Random Etc. Notes to self. Work, play, and the rest.
Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw
A diptych of sorts, from my latest photoset at Flickr, the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw.
Computing for Emergent Architecture
Since I'm satisfied with Blogger as a path-of-least-resistance to web publishing, I've set up a weblog called Computing for Emergent Architecture for staff and students on the MSc Virtual Environments at UCL.
Architects, Social Networks and Hypertext
I've recently re-read Christopher Alexander's essay A City is not a Tree (found via City Of Sound) as research for a lecture I'm giving which will tentatively be titled Turning Architects into Programmers (or perhaps less aggressively, Programming for Architects). The first time I read it, in relation to a social network visualisation project, it triggered a brief exchange with Alasdair Turner, a lecturer in architectural computing at UCL, who was lecturing me in Methods of Synthetic Construction 2 from the Bartlett's MSc Virtual Environments at the time.
As part of the course, students were asked to visualise the social networks existing between past and present course staff and students, with an emphasis on the alumni database which was becoming increasingly difficult for one person to carry around in their head. The alumni visualisation was difficult due to incomplete information, but because it has always been online sites like the Wayback Machine at archive.org helped a little. Questioning the staff from the course also helped, though it became apparent that not everyone agreed how long they had been involved - some people even got their own involvement wrong!. It's worth pointing out that effective and general purpose social network visualisation is incredibly rare (please correct me if I'm wrong).
A lot of the social network visualisations started out by assuming that the social network of the course was a tree, i.e. that each person was a 'child' of a year group. I also did this, but I did make an attempt to bridge the gaps between years by developing a way to show that faculty members and part-time students are members of more than one year group. This was designed to emphasise the continuity provided by the course team, and also to illustrate how weak the ties were between year groups.
Christopher Alexander's essay is not just relevant to architecture. He is mainly talking about hierarchical trees, which Dan Hill notes are "the technical and experiential structure of most sites on the web." For me, the key point we can draw from Alexander is that despite the intuitive manner with which we can arrange and consider data in tree-form, these forms don't occur when things (in this case towns and cities) develop organically. It could be for this reason that the original pioneer of 'space syntax' methods Bill Hillier says, "I wouldn't design a city … I'd grow one."
As Alasdair pointed out to me when I first read the article, it is unfortunate that the web has come to be dominated by hierarchical trees, when the original concept of hypertext and http was about navigating through complex networks. (Note to self: Alasdair also mentioned the post-structuralists and the notion of Finnegan's Wake as the first 'hypertext' book.)
Alasdair was right, of course, that the original hypertext aim was not to have hierarchies of documents, but to cross-reference and interlink to your heart's content. Hence "world wide web", and not "world wide tree". This distinction is explicit in Tim Berners-Lee's initial hypertext proposal for CERN (for the uninitiated, this marks the birth of the world wide web). The brilliant thing here is that Berners-Lee actually begins by describing the web of social contact and collaboration which transcended CERN's organisational hierarchy in the late eighties.
Quote from Tim Berners-Lee's "Information Management: A Proposal" follows, apologies for length but it all seems relevant.
"CERN is a wonderful organisation. It involves several thousand people, many of them very creative, all working toward common goals. Although they are nominally organised into a hierarchical management structure, this does not constrain the way people will communicate, and share information, equipment and software across groups.
The actual observed working structure of the organisation is a multiply connected "web" whose interconnections evolve with time. In this environment, a new person arriving, or someone taking on a new task, is normally given a few hints as to who would be useful people to talk to. Information about what facilities exist and how to find out about them travels in the corridor gossip and occasional newsletters, and the details about what is required to be done spread in a similar way. All things considered, the result is remarkably successful, despite occasional misunderstandings and duplicated effort.
A problem, however, is the high turnover of people. When two years is a typical length of stay, information is constantly being lost. The introduction of the new people demands a fair amount of their time and that of others before they have any idea of what goes on. The technical details of past projects are sometimes lost forever, or only recovered after a detective investigation in an emergency. Often, the information has been recorded, it just cannot be found."
The sad thing of course, apart from the increasingly hierarchical structuring of large sites, is that the web as we know it suffers from a high turnover of documents, much as Berners-Lee described a high turnover of people at CERN. As I pointed out in our crit session after the project, this problem afflicts the MSc too, since by design there is a yearly turnover of 90% of the people involved.
Back to alumni databases and social networks then, and to the defense of the tree, for a moment. I actually think that from an egocentric point of view a social network is most usefully considered a tree. That is, if I know two people already, it is of little consequence that they know each other. The only connections that matter to me are the ones which form the shortest paths between people I already know, and the people I want to know next. This is social networking in order to get ahead in business, or to make new friends, I admit.
On the other hand, considering the loops inside of who knows who, as well as the tree of who knows me, might allow a certain amount of insight to be gained into the nature of interactions across the whole social network. The interconnectedness of it all is what everyone was talking about in the crit, and what we're all stuck with trying to visualise and interpret in a meaningful way. Do self-organising structures hold the answer? I would argue not, but I'll leave that for another time.
I hope that we can be rid of the hierarchical straight-jacket that much of the web is in right now, and I think a combination of search engines and weblogs will get us there in the end (not to mention tagging systems like del.icio.us and Flickr which have emerged strongly since I first wrote this). Weblogs aren't just trendy, it's practically their whole raison d'etre to link and be linked, and we're seeing big businesses cotton on to this fact in a big way. If everyone had one, and used it (more than I use mine!), then maybe we would be able to map out social networks as we go, instead of trying to construct them after the fact.
A Brief History Of Me
For any readers who don't know me, here is a brief overview of some of the things I have been involved with recently.
Non-realistic Rendering In Immersive Environments
Is there an 'uncanny valley' for rendering quality? For our EngD group project, Sheep Dalton (Ovinity), Monica Martini (Martini Architects), Sean Varney (Soho Cyberscan / Framestore CFC) and I built a model of an Indian Temple and a non-photorealistic OpenGL rendering engine for use in desktop and immersive VR systems.
Social Network Visualisation
A social network visualisation for the students, alumni and staff who have been involved with the MSc Virtual Environments in the Bartlett (UCL's architecture school).
Algorithmic Art
A series of pixel-exposure techniques using the Processing environment.
Virtual Trees
Whipping trees, a VRML world and a study in dynamic growth, responsive form and emergent spaces. Completed as part of Methods of Synthetic Construction 1. You can view all our VRML coursework on the course website. This work was significant for me because it involved taking what were effectively several small sketches (pieces of code) and combining them into a single piece of work, with a narrative and a sense of cohesion.
2D Robot Simulation
At Leeds University, I started the development of a Bio-inspired Evolutionary Agent Simulation Toolkit, a project initiated by Seth Bullock and ably continued by David Gordon (now of Framestore CFC). Whilst I was there, I also took part in a Bio-inspired Computing reading group, worked on an interface for playing poker against evolved neural-network players, and investigated the possibility of doing image processing with artificial life.
On Hifi Separates in Information Space and Gadget Space
Matt Jones makes a nice analogy concerning the expected convergence of web-based services like Bloglines, Flickr or Blogger. Matt asserts that there will always be Home Info Theatre - the web equivalent of hi-fi separates - for those who want the highest quality services. The corollary here, then, is that sites like MySpace are the mini-systems of information space.
I use a similar argument to illustrate why there will probably always be separate gadgets, such as digital cameras and digital music players, despite the potential to integrate everything into one device (generally centred around a mobile phone). Most of the arguments which justify hi-fi separates will carry through to the gadget world - smoother upgrade paths, less chance of crippling failure, greater robustness etc. (the old, "small pieces, loosely joined" mentality). Of course, the downsides will apply too - separate components make for bulkier systems (more to carry), and the price is inevitably higher.
All this talk of convergence reminds me - I really want one of those Swiss Army Knife USB Storage things.
Future Digital Music Distribution and Production
This seems like a good place to park some notes I've made on where I think the music industry should be headed. There's a long article or three hidden in there somewhere, but I'm not ready to write it yet.
General trends. Wherever I get my music, be it from a brick and mortar outlet, an online store, or direct from an artist or label I need the following qualities:
- Authority - I should have access to oodles of metadata about my music, all-music (or IMDB) style. At least as much as is available on CD/Vinyl packaging, if not more.
- Persistence - If I don't have a choice about getting DRM-restricted tracks, then at least the technology should be good enough to remember that I legitimately purchased a track in the past, and if I need another copy it should let me have one at cost (or bundled into a service charge).
- Quality - I'm still not sure why we're stuck with nearly-CD quality. Many PC soundcards can process sample rates greater than 44.1KHz, at greater than 16-bit resolution. I should be able to download at that quality too, if the recording is available. And lossless encoding should be an option too, even if I have to pay more.
- Depth - this means documentaries, artwork, videos, live tracks etc. should be available too. Not necessarily for free, or bundled with conventional content, but I shouldn't have to look somewhere different to where I get the studio material.
Retailers. They should be fixated by choice, but also by managing choice. Distribution is now easy, even high-street shops should be able to provide anything I want, instantly. I should never have to order, and wait. They could download the data, burn a CD and print the packaging in 5 minutes - so why don't they? Why don't black-market independent shops do this from iTunes or Napster - or do they already? If Amazon have a rich database full of recommendation material, why don't HMV or Virgin? Shouldn't I be able to pick up a CD, and find out what else I might like (maybe put it on a recommendation shelf, based on a barcode scan or something)?
Venues. All of them should be recording and distributing every performance, subject to artist approval of course. I know that instant post-gig CDs are in the works (and patent encumbered I believe) but that will only happen in the worst corporate-sell-out kind of a way, I'm sure. And only at the level where every show sounds the same, says the cynic in me.
Artists. They should be making their work available across the full spectrum - not just album tracks but also live/rehearsal/demo/acoustic/rare. They have the authority and sources of depth I was talking about earlier. Bands like Sigur Rós have already demonstrated online liner notes (onliner notes?) are viable with their untitled album, ( ), even if it was in the pursuit of absolute minimalism (no words, no titles, no stickers on the box...). Artists are aware that a loyal fanbase will pay for new material, especially if they get it first (before the radio, before the magazines and reviewers even).
Studios. Studios should be digital-distribution aware. Sound engineers should be too. It's the norm now for amateur and unsigned bands leave the studio with CDRs and immediately encode it at home to send to friends and promote online. Why don't the studios invest in professional quality encoders and use their mastering and mix-down knowhow to provide a range of good quality digital formats, optimised for the music in question? Ditto the standalone mastering people. Ditto CD pressing plants, who should be able to do mixed-mode CDs with a range pre-encoded tracks for sharing (free promotion).
Pricing. It's occasionally mooted that artists should give away recordings and make money touring. That's a poor excuse if people are willing to pay for recorded music, and we know they are. Artists will suffer from the volume and choice of alternatives, so the cost per track must come down. Actually, the cost per track must come down if iPod buyers are to be able to afford to fill their iPod. Likewise, if people want to pay per play, the cost must be negligable. Of course, steadily lowered prices reach a limit eventually. Unfortunately, that limit isn't 0, download fans. As cost-per-song reduces, it tends to a collective/blanket license. Otherwise there's no money in the system, and artists don't get paid. So, how should a compulsory license be paid? Could it be a digital music player tax? (Wasn't there a licensing levy on blank media?) Or should it be opt-in? (Wasn't there once a license which allowed people to record music from the radio in the UK?)
Fairness. The popularity of artists suffers from a power-law distribution, I'm sure. Should the proceeds from license fees use that distribution exactly, or should we work to flatten the distribution (progressive tax, in effect)? Are Britney Spears, Robbie Williams, Madonna and the Rolling Stones capable of making up the difference using the gravity provided by their own mega-brands? What about Elvis? Is making excuses for weighting towards the little guy the same as saying that artists should give away music and tour to make up the difference?
</brain-dump>
Turning Architects into Programmers III
I need to find out how 'out there' Christopher Alexander was when he started talking about architecture in terms of graph theory (trees and lattices) in his famous paper A City is not a Tree. I know that my colleagues who carry out Space Syntax research in the VR Group at the Bartlett use graph theory heavily in their work, but if I talk to a group of recently trained architects, how many of them will know anything at all about this kind of analysis? If they already have a grasp of it, then it seems to be an ideal spring-board into talking about that classic of software engineering topics, algorithms and data structures. If not, then is it helpful or distracting to talk about both topics at the same time?
NB:- I'm currently only planning an hour long lecture under this heading, so to cover any of this stuff in serious detail will be impossible. I'm still interested in answering this kind of question anyway.
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