Yesterday's Objects: The Death and Afterlife of Everyday Things - June 4th

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Autopsies Research Group Study Day
Friday, 4 June 2010, UCL (University College London)

Roberts G08 Sir David Davies Lecture Theatre [campus map]

Sponsored by The Film Studies Space: The Centre for the Cultural History of the Moving Image

This event is free and open to all.

To register for the study day, simply send a email to deadobjects@gmail.com

Yesterday's Objects: The Death and Afterlife of Everyday Things is looking like a must attend event and best of all, its free. The day is part of the Autopies Project, exploring how objects die and we are talking about TalesofThings and giving a live demo in the 3-4.30 session.

Just as the twentieth century was transformed by the advent of new forms of media--the typewriter, gramophone, and film, for example--the arrival of the twenty-first century has brought with it the disappearance of many public and private objects that only recently seemed essential to ‘modern life.’

Responding to recent work in cultural history, spatial studies, and 'thing theory,' this stuy day reflects on the ends of objects, raising questions of modernity, obsolescence, memory, collecting and recording. How can critical theorists and cultural historians participate in the reflexion on the ends of objects—from their physical finitude to the very projects for their disposal, the latter increasingly of concern with the multiplication of things that do not gently decompose into their own night?

This study day on ‘Yesterday’s Objects’ will investigate the everyday objects—the fridges, typewriters, and jukeboxes—that have irrevocably changed our lives. Invited papers will explore how these objects have refashioned and reimagined our work, home, and leisure spaces.

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"Yesterday's Objects: The Death and Afterlife of Everyday Things"

Friday, 4 June 2010

9 a.m. Coffee and Welcome

9:30-10:45, Session One, Chair, TBA
Keeping Yesterday's Objects: Museums and Collections

--“Video Game Culture- Making the Same Mistakes With a New Medium”
Mark Carnall, Curator, Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, UCL

--“Status Anxiety, or Missing the Pictures: Film Performativity in the Museum Space”
Jenny Chamarette, Department of French/Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge

11:00-12:30, Session Two, Chair, Jann Matlock, UCL
Lost Objects/Objects at Risk

--“Mourning in the Age of the Digital: Memory, Loss, and Materialist Filmmaking”
Martine Beugnet, Film Studies, University of Edinburgh

--“Slide Tape: An Abandoned Technology”
Mo White, Fine Art, Loughborough University

--“Documents of Barbarism: Saving the Comic Book as Symbolic Object”
Ernesto Priego, Department of Information Studies, UCL

12:30-1:30 Lunch Break

1:30-2:45, Session Three, Chair, TBA
Filmic Afterlives

--“The Brave Little Toaster from Print to Film: Obsolescent Appliances and Capitalist Allegories”
Margaret D. Stetz, Women’s Studies and Humanities, University of Delaware

--“Godard’s Dictations: The Histoire(s) du cinéma and the Erasure of Memory”
Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli, Film Studies, University of Edinburgh

3:00-4:30, Session Four, Chair, Lucia Vodanovic, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths
Dead Object Crises and Telling Things

--“The Temporality of Waste”
Will Viney, Humanities and Cultural Studies, The London Consortium

--“Vinyl Farewells?”
Richard Osborne, Popular Music, Middlesex University

--“Tales of Things: Memories, Stories and Archives of Everything”
Andrew Hudson-Smith, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), UCL

4:30-5:45, Round Table: Yesterday’s Objects
The Autopsies Research Group in Discussion

6-7 p.m. Drinks Reception, Location TBA

Seeing is Believing: New Technologies for Cultural Heritage - June 9th

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We are slightly biased on this one, as we are involved, but - 9 June,
13:30-19:00 Seeing is Believing: New Technologies for Cultural Heritage at University College London looks like an afternoon worth attending.

The organization of, and access to, cultural and humanistic resources presents particular problems because of the diversity of material and the uniqueness of many individual items. Issues of natural language and the semantic complexity of resources add to the mix and provide many challenges for those working in this field.

Despite this, there has been an upsurge in the cultural resources available on the web and many collections of this kind are becoming available. The programme will provide an opportunity to hear about current work with texts, archives, objects and museum collections, from both a theoretical and an implementation standpoint, and to look at a variety of approaches to the material.

There is also a focus on user contribution and the way in which Web 2.0 can offer solutions.

Programme

13:30	Registration
14:00	Welcome from the Chair
14:05	David Arnold: Shaping Up: 3D Documentation and Knowledge in Cultural Heritage This talk will describe current research targeted to make 3D documentation a practical alternative for Cultural Heritage organisations and cover topics such connecting shape to metadata and the need to interpret the semantics of shape. The talk will also describe some of the challenges that the research faces in the quest to empower the mass digitisation and widespread 3D dissemination that the aspiration demands. David Arnold is Professor of Computing Science at the University of Brighton. He has been chair of programme committees for VAST, for CHIRON (Cultural Heritage Informatics Research Orientated Network), and coordinator of the EPOCH Network (Excellence in Processing Open Cultural Heritage).
14:45	Andy Hudson-Smith: Tales of Things: Archiving and Viewing the Cultural Heritage of Everything Tales of Things is part of a research project called TOTeM that will explore social memory in the emerging culture of the Internet of Things. Researchers from across the UK have provided this site as a platform for users to add stories to their own treasured objects and to connect to other people who share similar experiences. The system allows any object to be tagged via qrcodes and rfid labels, making it suitable for use by museums, exhibitions, artists and the public at large. The talk explores the project to date and discusses the implications of being able to archive and write memories to everything. Dr Andrew Hudson-Smith is a Senior Research Fellow and Research Manager at CASA , he is Editor-in-Chief of Future Internet Journal, an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Course Founder and Director of the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualization at University College London. He also runs the digitalurban blog.
15:30	Tea/coffee break
14:45	Melissa Terras: Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage: UCL's Transcribe Bentham Project Crowdsourcing - the harnessing of online activity to aid in large scale projects that require human cognition - is becoming of interest to those in the library, museum and cultural heritage industry, as institutions seek ways to publicly engage their online communities, as well as aid in creating useful and usable digital resources. UCL's Bentham Project has recently set up the "Transcribe Bentham" initiative; an ambitious, open source, participatory online environment to aid in transcribing the 10,000 folios of handwritten documents by the philospher and legal reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) that are currently in UCL special collections. This paper will explore how crowdsourcing can be used, the myths and pitfalls in using crowdsourced effort, and the features that computer applications need to provide, in the context of the development of the Transcribe Bentham project. Dr Melissa Terras is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Studies at UCL, working in the area of humanities computing. She is also deputy director of the newly formed Centre for Digital Humanities. Her doctoral work on the machine analysis of the Vindolanda tablets was ground-breaking in its field, and image interpretation continues to be one of her research specialties.
16:45	Fiona Romeo: [Title to be confirmed] Fiona Romeo is Head of Digital Media at the National Maritime Museum and Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Her department is responsible for the museum's website and digital marketing, mobile learning, interactive exhibits, and collections digitisation. Fiona is also chair of the Citizen Science Alliance, a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop projects that further scientific research and the public understanding of science.
17:30	Sascha Curzon: eMuseum Network - a path to Linked Data eMuseum Network is a search and collaboration platform designed and hosted by Gallery Systems. The project enables member museums to share their collections catalogues and to search and export data across all participating collections from a single access point, in a share-and-share-alike fashion. This presentation will give an overview of the project and how Gallery Systems plans to provide to provide a path for museum to participate in the Linked Data Initiative. Sascha Curzon is European Technical Manager at Gallery Systems; he has an in-depth knowledge across a broad range of domains including databases, programming, project management and client services. He has been technical lead on numerous system implementations at museums all over the UK and Europe.
18:00	Wine, nibbles and networking (served at UCL cloister)

VENUE: University College London
Christopher Ingold Chemistry Lecture Theatre [to be confirmed]
Christopher Ingold Building, Ground Floor
20 Gordon St, London, WC1H 0AJ [directions] [UCL street map]

FEE: £ 20 (ISKO members and students FREE)

BOOKING: www.iskouk.org/cultural_heritage_jun2010.htm

Introducing SurveyMapper: First Sample Survey Online

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Do you want to know what people are think about that new town plan, do you want to ask peoples views on a new product, perhaps you are carrying out a straw poll or do you want to collect data to input into a scientific model? If the questions can be asked or surveyed, all you need is SurveyMapper.

The beta release of SurveyMapper, a free real-time geographic survey and polling tool from the nice people at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, is looking like it is only a few weeks away. If you have used other ‘polling sites’ then you will be up to speed, except we have taken away the restrictions and added real-time mapping into the mix.

We currently have the UK covered down to postcode level (that’s the level of your street) - you can ask anything, survey the nation, your county or just your street. Once a survey closes you can download the data and use it for anything you wish or simply examine the map and the statistics. We will be rolling out to Europe shortly and then moving over to the United States and after that the World allowing surveys and polls down to building level.

As part of the move towards Beta and allowing people to set up their own questions, we have created a test Public Perception of Crime Survey for the UK. It only takes seconds to complete and it will help us make sure our custom written real-time mapping system is operational.

To take part head over to SurveyMapper.com and then select Current Surveys - thanks a lot if you do take part.

Keep up with the SurveyMapper twitter feed for news on the beta release, new features such as blog embedding, twitter voting and a preview of the coming soon professional version allowing advanced spatial analysis and demographic integration.

You can of course also follow us direct on Twitter @digitalurban.

Sky Factory eScape: Digital Cinema Virtual Window

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Sometimes in small urban flats you wish you had a window in the kitchen or a view that was less urban blight and more a view of the ocean. As such we really like eScape, a full HD virtual window:



Sadly we also know just by looking it that it will cost more than we could ever afford. That said, if you want a cheaper version you could simply stick an iPad on the wall and use the Magic Window app, see our previous post.

Take a look at http://www.theskyfactory.com for more info.

Institute for Web Science: Funding Pulled

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The BBC is reporting that funding for a new Institute for Web Science, set up with a £30m grant from the department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has been cut.

The collaboration between the Universities of Oxford and Southampton, announced in March 2010, was led by web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt. Both are also leading the government's open data project data.gov.uk. BIS said it was a "low priority" as it announced its efficiency savings.

These are interesting times, especially as we are just at the beginning of the cuts and if initiatives as high profile as the Institute for Web Science are cut then one wonders what is next...

See the full report on BBC News.

The Geospatial Industry in 2015: Summary and 35 Papers from the AGI

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The geospatial information (GI) industry is undergoing radical change. Stimulated by a range of new global challenges, the balance of power between existing and new players is shifting. UK Government policy is also undergoing transformation with the publication of the UK Location Strategy, the transposition of the INSPIRE Directive into UK law, the passing of the M

arine & Coastal Access Bill and plans to change the business model of Ordnance Survey. The economic strictures, under which the public and private sectors will need to operate, as we attempt to handle enormous public debt, are also certain to drive changes in behaviour.

There can be little doubt that in 5 years the industry will look very different. Over the past year the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) has been exploring the future of the geospatial industry in the UK in the first public foresight project of this kind. Edited by Andrew Coote, Steven Feldman and Robin McLaren, The Geospatial Industry in 2015, has a medium-term horizon five years hence.

In seeking diverse points of view, the study invited industry opinion formers to contribute Expert Papers in their particular field, covering data and technology, vertical market sectors and policy drivers.

This is an extremely useful document for anyone interested in geo-spatial issues. You can read the summary (4Mb pdf) as well as the full 10 papers on policy, 13 papers on markets and 12 papers on data and technology, including our own on augmented reality.

Its quite a resource...

Physical Space Tweets: Pst! microCONTROL

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Pst! is the surreptitious beckoning of attention and the acronym for Physical Space Tweets. It is a small Ardunio storyteller installed in public space giving an audience a glimpse into a geo-tagged community’s topic feed.

For the Leeds Pavillion at Mediamatic’s Amsterdam Biennale 2009 Pst! chronicled life in Leeds through it’s twitter feed. The movie below provides the run down:

Pst! microCONTROL from Megan Leigh Smith on Vimeo.

The piece locates a public social narrative by pulling an information feed from Twitter User profiles geographically aligned to Leeds with Twitter’s geocode API and then prints this information onto a mini LCD screen. By removing the peripheral of the computer a Pst! device can be placed in a non-space providing a window directly into a geo-located public space.

See http://megansmith.ca/blog/?tag=arduino for more info.

How to Add Anything to the Internet of Things: Creating the Geography of Everything

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Every object in existence can be tagged with any media, linked to tell a story, to recount its memories in a read/write environment and tweet when its interacted with.





Its a concept that takes a bit of time to take in, for example a wall in Camden Town, London, tweeted me last week when someone replayed its memories of having a Banksy painted on it. That wall is part of the Internet of Things via the project TalesofThings.

The best part is, its incredibly easy to add objects. You simply sign up at talesofthings.com and then take click on 'add a thing'. This takes you to a form where you give your object a name, for a example 'Andy's Mug' or 'BBC Broadcasting House' are some of things we have added so far. You then type in a short story, or tale, linked to that object and upload a photograph to the site.

Everything has a location so we are creating a 'Geography of Everything', a brave claim perhaps but one that develops a new a new kind of geography, the geography of things. Simply click on the map to set a location, your object will now become part of the 'World of Things' map.

Thats it, your object will now become part of the Internet of Things and will be able to tweet, have new stories/tales added as its passed on, sold or interacted with. It is all part of a Social Web of Things or SWOT as its known.

Each thing created gets assigned a unique 'qrcode' which can be attached to your object. For example, we have attached a qrcode to our office here in CASA which visitors scan using our free iPhone app. This 'virtual guest book' allows our office to recall the story of CASA and the people that pass through our doors. You can print out your codes via the site and attach them to anything.

Any media can be added to you object, the clip below provides a glimpse of the system running via our recent link up with Oxfam via Future Everything, complete with the iPhone RFID reader:





Anything, anywhere can be tagged with any media, do take a look at the beta version of TalesofThings, we are very proud of the work and as the Ericsson Labs blog noted, this is really part of the social web of things, it will be trillions of tags around in a couple of years...

Magic Window for iPad: Timelapse Cities and Landscapes

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The iPad is an intriguing device in terms of visualisation with various apps catching our attention. The first of which to reach the blog is Magic Window -  a series of 10 timelapse movies wrapped up in an app.

With scenes ranging from landscapes through to cities it makes for a unique view when your have your iPad docked or just sitting around the office/house.


Magic Window for iPad Demo from josh michaels on Vimeo.
As big fans of timelaspe imagery here on du, the MagicWindow app comes highly recommended. With 10 scenes, the first two are pre-installed with the remaining 8 available for download at around 1Gb per scene. High resolution timelapses take space so the file size is not surprising and they do hold up in terms of quality.

You can download the app from both the US iTunes ($3.99) and  UK iTunes store (£2.39). The iPad store is not up and running yet outside of the USA, but if you run a simple search for Magic Window iPad in any of the localized stores it will come up.

The Architect: Animation

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A 257 photo stop motion by adamduffers, it took 3 hours to make, half an hour to edit and 55 seconds in to make us smile:


The Architect from adamduffers on Vimeo.
It does indeed take a long time to become an architect...

A-Team: Drive the Van in Google Earth

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Google Earth still amazes in terms of visualisation and in the latest development, planetinaction has created a 'game' linked to the up and coming A Team movie:



YouTube can be a harsh place to be sometimes and the comments on the various clips have been cutting. What needs to be remembered is that this is running in Google Earth and for us that stands as some achievement.

Click here and play the game.

Picked up via the ever excellent Google Earth Blog

iPhone RFID and Bluetooth AudioBoos in Oxfam Clip

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At the Oxford Road branch of Oxfam in Manchester, TOTeM (Tales of Things and Electronic Memory) Art Project: RememberMe, are attaching stories to the things that people leave behind, and allow new owners to access them.

Using scanners, delegates of Future Everything and the general public will be able to listen to memories and buy objects that come tagged with their very own story.

TOTeM has created a new iPhone RFID reader especially for this piece Using a jailbroken phone and off the shelf circuits, the reader can replay memories by simply ‘swiping’ near the object. The team plan to release a ‘how to make your own’ breakdown of the device in the near future via the talesofthings.com site. The Oxfam store is also home to a Bluetooth ‘wand’ which works with Android phones. These devices bring the Internet of Things to life allowing all the objects catalogued with talesofthings.com to connect to any online media. The Oxfam Shop has been taking donations of all shapes and sizes that have been tagged with memories as part of the in-store exhibition.

The movie below shows some of our 'internet of things' tech running and the memories of past objects:



Thanks go to the whole TOTeM team with notable thanks to Benjamin Blundell, Duncan Shingleton and Martin de Jode for developing the technology and getting everything working.

You can of course tag anything and indeed everything yourself via http://www.talesofthings.com

Tweaking the Blog

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As you may of noticed the blog has over gone a few changes, mainly minor but still the odd tweak here and there.

This is as we gear up for the MRes Course and introduce some new features to take the blog onwards. As ever if you want the latest updates on all things digital and urban you can also follow us on twitter.

As an update the 'retweet' buttons are now working but only in 'compact' style. The old style will be back soon as we have sorted out the issues.

MRes Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation (ASAV) - Applications and Entry Now Open

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We are pleased to announce that Applications and Entry to our new course - MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation (ASAV) at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London is now open. We have put together the course over the last few months to reflect the current state of play in geographic, urban and architectural information systems with an emphasis on visualisation, analysis and modelling. It is an innovative and exciting MRes which acts as a pathway to a PhD in ASAV.

Course Executive Summary

The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) is an initiative within University College London to develop research in emerging computer technologies in several disciplines dealing with geography, space, location, and the built environment. As an interdisciplinary research centre expertise is drawn from archaeology, architecture, cartography, computer science, environmental science, geography, planning, remote sensing, geomatic engineering, and transport studies. The Centre is located within The Bartlett at UCL, from which it is administered but it has associated students and faculty in other faculties, specifically in Geography and in Civil (Geomatic) Engineering. This structure generates a unique blend of knowledge forming the core of the MRes ASAV.

The MRes is unique in its focus on complexity, modelling, mapping and visualisation, pulling together the latest research in urban form, functionality and communication. Recent changes in the rise of web-based technologies and the development of low cost yet complex visualisation and analysis packages has generated a notable change in the demand for more traditional vendor specific information systems and computer aided design courses.

The MReS ASAV reflects this change with a look towards Web 3.0 (Read, Write, Execute) technologies and methods to deliver skills required for current/future professionals and policy makers engaged in spatially related projects.


Curriculum Structure

The MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation (MRes ASAV) is unique in its focus on complexity, modelling, mapping and visualisation, pulling together the latest research in urban form, functionality and communication. Recent changes in the rise of web-based technologies and the development of low cost yet complex visualisation and analysis packages has generated a notable change in the demand for more traditional vendor specific information systems and computer aided design courses. The MRes ASAV reflects this change with a look towards Web 3.0 (Read, Write, Execute) technologies and methods to deliver skills required for current/future professionals and policy makers engaged in spatially related projects.

The course has a strong research component based around developing new methodologies from new task specific software and techniques that have emerged as part of what may be termed the ‘Web Revolution’. CASA has been at the forefront of these changes that have impacted the way we share, communicate and distribute information, specifically information relating directly to geographic and spatial entities. These changes have steadily emerged since the mid 1990’s and it is now quite clear that location and space now represent a third force in information technology besides more traditional computer and communication science.

We reflect these changes within the interlinked laboratory-research-based mini project with data collection focused on ‘remote data mining’ rather than fieldwork in the traditional planning/geographical/architectural sense. Indeed these research led skills are increasingly becoming a key element in shaping our understanding of complex spatial functions.

Vast amounts of previously unused data are becoming available either from changes in accessibility, due to the nature of the network and cloud based computing, changing national data policies or more widely as a result of new mass data collection methodologies.

Course Aims

The programme aims to provide training in the principles and skills of social and spatial research. Its aims include a strong understanding of qualitative and quantitative research methodology and methods of data collection and analysis to support and enable independent and group research projects. In addition to focusing on research skills, subject specific modules provide students with the opportunity to develop an excellence in spatial analysis with the specific skill set to engage and contribute to the current debates in urban and spatial continuums.

Course Delivery

The course runs full-time over 12 months. The taught element of the course is delivered on two days per week over the first two terms.

Modules

BENVGSA1 - Group Mini Project: Digital Visualisation
The module introduces the students to methods of visualisation and data mining within the geospatial domain. Developed as a group project the module aims to provide an understanding of the juxtaposition between research, data capture and data display methodologies. As such the module is developed to build upon the taught sections of the course (BENVGSA3 and BENVGSA4) to develop initial research questions for the dissertation (BENVGSA2). Project assessment will be on a group basis.
Credits: 30
Terms: 1 and 2


BENVGSA2 - Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation MRes Dissertation
The module is based around the writing, preparation of an original research project in the form of a Masters Dissertation. Students will be required to plan the research and dissertation from an early stage with ongoing development building on both the mini-project and taught courses developed through the year. The research topic will be defined under the guidance of the students dissertation supervisor with the support of the Course Director. The aim is to produce a unique, individual piece of work with an emphasis on data collection, analysis and visualisation linked to policy and social science orientated applications.
Credits: 90
Terms: 1, 3, 4
 
BENVGSA3 - GI Systems and Science
The aim of this module is to equip students with an understanding of the principles underlying the conception, representation/measurement and analysis of spatial phenomena. As such, it presents an overview of the core organising concepts and techniques of Geographic Information Systems, and the software and analysis systems that are integral to their effective deployment in advanced spatial analysis.
Credits: 15
Term: 1 
 
BENVGSA4 - Spatial Modelling and Simulation
This course will introduce students to the theory, principles and applications of mathematical and computer modeling as applied to cities. It will be based on five interrelated themes: an introduction to definitions of models as they relate to the philosophy of science; the model-building process involving calibration and prediction; types of urban models ranging from land use transportation models, microsimulation, discrete choice, cellular automata and agent-based models; the exploration of two specific types of model, namely land use transportation; and then cellular automata ABM.
Credits: 15
Term: 2
 
EDUCGE01 - Investigating Research
EDUCGE02 - Professional Development in Practice
 
ADMISSIONS
Informal enquiries should be directed to the course director, Dr Andrew Hudson-Smith.
To apply for a place on this course, please follow the directions from the UCL Admissions website.

Architectural Shorts: Theoretical Block

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Continuing our series on architecural shorts we feature 'Theoretical Block' by Aron Lorincz. The composite shots in the car are nicely done and the whole short is inspirational:


The building seems to be modeled on 'Pécsi magasház', Hungary.

Wieland & Gouwens Showreel

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Wieland&Gouwens is a small contemporary presentation and visualisation company located in the dynamic Lloyd Kwartier in Rotterdam. The company combines artistic knowledge and backgrounds with 3d computer techniques and we like their showreel:



See http://www.wieland-gouwens.nl/ for more info.

Bentley: 3D GIS for Intelligent Cities

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Bentley’s 3D City GIS product portfolio is an integrated suite of products allowing the creation of smart 3D City models and the management of these models across the lifecycle. It also provides a rich set of tools to use the 3D City model in a variety of activities. GIS professionals, urban planners, designers, project managers, engineers, and citizens alike will benefit from going beyond traditional 2D GIS technology and using Bentley’s newest 3D City GIS products. 

They have produced the demo movie below, to be honest we expected something a little more exciting and the whole 'flame/light effect' on text feels a bit dated:



Maybe its just us, but it failed to grab our interest, and we like this sort of thing. Lets hope this is not the pitch they give to local authorities / municipalities, which is a shame as the whole 3D Intelligent City idea is finally reaching the market place.

Match Moving with the Canon 5D Mark II

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Using a Canon 5D Mark II Francesco Rivolta has been trying out some match moving, a visual-effects technique that allows the insertion of computer graphics into live-action footage with correct position, scale, orientation, and motion relative to the photographed objects in the shot:



We like the Nestle and the Luck Music between the two blocks of flats, no word on the software Francesco used as of yet but we assume it was PFTrack or such like.

Tiltshift, City and Robot - RenkeBot Lives

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Tiltshift, 3D Max a city and robot, really whats not to like:


RenkeBot Lives- part2! from Matt Moses on Vimeo.
Created by Matt Moses the city backplates were shot with the Canon 7D and a Tilt Shift lens. Tilt shift lenses give it that "tiny town" look of small scale DOF. Matt built and textured the robot in 3dsmax, and rigged him using CAT - Rendered in Finalrender, composited in Combustion. All three shots took 3 days, including a day to build the robot.

Only only gripe - we wish is was a bit longer, really nicely done.

Contested Space - Projecting the Surveillance

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Contested Space is a BFA thesis project by Bruce Paul. It is based around the intriguing idea of projecting live CCTV camera footage onto the area which is under surveillance:



The United Kingdom is one of the most surveyed counties in the world and with the advent of low cost, long life projector units the prospects of having such a system used to remind citizens that 'we are being watched is kind of scary. Scary, yet somehow inevitable at some point in a digital urban environment.

Melbourne (Still Here): Urban Memories

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Our work on TalesofThings has in a fundamental way changed the way we view the world and the city around us. It has made us very much aware of the daily events, the memories which are so often lost. Yet now almost everything can be captured and saved to a 'thing' an 'object' and as such we have the possibility of persevering and tagging everything.


Melbourne (Still Here) from Aze Cunliffe on Vimeo.
The above movie clip is an example of spontaneous footage shot in urban Melbourne by Aze Cunliffe throughout May 2009. Soundtrack - atb's "Still Here" from the album Future Memories. Talking of Future - the TOTeM group are capturing memories and tagging objects with qrcodes and rfid this week at Future Everything.

By linking memories direct to the object with audio/video/text/photos it does change the way we see 'things' and indeed how our memories are saved for future generations - take a look at talesofthings.com - esp the World of Things map...

RememberMe: Future Everything and the Internet of Things

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Have you ever wanted to know the story behind the things you buy? Who owned the object from that charity shop and what about its history, the memories associated with it and why is it now for sale?

In association with Oxfam and part of the Manchester Future Everything Festival (12th-15th May) we are putting the history back into objects with the Art Project: RememberMe.

At the Oxford Road branch of Oxfam in Manchester, TOTeM (Tales of Things and Electronic Memory) will be attaching stories to the things that people leave behind, and allow new owners to access them.

The Oxfam Shop is appealing for donations of all shapes and sizes that can be tagged with memories as part of the in-store exhibition. Oxfam manager Emma Cooney has asked people to “Help us be part of this exciting project. Anyone who wants to share their memories of the things they donate to the shop is welcome to take part. It’s entirely voluntary, but maybe a once treasured object you no longer want has a story that can be passed on to its new owner".

The advent of digital tagging technology means that every new object in the future will be tagged and logged in a database accruing logistical information such as temperatures, prices, owners and transportation. The exhibition RememberMe introduces an opportunity to build an Internet of Old Things based upon stories not data. By attaching a barcode loaded with memories about the clothes and artefacts that visitors donate to the Whitworth Park branch of Oxfam, things will gain a social and cultural value.

Using scanners, delegates of Future Everything and the general public will be able to listen to memories and buy objects that come tagged with their very own story. We will have more on the 'scanners' soon - think iPhone RFID reader / Bluetooth Android device and with full details on how to make them yourself....

The RememberMe artwork is a collaborative project between TOTeM and Oxfam in Manchester which will be showcased at the Future Everything Festival (12-15 May 2010). During the time leading up to Future Everything (FE), a research assistant will be based in the shop and will ask people who drop things off to tell a brief story about one of the objects into a microphone: where they acquired it, what memories it brings back and any associated stories.

With their permission, this audio clip will be linked to an RFID tag and QR code. During the event, all items that have been tagged with a story will then join the shop’s stock. Visitors to the shop, including conference delegates will be invited to use our bespoke RFID readers, or their own smart phone to browse artefacts that are displayed amongst the many thousands of other objects.

Labels will highlight the RememberMe objects and once triggered, speakers located in the shop will replay the story, evoking ghosts of the past. Once tagged the objects are in the public domain for purchase by other members of the community, our iPhone apps will allow them to access the story for years to come.

You can tag your own objects, or indeed everything and anything via http://www.talesofthings.com complete with its own free iPhone app, Android is coming soon. We do have a tendency to get fired up over such things, but really this one is going to be good - http://www.talesofthings.com

CG + Second Life Machinima

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Below is a promotional movie of the activity for public industrial-academic complex of Tokyo Metropolitan University. The clip is composed of 2 elements, firstly 3D composite work using photographs of cities and campuses and secondly, machinima in Second Life using photographs of researchers and their work:



Normally we wouldn't cover promotional movies on digital urban, but this is one caught our eye, that said we can't personally see where Second Life was used in the clip, any ideas?

Thanks to Hidenori Watanave of http://archidemo.blogspot.com/ for sending this in.

A Motion Generated Cityscape in Cinder

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Mike Creighton of todaycreate.com loves doing stuff that creates visual rhythm with similar shapes and iteration (see here and here and here and here). He is really into the idea that motion captured data can be turned into something structural, becoming an input stream for a different set of dimensions, to paint an entire world.

The idea is neat and came to Mike as soon as he saw a piece called Ephimicropolis by contemporary artist Peter Root. The system is a work in progress and built using Cinder, in our view its a movie worth watching:



Mike's next plans are to work with lighting and texture and distribution of elements, you can follow progress over at http://www.todaycreate.com/.

Fragmented City

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The inspiring clip below was made by Tom Freitag as personal project based on an illustration he made for a book cover:


There is a lot of software coming together to make this clip, 3D Max, Real Flow, After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator with probably a few more packages thrown in for good measure.

5 Movies on Particles, Agents and Emergent Behaviour

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Crowd, transport and urban simulations are at their roots down to 'Agents' or 'Objects' that are assigned a set of rules as to how to moves in relation to both the environment and other agents around them. 3D Studio Max has a built in 'Crowd and Delegate' system which can be used to assign behaviour and therefore create realistic traffic of pedestrian systems in 3D space.

The movie below displays our first tentative steps to explore emergent behaviour via the introduction of simple rules. The movie starts out with a basic 'wander' behaviour where the agents only knowledge is the shape of the surface. Moving on we assign each of our 'cubes' (of which we have become quite fond of...) a level of vision so they can see ahead and therefore avoid each other and objects in their environment.

Crowd and Delegates - Emergent Behaviour from digitalurban on Vimeo.

Thirdly, the agents seek a 'sphere' which could be viewed as a source of food. While being aware of each other and tweaking the way the cubes move a swarm behaviour emerges. Finally, we introduce competing groups with two priorities, firstly to eat and secondly to stay as a group. The majority choose the group over the food but a couple stray off in search of sustenance and lose the other members.

Previous steps in our visualisation of agent based models are based around a simple flocking examples

This model is an attempt to mimic the flocking of birds, while the resulting motion also resembles schools of fish. The flocks that appear in this model are not created or led in any way by special leader rather, each bird is following exactly the same set of rules, from which flocks emerge.

We have exported the model into 3D Max providing the visualisation below, as ever these are early days but the results seem to run well with 300 'birds' over 1000 frames. The birds are rendered as cubes at the moment for proof of concept:


Flocking in NetLogo exported to 3D Max from digitalurban on Vimeo.
Music "Funkmelon Blooz" (Electronica)

The birds follow three rules: "alignment", "separation", and "cohesion". "Alignment" means that a bird tends to turn so that it is moving in the same direction that nearby birds are moving. "Separation" means that a bird will turn to avoid another bird which gets too close. "Cohesion" means that a bird will move towards other nearby birds (unless another bird is too close). When two birds are too close, the "separation" rule overrides the other two, which are deactivated until the minimum separation is achieved.

The three rules affect only the bird's heading. Each bird always moves forward at the same constant speed.

If we were using the built in Crowd and Delegate system a true 3D flocking system would be possible, but it would be pure visualisation, by importing via NetLogo you gain access to the raw data and thus spatial analysis is possible. It is also quick to model and provides the best of both worlds - 3d visualisation and complex modelling.

While 3D Max is of use for crowd and particle simulation when it comes to modelling complex systems an external package is required, such as NetLogo. The movie below details our first steps at CASA (home of digital urban) to export a basic traffic model from NetLogo into 3D Studio Max. The import script was written by our new PhD student, Ateen Patel and opens up a vast array of opportunities to both visualise and model the city.


Music by The Tedd-Z Cookbook, Aerodrome (Funky Shuffle Remix)

NetLogo is a cross-platform multi-agent programmable modeling environment that is widely. It is particularly well suited for modeling complex systems developing over time. Modelers can give instructions to hundreds or thousands of independent "agents" all operating concurrently. This makes it possible to explore the connection between the micro-level behavior of individuals and the macro-level patterns that emerge from the interaction of many individuals.(Nation Master Encyclopedia).

How does this relate to the city? The next part is to put in real geographical data and to get the agents movies and reacting to each other on a spatial network, more on that to come. Perhaps using a particle system as per the movie below:

Particles in the City from digitalurban on Vimeo.

All of these models are going into our exhibition space previewed below to allow a step by step guide to the principles of agent based modelling.



The virtual exhibition space has been placed on hold due to work pressures on other projects over the last few months but is something we hope to return to soon.