Great Media Player

www.jeroenwijering.com

It can play anything!

Graffiti Research

Graffiti Research Lab - kinda geeky and corny, but I can't really blame em. If only they hadn't mentioned "Style Wars" as such an inspiration. That sounds way too try-hard hipstery. Graffiti has been around in YOUR city for at least 20 years now, a movie shouldn't have to tell you that.

A good article from WIRED showing that there's more to it than those cats above. Especially the German subway submergence.

Superawesome

This is probably one of the coolest things I've seen on the web in a long time. There's even a Director Demo version on the web page. Essentially its an application that allows you to analyze and manipulate frames of film in incredibly interesting and beautiful ways.

http://www.recreating-movement.com/

More beautiful visualizations

Somebody's thesis project (uh-oh):
http://well-formed-data.net/thesis

Falling Down

The News:

http://www.fallingtimes.info/index.php

In real time, watch our "decadent" society crumble!

Thanks to my classmate Brigitte for the link.

Incredible magnetic/paper/processed butterflies

Need I say more?

More

More art...endless art....

The endless cavalcade of links continues with art by Martin Puryear, courtesy of the NYTimes.com. Does the amount of linking I do make each link the more trivial? This is something that concerns me. I should feed that data into Freebase or ManyEyes and chart it. And then make a chart of how fast/usefully I read that chart.

I'm basically at optimal functionality right now as an information processor as I surf the web. A combination of the right hardware (fast CPU and good keyboard and high-res monitor) and a lack of work and an attitude inclined toward superficial research (I am in school) has propelled me to at least twice my normal browsing/roving speed. I'm like a machine cow with 10 arms, 20 stomachs and a gut full of steroids ruminating across a lush meadow of ultimately lightweight feed. This blog is where I defecate/digest I suppose.

The last paragraphs courtesy, at least in part, to an over abundant diet of William Gibson during formative years.

Badass computer stuff

Some of this is visualizations of data, some I think just abstract, but procedural animation. Either way, its incredible looking.

http://www.flight404.com/blog/

Incidentally, its done with Processing.

Geolocated manifesto

Courtesy of Googlemaps and geogreeting.com and Photoshop, and for that matter BlueSponge's computers and relative lack of work right now (knock on wood).

Random Path

It'd be great if I could upload the odd file to this blog...Since that's not possible, here's a link:

To be included in the manifesto project. Somewhat randomly generating 'city' - press spacebar to make it go. FLA also available.

A psd maybe to go with it: http://jointchiefrecords.com/geo_letters_manifes.psd

And 'experiment 6' (see earlier posts) now online.

Incredible information filled paintings

Paula Scher does amazing paintings that deal with some themes I'm interested in: information
interaction/overload and meaning.

http://www.mayastendhalgallery.com/p_scher-rp-page.html

Check out the essay that goes with the paintings.

The One Machine

Some basic information about the face of our future God:

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/index.php


Anybody read Neuromancer?

More neat links and visualization stuff

Software I had never heard of before:

http://vvvv.org/tiki-index.php


A neato project about religious texts (that uses the above software):



http://www.similardiversity.net/



And finally, maybe a cheap computer to run it with?

http://www.zonbu.com/home/

Now for something completely Different...Hadōken!

More information on the new Street Fighter game!

http://blog.capcom.com/archives/544

And if you don't know anything about SFII, my condolences, and check out the Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter

Slow Art

In our digital culture, we can task simultaneously, message instantly, and prototype rapidly, but, in doing so, do we create an oasis for contemplation, or do we fuel a hunger for yet more speed? As technology colors all aspects of our world, we see the inevitable pendular response in campaigns that advocate slowness.

http://www.siggraph.org/s2008/submissions/juried/slowart/

• http://www.cittaslow.org.uk/
  

As I age I often have the feeling that I am missing some essential understanding as to why some trends in modern life are a good thing. The increasing speed of culture is one of these trends.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article563715.ece

• http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/grayson_perry.htm
  

These days, it’s quite idealistic to think of the viewer as being anything but distracted, given the kind of image-saturated world that people function in.

http://blog.longnow.org/2007/07/09/slow-art/
http://www.pbs.org/art21/series/seasontwo/time.html#
http://www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2007/07/eno_qa_full?currentPage=2

Conversation Clock

Tables are places to cooperate and discuss amongst others. Conversation Clock seeks to augment the developing dialog by displaying a representation of conversation to all present. The table demonstrates turn-taking, domination, interruption, and activity throughout a conversation.

http://social.cs.uiuc.edu/projects/conversationclock.html

• reference to related project at MIT: http://web.media.mit.edu/~kkarahal/projects/visiphone/
• http://web.media.mit.edu/~kkarahal/projects/visiphone/visiphone.mov
  

http://social.cs.uiuc.edu/papers/pdfs/kkarahalios-conversation-final.pdf
http://social.cs.uiuc.edu/papers/pdfs/bergstrom-Seeing-More.pdf

Seeker - Migration Visualization/Art

Seeker: winner of an Award of Distinction in Interactive Art from the 2007 Prix Ars Electronica, Austria

The Seeker installation uses three large projections to explore migration, territorial boundaries, conflict commodities and human displacement.

http://lx.sysx.org/?page_id=3

Video: http://lx.sysx.org/?page_id=64

Data River Project
Jesse Sutherland

Concept
The data river is a project that will explore the ideas of information volume and individual and group interaction with that information. The intent will be to reawaken a sense of wonder at the continuous flow of information that we are persistently exposed to on the web. It will utilize feeds from major websites to get up to the minute dynamic information and present that information in an unusual way in an installation. Hopefully viewers/users of the installation will find that they perceive this everyday information from a new perspective, freed from the constraints of the usual browser-based experience. Users will be able to become immersed and manipulate the data in a way reminiscent of natural processes, namely a river or stream, experiencing the 'sublime' as it is related to nature while participating in modern web based communication methods. The project will also highlight a personal interest of mine in that all of the information displayed in the installation will be partially related to ideas such as 'ancient', 'history' and 'the future', reflecting my interest in history and the lessons it may have for the future. For example, a news story displayed in the installation will have been found via search engine with the filter of 'ancient' applied. Thereby, the tension of concerns for the past, both personal and 'universal' (as described by a search engine) and the future will be an element of installation for users to explore. This tension will be manifested in both the content of the information, the resonance that content has for the viewer and the physical and technical characteristics of the installation itself which combines a sense of nature and therefore the primitive with the high-tech or futuristic. The metaphor of time as a river, and the idea of history as linear will also come into play.

Basic Description
Basically the data river is a visual and audio based representation of the information that sites such as Google News generate when filtered with keywords such as 'ancient', 'history' and 'the future'. Google News and other dynamically generated sites utilize algorithms and databases to present information typically on how many times it has been viewed, how recent it is, or how that information is 'tagged'. The data river will present this feed or flow of information (most likely culled from Google News or Freebase - both of which provide open feeds or direct database access) as a literal river - a visual projection of a stream down which information flows in individual 'data-currents'. Users will be able to walk into this 'river' and collide with and thereby interact with the information displayed by these currents as they flow by them. As a user 'alters' or interacts with the flow of the river, the information they have collided with will be displayed on a nearby screen (the 'sky') in a more traditional text based way as 'data-clouds' that will slowly drift around the screen.

Details (also see Movie 1 and 'Current Schematic'):

• Size: 10m(length) x 5m(width) x 3.5m(height)
• Physical Context: Indoors, dimly lit, Graduate exhibition space, 6th floor EV building, Concordia
  
• Visual Components:
• 'river' dynamic graphic, projected on floor (10m x 5m)
• 'data-currents' - Information flow dynamic graphics, projected within the 'river' (variable length and width)
  
• 'sky' dynamic graphic, projected on screen (10m x 3.5m) perpendicular to the river
• 'data-clouds' - Information flow dynamic graphics, projected on the 'sky' (presented as an abstract shape and readable text culled from actual information object)
  
• Audio Components:
• 'Sky' dynamic stereo sound (coupled with sky graphics), requires only 2 speakers, generated by each data-current information flow object upon user collision
  
• Number of users:
• Minimum: 1 (technically 0 but 'sky' will not be active)
• Max: 10 (size of installation effectively limits the number of users as moving around is crucial)
• Entrance/Exit:
• No fixed entrance or exit, users may approach the river from any angle (except of course from those occluded by the 'sky' screen)
• New: in the hope of encouraging users to move toward and through the stream, a thin, not easily seen 'path' will occaisionally lead from one side of the stream to the other, passing through it; this is meant as a suggestion, not a command hence the ephemeral nature of this 'instruction'
  
• User requirements:
• Mobility - the users must be able to move over and around the river to fully experience the interactive elements of the project. Movement beyond simply walking around the project is not required.
  
• No minimum or maximum age
• Tolerance of potentially loud noise
• Visual/aural acuity is not required but as this is an audio/visual project the full experience entails seeing as well as hearing

How it Works
How this project works can be divided into two areas: the apparent (i.e. audio/visual presentation of the project) and the hidden (i.e. the processing that occurs in the background).

The Processing that occurs in the background will follow these general steps:

1. A combination of Java and PHP will access the Google News feed which is available in the XML data format and render the information of the top 25 stories (Title, Date, Number of sources etc) into an array of 25 'information elements' each of which will have a sub-array of information attributes (eg. the title of the element)
   
2. This array will be fed into MAX/MSP and/or Processing which handles the information, renders it and controls the display and interaction of the project
1. Each 'information' element will be assigned a color code, sound (a midi tone) and 'weight' determined by its tags (i.e. its subject matter) and the length of the text and the number of sources (this information is provided in the information attributes)
2. The 'weight' of an object determines how it will look, the length attribute determining its physical length when projected and the sources attribute determining width and color intensity, in this way the information objects are rendered as 'data-currents'
   
3. The sound of an object will be determined by referencing a pre-set library by which certain subjects are assigned certain midi tones, eg the tag 'nature' will be assigned a high C, 'war' a very low C
1. See Current Schematic
3. Via MAX/MSP or Processing this enriched array of data-currents will be passed to the main rendering functions which will control the visualization and audio aspects of the project
1. The river visual element will be dynamically generated and 'fed' and animated with data-currents based on a set timescale (i.e. one data-current every 30 seconds) and react to information provided by feedback mechanisms measuring user position
2. The sky visual and audio elements (i.e. the data-clouds) will be dynamically generated by extracting the text attributes from data-currents triggered by the feedback mechanisms which measure user interaction
3. Feedback mechanisms consisting of hardware (a camera) patched into MAX/MSP or Processing will measure user interaction by processing video and mapping or tracking user position and thereby measuring 'collisions' between users and data-currents as they 'flow' down the river
1. Tracking of users will necessarily entail counting users. As more users enter the scope of the project the data flow will increase in speed, with corresponding increase/decrease in the volume and/or pitch of the audio elements
4. After a set period of time (variable depending on initial settings in MAX/MSP or Processing) the project will 'quiet' or reset to its initial condition (i.e. speed will decrease and volume and pitches will be controlled accordingly)
   

The Presentation of the project will follow these general outlines:

1. Controlled by the processing steps described above, the river element will flow in a continuous loop (i.e. data-currents will flow along the shape of the river [see Movies 1, 2, 3] ). Data-currents will initially flow at the rate of approx. 1/30 seconds from the 'head' of the river to the bottom and return upon exiting the bottom to the top automatically. New data-currents will be added until the initial 25 currents are exhausted at which point the same 25 will circle endlessly until the system is updated with fresh information by an administrator
2. The number of users present in the project space will determine the speed of the flow. More than 1 user will increase the speed beyond the initial 1/30 seconds interval. Each successive user will increase the speed of the flow by an as yet undetermined amount. (see Movies 1, 2)
   
3. The sky element will initially be empty of data-clouds. As users interact/collide with data-currents flowing down the river the perpendicular sky screen will be updated with textual information corresponding to the position of the collision and the timing of it; thus generating the data-clouds
4. The audio elements of the project initially will consist of only background 'burbling' or stream noise the pitch of which will correspond to the speed at which the river is running (see above). As users interact with the river the sky audio elements will be triggered, sounding the tones ascribed to each interacted data-current (see above) for an indefinite period. The tones, will not individually be loud but together will form a 'wall of sound' whose volume will vary in reference to the speed of the river

Basic Interaction Scenario

• User enters the project space in a dimly lit room
• The User is initially confronted by a space 10m x 5m x 3.5m, a screen occupies one of the long sides of the space, stretching from floor to ceiling
• The screen presents and image projected from a ceiling mounted digital projector, the image is reminiscent of a overcast sky roughly at dusk or dawn, although obviously artificial
• As the User approaches the screen they see a 'river'; a projection on the floor measuring approx. 10m x 5m of a stream with pebbles along the bottom; 'water' or a water-like texture seems to flow along this river super-imposed on the floor
• The User now notices a soft sound, a barely audible trickling that may in fact be a recording of an actual creek or stream
• Looking down at the river, the User sees a thick, bright blue line, a meter long and 10cm wide come 'flowing' down the river, this streak flows from the head (the 'water' seems to flow from this point) of the river to the end and disappears; if the user waits long enough, this streak will appear again
• 30 seconds after seeing the first streak, a second, thinner, and shorter and a different color appears at the head of the river and makes its way down the river, the sky on the screen across the river, in front of the user remains the same
• As the streak approaches the User's position, the User steps into the river and into the top-down projection, they are bathed in blueish light
• The second streak now intersects with the User's position in the middle of the river, as they collide a tone sounds, a circle of light appears at the User's feet, and a correspondingly colored and scaled circle appears on the sky screen
• The tone persists, the circle at the User's feet fades and the circle on the sky is suddenly accompanied by text and slowly starts to drift around the sky projection
• The User reads the text, they may or may not recognize it as a news story from that day or the day before
• As the User reads, another streak starts its downstream journey
• The User moves towards this third streak and initiates a similar response, although with different colors, tones, position and text, to the first collision they encountered
• As the User reads the new text, another User, UserB approaches
• UserA notices that as UserB approaches the river the trickle sound, previously very quiet is now somewhat louder and faster pitched while the tones triggered by UserA's first 2 collisions also grow louder
• UserA and UserB move through the river, triggering more and more collisions and adding more textual information and tones to the sky projection
• They are joined by Users C through F and the pitch of the river increases, the tones become louder and the sky projection becomes cluttered; the river now has over 20 streaks which are moving increasingly quickly down its length
• Eventually the Users leave the project, the sounds decrease in volume and pitch and the river slows to its original pace
• After a lengthy interval the text and shapes on the sky projection fades and the tones become silent

Technical Requirements:
This project will require a number of hardware elements and software elements, as well as skills and processes to be learned.

Hardware:

• Web cam to be ceiling mounted, 3.5m suspended in center of project area for motion tracking purposes
  

• Laptop computer with several USB ports and serial port and wireless or Ethernet based Internet connection, to be located in control area behind sky screen
  

• Dataton Watchout from Hexagram, for multiple projection control, to be located in control area behind sky screen

• 2 digital projectors (ceiling mounted, 3.5m suspended in center of project area)
• 30m (or more) of usb cable/serial cable to connect projectors and camera to Dataton Watchout and laptop
  
• 2 digital speakers to be located in control area behind sky screen, connected by typical 3mm audio cabling directly to laptop sound card
• 1 large (10m x 5m) screen suitable for projection
• Accompanying frame or cables with which to suspend screen from ceiling and tie to floor
• If such a screen cannot be secured for projects duration, one will need to be manufactured
• possible materials thus required: bedsheets, large pieces of paper, canvas etc
• needle, thread, or glue, string etc.
• 4 Power outlets (one for each projector, one for the Dataton, one for the laptop), accomplished with a power bar or two
  
• Lighting - room lighting to be minimized or off
  

Software:

• MAX/MSP + Jitter and/or Processing rendering/interaction system
  
• Motion tracking, collision, audio and projection processing
  
• PHP/JAVA program to be custom tailored to communicate with websites XML feeds and database information
• many such examples already exist online and basic feed reading is built into any modern web browser
• Google News/Google API and Freebase API (libraries and arguments for retrieving data from the systems of these sites)
  
• FruityLoops or similar sound sequencing program for sound prototyping
  
• Internet sites such as Google News or Freebase.com
• Photoshop/Illustrator/3dSMax etc. to construct basic graphical structures to be imported into rendering system (in the event that certain graphics cannot be generated dynamically or due to processor limitations)
• Web browser to view data sources in administration/initialization of project
• Windows XP or Apple OS 10

Processes/Skills:

• MAX/MSP + Jitter and/or Processing rendering/interaction system
• familiarity with these programs and tailoring of patches to the needs of the project
• many collision detection, motion tracking patches or mini-programs can be found online
  
• Motion tracking patches need to be finely tuned
  
• Familiarity with Dataton and projection system including calculation of angles and integration of physical space with virtual space of rendering system
  
• Ability to communicate with and process information from websites into a suitable data format for MAX/MSP and/or Processing
  
• Construction/Set up of physical space including possible manufacture of large scale sky screen from available materials if no screen can be found
• Familiarity with MIDI sound and incorporation of such into rendering system

Research and References

88 | BASHIBA > CREATIVE FORCE |
- http://www.bashiba.com/
- interesting dynamic stock-market display systems built to handle 'massive'
amounts of data at once

AKA Objects
- http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~aka/max/#aka_iphone_ex1
- manipulation of MAX/MSP via php program (i.e. from the web, using an Iphone)

Another cool Google news visualization | MetaFilter
- http://www.metafilter.com/33590/Another-cool-Google-news-visualization
- Google News visualizations

Benjamin Fischer - Portfolio / Selected Works / Wordnews / Visualizing Meaning?
- http://www.typedown.com/portfolio/wordnews/
- visualization of news using analog methods

diggflashdevkit - Google Code
- http://code.google.com/p/diggflashdevkit/
- Digg Labs Flash Kit for communicating with Digg.com via Flash

FAQ (frequently asked questions) : Freebase
- http://www.freebase.com/view/9202a8c04000641f80000000010c2d04#1
- FAQ for Freebase, an open database site

Form Follows Behavior » Blog Archive » Artistic data-based visualization
- http://www.formfollowsbehavior.com/2007/09/17/artistic-data-based-visualization/
- A small article concerning the artistic merit of visualizations

Freebase : Freebase Developers
- http://www.freebase.com/view/developer
- Freebase developer resources

Google AJAX Search API Blog: Adding Google News and Book Search
- http://googleajaxsearchapi.blogspot.com/2007/02/adding-google-news-and-book-search.html
- AJAX API for adding Google News and book search functionality to a web page or javascript object

Google Code - Google APIs
- http://code.google.com/apis/
- Google APIs for most Google services, allow you to build applications that take advantage of Google services

Influence Walker : Freebase
- http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000005c724e8
- An inspiration for working with Freebase

information r/evolution movie - data visualization & visual design - information aesthetics
- http://infosthetics.com/archives/2007/10/information_revolution_michael_wesch.html
- An inspiring short film concerning the digitization and therefore new potential of information and databases

Libraries Processing 1.0 (BETA) Processing 1.0 (BETA)
- http://www.processing.org/reference/libraries/
- "Processing is an electronic sketchbook for developing ideas. It is a context for learning fundamentals of computer programming within the context of the electronic arts." - libraries for using Processing

loose wire blog: On News Visualization, Part III
- http://www.loosewireblog.com/2005/05/on_news_visuali_2.html
- "technology: usage and abusage. By WSJ columnist Jeremy Wagstaff" and interesting article on visualization

Metafilter | Tags
- http://www.metafilter.com/tags/
- Tags used by Metafilter

newsmap
- http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/
- An inspirational visualization

Processing 1.0 (BETA)
- http://www.processing.org/
- Processing homepage

Rosemarie Fiore
- http://www.rosemariefiore.com/pages.php?content=gallery.php&navGallID=12
- Artist with inspiring, visually arresting prints based on old video games

Stamen design | big ideas worth pursuing—in blog form
- http://content.stamen.com/
- Inspiring and detailed blog of Stamen Design, collaborators with Digg Labs for some very interesting interactive web-based visualizations


Figures, Diagrams and Animations

Schematic.jpg - a top and side view of the layout of the project
Current_schematic.jpg - a schematic of a data-current, showing the various attributes given to it
Sky_still.jpg - a more detailed still of the 'sky' projection
General_still.jpg - a general look at the project without dimensions
Dimensions.jpg - a 3d render of the project with dimensions

Movie1.avi, Movie1.mov - a general walk-through of the project with data projections in 3d
Movie1b.avi - general walk-through without data projection, also in 3d
Movie2.avi, Movie3.avi - speed demonstrations in 3d, showing with increasing users the speed would increase

Glossary


Data-cloud - a graphical element present in the sky projection when a user interacts with a data-current. The data-cloud is a text-based graphic that displays the important text-based elements of the news story that corresponds with the data-current that lead to the generation of the data-cloud, i.e. title, opening paragraph, source etc.

Data-current - a graphical element representing a news story. Its dimensions and colours and sound are determined by the 'sources', 'length', 'tags' and other attributes culled from the feed. The animation of this element gives the illusion that it flows down the river element (see River, see Current schematic for more information on current attributes)

Feed - the information, parsed by MSP/Processing, containing news stories and meta-information, or attributes culled from RSS/XML or other data-types yeilded by a data source such as Google News (the data source is not yet fully determined) when certain parameters are put to the website (for instance, the search terms "ancient history" + "future")

River - the overall river-graphic floor projection which contains the interactive data-current graphics and animation

Sky - the overall sky-graphic side screen projection which contains the data-cloud graphics and animations after user interaction; prior to user interaction the sky graphic is empty