User:Merlesibbel/Unravel the Code

WEEK 1

workshop

put photo's of copper-antenna + led here!

Anthony Dunne: Hertzian Tales

What I got out of hertzian Tales.

Introduction, what is this book about.

- Shift (pleaded for) in role of designer: from passive executor of someone elses idea, or just maker of a 'uncomprehensable electronics'-package to involved, critical, visible in the whole product and not just the package. "industrial designers, products designs that want to stimulate discussion with their product and not just make products that others design. Make interesting product and not products that maintain a society of passive consumption. "

- Electronical products

- Critical Design (of electronic products) "design of conceptual electronic products as a way of provoking complex and meaningful reflection on the ubiquitous, dematerializing and intelligent artificial environment we inhabit." Ideological nature of the design of electronic products: industrial design is at the heart of the consumer culture: subvert it for more socially beneficial ends.

- What are the chapters about: chapter 1-6. exploring design approaches for developing the aesthetic and critical possibilities of electronic products outside a commercial context chapter 7: conceptual design proposals expressed as objects, videos, and images-by-products of an investigation into a synthesis between practise and theory, where neither practise nor theory leads.

--

Theoretical background; design noir. About psychological connection with objects.

Chapter One: The Electronical as Post-Optimal Object

Optimal: smooth object, blending in with environment, almost invisible. Extremely user friendly Post-optimal: user un-friendly but makes you think, be aware of what is happening. "theres already many practicality and functionality possible, lets find the cultural and poetic side of it" I love the comparison of post-optimal object, criticl design object, with poetry: Poetry is in a way user un-friendly text, but it does make you feel something, makes you think. Like the post-optimal object, critical design.

Some thoughts of projects exploring human realtionships with objects: impressable button, chair that won't let you sit, phone running away.

WEEK 2

Roel Radio

Theme to explore: how do we physically interact with radio? Dancing with the waves. Questions: what kind of radio waves are there? What radio waves do we physically react to, could we react to? Microwave: heat. Radio: sound. Theremin: direct result of influencing radio-waves.

The elektromagnetic spectrum is already for a big part repurposed by humans (phones, radio broadcast, tv broadcast, ov chipcard waves, weather satellites, microwaves). Gouvernement organisation is deciding who can get what frequeny.

hertzian Tales

Notes on CHAPTER 6 of Hertzian Tales

HERTZIAN SPACE

radio: part of the elektromagnetic spectrum. all electronic products are hybrids of radiotion and matter. this chapter explores link between the material and immaterial that lead to new aesthetic possibilities for life in an electromagnetic environment.

radio often treated as conceptual because of non-sensory. ,

examples of projects using radio. Scanner: wideband radio scanner, listens to cellular telephone conversations, puts them on a cd.

hertzian space has electroclimate. reacts with natural landscape.

body as circuit board

aerial: in relation to the elektromagnetic environment. dual concept of electromagntic radioation as wave and as particle.

electronic objects 'dream', leak radioation, information.

WEEK 3

Interesting Projects + Project Ideas

After a lesson with Jon I thought of some project that explore the relationship between people and object. I like exploring the dynamics between living and non-living things, and making the non-living lively, like in this projects:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH6xCT2aTSo

The whole lesson I had this song in my head, called I Pity Inanimate Objects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsHDXE7BbxA. It's really funny and I'm thinking about just making expressive tables and chairs and forks. A table that looks very tired of just standing, a chair of which the legs are all sagged because of always carrying all this weight.

So, people and object-projects:

- Voodoo Phone, Hiroshi Ishiguro (2011). A phone shaped like the human body. Makes handling the phone much more strange. https://www.nextnature.net/2011/03/voodoo-phone/

- Marina Abramovic, Rythmn. She stands for 6 hours or something, totally passive. On the table in front of her are all kind of objects, from a feather to a loaded gun. People are free to do with her whatever they want. She is like an object, passive. People do really bad things. When she comes alive after 6 hours, people flee the room. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_0

- Dialogue Goggles, Lygia Clark, 1968. Twee brillen aan elkaar, tegenover elkaar. De bril wordt dus door twee mensen tegelijk gedragen die gedwongen worden tot heel direct oogcontact. http://www.leonardo.info/isast/spec.projects/osthoff/osthoff4.html

- Giuseppe Colarusso: everyday objects made unusable. A fork you can't eat with, things like that. Really interesting reminder of how we always think of object in their functionality.

http://www.boredpanda.com/creative-photo-manipulations-giuseppe-colarusso/

Projects more radio-related:

- Wifi Angels. Wifi made audible: the stronger the signal, the louder the angel-singing.

https://www.nextnature.net/nl/projecten/wifi-angels/

- Lisa Park, Eunoia. Manipulating water with brainwaves. Park monitors her own brain activity and this signal gets transformed into sound that makes water move. http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/eunoia-seeking-enlightenment-by-tracking-brainwaves

- Human Antenna, Florian Krautli. A carpet made of conductive thread, turning the person walking over the carpet into an antenna.

http://www.kraeutli.com/index.php/2009/09/01/human-antenna/

Roel's recommendations and comments:

- bioelectromagnetics

- Natasha Taylor

IDEAS:

- working with a theremin: reacting on your body

- working with water waves --> making the water move with your body, via a theremin?

- showing the weather in the water: working with the weather signal

- communicating via the water

THINGS TO DO:

- build a theremin

WEEK 4

imaginary radio in a group

We thought of using a speaker beneath a little pool of water. A low frequency tone making patterns in the water. The volume can be ajusted by a signal that comes in via a microphone. So if you talk loud, the volume of the tone underneath the water increases and the water moves more wildly. There would be two of those boxes, in different rooms/places/countries. Box A and box B. Box A has a microphone of which the signal will be sent to box B. This means box B reacts to what is happening in the place of box A. And vica versa. In this way you can 'communicate' via the water.

It would be really nice if we could have thought of a method to read the waves (like Jon said), to decode the water and sent a more readable, specific message.

WEEK 5

my imaginary radio

Mindmap on imaginary radio

I really like the idea of communicating via water. The effect of sound on water is really beautiful and I experienced in an earlier project how magical it feels that you can actually move the water by making sound. I will put a video of this project, a screammachine that turns your screaming into a low tone that makes water move, on the wiki. So I would like to work with this water-moving by sound. The imaginary radio we thought about in a group was also based on this principle, but used as a long-distance communication method. I based my own imaginary radio on this project.

Moving water can be used in a lot of ways. Two ideas appealed to me:

- You are in a room with the water box. Somewhere in another city someone you love comes home. A light-sensor or motion-detector detects his or her presence in the room and the water in your box starts rippling softly. It would be a very nice and calming experience, what suits the calmness of rippling water. Just knowing someone is there.

- A more sensual and playful version of the box. A more sensible and physical way for long-distance lovers to communicate. The box would be a sensual, organic shape, be made of a soft, fleshy material like latex or just soft, nice-to-touch wood and contain touch-sensors. Touching the box would make the water ripple. The more pressure you put into your touch, the more the water would ripple. Your own water would ripple but the water in your lover's box would do too. If you're touching your box at the same time, the effects of the would be combined and the output signal would be higher, so the water would ripple more. In this way you can, together, manipulate the water.