amour-propre from chris gruggen on Vimeo.
Amour-propre is an interactive new media art installation based on French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s concept of the same name. The piece enables two participants to communicate in a telepresent mode using their heartbeats and two CRT televisions. The two TVs, connected to heart-rate monitoring devices that the users need to touch, are located in two remote locations but are connected to each other via internet. While the two users interact with the two TVs, the brightness of the local TV beats with the participants heartbeat while the volume of the same TV represents the second user’s heartbeat and vice versa.
Amour-propre is based on Rousseau’s notion of the same name that denotes self-love that depends upon the opinion of others, as this self-love is dependant on satisfying other human beings perception of how you should be. Rousseau contrasts this notion with “amour de soi,” which also means self-love, but one which does not involve seeing oneself as how you might be perceived by others. According to Rousseau, amour de soi is more primitive and is compatible with wholeness and happiness while amour-propre arose only with the appearance of society and renders human beings incapable of being happy within society. While Amour de soi represents the instinctive human desire for self-preservation, combined with the human power of reason, amour-propre is artificial and encourages man to compare himself to others, thus creating unwarranted fear and allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others.
Evident in its use in lie-detectors and other psychophysiology devices, heart-rate has always been related to an indication of our thought process and emotions. Amour-propre uses this to create an interface which lets the users to purely communicate with their heart-beats, demonstrating Rousseau’s philosophy in a metaphorical way.
The piece is by Takin Aghdashloo, Oliver Banyard, Chris Gruggen and Andrew McGill.
2 Things that Worked:
1. We did a great job of setting up a network between two computers and sending data between them in real time to effect each others environment. We did a great job of manipulating the HRMI heart rate code in order to get a real time heart rate/heart beat value.
2. We did a great job of utilizing the brightness and volume controls of the Tube Televisions. Also the aesthetic which we created by using the vintage televisions was very pleasing. The snowy white static contrast of the screen and the organic static volume was really interesting as elements in our project.
2 Things that needed Improvement:
1. We could have thought more about the presentation of the piece and actually tested it before the show (if we had time). We could have tried out the stands and decided amongst ourselves which presentation worked best. Also we could have developed a more user friendly way of incorporating the interface into the project rather than just concealing the polar interface, or allowing participants to directly hold the polar device. We could have stylized our own interface and taken apart the polar technology to suit our own aesthetic.
2. We could have adjusted the code more so that the lag time between when a person touches the interface and then sees an animation of their own heartbeat was diminished and resembled something closer to real time.
My Role (Takin Aghdashloo):
- The initial concept and general idea of piece (heart-rate monitoring, two way telepresnece communication based on that) was mine and as the piece grew, I made the adjustments to the concept and suggested Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s notion of amour-propre to be the conceptual part of the piece. To read more about the concept click here.
- The research on how to measure, implement and develop the heart-rate monitoring interface was done by me. I researched online and also sought help from a number of different sources in Toronto to find the necessary hardware and software to make the piece possible. The research lead to the second phase of information and part gathering by me which took a long time as different parts to make the piece possible were not all sold at one location. For example the wristbands were very hard to find and took me few days of trips around town and phone calls to find them.
- I tried to lead the group and be a positive/active group member and started from an early stage to work on the code to have it ready as it was a very challenging task for me and finally the work paid off as the group got the code to function for our piece. All the major computer programming for the piece was done by me.
- I gave input/feedback about the aesthetics of the piece. The idea of using CRT, analogue TVs initiated in this phase. Also the electronics work on the relays was done by me.
- I was present in all the development meeting and I took a few trips to Creatron for electronics purchases, etc.
- I provided the plynths for the presentation day from my own connections.
- Generally I was very involved with this piece and tried to participate/give constructive feedback on all aspects of its development/presentation.
- All the professional website content (except media) was provided/written by my. www.amourprore.ca
Amour-propre – Process Video 6 from Takin Aghdashloo on Vimeo.
We Plan to refine the piece further in the coming months to achieve a more organic and inherent interaction.
Please View the Process Documentation below to see how we progressed in the creation of the piece.
Amour-propre – Process Video 6 from Takin Aghdashloo on Vimeo.
Second Analog Tube Television (Colour 1985)
We took off the Housing of the Second TV and found that it was much more complex than the smaller black and white TV, most likely because it is Colour. We cleaned it up and sought out to find the brightness and volume Pots.
We found the Brightness Potentiometer (Second from the Bottom on the left) and began testing the connections to find the wires to switch using our relays.
The other side of the pot board where we need to make our connections.
Once we found the proper connections that triggered the brightness and volume we soldered and elongated the wires and hid them in black shrink wrap to make them look seamless and professional. We then connected the wires to our relay board to be switched by a signal from Arduino.
Both TV’s in the final stage of building. They have both been modified with elongated connection wires for Volume and Brightness and are completely functional. We are now testing and polishing up the Processing and Arduino code to make the interaction as smooth and pleasing as possible.
Amour-propre – Process Video 5 from Takin Aghdashloo on Vimeo.
Testing the Polar Interface with the Sparkfun Heart Monitor Board and Arduino. Sparkfun Talks to Polar to get a heart rate, then sends the information to Processing which sends the number to Arduino, which tells the relay when to fire. The relay changes the brightness and volume of the TV according to the users heart rate.
Taking Apart the Analog Black and White Tube TV (1980)
Our Goal was to find the Brightness control potentiometer so we could modify the brightness through the use of Arduino and emulate a heartbeat through variation in brightness of the image. We planned to use static as our subject matter on screen.
CRTC Tube with wires which control horizontal and vertical alignment of electrons.
Cleaning the Television
The Volume/On-OFF multi switch/potentiometer is on the left and the brightness potentiometer is on the right.
Extracting the Brightness and Volume Controls from the TV
Larger Pot is the ON/OFF – Volume
De-Solder the Brightness Pot’s connection wire to later modify and Test. We found that we could modulate the brightness from completely dark to completely bright by connecting and disconnecting the red wire. So we set out to organically change the brightness gradually from on too off completely controlled by Arduino.
We Purchased digital potentiometers so we could variably change the brightness and volume of the TV’s but we could not achieve the animation we were looking for. We tried a TIP 122 circuit and the “Dimmer” Arduino code but when testing with a lightbulb you could see that the variation was not gradual at all it was very mechanical looking.
We opted to use relays to connect and disconnect the wires in our Volume and Brightness so that the heartbeat animation was not variably organic but it was mechanical looking in nature.The relay’s act as switches and basically turn off or on a connection. We used the arduino’s 5V output pins to do this. (see relay above)
Testing with the Sparkfun Board and Polar HeartBeat interface wristband. I’m holding the Polar interface and we are getting a real time reading of his heartbeat on the HRMI graph shown on screen. We sifted through the HRMI processing code to find out where the RAW heartbead data was coming from. Then we told Processing to send Arduino a message with the live Heartbeat data. We wrote Arduino code to tell the relays to switch in time with this heartbeat information.
Polar Interface, Sparkfun HeartBeat board (red), Arduino, and Relay(on breadboard)
Amour-propre – Process Video 1 from Takin Aghdashloo on Vimeo.
Our original concept for the Telepresence project for Interconnecting Day(with OCAD) was to manipulate a CRTC television screen using very strong magnets controlled by inputs from heart beat monitors. We purchased two rare earth magnets and began to test the distortion of the image.Our results were not very usable. The magnets did not effect the screen unless they were directly touching it and the screen did not react as much as we had hoped. We opted out of using the magnets and planned to open up the back of the television and try to experiment with disconnecting the wires which send current through to the CRTC tube to see what would happen.
We discovered that the four wires connected to the tube each control either the horizontal pull or vertical pull of the screen. This was more interesting than the magnet test but still not exactly what we were looking for.
Amour-propre – Process Video 2 from Takin Aghdashloo on Vimeo.
Amour-propre – Process Video 3 from Takin Aghdashloo on Vimeo.
This video demonstrates a horizontal line but this time we’ve fitted the wire with a 10k potentiometer to see what will happen when we change the resistance from none, to full. As you can see the screen goes from concentrated into a horizontal line to a complete full screen of static. It is an interesting animation but still not exactly what we want.We were just using this TV to test on and we decided to scrap it and look for the actual televisions we want to use in our piece. We wanted to find televisions with analog controls for volume and brightness (using potentiometers to control instead of buttons) so we could modify those controls and use them to our advantage. It was a tough search but we found two analog tube televisions, a small black and white one from 1980 and a larger colour TV from 1985.
The task was to create a telepresent art piece that was aware of its surroundings and could effect its environment. Also the project needed to be able to send information across a network to other projects.
Our concept was created to meet these needs and we devised a plan to create an interactive networked entity that was outfitted with flex sensors to sense touch and also proximity sensors to sense distance. When a participant approaches or touches the piece signals are sent to an arduino microcontroller which triggers relays that fire off a series of camera flashes at a seemingly random sequence.
We wanted to focus on the idea of celebrity and the spectacle and so we chose to depict president Obama since his image is so widely recognized and fueled by such a large spectacle and following. The camera flashes in the piece represent the spectacle. They also help to create a “larger than life” image. Normally the public is not able to interact with such a celebrity figure, for this project we allow participants to interact with a celebrity and to become a part of the spectacle.
This is the Documentation from our ‘Telepresence’ piece entitled: “Blazing Star.” The project was completed by Takin Aghdashloo, Andrew McGill and Arnis Amolins.
This work utilizes the network code samples in my process blog to connect to other pieces from our class on showing day. Functionally our project focuses on touch and proximity for interaction. The participant is invited to interact with the Obama mannequin by coming close to him and touching him. Our piece will sense its environment and react by setting off violent and sporadic camera flashes which symbolize the media and the spectacle. “Blazing Star” is also networked with other projects in the gallery space where it sends and receives data, initializing responses in other works and other works causing flashes to go off in “Blazing Star.”
realTime! Assignment
How Does a Cyborg Smoke a Cigarette is a experimental telepresence art project by Takin Aghdashloo and Andrew McGill.
The concept behind the project is to experiment with the way telepresence is treated and accepted in our society. By carrying a laptop displaying a live video-feed of another person on-screen (using iChat, two laptops with webcams and a wireless internet connection) into a Mac’s convenience store, in this project we tried to buy a pack of cigarettes while the person carrying the laptop remains silent and the telepresent, on-screen character communicates with the clerk to make the purchase. The significance of cigarettes is that it falls into the category of items which has a legal condition for its sales; the 18+ age restriction. The main goal was to see if the person being “present” in the store gets ID’d or the telepresent person which does the talking. This experiment would shine a light on the issue of telepresent in today’s technologically rich society to show the boundaries of accepted use of technology in the legal/financial system.
Takin Aghdashloo
The two videos show the reaction of the clerk to Andrew when he walks into the store carrying the laptop. The clerk does not allow a laptop into the store because of the store policy which prohibits recording video. This intolerance is not particularly towards telepresence but it shows that such policies will most likely not allow telepresence as there is always a chance that the person doing the shopping might be recording images. The relationship between individuals and corporations is mostly defined by rules put in place by the corporations rather than individuals/users and this experiment is a great example. Most stores record videos of customers without asking for their permission but if the customer carries a device which potentially could record images they will be asked to leave, which was the case here.
Andrew McGill
It would be interesting to see how in future telepresence might be accepted by the legal/financial system such as banks. Perhaps the same way that telephone-banking exists today, telepresent banking might develop in future and become widely used but it seems like there are obstacles to make this possible with a system which is not controlled and monitored by the corporations/institutions themselves. Even though in How Does a Cyborg Smoke a Cigarette we were not able to actually talk to the clerk using the screen (telepresent) person, the fundamental issues raised by the experiment are very interesting and debatable.
ColorTracking code for MPM33A. The code was not so hard to figure out from the Processing website’s documentations. This code is functioning right now and works with any webcam. The colour which is being tracked by the code right now could be changed easily.
Reading Notes 1
I found the article Telepresence Art by Eduardo Kac very interesting and useful for understanding new media art and the contemporary human life experience with a focus on media and communications. The article is divided into five different sections with each section explaining a specific topic related to telepresence. The first four gives a philosophical/theoretical background of telepresence while the last section describes a telepresence art project by Kac called Ornitorrinco.
For me the references to great contemporary cultural theorists and philosophers such as McLuhan, Baudrillard and Virilio were fantastic. The questions of reality vs hyperreality are becoming a growing concern in the super-connected world we live in today. The “disappearance of distance” which Kac talks about and the priority of speed over space will become a challenge to our traditional lifestyles and culture as we eventually become more detached from our surrounding “real” environments and live more in a virtual world. The “walkman” example was a great way to show how this detachment is taking place. One fascinating aspect of the article was the point Kac made about the role of today’s artist based on Derrida and Baudrillrd’s theoretical works: “So it is up to contemporary artists to investigate new media configurations in order to generate new aesthetic experiences that incorporate bidirectional or multidirectional communication forms.” I think for me as a new media art student this is a very relevant point. In order to create new media artworks, which have something to offer to the audience, the artist should have a basic knowledge of the history, theory and underlying concepts related to technology and cultural theory which Kac touches upon in this article.
I believe that art is a great indicator of the overall position of our social/human condition. Artists have been forerunners in predicting or at least pointing out where we stand in the larger historical scale of our progress as a species. At any point of the human civilization history, a lot of information about our past, present and future could be drawn by studying that era’s arts and media. The evolution of media in art from painting to photography and from video art to web based art shows how artists are among the first specialists in our societies to fully understand and implement new technologies. Artists introduce new media to the public by implementing them in their works and raise issues both about and other than the media itself. The same way that Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz introduced the public to the possibility of teleconferencing in 1980, 20 years before it became widespread, telepresence in art will either lead the society into a new era or is just an indicator that the society will go in that path, depending on how you look at it.
Overall I found the article very interesting and enlightening. I wish the topics we read about in this program could be more available to the public as I think they are absolutely crucial not just to our field, but to average citizens as well. Our societies are “melting to the air” and fundamentally reshaped because of advancements in technology and new possibilities they bring which requires theoretical/philosophical explanation. The average citizen should be made aware of these issues otherwise the speed of change will leave us completely at loss.
Here is the link to the website (documentation) for my final project for MPM33 which was combined with MPM35. The project title is Tweet Arena.
http://www.colourbinge.com/tweetarena
Britain From Above
The data visualization project which I find very interesting is a six-part BBC TV series done in 2008 called “Britain From Above.” This TV series features some data visualizations of massive databases from the city life, communications, transportation and population of United Kingdom. Because of BBC’s budget and prominence in the UK, the creators had access to databases such as GPS information of taxis travelling in London, daily telecommunications nation-wide in UK and shipping transportation routes around UK.
For me the visualizations – filmed and created in HD – capture the essence of life in the developed world and the tremendous scale and speed of our communications. For example, the time-based visualization of taxi cab routes in 24 hours amazingly show how a city sleeps and comes back to life all of a sudden as the morning rush hour begins. By using visualizations and extracting hidden patterns from the databases, the series gives an insight into the massive, organic and bottom-up networks of transportation and communication which has emerged in the modern world.
By looking and these visualizations and comparing to the material I have learnt in this course so far, it makes me want to put my learnings into a bigger use some day to find patterns in online communications of people on social networks. The project I am working on as my final project this semester is a miniscule version of what I am aiming for. If the quality and scale of this BBC series could someday be combined with a live stream of data gathered from social networks, I’m very positive that a lot more interesting patterns could be shown.
You can check some of the visualizations here.
The Smasher Machine is a kinetic interactive installation developed for the Communication Within Hybrid Environments (MPM33) courses. This machine is based on the concept of negation and zero, inspired by the music of American rock band Smashing Pumpkins. Developed by Takin Aghdashloo, Arnis Amolins and Andrew McGill, the Smasher Machine uses input from the user – hitting an egg carton with a drum stick – to do two things:
1- Hitting a cymbal with a drum stick
2- Changing images projected on a big screen
The concept of Smasher Machine is closely tied to the idea of negation and destruction, something that the images on the screen directly relate to. The third and final aspect of the piece is the music of Smashing Pumpkins which gets played after the first hit on the egg carton.
This piece uses an Arduino, for its technological basis and Processing programming to change the images and play the music.
This self-portrait is a data visualization of my money spent from July to September 2009. Here the circles correspond to the relative scale of each category and by rolling over each category the user can get the total spending, average money spent and the percentage from total.
Part 2
It was interesting for me to see how the world countries spend their budget on military and education. I used the CIA World Factbook as my source and created a data set which included:
Country Names, Military Budget (% of GDP), Education Budget (% of GDP), PPP, Region
I wanted to see if the military budget and education budget have any relationships or if regions or the PPP could add an interesting layer to the data.
I found each visualization type adding an interesting view to the data but the most interesting one which helped me get a clear conclusion from my data was the treemap. Here I found that the Middle East with the highest PPP spends relatively a very low amount on education and spends the most on military. However, Europe which also has a high PPP is the exact opposite of the Middle East which is evident in the very orange colour of the Middle East and the whiter Europe. The other interesting excursion out of my data was how Africa with the lowest PPP spends highest on education. It seems like the African countries through foreign aid and guidance or self determination have realized the importance of education. Perhaps the Middle Eastern countries should follow the same rules but of course most Middle Eastern countries do not rely on education as a source of income (long-term investment) and rely heavily on old which could explain this trend.
I tried the scatterplot visualization type for my data set but I did not get the results I was looking for. I wish there was a way to combine the scatterplot and treemap visualization types so that I could compare the 3 data fields (PPP, education and military) at the same time.