fromCONCENTRATE

Insight into the development process for my latest DOING assignment:

This piece is part of a larger dialogue/work ‘AUGMENTED INADEQUACIES’ which you can read about here:

http://www.intersectionspublicart.org.uk/project2.php?id=00028

and here:

http://www.intersectionspublicart.org.uk/project3.php?id=00033

more soon!

The final submission for the Digital Media DOING module requires a response to the theme of “Extensions of Man” – invoking a McLuhanesque conception of communications media & technology as extensions ov our human capability.

This relates nicely to a new project I have been developing – Augmented Inadequcies – in collaboration with the artist Alan Smith and Allenheads Contemporary Arts:

Continuing in my consideration of intuitive (physical) interactions* I am developing a demonstration piece using Arduino which takes as its principle metaphor the extremely basic action of turning over an hourglass.

This piece emerged out of the DOING class where we were asked to simply build an electronic circuit between a sensor and actuator which is controlled using a micro-controller.  I selected various movement sensors (including one of the kind used in pedometers – piezo vibration sensor) and my tutor, Jamie Allen, also loaned me a mercury tilt sensor “to get started…”

Immediately the tilt sensor became the focus of my attention because I wanted to get a sense of what it was that differentiated this sensor from a mere mechanical switch or digital trigger.  (See above my tilt switch test based onthe circuit at this arduino site tutorial)  The tilt sensor can be used to discern physical orientation in a way akin to how we understand the liquids of the inner ear to function.  Utilising the earths gravitational force, the liquid metal mercury acts as a switch by making or breaking the circuit.

Below is an illustration of a concept I would like to develop:

I’d like to use the ‘turning over’ action (typically used to commence an hourglass) to trigger an arduino programme which can control power to a DC motor – alternating between FULL and ZERO.  A perforated circular disk attached to the motor will reveal the words “TICK” and “TOCK” alternatively.

“TICK” and “TOCK” are the traditional onomatopoeic by-product of the mechanical clocks escapement (for more on this see I AM A WATCHMAKER.)  In translating the hourglass ‘turning over’ action into the words ‘tick & tock’ the piece will be, in a sense, a ‘mechanical metaphor mixer.’

More on this piece VERY soon – for now I’ll leave you with Jayne Mansfield…

* some examples where I have previously considered the nature of intuitive physical interaction either by building a prototype to test or exploring thru writing/dialogue on this blog:  SIMPLE TWISTING INTERFACE, NOTHING UNLESS SHAKEN and PHYSICAL PETITION (this list is not exhaustive.)

- Jayne Mansfield image used without consent of copyright owner (if you are the copyright owner please get in contact.)

Of course – another strategy for making information/data and concepts more ‘tangible’ or ‘graspable’ when exhibiting in the public realm, is to re-present the information using a ‘loaded’ material, (as this example from a Liverpool Museum demonstrates…)

(for info regarding this, see previous post.)

In Lev Manovich’s Interaction as an Aesthetic Event – a text describing mobile phone evolution up to 2005 – he outlines a notion of technological interaction as theatre.*

One thing which this brings to my mind, is a memorable early scene in The Matrix (Neo’s first encounter with the elusive Morpheus) where a Nokia phone is taken out of a parcel box and, without stimulation, the mouthpiece of the device springs forth, giving a physical expression to the already heightened sense of ‘drama’ in this particular moment.

Whilst searching for a YouTube clip of the scene, I stumbled across a comment left on another video (specifically related to that Nokia phone) which gives further clues to the nature of this seductive and overwhelming effect:

lndac02 (3 months ago)
I still have mine, its a design classic. I used to feel like neo ever time I clicked the slider down to take a call. it is a cool phone and always will be.

Below, a fan remix video highlights this juxtaposition of cellphone interaction and drama in The Matrix; mobile ringtones precede heroic violence against an oppressive infrastructure; telephones are presented as both gateways and exits for drama and escape. (Watch it all – it’s great!)

Another YouTube video (below) makes audible, the ominous electro-magnetic interference which often preceded the shrill personalised ringtones of the late nineties – further emphasising another way in which these mobile devices engender dramatic tension.*  (Inadvertently?) the video also has some kind of intense rhythmic machine-like banging in the background.

So! – Don’t be annoyed next time someone picks up a call at an inappropriate time – REMEMBER! – In our, highly-networked, global society, ALL PHONES are the BAT-PHONE: Each and every one of us must, at all times, be ready and willing to be called upon and to act in the role of protagonist, centre ov the stage.***

* refers to: Brenda Laurel, Computers as Theatre (1991)
**iPhone users still experience this nostalgia-tinged interference phenomena if they go anywhere near an old telly.
***It does appear to be the case that we are all subconsciously sleepwalking towards the belief that we are NOT IN FACT MERELY RECEIVING A PHONECALL but instead, that we are at a pivotal point of the most important drama ever to manifest and potentially we are making THE crucial connection which might ultimately FREE (not only our individual self, but also) the whole of humankind from our collective technological enslavement.

Legal boundaries are often determined in respect of private ownership of land and property and are typically ascribed by the simultaneous use of physical boundaries – walls, fences, gates etc.

What happens if the physical boundary is removed or disappears or deteriorates?

The answer it would seem, is that the legal boundary, lacking its physical scaffold, is prone to demise, and the previously ‘private’ property risks falling into public domain. A simple strategy for combating this undesired collapse of law is to give notification of the established legal boundary whilst also making a symbolic gesture towards the previous physical boundary through the use of small markers.

In this way spaces can give the visible and physical impression of being ‘public’ whilst, at the same time, remaining psychologically, legally, economically and physically ‘private’.

The simple brass studs in the video above allude to the outline of a previous structure which, whilst no longer present, is still able to retain territorial supremacy by invoking law – in this case The Highways ACT 1959.

Regarding the Highways Act 1959 – the Office of Public Sector Information has no record of such an act in their 1959 archive. Further investigation reveals that the act was superseded and repealed with the introduction of the Highways Act 1980.

The situation above presents us with an imaginary building and a sign pointing to a vanished law.