matts4-blog1

[matts4-blog1]

finale

well there goes another semester, and again i’m still not 100% satisfied with what I ended up creating. 

and again for what, like the 4th sem in a row, the reason why is time management and dealing with effective ways of managing the weeks that just roll by faster and faster. 

this semester i started off with a good mindset towards thinking about studio, and created alot of tangible and measurable conceptualisation work, but as the semester moved on into the “sound barrier” stage, Simon and I’s attitude to studio stagnated due to something that to this day I still cannot discern. maybe its time for me to leave colab? if im obviously not making the most out of this degree and not utilising the money im spending as effectively as possible then what the fuck is the point me being here? 

now i’m stuck in a position where i still don’t have a trade as a creative person, i still can’t apply knowledge learnt through a class creatively anywhere because i just don’t have one skill. a jack of all trades, master of none. 

not having a specific trade inside this degree is honestly the most daunting thing within colab, not only are you fighting against your own self doubt that you may not be as adequate for a job as someone else, you’re also fighting against other peoples doubt who just judge your project at face value, and give you the “yeah that’s so cool!” response. i hate that a crazy amount, because it’s this whole subconscious mindset that “my project is better than this.” which is just such a pointless waste of energy.

take for example the work i did this semester for magenta and trying to get that running. I tried my hardest and put in so much fucking effort into learning how it worked and how I could use it to my advantage within our project but in the end I had to end up using a fake simulation of an AI that takes one image and shuffles it around. a kick in the teeth for me trying to push myself and learn something new in my eyes. my point is, is that i can guarantee that if someone who actually understood coding or back end design, tried the same things it would take them 10x less time and would create an outcome much better than anything I could’ve ever created within one semester. 

it just feels like i keep trying to escape from creating a mediocre project by coming up with elaborate ideas and well thought out conceptual questions, but the overall fabrication and lack of management i put into it just ends up making my projects fall into the normal mediocre BCT projects basket. 

now it’s even worse because people have put in a crazy amount of time into interpreting the soundscape I created and have made some beautiful pieces of art in response to our concept. but little do they know that my code is the most basic and terrible representation of the concept conceivable, so they’ll come in with high hopes and i’ll be there to watch the excitement and anticipation drain right away from their faces. 

its at this stage that i find myself just confused at the next step. but i guess it’s just time to take a long well earned break and think stuff over. 

in response to the project as a project, i’ve definitely had worse and i think that the effort Simon and I put into this was alot higher than our other projects, which is reflective in the end outcome and the conceptual questions arisen from “sen”, and yeah this was just a concept test so we have next year to build upon what we’ve created, but it still doesn’t excuse the fact that I’m just disappointed in myself for how I went about managing time and creating the digital aspect of the project, arguably the largest and most import part. 

[matts4-blog1]

concept sen

so in the creation of the conceptual statement it was very hard to try and encapsulate all the conceptual work we’ve put into the development of “sen” but I think that this end result hits most of the points we wanted to cover: 

This piece stands as a continual analysis into the validity of the conceptual thoughts brought upon by the nature of creativity and artificially intelligent beings position within creativity as a praxis. However, due to the time constraints within one semester, we were unable to create all elements that would come together to create a cohesive community-based platform. So instead we have utilized the opportunity to inquire into the pre-existing context and gauge the academic value of what the investigation into “Sen” could provide. Comparing “Sen’s” current stage of development to the original personal brief of; “Pushing the boundaries of conventional applications of sound as a praxis, to explore other areas of knowledge,” “Sen” has not only provided us with a fruitful insight into the area of creativity and AI, but also a way to learn how to stimulate thoughtful interactions with a piece through insinuated elements, metaphors and design aspects.

“Sen” was conceptually envisioned as a community-based platform, in which artists could use “Sen” to take a moment, relax and re-interpret art into their own medium.  Creating a chronological continuum of artists’ creations, constantly changing throughout each take on the piece before it. With the only emphasis being employed upon the cyclical re-interpretations from sound-based mediums to visual ones.

With reference to the prior structuring brought upon the concept through the method of an overarching brief: “Pushing the boundaries of conventional applications of sound as a praxis, to explore other areas of knowledge.” Personifying “Sen” through the use of artificial intelligence attempts to make the platform learn with the continuum of artists’ interpretations and eventually create interpretations of its own. By using the platforms databases as training data for “Sen’s” own pieces, “Sen” as a concept begins subtly suggesting fundamental contemporary questions surrounding the philosophies behind creativity. If the work “Sen” creates is thought-provoking, aesthetically relevant or individually inspiring, Is “Sen’s” work art? Is whatever it makes original, or simply a regurgitation of its predecessors? Or as artists, are we? Is creativity restricted to conscious existence? Is creativity simply random probability?

“Sen” doesn’t commandeer these questions, but amiably evokes the viewer's curiosity stimulating personal conclusions. “Sen” also doesn’t propose the answer to these, nor state the positive and negative aspects of AI as an emerging technology, more so proposes a philosophy surrounding the possible coexistence with humans not just in creative areas, but the possibility of working symbiotically with beings of artificial origins.

In physicalizing “Sen” as an artifact, we are ultimately concept testing the community-based platform and exaggerating the quoted question “Is sen the artist? Or are you?” The interpretations on the night act as training data for “Sen” to reinterpret, literally insinuating the similarities between the AI’s learning algorithms and how humans learn.

In addition, the two screens are implemented to metaphorically represent the mutualistic working creative relationship humans can have with AI. “Sen” is entirely dependent on human data to create its own interpretations. In essence, “Sen’s” entire subjective reality is comprised of our perception of reality, so it will always be solely influenced on how humans perceive reality. As a direct result, “Sen” can create a non-conscious reflection of reality, uninfluenced by emotions or other direct results of living as a conscious being, but yet still a new piece of art that may stimulate personal resonance. Essentially, “Sen” is a creative “partner” bringing to fruition unique pieces of art that are solely influenced by how you perceive reality, like a pencil and a pen, both similar concepts but both creating differing resultant outcomes.

[matts4-blog1]

graphic design & communication design for s e n

so in order to gain interest for artists to make interpretations for “sen” we had to send out a poster to Donna who would give it to a bunch of students at ELIM and over in the textile school, also for our presentation in which I talked in front of BCT trying to generate some interest for the project which I decided would be a perfect way of practising a little bit of graphic design and communication design.

this was the piece I created and used this for both the presentation and the email that went out to Donna and other people. 

I liked how the overall piece conveyed the sort of weird future, but also relaxed mood that “sen” tries to convey with the colour scheme. the weird picture in the corner was just a picture I took that I thought looked nice in the corner with the colour contrast.

the colours we used for sen’s branding were pre meditated in the earliest stages of its conception as I though that having a cohesive design and colour scheme would personify “sen” a little bit more  and just make it feel more professional 

i also love the colours personally and in reference to the colour theory they evoke the relaxed mood we were trying to for.

[matts4-blog1]

Due to simon being in charge of the physical side of the instillation, I thought it was only fitting that I showcase his perspective on the physical side of “sen” 

Almost done

So it’s almost done! And yes there has been a lot of cramming. We should have been a lot more organized with time, but it is turning out really nicely and I am happy with it so far. Here’s what it looks like.

This image shows the whole installation with the interpretation table as well. We got black drop cloths from look sharp, a scanner from home with black cloth wrapped around it to look better, a lamp from home to give it that ambient yellow light, some stationery from Gordon Harris in the same color scheme as the wall for people to do their interpretations of and Matt bought in his high-quality speakers to play the soundscape on. We’ve also set up a marco to get the scanner to work. 

When the mouse is clicked (it is covered with tape so it can’t move), it will trigger a macro that clicks scan on the computer. It will then automatically save the scan and set it as the desktop background, displaying the image on the left monitor. The macro will then run the processing sketch which emulates the AI, displaying it on the right-hand monitor. The macro will then return the mouse back to the run position so when it is clicked again, the macro will run. This macro was set up using Mouse Recorder.

This is a picture with most of the interpretations on the wall. You can see a couple of the shelves needed extra brackets because the items were too heavy. We had to sacrifice looks a bit in this situation, but to be fair it doesn’t actually look too bad. 

I also would have changed monitors if we had the time. They do look a bit out of place and uneven, if they were the same two monitors then it would have been fine. This is maybe something we can sort out before open studio though!

Despite all of this, I reckon it’s looking great and I’m really happy with how everything has turned out. And everything is working! Just gotta work through these conceptual and contextual statements now.

[matts4-blog1]

smokenmirrors

so because the AI idea just didn’t work at all, im going to have to use a different approach to tackle the problem which I decided was probably a processing sketch. 

what I wanted to create essentially was a sketch that randomised a given set of images and created a new piece based upon different randomised sections of each image, and instantly I was reminded that Alex Wagshaft had just made a randomisation sketch for his digital fabrication piece which used the randomisation of an image to print a randomised tactile rubic’s cube.

shoutout to alex because he let me use his code and sort of fork it and change it so I could customise it to my own preference. from where he left off I needed it to load in three images and grab a pixel from a point on that image, then draw it on the new image somewhere, and keep repeating that process until the entire new piece was filled up completely. 

but this is all the code could handle for some reason, I ran past the issues with loading all 10 photos with everyone who knows about coding, but no one could find the issue.  

it’s not really an issue however because it is still able to live up to our philosophies and what we want “sen” to look at as an artefact. As even with one image being recreated into a new piece we can still take out of it the thinking point of your ideas and interpretation of the soundscape being re-interpreted by “sen” and a new piece based upon training data, if this new piece is now thought provoking, aesthetically relevant or inspiring in any way, is sen’s work to be considered as art?

so yeah its a bummer I couldn’t get all 10 images to learn and re interpret into a crazy mash up of different interpretations acting as a primitive AI, but this “smokenmirrors” approach even if not fabricated as effectively as possible still somewhat conveys the intended themes. 

I just hope that the presentation of these themes aren’t super imposed by the display of them, and that the presentation of our ideas doesn’t just come across as a not-well thought out stretch of bull-shit. 

I don’t think it is, but only external validation will tell I guess.

[matts4-blog1]

fuck you magenta

as the title suggests this post is a tribute to all of the hours lost trying to make magenta work. 

the reason why I didn’t decide to post this earlier is purely due to a form of PTSD. it is the most effort and time I have ever put into anything in a project and yet the results are this: 

anyway magenta is Google’s newest project using the opensource tensorflow framework, that “ a research project exploring the role of machine learning in the process of creating art and music “  In essence they were trying to create a publicly available and easy to download and use version of deep artificial intelligence learning that would be able to produce music and visual arts, based upon training data set by you and algorithms set by the creator. 

in theory, it sounded like an absolute god send that would help me ease through the technical side of the project which would help me get back to conceptually advancing it. 

but theories never work and the amount of issues I had with the instillation of Magenta and Tensorflow on Windows were honestly uncountable. I spent 3 weeks straight of just searching through StackOverflow threads looking for a possible answer that I may have been able to apply to my system and personal download of magenta. 

I would probably say that I spent around 60 hours or more on just trying to make it do something, and when I did, it produced pure black images. 

but in all honesty it did help me learn ALOT about back end package management and development things, system pathing and python prompts all were skills I had no idea even existed before I decided to tackle the beast, and its because of that sole reason that I learnt so much that I don’t actually regret wasting all that time figuring out how to use magenta, I just really never want to have to try install that thing on windows again because the amount of fundamental issues that come about from it are ludicrous.

[matts4-blog1]

ITS - a semi-shit-show

so now i’m done, I've managed to get all my different reflections on ITS down on my blogs, and collated all of my research into the different areas I was expected to, so all i’m left to do now, is reflect on the entire course and how it went about teaching me stuff. 

From the get-go, I still don’t agree with Laurent on the way he conducted the marking of the paper, or how we went about telling us what he was marking. Laurent provided us with 4 learning outcomes, and logically how we went about learning those 4 points and using them to shape our journey through the paper. This as we quickly learned was not how we were being marked, as a matter of fact what we were being marked on was never actually made explicitly clear. With zero-documentation surrounding how we should structure our ideas and research in order for it to be efficient and effective, we were left to have an academic stab in the dark as of to what would get us a good grade and what would not. I learned this the hard way as in my first formative assessment I was marked purely on my presentation skills, which I had no idea that was what we were being marked upon.

Not only did this course lack clarity and specificity, it also lacked communication. Instead of emailing people or using AUT’s designed academic platform, Laurent used a Google Plus, a social media which no-one in the degree used so right from the start we all had to adapt to his preferred method which is a pattern I started to see come up throughout the course. Google Plus was an issue because the way he decided to use it was to set-up a community and just literally link dump anything he thought was either; cool, funny, interesting, thought provoking, argument provoking along with whatever else he decided to post. So alot of the posts held little to no relevance to the paper and also made receiving notifications from the social media turn into you sifting through 30+ links a day to maybe find 1-2 that held relevance to you. God help us after Google Plus is shut down this year, because he will probably turn to the club penguin speed running forum. 

But the main reason I felt this paper wasn’t conducted properly and effectively was how terrible the lectures were. You will see my track record for attendance, and see it wasn’t very good. Now I wonder why that’s the case? The lectures I did go to turned to be a complete waste of time, the points he tried to talk about in them were confusing and not concise at all, (ironic due his feedback given to my presentation was the exact same) it was almost as if he had not planned out his classes at all, the speakers he brought in had little to no relevance to what most of us were doing and also he did not seem interested at all at filling out a tiny risk assessment form for us to all see the IBM building and in turn, all but 2 students missed out on going. This was the sort of basic stuff that I just assumed would be essential for a lecturer to posses. 

Even though I did have multiple problems with how the paper was run and marked by Laurent, I cannot fault what the papers freedom taught me and the future knowledge that I will have for my future studio papers and endeavours, so thanks, but please improve on the clarity of the paper, the communication of this paper and lastly please make your lectures more interesting.  

[matts4-blog1]

reflections on my pitch

Now that my pitch has been presented and I’m in a sense done with ITS, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect on how I thought the pitch went, and also reflect on what research and creating an Interactive Technology System has helped me learn in the big picture, in terms of relating it to my studio progression and also my wider life progression. 

Firstly, I can already say that I improved greatly on my “concise-ity”, and managed to finish the entire presentation with around two minutes and thirty seconds left. That to me really proved to myself and Laurent I hope that I took what happened in the first presentation seriously and worked hard in an attempt to rectify it. It wasn’t like there wasn’t a lack of content either, I managed to get across my big theories and reasoning behind every decision effectively. Even according to my peers whom I asked if I managed to be concise, all agreed and Josh mentioned that “In context, my definition was alot clearer and made more sense because of presenting the idea well”. This to me ensured that I had learned and built upon the learning point Laurent brought up for me. 

 Another thing I think I learned from the entire process of this pitch is , that thinking into the future is a healthy exercise. When we decide to look at what may be possible in the near future and base our thinking around that, rather than being completely grounded by the applicability or validity in the current global state/market, really helps to make a perspective of what might be possible and ensures that we kind of challenge perspectives instead of just carry on the same ones. Which also ties into a piece of feedback I got from Laurent regarding my pitch “There was no appraisal of ethics present”, I understand where he’s coming from and it makes complete sense to want to ensure that whatever we create is going to be of best interests to humans and the planet, but I don’t agree with the need of it being considered for a speculative project. In my opinion in order to gain any form of advancements, technologically or in thinking we must step away from pre existing thoughts and such to be able to focus purely on how we can progress our thinking further. So to me in the respect of ethical implications and reasoning, I made redundant and did not choose to include within my piece. 

Finally what I felt I learnt from my pitch is to ensure that you research your ideas with confidence and treat your ideas with respect. Doubting your ideas and “shooting yourself in the foot” as Laurent put it, has detrimental implications that as you progress further into research can produce. Whilst in the context of my first presentation I doubted my ability to explain my ideas with the class, I also continually doubted my research direction in respects to how it may have just been a complete tangent that didn’t really hold much relevance to ITS as a whole, now what I think I learned throughout was just trying to back myself and understand that whatever I thought about it still had relevance if I backed it up with critical thinking and analysis in a fair manner. 

So in conclusion I feel as if I have learned and built upon what I was told to work on through my first presentation and worked on it accordingly and effectively. 

[matts4-blog1]

philosophAR

philosophAR is the artefact that I’m going to pitch as the culmination of all of my research into the topic of ITS coupled with how I went about defining it. Utilising contemporary software and hardware and also speculative models of interactive design

Link to presentation

Using philosophy as the main area I took knowledge and inspiration from I felt it was only fitting to give it a name that enabled it to reference it and its relevancy to contemporary technologies. I tried to make sure that I used a combination of pre-existing technological frameworks in order to keep the project somewhat realistic, but didn’t limit it and used speculative concepts where it benefited the pieces ability to achieve its goal:

“ Feel how other people feel reality “

What is philosophAR?

philosophAR physically consists of two physical parts; The headset and the AR contact lenses. These two parts work with other assorted pieces of technology involved with data collection and analysis to provide as accurate a representation of someones reality as possible. These technologies include: a portable magnetoencephalography device, connection to computational neuro-chemical transmission/analysis device, smart lens technology (cameras that analyse your line of sight), heart rate monitors and eye tracking camera technology. Through the usage of all of these technologies we can start to receive as cohesive as possible outlook on how your reality might exist.

How does philosophAR work?

philosophAR analyses how the user reacts to certain stimuli and events during their day, and uses the data collected to start making informed judgements upon what certain things affect you and what that changes within you. From there philosophAR is able to start connecting-the-dots to how you think and cross references that with other data compiled from other users and existing knowledge bases. One philosophAR has started to understand your philosophical standpoint and how your brain acts, your viewpoint is then made actively available to be used by other users through AR.

I feel as if this idea effectively brings together elements of pre existing design and also speculative design elements in order to create an effective and thought provoking piece. 

[matts4-blog1]

speculative concepts

Still looking through the google plus community I thought it was a good idea to see what exists within the professional industry in terms of speculative design, to gauge how much they rely on pre-existing technologies to come up with their concepts, also to see how far they decide to go into the future and sort of “dream” about. 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/24/16126356/michelin-3d-printing-reinvent-the-wheel-driverless-age

One company that’s doing this is Michelin. They are trying to envision what the next type of tyre will look like and what properties it will seem to posses. This proposed tyre is said to be 3-D printed from bio-available resources such as orange peel and sugar stalks, be rimless, tireless and also reportedly last for “virtually ever”.

Looking at the ‘futuristic scope’ scope of this project, 3-D printing of objects already exists and the usage of biologically available materials to print with is also available, the airless concept is also nothing new. But the main point about these is that they haven’t been completely implemented into the mainstream consumer market. 

I feel like this is their main point about being a “speculative concept”, its kind of like Michelin saying imagine what the world would look like if we made this the new normal? Which really starts to skew what a speculative design concept really means, does it mean create new technology out of pre-existing frameworks? Or use existing technology to try and change the market in order to create something new, in a way, a new reality. 

So maybe there is no set definition on what they both are, maybe both ways of thinking lead to the same ultimatum, that whatever way in which you choose to think about it, these are the ideas that will attempt to shape and differentiate reality. Which is what I think I can get out of this piece that to have any purpose as a pitch or a piece, it has to in someway challenge and try to change how we perceive reality. 

[matts4-blog1]

orii ring

Another link I found in the google plus community that I thought would be interesting to look at and analyse how it tries to use a non-traditional form of wearable technology to it’s advantage, not only in the business market but also in the technological world. 

https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/17/orii-ring-ships-turning-your-finger-into-a-smartphone-speaker-and-mic/

This piece of technology enables the person to be able to use there fingers as a headphone and a microphone, which however gimmicky and not really too useful, in a way way helped me to start thinking about non-traditional ways in which I could use wearable pieces of technology to further help the data collection that my piece would need to undertake. 

For example a thought that emerged from this was to move the heart rate sensor that I had just assumed due to previous implications of that technology, to be located upon the wrist of the person, but I thought about it differently after being inspired by this piece and moved it to where the portable magnetoencephalography device would be located. On the head the most prominent area to check pulse is either the neck or the temple, so an easy adaptation that can be made is to include a heartbeat sensor on the temple unit that will be placed upon the head of the user.

However I may not like the actual design, nor the product at all, but it is still able to facilitate thought and help me to gain a better understanding of where contemporary technologies currently sit so I can ensure that I try to push those further with my pitch and look from a much more speculative approach.

[matts4-blog1]

body scanner - naked

I thought that it was most likely a good idea to gain a little bit more perspective about how everyone else was looking at how they were going to present their pitch and compare it to how I was going about it, so I went on to google plus and found a link that caught my attention

https://nakedlabs.com/

This piece of technology is a body scanner that enables you to step on the scales and be scanned, which provides you with some quantitative information about your current body status, which may help motivate and educate you more on how to shape your body to your desired outcome. 

And this form of body scanning took my eye as it was interesting to see how a computer system would discern which piece of thing they have scanned is fat, or muscle. Like for instance the classic BMI scale does not take this into account,  I’ve met people who are in peak physical condition, but with mass incorporated heavily into muscles, So according to the BMI scale they are labelled as overweight, not providing the person with any proper usable or effective data to really go by. But if this machine works as intended, it would be able to provide the user with useful results only now able to be fetched by going through a tedious measurement process. 

Back to the main point, if the machine is able to interpret the mass-object on a certain body type as being either fat or muscle using algorithmic methods, then it must to an extent be using its own coded perspective in order to judge what its nature is. It’s this coded perspective that really started to get me thinking and relating back to the coded perspective that will most likely have to be implemented or active within my own piece. Even if we make the perspective learn with the usage of machine learning/artificial intelligence, is its judgement still “accurate”? Does a computer have a subjective perspective? Is it’s judgement in anyway comparable to the likelihood of a humans perspective? 

These questions surrounding realities and the blurred line between AI’s realities really closely links into my studio learning too, where I am trying to analyse whether or not an AI’s interpretation of art is in anyway a piece of art in itself. But this also relates to my piece that I will be producing for my pitch, as what ever the piece analyses or looks at, even if informed by as much data as possible, will have to go through some sort of subjective analysis and come to a conclusion of what reaction to something means what. 

So in essence alot more research will have to be conducted in order for my pitches technology to be implemented realistically, but looking at the pre-existing technologies that are being created now such as the naked scanner, really boas well for the future of the research and development for those types of areas.

[matts4-blog1]

augmented reality contact lenses

As the title suggests, another technology I’ve been looking into that may have relevance to helping me solve the challenge posed by how hard it is to see other peoples realities, is augmented reality through a somewhat seamless medium. 

Using augmented reality through the use of contact lenses, the user doesn’t have to feel like they are just seeing a simulated “video game” which might be suggested through wearing a headset or goggles, also it might impair how you see everyday life, which would further disconnect you away from the idea of being inside a real persons reality.

I think that contact lenses are a very good way of implementing some of the best points found within augmented reality, like augmenting a reality rather than simulating one. Being a technology which is still in speculation, it’s interesting to try and think about how its possible implications could so greatly affect the end result of a piece like mine is turning out to look like. 

Augmented reality as a whole is already an affective medium which deals in mainly sight, which is regarded to most as their primary sense. But what I feel is much more important than just ‘seeing stuff’ is what the imagery seems to suggest to our minds.

In this interesting paper;  (Haynes, J. D., & Rees, G. (2006)), Haynes talks about how accurately you are now able to decode the conscious experience of the subject through neuro-imaging whilst showing the subject images. The seemingly sizeable amount of brain activity that seems to take place when shown even static images proves that the mind is strongly paired with imagery and what those images suggest to the brain. So it can be taken as quite a large influence on how peoples perspectives change. 

So how I could implement this technology into my piece is that I could integrate the non-intrusive nature of contact lenses to help the user feel other peoples realities and not just see them. Subtly changing the way the user sees, will change the entire imagery that is sent to the brain which in turn will help the brain feel different ways about the way it sees, thus creating a different point of view which is not there own, a different reality. This technology I think will be an integral part of the design for the piece as its power and subtle nature helps it to achieve its intended results effectively. 

Haynes, J. D., & Rees, G. (2006). Neuroimaging: decoding mental states from brain activity in humans. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7(7), 523.

[matts4-blog1]

magnetoencephalography

Yes that is a big word, so for this blog post I’m going to shorten it down to (MP). 

MP is a form of ‘brainwave activity measure-er’ that tracks magnetic differentiation within the brain on a millisecond to millisecond basis. By nature, the brain has electrochemical properties, which result in electrically charged ions running through the cell. That is essentially the basis of how neurons work, which means they can be mapped by analysing the active magnetic fields of the brain. 

This is what MP aims to do, and when paired with a CAT scan that can understand the ‘topography’ of the brain, you’re able to create accurate images of brain activity at any given time.

Differing lobes in the brain correlate to different sections of human function so when the MP scan is paired with that, we can understand in a rudimentary sense what the subject is thinking at that given time. 

This type of technology giving such an up to date image of how the brain works, is something that I feel would provide enough detail to be used in conjunction with other variables to produce a rudimentary depiction of a persons reality. 

The usage of this technology would help inform the piece on which areas of neurons are firing when subjected to a certain stimuli. For each person, the reaction to certain stimuli will be a little bit different, so pairing the measurements of as much data as possible will be paramount in how accurately the piece can capture the reality of the user. 

So in order to create a device that will actually be able analyse someones reality, I’ll need to try and utilise as many different types of data collection technologies possible and combine all the data with each other in order to even gain a basic understanding of how certain stimuli subjectively affect the subject, let alone understand fully how each persons subjective reality changes due to a certain stimuli 

http://ilabs.washington.edu/what-magnetoencephalography-meg

https://www.pinterest.nz/pin/333196072415693001/?lp=true

[matts4-blog1]

neurowear concept

I thought that a good idea to move forward into my pitch was to inform myself of the pre-existing concepts and technologies that seem to somewhat tackle the same problem. 

This concept is essentially a way to record and store significant memories of your day by measuring heart-rate and an unspecified type of “brainwaves” and capturing these with a camera. An implication that can be used with this technology is to share those memories with other people and let them know how you felt in that moment. 

Looking at what I talked about in my last post, I want people to feel other peoples realities, not just see them, so that you don’t have to deal with the limitations of communication. This piece has another direction as it is more focused upon seeing and storing “emotions”, not realities. The emphasis is upon the seeing aspect, I don’t think that just seeing something is an accurate depiction of someones entire reality so I think that the analysis of how the brain reacts to seeing something is of more importance in order to paint an accurate depiction of your reality. 

[matts4-blog1]

possible pitch ideas

I thought that it would be a pretty good idea to do a little brainstorm of a few relatively unprocessed thoughts of pitches I could make that would help the issue of how hard it is to show your reality.

Looking at the different ways I went about looking at it, there were two main ideologies that I looked at, that of the artistic perspective and that of the realistic. Both ways have their strengths and weaknesses, but I feel as if the direction that interested me the most was the realistic approach.

The way in which I begun to think about this in context was to show other peoples realities to you. This was just the logical approach to the original issue of how hard it is to see other peoples realities.

But then I reminisced about the limitations of language and how it inadvertently inhibited the true depiction of whatever you were explaining as it just isn’t able to fully express things.

So I thought, why just show you other peoples realities? When you can feel them, essentially completely immersing yourself inside of that persons reality. The way in which I thought of doing that firstly is by making a computer release different neuro-chemicals to make you think differently and act differently, and if enough data was gathered about someone else’s reality, that could essentially be emulated and simulated within your own.

This also perfectly ties into my definition of interaction; “  augment our own living experience. “ We are literally augmenting every single conceivable part of everything, the reality.

Now that to me sounds like a pitch-and-a-half, that enables me to use existing parts of technology and push my work out into non-existing fields of speculative design and speculative sciences.

[matts4-blog1]

how hard it is to show your reality

The reason philosophy exists and is such a prominent section of academia, is quite literally due to the lack of the answer to one question. What is life? 

As cliche as the question seems, it’s not an easy one to answer, maybe not even possible. 

But one thing is for certain, alot of people have tried to give their opinion and take on it, which is why the field of philosophy exists, for people to debate and criticise other peoples attempts at answering the seemingly impossible question, maybe hoping to somehow guide and facilitate great minds to come up with the answer. (Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994)). 

However even if an answer is concluded, and life’s description is a comprehensible definition, Anyone and everyone can still disagree due to something called subjective reality. (Gallimore, R., Goldenberg, C. N., & Weisner, T. S. (1993)).

As this video briefly touches on, subjective reality is essentially saying that everything in which you undergo and perceive, is everything that exists. Your “reality” encapsulates everything you experience, and the fact that it is based upon your experience makes that completely subjective and personal to you alone. This branch of philosophy is referred to as metaphysics. (T Taylor, R., & Seago, E. (1963)).

But one thing that is hard to really understand and grasp is that every human that has ever existed all have their own subjective realities. Which we may begin to understand how they “look” through maybe talking to them, or seeing art they produce. But we’ll never be able to fully grasp what it’s like to exist within their realities.  (Forrest, B. (1986)).

I came upon this recently when I was talking with my friend about a seemingly basic concept; “Does this food taste good?” 

But the further I thought into it, the more I realised how little he would be able to understand my reaction to it. This is due to multiple factors such as the difficult nature articulating exact feelings seems to posses, which from there you can start to see the limitations of our way of communicating with language, it will never be able to fully show people what you see and what your reality holds. 

This whole aspect of reality being indescribable is something I want to look into further and maybe even base my pitch around, next I think I want to just brainstorm some possible ways in which I could try to somehow tackle the problem of how hard it is to show your reality.

Taylor, R., & Seago, E. (1963). Metaphysics (pp. 42-45). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Gallimore, R., Goldenberg, C. N., & Weisner, T. S. (1993). The social construction and subjective reality of activity settings: Implications for community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 21(4), 537-560.

Forrest, B. (1986). Apprentice-participation: Methodology and the study of subjective reality. Urban Life, 14(4), 431-453.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is philosophy?. Columbia University Press.