PLAN | ICA | 2005 (First workshop of the Pervasive and Locative Arts Network) Notes by Tom Carden http://www.tom-carden.co.uk Revision 1, 15:43 03/02/2005 If I got your name, affiliation or projects horribly wrong, please send corrections to: tom (at) tom (dash) carden.co.uk (terrible paraphrasing, mixed-up vocabulary, elipsis abuse and lapses in concentration are all mine) [later additions are in square brackets] -------------------- Day 2 (February 2nd) -------------------- Drew Hemment, Salford Locative Media -> creative resource, not control tool techno-utopia... but ambiguous not that there isn't a politics there is positive critique appropriating technologies to build a better world connected to Open Source movement, free networks, etc. There is an assumption that appropriating this military/surveillance technology is enough Surveillance as Freedom? (Civic spyplane) Different critical approaches the critique decentralisation/appropriation educate countermeasures influence agendas role of artists/art in education as countermeasures TROIA - Technologies of political control Manchester pixel room (blinkenlights people, 6 sided display) wearables ultrasound tracking [speaking to Cliff] Bluejacking Bluetooth against Bush (rename your phone -> non-intrusive, depends on your being surveilled) Not interesting in its own right, but allows low-level interventions Aware - http://aware.uiah.fi/ -------------------- Duncan Campbell fear and difficulties of these possibilities GPS creates new social opportunities ... will be followed by more accurate EU system but new "prisons", sometimes literally in the case of tagged tracking of detainees Blunkett had been oversold on this by industry/commercial "cowboys" Mobile industry... turning them into bugs (including remote switch on!) Generating social network graphs from phone calls... i2... looks like science, but it's an art does work though, for revealing basic connections, chains Mobile Phone network topology of note: the Home Location Register (HLR) [records roughly whereabouts your phone is at any given moment, not to do with your home address] HLR doesn't know we're in the ICA but it knows [cell] changes, for operational reasons GSM networks are very dense (shows MS Autoroute to display geo info, shows a vector map of base stations... data manipulation from Phil Brady, Bangor [google him]) (O2 have their own map, OFCOM have Site Finder) Commercial Exploiters: mapAmobile e.g. for trucks and drivers e.g. "always know where your loved ones are" Let's get Empirical [trying mapAmobile with a bunch of different SIMs] vodaphone, 6 miles wrong, in Brighton Orange - put his daughter on the wrong side of the river Medway on O2 you know you're being tracked if you get sound interference [a familiar noise for anyone with their phone next to their speakers] (but be aware that you must ignore the periodic updates) In Edinburgh - 3 networks, placed at 8 locations within 5 mile radius why? connection changes all the time Highland Mountain Rescue (Munro / Ben Vohrlich) orange & vodaphone -> placed him in pubs a few miles away 02 was 23km out! A bit about how, and Cell ID. Building a video map trail including phone signal data Memory Map Navigator (cool software for manipulating lots of maps) Monitor phone (special kind of phone, but just looks normal) Track on GPS Video camera future E-911, E-112, new GPS, Vehicle Tracking (Traffic Master), covert cameras (gives a slide show of echelon installations and related initiatives, including a brief mention of what they can and can't do - apparently there's still no scanning of random voice calls) [it was a bit like watching two dozen really strange holiday snaps] Unknown satellites TIA MATROX RFID pants on pants off indicators text "83118 try mapamobile" [was that the number?] free trial - one go duncandc (at) blueyonder (dot) co.uk - Question about legality... intercepting content is illegal, but analysing traffic data probably isn't - Question about national ID card... objection boiled down to issues of choice - we already choose to carry appropriate ID - and the fact that the ID card would quickly become compulsory because everyone would demand it for everything... plus the scheme requires people to register their home address with the government - that's not ID, that's being watched. -------------------- Anne Galloway ethnographer, studying "you guys" Urban Cultural Studies we've heard about the difference between inner city, suburbs, rural urban is a practice .. not city as a place but what is in motion from sociological p.o.v. - *virtual* is *real* and *physical* just not *actual* The urban as virtual potential finding points for intervention through focusing on potential to become, rather than essence of (is/are) [later Cliff Randell talked about different kinds of sensors and the holes between them, which Anne liked] mobilities and flows ideas people practices not looking at performance without looking at representation Play in Everyday Life English is unusual with 2 words for play and games - language influence concept [is this weak Sapir-Whorf?] keep them distinct play -> movement, effective, bring into being -> mobile ...world-building functional and productive play (play has been written off as frivolous and unproductive) [now reclaimed to some extent?] ludic play -> mastery and control know rules and how to play -> pleasure from winning e.g. commercial games open-ended play seductive play social interaction uncertainty - real of potential neverending game control vs free play (but... neither are total) Social Studies similar yet different tech mobile / ubiquitous / pervasive / wearable driven by regional / commercial / industrial / research agendas / etc. looking at research / design / use *At* play in the Wireless City myth of pervasive computing (virtual, actual, etc) what can it be? (critical potential) case studies: passing glances mobile bristol sonic city tejp urban tapestries [that would be the "you guys" bit of the intro, then] artistic and corporate researchers weren't as different as it might seem can be oppositional [got distracted here] academic accountability? to civic/national values? to public values? (no!) -------------------- Teri Rueb, Rhode Island School of Design practitioner's p.o.v. Trace... Banff New Media Co Productions Choreography of Everyday Movement (layered presentation of GPS traces over time) Drift (Cuxhaven, Germany) tidal flats ipaq & gps getting lost embracing disorientation (despite GPS) nested/overlayed sounds dissonant effects (e.g. crunchy gravel underfoot) fluid relationship between physical and virtual space Itinerant... internal dialogue on street plan (more notions of getting lost, nomadism) -------------------- Katherine Moriwaki, Dublin mobile ad-hoc networking protocols decentralised distributed networks clothing & accessories garments creating networks bodies interacting in a public setting disruptions, breaks and ruptures inside/outside handbags monitoring irritants ambient air quality \__ collect, reflect, act noise pollition / wifi connected - swap data with others create expanding/contracting maps based on interactions Oscillating Windows mobile ad-hoc networks passing signal from one person to another mobile nodes looking at utilising the perceived weakness (no critical mass) all people packet network (APPN) people as routing layer - simple rules, paper prototypes - infrared digital prototype, changes perception [even though same task is being performed] Umbrella.net mobie networks in/activated by umbrellas (bluetooth umbrellas) -------------------- Jo Walsh Ordinance Survey maps not Free. So... London Free Map shared GPS traces (see openstreetmap) extraction of data from satellite images land sat data connecting maps with semantics (...inspire directive / agenda environmental monitoring security...) Puttenhalli, India [with Schuyler Erle] no maps to buy started with landsat (15m per pixel) [there was more anecdotal stuff and some maps they had made] Wireless London revamped consume db London Open Guide Wireless splash pages for Access Points evnt.org "del.icio.us for events" ... will have spatial markup Marvin Minsky reference (about babies exploring their skin with their hands) maps are our skin to explore - but we need a license to use our fingers -------------------- Ben Russel bomb dropping animation intro... DOOM! [Ben was recounting a series of interviews he's conducted over the last few months... it was a bit of a surrealist ramble, but worth trying to follow] inventory management [with a greater awareness of what's in our neighbourhoods,] might products be designed to be shared? machines / sensors / mobile devices / wifi nodes / wherefi calibration / wherefi grid spatial annotation / stumble maps (relations not interactions) socail network maps composite sharing contents of houses connected supply chains people are important in generating place 2 people on a beach are in a different place to 1 person on a beach "architects can't make you have fun in a bar" ... but can suggest - like hypnosis? MIT author Jonathon Cole (the Oliver Sachs of physical disorders) - recommended empty space by Peter Brook [Theatre book seller anecdote] tetraplegic professor happier than when he was an able-bodied yob (phantom limbs... virtual hands... physics simulations... remove pain) Anthony Steed, UCL, CAVE, The Pit and public speaking work (making nervous public speakers present to fidgetty puppets "destroys them" ... "please don't fidget") Tarkovsky, The Mirror not cuts, but consciousness drifts difference between actual and possible uses is there such a thing as a trivial meaning? (e.g. moon rocket but ballistic missile) [wasn't it the other way around, actually?] Open Source, practice in use -------------------- Jon Bird, BLIP Art meets science in Brighton events in a public domain the importance of venue [venue dictates audience, to a certain extent] Eric Harris, Interact Lab, Sussex uses BLIP for engaging public interactive skipping rope ("for children of all ages") uses ECT - Equip Component Toolkit (part of Equator project) -------------------- Lalya Gaye, Future Applications Lab, Viktoria Institute everyday objects sounds ubicomp physical interactions www.mobile-life.org Sonic City wearable sensors creating music Context Photography mapping sounds -> image [amplifying images based on contextual audio] modifying images at capture time (e.g. people screaming into camera) Tejp ("tape") e.g. audio tags, whispering walls Smart-Its / Bricolage / Total Recall / Tap&Bass [tap dancing drum'n'bass remix] -------------------- Martin Reiser Hosts 2004-2005 Sticky video... sprites which follow audience members situated visualisation the mobile audience mobileaudience.blogspot.com -------------------- Ewen Chardronnet, Info Structure (Ellispe) Autonomous Astronauts Trans-cultural mapping Open Source City - psychohistory walks in Strasbourg The Naked City Semaphore Workshop - Radio acoustic mapping MC3 - Cartographic Command Center Dissemination series - technophilia/technophobia -------------------- Andrew Wilson, Blink [Mr Soundbite] "messing about with mobile phones" ... bus stop poems Guardian SMS poetry competition voting by txt too (even when you knew you hadn't won) (so why participate? hyper coordination?) city poems, Leeds poem points (numbered posters) SMS submit, receive, location-specific poetry Also a twinned version with Antwerp Stickers / Rock / Beermats etc. "people know where they are" (GeoNotes, floor 41 VIP room - in a 7 story building) problems... still needs a designer to designate places so... anywhereblogs (WAP) ablogs.org place-filtered conversation [consensus-based location?] -------------------- Sarah Kettley, Napier University what is meant by everyday life? (and how will wearables feature?) [this is a good point... "everyday" stuff got mentioned a lot at PLAN] everyday wearables -> disappearance? no... jewellery. [Sarah is a jeweller, although she was surprised how readily Computer Science department just accepted the fact, so she still takes part in jewellery shows to make sure she's making valid contemporary jewellery as well as valid science] speckled computing craft. there is value in crafted objects avoids problems with the technical aesthetic -------------------- Jen Southern Landlines magic between representation and physical objects GPS to record spatial experience oarticipation stuff about... actions and usage defining space Greylands, 1998 blueprints made online, realised as actual chalk drawings in the landscape Flight - drawing in real and virtual spaces (part of Base/Blink) surface patterns/audio tours distance made good towns with same names identical forms different experiences flow lines previously GPS is recorded and static now.., collaborative drawings by mobile phone both aware of the other's trajectory, but not able to use it to find them (could be on the other side of the world, but the drawings start at the same point) -------------------- Will Byrne ambient art art should affect the environment should affect the art should affect the user should affect the art [or something] use ambient data capture data, merge, create art web-services system often no direct mapping [can't tell how the data made the art] - what do people think? often not reversible [can't demonstrate the process] any use? aesthetics [the argument from eye candy?] functionality In the lobby... webcam people tracking globs -> info -> Mondrian-esque art