Archive for April, 2010
BOIJAMS MUSEUM ESPRESSOBAR
My favourite is his espressobar in Beuningen Museum Rotterdam where he uses optical software in the ceiling to read and interpret words that appear on the magazines and brochures left by patrons on the tables of the cafe, and transforms them into ceiling ornaments that word by word grow over the days and weeks, fed by the words on the table.
KEGEL CONTROLLER
The "Kegel Controller" is my new favourite use of Max/msp+jitter software! It is an interactive art performance using biofeedback from pelvic muscles to manipulate sound and video. Information is collected from the perineometer connected to the performer's perineum. The perineometer output is used to produce sounds and manipulate video on a small LCD display.
The best thing about this work is that it is performed without explanatory documentation, prompting interested audience members to ask the performer how the output is controlled ; .)
The neurons that shaped civilization
This short and stunning TED talk has neuroscientist VS Ramachandran tell us about recently discovered mirror neurons, or as he calls them Gandhian neurons, which allow us to learn complex social behaviours.
He claims that the Great Leap Forward was a Lamarckian evolution of a motoroneuron system which allowed emulation and imitation of another person’s actions. He suggests these mirror neurons supported the development of language and the understanding and interpreting of human behaviour.
Ramachandran has investigated motorneurons related to touch using electrodes to record the activity of specific nerve cells in the brain and has illustrated how 20% of motorneurons in the brain, relating to a specific area of the body, will fire when watching another person being touched in that same part of the body. This form of empathy is managed by touch and pain receptors which provide a feedback signal to veto the motorneuron signal so the brain knows that it isn’t your body being touched and you don’t get confused. However if you anesthesia that part of the body this feedback system is disabled thus dissolving the barrier between you and other human beings.
This suggests that all that separates you from other people is the organ of skin. We are all effectively connected by neurons so in fact there is no distinction between your consciousness and the consciousness of others just as the eastern philosophies has been telling us for millenia.
VISUAL MELODIES
Last night I met a great bunch of women at the first gathering of the UTS Community of Scholars for 2010. The group gets together monthly to present where they are up to in their doctoral research projects.
Natalya Godbold’s project about sense making in online discussion forums for those affected by renal failure was really fascinating particularly as it is introducing an innovative methodology to the area of health communication.
Amy Chen’s Visual Melodies is a DCA project which produces an interactive art installation in hospitals to help relieve the stress of patients. I was super eager to learn about how the interactivity is enabled - phidget sensors and active script Flash programming make the ferns grow in the forest scene. Amy has had to hand code the active script herself - she reckons she’s the first to use it with motion sensors in this way. She gave up on using Max/msp+jitter because the colours lost saturation when she brought her video files across.