NSA
my voice-phone metadata for the last year:
nothing to see here
move along
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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Artistic Rendering
Artists use external systems, anything from simple tools to complex human interactions, to bring their ideas into the world. When using a system we provide inputs, turn a crank of some kind, look at what comes out the other end, and then try to intuit its actual behavior. When the behavior is desirable we want to control it to some purpose. In the Arts this purpose is usually to produce -- render -- a tangible product such as a print, film scene, or musical interlude.
At it's Latin roots the word render means to give or put. This made its way into English meaning as:
In the late 1960s Jack Burnham hypothesized something he called Systems Art (for a start see my Cybernetic Serendipity entry). His ideas were quickly absorbed and diluted in the Conceptual Art wave leaving us with two divergent online definitions of Systems Art.
Wikipedia says:
The latter refers to what are called Generative Systems, into which the products of artistic rendering usually fall. The system produces a product and we don't really much care what happens inside the black box. It's all about the Form of what is produced.
The former is more interested in the system's behavior and provenance. What is interesting is the Function of the system itself. In the 1960s interesting behavior was not easy to produce, but in the 2010s we have the capability to create much more complex systems. Systems which have lives of their own.
With an Aesthetics of Function we consider the qualities of the system's behavior, and by extension into second-order-cybernetics, the quality of the relationship of the observer to the observed -- the artist-viewer's relationship with the art-system.
While there are systems which have no inputs, the entire Universe might be an example, we are more interested in those with the structure described above, where by providing appropriate inputs we can mold the outputs in certain ways:
For artificial systems this requires input sensors, internal cross connections, and output actuators. This usually invokes Art and Technology, by which we usually mean Electronic Technology, which in this century usually means Computer Technology. And this is the medium at the heart of "interactive" New Media art.
I put "interactive" in quotes because it is usually a mis-applied description. Most "interactive" art is better described, at a somewhat lower level of function, as "responsive". In order to clarify this I propose the following continuum of system function and behavior.
Responsive:
A doorbell responds by ringing when we push the button. The old fashioned ding-dong type might even be described as interactive because the button push causes the ding and the release causes the dong, giving us some modicum of control over the proceedings. But the same inputs always produce the same outputs.
Interactive:
Learning to use a tool or play a musical instrument is interactive in the sense that we have to experiment to find the capabilities and interfaces that allow us to use the system. While the ding-dong-bell may fit this description, its state-space -- the number of different conditions it might be in -- is very small and easily explored. Playing a piano requires the manipulation of a much larger set of states with varying inputs and outputs. The user and the system form a feedback loop which ultimately produces the output, but only the user changes his/her behavior.
Adaptive:
If the system changes its behavior as we use it -- generally we like it better when the changes benefit our intentions but it could also be an obstinate SOB -- it is adapting. To do this it needs a large state-space which changes over time and this requires memory. Pushing the interactive tool analogy rather harder than it should be, tuning a guitar while learning to play it might be considered to be adaptive on the part of the guitar. The unfortunate thing is that there are very few examples of adaptive behavior in the arts. Some video games or those films in which one can vote for various outcomes might fit the bill.
Collaborative:
If both the system and the user adapt to each other in order to render a result we have the start of collaboration. I know of no complete examples of this in the artificial art-world.
This set of way-points is ordered by increasing autonomy and independence of control. Responsive systems have very little control over their behavior whereas a collaborative system ideally shares control equally. Another way to put it is that they are increasingly lifelike. Or Artificial Life Like.
Musical production provides better examples of my categories, and in general, has made more progress with both humans and their instruments. Gordon Mumma's Hornpipe (1967), for waldhorn, valvehorn & cybersonics, is an early example of an interactive and adaptive system of performer, instrument, and space. George Lewis's player algorithms, e.g., "Rainbow Family" (1984), for soloists with multiple interactive computer systems, which he described in such terms as (from my memory of a talk he gave at Mills College in October, 1984), "This guy is sort of a backup player where this other guy really likes to play lead," ventured into the collaborative.
In music we might consider a symphony orchestra to be, ideally, responsive to exactly the requirements of the score and conductor. In reality of course the conductor and players interact and adapt to each other. But in the extreme, consider Stockhausen's use of computers to render his compositions such that he had complete (well, almost) control over all the parameters of pitch, timbre, and time.
A string quartet provides a better example of interaction. Traditionally there is a detailed score under which each player has some autonomy of interpretation, and the ensemble as a whole must interact to produce the result.
A group composition, for instance a popular band developing a song, may cover the ground from interaction to collaboration but probably displays more of the features of adaptation. Each player makes a 'riff' off of the suggested material and all of these inputs are adapted to each other resulting in a more-or-less fixed end product.
A free jazz ensemble -- when they actually listen to each other -- is an example of a collaborative system. Each player makes an equal contribution while interacting with and adapting to the other players.
Learning to use any system is interactive in the sense that we need to probe it and learn from its responses. In this process we are adaptive, so the system as a whole exhibits that property. However the external system may not learn anything about us. When the system passively adapts in some form we have a master-slave relationship, but also the beginning of a dialog. When the system experiments with us -- hopefully benignly -- and we adapt in turn, then we have at last the beginnings of a true collaboration.
This should be the goal of Artificial Life in the Arts.
At it's Latin roots the word render means to give or put. This made its way into English meaning as:
- Transmit to another (render a verdict);
- Create an image (render the model);
- Cover a surface (render stucco);
- Extract by melting (render lard).
There was an Alternative
In the late 1960s Jack Burnham hypothesized something he called Systems Art (for a start see my Cybernetic Serendipity entry). His ideas were quickly absorbed and diluted in the Conceptual Art wave leaving us with two divergent online definitions of Systems Art.
Wikipedia says:
In systems art the concept and ideas of process related systems and systems theory [c.f Cybernetics] are involved in the work [and] take precedence over traditional aesthetic object related and material concerns.ArtNet.com (now a defunct link, but from the Grove Dictionary of Art via the Wayback Machine) says:
[Systems art is a] Term loosely applied to art produced by means of a systematic or highly organized approach to an image or concept.
The latter refers to what are called Generative Systems, into which the products of artistic rendering usually fall. The system produces a product and we don't really much care what happens inside the black box. It's all about the Form of what is produced.
The former is more interested in the system's behavior and provenance. What is interesting is the Function of the system itself. In the 1960s interesting behavior was not easy to produce, but in the 2010s we have the capability to create much more complex systems. Systems which have lives of their own.
An Aesthetics of Function rather than Form
With an Aesthetics of Function we consider the qualities of the system's behavior, and by extension into second-order-cybernetics, the quality of the relationship of the observer to the observed -- the artist-viewer's relationship with the art-system.
While there are systems which have no inputs, the entire Universe might be an example, we are more interested in those with the structure described above, where by providing appropriate inputs we can mold the outputs in certain ways:
Input - Process - Output
For artificial systems this requires input sensors, internal cross connections, and output actuators. This usually invokes Art and Technology, by which we usually mean Electronic Technology, which in this century usually means Computer Technology. And this is the medium at the heart of "interactive" New Media art.
I put "interactive" in quotes because it is usually a mis-applied description. Most "interactive" art is better described, at a somewhat lower level of function, as "responsive". In order to clarify this I propose the following continuum of system function and behavior.
Responsive:
A doorbell responds by ringing when we push the button. The old fashioned ding-dong type might even be described as interactive because the button push causes the ding and the release causes the dong, giving us some modicum of control over the proceedings. But the same inputs always produce the same outputs.
Interactive:
Learning to use a tool or play a musical instrument is interactive in the sense that we have to experiment to find the capabilities and interfaces that allow us to use the system. While the ding-dong-bell may fit this description, its state-space -- the number of different conditions it might be in -- is very small and easily explored. Playing a piano requires the manipulation of a much larger set of states with varying inputs and outputs. The user and the system form a feedback loop which ultimately produces the output, but only the user changes his/her behavior.
Adaptive:
If the system changes its behavior as we use it -- generally we like it better when the changes benefit our intentions but it could also be an obstinate SOB -- it is adapting. To do this it needs a large state-space which changes over time and this requires memory. Pushing the interactive tool analogy rather harder than it should be, tuning a guitar while learning to play it might be considered to be adaptive on the part of the guitar. The unfortunate thing is that there are very few examples of adaptive behavior in the arts. Some video games or those films in which one can vote for various outcomes might fit the bill.
Collaborative:
If both the system and the user adapt to each other in order to render a result we have the start of collaboration. I know of no complete examples of this in the artificial art-world.
This set of way-points is ordered by increasing autonomy and independence of control. Responsive systems have very little control over their behavior whereas a collaborative system ideally shares control equally. Another way to put it is that they are increasingly lifelike. Or Artificial Life Like.
The Musical Analog
Musical production provides better examples of my categories, and in general, has made more progress with both humans and their instruments. Gordon Mumma's Hornpipe (1967), for waldhorn, valvehorn & cybersonics, is an early example of an interactive and adaptive system of performer, instrument, and space. George Lewis's player algorithms, e.g., "Rainbow Family" (1984), for soloists with multiple interactive computer systems, which he described in such terms as (from my memory of a talk he gave at Mills College in October, 1984), "This guy is sort of a backup player where this other guy really likes to play lead," ventured into the collaborative.
In music we might consider a symphony orchestra to be, ideally, responsive to exactly the requirements of the score and conductor. In reality of course the conductor and players interact and adapt to each other. But in the extreme, consider Stockhausen's use of computers to render his compositions such that he had complete (well, almost) control over all the parameters of pitch, timbre, and time.
A string quartet provides a better example of interaction. Traditionally there is a detailed score under which each player has some autonomy of interpretation, and the ensemble as a whole must interact to produce the result.
A group composition, for instance a popular band developing a song, may cover the ground from interaction to collaboration but probably displays more of the features of adaptation. Each player makes a 'riff' off of the suggested material and all of these inputs are adapted to each other resulting in a more-or-less fixed end product.
A free jazz ensemble -- when they actually listen to each other -- is an example of a collaborative system. Each player makes an equal contribution while interacting with and adapting to the other players.
Conclusion
Learning to use any system is interactive in the sense that we need to probe it and learn from its responses. In this process we are adaptive, so the system as a whole exhibits that property. However the external system may not learn anything about us. When the system passively adapts in some form we have a master-slave relationship, but also the beginning of a dialog. When the system experiments with us -- hopefully benignly -- and we adapt in turn, then we have at last the beginnings of a true collaboration.
This should be the goal of Artificial Life in the Arts.
Monday, June 17, 2013
More Fire
It looks like the Santa Fe fires, Tres Lagunas and Thompson Ridge, are mostly under control. There are two lightning-starts further up in the Pecos Wilderness to the north and east, Jaroso (on Pecos Baldy) and White's Peak (14 miles Southwest of Cimarron, NM) which seem to be in let-it-burn mode because they are very remote and no structures are threatened. Plus the Silver fire just northeast of Silver City which is still very active. You can see all these on this map:
http://gacc.nifc.gov/swcc/predictive/intelligence/admin/google_maps/ics_209_incidents/ics_209_incidents.htm
For some reason InciWeb and NMfireInfo have just ignored White's Peak and are not updating Jaroso very clearly, so that map is the best I can find.
Also here's an interesting video produced by the Colorado Springs Fire Department which shows how they are protecting homes in the path of the Black Forest fire which has whacked over 480 structures and 14,000 acres so far:
http://vimeo.com/68342641
Since this blog is a Google production and the video is not on UTub the point and click integration is minimal, so you will just have to follow the link...The Inter-tube-world is now in a three-way polarization war (MicroSlop vs GooglePlex vs Awpple) being fought via the proxies of difficult cross linking and non-integration. But that's Our Modern Life.
http://gacc.nifc.gov/swcc/predictive/intelligence/admin/google_maps/ics_209_incidents/ics_209_incidents.htm
For some reason InciWeb and NMfireInfo have just ignored White's Peak and are not updating Jaroso very clearly, so that map is the best I can find.
Also here's an interesting video produced by the Colorado Springs Fire Department which shows how they are protecting homes in the path of the Black Forest fire which has whacked over 480 structures and 14,000 acres so far:
http://vimeo.com/68342641
Since this blog is a Google production and the video is not on UTub the point and click integration is minimal, so you will just have to follow the link...The Inter-tube-world is now in a three-way polarization war (MicroSlop vs GooglePlex vs Awpple) being fought via the proxies of difficult cross linking and non-integration. But that's Our Modern Life.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Fire News
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd & thunder'd
With the sound of a Sikorski chopper headed to Pecos in the background here's some information about our first round of summer fires here in lovely downtown Northern New Mexico...
We have two incidents, each well into a week long. To the West of Santa Fe in the Jemez mountains, the Thompson Ridge fire is at about 4500 acres and moving East towards the Valdes Caldera where the Los Conches fire did its damage two years ago. Just North of Pecos, NM to the East in the Sangres, the Tres Lagunas fire is pushing 8700 acres moving mostly uphill to the North. One can find the latest information, updated once or twice a day, at NMfireinfo.com which also features a twitter sidebar that often links to newer postings. The forest service also maintains a Google Earth map of incidents throughout the entire country at: http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/googleearth.php. But here's the latest maps that I've found posted:
Thompson Ridge from June 3 at 20:51:
For reference here's the Google Map of about the same area,
centered at 35 53 00N 106 36 30W:
View Larger Map
Tres Lagunas from Jun 3 at 21:07, heat map:
and fire progression:
And again, for reference here's the Google Map of about the same area,
centered at 35 43 00N 105 39 00W:
View Larger Map
Thompson Ridge from June 3 at 20:51:
centered at 35 53 00N 106 36 30W:
View Larger Map
Tres Lagunas from Jun 3 at 21:07, heat map:
centered at 35 43 00N 105 39 00W:
View Larger Map
Hopefully the left hand will not meet up with the right hand.
Friday, May 31, 2013
ABKachina Installed
It took about 10 days of fiddling, starting from here, but I seem to have "finished" the Airplane Barbie Kachina:
And now maybe (part of the name) makes more sense:
The rest of the name can be traced to my friend Brian's vision of the result of my move to New Mexico: Giant Barbie Kachina. So it's kinda too bad that I had to place it just out of the site lines for my uphill neighbor to be able to truly appreciate it.
There are three layers which each move or spin independently. The bottom hair rotates clockwise in the breeze. The middle power-unit spins counter-clockwise with added propellers. And the top plane-hy-bird (with feeder) tacks in the breeze and flaps its wings -- this was the original idea that morphed slightly when Michael and Melody gave me a squirrel-proof bird-feeder partway through my "design" "process".
I would like to point out that exactly zero (0) new materials were purchased in the making of this monstrosity. Much of the metal is recycled or left-over, a few hardware bits and bobs are new-old-stock, and I used about a metric-S.L. of MIG welding wire sticking the bobs to the bits -- especially when kludging the thin galvanized fence posts to the top plate to make the tripod. I also need to add special thanks to Kaahl in the Attic for remembering that I had all those copper-float half-balls left over from The Eightfold Path.
The wind has been going like gang busters all week.Wednesday it blew the thing over and then tore up the plane-hy-bird on re-entry. But it seems to have held up since then...
And now maybe (part of the name) makes more sense:
The rest of the name can be traced to my friend Brian's vision of the result of my move to New Mexico: Giant Barbie Kachina. So it's kinda too bad that I had to place it just out of the site lines for my uphill neighbor to be able to truly appreciate it.
There are three layers which each move or spin independently. The bottom hair rotates clockwise in the breeze. The middle power-unit spins counter-clockwise with added propellers. And the top plane-hy-bird (with feeder) tacks in the breeze and flaps its wings -- this was the original idea that morphed slightly when Michael and Melody gave me a squirrel-proof bird-feeder partway through my "design" "process".
I would like to point out that exactly zero (0) new materials were purchased in the making of this monstrosity. Much of the metal is recycled or left-over, a few hardware bits and bobs are new-old-stock, and I used about a metric-S.L. of MIG welding wire sticking the bobs to the bits -- especially when kludging the thin galvanized fence posts to the top plate to make the tripod. I also need to add special thanks to Kaahl in the Attic for remembering that I had all those copper-float half-balls left over from The Eightfold Path.
The wind has been going like gang busters all week.Wednesday it blew the thing over and then tore up the plane-hy-bird on re-entry. But it seems to have held up since then...
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Local Color XVI
nothing to see here -- keep moving
This seems to have made the national news of the weird so I guess everyone already knows about it...but...I just can't resist...
Police: Driver drove drunk while having sex
Posted at: 05/29/2013 8:45 AM
By: The Associated PressALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A New Mexico man is facing multiple charges after police say he was drunkenly having sex with a woman while driving, crashed his car in Albuquerque, then hid from police behind a cactus.
Luis Briones
The Albuquerque Journal reports that Luis Briones was found with one shoe on and his shorts on inside-out Monday night after he crashed his Ford Explorer.
In addition, police say the 25-year-old's female passenger was found naked outside the vehicle after being ejected. Authorities say she had deep cuts to her face and head.
Police say after the crash Briones tried to drive away and leave his passenger behind when a witness grabbed his keys from the ignition.
He is charged with aggravated DWI, reckless driving and evading police.
No attorney was listed for him.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
If y'all don't actually believe this could be happening, here's the police report (courtesy of http://i.cdn.turner.com which appears to be some kind of image hosting site...):
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Airplane Barbie Kachina Machine
I visited a metal sculptor during the Eldorado Open Studios last week and decided that I could just weld a buncha dropbin-bits together and install the results in my arroyo as a project for my executors.
Here's the first day's effort:
With some hair added:
More layers are in process.
Here's the first day's effort:
With some hair added:
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