All thats left now is to prepare for my presentation next friday, which I’m looking forward to in a way. Anyway, lets hope it goes well!

I’ve also been adding a few more features to the website today and sorting out the main front pages out getting it all polished off.

I also came up with a design for the phone application:

Will hopefully have a website design done tomorrow that I can get cut up to replace the current shell.

Gallery Viewer

What I’m hoping to do is get this working with the website so as xml documents can be read in automatically using php. Should be good.

The nice thing about having this part of it separate from the main flash program means that it frees up a lot more of the CPU, so I shouldn’t get as many problems as I’ve been having with the actionscript getting stuck. Fingers crossed.

Secondly, software issues! At the moment I’m having a problem solving the whole issue of taking photos and getting them online so as to allow my project access to them along with gps data. So far I’ve found a piece of software called TimedSpy which will allow me to automatically take a photo every set interval and save it to the phone memory. The only problem being I can only use a Symbian based phone, which means using my old Nokia 6600, not what I want!

Not happy with this I decided to hunt for a similar piece of software that is Windows Mobile based. The nearest bit of software that I could find was called Pocket Camera but was developed for a smartphone. Un surprisingly it didn’t work. That got me thinking and after a looking into developing my own application for the platform I found an entry in the Windows Mobile Version 5.0 SDK for the camera API. After downloading it and borrowing a copy of Visual Studio as well as finding a very helpful video by a guy called Rory Blyth I found that I couldn’t control the taking of photos within the program. Instead the user would always be presented with a dialog in order to take the photo. I tired looking for ways around it but could find nothing.

This leaves me using the TimedSpy application. To upload the photos to the server I found a nifty bit of software called ShoZu. This allowed me to create my own site within my profile online that my phone can access. For this I just setup the connection with my FTP details to my web server which will allow me to upload directly, which is very handy! Luckily this also works on Symbian based phones too but this leaves me with a 2 phone setup and only I contract with an unlimited data plan, whoops! Will have to beg Adam to see if I can borrow his Sim.

He particularly liked the way I will record photos along these journeys, tieing these into the location, caching them if you will. Mike also showed my a couple of videos of Microsofts’ Photosynth. I could explain what it is but thought the Photosynth website summed it up nicely:

Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

Mike suggested it would be nice to view the journeys online through the photos taken on the journey, allowing them to fly towards you. These photos could be a collaborative collection taken from multiple users journeys and the online part would allow you see these, which I thought was a great idea.

Will post some more up soon.

Sides to the project

• Technical platform - that provides an online solution compared to other offline solutions
• Cultural/Social - walking through paths of time, cameras becoming locative, the syncing of time and space

Bits and pieces to consider

• Deja Vu clips - separated real time from past events that converge
• Donnie Darko - crazy time spindles
• Mscapers
• Time taken away from space using Cartesian maps
• Maps have no clocks
• Clocks have no maps
• Photography is split from time
• Tom Tom - you can see yourself in space, but you can’t see other people
• Cinema that deals with the digital
• Look into the context behind memory and space - project deals with this heavily
• Hollywood is weak when it comes to space/time - my project can give that Deja Vu moment
• Look into Thrift - the unified model of time - railways - find an interesting angle
• Look into Barbara Adams work

I hope to expand this into an outline of what I will talk about on presentation day very soon.

Its quite a simple piece allowing you to make your own path through Plymouth, passing through hot-spots along the way triggering a line of a poem, similar to how you would do in the book. These lines are assigned to positions around Plymouth, of which you can walk through and read the line.

To download and have a go yourself go here:  One Hundred Million Million Mobile Poems

Using this I can hopefully work out the action-script I need for the flash application to control the binaural sounds.

I’ve also had a think about the locations for the recordings and have come up with:

• Mutley Plain
• Drake Circus Junction (old roundabout)
• Bottom of Armada Way (opposite the civic center)

These, I feel, will give a good variety of noise that should be distinguishable when you listen to it back through the jitter software. Talking about the application, I’ve started to piece it together now and should hopefully have a working prototype by next week, fingers crossed.

• Mutley plain facing north: Listen
• Mutley plain facing south: Listen
• Mutley plain facing east: Listen
• Mutley plain facing west: Listen

What I’m hoping to do is use these to show how the GPS jitter as someone stands in one place, moving the sounds in a virtual space.

• Minidisc recorder - borrowed from the equipment loans in uni
• A 3.5mm Stereo to Two Mono Adaptor - bought from Maplins
• Two stereo clip mics - borrowed from the equipment loans in uni
• A pair of earphones - Ipod earphones
• Lots of electrical tape - bought from Maplins

Total spent: £3.02. Sure beats £50 from eBay. I’ve done some test recordings around the house and the results are very promising. Here’s some photos:

• http://www.bevrowe.info/Poems/QueneauRandom_v4.html
• http://www.uncontrol.com/deploy/content/EXPERIMENTS/massin/

Using this as a source for the poems I will create a GPS version of the book. I’ll create this using mediascape and map out the hot-spots around Plymouth. On screen you will be able to see a map and possible narrative routes, these taking you through hot-spots that will trigger off different lines of each poem.

I hope to record these using binaural microphones so it feels like someone is in front of you speaking a line. I’m in the process of building my own set at the moment so I should hopefully have some photos of the setup and maybe a few recordings soon.

Heres a screenshot:

I’ve had a look at the software and it looks relatively easy to use and bolt in to a flash lite swf so if I can’t find a solution using the windows mobile platform I may have to invest in a GPS enabled phone!

• GPS Log 1.1
• GPS Data Logger
  
• Sunset GPS Logger

I’ve also been looking into hacking TomTom navigation systems. It started off when I read an article by David M Williams about Hacking the Tom Tom through Open Source here which was very interesting. There seems to be a community that has established itself and is quite prominent. TomTom themselves have even acknowledged this open source movement and have funded it.

So this leads me to why. Why do I would I want to use a TomTom for the project? That’s easy. Its portable, it looks like you can do a lot with it and it runs linux. Anything that runs linux must be hackable! People have also hooked up a webcam and displayed the feed through the TomTom. Very cool and I could see myself using that. Anyway here’s some useful links I found:

• OpenTom
• Hacking the TomTom Article
  
• Inside the TomTom
  
• Hacking into TomTom Go
  
• OpenTom Release
  
• Maintech Project
  
• TomTom Hacking
  

I’ve also been thinking about the use of colour as well to represent these routes and the time. To recap I want to show the differing time lapses at of different sections on a course as people are bound to do bits faster or slower than others. So why not use colour? If your faster it could be blue, slower it could be yellow. These in themself can build up contouring time lines to produce some sort of artefact.

Right, I need some rest.

So, I need to find another solution. Here’s a few things I’ve found or thought about;

• HP iPAQs - I borrowed 1 to take to Mscape Fest and I seem to remember some other software being on them which I believe will log GPS data. If there isn’t them I’m sure I can find some.
• I’ve been doing some searches and there’s 1 GPS data logger that keeps coming up time and time again, which is the GlobalStat DG100, link here. It seems to be a very value for money logger but that’s all it does.
• I’ve also found some do it yourself GPS receivers and logger; thomaspfeifer.net, jay-t.de, as well as plenty other on hack a day.
• You can also buy a logger that some one else has made that seems to be very good. Link here. This isn’t available again until the 15th Dec however and its a tad expensive.

I also managed to find a wiki from Openstreetmap.org that has reviewed many GPS devices which should come in handy when deciding where to go next. Link here.

Reading these reviews 1 of the devices seem to be a safe bet: the Scytex NaviGPS. Its water proof, lightweight, compact and great for cyclists. Its a good price too, so that’s another option if everything else fails.

What this little sketch explains is the basic idea surrounding how it will work. What I want to do is take advantage of what some people call “GPS Jitter”. If you don’t know what this is allow me to explain. GPS Jitter occurs on a GPS system when you are in a stationary position in any given area. What happens on the mscapes is your position will circle and jump around causing this “Jitter”. So, I want to create hotspots very close to each other and experiment with sounds and light so you could stand on the boundary of a hot spot and have hot spots jump around. This could change to a different sound, layer multiple sounds and maybe even have a wearable led array or something similar change colour.

This could be a representation of the space through GPS Jitter, sound and light that could be a personal and shared experience. Could even go as far as saying its performative too. It will change the way you feel about the space and how everyone else around you feels about the space.

Whilst at Mscape Fest I attended a workshop titled “Audio Design for Mediascape” run by Duncan Speakman. He let us hear an example of a binaural sound recording, which basically records the sound from the perspective of your ears (the microphones are actually in your ears). This was kind of strange as you didn’t really know if people in the room were talking as you could hear it all around you and it really lifted you out of the environment. For this reason I am keen to experiment with these types of recordings for the project to give dis-locative audio.

The event allowed me to find out more about how the technology works, meet people who have been using it, find out where its going next and just generally sparked ideas to how I would apply it to my own work. They will be releasing a developers toolkit very soon that will allow for addition sensors to trigger events on the Mscapes. These were RFID, 2D Barcodes, IR and RF pinger, all with many advantages over the previous which would allow you to use the Mscape inside a building. What it also allowed was the functionality to create your own sensors through the extension SDK. I shall look forward to its release!

I also met one of my old teachers there and his work is very interesting so I hope to visit him at some point over the Christmas holiday and see how hes been using the technology and what projects he has in mind for the future.

If your interested you can find the Mscape Fest 07 page here.

By Alvin Lucier: Music for Piano with One or More Snare Drums (1990). Description from his website:

“A pianist plays a series of notated pitches in chronological order, repeating them freely in overlapping patterns. As she does so, the tones sympathetically resonate snare drums positioned throughout the space. The drums respond in various ways depending on the pitch of the piano tones, the resonant regions of the drums and their geographical locations in space. This work was written for Hildegard Kleeb and was first performed by her on March 21, 1992, at the Galerie Sous-Sol, Geneva, Switzerland.”

Click here to listen.

This installation really deals with playing with acoustic properties of sound to produce other sounds from other sources within a space. An interesting, dis-jointed and un-typical way to produce sound relative to a particular space.

By James Turrell: Alta Pink (1968). This is a cross corner projection installation that plays with perception, depth and dimension. I really like the way he has played with a simple shape to create an illusion of an object that seems to have mass and weight. To me hes managed to represent the space of an object in another space and at the same time changed the way you might feel towards the space. Here’s a photo:

By Christo: Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin (1971-95). This is fairly self explanatory, where Christo along with Jeanne Claude wrapped the Reichstag with 100,000 square meters of thick woven polypropylene fabric with an aluminum surface. Both Christo and Jeanne Claude say that there is no deeper meaning to their work other than to make the world a “more beautiful place” or to create a new way of seeing a familiar landscape. To me this is creating a new perspective of the space through concealment, space of representation maybe? Here’s a photo:

So just by looking at these artists I can start to pool the different ideas. I would like to create a project that changes the way you feel and view a familiar space using light, not projected but by a different means and using sound. The sound and light will be affected depending on where you stand in relation to the space.

You can get them on PC World business if you go here.

I’m also off to MScapeFest 07 on Monday and Tuesday of next week for some workshops and talks on the HP Ipacs so I’m hoping to learn a thing or 2 that I may be able to apply to my project. I might be cheeky as well and see what I can get out of them. Have a looksie here if your interested.

• Fix my Street
• Chicago Crime
• Mobile Landscape
• Travel Time Maps
• Flickr Places

Each interested me in different ways but a few key theories arose from the discussion. Fix my Street focuses solely on reclaiming responsibility of the street in terms of a social context and Chris told me about a guy called Martin Heidegger who talks about a sense of space, dwellings and how we can’t really relate to the natural earth anymore. Chicago Crime is more of a geo cached database of crimes, so its more to do with caching of the data and time. Mobile Landscape is a strange one but abstracts a function of a device that everyone uses everyday: a mobile phone to create a representation of space. Travel Time Maps was again creating a representation of space through time but what interested me most was the different contours that were created by different time zones. Flickr places featured maps but it wasn’t the main focus, instead social remains dominant over space.

From this we started talking about GPSX data and maybe comparing a set route, completed by different people. From that data you should be able to get the time it took at different stages of the route. You could therefore then compare each route with another and then represent some how the different in time. At some points it might be faster and some it might be slower. Chris was thinking in terms of video so you could have the video slowing down at that point when you were walking the route, similar to how ghost mode works in Mario Kart. This would then create a time experience. On to something here…

So, my task for the next 2 weeks is to have a play around getting a GPS receiver to work so I can record a set route, then maybe get someone else to run it or I could do the route on my bike for example. I’ll then take the GPSX data and represent the data some how, comparing each using an animated graph maybe or something to show the differences at each point. I can then start to translate this into something more substantial as I swap it over to my preferred context, on my bike.

All of these projects can be accessed online, just follow the links below:

I found this meeting really useful as it has given me a good area of research to inform the project. What I took away from it involves using parameters from GPS, such as sync time or another aspect that is easy to hack out, to produce some sort of emotion changing device using sound or even coloured light to do so. The idea at the moment is one where some one would walk around with a device strapped up to a GPS receiver or device and depending on where they go and how fast they move about this will change the sound frequency or colour, giving a spacial artefact or sound mash up. Ok, sounds mad, but its clear in my head at the moment.

I was also thinking about how you always find holes in GPS signal. What I mean by this is when you go out of sync with the satellites and your sat nav stops giving you directions for example. I think it would be interesting to maybe play around with this as well as I’m pretty sure you get the same effect if you walk into buildings or under structures. Worth playing with.

So for the time being I’ll be looking at a few peoples work:

• Christo
• James Turrell
• Alvin Lucier

Unfortunately because of security it was hard to do this, so on Saturday I went back and subjectively asked people how they felt in particular points in the space, giving me a rating on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being unhappy/annoyed/uncomfortable and 10 being happy/comfortable/great. Ok, I know the problems surrounding subjective views as there are other things that can influence how some one feels at the time in a particular space so I really asked them to just concentrate on the space itself, clearing anything else from their minds. This was backed up by Henri Lefebvres Dialectic of Space, taking into consideration representation of space, daily practice and space of representation.

I’ve come up with the following emotional maps, click to enlarge:

I’ve also put my presentation into a pdf which you can download here.

All this was done on a white board (picture below) I’ve redone it in photoshop just to make it clear:

Here’s the white board sketches:

So my task now is to find some related projects. Chris has already suggested milkproject.net, Feral Trade, Urban Tapestry and a project involving the London Opera house, GPS and headphones - geocaching stuff. I’ll then need to locate them within my triangle. I’ll update it once I’ve done it.

The first article involves a trial program involving 10 secondary school students in the UK who are being tracked with RFID tags embedded into their school uniforms. From Yahoo Tech:

Add the RFID chips to increased video surveillance and fingerprinting of kids, and this is a heavily tracked generation—for safety’s sake.

That extra peace of mind for adults comes with a heavy loss of privacy for kids. Do you agree with David Clouter, a parent and founder of the children’s advocacy group Leave Them Kids Alone, who says taking all these precautions has the effect of treating kids like criminals? Or do you agree with the parents who have OKed the pilot program who do not find it egregiously intrusive?

One possible side effect: Uniform sales may pick up as kids try to procure extra non-RFID-tagged clothing. As security expert Bruce Schneier writes on his blog: “So now it’s easy to cut class; just ask someone to carry your shirt around the building while you’re elsewhere.”

Obviously a lot of debate surrounds this subject. I can see this being a very good thing from a parents perspective as well as the schools but surely this is another invasion of privacy. What also gets to me is the whole “how safe is my child” thing. I mean fair enough there some nasty people out there but was this any different 10 years ago when I was a kid? I doubt it was any different but I’m sure there was far more important thing to be reported in the news at the time.

Great idea but I think its going a little far. Can I see this taking off? I don’t think so. Like the quote says “just ask someone to carry your shirt around the building” to get around the technology. The only way I can see that working properly is if they physically implant the chips. Extreme but who’s going to cut open their arm to dig it out? Ok, don’t answer that…

The second article talks about Apple customising Macbooks to supply to local school districts in Kansas City and southwest Louisiana. Whats so interesting about that? Well, they’re customising them to meet various security measures in place by the districts. From tuaw.com:

The Kansas City Star notes that each of the computers has a sticker “clearly identifying them as the property of the Kansas City, Kan., public schools… [which] will not come off without virtually destroying the laptop.” Furthermore, each computer will apparently have a GPS tracker and even “a remote device to destroy the hard drive” if stolen.

Interesting stuff really. GPS trackers have been used for years now in cars so why not in computers? I do like the sound of the remote device destroying your hard drive as well, don’t want a thief getting their hands on your sensitive data now do you? That next big question is whether or not this sort of technology will make it onto the commercial market and whether people really want it. For everyday use I can’t honestly say whether I would invest in a tracker, I mean if I take my Macbook out with me anywhere it doesn’t leave my sight. Another area worth discussing.

First off I jogged the route, mounting the sensor to my trainer using a special adapter, just so I could get a good base line reading which I could compare. After which I uploaded it to the Nike+ website which gave me the following results:

Next I cycled the route, again with the sensor still mounted to my trainer using the adapter. This I hoped would work fine but I was proved to be wrong. The results speak for themself:

Flatlined! As you can see it didn’t really do a lot compared to running normally. Obviously it took me less time complete but there’s nothing there! I think what I need to do now is devise a way of mounting the sensor to my bike so it moves similarly to a footstep. I think what was happening here was that the sensor was being subjected to centrifugal forces in an outwards direction giving a constant reading. Think the piezometer inside is very very very sensitive!

On a separate note I think I may have found a method of tracking bikes in real time using a GPS telemetry system by TinyLoc. This is meant for falconry purposes but I’m sure I can modify it so it does what I need it to do. I’ll post some more info up once I know more.

Before we set off to the space Chris Speed gave us a briefing on the space and the sorts of things we could be looking at such as representation of space, daily practice, jurisdiction, legislation, habitual states and organising action. All these defined by Lefebvre, Bourdieu and Foucault of course. All us final years were also assigned first years so we could be a guide for them, giving them ideas along the way for their mapping projects.

As we were meant to be relating the documenting back to our precedent studies I was trying to gauge peoples moods from the photos I was taking. This didn’t really go to plan however because as soon as we started taking photos inside the walkway security jumped on us, stating that we needed permission to take photos inside due to data protection laws. A load of rubbish if you ask me due to the fact that it was a clear public right of way.

However, I was undeterred; some photos I took along with a load from Adam:

Found a lot of branding in there, obviously, along with a lot of jurisdiction in the shape of signs mapping out rules (see photos) and security cameras. There was a large security guard presence there, because of us, and I’m sure this had an impact on how other people acted. Some of the CCTV cameras were also very well hidden, one even disguised as a street lamp.

I managed to capture a few peoples faces but I really need to go back there and have another go. I think this time I will rate it myself, recording how I feel about the space as well as a few other peoples feelings, at different points through the walkway. I will record a mood rating followed by notes about the surrounding space.

• Christian Nold describes how his project is very much performative so I could look for performance in the space. Maybe note down where CCTV cameras or other authoritive objects are and see how people act in the space these inhabit.
• Nolds bio-mapping project to me deals with psycho-geography, so I could document how people are feeling. I could do this by taking photos of people’s faces in particular locations and judge how they are feeling or I could survey how people are feeling about particular aspects of the space by asking them to rate their mood. This could also combine the two.

On reflection I think I will go with the latter and maybe try and combine the two. Therefore I need to devise a form and will need a camera to record peoples facial expressions. I think the way this could work is photograph them then ask how they are feeling. I think this could make an interesting map of mood.

Bio Mapping is a participatory methodology for people to talk about their immediate environment, locality and communal space. I’m trying to use 3D visualisation as a way of talking about the space

Bio Mapping asks how our body relates to the social body, and to the physical body of the city. The project deals with the ideas of bodies interacting on various levels.

A core principle behind Christian Nolds’ Biomapping is that via Google Earth it allows the visualisation of a participant’s subtle relationship between their own emotional state, which they might not be aware of at the time whilst on the walk, and the external world. His approach is interesting as well but justified, allowing to the participant to annotate their visualisations after they have done the walk, rather than during. This way the participant is forced to sit down and interpret their experience and perhaps discuss this experience at the same time. In doing so people tend to remember things that they would not otherwise think about. As Nold put its;

Some people say this is a kind of paranoia or schizophrenia technology. It makes us constantly reflect on our experience, constantly makes us aware of ourselves.

As these maps build up Nold sees them as being discourse maps, so a map that communicates thought, rather than one that is authoritative. Nold has said;

I personally don’t see the map being ‘representative’ but more as a discussion tool to argue a point.

Nold describes Bio Mapping as being something that is very performative as people take part in an ambiguous performance, one that is open to several possible interpretations. Through this performance the user is made conscious of the technology they are using. This could be compared to CCTV. You are conscious of the technology that is there so you “perform” in a certain way towards it. In doing this Nold directs a persons life in a particular way; directing the performance. He says;

I am asking them to think about the political and social implications of this technology and how it could/should be used on a larger scale.

Using Google Earth the routes are similar to a diary drawn in a three-dimensional view. Usually you don’t see people on Google Earth so to have these emotional performances, that have an authority about them, the static map really comes alive. Nold has used this medium as maps talk a lot of languages that everyone is used to. Nold says;

…we are familiar with the scientific visualisation of the cardiogram. When doctors look at a cardiogram they look for pathology, and try to see what’s wrong, looking for the missing bit. So the idea of Bio Mapping is of almost a cardiogram put across the landscape. I’m interested how people deal with these mixed languages: the language of maps which is about power and the scientific language of cardiograms. I want people to find their own way of negotiating between the two.

So to sum up, Nolds Bio Mapping project deals with how a person can relate their own emotions to the real world and map these producing an emotional experience artefact, which can be explored on its own through Google Earth. Nold forces the user to negotiate a space and asks them to reflect on their experience, which is deep down in their consciousness, something of which they might not have realised at the time.

[All quotes taken from Anna Bentkowska-Kafels interview with Christian Nold,on biomapping.org. Link]

My Nike+ Sports kit turned up today along with the adapter. For those who don’t know, usually you would put the sensor in the sole of a pair of Nike+ trainers, but seeing as I don’t want to spend more money I thought I’d buy the adapter. This basically clips underneath the shoe laces and holds the sensor well. After plugging it up to the Nano and looking like an idiot running on the spot it doesn’t seem to work. I’ll have to calibrate it and take it for a proper test run as well as on the bike.

I think what I’ll do is run a set route around in Plymouth, log the results with the official Nike+ website or use Gordon Labs Runometer software, and then do the same on my bike, comparing the results afterwards. Perhaps then I can figure out how to adjust the workout data accordingly, that’s if it needs to be adjusted I may add!

Ok, you can stop laughing now…

A sensitive piezoelectric accelerometer monitors your footstrike when you walk or run and determines the amount of time your foot spent on the ground. This contact time is directly related to your pace.

So really its just a piezometer and pressure activated? Thinking about the application I’ll be using it for, ie. on a bike, will it still function as it should? I could strap it to the wheel somehow and see if it recorded any information but this might give a constant reading. I think it might be best to keep it in the shoe and see what happens. Maybe I can adjust the readings to the bike if that makes sense? Saying that it probably won’t give an accurate reading anyway as I won’t always pedal and for it to work effectively my foot has to technically leave the pedal…I think I’ll wait until my kit arrives before I draw any conclusions to what will and won’t work.

What also interested me about the Sparkfun article is their custom made USB to serial adapter to talk directly to the Nike+iPod receiver, meaning you can listen for multiple pod ID’s and maybe do something once it is heard. I feel another project coming on here! Anyway, you buy the boards from their online shop, direct link here, something else for me to buy!

(pictures taken from the article here)

What I find most interesting about it is the support for adding your own GPS data to the workout, which I’m guessing will be plotted onto a map by uploading a gpx data file. Very similar to what I’m trying to achieve in my own project so I will be ordering my own Sports Kit today to see how it all works.

I really need to get hold of a GPS device so I can see what it is capable of in terms of data output as well as the possibility of hooking it up to record data in real time. I really need to see Chris Speed and have a chat about what the University’s IPAQ’s can do just so I can focus more on what I really need to research before plunging into creating something.