The goal of this performance was to take on the role of a historian presenting the historical importance that was the prohibition of keyboards as a result of a culture heavily invested in the benefits of copy and paste as a method for creation. The presentation is given after prohibition has been lifted. However, much like the prohibition of alcohol, once the ban was lifted, regulatory measures were put in place to maintain a level of control.

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This project was designed to enhance people’s understanding of food. To do this, we developed a context-aware system that would allow people to interact with each other through a system that exists primarily on mobile and portable devices and passes relevant information when and where it is the most relevant. The system is not real time and, instead of being location based, it functions in spaces and times that are most relevant to the information being thrown around between users.

This project was designed and built in collaboration with Daniel Lara.

Research

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This set of studies explores the relationship that we as user have with digital devices. Currently, we are forced to be quite delicate with digital devices for a variety of reasons. Mostly, this is due to the fact that the devices are fragile and expensive. But I’m interested in wondering what would happen if this wasn’t the case. What if you could interact with things in an emotional way? What if the physical manifestation of an emotional outburst caused a meaningful response from a device or system? I’ve explored this elimination of the preciousness associated with a device within the 3 studies in the video above and listed below.

1: Punching: Signal from the Noise.

A nostalgic exploration referencing a time when you could punch a television or radio in order to improve reception.

2: Throwing: Force as Instrument

An experiential exploration that looks at the force of throwing as musical instrument.

3: Shaking: Directional Nudge

The most specific of the scenarios, the shaking interface uses a mobile phone to look at ways in which provocative messages could be sent directly (and anonymously) from one device to another through the use of proximity and a sharp, scolding directional gesture.

This project is an exploration of digital text and how it can be utilized in the creation of a new way of reading. The text that the project explores is Labyrinth, a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

A quick note about “references,” as defined for this project:
A reference, as I will refer to it within this project write-up, is a word or phrase that, when understood in more detail, exposes a more rich narrative within the writing of Borges. The references have been curated subjectively and by hand as the result of several close readings of the original text.

The stories of Labyrinths are dense with these references. What is most compelling about these references is that some of them are factual, some are completely fictional, and at times they are untrue yet rooted in fact or history. Throughout a collection of his short stories, the use of these references weaves together the narrative fabric that is his own universe.

The reading system developed explores the relationship between the reader, the Borges universe, the outside world and where he blurs the line between the two.

The first story from Labyrinths that has been built out into a specifically relevant reading environment is Three Versions of Judas.
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The continuation, in physical + interactive form, of these earlier material explorations [01] [02] [03]

This is an exploration of interactions rooted in the results of the physical manifestations of emotional outburst initially inspired by a material intended for use in situations where protection and shock absorption are required. The explorations moved into a space that begins to ask questions about how we interact with technology and the ways that we treat the digital things around us with care. The visual forms are influenced by the forms of the material, developed for function but formally, are very engaging. The sounds are displayed live from within the object that is being smashed. The signal is affected and amplified in real time to create a more engaging sense of the internal results of the action inflicted upon the object.

The resulting interactions was found to be pleasing by many of the users. Some described it as fun and others said that the action and response was therapeutic for them.

Final Presentation

Project Demonstration

Project Statement

Final Installation in the MDP Wind Tunnel Gallery. 12/01/2009

In his essay “The Art of Noises: A Futurist Manifesto,” Luigi Russolo states that “In the 19th Century, with the invention of machines, Noise was born.” He goes on to reinforce this theory that before the industrial revolution there was not noise, but only sound. It wasn’t until the invention and proliferation of the machine age that we as a culture became bombarded with noise form all types of man made mechanical sources.

With the introduction of digital technology, a new type of noise immersion was created. As I am writing this form my living room table I am “hearing” the laptop in front of me, 2 or 3 hums coming form the kitchen, and thebuzz of the monitor and tower several feet to my left that I can’t even see. (Which I forgot were on and just turned off after having written that sentence.) We barely even notice this anymore. Now that we are not only surrounded by digital technology but the advancements have been such that it has become increasingly portable, an entirely new type of noise has become so pervasive that it is commonplace. But there have also been interesting side affects of these occurrences. One of which is the common nature to encounter one half of a private telephone conversation in public.

Sure, its annoying when a lack of phone etiquette holds up the line at the grocery store or causes confusion in determining just who someone is talking to (thanks small hands-free headsets). But at other times, the voyeuristic temptations to listen in and fill in the other half of the narrative are just too great to avoid.

The reworked rotary phone explores both of these characteristics of digital public noise through the use of a familiar single-user device that caries a sense of direct connection to the communication experience along with a certain nostalgia or celebration for not being assumed to be “always available.” There are 2 aspects to the audio experience created. Both of these experiences are controlled and manipulated through the use of the single rotary dial.

The first is the public display of the performance. Parts of conversations are mixed with ambient, mostly digital, sounds collected from public spaces to create textural compositions reflective of public spaces invaded by these sonic washes and injections. The ambient sounds are given priority in the composition and through the continued manipulation of the rotary dial, the sounds have the ability to deteriorate over time in a manor consistent with the ways that mobile phone conversations break-up and cut-out.

The second is the individual experience of listening to the audio performed through the handset. The original handset speaker was utilized to provide the appropriate texture for the sounds relevant to the device used. The material for the individual display is provided in a way that composes the conversational language and digital ambiance with more priority given to the voice-based narratives. The composition is also reminiscent of attempting to listen to someone who insists on using their phone in a public place.

Through the use and manipulation of the rotary dial of the phone, not only is the user affecting the sounds that they hear through the handset, they are also affecting and manipulating the compositions performed publicly which they are able to hear as well. The individual experience is intended to include both the intimate handset audio performance along with the public composition so that they can build upon each other to create new moments of silence and chaos, depending on how the user is interacting with the device.

Project Statement

Ubiquitous Street Bureau: A design research project to study the thresholds of walking in a driving culture.

Developed and explored by Daniel Lara, Ana Ramos, and Alex Braidwood

Final Presentation

(Click on the images to view them full size)

Sole Scans

Every sole tells a story. By collecting images of the bottom of people’s shoes along with some additional information collected form the provided survey, this inquiry looks to investigate the roll that footwear plays in our determining when and where to walk.

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Multi-Amphitheater – Collective Performance.

I’m proposing a space where the performance is no longer a one-way transmission passively absorbed by a gang of viewers. Instead, each person becomes a participant, even if just by their presence, in the creation of an audio/visual experience. In this sense, the performer should be considered to be the algorithm – the system behind the scenes that is collecting, trimming, modifying and presented the content for output. The output, however, is determined by the decisions and actions of the participants within the space.

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Movement 1: Questions / Disorientation

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Movement 2:  Investigatory Framework / Thinking Through Making

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Movement 3: Critical Analysis / Dissemination

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Download all 3 tracks as MP3s

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Track Artwork: Movement 1

Track Artwork: Movement 2

Track Artwork: Movement 3

Project Statement

Alhazen: The 10th century scientist considered to be the pioneer of the scientific method and the “father of modern optics.” [Source]

Cycle: In musical organization, a cycle is considered to be the grandest level of organization. it concerns the arrangement of several more or less self-contained pieces into a large-scale composition. [Source]

The scientific method is one valuable model for designers to look to when assessing useful methods for process, exploration and the development of new ways of thinking or working. On September 18th, 2009, as part of the Design Dialog Series at the Graduate Media Design Program (MDP) of Art Center, Seth Ruffins, Ph.D. presented the work that he and his group have been doing in the development of atlases that visually map embryonic development. Along with the work of his group, he also laid the foundations for where his interests developed from as well as where his group’s work could potentially go in the future. His interests and the creative output of his group show us as designers that the analytical approach of scientific processes can integrate with aesthetically stunning representations in ways that create new relationships between people from a variety of backgrounds and dense sets of information.

The scientific method traditionally contains 6 steps. These 6 steps were divided into groupings of 2 in order to inspire and inform the formal, structural, and material decisions made in the creation of of a compositional cycle containing 3 movements with 2 parts each. Each movement is composed using only the audio documentation of the spoken lecture as material. The outcome provides the listener with a sequence of 3 different views of the lecture given by slicing and composing the presentation in 3 very particular ways.

Movement 1: Wandering, amorphous, unsure, undefined, potential, lacking structure, theory
Movement 2: Experimentation, exploration, discord, unsettling, hands-on
Movement 3: Refined, resolute, towards definition, communication, concrete, reproducible

Lecture EP Packaging: Front with CD

Lecture EP Packaging: Back - Track titles as Process

The original process begin by investigating the manipulation, scanning and slicing of time visually in a manor influenced by the embryo visuals developed by SethRuffins. With the early introduction of audio manipulation to extract succinct and isolated meanings from the lecture, the visuals become less relevant to the sequence being explored.

In the final form, the visual exploration process was utilized to design the packaging of the audio compositions. The case as well as the disc contain sequenced frames of all of the visual time manipulations and audio visualization studies explored during the process.

Project Statement

On Friday October 19th, 2009 during the NOWCASTING conference at UCLA, Warren Sack proposed that computational languages should be studied not from within the sciences, but as language from within the digital humanities. This idea is intriguing and the development of new programming languages would benefit a great deal from this mode of thinking. Contemporary models for the majority of computational language development is still very much rooted in what should be considered “the original” ways of communicating with computers. Sure, some portions of logic and naming conventions are set in the traditions by which we understand thought processes. However, at a certain level, there tends to be a wide range of barriers unintentionally integrated into the various systems that prevent different types of thinkers with different aptitudes from being able to understand the constructs considered to be “inherent” within the incredibly short historical contexts of these “language” environments. At times these are the strengths of the systems for the initiated but this also is the aspect that prevents these structures from being fully integrated and understood as proper language. The presentation proposes that by studying programming structures in this way, those who develop programming languages and those who utilize them in order to create should be considered to be writers, essayists and storytellers. By embracing this model of studying programming languages as language to look at the past and evaluate in the future, new systems for the creation of the media through the exploration of computational process can become more accessible to a wider range of thinkers and makers.

As a non-programmer (or more accurately a “folk coder”) and someone who has played around with generative processes in a variety of media (see: www.formalplay.com) this also raises the question “how much emphasis should be placed on how something is built?” In written language, literature for example, the way in which a piece is written, the language used, is an integral part of a critique. But in this case the relationship of language and experience is much more clear. Once the system of “writing” is such that the “writing” and the “result” or 2 very separate elements, should how something was made be included, even in a small way, in the value or perception of what was made? This piece poses this question directly through the development of an audio and visual system in which the full meaning is most accessible when both the code that has created the piece and the piece itself are viewed. Information about the audio and visuals being displayed have been carefully crafted into the function names, variable names and comments for development of and integration into the final display.

In its original form, this piece is displayed full-screen on a large monitor with wireless headphones.

For this final iteration, we decided to blur the line between the viewer and the viewed. This version includes the ability for the observer to press the button and here language common to the observed but in this version, we’ve also added a series of messages projected within the space that question the voyeurism at play. The projected animations are intended to sneak around the space and be the subtle movement noticed within the observed environment when the onlooker takes the time and care to be aware.