Eccentric Interfaces

Day 1

Wetlands

considered solution for architectural problem in Australia

Evgeny Morozov

"Solutionism": an intellectual pathology that recognizes problems as problems based on just one criterion: whether they are "solvable" with a nice and clean technological solution at our disposal.

the idea is that technology can save us

think about technology as negotiations not solutions

cane toads vs. cane beetle

Fitness trackers; narratives that scaffold them: it’s gonna solve our fitness problems and make us better human beings.

Timothy Morton

Bruno Latour

Modernity’s premise is separation of nature and culture

Joseph Beuys, I love America and America loves me

(performance work)

made sure never step foot on america soil

went straight into the art gallery from the airport

spent time with coyote while he was there

coyote representing nature

Meghan Moebeitiks (2011) The Plant Was Present (performance work)

question this non-human entity

sat people in front of a plant and interaction with it

The Plant Sex Consultancy, Pei-Ying Lin, Dimitris Stamatis, Jasmina Weiss, Spela Petric

understanding endangered plants specie and how they reproduce

help them reproduce

recasting the sex pieces into those plans

Tega Brain

Keeping Time, 2014

using Jacaranda (flower), Sydney from 2002-2013

can we change flower patterns (in nature like) in a crowd source like Flickr?

our images are about how we see other species; collection bias; we only see them as they flower but not other times of the year.

Latour: environmental issues are not factual, but matters of concern

Bruno Latour

Matters of fact are not all that is given in experience. Matters of fact are only very partial and, I would argue, very polemical, very political renderings of matters of concern and only a subset of what could also be called states of affairs. It is this second empiricism, this return to the realist attitude, that I'd like to offer as the next task for the critically minded.

Anthropocene

Peter Dinkler (?) argued the moment chlorine gas used during WW as a profound change to our connection to the environment

fetishizing machines and using them to facilitate work that they're doing

ecological awareness

cognitive process

what shape do we want to give the world that we want to change?

ecology is material

Ecology is materials, and it is shaped by tech and narratives that we comes up with

Mental ecology is the ground zero of ecological thinking

how can we use design to shift our perception

Accessibility Icon Project, Sara Hendren, Brian, Glenney, Tim Ferguson-Sauder

give disabled people more empowering iconography

design over the original icons

design activism

street art crowdsource

All Watching Over by Machine of Loving Grace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_(TV_series)

a sense of collecting information and controlled task

of self controlling system - can we design a system that is manage itself (?)

a healthy ecosystem is imbalance

Biosphere (movie) -- Bio-dome (?)

attempt to make a close system and success to make an ecosystem

complete failure

the experiment is really going on the outside that we're partaking

we can manipulate the environment with known variable

Tim morton we should think ecology like an languages

we call things units and still calling ecosystem

Interspecies relationship

vermin/roach poisoning on the opposite side of pet food

The City Wilderness Trail, Tega Brain

Sydney 2012

Brisbane 2016

create signs to show species and enviornment

The Human/Bat Drama

Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens

flying foxes colony in Sydney Botanic Garden

indigenous species being pushed out

bats are pollinator for a particular eucalyptus tree

what value do we place on this particular specie?

How we quantify value? What services does flying fox provide?

The Pollination Service 2011 (vimeo)

Tega Brain

human pollination in place of flying foxes to pollinate the indigenous trees?

What would it cost for an “urban pollinators” to pollinate street trees?

Natalie Jeremijenko, The Phenology Clock, 2014

Blacki Migliozzi and Jake Richardson

http://environmental

Flowering Patterns of 20 Species of Myrtaceous in NSW

using above project to showcase time in flower patterns

what time looks like with not the time we are used to using from technology that we're used to sync train schedule, etc?

Karen Bared, 2007

To be entangled is not simply to be intertwine with another, as in the joining of separate entities, but to lack an independent, self contained existence. Existence is not an individual affair

how to value a species or a natural system?

what is it's value to us?

heart of social sustainability

intrinsic value

deep ecology

we need to change who we are as human?

We need to have less kids and stop understanding ourselves

ecocentric

anthropocene

instrumental value

environmental economics

Instead of design as solution

think of design as unstable problematic way

Krzysztof Wodiczko, Homeless Vehicle 1988

drawing attention to the issue and addressing it someway

Interrogative Design

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby,

Technological Dream Series: No.1, Robots, 2007

critical design

how can we design for different things (?)

Critical Information Structures

Natalie Jerjijenko, Treelogic

what is information?

using trees to use as environmental visualization

tree try to realign themselves to the sun as they are growing upside down

Critical Engineering

Julian Oliver, Danja Vasiliev and Gordan Savicic, Men in Grey, 2009-2014

how does mail get to you vs e-mail?

physical vs opaque system

Lab 0

Sensing : Inputs

smart citizen kits

particle

^ play nicely with the internet (2 above)

why do we care?

can be a little bit of hiccup

moderation is easy through wireless

battery life

latency

encryption / security

E.g.7: Tega wanted to monitor how much power a building is using to separate the data using wifi. Otherwise, have to set up your own wire and network.

arduino

^ heavier lifting for internet

positive / negative?

Moor's law

Micro control

Arduino came and change and open sourced

allowed non-engineers and programers to freely do things without having in-depth knowledge as they do

What is a microcontroller?

How many micro controllers do you think are around you right now?

speakers, projectors, refrigerator, laptops

Analog vs digital sensor?

button - pressing or not pressing it?

Analog

eg. photo cell -- teeny how much light does it get?

how long you touch? 0 to 255

need a range of value

things that goes up and down

Digital

yes no interaction / binary -- 0, 1

Example

iphone touch

straight button

outlet switch

Arduino

great documentation -flexible sensors integration + calibration --------- talks Arduino

wireless --------- solar cell integration / battery pack

sensors -> simple data --------- physical computing -> Processing -ease of communication --------- computer

open source --------- development

documentation --------- :)

5 min sensor research: Breakout

What do people connect to the particle?

How do they communicate with it?

https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/examples/photon/

https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/start/photon/

http://community.particle.io/

https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/start/photon/

https://ifttt.com/wtf

using particle to create a frustration button and if pressed it took a screenshot of your computer of what you're working on

Particle

great documentation -0 ~~multiple~~ sensors integrated + calibrated --------- simliar to ~~can talks~~ Arduino

WiFi Enabled --------- dongle / explore range ~~/ remote capture~~

wireless --------- ~~solar cell/~~ battery pack

sensors -> simple ~~rich~~ data -> API --------- physical computing ~~visual programming~~ -ease of communication --------- Particle-Particle, Particle - IFTTT)

open source --------- in development

platform-specific IDE --------- similar to Arduino

code deployed over WiFi --------- local IDE + dashboard to monitor code

don't have to be on the same wifi network

uses 3.3 volt

Smart Citizen Sensor

meant to promote citizens to capture data from their environment

Patch Bay

pull data down

haque

patchube

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/energy/environment/radiation-monitoring-in-japan-goes-diy

as a citizen we can contest the data being release by the government

Public Lab

develop environmental

https://publiclab.org/

diy spectrometer

is this technology open source?

how does our understanding of the environment change if we build about from ground up?

Information is political

science doesn't have a monopoly on truth -empirical and experimental strategies are not only available to those in the domain of science but also available to those in the domain of science but also available to the artist to explore how we understand the world

5 min research: breakout

What does the SCK (Smart Citizen Kit) measure and in what units?

How does the SCK use data processing to calibrate the readings

Where is each sensor on the board?

https://docs.smartcitizen.me/#/start/how-to-store-data-in-your-own-database

https://forum.smartcitizen.me/

http://developer.smartcitizen.me/#summary

https://smartcitizen.me/

Smart Citizen Kit

multiple sensors integrated + calibrated --------- can talks Arduino

WiFi Enabled --------- dongle / explore range / remote capture

wireless --------- solar cell / battery pack

sensors -> rich data -> API --------- visual programming (p5.js, d3.js)

global presence --------- :)

open source --------- in development

data delivered in json

it's all local

Arduino

Smart Citizen

sent over via API

broken down into JSON

Particle

sent over via API

connect sensor to it, send particle code, give me their values

ask to publish their value which it will -- can only get that value, can get more into simple sensor

can get complex JSON

tomorrow

sensing: inputs ---> data online --->

What does each device do?

platform access

resources familiarity

Particle

web based IDE

downfall: assume perfect WiFi connection

Day 2

Guest lecture by Rasmus Vincentz from Habitats (habitats.dk)

Traditionally a lot of money is spent on maintaining quite low quality green areas. Perhaps out of habit. Low quality meaning low diversity and kind of boring, e.g. flat lawn.

Habitats tried to introduce the idea of biodiversity to Cph municipality. City municipality biologist said: yes we would like to have it wilder ourselves, not just green lawn, but people start to complain when stuff grows more that they got used to.

Ok, then this is communication issue. Hence campaign “willfully wild” - sign saying "Vild med vilje"

In a patch size of a room, when they let the grass grow, they found 60 different plants — not just grass. Next year again 60, but 10 of them were different.

View on ecosystems as service providers.

Wetlands areas works as sewage and drainage systems as well as noise reduction (better than flat lawn), air pollution reduction.

People buy what’s good for them. They also buy stories sometimes.

Maybe you, as a housing company, spend some money on redesigning, but then you get all this value (residents' wellbeing) and also lower maintenance cost. Habitats started to sell projects in this frame.

Dead trees are usually removed asap; however they are host to insects and thus death promotes life. Habitats made a land art piece showing it in front of Kildevældskirke.

It doesn’t necessarily pay off to bring back biodiversity to an area which was devoid of it. But perhaps it should be done for intrinsic reasons.

The Copenhagen Model

How do we make 300 project in such a way that not also fix stormwater issues but also promotes all other amenities and utilities?

They (overall project owners, whoever it is) really insist that for each of 300 projects this model is used as a foundation, not just an inspiration.

Kitchen garden patches are not particularly interesting per se. Yes it’s good to have them, and they are included in projects when relevant, but it is more interesting to see how you can create a wild area where you can also harvest, than an area exclusively for harvesting.