[Synthesis] Notes on media processing, shoot, and post-production (Was: Shoot timespace 3' video)

Much stronger second version of Timespace video document.  Compliments to the team.

Let me share basic points about video documentation that I think are important for all Synthesis work.

(0) Action is better this time.  But in general please do NOT merely face the scrim -- think a bit about physical action and inter subjective relational action, before going on stage.  Pay attention and relate to each other, not to screen.   In future shoots with time, plan to bring people of different ages and sexes to visit and try out the environment.  ( build and use a sc local friends list )

(1) Music
Never add music in post.  
No post-production music is better in long run bc music or narrative added as overlay in post, blocks other commentary for contexts over the coming decades that you can never anticipate.  (Or it would need to be scripted and rehearsed for specific audience like a SIGGRAPH jury, which is a whole other order of work than simply documenting one instrument.). And most 'popular' music will go stale and sound silly in a very short time.  (Fashion obsoletes by design.)  Avoid stock music. (Re-read Peter Brook about the Deadly Theatre.)

More 'diagetic' sound 
One should  always be able to run video thru actual sc. sound synth from video output.  Compromise would be run your edited video thru some of Julian's instruments.

(2) _After_ front camera segments, it would be good to edit in the top camera segments, which hint at the potential of sc system's multi-perspective system.   Also this way there's only one Timespace video in our Vimeo.  

(3) And as appropriate, basic copyright / URL in black final segment "Synthesis 2017 | synthesiscenter.net"

(4) All videos should  have in Vimeo's text caption the names of people involved in media coding, shoot & post; date, location, as well as "Synthesis 2017 | synthesiscenter.net"

(5) It was smart to use overhead theatrical lights ( and with warm tone! ).  In general,  experiment with the lighting array to optimize results for POV.  In this case, it may have been better to dim the row of lights closest to the scrim. Not only would that lessen spill onto the scrim, possibly strengthening its image, this would sculpt space so that bodies would move in and out of visibility and create a zone of action within which the instrument takes effect.

In all responsive video work in real space, always consider design the physical lighting. Physical lighting and proper camera lensing, exposure, focus, framing eliminates many weaknesses that can't be easily fixed in post, and make possible many powerful effects.

Analog conditioning is part of your media instrument and at least as important as the coding.

Much stronger results -- compliments to the team.

some theses to be nailed onto the Church of Big Data

(1) Cristian S. Calude, Giuseppe Longo. "The Deluge of Spurious Correlations in Big Data.” Foundations of Science (March 2016): 1-18.

Abstract:
Very large databases are a major opportunity for science and data analytics is a re- markable new eld of investigation in computer science. The effectiveness of these tools is used to support a philosophy against the scientific method as developed throughout history. According to this view, computer-discovered correlations should replace under- standing and guide prediction and action. Consequently, there will be no need to give scientific meaning to phenomena, by proposing, say, causal relations, since regularities in very large databases are enough: with enough data, the numbers speak for themselves . The end of science is proclaimed. Using classical results from ergodic theory, Ramsey theory and algorithmic information theory, we show that this philosophy is wrong. For example, we prove that very large databases have to contain arbitrary correlations. These correlations appear only due to the size, not the nature, of data. They can be found in randomly generated, large enough databases, which as we will prove implies that most correlations are spurious. Too much information tends to behave like very little information. The scientific method can be enriched by computer mining in immense databases, but not replaced by it.


(2)  Sha Xin Wei, Gabriele Carotti-Sha.  "Big Data." AI & Society, Springer Online(April 2016): 1-4.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-016-0662-7/fulltext.html

Abstract: 
Big Data is a term popular among administrators and business circles motivating quite a lot of investment today. Part of it is rebranding. But rather than old wine in new bottle, it may be more likely watered wine in new bottles branded to take old wine’s market. David Donoho, one of the foremost statisticians in the world and a visionary of data science, observes that much of what passes for Big Data is a bit of software engineering plus a bit of statistics. Knowledge is power. But a smidgen of knowledge plus poor judgment can do a lot of damage, especially when billions of dollars implicate billions of lives.

(3) Complessità, scienza e democrazia / interview with Giuseppe Longo

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Re: Hadoop, pig, dynamical systems tools

Hi Brenda,

David Donoho has an extensive critical review of big data techniques in
http://courses.csail.mit.edu/18.337/2015/docs/50YearsDataScience.pdf

But I'd like to learn about HADOOP from your direct encounter, and understand how you think we can use such big data mining techniques to multi-dimensional activity / ensemble-body / gesture tracking.  It may be good to talk with Qiao to get his opinion on things.  I trust his scientific judgment most ...

And here's a curnudgeonly rant:

Glad to see you working thru all this,
Xin Wei

On Aug 8, 2016, at 8:40 PM, Brenda McCaffrey <brendamc@asu.edu> wrote:

Hi Xin Wei and friends,

Quick update:

*  Thanks to Connor for helping me get much of the Java script working within Eclipse.
*  I'm meeting with Mike K. tomorrow morning at 10am to look at the code.
*  I'm learning more about Hadoop and Apache Pig and it may be very exciting for us, although I have yet to find anyone in our realm who has knowledge of it.  Here are a few things I've learned:
  • Hadoop is an open source data management system that evolved from Google's behavioral search system about 10 years ago.
  • Hadoop is used by Amazon, Yahoo, Facebook and others to track and manage behavioral data.  For example, that's how Facebook knows where you move your mouse.
  • Hadoop allows massively parallel processing of large data sets.  It can be set up on unlimited low-cost computers to run infinitely parallel.
  • Apache Pig is a scripting language that manages Hadoop queries.
Apparently, Hadoop and Pig are primarily used in business systems.  The gentleman who wrote these dynamical systems codes (Jacob Perkins when he was at UT Austin), did so to demonstrate that one could solve complex scientific problems without massive data sets by using parallel processing.  Eureka!

I continue to be intrigued by this approach since it implies to me that we may be able to solve very complex, real-time dynamical systems problems by using relatively simple parallel computing frameworks in conjunction with Java.

I'm going to get the fundamental Java to work (I hope) to demonstrate it's functionality, but the real power of these programs is the ability to slice the simulations into partitions that can be evaluated in parallel to converge on the regions of interest.  This could be especially useful for time-domain data coming in from complex systems for which we don't know the closed form analytical models.  (Video?)

These are my thoughts for now.  I'm not a CS person so I may be completely in left field about this, but it looks promising.

Thanks for listening.
-Brenda


On Sun, Aug 7, 2016 at 4:10 AM, <shaxinwei@gmail.com> wrote:

Dr Brenda McCaffrey, PhD researcher at Synthesis, is working on a project to develop some dynamical system based tools for modeling human movement.

Can anyone help with the following query:

I’m converging on an approach for Java simulation of Lyapunov exponents based on an amazing set of programs created by a gentleman named Jacob Perkins (https://github.com/thedatachef/sounder/tree/master/udf/src/main/java/sounder/pig/chaos) that he developed using the Sprott algorithm.  This is really deep stuff and uses Hadoop and pig as well as Java.  Do we have resources in these areas?  A couple of hours with an expert would change my life!

Xin Wei

"The weirdest people in the world?" Henrich, Heine, Norenzayan (2010)

A classic paper in BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2010), cautioning any research based on human-subjects studies in design, engineering, and social sciences.  Good for our AME PhD methods course.


The weirdest people in the world? 

Joseph Henrich 
Steven J. Heine
Ara Norenzayan 
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

Abstract: 
Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world’s top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

plus

Anthony Brandt (Music, Rice), gave a great talk at the Neuroscience of art, innovation and creativity conference dismantling some sweeping claims about universals in musical aesthetic experience and music.

Re: [Synthesis] "The weirdest people in the world?" Henrich, Heine, Norenzayan (2010)

This looks fantastic. Thanks for sharing!

From: <synthesis-research@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "xinwei@mindspring.com" <shaxinwei@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, August 4, 2016 at 8:58 AM
To: Ron Broglio <rbroglio@earthlink.net>, Grisha Coleman <Grisha.Coleman@asu.edu>, Todd Ingalls <Todd.Ingalls@asu.edu>, Loren Olson <Loren.Olson@asu.edu>, Pavan Turaga <pturaga@asu.edu>, Christian Ziegler <Christian.Ziegler@asu.edu>, Kimberlee Swisher <kimberlee.swisher@gmail.com>, Dehlia Hannah <dhannah1@asu.edu>, Stacey Kuznetsov <kstace@asu.edu>, Christopher Roberts <cmrober2@asu.edu>, Byron Lahey <Byron.Lahey@asu.edu>, Lauren Hayes <laurensarahhayes@gmail.com>, Jessica Rajko <jessica.rajko@asu.edu>, Steven Tepper <Steven.Tepper@asu.edu>, David Tinapple <david.tinapple@asu.edu>, Edward Finn <edfinn@asu.edu>, Garth Paine <Garth.Paine@asu.edu>, Adam Nocek <Adam.Nocek@asu.edu>, Xin Wei Sha <Xinwei.Sha@asu.edu>, Tamara Underiner <Tamara.Underiner@asu.edu>
Cc: Posthaven Post By Email <post@synthesis.posthaven.com>, "synthesis-research@googlegroups.com" <synthesis-research@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [Synthesis] "The weirdest people in the world?" Henrich, Heine, Norenzayan (2010)

A classic paper in BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2010), cautioning any research based on human-subjects studies in design, engineering, and social sciences.  Good for our AME PhD methods course.


The weirdest people in the world? 

Joseph Henrich 
Steven J. Heine
Ara Norenzayan 
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

Abstract: 
Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world’s top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

plus

Anthony Brandt (Music, Rice), gave a great talk at the Neuroscience of art, innovation and creativity conference dismantling some sweeping claims about universals in musical aesthetic experience and music.

"The weirdest people in the world?" Henrich, Heine, Norenzayan (2010)

A classic paper in BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2010), cautioning any research based on human-subjects studies in design, engineering, and social sciences.  Good for our AME PhD methods course.


The weirdest people in the world? 

Joseph Henrich 
Steven J. Heine
Ara Norenzayan 
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

Abstract: 
Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world’s top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

plus

Anthony Brandt (Music, Rice), gave a great talk at the Neuroscience of art, innovation and creativity conference dismantling some sweeping claims about universals in musical aesthetic experience and music.