrayed through the personal selection of data sets and the element of customisation within the artefact. The artefact is the researchers own, they created it and it is personally important to them.

To create this secrecy outlined above, personal ownership needs to be present in the mapping of data in three dimensional form so an understanding of the difference between data and information is key:

“…data is the raw material of, its substrate; information is the meaning derived from data in a particular context.”

For Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts to create connections, they need to be able to have a meaning derived from them by the researcher. Can the researcher create an emotional connection with his digital artefacts? Can they express hierarchy of attachment towards digital files in a certain way? In the context of Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts meta data can secretly store information about our associations with information and a system could be used to create a hierarchy of importance and attachment.

Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts are interested in the combination data types that serve an indexical link to the researcher. This could be text, photos or a combination of the two and customisation of this is vital is the researcher is to form an attachment and sense of belonging with the artefact. Looking at the notion of data from empirical science, “Only (data) when organised and contextualised by an observer does this data yield information, a message or meaning”

The Artificial Reality

Paradox: a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.

Oxymoron: a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. Literary oxymorons are crafted to reveal a paradox.

After initially being interested in technology, it’s effect on human behaviour and the future of human behaviour, as a basis for my thesis project, I have undertaken a Primer project where I have been learning to program using Processing computer language.

I have been looking at Ray Kurzweil and his theory of Technological Singularity, in his book ‘The Age of Spiritual Machines’, I accidently on purpose came across an abstract from an episode of The Twilight Zone. An abstract that highlights the paradoxes in human behaviours; it’s human nature to want to solve problems, but it also human nature to not want all problems solved, we are essentially more attracted to the problems than the solutions. I think we need to consider whether technology is creating solutions for us too quickly or according to Burnham is it forming a realistic fantasy of creating more questions, he states ‘I recently heard an astronomer mention in a talk that we know approximately what 3 percent of the universe is, what it consists of. Just a few years ago that number was 5 percent’.

M.C. Escher, 1953

It is obviously no secret that as a young architect, problem solving provides the most fun for me.

It is this human paradox that has led me to the main idea behind my primer project. Taking the oxymoron (which can be crafted to reveal a paradox) and re-writing The Twilight Zone abstract to be a paradox filled with genuine imitations of paradoxes or the oxymoron, I want to make a visual comparison between the original and adapted version of the texts.

So thinking out loud, I imagine the point at which the texts are different, where the oxymoron has been added, to be highlighted visually, like a nodal point, similar to the image below; these nodal points can then be moved around the page, i.e. to another nodal point, where it will take that position in the text, as a permanent substitute. To then produce an obscure overall text that will be presented as an initial conclusion.

The outcome will be individual but synchronized animations that are interactive. The user unconsciously manipulates the text, by knowingly moving a visual representation; the new text will then be represented to the user at the end.

My presentation is highlighting this world of paradox. I am essentially giving people a problem to solve, whilst never allowing a rational solution.

So in a preliminary conclusion, maybe my project hasn’t been made completely clear throughout this blog, this explicit ambiguity, is part of the ‘problem’ that is so intriguing for me to solve, maybe the extraordinary element is that I may never have a solution; the consistently inconsistent lucidity.

Occupy Twitter

My primer project has developed into a comparative study of different viewpoints. I've signed up for a Twitter Developer account, and managed to return a list of all followers IDs for a specified user. I'd really like to try to query users profiles, and as a starter create a geographic mapping exercise with this data, but haven't managed that yet.

I would also think that it would be really interesting to try and track tweets and re tweets with #OccupyLSX and draw nodes representing opinion leaders. Again, perhaps I will be able to query these in terms of geographic distribution.

However far I get, it should then be easy to modify to track others sources of tweets. Hopefully the comparisons between the data network underpinning movements like OccupyLSX, and big banks media feeds, should be interesting.

List of my Traceurs' moves

During the discussion we had on Tuesday, Hollie and Lee made a list of the moves that they use the most in Parkour.

• Precision jump - standing 
• Precision jump - running 
• Cat Pass (kong, monkey) 
• Arm jump (cat leap) 
• Laché 
• Strides 
• Speed vault 
• Lazy vault 
• Wall run 
• Tic-tac 
• Roll 
• Dash vault 
• Reverse vault 
• Plyometric 
• 180 arm jump 
• Climbing 
• Balancing 

I hope that by familiarising myself with these moves I will be able to identify them correctly whilst out and about with them this Saturday.

Questions for Traceurs

I interviewed my Traceur participants on Tuesday morning and these are the 10 questions I asked:

1. What are your motivations for doing Parkour?
2. What are your Parkour aspirations?
3. Would you say Parkour is competitive?
4. Where is your regular training ground?
5. What characteristics make a space interesting for Parkour?
6. How aware are you of people who have used a certain place before (in relation to the Parkour moves they may have done there)?
7. Do you plan out the 'Parkour route' beforehand?
8. How are your moves informed?
9. Do you always plan to practice Parkour or is it ever an impromptu act?
10. How often do you see something and think that would be good for Parkour?

The interview lasted just under an hour and yet I'm still transcribing the recordings!

Shiny Toy

My first projector has arrived, and I have secured PCs to run my installation. I'm going webcam shopping tomorrow and am trying to schedule a meeting with the students running the parenting scheme in stage 1 to drum up some support. I am still experimenting with means of running the feed, whether it is best as a live video or a series of stills. This latter option does have the advantage of giving me a ready made set of time-lapse data to compare to subsequent interviews, but requires a more complex software set up to make it work including a possibly a processing applet to read something like a flickr feed.

Either way, I'm setting a deadline for both tables for be complete by the 11th of November, 10 days from now.