Architec Tradure

Category: research

  • 23JanThe Texture of Light

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    Description
    The Texture of Light is research on lighting principles and the exploration of life feed video metamorphosis in the public space using reflection of light on transparent materials. The Texture of Light is an attempt to fight the boredom of everyday life. By reconstructing reality, giving it a texture, an expressive form, this project deploys the simple use of chemistry, plexiglas, and plastic patterns. The transformation of life feed video comes from the physical plastic circles that act as different masks of reality. These masks can be moved around and swap by the public enabling collective expressions. This metamorphosis of the public space is presented in real time as a moving painting and is projected on city walls. The public can record video clips of their ‘moving painting’ and project them back on different city locations.

    Model

    The final model is composed of a set of lenses, an iSight video camera, a rotary knob and a computer. For the purpose of this project I have conceived and implemented a software piece that links the life feed video to a projection screen. This application is controlled by the rotary knob and by pressing more than two seconds the knob, the software records a video clip coming from the life feed video. By pressing on the knob, the software plays back the recorded clip and projects it onto the screen. By turning the knob, the software returns in life feed mode. The video clips are collected onto a server and can be accessed by other computers from different cities. This instantly creates a canvas of multiple transformed city video clips controlled and created by the dwellers in each city.

    Excerpts of life feed video metamorphosis Clic on the picture for a hi-res view

    Small-squares large lense


    Small-circles small lense


    Medium-hexagons large lense


    Large-stars small lense

    Future outlook for Texture of Light
    I envision this project on a larger scale such as building-size panels the public could mechanically control using remote devices. Each panels will be patterns and transparent material specific. For instance, two Plexiglas sheets could embed a water fall, or viscous transparent material the user could distribute along his/her selected point of views. The software will allow media distribution among cities so that the outcomes of the public performances could be exposed on the panels of other cities.

    This is my final project for the Smart Materials course taught by Michelle Addington. Some information about the research and tests involved in this project.

    More about the project
    . Paper about the project (12mb).
    . The Texture of Light on We Make Money Not art.
    . auto vision
    . Publication: The Texture of Light Vaucelle, C. In Art and Design Tools. Published in the Proceedings of SIGGRAPH’06, Boston, USA. Abstract from publisher: ACM Press.
    download pdf

  • 16MayMachine Therapy

    I mentioned the work of Kelly Dobson about a year ago. Today, I attended her VERY inspiring thesis defense at the Media Lab, researching on Machine Therapy. I love her personal relationship to machines. I cannot wait to read her thesis!

    Abstract

    In this thesis I describe a new body of work called Machine Therapy, a methodology for revealing the vital relevance of subconscious elements of human-machine interactions that works within art, design, psychodynamics, and engineering. This practice highlights what machines actually do and mean, in contrast to what their designers consciously intended. Machine Therapy is a cyclical process that alternates between discussion of and sessions for empathic relationships with domestic appliances, personal extension and connection via wearable and prosthetic apparatuses, and the design of evocative visceral robots that interact with people’s understandings of themselves and each other. Combining research and practice in digital signal processing and machine learning, mechanical engineering, and textile sensor design, I have been able to create new objects and relationships that are unique in some aspects while maintaining quotidian familiarity in other aspects. This is illustrated through the documented construction of several projects including re-appropriated domestic devices, wearable apparatuses, and machines that act in relation with users’ autonomic signals. These Machine Therapy devices are evaluated in studies of participants’ interactive engagements with the machines as well as participants’ affective responses to the machines. The Machine Therapy projects facilitate unusual explorations of the parapraxis of machine design and use: these usually unconscious elements of our interactions with machines critically affect our sense of self, agency in the social and political world, and shared emotional, cultural, and perceptual development.

    Dissertation Committee

    Christopher Csikszentmihályi

    Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences

    Muriel Cooper Professor of Media Arts and Sciences

    Program in Media Arts and Sciences

    MIT Media Laboratory

    Rosalind W. Picard

    Professor of Media Arts and Sciences

    Program in Media Arts and Sciences

    MIT Media Laboratory

    Edith Ackermann, PhD

    Honorary Professor of Developmental Psychology

    University of Aix-Marseille I, France

    Visiting Scientist, MIT School of Architecture

    Kelly’s Web site

    Computing Culture research group


  • 10MayInspiring book : the Prosthetic Impulse

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    The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future, by Marquard Smith and Joanne Morra, eds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006.

    The prosthesis is not a mere extension of the human body; it is the constitution of this body qua “human.”
    —Bernard Steigler,Technics and Time

    With every tool man is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning. . . . Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God.When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but these organs have not grown on to him, and they still give him trouble at times. . . . Future ages will bring with them new and probably unimaginable great advances in this field of civilization and will increase man’s likeness to God still more. But in the interests of our investigations, we will not forget that present-day man does not feel happy in his Godlike character.
    —Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

    The first chapter can be downloaded here

  • 09MayA living sculpture

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    Aimée Mullins

    Today at the fantastic H2.0 event hosted by John Hockenberry and organized by the MIT Media Laboratory, key speakers presented new research initiatives for augmenting mental and physical capability and this to vastly improve the quality of human life.


    Pictures from Aimee Mullins’s talk

    I discovered the inspiring work of Aimée Mullins, that not only is functional but also beautiful. She raises questions on identity and the body, on what it means to loose her lower self. She worked with various artists, designers and modeled for Alexander Mc Queen.


    Aimée Mullins, Dazed & Confused, September 1998 by photographer Nick Knight

    In Cremaster 3, actress Aimée Mullins wears blades on the soles of her shoes or a white dress and transparent crystal legs.


    Cremaster 3

    At the end of the H2.0 event Aimée Mullins declared: “people say i have no legs, but I have ten pairs of them and my interaction with them allow me to be a living sculpture”


    Aimée’ Sculptural legs, photographer: Webb Chappell


    Model: Aimée Mullins, photographer: Chris Winget

    video

  • 30AprTangible Programming in the Classroom

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    Tern: Wooden blocks shaped like jigsaw puzzle pieces

    Created by Michael Horn and Robert J.K. Jacob at Tufts University, Tern is a tangible programming language for middle school and late elementary school students. Children connect the tailored wooden blocks to form physical computer programs, which may include action commands, loops, branches, and subroutines.

    Download Tern’s paper for Chi’07



    Quetzal

    Prior to designing Tern, the authors created Quetzal (pronounced ket-sal), a “tangible programming language designed for children and novice programmers to control LEGO MINDSTORMS robots. It consists of over one hundred interlocking tiles representing flow-of-control structures, actions, and data. Programmers arrange and connect these tiles to define algorithms which can include loops, branches, and concurrent execution.”

    Also Oren Zuckerman from the MIT Media Lab created Systems Thinking Blocks for children to model and simulate dynamic systems.



    Flow Blocks for children “to create 3D structures in space, that look like common structures in life”


  • 30AprTangible Programming in the Classroom

    If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!



    Tern: Wooden blocks shaped like jigsaw puzzle pieces

    Created by Michael Horn and Robert J.K. Jacob at Tufts University, Tern is a tangible programming language for middle school and late elementary school students. Children connect the tailored wooden blocks to form physical computer programs, which may include action commands, loops, branches, and subroutines.

    Download Tern’s paper for Chi’07



    Quetzal

    Prior to designing Tern, the authors created Quetzal (pronounced ket-sal), a “tangible programming language designed for children and novice programmers to control LEGO MINDSTORMS robots. It consists of over one hundred interlocking tiles representing flow-of-control structures, actions, and data. Programmers arrange and connect these tiles to define algorithms which can include loops, branches, and concurrent execution.”

    Also Oren Zuckerman from the MIT Media Lab created Systems Thinking Blocks for children to model and simulate dynamic systems.



    Flow Blocks for children “to create 3D structures in space, that look like common structures in life”


  • 29MarInteractive toy for autistic children

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    LINKX an interactive toy that stimulates the language development of autistic children. Via Idealist

    Helma van RijnI designed LINKX, a language toy for autistic toddlers. Throughout the process, experts in autism were involved. She tested the prototype with three autistic children in several play-sessions.

    The following is the video of her tests:


  • 05FebJabberstamp

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    I team up with Hayes Raffle to work on his invention Jabberstamp a tool that allows children to synthesize their drawings and voices.

    Jabberstamp is the the first tool that allows children to synthesize their drawings and voices. To use Jabberstamp, children create drawings, collages or paintings on normal paper. They press a special rubber stamp onto the page to record sounds into their drawings. When children touch the marks of the stamp with a small trumpet, they can hear the sounds playback, retelling the stories they have created.

    Children ages 4+ can use Jabberstamp to embed names, narratives, characters’ voices and environmental sound effects in their original drawings. Children’s compositions help them communicate their stories with peers and adults, and allow them to record and situate stories in personally meaningful contexts to share with others, before they have mastered writing.

    Update about Jabberstamp …

    Jabberstamp’s video


  • 06JunThe Texture of Light at Siggraph 2006

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    My research poster The Texture of Light has been accepted at Siggraph 2006. The reviews are very encouraging and I have been recommended to suggest it to a Emergency Technology session . It will be part of the Art and Design tools category.

    Abstract : The Texture of Light is research on lighting principles and the exploration of life feed video metamorphosis in the public space using reflection of light on transparent materials. The Texture of Light is an attempt to fight the boredom of everyday life. This project employs the simple use of chemistry, Plexiglas, and plastic patterns to form a reconstruction of reality, giving it a texture and expressive form. The transformation of life feed video comes from physical, plastic circles that act as different masks of reality. These masks can be moved around and swapped by the public, enabling collective expression. This metamorphosis of the public space is presented in real time as a moving painting and is projected on city walls. The public can record video clips of their ‘moving painting’ and project them back on different city locations.

    I plan to develop it on a larger scale such as building-size panels the public could mechanically control using remote devices. Each panel will be pattern and transparent material specific. Two Plexiglas sheets could embed a water-fall, or viscous transparent material the user could distribute along his/her selected point of view. The software will allow media distribution among cities so that the outcomes of the public performances could be exposed on the panels of other cities …

    More about the project by Regine Debatty.

    In tangible video in the public space


  • 06JunThe Texture of Light at Siggraph 2006

    If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

    My research poster The Texture of Light has been accepted at Siggraph 2006. The reviews are very encouraging and I have been recommended to suggest it to a Emergency Technology session . It will be part of the Art and Design tools category.

    Abstract : The Texture of Light is research on lighting principles and the exploration of life feed video metamorphosis in the public space using reflection of light on transparent materials. The Texture of Light is an attempt to fight the boredom of everyday life. This project employs the simple use of chemistry, Plexiglas, and plastic patterns to form a reconstruction of reality, giving it a texture and expressive form. The transformation of life feed video comes from physical, plastic circles that act as different masks of reality. These masks can be moved around and swapped by the public, enabling collective expression. This metamorphosis of the public space is presented in real time as a moving painting and is projected on city walls. The public can record video clips of their ‘moving painting’ and project them back on different city locations.

    I plan to develop it on a larger scale such as building-size panels the public could mechanically control using remote devices. Each panel will be pattern and transparent material specific. Two Plexiglas sheets could embed a water-fall, or viscous transparent material the user could distribute along his/her selected point of view. The software will allow media distribution among cities so that the outcomes of the public performances could be exposed on the panels of other cities …

    More about the project by Regine Debatty.

    In tangible video in the public space