softwear and wearable architecture

txOom, FoAM
2002
Great Yarmouth, East Anglia UK



using pre-cursor to the Ozone media choreography system now in Synthesis

with wireless sensors embedded in walls, fabric, aerial costumes, giant squeezable balls
driving responsive sound and video ( Max/MSP/NATO )

Rolling and squeezing the giant medicine ball with embedded accelerometers
(worked better than bend and pressure sensors at the time)
drove a fomant-based speech synthesis external (CHANT)
to make a screaming moaning creature …

Synthesis and small-mammal art

Many artists and DIY makers try to do their own engineering in an ad hoc way where the poetry becomes caged rather than trellised by the technology.   That's partially due to lack of engineering — not merely technical knowledge but judgment.  A competent engineer solves particular problems efficiently using the entire spectrum of contemporary techniques, a wise engineer thinks reuse while solving problems.   We need wise engineering.  AME has several faculty and staff who embody such combination of technical know-how and judgment.   The maker / DIY attitude is also a consequence of a "truth-in-materials," making-based studio art practice, that in turn was a political reaction against the extreme conceptualism in Euro-American art institutionalized in the first half of the 20c.  This maker-turn is healthy ab ovo, but too quickly becomes dogmatic and self-disempowering when mixed with naive anti-intellectualism.

So much new media, intermedia, makerbot, and DIY tech art feels like the creative flame is encased in some mechanical exoskeleton.  On the other hand, the answer is not simply throw away with structured knowledge and produce shapeless blobs of stuff — “jellyfish" art.  I hope we see more work with bones and ligaments and movement continually made afresh adeptly and deeply informed by technicity (borrowing Simondon).   Art by small mammals in the age of dinosaurs.

SYNTHESIS CALENDAR, FALL 2015

SYNTHESIS FALL 2015

Sept 2, 3, 4
Ginette Laurin and the SERRA workshop


Periodic:
Thursday lab sessions 

Periodic:
ECM authoring sessions


September 29 6pm-10pm 
Experiential Climate Model deployment at CCS 15
Doubletree in Tempe
multimodal presentation for complex models
Doubletree Priest and ______ .

November 4
Diemo Schwartz IRCAM 
Workshop
iStage

November 6
President Donors

November 7 & 8
Guillermo Gomez Pena and La Pocha Nostra working sessions in iStage


November 23
Rob Melani Walton visit Synthesis + AME
Stauffer + iStage
• Digital Culture in Stauffer ground floor 
(similar to what Loren Olson, David Tinapple, Kim Swisher showed in Stauffer 125 last year for Dean Tepper)
scaling studio experience up to large numbers of students, retaining the best features of studio critique, peer learning, and project-based learning
• The augmentation or enchantment of everyday space: Stauffer Lounge
• Rich expressive environments for collective experience: iStage as Story-Telling space
cultural, personal modes of sustainability
• Responsive environments for science : collective, embodied interaction with climate models
social, urban+energy, hydrological, meteorological modes of sustainability
Demonstrate: rescaling (body, movement, time, geography-space), phase change, data / simulation  / pop communication / immersive experience 

————

Rhythmanalytics

Place and Atmosphere 
experiential climate model


________________________________________________________________________________________
Sha Xin Wei • Professor and Director • School of Arts, Media and Engineering + Synthesis
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering • ASU
Fellow: ASU-Santa Fe Center for Complex Biosocial Systems
Affiliate Professor: Future of Innovation in Society; Computer Science; English
Founding Director, Topological Media Lab
skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

RE: network of motors for "Theater of Things" project

From what I know so far, I am thinking of using a teensy/xbee based hardware where part of the data processing can be partially distributed to the arm control objects and wireless connectivity will be accomplished using zigbee protocol. This way,

Assegid Kidané

Engineer

School of Arts, Media and Engineering

Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts | Fulton School of Engineering

Arizona State University

Box 875802

Tempe, AZ 85287-5802

V 480.965.6127 M 480 306 2686

F 480.965.4345

assegid@asu.edu

http://ame.asu.edu

  if and when the project grows to add more arms and the programming involves more intricate movements we will not have to be concerned about bandwidth issues with the coordinator module. Instead of sending large detailed direct commands from the PC we can send short codes that the individual objects will interpret. Julian, what is your preferred osc control format you would like to use?
From: Xin Wei Sha
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 7:33 PM
To: Assegid Kidane
Cc: Byron Lahey; Christopher Roberts; Julian Stein; Christopher Zlaket; post@synthesis.posthaven.com
Subject: network of motors for "Theater of Things" project

Hi Ozzie,

OK to follow up on our chat today.

It turns out that Zlaket’s Synthesis research time is already dedicated by to work with Chris Ziegler on Ziegler's motorized lights for forest3.  You may be already consulted on that :)

However I think we must not wait for that project to finish before getting a move on the "Place and Atmosphere: Space Design: Theater of Things” research project.

We can start with a provisional mechatronic foundation for the robotic animation of small lightweight objects like pieces of cardboard, ribbon, flowers, mirrors.   This would extend the Ozone platform to mechatronics that can be animated using logics from the media processing.

Would you be interested and available to do the first step: develop a small test network of 3 small motors that can be addressed from the Ozone system using an OSC protocol that Julian can decide (in consultation with you and Todd)?     I think it would smart for us to consult with Byron because I know he’s already thinking about streamlining his hw. 

Later we can discuss good “default” or initial behaviors some of which Byron already implemented two summers ago: imitation, delay, antisymmetry, repeat, reverse, etc. etc.

I’m imagining this should not take very much of your time, but it is of foundational research importance, as new element of our responsive environment toolkit.
Of course, this assumes that you have the time to take this on before the establishment of the new electronics labs downstairs in the former TV Studios.

We can touch base on the first goals maybe with Byron before the AME General Friday or at a Tea...
Xin Wei


________________________________________________________________________________________
Sha Xin Wei • Professor and Director • School of Arts, Media and Engineering + Synthesis
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering • ASU
Fellow: ASU-Santa Fe Center for Complex Biosocial Systems
Affiliate Professor: Future of Innovation in Society; Computer Science; English
Founding Director, Topological Media Lab
skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Re: network of motors for "Theater of Things" project

I'm happy to discuss this tomorrow. I share Xin Wei's enthusiasm for seeing physical motion as a fundamental component of our systems. The main thing we need to do is decide what features to prioritize, then we can select hardware for prototypes. 

Cheers,
Byron

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 7:33 PM, Xin Wei Sha <Xinwei.Sha@asu.edu> wrote:
Hi Ozzie,

OK to follow up on our chat today.

It turns out that Zlaket’s Synthesis research time is already dedicated by to work with Chris Ziegler on Ziegler's motorized lights for forest3.  You may be already consulted on that :)

However I think we must not wait for that project to finish before getting a move on the "Place and Atmosphere: Space Design: Theater of Things” research project.

We can start with a provisional mechatronic foundation for the robotic animation of small lightweight objects like pieces of cardboard, ribbon, flowers, mirrors.   This would extend the Ozone platform to mechatronics that can be animated using logics from the media processing.

Would you be interested and available to do the first step: develop a small test network of 3 small motors that can be addressed from the Ozone system using an OSC protocol that Julian can decide (in consultation with you and Todd)?     I think it would smart for us to consult with Byron because I know he’s already thinking about streamlining his hw. 

Later we can discuss good “default” or initial behaviors some of which Byron already implemented two summers ago: imitation, delay, antisymmetry, repeat, reverse, etc. etc.

I’m imagining this should not take very much of your time, but it is of foundational research importance, as new element of our responsive environment toolkit.
Of course, this assumes that you have the time to take this on before the establishment of the new electronics labs downstairs in the former TV Studios.

We can touch base on the first goals maybe with Byron before the AME General Friday or at a Tea...
Xin Wei


________________________________________________________________________________________
Sha Xin Wei • Professor and Director • School of Arts, Media and Engineering + Synthesis
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering • ASU
Fellow: ASU-Santa Fe Center for Complex Biosocial Systems
Affiliate Professor: Future of Innovation in Society; Computer Science; English
Founding Director, Topological Media Lab
skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

network of motors for "Theater of Things" project

Hi Ozzie,

OK to follow up on our chat today.

It turns out that Zlaket’s Synthesis research time is already dedicated by to work with Chris Ziegler on Ziegler's motorized lights for forest3.  You may be already consulted on that :)

However I think we must not wait for that project to finish before getting a move on the "Place and Atmosphere: Space Design: Theater of Things” research project.

We can start with a provisional mechatronic foundation for the robotic animation of small lightweight objects like pieces of cardboard, ribbon, flowers, mirrors.   This would extend the Ozone platform to mechatronics that can be animated using logics from the media processing.

Would you be interested and available to do the first step: develop a small test network of 3 small motors that can be addressed from the Ozone system using an OSC protocol that Julian can decide (in consultation with you and Todd)?     I think it would smart for us to consult with Byron because I know he’s already thinking about streamlining his hw. 

Later we can discuss good “default” or initial behaviors some of which Byron already implemented two summers ago: imitation, delay, antisymmetry, repeat, reverse, etc. etc.

I’m imagining this should not take very much of your time, but it is of foundational research importance, as new element of our responsive environment toolkit.
Of course, this assumes that you have the time to take this on before the establishment of the new electronics labs downstairs in the former TV Studios.

We can touch base on the first goals maybe with Byron before the AME General Friday or at a Tea...
Xin Wei


________________________________________________________________________________________
Sha Xin Wei • Professor and Director • School of Arts, Media and Engineering + Synthesis
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering • ASU
Fellow: ASU-Santa Fe Center for Complex Biosocial Systems
Affiliate Professor: Future of Innovation in Society; Computer Science; English
Founding Director, Topological Media Lab
skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962
_________________________________________________________________________________________________