An eye, two ears and a finger: Do we really want it to see that much more?

The article talks about how the computer sees us as an eye, two ears, and a finger. As some of you mentioned in the previous posts, we do in a way try to base computers on ourselves and try to make them do what we do. So, the article proposes that we should make the computer be able to understand more of our signals. The question is posed, whether in a chat room for instance, it would be helpful to accompany the text with the posture of the user while writing it. I think this is interesting because two of our ‘values’ or ‘expectations’ come together and clash here. Adding more information about the humans behind the computer is typical for our wish to get closer with other people, and to get to know them better and to be able to read other people’s signs/signals. On the other hand, one thing that has made chat rooms so popular in the past in the anonimity. One can share incredibly private things on the web, and then walk away without feeling like you have shown too much of yourself. Maybe we should let dates be dates and web chats be web chats?
On another note, and coming back to what some of the previous posts and comments were about: Above, I wrote “the humans behind computers”. I think this is key. You guys mentioned computers being smarter than people, etc. However, at this point, and I think for a long time still, computers will need to have those humans behind them giving them the instructions to carry out. I don’t think we need to worry about computers becoming self-controlling enemies quite yet.

Clara

MASS MoCA

So…Clara, Janel and I made the trip to MASS MoCA on Saturday, and it only took us 3 1/2 hours to get there! Ick! It was entirely my fault because I drove in the wrong direction for about an hour. (In defense, I can only say that I didn’t realize Route 9 and Elm Street are one in the same. I thought Route 9 started at the bridge off Main Street…) In any case, we made it there, and we had a pretty decent time. I had never been to MASS MoCA before but have oftentimes wanted to trek out there for various installations and films. I had it in my mind that we wouldn’t be able to see everything in the museum because it would simply be too massive for the amount of time we could dedicate to it. I guess I was disappointed to learn that I was wrong. I was frustrated that the one sound art piece we could see is literally impossible to find or even know of unless you are looking for it (and have enough sense to ask where it is). We had to search for the underpass where we could see/hear the piece we were looking for, Harmonic Bridge, so I imagine it gets skipped over by a good majority of the museum’s visitors.

To describe the piece, I think I’ll leave it to MASS MoCA:

Entering the space under the bridge, one becomes aware of a turning eddy of sound in the midst of intersecting streams of traffic. Cars pass by heading north or south on Marshall Street and east or west on the Route 2 bridge, but this linear motion is counterpoised by a rolling, humming C as calming as the rhythm of ocean waves. Although cars stream by, pedestrians lose the impetus to move forward, derailed by this cool pool of sound with its mysterious, chant-like hum. Harmonic Bridge presents an aural cross-section of North Adams, a slice of the city in the key of C, comprised of the fundamental note and its overtone series.

The full description is available here.  At first, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the sound and the piece in general, but the longer we stood next to the box that the sound emanates from (I think it emanates from the box), the more and more I really found myself mesmerized by it.  It was literally a mesmerizing experience.  The pitches had such unique tones, and it was fascinating to think that they were the result of patterns of traffic.  Also quite fascinating: the fact that the listening experience we had can never be replicated or heard again because it was entirely contingent on the traffic and the air and several other elements during that specific period of time, and in that specific place!

I probably have more to say about our trip to the museum, but I figure I will play off of what Clara and Janel have to say.

-Jen

Responsive Environments Group

I read in one of those links that the point of making such machines is to make every day objects more than what they already are. For instance shoes aren’t just shoes anymore, they’re gait measures. Flash lights are object finders. It’s pretty interesting how these inventions are coming to life. It reminds me of the discussion we had in class about how humans and machines are becoming one. I think the more dependent we become on machines, we do become more machine-like.  It doesn’t seem that scary to me. Because I think at this point it’s inevitable. I’m just gonna try and accept it and think of it as a part of our evolution process. Just as long as our emotions don’t disappear. Emotions and instinct are the two things that separate us from machines I think. I guess one can program a machine to perform/output such a way so its showing the right emotion, but it wouldn’t be able to do that w/o the programing. We, on the other hand don’t need the programing to know happy from sad.

I think we’re far from becoming machines. So, no worries.

|Moitri|

Physical Computing by Igoe and O’Sullivan

I think it’s really funny that the article starts off by saying that apple computers were created for “everyone else” who weren’t using computers at that time. And now days I see SO many people who get intimidated by apple computers becasue they’re so different from PCs.

It’s true that if I were asked to draw the word “computer” I would draw a monitor, keyboard and mouse.  This article really cleard up for me what the words digital and analog mean and other techincal terms such as transduction,  parallel, “cereal”   and microcontrollers. 

In the article it describes input, processing and output as listening, thinking and speaking in human terms. I understand that the author is using the words listening/thinking/speaking to make us understand, but at the same time it makes the line dividing humans from computers less prominent. We are using human words to explain these computers. We’re designing computers based on us. Since we listen, think and speak, we’re making the computer have input, process, and output. Much like when “God” created humans he based it on his own form didn’t he? I may be completely wrong here but we are building computers just as god created us. It seems like we have so much power now. We can make computers do lots of things that we can do.  And it’s brilliant that we have so much knowledge. But those sci-fi movies where the computers become smarter than humans end up killing everyone…that’s a little disturbing. Although…I do know that things come and go. So if it is time for us to die out at some point then I’d be okay with it. I have a feeling that Janel would be devastated if that were to happen

Experimental Music – John Cage

I think it is interesting what Cage said about the sounds which are not notated: “Those that are not notated appear in the written music as silences.” This is interesting because even thought the sounds and noises which becaome part of the piece are unknown and dependent on the environment, they are actually planned in the score in a fairly traditional way.
I also liked his point about there never being true silence no matter how hard we try. His experiment in the “sound-free’ box was very interesting to me. Even when we eliminate all outside sounds, there are still the sounds made by our own body.

The other point I found interesting was what he said about progress: comparing the move from walking to driving/flying, or from theatre to tv, with the move from the traditional musical habits. I liked these comparisons. It made it seem almost bizarre that we haven’t moved further away from the musical habits yet.

clara

MASS MoCA

Hello everyone!  So, as I mentioned in class, I intend to drive out to MASS MoCA this weekend – preferably on Saturday.  The museum is open from 11am to 5pm, so I’m up for leaving as early or late as would best suit your schedules.  Let me know if you’re interested in going, and we’ll plan on a time that’s best for everyone.  Keep in mind that the drive is roughly an hour-and-a-half, and admission costs $8.  This should be fun!

-Jennifer

Audio culture

My favorite reading thus far….

 

Key concepts:

Allowing nature to take its course—plant a seed rather than engineer a tree

Rule-based system—while the rules are set, the outcomes are unpredictable

Encouraging accidents and unpredictability– allowing music to grow/evolve beyond the composer’s intentions  

Observation of nature

            Bioactivity (brainwaves—the idea that it is a blend of composition, improvisation and       process/generative music) ß that’s so cool…

            Bioacoustic study (temporal variability in voltage potentials in sync with phases of the      moon, etc.)

 

In the last blogging “session,” I think Clara (or maybe Moitri?) mentioned that noise is not art because it just kind of happens.  I agreed, but then after reading this article, I have a different take.  The author’s rule-based system really made sense—and I can really see how intentionality does not have to be enforced in a linear way. 

 

The emphasis on having established rules reminded me of the reading on Interactive Fiction.  The author states that for video games, certain rules are established, and there is only so much a user can do in the game environment.  Nevertheless, there is the illusion of freedom, because the user can manipulate the controls in any way he/she wants (within the set constraints).  It is cool that the same concept is being applied to sound art as well.

 

As a sidenote:

After reading this article, I had visions of my future backyard.  It would be neat to have a bunch of statues that have pores in them—depending on the direction of the wind, the statues would emit different sounds and then I, too, would be in a cradle of music.  If the pores/tunnels are microscopic, they could even give out sounds that are beyond the human range of hearing—I can just imagine the neighbors’ dogs barking all the time.   

another interesting event…

If any of you can manage a trip to Providence (about a 1:45-2 hour drive) the sonic focus events look very interesting.

sonic.focus is a project that examines complementarities and antagonisms between sound and image in contemporary culture. Starting with film & video screenings on October 20th and 27th, the events will culminate in a conference and performance series to be held at Brown University on November 3 and 4, 2006.

two events

Beat Streuli at umass university gallery

Beat Streuli: Cities 2001-2005
Wednesday, September 20 – Sunday, November 5
Swiss-born artist Beat Streuli (b. 1957) has developed a substantial and impressive body of work in photography and video that documents the transient pedestrian activity of urban life.

Gregory Crewdson at umass

Documentary screening and talk by the photographer Gregory Crewdson. Wednesday, October 25 6:30 pm; Herter Hall, room 231, UMass

Audio Art in the Deaf Century

The Douglas Khan article brought up some interesting points, but I thought they were somewhat overshadowed by the technical jargon he used throughout the essay. Even so, I thought he brought a unique perspective to the problem of the lack of phonographic art. He sees it not as something undesirable but rather as an opportunity – “It signals an expanse of artistic possibility in a situation where other arts battle exhaustion.” It is true that audio art seems much less prevalent than other art forms, but it certainly does exist even if not in its purest form. Kahn likens the potential of audio art to that of using collage in painting, sculpture, photography, and literature but adds that it has never been used for such a purpose. He goes on to say that, “what was, and is, fancied as musical collage, is restricted to a patchy, quodlibetical mode of organization of different spheres of musical culture.” Not only do I not understand what he is getting at here, but I don’t know that I actually have any real desire to. For whatever it’s worth, I will say that I have seen/heard audio art used in several different capacities and quite impressively so. My favorite film, Edvard Munch (1974), is by the British filmmaker Peter Watkins, and he uses sound in it (and in his other films) unlike anything I’ve heard before. Throughout the film, he utilizes basic sounds that evoke profound meaning, piecing them together in a collage-like fashion by layering two, three, and four audio tracks at once. Aside from the sound that naturally occurs within the scene, he includes audio tracks that tie back to earlier scenes in the film and in Munch’s life – the coughing of his sick siblings, the distinct scratching of a paint brush on a canvas, the din of a noisy room. It is really quite fascinating, and I imagine that there are other examples like this. I suppose I haven’t heard anything before that is entirely comprised of naturally occuring sounds in the audible environment, though, and that is the dilemma Kahn seems most concerned about.

-Jennifer