Reading Response Week 6: Abstract Machines/ Hardware
When one ponders what hardware, or machines mean to them, they probably imagine a screw or bolt for hardware and maybe a washing machine, or a vehicle. I believe our understanding of these concepts will continue to change and evolve over time. To someone in 1880 a machine might equate to a steam engine, someone in 1960 a television set, and someone in 2015 they might think of a virtual reality headset or a computer smart phone. These concepts and ideas change exponentially with time as do their meanings for being machines. For instance machines usually have a task to accomplish, in recent years artists have taken a less conservative view on these types of things creating a artistic relationship with machines. Machines are beautiful tools for art as you can set a threshold and the machine will run its code accordingly creating something novel and inspiration provoking and it does this without hesitation it just makes the work or simply is the artwork in some situations. I feel our relationship with abstract machines and hardware will continue to progress toward the future and I wouldn't dare guess what it will be like. Could you imagine going to 1900 with a virtual reality mask and showing it to people, they probably couldn't even comprehend what they were experiencing. It is my guess that the future holds the same type of relationship to our current understanding of technology in general.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Reading Response: AI & Cybernetics
Reading Response Week 5: AI & Cybernetics
While it did seem as though Paul Pangaro tried to differentiate between AI & Cybernetics it was amazing to me how similar they actually were. He clearly and articulately defines the differences of the the two. He speaks about how AI tries to make computers "smart" while Cybernetics is to try and understand and build systems that can achieve goals possibly emergence. The chart he shows here is sort of hard to understand
and assimilate but after a closer look it is very helpful.
So far Paul Pangaro has influenced my mindset the most about Cybernetics, he seems to have the tightest handle on what it actually is and he is very gifted in relaying his understanding back to people which in this field can be very difficult.
While it did seem as though Paul Pangaro tried to differentiate between AI & Cybernetics it was amazing to me how similar they actually were. He clearly and articulately defines the differences of the the two. He speaks about how AI tries to make computers "smart" while Cybernetics is to try and understand and build systems that can achieve goals possibly emergence. The chart he shows here is sort of hard to understand
and assimilate but after a closer look it is very helpful.
So far Paul Pangaro has influenced my mindset the most about Cybernetics, he seems to have the tightest handle on what it actually is and he is very gifted in relaying his understanding back to people which in this field can be very difficult.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Exercise 3
Exercise 3
Community Garden System (AKA "If Plants Could Talk")
Ideally, this would be a project spanning several years of study, but as a system piece, it directly relates to food production and gardening behavior in humans. The purpose would be to measure variables regarding the condition of individual community garden plots and report those conditions to the user, based on the type of plant they are growing. Then, our portion as observers is to make available this information, and see how the presentation of this information then affects the future gardening behavior of plot renters.
Questions regarding emergence:
- If the sensors report to them when conditions are not optimal, do growers tend to their plants, or do they disregard the message; how long do they wait? Then based on their history of attentiveness or negligence, do they choose to grow something more suitable to their grow habits the next year?
- Based on a history of conditions in other plots, do they decide to grow something different to suit the conditions of the soil instead?
Materials needed:
- Arduino or other micro controller to handle wireless data collection and output to a web server.
- Computer system to host web server
- Program to process and publish the data via the web server
- Soil Moisture Sensors (for each plot)
- Camera (suspended to face the plots top-down, for visual observation of human care of plots)
- Power source for sensors and cameras (either cords into outlets/solar panel/wind turbine, or batteries)
- Rigging Equipment (wood posts, wire Cables, clamps/brackets; used to suspend camera system above garden)
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Reading Response Week 4
Complex systems an Emergence seem to go hand in hand sort of smaller parts coming together in order to form a greater structure that does not reflect the micro. The first thing that comes to mind is the human body, although we are made up of millions of cells we do not look like a cell. Self organization is intriguing in a sense that i think of a living organism but there are non-organic self-organizing systems all around us for example Carlos Castellanos Biopoesis. When thinking about ontology is can all get very ambiguous and abstract as nobody can really prove that they themselves exist much less the world around them. Although, this train of thought does lead one into different realms of the mind that might not get traveled to very often. The way Andrew Pickering writes about the subject is a good example of the thoughts and ideas that may come from tanking an ontological perspective and integrating it into your own art practice.
Complex systems an Emergence seem to go hand in hand sort of smaller parts coming together in order to form a greater structure that does not reflect the micro. The first thing that comes to mind is the human body, although we are made up of millions of cells we do not look like a cell. Self organization is intriguing in a sense that i think of a living organism but there are non-organic self-organizing systems all around us for example Carlos Castellanos Biopoesis. When thinking about ontology is can all get very ambiguous and abstract as nobody can really prove that they themselves exist much less the world around them. Although, this train of thought does lead one into different realms of the mind that might not get traveled to very often. The way Andrew Pickering writes about the subject is a good example of the thoughts and ideas that may come from tanking an ontological perspective and integrating it into your own art practice.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Exercise #2 Organic Analogues
A organic platform that would change and interact with it's environment based on where someone was standing while viewing a something i.e a piece of artwork. It would be a rectangular platform made of 8 sections of 2 foot square patches of grass. A sensor would be placed under each patch and would store information about which patches where stood on more often and for how long they were stood upon. Based on this data feedback one would either water periodically the patches that where stood upon the most and deprive the ones that were stood upon the least, Or in real time have a system deliver nutrients to the systems based upon the information from the sensors. The end goal would be to show where observers where standing while viewing something with a tangible substrate that we interact with in our everyday lives.
A organic platform that would change and interact with it's environment based on where someone was standing while viewing a something i.e a piece of artwork. It would be a rectangular platform made of 8 sections of 2 foot square patches of grass. A sensor would be placed under each patch and would store information about which patches where stood on more often and for how long they were stood upon. Based on this data feedback one would either water periodically the patches that where stood upon the most and deprive the ones that were stood upon the least, Or in real time have a system deliver nutrients to the systems based upon the information from the sensors. The end goal would be to show where observers where standing while viewing something with a tangible substrate that we interact with in our everyday lives.
Required Materials: Platform frame, Grass Sections 2 Foot squares, Weight sensors, Computer, Nutrient delivery system i.e. Watering pale or real time watering system which would require some sort of sectioned tubing to each section as well as another computer whose job is to disperse water pertaining to observer activity.
Reading Response week 2
I didn't even think about how systems react or interact. When my mind heard interactive systems many of the ideas I would brainstorm in my own head were actually only reactive systems. I can now distinguish the two more easily. An interactive system is a hard concept to grasp and i'm sure I have not sufficiently done so although I am thankful to be exposed to this concept now.
In terms of Art as an endless conversational process, I can't help but think that is exactly what art is. A wellspring of creative manifestation. But, when you look at it with a cybernetic lens as in the article it makes you think about how your artistic though may be manifest into being and then constantly evolved through cybernetic interaction with the environment always becoming or meaning something new.
I didn't even think about how systems react or interact. When my mind heard interactive systems many of the ideas I would brainstorm in my own head were actually only reactive systems. I can now distinguish the two more easily. An interactive system is a hard concept to grasp and i'm sure I have not sufficiently done so although I am thankful to be exposed to this concept now.
In terms of Art as an endless conversational process, I can't help but think that is exactly what art is. A wellspring of creative manifestation. But, when you look at it with a cybernetic lens as in the article it makes you think about how your artistic though may be manifest into being and then constantly evolved through cybernetic interaction with the environment always becoming or meaning something new.
Readings Response week 1
Systems theory and cybernetics build up upon one another giving a person a new lens in which they can view the world. Although very elusive in their nature as concepts and very ambiguous and challenging to understand at times, Once you are exposed to these sort of concepts there is no going back. I don't know what to compare it too other than something that you have never experienced or knew about but once you learned about it, it affected each and every thought on a subliminal level. Many people don't think about the systems all around them but once you are exposed to a cybernetic outlook you cannot but help notice all of the systems around yourself living, or not. The reading gave me a more clear look at what a system means and how they are integrated into our everyday lives.
Systems theory and cybernetics build up upon one another giving a person a new lens in which they can view the world. Although very elusive in their nature as concepts and very ambiguous and challenging to understand at times, Once you are exposed to these sort of concepts there is no going back. I don't know what to compare it too other than something that you have never experienced or knew about but once you learned about it, it affected each and every thought on a subliminal level. Many people don't think about the systems all around them but once you are exposed to a cybernetic outlook you cannot but help notice all of the systems around yourself living, or not. The reading gave me a more clear look at what a system means and how they are integrated into our everyday lives.
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