ITP – Page 14 – Thoughts from the Underground

Phys Comp – Week 4: Servo Motors && Tone Output

Part I. Working with the Servo motor

I did have some difficulty with setting this up. I think I’ve repressed what went wrong. Anyway, here are photos.

Actually it seems that most of my mistakes are caused by plugging in my wires wrong, after I’ve set things up the first time and tried to experiment with something new. I really dislike that it’s something so small and innocuous as putting being off by one set of rows, but I guess that’s how it works. Maybe I should invest in a Polaroid so I can take immediate photos right away. Or, just be faster on the draw with my own camera.

Or, I could create a new sub-culture: breadboard pornography…

Part II. Tone output

I tried a few of the labs and, for my stupid pet trick, ended up modifying the 2nd lab that uses an array to play notes in a specified order and in a specified duration. Both the notes and the duration of the notes can be set in the code. I set up my arduino to play the first 2 bars of ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. It doesn’t sound exactly right, but it’s close enough. And, it’s better than the screeching that I was getting with the basic tone output lab.

What you hear when you listen to the link below, is the sound from a speaker that I took from a set of headphones, and buried within the head of my bear. Consequently, it’s pretty quiet.

Baa Baa Black Sheep – music

To play the song, you press a button. I installed my button within the neck of a teddy bear.
The song plays while the button is pressed. When you let go of the button, the music stops. When you press again, the song starts off from where it left off.
When you get to the end of the song, the music starts again at the beginning.

Baa Baa Black Sheep – the code

ICM Week 3: Functions, ‘For Loops’, and ‘If’ statements

This week it got serious. We were using a bunch of Processing methods – if statements, loops and functions – which at the time was a big deal to me, since in practice I still didn’t really understand how to put it all together.

But, I found some residents to help me out and explain how things worked. They also introduced the ‘Switch’ statement, a more efficient ‘if’ statement, which later came in handy for my midterm project. So, while the finished product looks the same as last week, when you check out the code you’ll see that the two sketches are very different.

Color bars, Week 3: Switch, Ifs and For Loops

(Written Oct 29, 2009)

Communications Lab: Week 4 — Response to “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

I’ll start off by saying that I’m not sure why in the Preface Walter Benjamin makes a reference to Fascism. The early political reference gets me thinking that this is a political essay, rather than an essay about the changing nature of the relationship between art and audience.

In part I, Benjamin writes about the reproduction of art and how this act is not new within history. “Since the eye perceives more swiftly than the hand can draw, the process of pictorial reproduction was accelerated so enormously that it could keep pace with speech.”

Film’s impact on art in this case may be that it’s much easier for a the public to relate to film in comparison with the other examples given, engraving, etchings, painting, and lithography, because it appears to be created at the speed that life is experienced. He doesn’t quite make this connection in this section but in retrospect, it seems to be a point that is reiterated throughout the essay.

In part II, what I took to be a discussion on the provenance of a piece of art, I now think is more of a discussion on the significance of originality within art and how this significance affects the perception of art by the public. Furthermore, Benjamin gives examples of this significance of location by introducing the concept of “aura”, which I took to mean ‘uniqueness’. But, “aura” is also described as “the moment of awe seizing the first-time beholder of a singular work of art” (www.artintheage.com/about). I didn’t get that from the essay which compares the Greek perception of a statue of Venus as an object of veneration with the clerical interpretation of the same statue as an object of idolatry, at the point where “aura”, as a recurring concept, is introduced.

Shortly after aura is introduced, Benjamin discusses how mechanical reproduction, and I assume that at this point this reference is to mechanical reproduction on a mass scale, has transformed art production so it exists not for ritualistic purposes, but now exists for political functions. while it can exist for its own sake and

Throughout this essay, ritual and cult are used to refer to what have essentially been religious productions of art. If this were a less sophisticated piece of writing, I perhaps wouldn’t be so offended by the connotation he’s making, which seems to be that art for the sake of religion and worship is a bit of a fool’s pursuit. I’m not an entirely religious person. I just believe in tolerance. Cult is not lightly used term. I don’t think it’s changed much since 1936.

Anyway, Benjamin does semi-redeem himself by making the connection between “cult value” or “exhibition value” as stated in section V. In this case he’s relating the fact that works of art at an exhibition value, or works that have less of a unique cultural significance because they are reproductions, are more accessible. Works that have a cult value are less accessible, and he gives the example of a statue in a temple that is only viewed a few times a year, or viewers must make be within the temple itself in order to actually view the statue. While I’m not sure I would agree with the choice of terms, or perhaps I’m just disappointed because there’s no clarifying explanation, I do see his point. Yes, there are works of art that we place a higher level of sentimental significance to, and which are only seen at a special occasions. I’m not sure if the art of baking would count for Benjamin, but it is true that there are certain foods, like birthday cakes, that I only see a few times a year, particularly if I’m lucky enough to have a birthday party (with cake) on a particular year.

Benjamin also discusses cult in section X, where he relates the fact that the “cult” is now related to personality, which I also take to mean image. He also made a connection that being on camera for non-actors is like experience that same aura as the art itself, or the actors’ personality. I can see that this is true, and perhaps it explains why people go crazy to walk into the field of view in news reports.

In part VII, Benjamin makes the connection between film and hieroglyphs, as an example of pictorial language. I thought this was quite clever. I don’t know if film would be considered a pictorial language, but perhaps with so many films we are accustomed to moving pictures? I’m not sure….

In part VIII, I’m not sure that I followed the argument that because the film audience takes the perspective of the camera, then it also takes the perspective of a critic. Maybe, but there are still critics of plays, which is the alternative art (performance) form. I guess I didn’t see the strength of this argument.

In part IX, I think that Benjamin is making the connection that prior to film, or perhaps mechanical reproduction in general, art could could only take place in the setting in which it was created. Film is demonstrating that this is no longer the case, in that the audience and art are now separated, and time and place are no longer constraints. After this, the next few parts of the essay move fairly quickly. I’m not entirely sure of Benjamin’s point in part IX because he mentions “simultaneous collective experience” later in XII, where he discusses how a collection of people can experience a work of art differently for a painting than for a building. And, previously, part XI, Benjamin states that the painter and painting are more superficial to the experience of real life versus film which, like a surgeon, enters into the experience of life. He also mentions in part XIII that film allows us to experience familiar objects and movements in new perspectives.

Actually, I agree with his statements. Film (recording) does separate the ability for time and place to be constraints to a work of art. Further, it is true that the collective experience of a piece of art, such as that experienced by a movie audience, is different from that experienced by individuals at an art gallery. It is also true that film is a more realistic depiction of life. However, in part XV, Benjamin makes a distinction between architecture as a distraction, vs a piece of art that requires concentration. Again, maybe it’s just a word choice, but it seems that in this section, Benjamin is making the point that architecture is less significant than art that requires more concentration? It seems as if he’s saying that only if art requires concentration, and doesn’t include a specific part for distraction, then it’s not so important.

“Divertissement” in ballet is basically a short dance interlude that is included for no other reason than enjoyment and doesn’t really add to the plot. It literally translates to diversion in English, which seems in principle like distraction. Maybe it’s similar, but I think that Benjamin was pretty set on making a point here to worry much about exceptions to his essay, so ‘ll go on.

The last point I’ll make is Benjamin’s example of Dadaism as an example of art that is used to collectively shock the public. Yet another example of “simultaneous collective experience”. I think that he’s sort of using this to segue into his later paragraphs on the artistic beauty of war. I found those descriptions humorous, but bordering on inappropriate, unless he’s making a reference that war is a cult, and the many associations we make with war are also art.

If that’s true, I guess I can see his point. But, it’s a stretch.

Phys Comp: Week 3 – Electronics

This week, our Phys Comp lab consisted of combining several previous labs plus the addition of using our multimeters to check the current of electricity. Checking the flow of electricity is something I’ll need to get used to doing, starting with just learning how to read the multimeter dial and learning to choose between A/C or D/C. Anyway, here are my steps:

A. Measuring Voltage: I set up the breadboard with a voltage regulator and a 12V A/C adaptor. Then I tested the input to and the output from the regulator.

Measuring the output of the voltage regulator

Testing the input in the voltage regulator — Testing input (approximately 16 V)

B. A Basic LED Circuit: Next, I added a switch and an LED to the breadboard. This is when the voltage regulator came in handy, to decrease the amount of voltage coming into the circuit that the LED was attached to. (If not, it would have been too much current for the LED. That’s also why the regulator was so hot, the extra energy was being emitted as heat.)

C. Components in Series/Parallel: This experiment showed how parallel and series circuits work. Series circuits work like Christmas lights all in a row – when one goes out, the circuit is broken. Parallel circuits share the current, so if one goes out the other lights stay on.

Completing the circuit using the multimeter

D. Variable Voltage with a Potentiometer: This was pretty similar to “A”, except that now I was using an analog switch to adjust the output of an LED.

ICM: Week 2 – Using variables and interactivity in Processing

This week, I used the same concept from last week but I used variables to reduce the amount of code I was drawing. I also added an interactive element. Now, when you use your mouse to move left to right across the screen, the background changes from 255 (white) to 0 (black). The alpha level of each bar is still set manually, and choosing how much to decrease the level was somewhat mathematical but the level doesn’t decrease evenly. (This became a problem the next week when I used objects to create the sketch.) I like how it looks like there’s so much more to drawing the bars than just a change of alpha level.

ICM Week 2

Color bars, Week 2

Comm Lab: Week 2 – Reaction to “Orality and Literacy” (Ch. 1-2)

(Note: in starting the class late, I haven’t had time to finish week 1’s readings, but they will be posted in due time.)

In reading the first two chapters of Orality and Literacy, I can’t help but think of a time in which I’ve come across the topic of oral and written language. The first was to read Sundiata, which is a story from Mali about Sundiata, the first king of Mali, during an African history class. In the class we learned about griots, who are essentially living historians, and from whom the story has been recorded. My summary, is that they pass the history of a people or person to others by means of an oral tradition, which as I learned in the class, is or was relatively common in this part of Africa, if not in significantly many other parts of Africa.

After this story, I then learned much about the use of information, its preservation and use in our culture. I remember one discussion in particular, in which another student, who was African, had given an example of how he was able to recite the history of his family for several generations. I can’t remember now, but it was definitely impressive and represented the example of oral recitation demonstrated by griots of West Africa. I (stupidly) said something to the effect of how that skill was common to many Africans (because, of course, I was now an expert in African history).

Well anyway, I did enjoy reading the first two chapters. I don’t know if I’ve thought much about how the lyrical patterns in epic poetry can be used as memory aids, but I did find it surprising that anyone would be so shocked. In retrospect it seems obvious that someone attempting to recite the entirety of The Iliad would need some type of memory aid. But, then again, I also suspect that with practice, as is the case with griots, recitation could come relatively easily with practice.

I also found the discussion of how difficult it is for people with written literature to divorce themselves of words, such as with the example given of how to explain a horse to someone who has never seen a horse, or how ‘secondary oral literates’ will see the word “nevertheless” in their mind – I do – when they spell it or say it aloud. Along these lines, the first chapter seemed very concerned with explicating some of the negative impacts of written literature, while also explaining the difference between oral performance art and written literature that is simply read aloud.

Eventually, however, the second chapter has begun to discuss some of the benefits of the written language, particularly the ability of the written language to record the oral, of which, as stated on the second page, many have disappeared or become subsumed by other languages. I didn’t quite understand “bicamerality”, which is discussed at the end of this chapter, but I took it as describing the feeling I have when writing, when I feel as though I’m speaking to myself, and the introduction of the phenomenon of noting bicamerality as unusual occuring in the period of humanity immediately preceding the written language.