thoughtsandtalks

Pad.ma is a web-based video archive, launched as a public website http://pad.ma in February 2009, that works primarily with footage and not finished films. Pad.ma’s interface offers some exciting new ways in which moving images, timelines, text and maps can be linked. It offers a practical technical and legal framework through which footage can be shared. It makes an appeal for thinking about film and video “production” in a number of different ways: as a filmmaker publishing video that is not a film, as a film editor organising footage using the archive, as a writer across one or many video clips, as a scholarly researcher or film student contributing notes or using links to clips as references, as a filmmaker reusing another’s material, as a programmer building further applications using pad.ma’s open source software base, for example.

Pad.ma a collaborative project initiated by five organizations: oil21.org from Berlin, the Alternative Law Forum from Bangalore, and three organisations from Mumbai: Majlis, Point of View and Chitrakarkhana/CAMP. The entire archive is searchable and viewable online, and is free to download for non-commercial purposes. This offline exhibition reveals the many potential ways in which pad.ma can be used.

The idea is to detect bio feedback of plants from the okno open_green, send these data from the garden (over a radio frequency connection) into okno_inside, transform them into generative music and stream them over the okno_radio.
After a collective brainstorm, different parts of the project are setup and worked out by different people. At the end everything fits into one project.
We discussed possibilities to measure subtle activities of plants and create a human/plant interaction. We discovered that all plants in the open_green are showing a highly complex biodynamic response to their environment.
We conducted experiments to try and find out how plants react to wind, air pressure, touch, light, movement, sound etc.

1. sensors:
We were experimenting with different sensors on stems, flowers and leaves observing data and biodynamic responses. First we looked into measuring the bio resistance of the plants. We tried to build a galvanometer based on the Backster experiments.
Simultaneously we were working with stretch sensors: long thin pieces of stretch fabric were attached to the sunflower stems. When the flowers move in the wind, the fabric becomes more or less resistive and generates different data.
We worked with all kinds of conductive and natural materials used for measuring variable resistance: stretch fabric / conductive thread / graphite / metal wool / foil / wire / and the plants themselves.
We decided to work with 2 data types: the Slow Input where plants are growing and moving, changing absorbation of light and temperature (plant as actor); and the Fast Input: drumming, touching, knocking, talking, rubbing and pressing the plants (using plant as interface).

2. alternative powering:
We put small 4.5V solarpanels in serie to power arduino’s and sensors.

3. wireless connections:
The data are send via an internal radio network. We configured Xbee Radios with Xbee Shield via Serial connection (USB). Each Xbee is given an address/name/destination via AT commands. The arduinos are programmed to handle the data.

4. sonification and streaming:
The numbers we are getting in from the garden are becoming parameters and generators of our open_green sound. The data coming out of the 14 analog input streams are sonified via Supercollider create a nice ‘zen-sound’.

music from sunflowers
# Artist: Isjtar
# Title: Music for Sunflowers
# Length: 4:46 minutes (10.59 MB)
# Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 311Kbps (VBR)

At the left hand a snapshot of the so-on_hive, populated with Buckfast bees. At the right hand, a snapshot of the okno_hive, populated with European Black bees.

The Buckfast bee is popular among beekeepers and is available from bee breeders in several parts of the world. Most of their qualities are very favorable. They are extremely gentle. Their main drawback is that they are very liberal in their application of propolis to inner surfaces of their hives, thus acting to defeat one of the main purposes of the modern beehive — that combs should be easily removable for inspection.
The European dark bee can be distinguished from other subspecies by their stocky body, abundant thoracal and sparse abdominal hair which is brown, and overall dark coloration; in nigra, there is also heavy dark pigmentation of the wings. Overall, when viewed from a distance, they should appear blackish, or in mellifera, rich dark brown. For breeding pure dark bees according to the standard, details of the wing veins are nowadays considered to be the only reliable distinguishing character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_bee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dark_bee

Part 1 of the Connected Domes-workshops, the building of Geodesic Domes out of recycled materials, will be held at OKNO from august 10th till august 14th.
The workshop will be facilitated by Dirk Hendrickx, co-founder of the artist collective Maquette.
Part 2 of the Connected Domes-workshops will be led by the media artists Audrey Samson (Rotterdam) and Stefanie Wuschitz (Vienna) and takes place from august 17 till august 21st.

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“Imagine living outdoors indoors in a transparant dome, picking organically grown vegetables right in your kitchen, sleeping in a bed under luxuriant trees, comfortable regardless of the weather outside.
Your autonomous garden home is heated and cooled by the sun, which also provides electricity and heats water.
…
Your Garden of Eden captures, treats, and recycles it’s own water.
…
the plants provide the oxygen-rich, clean air of a forest.
There is no connection to city power, water or sewage systems. It is truly organic architecture.”

Excerpt of Bucky Works, Buckminster Fuller’s Ideas for Today - by Jay Baldwin, co-founder of the Whole Earth Catalog.

During the month of august, so-on will organize for okno 2 workshops dealing with the topics of media ecology, mobile- and networked architecture.
Connected Domes #01 consists of building greenhouse geodesic domes out of recycled materials as there are: newspapers, scrap metal, twigs, bamboo …
Connected Domes #02 will populate the greenhouses with wild plants, sprouts shooting up out of homemade compost. The plants will act as a print, a mirror of the greenlife of so-on’s garden over the last year.

The plants will be powered and stuffed with sensors (touch, humidity, UV) and the 3 domes will be connected in a wireless network by arduino’s and xbees.
On the dome-structure recycled computer ventilators will be added to provide a gentle breeze to the leaves, as well as small solar panels and led lights to light up the domes at night.
A sonification of the gathered data via Maxmsp and PD will turn the connected domes into musical instruments.

Move for a Day is taking place during the Micronomics Festival in Brussels. Therefore some non-profit organiations, buisnesses and micro-initiatives will swap their work places with each other.

5 minutes movie made by Indymedia on the move1day-activities:

(click the image to link to the indymedia site).

More information can be downloaded on David Helbich’s blog.
A slideshow of the event we be presented at Micronomics festival.
More pictures about the Movie1Day-project:
http://thoughtsandtalks.so-on.be/photo-albums/, select move1day-album.

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GROUP EXHIBITION I SCREENING PROGRAM I PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS
LECTURES I WORKSHOPS I LIVE A/V PERFORMANCES

Upgrade! is an international, emerging network of autonomous nodes united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides. Its decentralized, non-hierarchical structure ensures that Upgrade! operates according to local interests and their available resources; and reflects current creative engagement with cutting edge technologies. While individual nodes present new media projects, engage in informal critique, and foster dialogue and collaboration between individual artists, Upgrade! International functions as an online, global network that gathers annually in different cities to meet one another, showcase local art, and work on the agenda for the following year. Upgrade! Brussels/Ghent is represented by Annemie Maes and Eva De Groote.

The 3rd Upgrade! International meeting Chain Reaction will take place in Skopje, Macedonia from September 11th to 14th, 2008. Growing from the Upgrade! International community, this event takes the form of a city-wide digital art and networked culture festival including exhibitions, screenings, live local and streamed performances and a program of critical and active lectures and workshops exploring numerous facets in the field of digital art. (more…)