Simple Rendering Complex

Some of my recent work has attempted to create and/or organize simple objects with complex behavior. My beginning investigations have been personal explorations to derive rules and “feelings” by using simple algorithmic ideas and combinations. What I ended up creating is a problematic, inflexible, and non-scalable solution that scratched a rather large surface in creating objects which change over time.

Clay Shirky was kind enough to recommend an excellent online resource on one dimensional cellular autonomy entitled A New Kind of Science. Its a rather fantastic, and easy read into shallow explorations of simple objects rendering complex aggregate information.

Throughout the text, Stephen Wolfram explains concepts of cellular autonomy, and then approaches mobile autonomy as well as turing machines. What fascinated me about each of these systems, is the simplicity of each simple object used in his demonstrations. Also, his concept revolves around the notion that you need to use information of surrounding objects to determine the future state of that object.

This concept blends well with the complexity of networks, in that network’s complexities scale exponentially by the number of nodes, as each node attempts to connect with every other node (n * n, etc). In the same way, some of the examples explored by Wolfram have very limited results, because their amount of connections are limited, but when given a broader ruleset or the ability to change those rulesets based on second order rulesets, the chance of new relationships becomes much more achievable.

My curiosity is overflowing, with combinations and iterations that could be explored through these explorations in relation to other ideas I hope to combine: decay, performance, ephemera, and interaction with real life just to name a few. The inate connection between these concepts and networks also intrigues me, as I can see how each of these objects can be effected by others in close proximity. Exploring which of these “nodes” in the network are artificial, and which are human beings, may render some magnificent connections and new content, that is interesting to viewers as well as members of the nodes.

Additional Links
Mobile Automata
Turing Machines - 1 | 2

Bird Networks - Initial Inquiry

My parents are avid birders. I mean that in the most passionate of ways in which you can classify the word. In light of the recent avian flu scares and speculation, I’ve been imploring my father in his expert knowledge of the subject.

This flu scare has me wondering, what kind of network patterns are found in relation to different species of migratory bird patterns which cross over each other. For example, if the avian flu spreads to a certain type of swallow, which migrates over an existing group of robins that are in their own unique route, will the flu be more easily transferred between them? Additionally, if it was necessary for a bird-based solution to be sought out to cure this epidemic, could it be accomplished by finding the most socially intersecting bird species and give them the appropriate drugs or catalysts?

Many of these questions lead me to the overall questions that network theory hopes to explore. Concepts revolving around intersecting boundaries and relationships between small groups and large populations.

To further explore these concepts, I am curious in sculpting content from the large database of bird data in the cornell system, to visualize some of these concepts in more detail.

These concepts root themselves in ideas surrounding my thesis. What if scattered rulesets have some sort of connection with each other? If these different concepts were able to model characteristics in one dimensional algorithmic instrument or artifact, perhaps the aggregate of many of these in relation to each other would render unique and intriquing outcome. This is yet another vein in this area of interest I plan on exploring further.

Composition, Decay, Performance

The last few days have been eventful in solidifying certain parts and pieces of this strange cloud I wish to explore. A piece on display at the ITP Winter Show entitled “Death of Sound” was the beginning of my construction of objects with lifespans. As an introduction into this arena, I felt that I learned a lot about what not to do, and what to explore more fully.

First of all, I really have to think about WHAT and HOW these pieces will be installed, exhibited, or performed. Its one thing to create an object which decays and eventually dies, but in a setting like the ITP Winter Show, its not that simple. People aren’t there to view a performance, nor is a coordinated effort possible for such a task, as people come in at different times, and there’s no large venue for performance in that space. Because of this, the primary concept of my piece was taken away (by myself) for the sake of the listener’s ability to hear a snippet of the sound at large, rather than a glimpse at a performance I would much rather they experienced in full.

Secondly, I need to explore the differences in decay, from physical decay, electronic decay, operational decay, software decay. I barely scratched a rather large surface in exploring decay in this piece. I need to step back, explore decay with simple objects, and then let them decay next to each other, juxtaposing the differences in perception viewers may experience between them.

So, beyond things in regard of decay, I’d like to expand these concepts into my other trains of thought, those primarily revolving around networks of objects with their real counterparts. Not only do these objects need information about their other brothers and sisters, but relationships between the objects and the viewers are crucial to my connection between the life I’m hoping to instill in these objects which hopefully will attach itself to the life of the individuals exploring the devices.

Hopefully, some analogies will be formed that would not be possible otherwise.

Case Study: Youth Summit

Idaho Youth Summit is a yearly conference, held in two locations in Idaho during the month of June.

This is an exploration of network theory in relation to this conference, and a beginning investigation into how the conference could be augmented for long-lasting connections and relationship building.

Read the pdf.

HPWM

Here’s a simple piece of code for using Hardware Pulse Width Modulation on a PIC 18F452. There are two HPWM pins on this particular pic, both of which you enable with registers, and then use the PicBasic Pro commands to use.

Download the Code