Demetrius May: Buffalo

I came across this on 'The Strange Attractor' blog. I like the almost monotone image combined with the one other bright colour, yellow highlighting the shiny bright brass. I also like the fact that the button are slightly misaligned. I don't like the red at the bottom of the image. I feel it ruins an otherwise interesting image.

Mapping Virtual Spaces

Symphonie Diagnole by Viking Eggeling

I like the way the various shots cut suddenly between one another, in close succession. Gives quite a jerky feel, almost like stop frame.

new Post: personal project

The Things by NORM

Diana Photos

Diana cameras can be very unpredictable with the results they produce and this is part of their charm. With digital cameras there is the instant nature of being able to preview an image the second it has been taken which of course means setting can then be adjusted to create the perfect picture. Not knowing the results of a Diana camera until the film has been produced a good deal later means the intended results will very rarely be achieved. This element of leaving things to a certain extent to chance is part of the appeal.

For my personal project I plan to use a DIANA camera to capture the mood of certain spaces around the city. The atmospheric shots that can be produced using these analogue cameras is perfect for my project that seeks to capture the feeling of a space, but i am cautious not to use this camera as an excuse to project a fake feeling of nostalgia on to my subject.

The hands-on, manual nature of the camera means that the user has a number of variables to play with -aperture, exposure time, pin-hole setting, double exposure etc. When viewed on a small (intended output) there will be an interesting juxtaposition between the digital and analogue.

Ligatures

Documenting the making of a project

UVA: United Visual Artists

My project is largely an interactive project, both in the creation and final outcome. As this is the case I think it would be right to put a heavy emphasis on documenting the process in the form of high quality photography.

ABECEDA TYPOGRAPHY BOOK BY KAREL TEIGE

The title says it: at the center of attention is the alphabet. In the sense of the single letters. Considered however as elements in and of themselves, gifted in some way with a true semantic individuality: the ideogram A - a hut, C - symbol of the moon ... this is how they were understood by Karel Teige: 1920's Czechoslovakian cultural radical, founder and principle theorist of the Devetsil collective, largest driving force of the local avantgard surrealists. Designer, student of architecture and visual art, Teige attacked with modern force in the exploration of the possiblity of an interweaving of verbal art and optical expression, industrial technology and mass media, inspired by the poem composed in 1923 by compatriot Vitezslav Nezval: at that time involved in Devetsil: Abeceda specifically. The same Nezval said on the subject of opera"It is intellectual exercise around the most elemental poetic object: the letters of the alphabet.". Language taken back to its minimal terminology, to the essence of spelling and fonetics of its building blocks in which derive the rhymeing quarters of every letter - 25 in total - of the latin alphabet. Ulterior developments of Abeceda made the ominous volume realized three years after Teige, that applied the notion of "poeticism" on the live body of Nezval's opera, that is, the symbiosis between visual and verbal signs which position the same fundamentals of Devetsil. In his words "The artistic fruit of Poetism is negligent, fantastic, exuberant, playful, anti-heroic and erotic.".

Conceived and built as a poetic dialogue between text and images, Abeceda manifests still now the real extraordinary expressive urgency. They are established elements, as well as the verses of Nezval, the photography of Karel Paspa that paints the suggested figuration from the original text on the dancer and choreographer Milca Mayerova (she also, like the same Paspa, adhered to the Devitsil movement). Factors combined from Teige with imprint photomontage techniques, "I have tried to create a photo-style of an exquistely abstract and poetic nature, translating in graphic form that which Nezval expressed in his verses as verbal poetry.", chiosava the author. Drawn into cultural oblivion following the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, the memory of Abeceda has resurfaced only recently. In 2001, when the work was at the center of the exhibition Dreams and Disillusions - Karel Teige and the Czech Avant-garde at the Grey Art Gallery in New York (occasions in which were presented the video of the subject of the year before at Wolfsonian-Florida International University), and again in the last months, inserted in the basic theme of the exposition Modernism - Designing a New World (1914 - 1939) hosted by the London museum Victoria & Albert.
Teige and the other members of Devetsil would have certainly liked the ulterior declination of Abeceda built by Larsen. The Turinian group, active for more than ten years (a passage documented by six albums, the last and most recent being Seies), that communicate an eclectic and multi-disciplined approach to musical material. Specimen, in that sense, the work done years ago by Winsor McKay with his cartoons, put to music by Larsen under the wording of Cartoanimalettimatti (a project premiered in 2002 during the festival Rimusicazioni) and in general the stateless attitude with which the quartet measures the codes of rock, after the zeroing of the same rock provoked by punk, as such to make Larsen more appreciated abroad than in their own country. Reasons for which the artistic interlocutors of the Turinian group tend to place themselves beyond borders. American are both the labels - Young God and Important Records -- that have released their music so far, and many of their partners seen often by their side, Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu) - in the configuration called XXL, or Matmos and the ex-Swans Michael Gira and Jarboe. All icons of the independent music scene across the ocean.
Some of these accomplices will play with Larsen on Abeceda : David Tibet, brain of the british "apocalyptic" project Current 93, project that also involves Baby Dee, transgender cult icon from the Manhattan off scene, same underground the cello player Julia Kent, of Antony and The Johnsons, belongs to, whereas Johann Johannsson, musician and producer that has worked with Marc Almond and Barry Adamson, comes from Island. Also on stage with the band will be the russian performer and choreographer Snejanka Mihaylova; together with Larsen, and the visuals by the Bellissimo team inspired by Tiege's Abeceda, they will set up a concert/performance in 25 movements, one for each letter of the latin alphabet; elaborate and fascinating staging, exclusive worldwide preview for the Torino Settembre Musica festival and its audience.

We Are Thoughtful: Tate campaign

On Monday and Tuesday (22 & 23) of this week I went down to London for the 4Designers conference in Leicester Square. Some very interesting thoughts from the designers who spoke, most notably Mark Depsey and Thoughtful.

But above I have posted an image from Thoughtful's portfolio because of it's relevance to my current personal project. They used a QR code as a poster for Tate Liverpool's summer (2009) Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today. I was interested to see that one can still incorporate colour into the code and a phone will still recognize it.

Thoughtful's approach to the code is different to mine though. They have used them as posters and have used the aesthetic of the code as a means in itself, more of a design feature as an entity in itself. For my project it is not the aesthetic i am interested in but the it's the potential they have to communicate information.

When someone points their camera-phone at the image they are redirected to images of the artworks in the exhibition. For me this seems like a bit of an afterthought and is almost just there to justify using the code aesthetic.

Carry A Poem: an Edinburgh based project

Carry a Poem is a joint venture between Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust, the Scottish Poetry Library and City of Edinburgh public libraries, but it couldn’t happen without the help of dozens of partners across the Scottish capital.

Initially set up to celebrate Edinburgh being a UNESCO city of literature. A way for people to share the poems that mean something to them. The campaign asks people to share the way they carry their poem and what that poem means to them.

The thing about this project i liked the most was the collection of poems people left in Saint Andrews Square. Suspended and attached to a series of small plants were the poems that people had left to share either with people they loved (coinciding with Valentines Day) or the passing public in general.

Generative typography: Processing Tutorials

Yellow Arrow Projects

Yellow Arrow is fundamentally a new way of exploring cities. A harbinger of the "geospatial web," Yellow Arrow began in 2004 as a street art project on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Since then, Yellow Arrow has grown to over 35 countries and 380 cities globally and become a way to experience and publish ideas and stories via text messaging on your mobile phone and interactive maps online. In October, 2008, this groundbreaking experiment was wrapped-up and all the content generated internationally by hundreds of contributors has been archived in the public domain here in Flickr.

The project is built around the general philosophy that every place is distinct and engaging if seen from a unique perspective. With this foundation, Yellow Arrow enables every place to become an attraction. Stories are always tied to unique details such as back-alley murals or unique street markers, as well as classic locations like the Empire State Building in New York or the Reichstag in Berlin. Overall, the aim is for Yellow Arrow to provide a frame and platform to see the world in a new way.

When the project was first introduced in 2004, renowned Stanford archaeologist and cultural theorist Michael Shanks wrote that Yellow Arrow was an example of "deep mapping cultural experience - a cartography of the intimate, the everyday, the monumental, the ephemeral, the epochal."

HOW IT WORKS

Participants place uniquely-coded Yellow Arrow stickers to draw attention to different locations and objects - a favorite view of the city, an odd fire hydrant, the local bar. By sending an SMS from a mobile phone to the Yellow Arrow number beginning with the arrow's unique code, Yellow Arrow authors connect a story to the location where they place their sticker. Messages range from short poetic fragments to personal stories to game-like prompts to action. When another person encounters the Yellow Arrow, he or she sends its code to the Yellow Arrow number and immediately receives the message on their mobile phone. The website yellowarrow.net extends this location-based exchange, by allowing participants to annotate their arrows with photos and maps in the online gallery of Yellow Arrows placed throughout the world.

With mobile technology we are now able to integrate the social potential of networked experience with the immediacy and relevance of the physical world. As Jean Baudrillard writes in response to student strikes in France of May 1968:

"The real revolutionary media were the walls and their speech, the silk-screen posters and the handpainted notices, the street where speech began and was exchanged - everything that was an immediate inscription, given and turned, spoken and answered, mobile in the same space and time, reciprocal and antagonistic. The street is, in this sense, the alternative and subversive form of the mass media, since it isn't, like the latter, an objectified support for answerless messages, a transmission system at a distance. It is the frayed space of the symbolic exchange of speech - ephemeral, mortal."

In a networked age, different communities across the globe have very different access to technology, but mobile phones have become widely available across all social classes. By perceiving a network as something that is inherently a combination of physical, social, and technological components, the project hopes to bring these elements together under a paradigm that honors the type of vibrant exchange Baudrillard found so inspiring.

Greyworld: artwork in public spaces

Trace, Hampton Court Gardens

Trace is a permanent sound installation for the historic maze at Hampton Court Palace. As visitors pass through the maze they trigger a series of sounds that capture the intrigue and mystery of the maze's rich heritage.

Visitors to the installation space are requested to think of a word. Any word at all. They are handed a white cube, which they hold. As they speak their word in to the box, the box begins to glow with a gentle blue light.

They are then invited to explore what appears to be a large empty space, delineated by a red line around its edges. As they wander off in to this area they realise that in fact, invisible to the eye, there is a rich sonic environment to explore, full of words that are nestling amongst trees, flitting around pools of water, or hiding out in caves.

Some of these words live here permanently, and some have been dropped by people walking through the space. If the visitor wants to do this, they simply tip over their box, the light drains away, and their word falls out, living in that area for several hours, for others to discover.. When they are done, they return the box, to be filled by another word.

Murmur: an interactive project in Leith

Murmur website

Cascade on Wheels

Cascade on Wheels is a visualization project that intends to express the quantity of cars we live with in big cities nowadays. The data set we worked on is the daily average of cars passing by streets, over a year. In this case, a section of the Madrid city center, during 2006. The averages are grouped down into four categories of car types. Light vehicles, taxis, trucks, and buses.

We made two different visualizations of the same data set. We intended not just to visualize the data in a readable way, but also to express its meaning, with the use of metaphors. In the Walls Map piece, car counts are represented by 3D vertical columns emerging from the streets map, like walls. The Traffic Mixer piece, where noise is the metaphor, is an hybrid of a visualization and a sound toy. The first piece focuses more on showing the data in a readable and functional way, while the latter focuses more on expressing the meaning of the data and immersing the user into these numbers. Both pieces try to complete each other.

Cascade on Wheels: Walls Map from steph thirion on Vimeo.

Cascade on Wheels: Traffic Mixer from steph thirion on Vimeo.

• 
  
• SOFTWARE USED
• 
  
• Both pieces were built in Processing. The Walls Map makes use of the geomerative and OCD libraries. The Traffic Mixer uses the minim library.
• Data scrapping and handling was done in Ruby, with a blend of builder, hpricot and rexml.
• The editor to draw the polygons on the map and link them with the data set was built in Macromedia Flash.

'The Clock Clock' by Humans Since 1982

'The Clock Clock' is Swedish designers humans since 1982 latest project. The wall clock is a prototype that consists of 24 manual alarm clocks
that show the time in a digital manner. They also developed a typefont on this basis.

'The Clock Clock' will be shown at rhosska design museum in gothenburg from
june to mid august 2009.

Links

QR Code generator

WEBOMETRIC THOUGHTS - good information on QR codes

littlepig.org.uk - Simon Biggs is a research professor at Edinburgh College of Art into digital media. This lead could be extremely helpful for my experiments with generative typography which he has worked with.

Panoramio - programme for geo-tagging photos onto Google maps

iO9- interesting ideas on how we relate to the environment

PROCESSING.ORG - Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions.

ricardmarxer.com - Geomerative is a library for Processing. It extends 2D geometry operations to facilitate generative geometry. Includes a TrueType font and an SVG interpreters. This library exposes the shapes (such as vector drawings or typographies) in a more approchable way. Geomerative makes it easy to access the paths, the handles and the points, making it easy to develop generative typography and geometry pieces in Processing.

Anthony Gormley Sketches

Mapping Movement

Crackology: Mayhem’s Crackology focuses on the creation of relationships between infrastructural flows and architectural space, generating an alternative ground condition. In Sao Paulo, the optimisation of infrastructure provides the opportunity to create public spaces on the leftover sites, but on Mayhem’s site, an urban park, this has led to its isolation and disuse. The surrounding programme, as well as the car, bus and pedestrian flows, inform the proposed infrastructure to blend public and private space, creating a fluid and differentiated urban massing of overlapping parks, office towers, residential areas and the relocation of an existing bus station.

From Digital Hinterlands website.

Fascinating images of movement visualised. I'm very interested in this idea of making something that is usually invisible, visible. For example once someone has walked past you in the street, you do not know where they have travelled from except that they have walked down the same road as you. Only they know the exact route they took.

Above we can see movement being mapped. In terms of psychogeography and a person's movement within a space there is a difference between the flight paths and the route which the London taxis take:

- the pilots path is predetermined

- the taxi driver's is (to a degree) chosen by them based on what's happening around them.

We can see that many of the taxis turn off down backstreets where the traffic is less busy, away from the main roads.