Comments on week 8 readings

wow, that was long....
The first reading is a text by Oliver Grau discussing the stages of virtual reality from its beginning to its present status. The reading was interesting, he started off with Monet and the huge paintings he did, in order to bring the viewer closer to the painting, to attempt to submerge him/her in the world he created. He also talks about Prampolini and his polydimensional scenospace, givces us details on the functionning of these machines. I learned about the futurama, the cinéorama....An interesting point that Mr Grau makes at one point is the fact that the world fairs are a good way to present upcoming technology to the mass public, to make them salivate and want something new before it is commmercialized. The "goal is to create a credible and irresistible vision of the future"; if you look at all the technologies presented during these exhibitions, you wil notice that the inage gets bigger and bigger, the technology more complicated, and the space around the image to the human eye smaller.
Another point that I found pertinant was a quick comment in the film stage of the reading when he compared the images given in cinema to the false images in the cave in Plato's text : "Republic: Book 7". I won't go throught all the examples because it is going to take me forever, but I would say that the reading starts off with Monnet, evolves to the film discovery, then we discuss the future computer/human utopia developpped in part by Licklider, important man in the ARPA/DARPA projects. Various examples of current and upcoming technologies are given and their effect on its users. Like the flight and fight simulator used by the US army. The reading was good overall but I felt it was less specific than the ones from the previous weeks, which were more putting the subject in your face and telling you what is going on. This is telling me what happened, a little of what is happening, and what might happened....maybe you were just nice and gave us this reading to remind us what we are studying and knew we were going to be bums during the break :)

link: http://vrlab.epfl.ch/

Final project Notes....

...can be seen here.

http://www.hybrid.concordia.ca/~j_kebe/425sim.htm

Comments on week 6 readings

okay. The readings this week were I felt much more interesting and easy to read.
The first text, by Edward A. Shanken : "Tele-Agency: Telematics, Telerobotics, & the Art of Meaning" was discussing the origins of telematics and the origins of its integration in the art world. We learn that the term was coined by Nora and Minc in a report to the French President of that time (late 70s) Valérie Giscard D'estaing. They inform the president on the future great impact that the new technologies introduced to the masses will have. Shanken follows by giving pertinent examples of telematic art; one that I found interesting was the project undertaken by Kac and Nacamura, which consisted of (very basically) make a bird and a plant in another country communicate!
Shanken introduces key concepts such as active/passive and active/active agencies, which relate to the interaction between humans and the machines. We discusses some interesting ethical questions on the behaviors of humans towards their new slaves.
The second text was my favorite. "The challenges of wearable computing (part 1)" is an online article divided in two parts. The first one is about the author's ideas of what the wearable computing will allow us to do, and the second one is focusing on the restrictions that such technologies will have to have a success. The author sees this technology as an utopian way of living. The human and his machine will form one, depending on one another without disturbing too much the life, habits, of the other. He says : " The cpu must share the experiences of the user's life" in order to reason like him. Even though he writes the way I like, and is easy to follow, he sounds a little crazy sometimes. he does say smart things like the inevitability of the regrouping of all the electronic devices we carry in order to reduce redundancy, but this makes us more dependent on one object and vulnerable to bad situations. As i said earlier, he talks of the upcoming technologies as a path to the utopian way of living; it looks to me as a trap, we are being sold fake freedom and we enslave ourselves in problems. The example he gives with the billboard advertising jeans conversing with the wearable about my wardrobe was too much! This definetly shows how we have given total power and control of our lives, whatever control you have left make you believe, to the machines and technological advances.
The technical difficulties he discusses are the following two. The power supply and autonomy, and the head dissipation. he proposes some smart alternatives, but mostly theories with products and materials that don't exist.

Links:
http://l3sys.eskimo.net/wristpc/ - Wrist keyboard
http://www.electronicshadow.com/mediacol/veste/ - Echarpe

Comments on week 5 readings

Readings of the week :
Steven Wilson : "Robotics and Kinetics"
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve: " Interview with Aziz and Cucher"

The readings this week were on the topic of robots and cyborgs.
Steven Wilson talks about the incresing status that is given to robots as we keep researching in the field. he says they are an "increasing importance in mundane everyday worlds such as manufacturing and entertainment". Despite teaching us little things like where the term robot came from , and the exact long list of areas reaserch is being dome in the field, the most important aspect of the text, if I may say so, is about the adaptation of robots in the human world.
Robots are faced with this question of how to intergrate their physical appearance into our world. Do we want them to be humanoid (or animal) like, so we could perceive them as friend, and maybe like our children, our creation in our own image, or do we want them to adapt any form, which will optimize its capability to do the specific tasks it is asked. Isn't that what robots are for? do things for us lazy (and lazier) humans ? I mean we do have enough people on this planet to make many friends and talk. Why do we want the streets to be more crowded ?
This goes back to the definition of robots, what are they exactly, doesn't our society, already completly rely on more or less autonomous technologies like the internet, cell phones , cars, etc...True they are not completly autonomous, they will not do anything without the human interaction, but they can be controlled by distance in some way by other humans and betray their own "master" (/owner) . A good definition in the text about robots was: "Mechanism that act on the physical world with something more than just a simple repetition" . This definition supports my previous point; machines , robots don't know better. On question that Steven Wilson raised in his text that pleased me is "What can robots teach us about what it is to be human or animal?" I thought this question was really important because when we read about such research being done, I immediately think about what humans are doing to themselves, ignorer leur prochain pour ne tenter de satisfaire leurs soif infini de nouveauté. At least I now know that some people don't just see robots as toys and slaves for their lazy consumer addicted person, but maybe as a reflection on the human purpose.
The Aziz and Cucher interview was a little related to the Wilson reading because it dealt with the exploration of the body. A&C focused on the modular and fragmented body and explained more their artistic installation backed with a strong personnal explanation of it. Steven Wilson just layed out facts and raised questions. A&C explains how their arts have been related to their life and what they try to portray in it. According to them, their work is "very fabricated, very considered" They want their work to have have at the same time the fabricated and the documentary/real look. When watching the videos of their instatllation, we con only inagine of what it must be like to be in the middle of these four screens. The images projected remind me somehow of this scientific cartoon I saw a couple times when I was a kid about a scientist and his students being shrinked and exploring the human body to learn and have fun at the same time (!) . A&C talk about this concept of representing healthy bodies, and not decaying. Cucher's experience with the HIV virus allowed him to understand better the biotechnologic research being done, which explains the style of the installation.
They also briefly talk about their previsous works like the building of bodies with regular every day tools that we can buy in stores, and adding a plastic skin on top of it. I liked this concept of creating new "lifes" with our environment. It feels so natural and right the way they explain it, to just build with what is being given.

http://chabin.laurent.free.fr/videos.htm