During this years Ars Electronica festival the Lentos Museum in Linz exhibited Ecology of Techno Mind, a retrospective from the Kapelica gallery in Ljublijana, Slovenia.

The Kapelica gallery dedicate “special attention to projects that topicalize the reverse engineering of nature with their direct application of technologies and biotechnology on the human body”. I’m not a body art connoisseur or practitioner. I am however very interested in the reverse engineering of nature. And whether or not I like body art I admire the galleries idealism. According to the galleries curator, Jurij Krpan, the role of the gallery is to unite people who have something to say and, though it may sound a bit 80’s, enter debate and change society. Over the years Kapelica have had over 150 exhibitions. I got a sense that they at the very least has succeeded in creating debate in Slovenia. Here are three of my favorite pieces from the exhibition…

Junior’s Return

I find Philip Ross’s work very inspiring and interesting. In particular Junior’s Return since it connects to my current work and research on living systems. In Junior’s Return plants are grown in networked hydroponic systems. “The system keeps its enclosed plant in a dwarf state by supplying only enough resources to survive but not thrive. I kept a broccoli seedling alive for almost three years using this technique” says Ross. Junior’s Return shows that crops can be sustained in artificial environments. “However, they have long since ceased being the subject of farming or gardening. They are increasingly becoming the subject of science and technology.”

Robot Rabbit

Robot Rabbit by Paul Granjon says “robot, rabit” with a rate of one word every second. A counter is incremented with each word and the (real) grass is automatically watered by a pump when the soil dries. The installation “questions and comments on the effects of exposure to an exponentially growing and more capable technological environment. Robot Rabbit is an automatic installation that opposes the inflexible rhythm of the machine to the biological growth of the live grass”. Admittedly I didn’t get this deeper meaning at first. Until I read about the piece I thought the point was that the rabbit sounded like a frog. Anyway, I love Granjons humor and can really recommend his book Hand-made Machines.

Eat a Bit

Eat a Bit introduces the first utensils of Digital Kitchen. Digital Kitchen will allow processing of “eat a bit” recipes and using open source software and 2D/3D printing technology it will allow production of edible objects. The actual printing equipment didn’t make it to Ars. I haven’t been able to find anything about the project on the web so I’m not sure if it even exists, but the concept intrigues me…

“Like There Was No Tomorrow visualizes life and eternity, a dawn when everything is born and dusk when the sun sets. Finnäs wants to remind us that this is a fragile beauty. The earth is a resource we borrow but also rapidly consume”. - From the Visual Voltage Catalog.

Like There Was No Tomorrow is an installation produced by artist Tina Finnäs and the Interactive Institute for Visual Voltage, a traveling exhibition commissioned by the Swedish Institute. The exhibition “communicates an understanding of energy in a broader sense that aims to increase the interest in energy consumption and environmental questions”.

The artificial plants, the grinding mechanical noise they make as they grow and the light that changes as the installation cycles from dusk to dawn accompanied by Lou Reed’s Perfect Day call for an immediate emotional response. Beyond the visceral Like There Was No Tomorrow deals with the dark side of energy consumption; rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

A meter in the installation measures the carbon dioxide (CO2) level in the exhibition space and causes artificial plants in the installation to grow as the level rises. The CO2 level is directly related to the presence of humans as well as traffic and industrial activity in the area. Real plants may just like the artificial plants in the installation prosper from increased CO2 levels but ironically, though they may produce more flowers, seeds and fruits, their nutrition value will decrease and we will have to eat more to get the same nutritional benefits. [1]

An internal “carbon dioxide clock”, similar to the one at co2clock.org but based on historical data and trends*, is used as a seed for random movements among the plants. If values from the clock were to be plotted over time they would form a steadily rising curve that begins where the Keeling curve ends today.

“The [Keeling] curve has become one of the iconic images of science, rivaling the double helix or Darwin’s sketches of finches. Society might first come to know that its efforts are paying off when measurements taken at Mauna Loa and its companion stations reveal that the Keeling Curve is no longer rising, but at last, is sinking”. [2]

Finally a small display in the installation shows a year corresponding to the year when the global atmospheric CO2 value will be the same as that measured by the installation, assuming that CO2 emissions continue to rise as they have lately. In other words assuming that we carry on like there was no tomorrow, ignoring the entire climate issue and continue to consume new sources of coal, oil, and natural gas**.

Like There Was No Tomorrow and the Visual Voltage exhibition will be shown in various locations throughout Asia, Europe, USA and South America during 2008 to 2011.

Made with:
openFrameworks, Arduino, DMX LED Lights, Linear Actuators, CO2 Meter.

Project Team:
Tina Finnäs, Erik Sjödin, Henrik Berggren and Rouzbeh Delavari / Physical Interaction Lab, Johan Strandahl and Kladji Shoushi. Sponsored by ELFA and SenseAir.

* The CO2 clock and the year calculations are based on the assumption that the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 observed over the last five years (starting at 2007) continues at 2.0 ppm (part per million) per year, and a seasonal cycle with an amplitude of 2.5 ppm. The display shows a year in the future as long as the measured CO2 level is greater than the current global atmospheric level (385 ppm at the time of writing). The year can potentially rise to 2815 which corresponds to a CO2 level of 2000 ppm. [3, 4, 5]

“The next hundred years … depends on how successful we are (or not) in decreasing emissions. This plot shows emissions under “business as usual”, under the ASSUMPTION that we are not successful stopping emissions and ignore, for whatever set of reasons, the entire climate issue. A further assumption is that in that scenario the total amount burned will be twice what is now considered to be the global reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas, namely two times ~1000 billion metric ton Carbon … For comparison, cumulative global combustion from 1850-today has been about 340 billion ton C. Notice that in this projection, which also ASSUMES an initial growth of the rate of burning of 3% per year (observed during the last five years), we will reach the maximum rate of consumption in ~2050, when we will have burned half of the total resource. Presumably, after that point it gets progressively harder (expensive) to pull stuff out of the ground, as the history of oil extraction in the U.S. appears to demonstrate”. [Pieter Tans]

Documentation from the Rag-tag workshop are now online at the Rag-tag Workshop 2008 website. Among other things there are slides from Bengt Sjöléns presentation (see my previous report), slides from Bengts and David Cuartielles media player dissections, slides and summaries from Davids physical prototyping presentation, tutorials + code from Davids Arduino workshop and some thoughts and experiences on how to construct installations for public spaces from Nils Claesson.

There are also presentations of works from among other people Michelle Teran, Tina Finnäs and Performing Pictures.

Links:
Rag-tag Workshop 2008

Absolut Choir

Today was the first day of the RAG-TAG* workshop. I didn’t have time to see all the speakers but luckily I made it in time for Bengt Sjölén from Teenage Engineering. Here is a brief report from his talk:

Using Absolut Choir** as an example Bengt started of by talking about the importance of building scalable systems and the advantages of being able to remotely control, update and monitor installations. He then went on to highlight the benefits of using embedded Linux devices (such as the NSLU2 and the ASUS WL-HDD) instead of or together with micro controllers and PCs.

Embedded Linux devices do unlike micro controllers often have USB and networking capabilities and since they run Linux you can write full fledged applications for them in your language of choice. They usually lack the inputs and outputs that are necessary to communicate with sensors and actuators, but on the other hand they can communicate with micro controllers such as Arduinos over USB. Their advantage to PCs are their physical dimensions and their prices, which now are getting close to Arduinos.

After having having talked about embedded Linux devices Bengt finished of by discussing the possibilities of building new platforms for creative engineering around chipset such as the Sunplus SPHE 82xx which normally are found in cheap DVD players. The SPHE 82xx chipset are capable of outputting video and 6.1 audio as well as controlling servos and motors. Their limitations lie in their undocumented and closed firmware but there are now Yahoo groups dedicated to understanding and analyzing that.

An Arduino-like platform with video and audio outputs that is capable of running applications written in Processing or openFrameworks doesn’t seem that far from becoming a reality. All that is needed is a community to organize itself around some of the inexpensive embedded Linux devices and multimedia chipset that already exist on the market…

*The parents of RAG-TAG VIDEO AND MOVIE SITES are the project Grig and Performing Pictures of The Interactive Institute with support by The Culture 2000 framework of the European Commission.

**Absolut Choir is an architectural installation consisting of a robotic choir which people can conduct over the Internet. The installation and website are both impressively well built. It is currently up and running at the PUB department store in Stockholm. A lot of information about the design and technology behind the installation is available on the website.

The Dream World and Metabolism of the Organism is a landscape of bodies that together form an organism. Visitors connect to, become part of and give life to the organism by breathing into an “umbilical cord” that extends out of its main body. The organism responds to the air it receives by shifting in color, emitting sounds and growing in size until it eventually rewards the visitor by opening up a window to its dream world.

The installation is part of the Man Machine 2 exhibition whose theme is how the human mind and body “have interplayed with the machine historically and how man and machine will interact in the future”.

“There are a lot of primitive emotional stuff going on in the mouth, old animal behaviour… if you play for a couple of minutes, you might feel a little dizzy and disconnected from the world outside, maybe a little less human…”
- Matti Kallioinen

“The work can be interpreted literary: we need oxygen, interaction and engagement to survive”.
- Rikard Ekholm, SvD Konst

Construction and Behavior

“It is obvious that the technology gives us possibilities to create illusions, especially if the technology is hidden so what appears are just the effects. The technology is always there even if not seen. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it just plays a game with us and sometimes it makes the impossible possible”.
- Björn Norberg, Curator Man Machine II

The Dream World and Metabolism of the Organism consists of nine inflatable bodies (five spheres and four cones) constructed of non flammable synthetic fabric. The designs for the bodies and the costumes for the characters in the video projection were drawn by hand and translated to 3D-models from which patterns were generated and printed. The bodies are connected by flexible ventilation tubes to four ventilation fans. Three of the fans assure that the installation can be inflated within seconds when a visitor blows in the “umbilical cord”; a thin tube connected to the large center sphere. The fourth fan deflates the center sphere when the visitor ceases to blow.

The airflow in the umbilical cord is measured by a microelectromechanical air velocity sensor and determines the speed at which the bodies are inflated. The soundscape that surround the installation, the color of the bodies and the frequency of the color shifts depends on the growth of the installation (which is is measured by ultrasonic range finders) and the airflow in the umbilical cord. The bodies are illuminated from their insides by green and red lamps and a video projection with accompanying sound fades in and out on the center sphere as it is inflated and deflated.

When no one is interacting with the installation it emits ambient sounds and slowly shifts color while occasionally inflating itself slightly. A spotlight illuminates the umbilical cord so as to invite people to grab it and start interacting with the installation.

Sensors, fans, lights, video and sound are all monitored and controlled through an Arduino microcontroller and a DMX USB Pro device connected to a Mac Mini computer running software written in C++ with openFrameworks. All technology is hidden from sight within the bodies, in the roof or behind the surrounding walls. The installation logs interaction and sensor statistics that can be monitored from a remote location.

The Dream World and Metabolism of the Organism is a collaboration between Matti Kallioinen (Artist), Erik Sjödin (Engineer) and David Kjelkerud (Engineer, from Physical Interaction Lab) for the Man Machine 2 exhibition which is produced by The Interactive Institute for The National Museum of Science & Technology. The exhibition is on display at The National Museum of Science & Technology in Stockholm, Sweden from December 8th 2007 to April 27th 2008.

In the installation Performative Ecologies Ruairi Glynn brings up the topic of interactive vs reactive and explores how architecture can interact with rather than react to human and environmental activity.

Any artifact that can be affected by a user can be said to be interactive if the term is used in its broadest sense. However, if the term is used whenever there is some kind of communication between a user and an artifact it risks becoming diluted. For the sake of the discourse it is perhaps therefore better to reserve interactive for two-way communication and to use the terms reactive and responsive for one-way communication.

BEAMs are robots that mimics characteristics and behaviors of natural organisms through simple electronics connected in manners that resemble nervous networks .

There are numerous BEAM types ranging from Sitters that typically just sit around and blink or beap to Fliers that, well, fly… The beam on the picture, is a photovore (it prays on light) from eBEAMuk.

As BEAMs provide their own energy source (usually through solar cells) and are extraordinarily robust they could be used to create interactive installations and environments that live for years without any maintenance, even in the outdoors.

One BEAM might have a relatively low impact but arrays (or flocks) of BEAMs, for example Beacons that transmit signals to other BEAMs and Pummers that emit light, could be used to create installations of arbitrary size. I’m currently researching if and how a flock of little BEAM creatures could be used to visualize water flow…

More:
eBEAMuk
Solarbotics
Wikipedia
Interview with the father of BEAMs Dr Mark Tilden aka the “Big God”.

Soldatmarkedet* (Soldiers’ Market) has been exhibited at the Translation exhibition in Trondheim, Norway (BABEL, May 3 to May 13, 2007). The exhibition is part of Trondheim Literature Festival and strive to create meetings between artists that work with text and other media.

The “version” of Soldatmarkedet presented at Translation is a continuation of an installation collaboration between me and Monica Aasprong in 2005. The first installation consisted of an old filing cabinet with 15 000 text permutations that were automatically generated out of 20 originals from the book Soldatmarkedet. This installation is a wall projected interactive triptych consisting of 300 pages chosen from the archive and juxtapositioned to form three large texts which visitors can move around freely within.

The installation is part of a project called Ord i øjet (Word in the Eye) initiated by Afsnit P. Ord i øjet presents new Nordic visual poetry and a web version of the installation will be published on the projects web site during August 2007.

*Soldatmarkedet is a text work by Monica Aasprong. Fragments have been published in literary journals, in books, and have been presented by readings and at exhibitions. The project started in 2003, and essential to the work is the title itself, to approach different possible meanings of the word “Soldatmarkedet”.

Think is a playful interactive environment where visitors can share thoughts by writing them down on pieces of paper and sending them to a wall where they are presented as bubbles emerging above the silhouettes of passersby.

Think was developed by Carl-Johan Rosén, Dietmar Suoch and Henrik Wrangel for The Interactive Institutes NVISION Studio. It will be exhibited during the The 13th International Conference on Thinking, June 17-21, in Norrköping, Sweden. The conference takes place at three different venues; Louis De Geer, Flygeln and Värmekyrkan.

More information is available on the accompanying website (which I’ve been slightly involved in the making of). The website will also feature a real-time connection to the installation during the exhibition.

This week I’ve been helping my friend Mia (www.mariaandersson.net) with an installation that will display log entries on a wall-mounted screen as they are beeing written down at a remote location.

March 13th - March 18th

Vita havet
Konstfack
LM Ericssons väg 14
T-bana: Telefonplan

I had intended to go and listen to Sally Mann this Saturday, but unfortunately when I got there it was already sold out. I ended up listening to Kentridge at Moderna Museet instead.

Kentridge mostly talked about Black Box / Chambre Noir, a mechanized theather and video installation which is currently exhibited at Moderna Museet. After his speech there was a short Q&A where Kentridge among other things was asked how he became an artist. Apparently this was not an active decision by Kentridge. He simply worked by exclusion and ended up being an artist because he failed with most other things that he tried.

In a similar manner his works are the results of experimentation rather than determination. Though Black Box / Chambre Noir is a political piece with a lot of historical references its message does not seem to have been clear to Kentridge when he started to work on it. Instead it is the result of creative experimentation with different media and techniques.

After the artist talk I spoke briefly to one of the theatre technicians who have designed the mechanics and the computer control system for Black Box / Chambre Noir. One subject that arose was how installations such as Black Box / Chambre Noir that are subject to wear and tear should be preserved for future generations. In Thruth, Beauty, Freedom and Money Michael Naimark notes that “Collectible tech-based art needs to be extraordinarily robust and archival” and that “Curators are caught in a dilemma, since one role of the museum is to build a collection of artifacts worthy of preservation in perpetuity, while another role is to present the fashion of the times.” The solution in the case of Black Box / Chambre Noir was, after some debate, to allow the installation to change appearance slightly over time as parts are worn out and replaced rather than to minimize its running time in order to preserve it in its original state.

Retail Desire - Design, Display and Visual Merchandising by John Tucker is a collection of case studies of fashion stores from all over the world. Most of the case studies are of non interactive interior designs, still after reading the book it is obvious that interactive technology and new media has a place in visual merchandising. The purpose of visual merchandising is to create retail desire through differentiation and by expressing individuality and identity. Interactive installations can provide a much needed wow factor, sense of theater and story for a store or product. Always changing they have the advantage of always being able to present something different to the viewers to capture and hold their interest. Placed in window displays, just inside the door or at the back of the store they can help to pull customers into the store, lure them all the way through it and make them stay…