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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Controlled-Random Group Presentation

This video documents our presentation of Situated Technologies Pamphlet #5, A synchronicity: Design Fictions for Asynchronous Urban Computing by Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova for our Media History and Theory class.

The article being discussed can be found here.

4 Presenters
1 Section each
5 Talking points per section
2 Images per talking point

Every 1 minute, the presentation system selects, at random, 1 of the four speakers and 1 of his or her 5 talking points to discuss.

Each talking point will have 2 images displayed for 30 seconds each. Images will be selected at random from the 40 total images.

This continues until all of the talking points are covered. No talking points will be duplicated.

The intent behind mixing the order of talking points and the sequencing of images is to explore the potential for new connections to develop between the different presenters’ topics for discussion.

Some lettering specimens from the signage used at the farmer’s market

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The best form of promotion: delicious samples. (Works for the farmers. Works for the DJs).

As the text is displayed, each segment is analyzed character by character (in real time) and handed over for use in the creation of the sound for the space based on the same timing as is defined in the Time Text XML file. This is an example of the sound created based on the first several segments of Three Versions of Judas

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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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Using an Arduino, a proximity sensor, and an infared LED, I created this remote trigger to fire off my camera whenever the sensor determined that an object was within a few feet of the box.

Version 1: Maxbotix Ultrasonic Rangefinder

This one worked well indoors and gave a good long range however once outside, there seemed to be a lot of environment interference. The first on location test that we did for threshold investigation, the sensor was firing at not only proximity detection but also loud noises and vibrations.

Version 2: Sharp Infrared Proximity Sensor

Although the range of this sensor was much shorter, the results outdoors where much more accurate providing a greater amount of flexibility for the location in which we could use it. I was also able to get it to fire off both of my Nikon camera’s with the same burst using a small tripod and a mirror to deflect the IR LED’s signal.

Testing outside The Wind Tunnel

On location use during a reaerch outing.

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.

This is the initial field test of our design probe that we will develop to investigate walking as a threshold. We are interested in developing an understanding of people’s motivations and limitations when to comes to walking as a means of transportation. We are not interested in walking as a method of fitness and this has informed the development of our various probes. For this investigation, we are specifically interested in information that can be extracted from the collection of scans of the bottom of various types and styles of footwear. For our initial field test we went to a nearby coffee shop to gather a variety of soles, including one barista who was gracious enough to take a short break to participate. Below is a collection of images form this location, people in our studio, and variety of other people from South Campus.

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Our base threshold for exploration and research is walking. For this study, we were interested in exploring the act of walking as a way to generate marks. To test the feasibility of our initial idea, we performed this test ourselves by talking a stroll around the block with a sheet of paper a soft piece of charcoal hung from a string in order to compare our different movements.

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Real Space Sampling
While driving around the city of Los Angeles, I stumbled upon an area in the back corner of a parking lot where a hole had been in a chain link fense so that homeless people and transients could gain access to the protective area underneath a bridge over the LA river near a train yard. The most interesting aspect of this space of the city was the hidden and overlooked nature of both the location itself and the people who used it. In order to develop an audio and visual profile of the city, chose to documented some unseen elements within the space, more specifically, invisible typography with the location. While on-site, I used a radio scanner to record communications from the airwaves at the specific location. I then edited the sound down to only mentions of letters and numbers, including the ways in which police officers communicate letters by stating words. Visually I was attracted to the discarded memorabilia that was littered about. Much of it had been there for many years and was well ground into the dirt. I focused my collections on those items that contained small typography and interesting forms. I then explored these items back in the studio using macro photography.

The Location

Audio results of radio scanning the area for the typographic audio form

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Macro photography explorations of other-worldly textures and typographic forms

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