User:0911497

INFO

Karlijn den Hoedt
0911497
Graphic design
projects I have worked on before

Digital Craft 2018: Cybernetics

PROJECT 1

For our first assessment I formed a group with Annemarie (animation), Dieke (animation), Koen (animation) and Lot (graphic design). We received a couple of cards from the teachers for this project. There where three types of cards from which you had to choose one of each kind to reimagine a certain question, technology and platform.

07/09/18
We started this day playing with the cards to see what kind of interesting combinations we could make and what we could think of with this combination. After a while we settled with the idea of making an object designed for a tree to use. we all found it quit funny and weird which made it the perfect first project of this quarter. After thinking out loud which possible combinations a tree could use we finally ended up with:

 "Make an object designed for a tree to use 'Social Networking'. Use folded paper to create a physical model of this new thing."  

We just thought that this would be a funny thing to do, but the problem is that a tree does not give that much input to the world around him. One of the things I thought of was that the tree could many write comments with its twigs. But we came to the conclusion that the wind was the one doing it in the end. So we decided to keep it to just 'Yes' and 'No' decisions to keep it simple. This is how we arrived at Tinder, because not only is the idea of a tree on Tinder pretty funny, but it's also simple to use. You merely need to swipe to the left or the right whether you want to date a certain person or not. Maybe we could let the tree decide by letting it grow to either the left or the right...

For this prototype we decided to use a smaller plant instead of a tree, because it's much easier for a smaller plant to grow and to build an object for it. Our plan is to let the plant grow in a tube-like structure and let it decide to grow further in either the left tube or the right tube. In both tubes there is a sensor that detects whether it should swipe either left or right respectively. As of now we haven't figured out how to make the object swipe just yet. Today we made a prototype of the tube system out of paper, with one of the tube ways already being taken by the plant just to show what it would look like. We also made a Facebook and Tinder account for our plant: Clovis Clematis.

photos by: Lot

13/09/18
For today we had to present Clovis and her cyborg appendage to the rest of the class. The reception was pretty okay. The main question that was brought up was 'How can a plant know that it is using Tinder?' Obviously it doesn't, but maybe we can convert the Tinder profile picture into sound and give the plant a choice instead of letting it grow by chance.In two weeks we need to have a prototype that works as much as possible. It doesn't have to be a continuation of project 1, but it does need:

- to be somewhat related to these explorations on reimagining technology.
- to be 3D, a real thing.
- to be simulating interactive feedback loops.

PROJECT 2

14/09/18
Today we were trying to figure out what our next project should be about. We could go further with our last project but everybody wanted to do something else. For this day I reached a bit with the last lecture from Ivan & Shailoh about feedback loops, machines, prothetics, autopoisis and bioart in the back of my mind and brought the best examples as inspiration to my other teammates. This inspiration was:

• video walking plant walking plant info
• cybernetic flowers
• urban trees grow faster

At first we all found the last link quit interesting. It was interesting that plants on urban grounds were going faster and also died earlier. For example trees in the city grow faster than trees in the forest, due to the amount of heat in the air around them, but they also have shorter lifespans. We thought about adding a meter to a tree for it to know the amount of heat around him to kind of search for a healthier environment, but it wouldn't really add some sort of feedback loop and it looked to much like the walking plant. Besides these ideas lot came up with some other ideas. One of these was that she read something about trees that could produce there own light through a chemical reaction just like in glimwormen. I really loved this idea but we didn't came up with a good feedback loop and not everybody saw something in it. The idea that we were most excited about was about a plant that grows meat instead fruit. This could be an alternative to meat from animals.

photo by: Annemarie

17/09/18
We decided to keep the project a bit more realistic and to focus back on plants making decisions. The idea was to bring the decision making more to the plants this time and present them two different kinds of music. We know that plants can detect vibrations, we want to know if they have a preference. We're also planning some experiments to see what kind of effects music has on plants. What's interesting as well is a way to record where you're touching the plant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcRSKEIucjk

From this point we started with our own experiments to see how music affects plants.

18/09/18
I started planting my first test plants to look if the plants react to music vibrations from above instead of on the roots .

20/09/18
Today I stayed sick at home but the others went to the appointment with Javier:

They were trying to get a reaction from the plant by touching it, like in the video of "BOTANICUS INTERACTICUS". The technology they used to do this is called Touché and they tried to replicate it with Arduino, like Nick Arner did here: Nick Arner video

they got pretty far with the help of Javier, but eventually we found out that for this experiment to work, Arduino needs to be communicating with a different program we didn't have. So we couldn't continue but Javier did connect us with some very interesting and useful sites:

• frequency capacitive sensing
• Disney maakt elke plant aanraakgevoelig
• TALKING TO PLANTS: TOUCHÉ EXPERIMENTS
• Podcast - Smarty plants

After that we looked back at our Clovis experiment, trying to find a different way of making plants react to and decide their music. We thought of a way to create a feedback loop in which the plant is searching for his favorite tracks. The pot is seperated in two halves and each halve has a speaker playing its own distinct music. A bean/seed is placed above the seperation, allowing it to grow to both sides. Using some kind of transparent soil, a webcam and MAX7, we are able to distinguish the difference in color between the two halves. Roots have some kind of white color, so if one side contains more white than the other, we assume that the plant prefers the music on the whiter side more. Therefore, the music on the part with the most roots will keep playing and the music on the other side will switch.

21/09/18
I went to school so that I wouldn't mis to much. For this day we got together and made a list of things we need to do for next Thursday. After hearing there ideas I came up with the transparent growing ground so that we could easily watch the roots without damaging them. We also needed to build a box for the plant to grow in, a webcam to record the amount of white color and the code to recognize the change in whiteness and to switch music tracks if necessary. We made the design for the box today as well as the majority of the code needed to build this prototype. Koen and Dieke were working on the pot while Lot and Annemarie were working on the code in MAX. I was helping a bit on bove side because I had worked with max before and dieke and koen also needed some help in between. Togeter we came quite far this day.

Drawing left: Annemarie | Animation right: Koen

26/09/18
For the last day before our presentation we came together to make the visual presentation. We finish the last points we had to do and we deciding who should talk about what. Annemarie and Koen made some drawings and animations for the presentation, Dieke had finished the box and Lot and me were working on a powerpoint.

The flowerpot is not yet the final version of the product. The future project will be less complex and won’t need a separate computer or webcam to operate. They will all be build inside the flowerpot itself. There will be two cameras in the front chamber that observe the roots of the plants. The technology will be needly put inside the little drawer on the bottom of the pot which makes it accessible at all times and at the same time open. This makes it easy for the user to see how it is working, to chance the technology when it is broken or to add extra features for ultimate plant growth.

INSPIRATION

BASICS

• arduino
  
• Arduino inspiraton
  
• NOS about cyborgs, AI and the future
  
• NOS about cyborgs, AI and the future videos
  
• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell - Is reality real
  
• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell - Rise of the machine
  
• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell - Do robots have rights
  
• Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell - A new history
  
• posthuman
  
• Book karen barad meeting the university halfway
  
• post humanism and design
  
• Bruno Latour
  
• black box
  
• [1]
  

PROJECT1

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PROJECT2

• video walking plant
• info
• cybernetic flowers
• urban trees grow faster

PROJECT3

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• consetetur sadipscing elitr
• sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt

PROJECT4

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