Rob van Kranenburg on Fri, 13 Sep 2002 14:23:18 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Doors of Perception 7, on Flow |
A great strategy , "A great strategy can usually be diagrammed on the back of my business card, and has a single major point: It says what you are going to do to constructively alter the daily lives of millions of people. Unfortunately, the people who craft strategy usually aren't curious enough about peoples' everyday lives. Yet this is always the best starting place for true breakthroughs." Larry Keeley http://www.doblin.com/team/index.html In Wanderlust, a history of Walking, Rebecca Solnit writes: "When the ha-ha came into being in the early decades of the eighteenth century, the walls came down in Britain. A ditch relatively invisible from any distance, the ha-ha - so named because strollers were said to exclaim "Ha ha!" in surprise when they came upon it - provided an invisible barrier that allowed the garden's inhabitants to gaze into the distance uninterrupted." (Verso, 2001, p.88) Our contemporary architectural terrain gives us many opportunities to stop and exclaim "Ha ha!" The ability to read data as data is what makes new architectural challenges. What makes new beginnings of experiences of walking in public places is our camera's becoming smart. As face recognition software scans my features, and compares them to pictures in a database, a digital ditch relatively invisible from any distance, provides an invisible barrier that allowes the garden's inhabitants to gaze into the distance uninterrupted. The questions then are: who is in the garden, whom are they gazing at, and why? To be sure, Rudolf Arnheim claims in Thoughts on Art Education, "computations such as those performed by electronic devices do not need to do their own perceiving. They produce mere combinations of items, to which meaning is attributed from the outside. A computation mechanism cannot tell the difference between airplane reservations, chess games, or medical diagnosis. Thought processes worthy of the name go beyond mere computation. Inevitably, they rely on imagery, especially on vision." (Occasional Paper 2., The J.P. Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 16) What, however, if electronic devices do their own perceiving? And rely on vision? Are they becoming thought processes worthy of the name? In Smile, You're on In-Store Camera, Erik Baard describes how the web shopping process of following your customer every step of the way, might now become effectively used in an ordinary supermarket: "The algorithm looks for shapes of people and (passes) the same individual off from camera to camera by, for example, looking for a yellowcolor leaving the left side of one camera view to enter the overlapping right side of the next. " The algorithm is tuned with pressure-sensitive carpets. Neither Identix (formerly Visionics), nor the originator of the pressure-sensitive magic carpet, MIT Media Lab researcher Joe Paradisso, thought of these ways of using their work for tracking consumers: "I was thinking of music. I never thought about this for retail at all," said Paradisso, who has designed performance spaces where footsteps trigger bass or percussive sounds and torso, head and arm movements elicit higher, "twinkling" notes." What would be the effect of all these digital processes that chart all this physical data, in order to find out whether Paul is lingering over baby products for the very first time so tick the box 'upcoming parenthood' in the database that keeps his tracks? Would not the net effect be that it re-enacts the village store? Where everybody knows your name? And they're always glad you came? There is a tendency to think that we are going forward, going towards situations yet to be formed and discovered. This is governed by a teleology that is at odds with the way we seem to immerse ourselves in digital connectivity. You'd think we respond intuitively to something lost in the first place; our being grounded while being mobile, our being at home in various places and locations, our sense of ubiquity, of the ubiquity of signs and modes of experience that seems ever more natural, more human. The swiftness and speed of the communicative response to the digital, what can it be but the sensual recognition of our intrinsic abilities to experience thought and alchemistic (read: growth and change) processes directly and intuitively? Let us suggest for a moment that we are going backwards, an interesting proposition, that as it calls for a moratorium on moving towards defies the very idea of closure, as it calls for a moratorium on the making of things defies the very idea of process as a generic concept, as it calls for a moratorium on going forward defies the very idea of teleology. We are going backwards. We are recreating through what we perceive as technological devices our modes of experiencing communicative connectivities in various modes of intelligence. And if you think this has just the slightest esoteric whisper about it, check out what happens when you check in: "Federal aviation authorities and technology companies will soon begin testing a vast air security screening system designed to instantly pull together every passenger's travel history and living arrangements, plus a wealth of other personal and demographic information." Says Robert O'Harrow Jr. (Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 1, 2002) The government's plan is to "establish a computer network linking every reservation system in the United States to private and government databases. The network would use data-mining and predictive software to profile passenger activity and intuit obscure clues about potential threats, even before (italics mine) the scheduled day of flight." Note the extremities to which the designers will go to script serendipity into their profiling strategy: data-mining and predictive software and intuit obscure clues. Frank J. Murray, in the Washington Times (August 17, 2002 ) writes that NASA has requested Northwest Airlines to "turn over all of its computerized passenger data for July, August and September 2001 to incorporate in NASA's "passenger-screening testbed" that uses "threat-assessment software" to analyse such data, biometric facial recognition and "neuro-electric sensing." NASA is taking remote sensing to the limit; it plans to read terrorist's minds at airports, and since it cannot tell the terrorist from you at first glance, it plans to read yours too: "NASA wants to use "noninvasive neuro-electric sensors," imbedded in gates, to collect tiny electric signals that all brains and hearts transmit. Computers would apply statistical algorithms to correlate physiologic patterns with computerized data on travel routines, criminal background and credit information from "hundreds to thousands of data sources," NASA documents say. Note again the extremities to which the designers will go to script serendipity into their profiling strategy: statistical algorithms, physiologic patterns, computerized data from "hundreds to thousands of data sources". "We're close to the point where they can tell to an extent what you're thinking about by which part of the brain is activated, which is close to reading your mind." says Robert Park, a physics professor at the University of Maryland and spokesman for the American Physical Society. It would be terribly complicated to try to build a device that would read your mind as you walk by." The idea is plausible, he says, but frightening." (Washington Times, August 17, 2002) The ability to read data as data is what makes new beginnings. Reflect a while on what you bumped into, run up against, hit when you did not look. The ability to read data as data has become the top level skill. How else are you going to make sense of the serendipity that is scripted into your profiling strategies? It took me five years to figure out, to grasp, - understand - let me use the word resonate - these lines of Heraclitus: and I rephrase them in my own lines - "of all that which is dispersed haphazardly, the order is most beautiful." In the Fragments you read that these lines are incomprehensible as far as the Heraclitus scholars are concerned. They can not link it as a line of verse with other words in other lines in verse. I read it and in reading I knew it to be true. Knowing that only as experience is not very productive in a society that has no non-iconic medium for transmitting these kinds of experiences. In order to make this experience productive; read: make it politically viable and socially constructive - in order to find ways of transmitting, ways of teaching experiences like this - we textualise them. We find analogies, we read initial lines as metaphor, as metonomy. I went for a walk one day in the woods near =46., in the Belgian Ardennes. A beautiful walk it was, steep down, hued autumn colours, leaves fading into black. In the quiet meadow that we passed I saw autumn leaves, small twigs, pebbles sometimes - hurdled into the most beautiful of patterns by the strenght of water moving. I looked hard realizing there was indeed no other way of arranging them. I recognized leaves as data. I recognized data as data. And I recognized the inability to find a way to come to terms with Heraclitus' line without walking, without taking a stroll in the woods and look around you, look around you and find the strenght of streams arranging. The ability to read data as data is what makes new beginnings. Reflect a while on what you bumped into, run up against, hit when you did not look. You might find a new key math method: "Asked why he had the courage to work on a problem that had stymied so many, Dr. Agrawal replied in an e-mail message: " Ours was a completely new and unexplored approach. Consequently, it gave us hope that we might succeed." Or a new pattern in the woods. Or you might experience feelings and thoughts while looking at someone, using your very own noninvasive neuro-electric sensors. Go ahead and flirt! You best learn how to flirt with the neuro-electric sensing machine before it flirts with you. Links Smile, You're on In-Store Camera, Erik Baard http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,54078,00.html Indian Institute of Technology. http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in New Method Said to Solve Key Problem in Math, by Sara Robinson http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/08/science/08MATH.html Doors of Perception 7 Flow: the design challenge of pervasive computing 14,15,16 November 2002 Amsterdam http://flow.doorsofperception.com "Everything flows" said Heraclitus. But we have filled our world with complex technical systems - on top of the natural systems that were already here, and social/cultural ones that evolved over thousands of years - without thinking much about the consequences. Some of these consequences, as a result, include environmental decline and poor social quality. So we need to start thinking proactively about the design of complex systems and flows - particularly as we pervade the world with smart systems and ambient intelligence. What happens to society when there are hundreds of microchips for every man, woman and child on the planet - most of them (the chips) talking to each other? What are the implications of a world filled with sensors and actuators? What does 'the world as spread sheet' look like? What will it mean it to be 'always on' in a real-time economy? Some of the world's most insightful designers, thinkers and entrepreneurs will address these questions at Doors of Perception 7 in Amsterdam on 14, 15 and 16 November 2002.The theme of the celebrated international gathering is flow: the design challenge of pervasive computing. Confirmed Doors of Perception speakers are: TON VAN ASSELDONK (Netherlands) business advisor MICHAEL AWAD (Canada) architect/photographer JANINE BENYUS (USA) author ofBiomimicry: innovations inspired by nature BEN VAN BERKEL and CAROLINE BOS (Netherlands) UN Studio, architects PETER BOEGH ANDERSEN (Denmark) maritime instrumentation designer STEFANO BOERI (Italy) architect OLE BOUMAN (Netherlands) editor of Archis JOSHUA DAVIS (USA) web artist ADITYA DEV SOOD (India) Director Centre for Knowledge Societies, Bangalore LUIS FERN=C1NDEZ-GALIANO (Spain) authorFire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy FELICE FRANKEL (USA) Director Envisioning Science project at MIT J C HERZ (USA) CEO, Joystick Nation IVO JANSSEN (Netherlands) pianist NATALIE JEREMIJENKO (USA) Centre for Advanced Technology, NYU DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE (Canada) Director, The McLuhan Programme ROB VAN KRANENBURG (Netherlands) Flow editor, Doors of Perception EZIO MANZINI (Italy) Politecnico Milano, expert on sustainability and the design of services PATRICIA DE MARTELAERE (Belgium) philosopher, author of What Remains MALCOM McCULLOUGH (USA) author of Abstracting Craft FRANZISKA NORI (Italy/Gemany) curator ofI Love You at MAK Frankfurt DAVID ROKEBY (Canada) media artist ELLIE RUNCIE and GILL WILDMAN (UK) The Design Council MICHAEL SCHMIDT and TOKE NYGAARD (Denmark) K10K FELIX STALDER (CANADA) Co-founder of Openflows BRUCE STERLING (USA) writer MARCO SUSANI (Italy) director advanced concepts group at Motorola PHILIP TABOR (UK) former director, Bartlett School of Architecture JOHN THACKARA (UK) first Perceptron, Doors of Perception LARS ERIK HOLMQUIST, (Sweden) leader of the Future Applications Lab AXEL THALLEMER (Germany) Festo Corporate Design JAKUB WEJCHERT (Belgium) project managerThe Disappearing Computer Open Doors - Design Grand Prix Who has the most exciting, innovative and meaningful project for the future use of pervasive computing? To find out, we are staging an exciting special event at the end of Day 2: Open Doors Design Grand Prix. In quick-fire, five-minute presentations, 20 finalists - selected by our advisors from around the world - will present proposals for design scenario projects to a jury of experts. Doors of Perception Doors of Perception (Doors) brings together innovators, entrepreneurs, educators, and designers, who need to imagine alternative futures - sustainable ones - and take design steps to realize them. Our products are a better understanding of the design process; scenarios for services that meet emerging needs in new ways; and new connections and capabilities among innovative people and organisations. Contact details E: press@doorsofperception.com (Livia Ponzio) T: 00 31 20 596 3220 =46: 00 31 20 596 3202 W: http://flow.doorsofperception.com Subscribe to Doors' email newsletter at: http://www.doorsofperception.com "brilliant, innovative and cool=8Atrends that will mark design in the future" (Domus) -- D O O R S O F P E R C E P T I O N Wibauthuis, Wibautstraat 3, 1091 GH Amsterdam Tel +31 20 596 3220 Fax +31 20 596 3202 Email: doors7editor@doorsofperception.com http://www.doorsofperception.com http://simsim.rug.ac.be/staff/rob Are you on the Doors mailing list? Register at: http://www.doorsofperception.com/mailinglist # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net