Unrvl2020
Contents
- 1 UNRVL 9: Sense of Connection
- 2 Unravel the What??
- 3 UNRVL 9 Teams
- 4 Schedule Overview (subject of frequent changes)
- 4.1 Our (tele)communication channels will be...
- 4.2 Monday Oct 12 - Awkward Zoom Room
- 4.3 Tuesday Oct 13 - Telepresent Greetings & the Telepresence of Touch
- 4.4 Wednesday Oct 14 - Sensing the Connection
- 4.5 Thursday Oct 15 > Friday 16 - 24 Hour Marathon
- 4.6 Friday October 16 - UNRVL 2020 Presentations
- 5 Recommended reading, watching, listening for UNRVL 9
- 6 Workshop Documentation (text-in-progress)
- 7 Participating Students
- 8 Participating Faculties
- 9 History
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...
- Wiki (the one that you're in right now!): for information about the workshop and posting documentation
- 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)
- ZOOM : to meet, show and tell (Zoom links will be posted in the Discord channel)
- 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 - 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 20:30 - 21:30 | 14:30 - 15:30 | Sense of Connection Proposal Pitch
5 slide presentation:
|
Available faculty members:
Jon Stam, Frederik de Bleser, Annet Couwenberg, Alan Grover, Nan Wang, Gabrielle Marks |
|
| 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 |
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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 19:00 - 20:00 | 13:00 - 14:00 | Disconnect
Deadline for submission of files/requests to MICA DFab: 13:00! |
|
| 20:00 - 21:00 | 14:00 - 15:00 | ⚙️⚙️⚙️ MAKE MAKE MAKE ⚙️⚙️⚙️
Reserved MICA DFab service bureau |
Available faculty members:
Jon Stam @ WDKA |
| 21:00 – 22:00 | 15:00 - 16:00 | ⚙️⚙️⚙️ MAKE MAKE MAKE ⚙️⚙️⚙️
Reserved MICA DFab service bureau |
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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 15:00 - 16:00 | 09:00 - 10:00 | Final testing hour / Presentation Prep | Available faculty members:
Nan Wang & Jon Stam @ WDKA |
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
|
Zoom: Meeting ID: 652 887 5862
Passcode: unravel |
Recommended reading, watching, listening for UNRVL 9
- Digital Media is'nt very good at connecting people
- Team Human podcasts
- Sex and touch during the coronavirus
- Dreaming and Doing Haptics
- https://haptipedia.org/ an online, open-source, visualization of a growing database of 105+ haptic devices invented since 1992
- 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 - cardboard telepresence robot kickstarter vid
- 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
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.
500px
500px
500px
500px
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?
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: on 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 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
- David Correa, dcorrea@mica.edu
- Ana Tobin, atobin01@mica.edu
- Yingzhou Chen, ychen10@mica.edu
- Ruichao Jiang, rjiang01@mica.edu
- Jin Xia, jxia01@mica.edu
- Jeneanne Odessa Renae Collins, Jcollins01@mica.edu
- Celi Monroe cmonroe@mica.edu
WDKA Students
- Rodrigo de Almeida Garrett Viseu Cardoso, 0950419@hr.nl
- Mats Cornegoor, 0970010@hr.nl
- Soo Seng, 0941564@hr.nl
- Marit van As, 0963423@hr.nl
- Jinnie Ann 0946151@hr.nl
- Arimit Bhattacharjee, 0964256@hr.nl
- Giovanni Zanella, 0940188@hr.nl
- Rik Wijngaards, 0936107@hr.nl
- Amrith de Zoete, 0934726@hr.nl
SLA Students
- Ezra Babski, ezra.babski@student.kdg.be
- Anna Beirinckx, anna.beirinckx@student.kdg.be
- Iren Loontjens, iren.loontjens@student.kdg.be
- Michelle Maes, michelle.maes@student.kdg.be
- Cato Speltincx, cato.speltincx@student.kdg.be
- Fien Stappaerts, fien.stappaerts@student.kdg.be
- Lucas Struijk, lucas.struijk@student.kdg.be
- Marijke Van Mol, marijke.vanmol@student.kdg.be
Participating Faculties
MICA
- Annet Couwenberg, acouwenb@mica.edu, instructor - 314510@edu.nl - zisxw
- Alan Grover, agrover@mica.edu, software engineer/educator - 314508@edu.nl - rmzja
- Paul Mirel, pmirel@mica.edu, system scientist/educator
- Vic Ekanem, vekanem@mica.edu, mechanical engineer/fashion designer/educator
- Chauncey Zhang, xzhang03@mica.edu, Graduate Teaching Intern (GTI)
WDKA
- Jon Stam, j.m.stam@hr.nl, designer tutor of all sorts
- Gabrielle Marks, g.c.c.marks@hr.nl, graphic/media design educator and tutor of all sorts
- Nan Wang, wangnan2011w@gmail.com support, http://nanwang.org
ST LUCAS ANTWERPEN
- Frederik de Bleser, frederik.debleser@kdg.be, lecturer for Master of Visual Arts, researcher
History
