An open question to the SpaceCollective community concerning a Polytopia
Project: Polytopia

I think that notthisbody's post on the current state of a Polytopia shows how promising the notion of a Polytopia is Today. I would expect to see software embodying some of Wildcat's criteria in the next several years. This got me thinking about the relevance of discussing, researching, and brainstorming the details of what the Polytopian environment will be like. Since a Polytopia is an environment where millions of people live, it follows that it will need many of the same things we have in our non-virtual world. A Polytopia, in my mind, would still have content, and what follows are my notes and thoughts on what this content will be.






Architecture and Structures
— Will still be needed to maintain privacy, provide spatial focus, and to enhance an environment's utility.
— How would we define the new architecture? Walls do not have to be constructed according to the to structural or economic rules.
— I think that transparency into other people's thoughts, interests, and actions will be very crucial to this new architecture. Humans are social animals, and we learn tremendously from each other. I doubt these social desires will fade as we become enhanced or digital.

Film and Television
— Can the 2D media survive in a virtual realm. My intuition is that once we move to an immersive digital environment, any media that doesn't allow you to touch, rotate, zoom, push, pull, talk to, and otherwise interact with will seem quaint and frustrating.
— At the same time, many people that TV provides them with a near meditative means of relaxation. The lack of obligation to interact with the Film and TV genres is often quite appealing. But, perhaps the very idea of a mood-altering media looses meaning in a Polytopia, when specific programs can program our brain into whatever mood one desires.

The written narrative
— What is the future need of sharing narratives if thoughts and experiences can be transmitted instantaneously. Will narratives still have a purpose?
— Joseph Campbell wrote a lot of the persistence of myths and narratives throughout human history. In short, ever since the emergence of human consciousness, humans have been telling stories and creating myths. In The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil frequently asserts that even as Polytopians move to a digital environment, we will maintain our "humanity," since our digital software/circuits will be based off of the same patters as the human brains. It seems logical that even Polytopians will still desire narratives, stories, myths, fantasies, and heroic characters.

Traditional Media
— In a Polytopia, will traditional media get pushed aside into the category of nostalgia, when we loose our biological bodies and may not even have a physical embodiment?


SpaceCollective is in a good position to contribute to this field; it is filled with artists, designers, musicians, architects, programmers, writers, and above all creative futurists who each can offer insight into the shaping of this new world. With this in mind, I pose a question to the SpaceCollective Community:

How do the members of SpaceCollective think that their respective medias and mediums will change as we move towards a Polytopia, in terms of content, construction, and importance?

Sat, Sep 13, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Polytopia

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality, and is leaving a generation pointlessly obsessing over fashion, faux individuality, cultural capital and the commodities of style.
...
Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society.

But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”

An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.

Read It

Mon, Aug 25, 2008  Permanent link

The Internet is not yours.

Part I

The internet is not yours, it never was yours. I'm sorry, it just isn't. It is owned by large telecommunication companies that decide who does what with their infrastructure. Like any public infrastructure, users have to adhere to certain rules for the whole thing to function. The problem is it is easy to think that while spending time on the Internet you have the same rights as in a cafe or worse yet your home. After all, this is where all your massages are, your documents, you meet friends here and form communities. These are all actions that have traditionally been protected by free speech and privacy laws, laws held paramount in democratic societies.

Let me show you a sample of your "Acceptable Use Policy". This is important because the AUP determines what you can and cannot do on the internet:

1. AT&T respects freedom of expression and believes it is a foundation of our free society to express differing points of view. AT&T will not terminate, disconnect or suspend service because of the views you or we express on public policy matters, political issues or political campaigns.
believes in

Thank you for granting me that right — I didn't know it was ever in question. However...

2. Customer is prohibited from engaging in any other activity, whether legal or not, that AT&T determines in its sole discretion, to be harmful to its subscribers, operations, network(s). (emphasis added)

Well that's pretty vague. Additionally ...

3. AT&T IP Services shall not be used to host, post, transmit, or re-transmit any content or material that is threatening, harassing, obscene, indecent, hateful, malicious, racist, fraudulent, deceptive, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory, or otherwise harmful or offensive to third parties, treasonous, excessively violent or promotes the use of violence, or provides instruction, information or assistance in causing or carrying out violence against any government, organization, group or individual, or provides guidance, information or assistance with respect to causing damage or security breaches to AT&T's network or to the network of any other IP Service provider.

Wow, that's so vague I might as well not post anything here... So while AT&T asserts (1), it can use any combination the items in (2) and (3) to overturn (1) at any time. Better yet, an ISP can just remove clause (1) if they so please. Hey, that's not right you say. OK, go make your own internet.

See, the internet as a cafe or home simply doesn't hold true. This new digital space of the internet has no bill of rights — you are not guaranteed anything. This shouldn't be surprising: the data infrastructure is privately owned. You're living on Main Street, Disneyland, not Main Street, USA. What's that? you can just encrypt your data or use Tor? Sorry, the telecoms can ban that too under (2) or (3). You signed away all your rights the moment you turned on your modem. Didn't you notice?

Part II

Case Study 1: ARPANet
It's commonly believed that the ARPANet in the genesis of our modern day internet. It was the testing ground of a large-scale, packet switched network. It was however a closed network leased from BBN and Raytheon (they tried several times to give AT&T a monopoly, but AT&T turned them down and continued developing its own tools and services similar to ARPANet). While the ARPANet was the first example of a network that resembles our current internet, it wasn't the the only computer network that emerged. Telenet, Usenet, ClarkNet, RCCNet, SATNet, etc (Compuserve even had their own network you could buy into). The Internet, by definition, was the coming together of these many networks, united by a single protocol. One thing also remained true during the rise of the internet: TCP/IP had to go through the networks of big companies who were stringing copper long before Len Kleinrock was born.

Case Study 2: BBS's
The TCP/IP networks mentioned above were primarily used for file transfer and email. Alternate networks emerged which allowed for a more communal environment. BBS's were one of these. A BBS was a computer server that an individual set up allowing other computers to connect over a phone based modem and leave a message. In essence it allowed anyone to create their own worldwide message board system without going through an ISP or large scale network. While most BBS's were used for benign massaging, some BBS's had a instructions for overthrowing the government, hacking, bomb making, theft, and hand to hand combat. These BBS's, examples of freedom of speech unbound by time or location, would be illegal on today's internet. Why? Because the ISPs say so.

Case Study 3: Burning man
Yes, it's that time of year again, and say what you will about the event in it's current state, Burning Man started out as an experiment with a fascinating goal: what happens when a couple thousand people try to create their own city in the middle of the desert? Conclusion: it's fun until people sleeping in tents get run over by inebriated drivers, when the careless start destroying the natural environment, when "liability" becomes a major concern. At that point communal, bottom up organization gives way to a top down structure. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, per say, but who decides the rules?

Part III

There is hope. Net neutrality is trying to take back control of the internet from the telecoms, though they are fighting this very hard.

Most of you should be aware that all the old television frequencies will soon be up for auction. Verizon has already won a large chunk, publicly stating that they planned on reaming the American people with their new toy. Luckily a federal court and the FCC said that wasn't cool (Gooo team!).

There's still a lot more spectrum left, and no one knows who will get it.

The point though is that unless we the internet users start looking up from ceiling cat, (insert name here)-tube, and social networks to fight the big picture, the internet might have the same fate as the TV spectrum, owned by a few corporations who decide what belongs on their network. The wireless Internet spectrum cannot suffer the same fate, because there will be no going back.

We have a chance to make that second digital space we all want, one that's in the public domain (GNU internet?), with a bill of rights that we, the Internet users decided. Remember, this is our space, because we live here.

Sat, Jul 19, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: computers, internet

Interactive Performances: A call to action

While other space collective members have called for interactive performances, as of yet nothing yet has materialized. I'm writing this post because I have a tested plan that will do just that.

Check it out: http://www.media.mit.edu/resenv/GiveawaySensors/index.html

In case the hand-drawn block diagram and circuit schematics didn't make it clear to you, this is how it works:

1. Before a show, a group of dashing individuals makes a couple thousand electronic instruments. Each one costs about a dollar, and is capable of picking up changes in acceleration (swinging it, hitting it, etc. ), and can broadcast this information wirelessly to a central computer. (Glow stick not required )

2. Hand out a sensor device to everyone who attends the event.

3. As people swing, hit, and play with their instruments, the information is transmitted to a DJ, who can turn this information into sounds. The system distinguishes where the signals are coming from, so different groups of dancers will make different sounds.

Cost: $1 per person attending (cheap) !

So, does anyone have a couple thousand dollars and a warehouse they can spare?

Wed, Jul 16, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: computers, music, interaction, change the world

tracing 3 _video
Project: Emergence and Navigating Space

Videos of the space. In the background you can see smaller bots forming clusters around spaces of data with high frequencies of their search string. In the lower left hand corner several bots continuously search through web pages. Each time one finds relevant information, it creates a node.

Wed, Mar 19, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Emergence and Navigating Space

tracing 2 _prototype
Project: Emergence and Navigating Space

Expanding on my previous writing and research, the next phase of the tracing project was to give substance to the immaterial world of data, date flow, and stored information. I thought the most empathetic solution was to focus on bots moving through data, and to trace out their paths. As these bots roam through the data scape by accessing and interpreting data, their paths in my program grow and branch. Each bot moves through data searching for words, phrases, images, questions, and exclamatory sentences. When a bot find a portion of data that is relevant, it marks the location in its path with a node.

The aesthetics of the space shifted gradually through the development. I had to balance between aesthetic embellishment and accurately representing the movement of these bots through data. Fundamentally, the space is created by tracing bot movement, and therefore accuracy had to be valued above all else. This shifted my forms away from the dense web imaged and towards simple lines. However with continued development I believe this program can yield a space that reveals more about these data scapes that are so fundamental to our lives.

Download:
Mac OS X
Windows XP

prototype_01 I initially wanted a dense woven pattern of bot movement.


prototype_02 The first mock bots: fictitious data sets represented by my program.


prototype_03 A web of mock bots.


prototype_04-07 The first instance of a multitude of real web crawlers moving through the space.


prototype_08-09 As my prototype developed, I wanted better ways to visually cue the viewer to the changes in the bot's movements. I experimented with node shape and color.


prototype_10 I ultimately settled on a line-dominant representation with the background subtly cueing you to the bot's movements.


If you want to explore more spaces, here are some of the prototypes:
Prototype_01:
Mac OS X
Windows - coming soon

Wed, Mar 19, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Emergence and Navigating Space

tracing 1 _research
Project: Emergence and Navigating Space, Polytopia

Tue, Mar 18, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Emergence and Navigating Space, Polytopia

genetic algorithms: pecha kucha style
Project: Emergence and Navigating Space

I did a presentation on Genetic Algorithms for programming media I several weeks ago in the pecha kucha style and it turned out pretty well. In keeping with the idea, I'm going to write the descriptions to these images in 20 seconds per slide to give you a brief overview on the subject. EDIT: I had to have myself 40 seconds per slide... I type much slower than I talk.

Ok this slide pretty much describe the whole process; you have a bunch of bots/ virtual creatures, they mate, they are judged on their fitness, and they are eventually killed, it's just like life / Darwinism which is was basedThis diagrams exactly how it happens, 1 you have a GOAL, that is what drives the whole process, 2 you select ones that are closer to the goal, 3 breed them and select their offspring leading to a GRADUAL changeYou can use these genetic algorithms to breed/develop all sourts of things from virtual creatures (Calrl Sims), to
paths, to placements of chess boards to the fractal patters in the backgroundThis figures shows why you need to select digital organisms/ things that are not perfect or even remotely perfect ( freaks). they may, even though they are different, have that hidden key things that leads you to the goalThis is from the Electric Sheep project, and shows how this concept of genetic breeding works great for aesthetic things when you harness the internet and have millions of people voting, to replace your evaluative algorithmsA fun picture illustrating how you must must must rate fitness. you have to choose what's good and what's bad, or else it wont work. algorithms that separate the good from the bad are much of the hard partTo show the power of this technique a computer scientist set a herd of virtual, replicating bots on his computer and before long there were creatures who were half the size theorized possible moving around, who had evolved innovations unknown. This illustrates the phenomenon of falling in a ditch so to speak. your goal is on the hill , but here's a dip, so any new creatures are less fit by moving towards the goal, so you end up with a bunch on non fitsThis image is from the electric sheep project. All of these images were created by people voting on algorithms they though were appealing. The most fit ones (judged by votes) survived and mated.

Tue, Mar 18, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Emergence and Navigating Space

dimension 3 _final print
Project: Emergence and Navigating Space

Pictures from the high quality print of my project

Mon, Feb 11, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Emergence and Navigating Space

dimension 2 _video
Project: Emergence and Navigating Space

This program uses a simple algorithm that starts with two large lines and performs one of six actions on them: changing direction, shifting the path up or down, rotating once, rotating over a period, duplication, or changing the width. After any line performs an operation, the line spawns secondary lines, which in turn spawn tertiary lines, and the process continues until the total lines passes a threshold.

Thu, Jan 31, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: Emergence and Navigating Space