Social Hardware

The 3d printer receives its printing data from the internet and is controlled wirelessly via self designed zigbee modules. The plastic printing itself is done by a reprap plastic extruder.  More info to come soon.

The standalone version has an Avr to process the mobile signals and send it via USB to a PC. On the PC I developed an application that examines the incoming waveform and uses a Baysian learning algorithm to decide whether or not a phone has been detected. The Bubble Finder device was used in a visualization project called "EMF EFX" for HCI Korea.

     As the technologies of electronic communications and entertainment are on  the incline, conversely social interaction and community have been on the decline. Particularly on the decline are interactions among people in local communities such as apartment buildings and neighborhoods. The one type of community that is an exception to this trend and has seen a lot of recent growth are online communities. In following with these trends this project uses the electronic medium of a chat-room which allows people to use the communication tools they are becoming more comfortable with, in order to build relationships in their local community. By combining a wireless local area network with a chat-room interface the usually anonymous users of the network are brought together into a communal social space. While the users of the network can choose whether or not they want to participate in discussion in the chat-room, their presences on the network can be seen by all the other users. This creates the physical analogy of sitting together in a room, with some people participating in a conversation and other people keeping to themselves. In addition to this, the use of mesh networking will allow local networks to spread geographically, each new wireless router connected to the network will create a new chat room that any user on the network can join. This provides a means for people in an increasingly large local area to interact and possibly get to know one another. The project also allows for the owner of the wireless network to easily control the usage of their network both through technical and social solutions. Personalizing the network by transforming it into a social environment creates a situation where people are less likely to abuse the resource provided by that individual. Supplying a way to see who is using your network and the ability to talk to them, allows for ”stealing” wireless to become ”borrowing” wireless. User testing of the prototype has shown significant promise in building community among neighbors. Based on these results, deploying this project into a potential community environment such as a large apartment building, could eventually foster a strong sense of community among the occupants. 

Project Site

The substance that we use is a nontoxic invisible contamination simulation powder. This powder, when placed on objects, or people, is easily transferable to other things that come into contact with it. When the powder is exposed to UV light, it becomes visible, in bright fluorescent colors. There will be a few who individuals coat their hands with this powder, each in a different color, at the beginning of the day. These few artists play the role in society as a starter and transmitter of the social virus of ideas. Then through out the day, these people "network" with the other people at VersionFest 04, leaving their own colored residue on everyone they interact with, and those people who have interacted with them intern pass on the colored residue to others. Thus potentially by the end of the day, almost everyone could be carrying some of this colored powder on their body. During this time we will set up a booth where people can come and see if they have become part of a social network, and which social network they are part of. Some people or possibly many people may even have multiple colors on their hands, depending on just how social they are.

During the transmission process, there are different kinds of social interaction involved consequentially or inconsequentially. It symbolizes that artists and audiences
presence and participation as performers whether they know or not.

As a result of this performance, thevisual map of spread vector will show the a multi-layered spectrum of physical/virtual or online/offline networked systems through which social interaction is taking place in real time.

When we started to develop this project we had few questions about time: why and how do people feel that time passes at different rates? Is time personal and indeterminate? What is it that makes time past differently for different ages, generations? The final and most important question that our piece focuses on is "Can we change our perception of time? The users sits inside of an eight foot geodesic sphere, and see multiple images of themselves projected on to the inner walls of the sphere. Each image in the sequence of multiple images is slightly delayed from the previous. The users controls this amount of delay between the processing time of our own audio/visul synthesis program and their biofeedback frequency. By creating a feedback loop between the users perception of time and their biofeedback frequency, they can create their own ambient sound system. It is synchronized with real-time video images which are delayed by the users' biofeedback frequency. In effect allowing the user to understand the way that the brain dictates how we perceive the passage of time moment to moment, and just how relative it can be.
               
               * special thanks to Rob Drinkwater and Wayne Whibley Wooden Boats.

The way it works is a person shows up on the chat "buddy list" or social network only if you are on the same wireless node (router/hub). The software includes peer to peer file transfer ,chat, and system administrator features . Social soup can be used as a downloaded application or a java applet run in the browser attached to a wireless login page (captive portal). Social Soup allows people to potentially "administer" a wireless node through giving the owner of the wireless router extra privileges, such as the ability to ban other users, restrict bandwidth or set time limits. The administrator or normal user can also use it to trade files and chat with people around you. This project uses java to make it universally compatible with all OS's and takes advantage of Zero config peer to peer networking so that there is no central server necessary, allowing for instantaneous ad hoc chat and file trading local networks.

The way it works is the pillow itself is the telephone, and you dial by pressing the soft buttons on the surface of the pillow, and you can pick up and hang up by flipping over the pillow. When the pillow phone rings there are soft flashing lights that illuminate the numbers on the phone. You can talk into it by lying on the pillow and speaking in a normal tone of voice. The pillow phone can also pair with another pillow phone, to monitor and indicate the sleeping or awake status of the owner of the other pillow phone.

Makiko Saito (aka makomoo) and Noah Shibley (aka Wizard) studying at Interactive Telecommunications Program, New York University were interested in its interactivity and extended an existing MOO server for our experimental storytelling environment.

By sending a text message to mobotag, with your city location, you begin a interactive tour of a neighborhood. Using a unique geocoding feature, mobotag tells you what other messages exist in your local area.

mobotag was developed by Marta Lwin while attending ITP at New York University. Originally inspired by the notion of virtual tags placed around NYC for a personal project, Marta Lwin developed the mobotag platform. Quickly realizing mobotag could be used by everyone, she decided to make mobotag an public project. Noah Shibley joined mobotag in Fall 2005. Mobotag is currently developing new art projects which will launch this year.

Technical Plan: The Project will consist of two fish tanks with real water, but instead of the fish tanks containing goldfish they will be empty. The goldfish will be "virtual" goldfish projected down into the tanks from a video projector. Using a plastic net, catching a fish will involve just the right location,speed,and angle. In order to calculate all these variables there will be a web-camera tracking the movements of the net to an approximate location, then for the finer measurements of angle and speed the net contains an accelerometer, which will communicate with the computer via wireless communications. When a player catches a fish there will be a force-feedback vibration pack, to give them an accurate feeling of the struggling fish.