Unrvl2020

UNRVL 9: Sense of Connection

An encouraging squeeze of the hand, an amical arm around your shoulder, a comforting hug, the warm breath of someone looking over your shoulder ... such normal, matter of course (in dutch, vanzelfsprekende) gestures have evaporated from our current reality. Sensing the room - feeling (and feeding off) the energy of the group? Neither are truly feasible in the current shared online spaces in that we rely on to 'meet' or 'convene’.

Douglas Rushkoff writes;

Digital Media Still Isn’t Very Good at Connecting People— at least not in a way that the body and brain recognize as real. Neuroscientists have now established, human beings require input from organic, three-dimensional space in order to establish trusting relationships or maintain peace of mind.

Sure, we can see and hear each other. But are we able to connect?

In a year in which online/networked technologies and platforms have become a seemingly indispensable mode of communication, the 9th annual Unravel the Code International Workshop aims to tackle the missing haptic responders that are so essential to our sense of connection. Can we prototype a sense of proximity by proxy? How might we deliver a push, pat, or pinch notification? And what new forms of tele-present tenderness will emerge? These questions will be unraveled and built back up into responsive works by an interdisciplinary group of students of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Sint Lucas Antwerp, and the Willem de Kooning Academy.

Unravel the What??

UNRVL 9: Sense of Connection took place in Antwerp, Baltimore, Rotterdam, and signal traffic in-between, from October 12-16th. The UNRVL platform aims to opens up creative understandings of emerging technologies through intensive international workshops. By historically examining the making of technologies, as well as leveraging interdisciplinarity, the goal is to foster students to reach out for new socio-technical perspectives, as well as build back concrete skills respective to the areas of their expertise.

About the Collaborating Progams

Unravel the Code WDKA is a project that brings students across the Commercial, Autonomous and Social Practices together, it's heart and home is in the Stations, and it still abides by its original Manifesto.

Unravel the Code MICA is a course draws upon traditional crafts to explore emerging technologies of making. The UNRVL students come from a rich variety of majors and backgrounds, and the content of the class is also spans a tremendous range.

The premaster program of Sint Lucas Antwerpen focuses on the development of an art or design practice within the domain of digital technology. Alike MICA & WDKA, the approach of Saint Lucas program emphasises interdisciplinarity, encourages and research-driven work.

UNRVL 9 Teams

Group 1 - A.K.A Spicy Girls

Group 2 - A.K.A ...Group 2

Group 3 - A.K.A Tequila!

Schedule Overview (subject of frequent changes)

Our (tele)communication channels will be...

1. Wiki (the one that you're in right now!): for information about the workshop and posting documentation
2. Discord : for inbetween banter, troubleshooting support, hanging out, team chats (you have received an invite from us - if not then mail your faculty's tutors)
3. ZOOM : to meet, show and tell (Zoom links will be posted in the Discord channel)
4. Github : repository for downloads of files & code is
   https://github.com/paulmirel/telepresence_of_touch
   and the zip to download is
   https://github.com/paulmirel/telepresence_of_touch/archive/20200912-awg-dir.zip
   
5. Google Drive : for collecting and organizing documentation per group & final presentations

Monday Oct 12 - Awkward Zoom Room

When Central European Time	When Eastern Standard Time	What	Where
21:40 (In Dutch we call this 10 after half to 10!) #Awkward	15:38 (Who uses military time? And why are we meeting 2 minutes earlier then the Europeans?) #Awkward	First Impressions - Awkward Zoom Room Who is part of your UNRVL Workshop group? In this randomly generated group call you will find out with whom you will will be working with. Since remote colabs are never smooth from the start, we aim to make this the most awkward 15 minutes of your entire workshop week. Please follow the strict format for the call: 1. Join the room at precisely 21:40 CET / 15:38 EST 2. Commence 5 minutes of silent staring. Whom ever makes the first peep, becomes the dedicated note-taker for all your future meetings. 3. Introduce yourself by sharing a photo from your past that would fit under the title “the awkwardness was palpable!” 4. Discuss each of your your super-powers - a skill, talent, affinity for a material/medium, the crux of your artistic practice, and/or any unusual knowledge that you might hold. 5. Discuss each of your coping mechanisms for feeling close to those you can not physically meet. 6. Agree on a youtube karaoke number and a dedicated person to share their screen. You know what to do next. 7. End the call 5 seconds before the song finishes	Check your email Monday Oct 12th for your Zoom Room Link Participating Faculty: Jon Stam, Frederik de Bleser, Annet Couwenberg, Alan Grover, Gabrielle Marks, Nan Wangin an awkward Zoom Room

Tuesday Oct 13 - Telepresent Greetings & the Telepresence of Touch

When Central European Time	When Eastern Standard Time	What	Where/Who
15:00 - 15:30	09:00 - 09:30	Welcome to the first day (mandatory for all participants) Words of welcome, awkward zoom room recap, and overview of the workshop week	Participating Faculty: Jon Stam, Annet Couwenberg, Alan Grover, Gabrielle Marks Online / via whatever channel we're using Frederik de Bleser will hopefully join the workshop at 16.00 Gabrielle is also present IRL at WdKA in BL.00.10a
15:30 - 17:30	09:30 - 11:30	Telepresence of Touch Tutorial Part 1 How do we know we have been touched? How can we communicate that sense of touch to someone who is physically distant from us? We need a touch-sensitive input, some sort of signaling, and a way to get information from one place to another. In this tutorial you will lean about the five inputs of the Circuit Python (express or blue fruit) and write some python scripts to make use of them.	Zoom Tutorial with Paul Mirel Links: Telepresence of Touch GitHub Repository Telepresence of Touch Download
17:30 - 19:00	11:30 - 13:00	Disconnect
19:00 – 21:30	13:00 - 15:50	Tele-present Greetings In this warm up assignment, each group is ask to devise telepresent alternatives to the standard form of greeting in Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States. These new telepresent greetings will be preformed as part of Wednesdays start session. The three forms of greeting are: 1. The Belgian left-side cheek touch (with optional kissing noise) 2. The Dutch right-left-right head bobbing kiss (with mandatory over-pronounced kissing noise) 3. The North-American bear hug.	Discord Gabrielle is available in Discord and IRL at WdKA in BL.00.10a

Wednesday Oct 14 - Sensing the Connection

When Central European Time	When Eastern Standard Time	What	Where/Who
15:00 - 15:30	09:00 - 09:30	Welcome to the new day (mandatory for all participants) What are your alternative (telepresent) ways to great each other? A round of greetings will be made before we enter the next telepresence of touch tutorial	Participating faculty members: Jon Stam, Frederik de Bleser, Annet Couwenberg, Alan Grover, Gabrielle Marks Online / via Zoom
15:30 - 17:30	09:30 - 11:30	Telepresence of Touch Tutorial Part 2 We will extend the touch project to communicate with a partner's device. The telepresent partner will receive those five inputs, which will show on the distant device in the four lights corresponding to the touch-pads.	Zoom Tutorial with Alan Grover Participating faculty members: Frederik de Bleser, Vic Ekanem, Nan Wang, Jon Stam
17:30 - 18:00	11:30 - 12:00	Workin' on the Wiki - Documentation Meeting	Jon Stam via Zoom
18:00 - 19:00	12:00 - 13:00	Places of Connection - Telepresent Tourism Sad your not taking a group selfie in the markthal? Yearning for a Bicky at de Smulpaep? Wishing you could to check off all 18 miniature unexplained death dioramas off your bucket list? You can! Over the next 1.5 hours your task is to take your group on a tour of 3 different places of your city and take telepresent selfies in Rotterdam, Antwerp and Baltimore. Make sure one of the places is some dinner or lunch.
19:00 – 20:30	13:00 - 14:30	Brainstorm	Available faculty members: Jon Stam, Frederik de Bleser, Annet Couwenberg, Alan Grover, Nan Wang, Gabrielle Marks Online / via Discord Jon Stam not anymore IRL at WdKA in Interaction Station
20:30 - 21:30	14:30 - 15:30	Sense of Connection Proposal Pitch 5 slide presentation: What is your question that will drive your sense of connection project? What is your concept and how do you communicate this as a vision? What needs to be practically worked out...and what are the unknowns? (the technical challenge, a system map or diagram) What materials will you use / what do you still need to source? Who is responsible for what (which role(s) do you each have)...and what help do you need...(from the faculties)?	Available faculty members: Jon Stam, Frederik de Bleser, Annet Couwenberg, Alan Grover, Nan Wang, Gabrielle Marks Online / via Discord Jon Stam also not anymore IRL at WdKA in Interaction Station
	16:00 - 17:00	MICA DFab Overview Mandatory for MICA students, for DFab services for this Int'l Collaboration and activities on the 21st.	Available faculty members: Ryan McGibbon Online / via Zoom (TBD) Jon Stam also IRL at WdKA in Interaction Station

Thursday Oct 15 > Friday 16 - 24 Hour Marathon

Central European Time	Eastern Standard Time	What	Where/Who
15:30 - 16:00	09:30 - 10:00	Welcome to the new day (mandatory for all participants)	Participating faculty members: Frederik de Bleser, Alan Grover, Nan Wang Online / via Zoom Jon Stam is in a mid-term evaluation...but will try to plan a break and say hi Gabrielle Marks is in a mid-term evaluation
16:00 - 17:00	10:00 - 11:00	Blow a fuse Is the idea ideal? It's time for sensing the resistance, for doubting thomases, second thoughts and soliloquies.	Available faculty members: Nan Wang @ WDKA Alan Grover, Vik Ekanem @ MICA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
17:00 - 18:00	11:00 - 12:00	Face your Mentor Students discuss concept, feasibly, required tech/materials with workshop mentors.	Available faculty members: Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA Alan Grover, Vik Ekanem @ MICA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
18:00 – 19:00	12:00 - 13:00	No time for questioning Tell us what your question is! Appoint a group member to write your central question and an 80 word project description	Available faculty members: Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA Alan Grover, Vik Ekanem @ MICA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
19:00 - 20:00	13:00 - 14:00	Disconnect Deadline for submission of files/requests to MICA DFab: 13:00! Reserved MICA DFab service bureau
20:00 - 21:00	14:00 - 15:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MAKE MAKE MAKE ⚙️⚙️⚙️ Reserved MICA DFab service bureau	Available faculty members: Jon Stam @ WDKA Alan Grover, Vik Ekanem @ MICA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
21:00 – 22:00	15:00 - 16:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MAKE MAKE MAKE ⚙️⚙️⚙️ Reserved MICA DFab service bureau MICA DFab p/u	Available faculty members: Alan Grover, Vic Ekanem @ MICA
22:00 - 23:00	16:00 - 17:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MAKE MAKE MAKE ⚙️⚙️⚙️ MICA DFab p/u	Available faculty members: Annet Couwenberg(tbc), Alan Grover, Vic Ekanem @ MICA
23:00 - 24:00	17:00 - 18:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MAKE MAKE MAKE ⚙️⚙️⚙️	Available faculty members: Annet Couwenberg(tbc), Alan Grover, Vic Ekanem @ MICA
24:00 – 01:00	18:00 - 19:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MICA MAKE MAKE MAKE WDKA/St Lukas catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯	Available faculty members: Annet Couwenberg(tbc), Alan Grover, Vic Ekanem @ MICA
01:00 - 02:00	19:00 - 20:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MICA MAKE MAKE MAKE WDKA/St Lucas catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯
02:00 - 03:00	20:00 - 21:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MICA MAKE MAKE MAKE WDKA/St Lucas catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯
03:00 – 04:00	21:00 - 22:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MICA MAKE MAKE MAKE WDKA/St Lucas catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯
04:00 - 05:00	22:00 - 23:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MICA MAKE MAKE MAKE WDKA/St Lucas catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯
05:00 - 06:00	23:00 - 24:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ MICA MAKE MAKE MAKE WDKA/St Lucas catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯
06:00 - 07:00	24:00 - 01:00	MICA/WDKA/St Lucas catching up on Z's or burning the midnight oil (｡-‿-｡)zZz
07:00 - 08:00	01:00 - 02:00	MICA/WDKA/St Lucas catching up on Z's or burning the midnight oil (｡-‿-｡)zZz
08:00 - 09:00	02:00 - 03:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ WDKA/St Lucas MAKE MAKE MAKE MICA catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯
09:00 - 10:00	03:00 - 04:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ WDKA/St Lucas MAKE MAKE MAKE MICA catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯	Available faculty members: Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
10:00 - 11:00	04:00 - 05:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ WDKA/St Lucas MAKE MAKE MAKE MICA catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯	Available faculty members: Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
11:00 - 12:00	05:00 - 06:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ WDKA/St Lucas MAKE MAKE MAKE MICA catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯	Available faculty members: Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
12:00 - 13:00	06:00 - 07:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ WDKA/St Lucas MAKE MAKE MAKE MICA catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯	Available faculty members: Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
13:00 - 14:00	07:00 - 08:00	⚙️⚙️⚙️ WDKA/St Lucas MAKE MAKE MAKE MICA catching up on Z's (｡-‿-｡)zZz or burning the midnight oil 🕯 MICA DFab p/u	Available faculty members: Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA
14:00 - 15:00	08:00 - 09:00	Welcome to the new day and the last 2 Hours!!! (mandatory for all participants / quick check-ins by all mentors)	Participating Faculty: Jon Stam, Gabrielle Marks, Frederik de Bleser, Annet Couwenberg, Alan Grover, Nan Wang Online / via Zoom
15:00 - 16:00	09:00 - 10:00	Final testing hour / Presentation Prep	Available faculty members: Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA Annet Couwenberg, Alan Grover, Vic Ekanem @ MICA Frederik de Bleser @ SLA

Friday October 16 - UNRVL 2020 Presentations

Central European Time	Eastern Standard Time	Activity	Where
16:00 - 17:00	10:00 - 11:00	Sense of Connection Internal Presentations & Discussion	Zoom: Meeting ID: 652 887 5862 Passcode: unravel
17:00 - 17:30	11:00 - 11:30	Sense of Connection Recap with special guest Introduction to UNRVL and this years challenge (5min) Group Presentations (5 min each) Reflection on the topic, process, potential of the projects (5 min)	Zoom: Meeting ID: 652 887 5862 Passcode: unravel

Recommended reading, watching, listening for UNRVL 9

1. Digital Media is'nt very good at connecting people
2. Team Human podcasts
3. Sex and touch during the coronavirus
4. Dreaming and Doing Haptics
5. https://haptipedia.org/ an online, open-source, visualization of a growing database of 105+ haptic devices invented since 1992
6. The Senses: Design Beyond Vision
   The link to the free downloadable epub on the page sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Go figure.
   An earlier downloaded version can be downloaded from here
7. cardboard telepresence robot kickstarter vid
8. Telematic Dinner Party
   Ubermatic This project from 2002 is very fitting to our theme of telepresence and communicating over the internet:The LiveForm:Telekinetics (LF:TK) project re-imagines the familiar objects and utensils of our everyday social spaces as an electronically activated play environment, capable of transmitting over distance the physical presence and social gesture that comprise such a vital element of human interaction. Furniture, decorations, cutlery, doodads, and bric-a-brac come to life as both kinetic art and telecommunication interfaces, building a complex arrangement of movement and gesture. Imagine a shared creation, a social ritual, a dance through objects, an electric dinner-table that is played.

Workshop Documentation (text-in-progress)

   Group Image of the Students
   In-process images / video
   Code/design drawings or anything else you want to freely disseminate.
   Core Question
   80 - 100 word project description
   Final documentation of presentation

A link to a Google Doc for UNRVL 9 will been posted here:
UNRVL 9 - Sense of Connection Google Drive
Anyone with this link should be able to view and edit the files.

Each team has their own folder.
Please use your team folder to collect and organize visual documentation, sketches, texts etc.
Per team one member takes on the role of documentarian.

Spicy Girls

HEADS UP -> down: Yingzhou Chen, Giovanni Zanella, Soo Seng, Mats Cornegoor, Anna Beirinckx, Ana Tobin, Cato Speltincx

Waves of Meeting

When you're in a meeting the level of interest is important. People Nodding, sitting up straight, making eye contact. It motivates you as a speaker to proceed the way you are presenting without being unsure to miss someone's attention. You can tell by their body language if they are holding on to the meeting.

Our project is a proposal for a solution of the lack of human interaction given by platform like zoom. Have you ever been presenting in a video call and looked around to notice all the blank faces staring back at you? Are they paying attention to your presentation?

In these situation we miss a lot of information about non-verbal communication. We specifically focused on the amount of attention payed by the users, and came up with a tool that can inform the speaker about how much focused the listener is.

This concept is based off the way the railroad industry measures the attention of their conductors. Conductors must hold a switch the entire time they are driving. The physical holding of an object sends information about the amount of focus. On our device when someone loosens their grip a graphic of water rising will cover their face on the screen. The less you pay attention, the higher the water level rises until it covers your image entirely. If you pay attention for long periods of time you will be rewarded, the sensor of the device will indicate that you have been holding on tightly and it will light up and a graphic of a sun will appear on your image. That way you get rewarded and the person talking will know you are paying attention.

Spicy Documentation

Project 1 Wiki Page Team 1 Google Drive

"Group 2" - Fluidity of Presence

Contemporary communication platforms (such as Zoom or Messenger) often strike us by their inability to simulate the fluidity of physical presence (including degrees of nearness and distance) that is an inherent feature of our embodied, social existence. Binary states encouraged by the nature of digital ecosystems (online/offline, on/off) fail to address this essential dimension of our feeling of togetherness. The abruptness of a Zoom call drop, the jarring instant-materialization of a face on a screen—these experiences reinforce our sense of the flatness and tenuousness of digital connection. Is this an inherent limitation of virtual interactions, or are there ways to recreate the joy of a serendipitous sighting of a friend on the street (the slow approach initiated by eye-contact and a wave from afar); the comforting sound of family members busy in other quarters of the house; or the lingering farewell after a long and long-overdue meeting?

hello this is group 2. [From left] Jin, Michelle, Fien, Ezra, Celi, Marit/Arimit, Amrith, Arimit/Marit.

Beyond Digital Binaries

For our UNRVL 2020 project, we have set about creating a means of communication that could give a sense of the fluidity of presence inherent to real-life social interactions, as well as encourage the development of virtual rituals and facilitate spontaneous interactions across virtual platforms.

Our approach is twofold: one the one hand, to design a device that represents activity in online chatrooms in an analogue way, allowing “offline” users to have an ambient awareness of conversations among friends from afar. On the other hand, we hope ourselves to create the platform on which these signals are based. The effectiveness of this social platform—tentatively called Room—hinges on a custom-built, spatialized audio-visual interface that simulates sensations of nearness and distance in virtual space.

Final Results

Project 2 Documentation

Project 2 Wiki Page Team 2 Google Drive

Team 3 Tequila

add your 'Telepresence Tourist' team photo list names in order

Core Question

+80 - 100 word project description (Good suggestion)

Cool research questions we can tie this into: How do your movement patterns translate your emotions?

We’re going to connect people through presence and movement, which will trigger an emotional response from the users.

We’re going to do this by sensing amplitude of movement, through acceleration, and then translating this data into a colour, in the HSB scale. This will result in a colour which is more bright and vibrant according to the intensity of the movement. Thus we can translate a suggested meaning to a colour. Ex: more bright = more nervous, energetic. more dim/pastel colour = chill, tranquil.

The symbol of the flower is tied to the idea of sharing. The device is shaped like a flower, so the user becomes a flower in a flower field. Your light is your behaviour, but each person is a flower, a part of a collective. By giving you a flower, I want you to be a part of this group that i’m in.

This system of flower can be applied to groups performing specific tasks. For example, by sensing the movements of the participants of a zoom call, one is able to see if the chat was stressful, intense, chill, or something else.

(To be condensed)

Final Results

a 2-3 images from your project

Project 3 Documentation

Project 3 Wiki Page Team 3 Google Drive

Participating Students

MICA Students

1. David Correa, dcorrea@mica.edu
2. Ana Tobin, atobin01@mica.edu
3. Yingzhou Chen, ychen10@mica.edu
4. Ruichao Jiang, rjiang01@mica.edu
5. Jin Xia, jxia01@mica.edu
6. Jeneanne Odessa Renae Collins, Jcollins01@mica.edu
7. Celi Monroe cmonroe@mica.edu

WDKA Students

1. Rodrigo de Almeida Garrett Viseu Cardoso, 0950419@hr.nl
2. Mats Cornegoor, 0970010@hr.nl
3. Soo Seng, 0941564@hr.nl
4. Marit van As, 0963423@hr.nl
5. Jinnie Ann 0946151@hr.nl
6. Arimit Bhattacharjee, 0964256@hr.nl
7. Giovanni Zanella, 0940188@hr.nl
8. Rik Wijngaards, 0936107@hr.nl
9. Amrith de Zoete, 0934726@hr.nl

SLA Students

1. Ezra Babski, ezra.babski@student.kdg.be
2. Anna Beirinckx, anna.beirinckx@student.kdg.be
3. Iren Loontjens, iren.loontjens@student.kdg.be
4. Michelle Maes, michelle.maes@student.kdg.be
5. Cato Speltincx, cato.speltincx@student.kdg.be
6. Fien Stappaerts, fien.stappaerts@student.kdg.be
7. Lucas Struijk, lucas.struijk@student.kdg.be
8. Marijke Van Mol, marijke.vanmol@student.kdg.be

Participating Faculties

MICA

1. Annet Couwenberg, acouwenb@mica.edu, instructor - 314510@edu.nl - zisxw
2. Alan Grover, agrover@mica.edu, software engineer/educator - 314508@edu.nl - rmzja
3. Paul Mirel, pmirel@mica.edu, system scientist/educator
4. Vic Ekanem, vekanem@mica.edu, mechanical engineer/fashion designer/educator
5. Chauncey Zhang, xzhang03@mica.edu, Graduate Teaching Intern (GTI)

WDKA

1. Jon Stam, j.m.stam@hr.nl, designer tutor of all sorts
2. Gabrielle Marks, g.c.c.marks@hr.nl, graphic/media design educator and tutor of all sorts
3. Nan Wang, wangnan2011w@gmail.com support, http://nanwang.org

ST LUCAS ANTWERPEN

1. Frederik de Bleser, frederik.debleser@kdg.be, lecturer for Master of Visual Arts, researcher

History