Rousseau's Reveries of the Solitary Walker

I'm planning on using a similar structure to Rousseau's "Reveries" to pull together my thesis into a book. I'll reflect on a series of walks and my train of thought during those walks and embellish that with the research I've already completed and the experiments to come from annexLAB ...

next...(?)

i have an idea for a responsive space installation that i'd like to do for my thesis ...

the idea is a bit fuzzy right now - it involves a simple surface, probably textile, some arduinos, pressure sensors, light sensors, etc and a bunch of servos to manipulate the shape of the surface in response to occupation, holding over a trace of each occupant over time.

i'm studying the act of walking as a representation of occupation - trying to work out what energy/information/materials are available to the building-organism as a result of occupation (as a result of a person walking in a space).  i'm using grashopper/rhino to model those exchanges (kind-of) using the GPS tracks collected in the pedestrian survey a few weeks back as hard data to experiment with. i imagine that those experiments will inform the interactions in the installation.

an update

at the moment i'm thinking about neoteny (the juvenile part of life - lanier talks about this towards the end of `you are not a gadget`) and how cultural neotany is both conservative (a generation displays juvenile characteristics longer, conserving their status as cuturally dominant) and radical/experimental (characteristics of juvenalia).  i feel that i (and my immediate peers) occupy a strange middle ground between a generation who's identity was formed in web 2.0 and a generation who's identity was formed before the internet.  we are both deeply nostalgic for reality (a newpaper made of paper which exists for a time and occupies space in our lives - stories which disappear in an instant online lay on your kitchen table, in your recycling bin, on your floor catching paint or lining a litterbox for weeks or years or...you get the idea) we are nostagic for materiality at the same time as we are seduced by the web and excited and inspired by the possibilities emerging from new methods of computation and new ways of thinking about order and organization (and truth?).

i'm thinking about how my generation, how i have a job to do - making sure that i find ways to express the feelings i miss in virtual reality: the things i am nostalgic for (already), the things/experiences that i identify with and value, finding ways to create (send/receive) feelings at least as good/interesting/complex/complete as those to pass on, as new nostalgias (things experienced) to those coming up after us, at lightning speed and slow as snails.

on my list today is to look at borges "on exactitude and science" and record a bit more poodcast.

also on my list today is to try a few modeling ideas with my new skills in grashopper/rhino

dreaming

What happens when there is no occupant?  The building dreams - processing information gathered in novel ways - a private enterprise.
(perhaps one could be privy to these dreams if one tiptoed quietly into the space so as not to disturb its sleep)

history of walking + architecture AND cartography

also: you are not a gadget

somewhere to start looking at cartography: thematic cartography (eg. james snow's cholera map - below).

regarding walking: rebecca solnit (i went online book shopping).

Mapping the Campus (using locative technologies) - a sketch of a proposal

Using an iPhone, combine GPS and accelerometer data (standard in the iPhone) to trace in 4D the paths of people (graduate students in architecture) exploring main campus, taking photos (on the iPhone), sketching (on the iPad???), and writing about what they sense and what “senses” them. (Pick a couple of useful applications already in existence for blogging and photographing with geo-tagging (i've heard Breadcrumbs is a good start), and write a program in Processing (a software good for this sort of thing – interactive computer-mediated environments designed by artsy types) to collect the GPS and accelerometer info and map it (with a decay function built-in i.e., the lines disappear over time) – unless an application doing that already exists, too.

Data is streamed into a map-blog which plots the paths followed, and represents associated information (text, photos, sketches) as pins/links/banners. The spatial (locative) data must be formatted in such a way as to be able to be integrated into a sketchup model. (**for later: Including a pin indicating the map-blog reader's current position would permit that user to orient themselves and find any place that had already been visited and “posted.” A search mechanism would be necessary (something like google earth, in spatial organization (the zooming in-and-out), or mapquest but rather than searching for an address a keyword search (like evernote, searches text, tags, AND PICTURES) would be best.)

A field of beacons of some sort – pylons with a multicoloured/dimming light might do, maybe a screen, a touchscreen, an (iPad???) – could also re-present some/all of the data, disseminating collected info and advertising the available resource.

This could be a stand-alone project as research for the wayfinding system design (narrative, photographic (and possibly occupation) data and 3D modeled paths – with some degree of accuracy, not likely a perfect model, but one that offers a frame on which to hang more detailed models), or it could be incorporated into the final signage design and become a self-renewing wayfinding resource (a student would have to agree to broadcast their location and other privacy concerns would have to be addressed). Incorporation of this system into the final product would also potentially provide a platform for all sorts of spatial research in the School of Architecture and other faculties: students could write their own applications for the iPhone and advertise approved projects through the wayfinding system and/or draw data from the wayfinding website.

COMMENTS? IDEAS? i'd love to hear from you all about this

playing with the arduino

so i took the responsive architectures workshops offered here a couple of weeks back.  i bought a couple of arduinos and electronic brick starter kits.  i am in the process of developing an "insult machine" (more to come...) and found myself short of pins (pins can each control something, like a button, a switch, a potentiometer (the rotary dial), etc.).  so i went to toronto and bought something called a multiplexer ($2.80), which, using 5 pins from the arduino, allows you to control up to 16 pins (basically, you can do MORE with one arduino)
to use the multiplexer i must move from the safety of the electronic bricks to the wilds of the breadboard (what is a breadboard?). ($4.95 - $9.80 depending on the size, plus $0.35 per wire - i spent about $20 on wire)

the multiplexers details are: 16ch analog, #4607 from creatron
i got one working (after about two days, some help from Brandon DeHart and Phillip Beesley)
here is a diagram, a picture and the code to blink an LED on pin y8 (pin 23 on the multiplexer).

the only downside so far is that light doesn’t blink very brightly…any suggestions?

here is a diagram and a pic and the code:

/*
16 Channel Analog Extender for Arduino
*/

// Set Analog I/O pin to use for reading channel values from multiplexer.
int ComIOpin = 6;  // HEF4067BP(X)(ICpin-01)

// Set which pins tell the multiplexer which input to read from.
int DpinA0 = 10;  // HEF4067BP Address Input A0 (A)(ICpin-10)
int DpinA1 = 11;  // HEF4067BP Address Input A1 (B)(ICpin-11)
int DpinA2 = 12;  // HEF4067BP Address Input A2 (C)(ICpin-14)
int DpinA3 = 13;  // HEF4067BP Address Input A3 (D)(ICpin-13)

void setup() {

// Set the digital pins to outputs.
pinMode(DpinA0, OUTPUT);  // HEF4067BP Address Input A = pin10
pinMode(DpinA1, OUTPUT);  // HEF4067BP Address Input B = pin11
pinMode(DpinA2, OUTPUT);  // HEF4067BP Address Input C = pin12
pinMode(DpinA3, OUTPUT);  // HEF4067BP Address Input D = pin13
Serial.begin(9600); // Set Serial COM
}

void loop() {
digitalWrite(DpinA0, LOW);
digitalWrite(DpinA1, LOW);
digitalWrite(DpinA2, LOW);
digitalWrite(DpinA3, HIGH);
analogWrite(ComIOpin, HIGH);
delay(500);
digitalWrite(DpinA0, LOW);
digitalWrite(DpinA1, LOW);
digitalWrite(DpinA2, LOW);
digitalWrite(DpinA3, HIGH);
analogWrite(ComIOpin, LOW);
delay(500);
}

a working wall

i've spent the day working on a wall of images...sometimes posting what i am working on helps me get out of a funk...the act of placing images on the wall helps me to think and see patterns and gaps in my work. 12x12 is still offline, though some participation is still occurring. i will do some videoing by hand tomorrow and sunday. i don't think my thesis is about emergence...maybe it is about amplification, or tuning a social space. maybe it is about a parking lot/square. maybe it is about gentrification. maybe it is just about seeing...participating... it is about a question of spatial determinism...about the relationship between space and behavior...the affordance of architectural elements... it is about language, signs, meaning it is about the group and the role of space in the formation of the group and in the wisdom of the group

collecting/analyzing

copy paste collage collect the analysis is missing...in this thesis just a note, to myself