analog discussion

Hi Gordon & Maria -

I'm writing to seek guidance on my project. There are two concepts I am pursuing for my machine, and am having trouble combining them.

- A community based on sharing (sending and receiving) data

- Sharing by disassembly and reassembly of data

In the pinup before our trip to New York, I presented a solution based around disassembly and reassembly. I proposed to position cameras around a single object to capture its movement in real time (bullet time). This was achieved by sequencing frames captured by each camera. "Community" as a concept is incomplete in this idea. Each camera (peer) was sending data, but not receiving. Although this machine was an accurate transition from the first simplified diagram I presented, that diagram was not an accurate depiction of the BitTorrent concept - it did not show a data "swarm".

During the pinup in New York, I presented an idea that nailed the concept of community by defining a peer as the combination of a camera (sending data) and a screen (receiving data). The "data" being shared was whatever any camera in the network captured and then transmitted to each screen. This broad concept was then fine-tuned with capturing only motion combined with sound. I feel that this proposal can be made stronger by clearly redefining what is the "data" being transferred. If I keep the cameras pointed in different directions or even in different rooms, the data being shared could be defined as the conversation between peers. This conversation begins as disassembled and is depicted as assembled on each peer's screen.

If these cameras are positioned around an object or look into a space, the affect would be similar to that of my first proposal - however, with the help of sound activation, each peer (camera & screen) will actually be sending and receiving data. For example, if I let a dog loose in the room, the cameras will detect it with its sound. The camera that detects the loudest noise will then capture motion and send it too all screens (and those screens will receive). Therefore, if the dog's running around the room across different cameras, every camera will be sending and receiving. The "data" being disassembled and reassembled would be the dog's motion that is picked up in segments by different cameras, and continuously displayed on all the screens in real time. Each camera's input can be color-coded with a color overlay, so the moving dog would fade through different colors as it runs from camera to camera - this is like the different bands of color that occured in my initial diagrams, showing data segments from different peers.

Does that sound convincing? I am unsure and look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

I have also considered Maria's suggestions about first thinking about dissecting an image into its RGB values. I thought to line up a 3 cameras and placing red, green and blue filters in front of them and then compositing these images. But... I can also do this with one camera, and it begins to feel redundant. I feel that to justify using more than one camera would be to capture different angles.

Anyway - I hope I've clearly expressed my concerns - it is tough to write it all out! I'm very eager to work with capturing motion and hope to hear your input soon.

Thanks!

Ali,

I think the components of your analogue are there and, as you mentioned already, it's more about the orientation and content/techniques of the camera capture.

In simple terms your analogue is about an entity that exists split in pieces constantly available and shared among a group of devices.

The entity can be the observer, the pieces his/her captured image from different angles and the group of devices can be cameras linked to the same number of monitors. I would think that the cameras point to the center where the observer stands and their captured real time video is displayed on all the monitors either as a composite (overlayed layers of all camera captures) or as an ever-shifting video from camera to camera (monitor A shows capture from camera 1, then camera 2, then camera 3, etc).

That's the simplest set up I can think of and it's already shown in a couple of your suggested diagrams.

You 'll probably discuss this with Gordon in more detail, but as a suggestion, I would avoid using sound detection as a trigger for the capture, since this might interfere with the -most probably- complex sound environment instead of one person or action activating it. (In your example with the dog moving around the room I think it's more motion than sound that should be detected.)

Best,

Maria