Ah ha the Arch OS DNA converter is finally finished, below is the working product which utilises Arch OS data from the Portland square building in Plymouth University. Utilising a strict algorithm the application converts the data into a DNA string. Hit the refresh button at any time to re-generate new DNA strings.
Algorithm table converter:
A = -, B = ., C = “Spaces”, D = 0, E = 1, F = 2, G = 3, H = 4, I = 5, J = 6, K = 7, L = 8, M = 9, N = 10, 0 = 11, P = 12, Q = 13, R = 14, S = 15, T = 16, U = 17, V = 18, W = 19, X = 20, Y = 21, Z = 22.
A notable rising net artists has to be Aaron Koblin with projects such as “The Sheep Market” and most inspiring to my field of research House of Card’s Music video, interactive data viewer, and source code - http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work/rh/index.html. “With Director James Frost (Zoo) and a bunch of other great people, lasers and sensors were used to create a 3D data “music video” for the band Radiohead.
The project was launched as an Open Source project on Google Code. An interactive online viewer (created with Aaron Meyers) allows for interactive 3D investigation of the data online”. By visiting the website you can explore the radio head video in a 3d environment. The video below gives a great explanation to how the video was created and its purpose.
I began thinking about the data obtained from the Portland Square building (in Plymouth University) using the Arch-OS system, could this data represent the DNA of the building. The system/data almost acts as a way of recording the buildings make up, its activity and a way of seeing how the building works.
I pondered on the idea of representing this DNA as audio. Whilst crawling the Internet i discovered a brilliant piece of software that converts DNA structures into midi sequences. Bio2MIDI by Algorithmic Arts.
I firstly began by fetching a set of results from the Arch-OS feeds page and returned the following results:
Obviously this didn’t resemble any DNA structure at the moment it is a group of data sets which have no relevance to a DNA structure. For this to work i would need to construct an algorithm of defining a 10 character structure for example “ASDVVDFDDP”.
To encode the new DNA structure i formulated an algorithm which would replace numbers and characters with letters.
Before you notice it i have left out 14.
0 = A
1 = B
2 = C
3 = D
4 = E
5 = F
6 = G
7 = H
8 = I
9 = J
10 = K
11 = L
12 = N
13 = O
15 = Q
16 = R
17 = S
18 = T
19 = U
20 = V
21 = W
22 = X
23 = Y
24 = Z
. = P
- = M
Using this structure the original data set produced these results:
Thinking again about the project i’ve decided to do some further thoughts about how an immersive experience can change the way we perceive data. Visualisations are of course representations of data sets within a digital environment, visualised by graphics and sometimes sounds. Can the shift in the environment that a user receives these visualisations change the way we feel about data. By placing the user within an immersive environment can we change the level of immersivness and cause the user to feel much closer to reality? If this is the case are we enabling a new dimension. And as I’m planning on using the universities immersive Vision Theatre (the dome), what is it that makes the dome different from any other visual environment?
Combining Visualisations and the immersive Environment hopefully the project will end up as an immersive Visualisation ………………….
To help keep things more structured and organised i have decided to dedicate a project site for the research and experiments which will contribute to my final year project.
My initial ideas for my 4d project revolved around the slit scan photography technique. I decided to focus my attention to understanding the technique and seeing its true potential. Using Adobe After Effects i experimented with a number of effects, below i have uploaded an short exaple of sound powered slit scaning. Using sound we push the video into the future and back again.
Its obvious that the effect has much potential, offering numerous visual effects to which the everyday TV viewer does not get to see. Looking at previous projects and installations got me thinking to what the concept of Slit scan actually is. Quite simply we are capturing time over a period of time. With a still image we are collating a number of periods in time and re-collating them to form one representation of an event/past time.
With this in mind i began to ponder on the idea of representation and transformation.
I started off thinking visually for this project but really its the idea that counts, the concept is the base of the project so making it fit tightly to the brief is a must.
Data is something that we take for granted, no matter what we do nearly everything in our life is digitalised, from navigation to the way we purchase goods. Our movement is also one of these things that is digitalised. With most cities and towns harbouring numerous surveillance cameras we are constantly being monitored, but this data is often discarded, and never again seen. This survalance footage would be an ideal source to study transformation. Transformation of a space, behaviour and even atmosphere.
Using the Arch Os system installed in the Portland Square building of Plymouth (where better to get data from) i am considering representing the data of movement or activity within the building, the data that i will used is yet to be decided. Using the slit scan concept i will use the data from segments or slices of time, and of course reassemble into a representation of time its self on a space. I suppose this could be seen as slightly dadist as we are using ‘found’ objects but conceptualising them within a digital domain.
I’ve spent most of the morning researching into After Effects, playing with techniques and methods for realising my project.
I’m considering representing space and time through visualisations and below is one of my proposed ideas. It will use data and sound from a location over the period of a day, following my initial slit-scan idea.
More advanced version
This version uses sound to animate not only the saturation but the ammount of particles being generated.
Making it look nice!
Well i’ve spent another hour or so re-tweaking what i first started with. Below is a much improved version.
So for the past couple of weeks i have been heavily investing my time into the research of privacy, or rather the lack of within cyberspace. After reading countless articles and numerous chapters in published material i have become to gain a better understanding and view regarding our privacy online.
Part of my research has included looking at what people have done to try and combat this problem.
My main interest is to look at the effect that google has on the web and our personal data so i have been mainly looking at google based applications/artworks tackling the difficult subject of privacy.
Scroogle! Scroogle.org
Scroogle is a secure method for searching online protecting your privacy. By using its service it stops Google from leaving cookies, tracing your ip, and leaves google with no idea who has sent the search queries, enabling any user to stay anonymous.
Google: I want your soul
A short film/animation revealing information about Google.
TrackmeNothttp://www.mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/
“TrackMeNot is a lightweight browser extension that helps protect web searchers from surveillance and data-profiling by search engines. It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one’s tracks), but instead, paradoxically, by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation. With TrackMeNot, actual web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view. User-installed TrackMeNot works with the Firefox Browser and popular search engines (AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN) and requires no 3rd-party servers or services.”
My Google Search History - Launch site
“My Google Search History is a set of movies, sounds and text inventory with all my search requests done since 2006 on Google search engine.
Displayed as an inventory, my searchs show a full selfportrait.
Like a big souvenir movie, this video can refresh the small things i was looking for at specific moments.”
The Search Wallhttp://www.thesearchwall.net
“The Search Wall is a collaborative tele-interactive art work reflecting what people are searching for on the Internet. Privacy issues almost daily make news and are a large concern for many of the Internet’s users. However, through daily usage of search engines we nevertheless willingly gradually disclose it.”
FACELESShttp://www.ambienttv.net/content/?q=faceless
“Wanting to tell a story, you choose video as the appropriate medium. You look for locations, only to discover that every place has already been filmed and featured. The question arises: why shoot more footage in places which have permanent cameras monitoring every corner, recording every move 24 hours a day? Rather than bringing in more cameras, why not use the existing recordings that capture London’s daily life from every angle?” more
Carnivorehttp://r-s-g.org/carnivore/
“Carnivore is a surveillance tool for data networks. At the heart of the project is CarnivorePE, a software application that listens to all Internet traffic (email, web surfing, etc.) on a specific local network. Next, CarnivorePE serves this data stream to interfaces called “clients.” These clients are designed to animate, diagnose, or interpret the network traffic in various ways. Use CarnivorePE to run Carnivore clients from your own desktop, or use it to make your own clients.”
Well since last Friday and this week it has been a fairly hardcore when it comes to action scripting, if only i could write essays this well! I have finaly completed a near complete game ready to show Nigel. The make of the game is “Beesteroids”. The game is a single player shoot-em up in a modern touch up of the classic Asteroids game.
If you fancy a go drop me an email and i’ll happily give you the link to have a play.
The Intro Screen:
Instructions Screens:
Game Play:
The scoreboard:
Thanks to Tom Wotton for being honest (hes the one who ruined my screen grab by claiming he is a gay boy!).
