On the Cohesion of an Electronic Device Ensemble

Miguel Vargas, Andres Saldarriaga and Fredy Alzate / Colombia                              

Metropolitan Technological Institute, ITM 

Paper

miguelito.vargasf@gmail.com, jandreus87@gmail.com, fredyalzate@itm.edu.co  

The use of DIY methods in the guidance of students in their own formation process are just as important as any research process now days, the access to open information and technology are growing at a fast rate and with a bit of a tinkering mind the periods of time it may take to build your own embedded acoustic instrument (Berdahl, 2014) is widely lessened with the technology available such as 3D printers or raspberry pi's. Contemporary practices like network music become also more accessible thanks to the advance of the possible communication protocols and device robustness; in less than 40 years if we count from those experiments with low level assembler for hacking a chip and serial protocol for its communication (Gresham-Lancaster, 1998) to interfacing a couple of raspberry pi's through OSC protocol.

Prototyping Puppets Beyond Borders

 Michael Nitsche, Isabel Restrepo and Crystal Eng / USA, Colombia                        

Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Antioquia

Paper

michael.nitsche@gatech.edu, isabelr27@gmail.com, c_eng5@gatech.edu

 

We report on an ongoing collaboration that uses puppetry as a shared cultural expression in STEAM workshop designs that inform intercultural exchange. Collaborators in Atlanta, USA and Medellín, Colombia work in tandem on the design and implementation of a puppet-building workshops. These workshops use narrative framing, craft-based prototyping, and performance-based validation to teach students basic prototyping skills. They specifically encourage them to relate to their local culture and to inform an ongoing dialogue between the two cultural spheres.

Urban Mesh: Exploring Data, Biological Processes and Immersion in the Salmon People

Prophecy Sun, Kristin Carlson, Jim Bizzocchi and Thecla Schiphorst / Argentina, Chile, Colombia

National University of Tres de Febrero, University of Chile Collaboratory - ParqueExplora

Paper

pdsun@sfu.ca, kca59@sfu.ca, jimbiz@sfu.ca, thecla@sfu.ca

Information systems are continually recontextualizing data, migration patterns, biological components and processes, between life and code. As Geographer Eugene Thacker states, these systems can be scientific, or many things, with lasting effects that are cultural, social, and political. As these systems evolve and grow, so to do the artworks created in the afterglow, becoming vital reflections of our contemporary algorithmically soaked culture. This paper examines these ideas alongside the Salmon People, a video and sound installation thematically concerned with the shared dark ecologies of nonhuman and human animals. The large format projections present a triptych of migrating sockeye salmon across urban landscapes. The prolific artwork purposefully utilizes scale, and multilayered visual fields, to push audiences to consider our shared ecologies. Like information flowing through high tech super highways, sockeye salmon definitely negotiate seen and unseen geographies, technologies, politics, and cultures. In order to understand the artworks content, sequences and layout, as well as the logic of the shot selections, we conducted a close reading analysis of the installation. We suggest that the work is generative and claim that the projections are made up of 9 videos playing concurrently in 3 large vertical panels. This paper examines these ideas, asking the questions: What role does the screen play in the design of this artwork? What are the types of audience immersion and interaction? Finally, we address the work on three levels: the structural, the narrative, and the immersive. The structural level identifies the key frames, and any overlapping frames. The narrative level investigates the 3 vertical panels in relation to story parameters such as plot and storyworld. The immersive level considers how the audience oscillates between a heightened state of immediacy and hypermediation.

Reimaging Coral Reefs: Remodeling Biological Data in the Design Process

 

Caitilin de Berigny, Dagmar Reinhardt and Nathaniel Fay / Australia

Sydney University

Paper

http://www.caitilindeberigny.com, http://www.reinhardtjung.de/profile.html, http://www.oneskidigital.com

  Coral Reefs are filled with infinite and unique forms, variations of shape, and complex phenomena and processes. These forms and processes have inspired both scientists to document, archive and collate, and designers to reimagine these intricate ecosystems in their creative design work. In this paper, we explore how designers integrate scientific data from coral reefs, by examining two projects. Firstly, we discuss Reefs on the Edge, An interactive installation using scientific data from a marine biologist to visualize the effects of ocean warming on coral reef ecosystems. Secondly, we discuss Coral Colonies, an installation that adapts mathematical codes of coral geometries to create biomimetic coral prototypes. We conclude how design and science use visual data taken from biological processes to help raise awareness and promote biodiversity, sustainability and the survival of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).

Visualizing the Meditating Mind: the Aesthetics of Brainwave Data

 

Lian Loke, Caitilin de Berigny, Youngdong Kim, Claudia Núñez Pacheco and Karen Cochrane / Australia

University of Sydney

Paper

  Meditation is an ancient Eastern practice, which is receiving renewed popularity as a secular approach to health and well-being. Recent advances in commercial EEG sensor technology provide opportunities for visualizing biological brainwave data by artists and designers, outside the fields of neuroscience and psychiatry. We chart the creative development of an aesthetic visualization, Narcissus Brainwave that aims to provide insight into the shifting states of mind during the practice of meditation, informed by a series of user studies with meditators and non-meditators. Interestingly, assumptions we made from the interpretation of brain-wave sensor data about when a meditative state was achieved did not always resonate with how meditators understood the quality of their inner meditation experience. This may be due in part to the limitations of a single electrode EEG device. Issues also arise related to personal preferences and cultural conventions for interpreting the meaning of the Buddhist-inspired visual symbols representing our model of meditation. Our study has revealed some of the challenges of visualizing the meditating mind and creating meaningful aesthetic visualizations with commercial devices.

Conflict as a ground for destruction of heritage and subsequent gentrification

Murat Germ / Turkey
Sabanci University
Panel
http://muratgermen.com/ 

There is a major construction program, being undertaken in the past decade, named “urban transformation” by the ruling government. As the transformation moved forward, it turned out this building activity was intended for profit and not for better urban environments. The construction was also a social engineering construct, causing people to lose their native homes during the demolition process (dispossession) to make ground for new costlier housing to be bought by the rich.

Art/Science/Technology. Methodological Approaches and Sensitive Experiences Based on Nature Immersions, Field Trips and Rural Residencies

Maria Luiza Fragoso, Guto Nobrega, Karla Brunet, Laura Beloff, Luciana Fleisch and Bartaku Bartaku / Brazil - Finland - Argentina
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFBA - Federal University of Bahia, IT University in Copenhagen, Platohedro Community Lab, Aalto University (FIN)
Panel
http://www.nano.eba.ufrj, http://www.gutonobrega.co.uk, http://karlabru.net/site/, http://www.realitydisfunction.org/, http://redelabs.org/,  http://platohedro.org/, http://libarynth.org/luminous/phoef#overview_bartaku_work_in_public

This panel discusses practical and theoretical investigations in art and technology related to nature immersions, the construction of hybrid ecologies and transcultural connectedness.

Bio-creation of Informatics: Rethinking Data Ecosystems in the Network Economy

Catalina Alzate and Sharath Chandra Ram / India
Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology
Panel
http://radiospock.tumblr.com  

Enabled by leaps and bounds in the evolution of the information society, 'data' has become the most important economic resource of the networked economy, that is mediated by the co-located and instantaneous access, dissemination and sharing of information among people across vast distances . Central to these various transactions that occur in our network culture, there exist numerous policy propositions that seek to regulate the archiving, access, sharing, use and dissemination of data.