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Defiance, a transmedia project, goes nano (for one episode anyway)

Wednesday, June 5th, 2013

Defiance sounds more like the name for a warship than the title of transmedia (tv/games) science fiction project. It (both the tv series and the game) debuted with much fanfare in April 2013 on the US SyFy channel. Given the alien invasion aspect of the show I wasn’t expecting any nanotechnology but episode eight broadcast on June 3, 2013 has a character being ‘brought back to life’ by nanomachines according to the Defiance recaplet by Jacob Clifton for Television Without Pity,

In fact, Sukar’s first death was the result of a bit of Ark that contained nanomachines and were piloting his body around to save the Votans in town. She [Irisa] takes his comatose body back to the Badlands tribe, and I guess deals with the fact that what little guidance she had for dealing with her coming godhood is now gone, which has to suck. But then too, she seems to understand that miracles never look like miracles — that just because it was nanomachines doesn’t mean it wasn’t also a miracle — so that’s comforting.

I’m not entirely sure how the nanomachines piloted a dead (?) character’s body around town but I don’t think that was the recapper’s main concern. However, curiosity aroused I found some interviews with the science advisor for Defiance, Kevin Grazier. Here’s an excerpt from Grazier’s April 15, 2013 Q&A with Emilie Lorditch for Inside Science,

Kevin Grazier is a planetary physicist who worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan, and is currently conducting research on long-term, large-scale computational simulations of Solar System dynamics and evolution. Grazier has also been a science advisor for numerous television shows such as “Eureka,” “Battlestar Galactica,” and the new SyFy show “Defiance.” …

…

IS: What is your typical day like?
KG: …
My interaction with the writers and producers depends upon the show, and for each episode it frequently depends upon the writer. Some shows (“Eureka,” “Falling Skies”) have brought me in prior to the beginning of a season to recommend technology or elaborate on scientific concepts for the upcoming season. Some writers will have an idea for a story, and will chat with me before they even start writing. Sometimes writers solicit input at the story outline stage, sometimes at the first draft stage. Sometimes, on the less tech-heavy stories, I have no interaction until there is a completed script, and then I weigh in with my notes.
On a few occasions I’ve been called into the writers’ room to do a presentation when we’re planning a particularly big or blockbuster season finale. Sometimes I get called to help with the visual effects. That happened a lot on Eureka.
For two episodes of Eureka, I was even asked to write a several pages of book chapters. In these episodes characters opened books and, since we shot in high-definition, fans could freeze the frame and read the text – so the text had to be original, not copyrighted, and, most importantly, correct.
On Defiance, I’ve had more telecons [telephone conferences]  than I’ve had on previous series, primarily because our game designer, Trion Worlds, is located in San Diego. I’ve also been editing a lot of online content, which I’ve never got to do before. As I said, nothing is “typical.”
…
IS: What advice do you have for scientists who want to work as a science advisor?
KG: It’s actually a lot easier to break in these days than it was when I started. There is an organization, program of the National Academy of Sciences, called The Science and Entertainment Exchange. They pair up scientists as consultants to the productions that need expertise. If you’re a scientist, and are interested in consulting (usually non-paid, at least at first), they maintain a database of scientists and their areas of expertise. If science consulting is something that interests you, start there.
One of the most important recommendations I could offer is that to do the job well, to be able to relate to the writers with whom you’re working, it really pays to have taken a screenwriting class or three. When it was obvious that I was going to get continued work in the industry, I went to UCLA Extension and earned a certificate in television writing. That’s been supremely helpful.
When you have an inkling of how difficult it is to tell a story in 42 minutes, with a beginning, middle, and end, along with five act breaks, you’re a much better advisor.

That last response from Grazier gives me daymares as I imagine some science type who’s taken a few courses and decides s/he is not just a science advisor but also the head writer. I’ve seen the phenomenon at work. All some people need is a workshop or a course and suddenly, they’ve become experts.

The article about Defiance on ScriptPhD is not credited or dated but I’m assuming it was posted in the last few months,

ScriptPhD.com was very honored to have the opportunity to sit down with both series writer and co-creator and executive producer Michael Taylor, as well as the show’s scientific advisor Kevin Grazier, to get a better idea of the characters, storyline and what we can expect going forward.

Taylor, also a series writer and producer on breakout SyFy hit series Battlestar Galactica, was involved in the early development of the series, which took over one and a half years to re-conceptualize and bring to the small screen from its initial concept. “Keep in mind, the original draft [of the pilot] was very different,” Taylor says. “The Chief Lawkeeper role was prototyped as this older, wry Brian Dennehy-type of character, for example. Irathient warrior Irisa was more of a wide-eyed, naïve girl than she is in the current version. We even had about two to three episodes of the series done. But as we went along, we were finding it hard to keep thinking up episodes from week to week.” Which is when the series went back to the drawing boards.

And reimagine the series they did! Unlike the vast majority of sci-fi shows, which explore the process of warring factions integrating and co-existing, in Defiance, this has already occurred, something that Taylor calls a “cool experiment.” “The 30-year-war has already been fought, all that stuff is long in the past,” Taylor reminds us. “And now we are at the point where the 8 races are trying to co-exist together. …

…

As for integrating the video game concept, it predated the show by five years, which allowed writers to establish stories and character development that will happen separately from, albeit concurrently with, the action in Defiance onscreen. …

…

“We’ve seen time and time again small plot points that have become little tidbits, or plot points or even major points driving an episode when you get the science right,” Grazier notes. “Caring about the science [in a series plot] can be as much of a strength as it is a constraint.”

And while it’s true that the science of Defiance does seem a bit less obvious or upfront than in shows like BSG or Eureka, it’s no less important nor is it any less incorporated. “We have a really rich, really well thought-out backstory, and that is very much informed by the science,” Grazier says. “We know that the V-7 [Votan] races came from the Votan System. What happened to their system? Well, we have that [mapped out], we know that.” He also pointed to subtle implications such as in the first few minutes of the pilot. When Irisa looks up at the sleeper pods, she says, “All those hundreds of years in space just to die in your sleep.” Grazier notes: “The subtle implication is that the V-7 aliens don’t go FTL [faster than light]. So we have figured out where they’re from and how far away they’re from and which direction of the sky they’re from and how long it took to get here.”

In addition to its elemental role in the backstory, science has also also had fun ‘little’ moments in the show, like the importance of the terrasphere in defending the Volge attack in the pilot or the hell bugs (a genetic amalgam of several earth critters) in episode 3. Some of these small scientific details were even able to result in cool visual effects. For example, when the table of writers was discussing the ark falls, Grazier, an astrophysicist by training, noted that the conservation of angular momentum meant that these things would not land vertically, but rather horizontally, using the screaming overhead comets in Deep Impact as a touchstone. Sure enough, in the first few minutes, you see Nolan and Irisa tracking what’s about to be an ark fall and you see them screaming overhead. “That will, by the way, come into play in a later episode,” Grazier teases. “We know where the ark belt is. Where the ships were when they blew up, how far away they are.”

Sadly, I couldn’t find any details about Defiance’s nanotechnology aspects but both the articles I’ve excerpted feature intriguing science and insider information.

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Canadian filmmaker Chris Landreth’s Subconscious Password explores the uncanny valley

Friday, May 31st, 2013

I gather Chris Landreth’s short animation, Subconscious Password, hasn’t been officially released yet by the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada but there are clips and trailers which hint at some of the filmmaker’s themes. Landreth in a May 23, 2013 guest post for the NFB.ca blog spells out one of them,

Subconscious Password, my latest short film, travels to the inner mind of a fellow named Charles Langford, as he struggles to remember the name of his friend at a party. In his subconscious, he encounters a game show, populated with special guest stars:  archetypes, icons, distant memories, who try to help him find the connection he needs: His friend’s name.

The film is a psychological romp into a person’s inner mind where (I hope) you will see something of your own mind working, thinking, feeling. Even during a mundane act like remembering the name of an acquaintance at a party, someone you only vaguely remember. To me, mundane accomplishments like these are miracles we all experience many times each day.

Landreth also discusses the ‘uncanny valley’ and how he deliberately cast his film into that valley. For anyone who’s unfamiliar with the ‘uncanny valley’ I wrote about it in a Mar. 10, 2011 posting concerning Geminoid robots,

It seems that researchers believe that the ‘uncanny valley’ doesn’t necessarily have to exist forever and at some point, people will accept humanoid robots without hesitation. In the meantime, here’s a diagram of the ‘uncanny valley’,

From the article on Android Science by Masahiro Mori (translated by Karl F. MacDorman and Takashi Minato)

Here’s what Mori (the person who coined the term) had to say about the ‘uncanny valley’ (from Android Science),

Recently there are many industrial robots, and as we know the robots do not have a face or legs, and just rotate or extend or contract their arms, and they bear no resemblance to human beings. Certainly the policy for designing these kinds of robots is based on functionality. From this standpoint, the robots must perform functions similar to those of human factory workers, but their appearance is not evaluated. If we plot these industrial robots on a graph of familiarity versus appearance, they lie near the origin (see Figure 1 [above]). So they bear little resemblance to a human being, and in general people do not find them to be familiar. But if the designer of a toy robot puts importance on a robot’s appearance rather than its function, the robot will have a somewhat humanlike appearance with a face, two arms, two legs, and a torso. This design lets children enjoy a sense of familiarity with the humanoid toy. So the toy robot is approaching the top of the first peak.

Of course, human beings themselves lie at the final goal of robotics, which is why we make an effort to build humanlike robots. For example, a robot’s arms may be composed of a metal cylinder with many bolts, but to achieve a more humanlike appearance, we paint over the metal in skin tones. These cosmetic efforts cause a resultant increase in our sense of the robot’s familiarity. Some readers may have felt sympathy for handicapped people they have seen who attach a prosthetic arm or leg to replace a missing limb. But recently prosthetic hands have improved greatly, and we cannot distinguish them from real hands at a glance. Some prosthetic hands attempt to simulate veins, muscles, tendons, finger nails, and finger prints, and their color resembles human pigmentation. So maybe the prosthetic arm has achieved a degree of human verisimilitude on par with false teeth. But this kind of prosthetic hand is too real and when we notice it is prosthetic, we have a sense of strangeness. So if we shake the hand, we are surprised by the lack of soft tissue and cold temperature. In this case, there is no longer a sense of familiarity. It is uncanny. In mathematical terms, strangeness can be represented by negative familiarity, so the prosthetic hand is at the bottom of the valley. So in this case, the appearance is quite human like, but the familiarity is negative. This is the uncanny valley.

Landreth discusses the ‘uncanny valley’ in relation to animated characters,

Many of you know what this is. The Uncanny Valley describes a common problem that audiences have with CG-animated characters. Here’s a graph that shows this:

Follow the curvy line from the lower left. If a character is simple (like a stick figure) we have little or no empathy with it. A more complex character, like Snow White or Pixar’s Mr. Incredible, gives us more human-like mannerisms for us to identify with.

But then the Uncanny Valley kicks in. That curvy line changes direction, plunging downwards. This is the pit into which many characters from The Polar Express, Final Fantasy and Mars Needs Moms fall. We stop empathizing with these characters. They are unintentionally disturbing, like moving corpses. This is a big problem with realistic CGI characters: that unshakable perception that they are animated zombies. [zombie emphasis mine]

You’ll notice that the diagram from my posting features a zombie at the very bottom of the curve.

Landreth goes on to compare the ‘land’ in the uncanny valley to real estate,

… The value of land in the Uncanny Valley has plunged to zero. There are no buyers.

Well, except perhaps me.

Some of you know that my films have a certain obsession with visual realism with their human characters. I like doing this. I find value in this realism that goes beyond simply copying what humans look and act like. If used intelligently and with imagination, realism can capture something deeper, something weird and emotional and psychological about our collective experience on this planet. But it has to be honest. That’s hard.

He also explains what he’s hoping to accomplish by inhabiting the uncanny valley,

When making this film, we knew we were going into the Uncanny Valley. We did it because your subconscious processes, and mine, are like this valley. We project our waking world into our subconscious minds. The ‘characters’ in this inner world are realistic approximations of actual people, without actually being real. This is the miracle of how we get by. My protagonist, Charles, has a mixture of both realistic approximations and crazy warped versions of the people and icons in his life. He is indeed a bit off-kilter. But he gets by, like most of us do. As you probably have guessed, both Charles and the Host are self-portraits. I want to be honest in showing you this world. My own Uncanny Valley. You have one too. It’s something to celebrate.

On the that note, here’s a clip from Subconscious Password,

Subconscious Password (Clip) by Chris Landreth, National Film Board of Canada

 I last wrote about Landreth and his work in an April 14, 2010 posting (scroll down about 1/4 of the way) regarding mathematics and the arts. This post features excerpts from an interview with the University of Toronto (Ontario, Canada) mathematician, Karan Singh who worked with Landreth on their award-winning, Ryan.

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We use the same reading strategies as did educated people in the 14th Century

Friday, May 31st, 2013

There’s a fascinating May 23, 2013 news item on phys.org about reading habits in the 14th century,

Today we constantly switch from one text to another: news, blogs, email, workplace documents and more. But a new book by an MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] professor reveals that this is not a new practice: In the 14th century, for instance, many people maintained eclectic reading habits, consuming diverse texts in daily life.

Consider Andrew Horn, the chamberlain for the city of London in the 1320s—meaning he was essentially the lawyer representing London’s interests in court against the king, who was Edward II for most of that time. The bound manuscripts in Horn’s possession, handed down to the city and preserved today, reveal a rich mixture of shorter texts: legal treatises, French-language poetry, descriptions of London and more.

Perusing such diverse texts, within bound volumes, was all in a day’s reading for a well-educated person, asserts Arthur Bahr, a professor of literature at MIT. Now in his book “Fragments and Assemblages,” published by the University of Chicago Press, Bahr says we must reconstruct how medieval people compiled these bound volumes in order to best grasp how they thought and wrote.

The May 23, 2013 MIT news release by Peter Dizikes, which originated the news item, explores the impact these reading habits may have had on a classic text of the period,

When we realize that individuals read this way, Bahr notes, we can see that the practice of throwing together all kinds of texts in a single bound manuscript may have influenced the composition of the most famous piece of literature of the period, Geoffrey Chaucer’s late-14th-century work “The Canterbury Tales,” a rich collection of linked stories.

“The ability to see the potential of textual juxtapositions is the cultural ground out of which the Canterbury Tales springs in the late 14th century,” Bahr says. “Chaucer’s invitation to readers is a kind of interactive process of composition. He has an idea about what ordering of the tales makes sense, because he creates links between them, but he’s encouraging us to participate. We don’t think of older writing as being that radical, but it is.”

Dizikes’ news release also provides some historical context for medieval reading practices,

To see why readers 700 years ago jumped between texts so much, recall that this was prior to the invention of the printing press, which was introduced in Europe in the middle of the 15th century. Before single books could be mass-produced more easily, manuscripts were copied out by hand, then bound together. This process led people to have many different types of texts bound together, rather than a single text being the entirety of a bound volume.

The book’s (Fragments and Assemblages) author, Bahr, interprets the relationship between the texts found in Andrew Horn’s bound volume and extends the interpretation to Chaucer’s work (from the news release),

In the case of Horn’s manuscripts, Bahr says, London’s chamberlain collected “detailed records of all the rules and legal precedents that give the city power and autonomy. But he included poetry, and bylaws for a poetic society, and a little Latin poem that doesn’t seem to go with anything else. Thinking about the literary, and being able to read in literary ways, as well as practical ways, was a skill he thought was important.”

But Horn was not just throwing a bunch of texts together and expecting readers to bounce around wildly from one to another, Bahr observes. He had a deliberate method to his assemblages of texts.

“Horn actually uses the construction of his books to create literary puzzles for his reader,” Bahr says. “One poem just doesn’t make sense, but if you read the poem in juxtaposition with the legal treatise that comes after, then the two pieces make sense. He’s suggesting that the law and literature are sort of the yin and the yang, you need both. And that is kind of amazing, really.”

In the book, Bahr looks at additional 14th-century manuscripts that compiled works of many authors, but also reinterprets Chaucer through the lens of these reading practices.

“Chaucer is able to conceive of the literary project that he undertakes in large part because those early figures created a literary culture that was attuned to these sorts of textual juxtapositions within literary manuscripts,” Bahr says.

Consider, Bahr adds, the Miller’s Tale, in the prologue of Chaucer’s great work. “It’s a very funny tale about a miller, his adulterous wife, and her lover,” Bahr says. “As Chaucer is getting ready to tell it, he says, [in effect], ‘If you don’t like dirty stories, just turn the page and look at something else.’ This has been taken as a joke, but it’s a serious joke, because we can turn the page, and we’re being invited to think about the effect of different textual juxtapositions. If we put these pieces in a different order, what would that do to the work as a whole?”

Among other things, Bahr points out, it would lead readers to skip about more freely within “The Canterbury Tales” and, in effect, create their own distinctive versions of it. [emphases mine]

That last bit sounds remarkably like some descriptions of digital novels and other ‘experimental’ work being done in what is sometimes called ‘new media’.

The whole thing brings to mind, Baroness Susan Greenfield, a British neuroscientist, who regularly forecasts ruin in the wake of new, mind-altering technologies such as Facebook and Twitter. I imagine that if the book were a new technology today, she would find it just as disturbing.

I’m not sure how amusing Dean Burnett’s satirical April 9, 2013 posting is for anyone who’s not familiar with Greenfield’s pronouncements but here’s an excerpt from Burnett’s post (Note: Links have been removed),

Following her recent article about the potential neurological dangers of the newly announced “Facebook phone”, it’s becoming increasingly likely that any new technological development will eventually have an article about it in which Susan Greenfield predicts the serious damage it could do to people’s brains.

Overlooking the fact that the recent article reads as though it was written by someone whose understanding of Facebook and smartphones is based exclusively on an overheard conversation between two drunken advertising executives in a pub, Greenfield tends to stick to a reliable and predictable formula.

Technological advances usually focus on making things faster, slicker and more efficient. So, should you need a Greenfield-esque article about the latest technological announcement to make your needless paranoia-inducing agenda seem more scientific/credible, there’s no need to wait until the Baroness herself can fit you into her schedule. Now you can write your own by following this simple step-by-step guide.

I highly recommend reading both Dizikes’ news release and Burnett’s posting in their entirety.

ETA May 31, 2013 1:10 pm  (PDT): There is another article about Arthur Bahr and his latest book, Fragments and Assemblages, which describes the work in more depth.  Medieval reading lessons by Kathryn O’Neill for MIT.

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Getting intimate with your smart clothing at Concordia University (Canada)

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

The Karma Chameleon project at Concordia University is an investigation into ‘smart’ clothing that goes beyond the ‘how to’ and also asks how would we feel about clothing than can transform itself without our volition. An Apr. 16, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily highlights the project and its lead researcher, Joanna Berkowska,

Joanna Berzowska, professor and chair of the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia, has developed interactive electronic fabrics that harness power directly from the human body, store that energy, and then use it to change the garments’ visual properties.

“Our goal is to create garments that can transform in complex and surprising ways — far beyond reversible jackets, or shirts that change colour in response to heat. That’s why the project is called Karma Chameleon,” says Berzowska.

The Apr. 15, 2013 Concordia University news release by Emily Essert, which originated the news item, describes the unique technical aspect of this work,

The major innovation of this research project is the ability to embed these electronic or computer functions within the fibre itself: rather than being attached to the textile, the necessary electronic components are woven into these new composite fibres. The fibres consist of multiple layers of polymers, which, when stretched and drawn out to a small diameter, begin to interact with each other. The fabric, produced in collaboration with the École Polytechnique de Montréal’s Maksim Skorobogatiy, represent a significant advance in the development of “smart textiles.”

Although it’s not yet possible to manufacture clothing with the new composite fibres, Berzowska worked with fashion designers to create conceptual prototypes that can help us visualize how such clothing might look and behave. Imagine a dress that changes shape and colour on its own, or a shirt that can capture the energy from human movement and use it to charge an iPhone

According to Berzowska, it will be two to three decades before we see this clothing in the stores but in the meantime she’s also investigating the social impact (from the Concordia news release),

There would also be a performative aspect to wearing such garments, whose dramatic transformations may or may not be controlled by the wearer. This research raises interesting questions about human agency relative to fashion and computers. What would it mean to wear a piece of clothing with “a mind of its own,” that cannot be consciously controlled? How much intimate contact with computers do we really want?

Apparently, there will be a show at Montréal’s PHi Centre in either 2o13 or 2014, Unfortunately the centre does not list any events planned after June 2013.

The project title, Karma Chameleon gives me an excuse to feature Boy George’s identically titled hit song,

I’d never seen the video before and it was a revelation. Tip: Do not pickpocket jewellery or cheat at cards; Karma will get you.

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Digital world and the Cleveland Museum of Art

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

If this project is as advertised, then the Cleveland Museum of Art has developed a truly exciting interactive experience. Cliff Kuang in his Mar. 6, 2013 article for Fast Company is definitely enthusiastic,

If you’re a youngster, why stare at a Greek urn when you could blow one up in a video game? One institution thinking deeply about the challenge is the Cleveland Museum of Art, which this month unveiled a series of revamped galleries, designed by Local Projects, which feature cutting-edge interactivity. But the technology isn’t the point. “We didn’t want to create a tech ghetto,” says David Franklin, the museum’s director. Adds Local Projects founder Jake Barton, “We wanted to make the tech predicated on the art itself.”

Put another way, the new galleries at CMA tackle the problem plaguing most ambitious UI projects today: How do you let the content shine, and get the tech out of the way? How do you craft an interaction between bytes and spaces that feels fun?

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Jan. 14, 2013 news release describes the new project,

… Gallery One, a unique, interactive gallery that blends art, technology and interpretation to inspire visitors to explore the museum’s renowned collections. This revolutionary space features the largest multi-touch screen in the United States, which displays images of over 3,500 objects from the museum’s world-renowned permanent collection. This 40-foot Collection Wall allows visitors to shape their own tours of the museum and to discover the full breadth of the collections on view throughout the museum’s galleries.

Throughout the space, original works of art and digital interactives engage visitors in new ways, putting curiosity, imagination and creativity at the heart of their museum experience. Innovative user-interface design and cutting-edge hardware developed exclusively for Gallery One break new ground in art museum interpretation, design and technology.

…

“Technology is a vital tool for supporting visitor engagement with the collection,” adds C. Griffith Mann, Deputy Director and Chief Curator. “Putting the art experience first required an unprecedented partnership between the museum’s curatorial, design, education and technology staff.”

Comprised of three major areas, Gallery One offers something for visitors of all ages and levels of comfort with art. Studio Play is a bright and colorful space that offers the museum’s youngest visitors and their families a chance to play and learn about art. Highlights of this portion of Gallery One include: Line and Shape, a multi-touch, microtile wall on which visitors can draw lines that are matched to works of art in the collection; a shadow-puppet theater where silhouettes of objects can be used as “actors” in plays; mobile- and sculpture-building stations where visitors can create their own interpretations of modern sculptures by Calder [Alexander Calder] and Lipchitz [Jacques Lipchitz]; and a sorting and matching game featuring works from the permanent collection. This space is designed to encourage visitors of all ages to become active participants in their museum experience.

In the main gallery space, visitors have an opportunity to learn about the collection and to develop ways of looking at art that are both fun and educational. The gallery is comprised of fourteen themed groups of works from the museum’s collection, six of which have “lens” stations. The “lens” stations comprise 46” multi-touch screens that offer additional contextual information and dynamic, interactive activities that allow visitors to create experiences and share them with others through links to social media. Another unique feature of the space is the Beacon, an introductory, dynamic screen that displays real-time results of visitors’ activities in the space, such as favorite objects, tours and activities.

…

The largest multi-touch screen in the United States, the Collection Wall utilizes innovative technology to allow visitors to browse these works of art on the Wall, facilitating discovery and dialogue with other visitors. The Collection Wall can also serve as an orientation experience, allowing visitors to download existing tours or curate their own tours to take out into the galleries on iPads. The Collection Wall, as well as the other interactive in the gallery, illustrates the museum’s long-term investment in technology to enhance visitor access to factual and interpretative information about the permanent collection.

“The Collection Wall powerfully demonstrates how cutting-edge technology can inspire our visitors to engage with our collection in playful and original ways never before seen on this scale,” said Jane Alexander, Director of Information Management and Technology Services. “This space, unique among art museums internationally, will help make the Cleveland Museum of Art a destination museum.”

In concert with the opening of Gallery One, the museum has also created ArtLens, a multi-dimensional app for iPads. Utilizing image recognition software, visitors can scan two-dimensional objects in Gallery One and throughout the museum’s galleries to access up to 9 hours of additional multimedia content, including audio tour segments, videos and additional contextual information. Indoor triangulation-location technology also allows visitors to orient themselves in the galleries and find works of art with additional interpretive content throughout their visit.

…

“ArtLens allows the visitor to take the experience of Gallery One out in to the other areas of the museum,” said Caroline Goeser. “It brings in many voices and traditions from different cultures, as well as giving visitors a chance to see demonstrations of art making techniques by local artists. The content is layered so visitors can choose what interests them and discover new ways of looking at and interpreting the object. Their experience is guided by their own sense of curiosity and discovery.”

It’s interesting to note the companies that partnered with the museum and to note the source for the money supporting this effort (from the news release),

The museum partnered with several other companies to complete the project, including Local Projects (media design and development), Gallagher and Associates (design and development), Zenith (AV Integration), Piction (CMS/DAM development), Earprint Productions (app content development), and Navizon (way-finding).

Gallery One is generously supported by the Maltz Family Foundation, which donated $10 million to support the project. Additional support for the project comes from grants and other donations.

Kuang’s article makes the exhibits come alive,

The first gallery that many new visitors will see, Gallery One, is a signature space, meant to draw in a younger crowd. To that end, the exhibits are about fostering an intuitive understanding of the art. Which sounds like baloney, but the end results are quietly terrific. At the root, the exhibits encourage people to move, fostering a connection to the art that’s literally written on the body:

  • In one display, a computer analyzes the expression on a visitor’s face. Then, they can see work spanning thousands of years that matches their own visage.
  • Gallery One also offers a chance to directly experience the physical decisions behind how masterpieces are made. For example, in front of a Jackson Pollack painting is a virtual easel, loaded with tools that approximate Pollock’s own, so that visitors can pour their own drip painting and compare it to the real thing.

Sounds like very exciting stuff. For anyone who can’t visit the exhibit, there are videos including this one where visitors strike a pose and an image (from the collection) mimicking the pose appears {ETA Mar.6.13 4:35 pm PST: I got this the wrong way round, the museum presents you with a piece of art and you strike the same p0se),

Sculpture Lens – Strike A Pose – Cleveland Museum of Art from Local Projects on Vimeo.

Kuang covers that exhibit and much more in his article, which I strongly recommend reading, and he makes this point,

Even as the designers go wild with the technology, they never stop to consider what anyone who doesn’t care about that technology would stand to gain. It was Barton’s [Local Projects founder Jake Barton] own skepticism about technology that made the technology great. His team didn’t necessarily believe that high-tech flare would add value to the museum experience. So they strove to look past the technology.

As a technical writer, I had many, many arguments with developers about precisely that point; most of us don’t care about the technology.  So, kudos to Jake Barton and all of the teams responsible for finding a way to integrate that understanding into a series of exhibits that allow the museum to showcase its collection, engage the public, and develop new audiences.

Meanwhile, the Council of Canadian Academies is poised to embark on an assessment which examines museums and other memory institutions along with digital technology from an entirely different perspective, Memory Institutions and the Digital Revolution,

Library and Archives Canada has asked the Council of Canadian Academies to assess how memory institutions, which includes archives, libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions, can embrace the opportunities and challenges of the changing ways in which Canadians are communicating and working in the digital age.

…

These trends present both significant challenges and opportunities for traditional memory institutions as they work towards ensuring that valuable information is safeguarded and maintained for the long term and for the benefit of future generations. It requires that they keep track of new types of records that may be of future cultural significance, and of any changes in how decisions are being documented. As part of this assessment, the Council’s expert panel will examine the evidence as it relates to emerging trends, international best practices in archiving, and strengths and weaknesses in how Canada’s memory institutions are responding to these opportunities and challenges. Once complete, this assessment will provide an in-depth and balanced report that will support Library and Archives Canada and other memory institutions as it considers how best to manage and preserve the mass quantity of communications records generated as a result of new and emerging technologies.

I last mentioned the ‘memory institutions’ assessment in my Feb. 22, 2013 posting in the context of their ‘science culture in Canada’ assessment panel. I find it odd that the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation was one of the requestors for the ‘science culture’ assessment but it  is not involved (nor is any other museum) in the ‘memory institutions and digital revolution’ assessment.

After reading about the Cleveland Museum of Art project, something else strikes me as odd, there is no mention of analysing the role that museums, libraries, and others will play in a world which is increasingly ephemeral. After all, it’s not enough to keep and store records. There is no point  if we can’t access them or even have knowledge of their existence. As for storing and displaying objects, this traditional museum function is increasingly being made impossible as objects seemingly disappear. The vinyl record, cassette tape, and CD (compact disc) have almost disappeared to be replaced by digital files. Meanwhile, my local library has fewer and fewer books, DVDs, and other lending items. What roles will libraries, museums, and other memory institutions going to have in our lives?

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Making a graphene micro-supercapacitor with a home DVD burner

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

Not all science research and breakthroughs require massive investments of money, sometimes all you need is a home DVD burner as this Feb. 19, 2013 news release on EurekAlert notes,

While the demand for ever-smaller electronic devices has spurred the miniaturization of a variety of technologies, one area has lagged behind in this downsizing revolution: energy-storage units, such as batteries and capacitors.

Now, Richard Kaner, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Maher El-Kady, a graduate student in Kaner’s laboratory, may have changed the game.

The UCLA researchers have developed a groundbreaking technique that uses a DVD burner to fabricate micro-scale graphene-based supercapacitors — devices that can charge and discharge a hundred to a thousand times faster than standard batteries. These micro-supercapacitors, made from a one-atom–thick layer of graphitic carbon, can be easily manufactured and readily integrated into small devices such as next-generation pacemakers.

The new cost-effective fabrication method, described in a study published this week in the journal Nature Communications, holds promise for the mass production of these supercapacitors, which have the potential to transform electronics and other fields.

…

“Traditional methods for the fabrication of micro-supercapacitors involve labor-intensive lithographic techniques that have proven difficult for building cost-effective devices, thus limiting their commercial application,” El-Kady said. “Instead, we used a consumer-grade LightScribe DVD burner to produce graphene micro-supercapacitors over large areas at a fraction of the cost of traditional devices. [emphasis mine] Using this technique, we have been able to produce more than 100 micro-supercapacitors on a single disc in less than 30 minutes, using inexpensive materials.”

The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Feb. 19, 2013 news release written by David Malasarn, the origin of the EurekAlert news release, features more information about the process,

The process of miniaturization often relies on flattening technology, making devices thinner and more like a geometric plane that has only two dimensions. In developing their new micro-supercapacitor, Kaner and El-Kady used a two-dimensional sheet of carbon, known as graphene, which only has the thickness of a single atom in the third dimension.
Kaner and El-Kady took advantage of a new structural design during the fabrication. For any supercapacitor to be effective, two separated electrodes have to be positioned so that the available surface area between them is maximized. This allows the supercapacitor to store a greater charge. A previous design stacked the layers of graphene serving as electrodes, like the slices of bread on a sandwich. While this design was functional, however, it was not compatible with integrated circuits.
In their new design, the researchers placed the electrodes side by side using an interdigitated pattern, akin to interwoven fingers. This helped to maximize the accessible surface area available for each of the two electrodes while also reducing the path over which ions in the electrolyte would need to diffuse. As a result, the new supercapacitors have more charge capacity and rate capability than their stacked counterparts.
Interestingly, the researchers found that by placing more electrodes per unit area, they boosted the micro-supercapacitor’s ability to store even more charge.
Kaner and El-Kady were able to fabricate these intricate supercapacitors using an affordable and scalable technique that they had developed earlier. They glued a layer of plastic onto the surface of a DVD and then coated the plastic with a layer of graphite oxide. Then, they simply inserted the coated disc into a commercially available LightScribe optical drive — traditionally used to label DVDs — and took advantage of the drive’s own laser to create the interdigitated pattern. The laser scribing is so precise that none of the “interwoven fingers” touch each other, which would short-circuit the supercapacitor.
“To label discs using LightScribe, the surface of the disc is coated with a reactive dye that changes color on exposure to the laser light. Instead of printing on this specialized coating, our approach is to coat the disc with a film of graphite oxide, which then can be directly printed on,” Kaner said. “We previously found an unusual photo-thermal effect in which graphite oxide absorbs the laser light and is converted into graphene in a similar fashion to the commercial LightScribe process. With the precision of the laser, the drive renders the computer-designed pattern onto the graphite oxide film to produce the desired graphene circuits.”
“The process is straightforward, cost-effective and can be done at home,” El-Kady said. “One only needs a DVD burner and graphite oxide dispersion in water, which is commercially available at a moderate cost.”
The new micro-supercapacitors are also highly bendable and twistable, making them potentially useful as energy-storage devices in flexible electronics like roll-up displays and TVs, e-paper, and even wearable electronics.

The reference to e-paper and roll-up displays calls to mind work being done at Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada) and Roel Vertegaal’s work on bendable, flexible phones and computers (my Jan. 9, 2013 posting). Could this work on micro-supercapacitors have an impact on that work?

Here’s an image (supplied by UCLA) of the micro-supercapacitors ,

Kaner and El-Kady's micro-supercapacitors

Kaner and El-Kady’s micro-supercapacitors

UCLA has  also supplied a video of Kaner and El-Kady discussing their work,

Interestingly this video has been supported by GE (General Electric), a company which seems to be doing a great deal to be seen on the internet these days as per my Feb. 11, 2013 posting titled, Visualizing nanotechnology data with Seed Media Group and GE (General Electric).

Getting back to the researchers, they are looking for industry partners as per Malasarn’s news release.

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Tweet your nano

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have published a study titled, “Tweeting nano: how public discourses about nanotechnology develop in social media environments,”  which analyses, for the first time, nanotechnology discourse on Twitter social media. From the Life Sciences Communication University of Wisconsin-Madison research webpage,

The study, “Tweeting nano: how public discourses about nanotechnology develop in social media environments,” mapped social media traffic about nanotechnology, finding that Twitter traffic expressing opinion about nanotechnology is more likely to originate from states with a federally-funded National Nanotechnology Initiative center or network than states without such centers.

Runge [Kristin K. Runge, doctoral student] and her co-authors used computational linguistic software to analyze a census of all English-language nanotechnology-related tweets expressing opinion posted on Twitter over one calendar year. In addition to mapping tweets by state, the team coded sentiment along two axes: certain vs. uncertain, and optimistic-neutral-pessimistic. They found 55% of nanotechnology-related opinions expressed certainty, 41% expressed pessimistic outlooks and 32% expressed neutral outlooks.

In addition to shedding light on how social media is used in communicating about an emerging technology, this study is believed to be the first published study to use a census of social media messages rather than a sample.

“We likely wouldn’t have captured these results if we had to rely on a sample rather than a complete census,” said Runge. “That would have been unfortunate, because the distinct geographic origins of the tweets and the tendency toward certainty in opinion expression will be useful in helping us understand how key online influencers are shaping the conversation around nanotechnology.”

It’s not obvious from this notice or the title of the study but it is stated clearly in the study that the focus is the world of US nano, not the English language world of nano. After reading the study (very quickly), I can say it’s interesting and, hopefully, will stimulate more work about public opinion that takes social media into account. (I’d love to know how they limited their study to US tweets only and how they determined the region that spawned the tweet. )

The one thing which puzzles me is they don’t mention retweets (RTs) specifically. Did they consider only original tweets? If not, did they take into account the possibility that someone might RT an item that does not reflect their own opinion? I occasionally RT something that doesn’t reflect my opinion when there isn’t sufficient space to include comment indicating otherwise because I want to promote discussion and that doesn’t necessarily take place on Twitter or in Twitter’s public space. This leads to another question, did the researchers include direct messages in their study? Unfortunately, there’s no mention in the two sections  (Discussion and Implications for future research) of the conclusion.

For those who would like to see the research for themselves (Note: The article is behind a paywall),

Tweeting nano: how public discourses about nanotechnology develop in social media environments by Kristin K. Runge, Sara K. Yeo, Michael Cacciatore, Dietram A. Scheufele, Dominique Brossard, Michael Xenos, Ashley Anderson, Doo-hun Choi, Jiyoun Kim, Nan Li, Xuan Liang, Maria Stubbings, and Leona Yi-Fan Su. Journal of Nanoparticle Research; An Interdisciplinary Forum for Nanoscale Science and Technology© Springer 10.1007/s11051-012-1381-8. Published online Jan. 4, 2013

It’s no surprise to see Dietram Scheufele and Dominique Brossard who are both located the University of Wisconsin-Madison and publish steadily on the topic of nanotechnology and public opinion listed as authors.

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Researching tweets (the Twitter kind)

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

The US Library of Congress, in April 2010, made a deal with Twitter (microblogging service where people chat or tweet in 140 characters) to acquire all the tweets from 2006 to April 2010 and starting from April 2010, all subsequent tweets (the deal is mentioned in my April 15, 2010 posting [scroll down about 60% of the way]). Reading between the lines of the Library of Congress’ Jan. 2013 update/white paper, the job has proved even harder than they originally anticipated,

In April, 2010, the Library of Congress and Twitter signed an agreement providing the Library the public tweets from the company’s inception through the date of the agreement, an archive of tweets from 2006 through April, 2010. Additionally, the Library and Twitter agreed that Twitter would provide all public tweets on an ongoing basis under the same terms. The Library’s first objectives were to acquire and preserve the 2006-10 archive; to establish a secure, sustainable process for receiving and preserving a daily, ongoing stream of tweets through the present day; and to create a structure for organizing the entire archive by date. This month, all those objectives will be completed. To date, the Library has an archive of approximately 170 billion tweets.

The Library’s focus now is on confronting and working around the technology challenges to making the archive accessible to researchers and policymakers in a comprehensive, useful way. It is clear that technology to allow for scholarship access to large data sets is lagging behind technology for creating and distributing such data. Even the private sector has not yet implemented cost-effective commercial solutions because of the complexity and resource requirements of such a task. The Library is now pursuing partnerships with the private sector to allow some limited access capability in our reading rooms. These efforts are ongoing and a priority for the Library. (p. 1)

David Bruggeman in his Jan. 15, 2013 posting about this Library of Congress ‘Twitter project’ provides some mind-boggling numbers,

… That [170 billion tweets] represents the archive Twitter had at the time of the agreement (covering 2006-early 2010) and 150 billion tweets in the subsequent months (the Library receives over half a million new tweets each day, and that number continues to rise).  The archive includes the tweets and relevant metadata for a total of nearly 67 terabytes of data.

Gayle Osterberg, Director of Communications for the Library of Congress writes in a Jan. 4, 2013 posting on the Library of Congress blog about ‘tweet’ archive research issues,

Although the Library has been building and stabilizing the archive and has not yet offered researchers access, we have nevertheless received approximately 400 inquiries from researchers all over the world. Some broad topics of interest expressed by researchers run from patterns in the rise of citizen journalism and elected officials’ communications to tracking vaccination rates and predicting stock market activity.

The white paper/update offers a couple of specific examples of requests,

Some examples of the types of requests the Library has received indicate how researchers might use this archive to inform future scholarship:

* A master’s student is interested in understanding the role of citizens in disruptive events. The student is focusing on real-time micro-blogging of terrorist attacks. The questions focus on the timeliness and accuracy of tweets during specified events.

* A post-doctoral researcher is looking at the language used to spread information about charities’ activities and solicitations via social media during and immediately following natural disasters. The questions focus on audience targets and effectiveness. (p. 4)

At least one of the reasons  no one has received access to the tweets is that a single search of the archived (2006- 2010) tweets alone would take 24 hours,

The Library has assessed existing software and hardware solutions that divide and simultaneously search large data sets to reduce search time, so-called “distributed and parallel computing”. To achieve a significant reduction of search time, however, would require an extensive infrastructure of hundreds if not thousands of servers. This is cost prohibitive and impractical for a public institution.

Some private companies offer access to historic tweets but they are not the free, indexed and searchable access that would be of most value to legislative researchers and scholars.

It is clear that technology to allow for scholarship access to large data sets is not nearly as advanced as the technology for creating and distributing that data. Even the private sector has not yet implemented cost-effective commercial solutions because of the complexity and resource requirements of such a task. (p. 4)

David Bruggeman goes on to suggest that, in an attempt to make the tweets searchable and more easily accessible, all this information could end up behind a paywall (Note: A link has been removed),

I’m reminded of how Ancestry.com managed to get exclusive access to Census records.  While the Bureau benefitted from getting the records digitized, having this taxpayer-paid information controlled by a private company is problematic.

As a Canuck and someone who tweets (@frogheart), I’m not sure how I feel about having my tweets archived by the US Library of Congress in the first place, let alone the possibility I might have to pay for access to my old tweets.

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Canada’s Queen’s University strikes again with its ‘paper’ devices

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

Roel Vertegaal at Queen’s University (Ontario, Canada) has released a ‘paper’ tablet. Like the bendable, flexible ‘paper’ phone he presented at the CHI 2011 meeting in Vancouver, Canada (my May 12, 2011 posting), this tablet offers some intriguing possibilities but is tethered. The Jan. 9, 2013 news item on phys.org provides more information about the new ‘paper’ device (Note: Links have been removed),

Watch out tablet lovers – a flexible paper computer developed at Queen’s University in collaboration with Plastic Logic and Intel Labs will revolutionize the way people work with tablets and computers.

The PaperTab tablet looks and feels just like a sheet of paper. However, it is fully interactive with a flexible, high-resolution 10.7-inch plastic display developed by Plastic Logic and a flexible touchscreen. It is powered by the second generation I5 Core processor developed by Intel.

Vertegaal and his team have produced a video demonstrating their ‘paper’ tablet/computer:

The Jan. 8, 2013 Queen’s University news release, which originated the news item, provides descriptions (for those who don’t have time to watch the video),

“Using several PaperTabs makes it much easier to work with multiple documents,” says Roel Vertegaal, Director of Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab. “Within five to ten years, most computers, from ultra-notebooks to tablets, will look and feel just like these sheets of printed color paper.”

“We are actively exploring disruptive user experiences. The ‘PaperTab’ project, developed by the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University and Plastic Logic, demonstrates novel interactions powered by Intel processors that could potentially delight tablet users in the future,” says Intel’s Experience Design Lead Research Scientist, Ryan Brotman.

PaperTab’s intuitive interface allows users to create a larger drawing or display surface by placing two or more PaperTabs side by side. PaperTab emulates the natural handling of multiple sheets of paper. It can file and display thousands of paper documents, replacing the need for a computer monitor and stacks of papers or printouts.

Unlike traditional tablets, PaperTabs keep track of their location relative to each other, and to the user, providing a seamless experience across all apps, as if they were physical computer windows.

“Plastic Logic’s flexible plastic displays allow a natural human interaction with electronic paper, being lighter, thinner and more robust compared with today’s standard glass-based displays. This is just one example of the innovative revolutionary design approaches enabled by flexible displays,” explains Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Plastic Logic.

The partners are saying that ‘paper’ tablets may be on the market in foreseeable future  according to Emma Wollacott’s Jan. 8, 2013 article for TG Daily,

The bendy tablet has been coming for quite a while now, but a version to be shown off today at CES [Consumer Electronics Show] could be ready for the market within three years, say its creators.

You can find out more about the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University here, Plastic Logic here, and Intel Core I5 Processors here.

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One more chance to figure out if resistance is futile, fertile, or something else at Australia’s 2013 ISEA meeting

Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

The call for installations, performances, and artworks is finished but the call for participation is open until Nov. 16, 2012 as I noted in my Sept. 28, 2012 posting about the International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA) being held in Sydney, Australia from June 7 – 16, 2013. You can submit your 300 word proposal here until the Nov. 16, 2012 deadline. From my Sept. 28, 2012 posting, here is the 2013 ISEA theme and sub-themes,

Theme – ‘Resistance is Futile’

The cutting edge of digital art has moved from the margins to become part of the fabric of everyday life.  At once ubiquitous and unnoticed, resistance to electronic art has proven futile — it now lies embedded in the heart of our contemporary cultures.  The symposium events will infuse the city’s social, digital and physical infrastructure. ISEA2013 aims to create a fluid body of thought, culture, community, industry, science and technology.

Artists play an important role in this “cutting edge.” By creatively investigating the possibilities and pushing the limits of new technologies, artists help us imaginatively experience and critically reflect on their implications for life in the 21st century. Digital electronic art is our source of innovation, the new norm in everything from publishing to TV, to radio, games, film, fashion, music, architecture, design, applications and gadgets. Ubiquitous and pervasive, digital media permeates almost all creative endeavors in everyday life and the city. The urban spaces of Sydney will provide the scene for thinking through the consequences of digital life, creative industries, and contemporary electronic art practice.

Sub-themes/Threads

1. Resistance is Fertile
Resistance is Futile … Resistance is Fertile… Resistance is Necessary. ISEA2013 explores the ways art and new technologies are used in the service of power, politics, protest and resistance.

2. Converging and diverging realities
The virtual bleeds into the real and increasingly our environments are mediated, augmented and transformed through technology. Mixed and augmented realities, obligatory social media, and locative technologies increasingly insert different realities into the physical world while communication simultaneously seduces us away from our immediate surroundings. As the “internet of things” becomes a reality, do we need to resist the ubiquitous society of participation, search, and the culture of always-on surveillance/sousveillance?

3. Life …  but not as we know it
Technologies are being used to extend human capabilities and to create new life forms. ISEA2013 explores how life is increasingly becoming a technology that is created, extended, and curated by the influence of artists working with technology. A chance to explore and critique the world of cyborgs, robots, alien life forms and the emergence of unnatural biologies.

4. Histories and Futures of Electronic Art
Where once electronic media technologies were on the margins they now permeate almost all of art, commerce and creativity. Digital cultures, media art histories, and media archeologies permeate contemporary art and design, and inform ways of seeing and understanding the world. ISEA2013 offers a platform to explore where electronic art has come from, where it is going and what it might become.

5. Ecologies and Technologies
The interrelationship of nature, culture and technology lies at the centre-stage of contemporary life. ISEA2013 explores technology as both the problem and solution, celebrating the role of the artist as innovator and provocateur. ISEA2013 engages questions of urban ecologies, consumption, food, climate, and sustainability.

6. Creation, Collaboration and Consumption
Digital technologies and social media are transforming social and cultural interaction on both global and local scales. Everyone is connected, everyone is a creator. But not everybody likes what they see or wants to participate in the prescribed forms of contemporary social media. ISEA2013 encourages debate, provocations and engagement in the global nets of participation.

Good luck!

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