Living systems are inhabited by organisms with complex forms of communication and information processing. Suitcase Science is an attempt to package these systems and tap into them in order to form new alliances between nature and technology.

Suitcase Science represents a turn from the Modernism’s use of technology to control nature to a postmodern use of nature to enliven technology. By approaching living systems as technology Suitcase Science challenges traditional views of nature and suggests that new relationships to nature can be formed.

More concretely the Suitcase Science project investigates how living systems can be sustained in portable controlled ecological life support systems (CELSS) and how system parameters like environmental conditions, volatile organic compounds and electrophysiological activity can be intercepted and interpreted.

Suitcase Science is a project sprung out of the recently started Strange Eden Lab at the Interactive Institutes Art and Technology Program, it was most recently shown at New Media Meeting 3. Suitcase Science is a work in progress, more information will be available at SuitcaseScience.net as the project develops.

Suitcase Science is a collaboration between Erik Sjödin and Michel Bussien.

“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]

Parasitic Video Network is an installation, intervention and participatory event developed by Michelle Teran at the Interactive Institutes Art and Technology Program during Spring 2008.

The project includes a portable device that captures and records live feeds from surveillance cameras and augments them with a sound scape that is generated by the visitors movement through the architectural space. Me and Yoshi Akai worked together with Michelle on the construction of this instrument; engineering an Arduino based audio player, analyzer and mixer and integrating it with a digital video recorder and wireless receiver in a beautifully crafted leather case.

“Every place tells a story whose sum is composed of its parts. Like a game board, every piece stands on its own, but is part of an intricate jigsaw puzzle. ‘Parasitic Video Network’ is a live wireless video network, part intervention, part installation, part participatory event transforming the architectural space into a media space, somewhere between a live film set and gaming environment. Like pieces of a puzzle, each camera focuses on different areas of the building, capturing the different boundaries, thresholds, circulation points as well as the strange objects that populate the building. These different views, which are transmitting wirelessly, are intercepted and monitored by the visitor by carrying a special device that capture and record these live feeds. The culmination of these different views forms a narrative of the building and how we move through it”. - Michelle Teran

Parasitic Video Network was recently shown at Escalators / Theater der Welt (June/July 2008, Germany) and is currently scheduled to be presented at Mois Multi 9 (September 2008, Canada) and Centre Art Girona (October 2008, Spain).

Making a robot from scratch in three days with hardly any previous knowledge of programming or electronics is quite a challenge, but the participants at CRACs the Art of Robotics workshop proved that it is possible.

We were all too busy working to gather any decent documentation of the results, but some of the material that we used during the workshop is available here. ..

PHOTO: MIKAEL OLSSON

“The first solo UK show by the Swedish artist Peter Geschwind will fully utilize the scale and industrial aesthetic of The Exchange.

Automatic was originally presented at Fargfabriken, Stockholm in 2006, but has been dramatically reworked for Penzance.” - from Newlyn Art Gallery.

I hooked up some motion sensors to automate a shadow-play for the exhibition at the Newlyn Art Gallery, a small task, but it was never the less a fun little project. I really like Peter Geschwinds work and I got to try out some new stuff with POCO C++ which is now part of cppGlue.

The exhibition opens on April 19th an will be on display until June 28th.

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.

Two beautiful books with a selection of 152 texts from the installation Soldatmarkedet have been published in conjunction with Oslo Poetry Festival. The books mark the grand finale of a collaboration between me and Monica Aasprong that has seen several iterations since it started at Skulpturens Hus in Stockholm 2005.

“This book has been published in conjunction with Oslo Poetry Festival 2007, and is one of several works that go under the title Soldatmarkedet. The book is based on an installation with the same title that was exhibited at Skulpturens hus in may 2005. The installation was a collaboration with Erik Sjödin (www.eriksjodin.net) and consisted of an archive cupboard in steel filled with 16 000 automatically generated text permutations based on 20 manually created text sheets. This book consists of sheets that have been selected from that archive and then scanned and compiled once again. The dimensions of the texts have been changed from A4 to A5 during the transition from archive to book. See www.monicaaasprong.no for more information about Soldatmarkedet.” - Translated from the back matter.

Publisher: Monica Aasprong
Edition: 100 copies
Design: Judith Nærland
Type: Times New Roman and Sabon Roman
Print: Allkopi AS 2007
ISBN: 978-82-92523-23-0

The book has been published with support by Oslo poesifestival, Gasspedal and N.W. Damm & Søn

An online rendition of Monica Aasprongs installation Soldatmarkedet has been published at Afsnit P, a Danish site for new visual poetry.

Two of the parts in this rendition are collaborations between Monica and me. The first part is an extension of an previous installation collaboration between me and Monica for Skulpturens Hus in Stockholm 2005. 300 texts from that installation have been picked out and merged into a triptych consisting of three large text maps that visitors can navigate within. The triptych was commissioned by Afsnit P but has previously been exhibited as an installation at the Translation exhibition in Norway.

The second part is a diptych composed out of previously unpublished texts. The diptych has been arranged to resemble an open book. The pages consist of texts created by Monica based on letters in the title word “Soldatmarkedet”.

Navigation of the texts are performed sideways within the boundaries of the triptych while visitors can dive through one page to another in the diptych. The visual simplicity and downplayed interaction fit nicely within the greater whole that Monica has created with Soldatmarkedet.

The complete gallery is available here: Soldatmarkedet at Afsnit P.

I also keep copies of the diptyk and the triptyk in case the gallery at Afsnit P should be removed.

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”.

Twentynine thumbnail-sized pom-pom dancers cut out from a newspaper print of Gursky’s Pyongyang I and stop-motion animated on a sponge cloth.

I created this for Zach Lieberman’s and Theodore Watson’s performance for the opening night of OFFF BARCELONA 07. The performance is called ‘Liners’ and tells the story of a line that starts but never ends, using submitted videos and programmed graphics pieced together on the fly to form a continuous animation of a single line.

I’m back from having tutored at an intense but very rewarding 2-day workshop arranged by NVIS at the New Media Meeting in Norrköping. During the workshop we taught how to make interactive installations using simple computer vision and sound analysis in Processing.

Processing is a programming environment “created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool”. It is in deed excellent for teaching programming, and it works well as a software sketchbook. However I have to say that it’s limitations as a professional production tool are painfully obvious. It’s just too slow and too limited when it comes to high resolution sound, video and images. Hopefully openFrameworks (to be released at openframeworks.cc) will combine Processings simplicity and easy of use with high performance.

Anyway, Processing is remarkable in that it actually is possible to learn it and create something rather advanced with it in just two days. Our twelve workshop participants ranged in ages from twenty to sixty years old with very varying experiences from computers and programming. Some people had never programmed at all, still they managed to produce something to show by the end of day two. Examples of projects that evolved during the workshop are: a flock of birds that flew around heads of people passing in front of a projection, a monkey whose eyes followed people who walked by and who smiled when you talked to it, a game where an animated character walked and jumped when the player did the same and a slide show that reacted to sounds.

All in all the workshop was a success. The participants had fun and we received a lot of interest from passerbys. I hope we will be given the opportunity to build on this inexperience and arrange another, even better workshop.

The installation Soldatmarkedet was conceived by Monica Aasprong for the Walk On By section of the Juggling 7, Holding 38 exhibition (May 3 - May 25 2005) at Skulpturens Hus in Stockholm. It has subsequently been exhibited at the Audiatur festival for contemporary poetry in Bergen, Norway.

“An archive cupboard sits in in the middle of the floor surrounded by empty space. A visitor approaches the archive and pulls out a drawer. The drawers are filled with paper arcs with the letter “t” in patterns: row after row with the same letter. On some arcs the letters fills out most of the white space, on others the letters, or the absence of letters, form small figures. Some vaguely reminds of maps, and may be mapped territory. Some form almost perfect squares, an ideal form that is emphasized by the irregular white in the script created by curved and patterned types.

Erik Sjödin (b. 1979) helped Monica Aasprong (b. 1969) to create this installation for an exhibition at Skulpturens Hus in Stockholm. The installation consists of an archive with 15 000 unique arcs with text permutations formed through matrix operations on a handful of original texts. The works were put together through serial recombinations of original texts with small random variations. When a single character spreads and branches out in unimaginable numbers the piece sends thoughts to meditations about conditionality.” - from the Audiatur exhibition catalog.