PERSONALDEBRIS  

Here in Southend, an arcade called Electric Avenue. Drew had a particular fascination with this one and asked David to turn around and stop for a photo. Taken on the way back to the hotel from day two of the workshop at MediaShed.

Field Works, an ongoing project by Masaki Fujihata (project “Tsumari” pictured above.)

“Field-Works” is a series of projects which reconstrust collective memories into cyberspace as a kind of video archive by using position data captured by GPS and moving image captured by Video. The project started from 1992.

The Soft Electric by Grace Kim is a project I blogged about awhile ago on Popgadget. A very pretty project that does a great job of integrating electronics into the garment.

From the website:

“The capelet was knitted and felted by hand. It is embroidered with conductive thread. The thread carries electric current to LEDs that are beaded into the embroidery, making the electronic current part of the garment’s adornment. The LED beads flicker, acting like a sequin in the light.”

To see some of the techniques used in this project see her blog or read her thesis.

Rachelle Beaudoin’s project, That Obscure Object of Desire (Second Iteration) is a garment that delivers an electric shock when touched. In Rachelle’s words:

“I am interested in the ever-present dichotomy of the virgin and the whore in representations of women. I created a chastity belt undergarment that alludes to the film and references that peculiar scene. However, this device administered a non-lethal electric shock when touched by the viewer.”

Here’s a close-up of the garment: Read the rest of this entry »

Telematic Dreaming by Paul Sermon is an installation which connects two geographically separated beds via ISDN line (the project was first shown in 1992.) From the project website:

“Telematic Dreaming is an installation that exists within the ISDN digital telephone network. Two separate interfaces are located in separate locations, these interfaces in themselves are dynamic installations that function as customized video-conferencing systems. A double bed is located within both locations, one in a blacked out space and the other in an illuminated space. The bed in the light location has a camera situated directly above it, sending a live video image of the bed, and a person (”A”) lying on it, to a video projector located above the other bed in the blacked out location. The live video image is projected down on to the bed with another person (”B”) on it. A second camera, next to the video projector, sends a live video image of the projection of person “A” with person “B” back to a series of monitors that surround the bed and person “A” in the illuminated location. The telepresent image functions like a mirror that reflects one person within another persons reflection

Compare this to the Sensing Beds, created in 2003 as an ITP student project:

“Sensors located in one mattress pad track the position of its occupant and transmit that data to the other bed where the position data is used to activate heating pads at the same coordinates. Each sleeper thus feels the ghostly warmth of the absent partner’s body in the other bed.”

The prototype featured two benches instead of mattresses. (There is also a short paper about the project.)

A quick post that I hope to update later with thoughts, but for now, from the Fabcell project website by Midori Shibutani, Akira Wakita:

“Fabcell is a flexible, non-emissive, and multi-color fabric module. In Fabcell, fibers dyed with liquid crystal ink and conductive yarns connected to electronic components are woven into a square textile. By applying voltage to the conductive yarn, and changing the fabric’s temperature, the color of fabric surface can be changed. Arranged in matrices, Fabcells display images on the curves of flexible textiles. And used for clothing or with soft objects, it enables them a new expressions of visual imaginary.”

via information aesthetics

Two related projects: Pictured above is Phrases Collide by Jeff Gray, a musical instrument created with conductive threads sewn into a fabric casing for two ropes. When handled by a performer wearing conductive fabric gloves the two trains of conductive thread connect shorting the contact. The resistance between the two threads is measured as a variable resistance and alters a pre-recorded sound.

Contrast this with the Electronically Sensed Rope by SQUID Labs, a rope webbing with integral sensing capability. Pictured below is the rope installed for the Extreme Textiles exhibition in 2005. In this form the “Rope and Sound” acts as an interactive musical harp. Pulling on any blue rope on the installation produces sound and affects a visual display which illustrates the activity on all ropes. The display provides “finer grain” feedback to supplement the auditory information.

Some interesting information about the Electronically Sensed Rope.

“Nylon, polyester and advanced polymeric fibers such as Spectra and Kevlar can be combined with integrated conductive fibers to transform conventional rope applications. Conductive fibers are braided with traditional fibers to produce a rope that is capable both of carrying a load and monitoring the weight of that load. Squid Labs is developing this technology to provide load, abrasion and localised wear information to assist rope users in assuring the quality and reliability of their ropes while in service.”

“The rope acts as its own strain gauge, monitoring tension constantly while the rope is in use. In this installation, changing the tension in the blue active ropes creates an electrical signal that modulates the music that you hear through a synthesizer. Just as the human muscular-skeletal system is a tensegrity of muscle and bone, the ropes and aluminum tubes form a tensegrity of tension and compression, pushing and pulling, weightlessness and gravity.”

UPDATE: Thanks to Michelle, who sent in this link, to the Global String project by Atau Tanaka and Kasper Toeplitz.

“Global String is a multi-site network music installation, connected via the internet. It is a musical instrument where the network is the resonating body of the instrument, by use of a real time sound synthesis server.”

A real physical string is connected to a virtual string on the internet. Vibration sensors monitor when the string is plucked. So unlike SQUID Labs‘ rope there is no integrated sensing and no use of conductive fibers in the structure of the rope, but it is a beautiful award winning interactive artwork.

We just returned from Scotland today where Jonah and I led two workshops, one in Glasgow at Urban Learning Space and another at the new Distance Lab in Forres. We also gave talks at New Media Scotland’s Poker Club in Edinburgh. The trip was a good one, though very quick. Thanks to all who came, participated, and helped us to make it happen, especially Gillian, Stefan, and Michelle.

So I missed it last time it was playing in New York at Galapagos, but this time I’m going to make a special effort to try to see it in Manhattan. Point Break LIVE! is an “absurdist stage adaptation of the 1992 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze extreme-sports blockbuster.” The catch: with each performance an audience member is selected at random to play Keanu Reeves’ role of Johnny Utah, reading their lines from cue cards to “capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance, even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting.” Haha. Funny.

Read this today in the LA Times. Found myself riveted, and the ending just about broke my heart.

A desperate mother ignores the odds

Vietnamese woman who 20 years ago sent her son to the U.S. sets out — with little money and barely a clue — to find him before her visa expires or her cancer returns.

By Mai Tran and Christopher Goffard, Times Staff Writers
December 19, 2006

Read the rest of this entry »