PHYSICAL COMPUTING
Spring 2012
Instructors: Ken Howell and Al Larsen
SCHEDULE:
Week 1 - 1/10
- art & technology
- basic electronics
- for next week read:
Week 2 - 1/17
- basic electronics pt 2
- ICs and Digital Logic Circuits
- hands on:
- photoresistors, switches
- timer circuit/oscillators
- for next week read:
- "Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art" –Shanken (pdf)
- "Interactivity and Agency in Real Time Systems" - Jo Anne Green (pdf)
- excerpt about SEEK (1970, N. Negroponte and MIT Architecture Machine Group)- Benthall (pdf)
- slide show on SEEK (link)
- Murmur Study (2009, Christopher Baker et. al)
- more photos (link)
- News (1969, Hans Haacke) (clip)
Week 3 - 1/24
- for next week:
- Read: “The Origin and Development of Robotic Art” – Eduardo Kac (pdf or website)
- choose one project or artist discussed and do further reading
- "If artists working with or interested in robotics cannot ignore mythological, literary, or industrial definitions of robots and artificial life forms, it is also true that these definitions do not directly apply to any given robotic art work [5]. Each artist explores robotics in particular ways, developing strategies that often hybridize robots with other media, systems, contexts, and life forms."
-
The fascination robots exert on the population at large has unexplored social, political, and emotional implications. These implications must be coupled, if they are to be properly understood in the contemporary art context, with the new aesthetic dimension of modeling behavior (the artist creates not only form but the actions and reactions of the robot in response to external or internal stimuli) and developing unprecedented interactive communicative scenarios in physical or telematic spaces (the object "perceives" the viewer and the environment).
- 3 directions...
- electronic creatures ("robotic art")
- Paik - K456... caricature
- a combination of organic and electronic ("cybernetic art")
- Shannon - Squat interaction of organic and inorganic systems...
- Ihnatowicz - Senster
- "Responding to motions and sounds within one or two seconds, The Senster gently moved its head towards quieter and more subtle viewers. Loud and agitated viewers saw the creature shy away and protect itself from any harm. In its sensual, and apparently intelligent behavior, the piece was very engaging to a wide audience."
- the remote projection of a human subject onto a telerobot ("telepresence art")
- "coupling robotics and telecommunications into new forms of communicative experiences that enable participants to project their presence into a geographically distant place."
- X-Space - Winke, Winke (1993)
-
- Ken Goldberg et al.- TeleGarden (1995)
-
Week 4 - 1/31
- discuss “The Origin and Development of Robotic Art” – Eduardo Kac-
- intro to micro-controllers
- intro to Arduino development environment
- programming - BLINK
- arduino script required elements: setup(), loop()
- saving, adding files/tabs
- variables, logic/flow
- debugging w/ serial out
- delay();
- SWITCH INPUT
- potentipometer input
- time allowing... using 3-color LEDs
- for next week - read: Steve Mann - "Sousveillance and Cyborglogs" (link - click through for full text PDF)
Week 5 - 2/7
discussing Steve Mann article, technical demos
Week 6 - 2/14
motor demo, sensor demos, discussing project ideas
Week 7 - 2/21
- more w/ motors
- lab time
- for next week - read:
- Nancy Paterson - "The Stock Market Skirt" PDF
- Lynn Hershamn-Leeson - "The Raw Data Diet" PDF
Week 8 - 2/28
Week 9 - 3/5
SPRING BREAK - NO CLASS
Week 10 - 3/12
LAB DAY
Week 11 - 3/19
- for next week - read:
- SiReBi - speculative bio-sensing projects - SITE
read several and choose one that interests you.
be prepared to discuss:
what sensing technologies are at play?
what are the other important elements of the project?
discuss in terms of the proposal's social, organizational, aesthetic, educational or information-processing orientation