Affection Stations

Materials

Here’s an update on The Summoner & The Frequency Sensitive Objects. This final station is a collaboration between myself and fellow media artist, Buddy Bojorquez. Buddy has been developing an installation involving lights which come to life on their own. In our efforts to make a collaboration occur, we happend to stumble onto the idea of the lights being a “reading” station — a ubiquitous phenomenon. As the smart phone is connected to the greater entities in the network they take control over the lights.

A video is on the way.

Here is an update on The Rambler & The Scribe Station. I finally figured out how to get everything talking to each other and I think the results are quite compelling. I want to play with the algorithm a little more as I’m finding that different locations in our studio space emit electromagnetic radiation a lot more than others. This particular location was quite “loud” which caused my oracle aka The Rambler to freak out… Hence the Scribe began printing all these thoughts it was having. In other words I ran out of paper, plus the app crashed, or maybe it was the Hub. Not sure yet, but its getting there.

Hello, I have an update for two of my Oracles and Oracle Stations. I had a lot of packages arrive this past Friday which gave me all weekend to work!

The first update is on The Whisperer & The Siren Station. I finally received four 5ft. proximity sensors from Sparkfun, and I also received new widgets for the NETLab Toolkit. Using Flash iOS and the NETLab Hub I am able to create an iOS application which can listen to the incoming data from Arduino (which is connected to Flash using the NETLab Toolkit not Arduino).

The second update is on The Rambler & The Scribe Station. I also received my thermal printer from Sparkfun this weekend however, they should’ve recommended the proper power adapter — I’m currently using one which doesn’t output enough amps, hence the light print outs and non-functioning. Using the NETLab Toolkit I’m able to quickly make an iOS app which listens to the audio data coming from Pure Data. Hopefully I can figure out how to send OSC from Pure Data to Arduino to control the Thermal Printer. I’ll take any suggestions if you have them.

Yay! I just launched my Kickstarter project to gain support and funding for my speculative thesis project. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/615760018/oracle-stations

Here’s a rough sketch of what the Rambler station will be like. The paper exiting the scribe station will eventually be printed using a thermal printing station.

The Rambler is inspired by the Oracle of Delphi, also known as The Pythia. She was claimed to embody the voice of Apollo at the slopes of Mount Parnassus. One common view has been that the Pythia delivered oracles in a frenzied state induced by vapors rising from a chasm in the rock, and that she spoke gibberish which priests and scribes reshaped into the enigmatic prophecies preserved in Greek literature.

The smart phone at the upper left corner of the Station is the Oracle. And it is the interaction between the two devices which creates a space for the prophecy to be given. Passively, the Oracle will be mumbling to itself. When a vistor is placed on its plate a conversation between the two devices occurs via their electromagnetic energy. This causes the scribe station, which is in place for us to observe this event, to begin printing the Oracles ramblings.

Here’s a test video for The Whisperer. (volume up!)

Here are the initial sketches for the 3 Oracles.

The Rambler is paired with The Scribe Station. The Scribe Station enables visitors (devices) to receive a prophecy from The Rambler which is more passive of the three. The station is outfitted with a printer display which lets the owner see/read the conversation taking place. Although, at most times these are nonsensical words, characters, and complex mathematical equations which seem like regular expressions. The messages are somehow never the same.

The Whisperer is paired with The Docking Station. As research revealed its sensitivity to electromagnetic radiation of humans, the Docking Station is equipped with an audio display system for the Whisperer’s voice. Known as being more complex and smarter, The Whisperer utilizes the presence of humans and their ability to hear as means to deter a device and its owner from approaching it. In addition this require the effort of not only one owner and their smart phone, but four, in order to tame the Whisperer.

The Listener is paired with The Offering station. The Summoner has given up its life to give life to what are known as “simple frequency sensitive objects.” We’re not quite sure what these objects are, but they seem to resemble simple single cell organisms. See Tonalis