Projects

An information envionrment that involves electronic and biological instrumentation using a distributed instrument of genetically identical (cloned) trees planted throughout the San Francisco bay area; electronic clones; CO2 meters.

OneTree(s) is a public experiment that generates (material, scientific and cultural) evidence and public spectacles on issues of environmental and political concern. In the case of OneTree(s), global warming, air quality, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are currently being addressed. Other issues and parameters are in development.

Additionally the OneTree(s) project can be contrasted to mainstream representations of global environmental issues. The popular press introduces these into the public imagination as scientific discoveries and facts, with no access to the material evidence on which the truth claims are based. This promotes the passive consumption of ‘facts’ vs the active interpretation, even contestation that we can see in the OneTrees ‘faqs’. Below, is a selection of FAQs that viewers have addressed to the OneTrees project, demonstrating some of the complex questions that the public viewers pose, and engage.

See the OneTree(s) project website

Robotic Geese are remote controlled goose robots that enable participants or robotic goose drivers (aka goosers) to interact with actual geese in urban contexts. The robotic goose interface allows people to approach the birds, follow them closely and interact in a variety of ways that would not otherwise be possible without this interface. The goose drivers can ‘talk to’ the geese, issuing utterances through the robotic interface, delivering prerecorded goose ‘words,’ their own vocal impersonations, or other sounds (such as goose flute hunting calls). Each utterance via the robotic goose triggers the camera in the robot’s head to capture 2-4 seconds of video recording the responses of the actual biological geese. These video samples upload to the public web-based goosespeak database that the participants can annotate, i.e. “the goose was telling me to go away,” “he was saying Hi.” As this database of goose responses accretes, redundancy and correlations in the annotations may provide robust semantic descriptors of the library of video clips….

Unlike the traditional zoo this is place where the animals remain by choice, a zoo without cages. Like a traditional zoo, it is a series of sites where animals and humans interact. However, the interactions at an OOZ site differ from that of a Zoo. Ooz is interactive in that it provides human a set of actions, the animals provide reactions and these couplets add to a collective pool of observations.

In recognition of the remarkable and complex behavioral strategies of underrepresented and poorly understood animal populations that thrive in urban environments, OOZ proposes a spectrum of human-animal interfaces. This proposal focuses on the continued development, completion and public installation of three OOZ interfaces in New York City addressing NYC (non-human) inhabitants: Canada Geese, Shortnosed Sturgeon & Striped Bass of the Hudson River and Brown & Red Bats. What follows is a brief introduction to each of these elements, with specific attention to geese as a case study for understanding the OOZ project framework.

go to the project website

Communication Technology …For the Birds

Communicative Technology for the birds (and humans) i.e. the perches; The …

An Open Source robotics project providing resources and support for upgrading the raison d’etre of commercially available robotic dog toys; and facilitating mediagenic Feral Robotic Dog Pack Release events. Because the dogs follow concentration gradients of the contaminants they are equipped to sniff, their release renders information legible to diverse participants, provides the opportunity for evidence driven discussion, and facilitates public participation in environmental monitoring and remediation.

go to the project website

Napster, Gnutella and their descendant have demonstrated famously the sheer scale of p2p filesharing systems, and the difficulties of exploiting this for the benefit of traditional entertainment products under traditional intellectual property regimes. However, less attention has been paid to the emerging audio and video products and the new genres of cultural product that exploit netbased distribution and production. This panel will survey different experiments and projects in this realm, specifically, projects that are designed to promote and sustain diverse cultural resources, generating demonstrable social value.

As a service to readers, Biotech Hobbyist Magazine publishes available plans or information relating to newsworthy products, techniques and scientific and technological developments. Because of possible variances in the quality and condition of materials and workmanship used by readers, Biotech Hobbyist Magazine disclaims any responsibility for the sale and proper functioning of read-built plans or information published in this magazine.

Since some of the equipment or organisms in Biotech Hobbyist Magazine may relate to or be covered by patents, Biotech Hobbyist Magazine disclaims any liability for the infringement of such patents by the making, using or selling of any such equipment or organism, and suggests that anyone interested in such projects consult a patent attorney.

Project Website

There is the state side which is equipped with the full repertoire of Kevlar jackets, baton, banana slip, handcuffs, there is stradegies that remove the possibility of dicurssive peer to peer engagement between the people being paod to be there, being paid to treat the gathering as a national emergency, the participants as dangerous. And the people who are not being paid to be there, who will wander aimlessly, armed with cardboard placards, or a costume, some a loudspeaker. or drum. Discursive technologies vs. technologies of force.

OneTrees is actually one thousand tree(s), clones, micro-propagated in culture. The clones, were exhibited together as plantlets at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. This was the only time they were seen together. In the spring of 2003 the clones will be planted in public sites throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including: Golden Gate Park; 220 fronting property owners; SF School District Schools; BART stations; Yerba Beuna Performing Arts Center; Union Square and other sites. Because the trees are genetically identical, in the subsequent years they will render the social and environmental differences to which they are exposed. The tree(s) slow and consistent growth will record the experiences and contingencies that each public site provides. They will become a networked instrument that maps the micro climates of the Bay Area, connected not through the Internet, but through their biological material. There are also electronic components of the project which include Artificial Life (A-Life) trees that simulate the growth of the biological trees on your computer desktop. The growth rate of these simulated trees is controlled by a Caron Dioxide meter (CO2 ). The project juxtaposes the simulated (A-Life) trees …

How Stuff is Made (HSIM) is a visual encyclopedia that documents the manufacturing processes, labor conditions and environmental impacts involved in the production of contemporary products. It is a free, independent, academic resource published by engineering and design students, who research and produce summative photoessays describing these conditions of creation. Academic faculty are responsible for ensuring that appropriate standards of evidence are upheld, and guide the students in collaborating with interested manufacturers. HowStuffisMade (HSIM) reconsiders engineering / design education as fundamentally connected to the social and political constraints, organizational innovations and global context that inform manufacturing decisions.

The design of the goose translation database is a radical departure from traditional animal research contexts and institutions. The OOZ database embeds an institutional critique, and claims that the leisure and entertainment institutions of art museums and tourism can be involved in the production of truth claims/i.e. actual knowledge. There is an even more controversial claim–this proposal has already caused controversy among computational and animal linguistic colleagues–that the phenomena of language can be better studied by diverse non-experts, i.e. with an open structure of participation.

Moreover, this type of problem falls into a class of problems that are also multi-parameter and cross-disciplinary, and resist formal definitions. All of these problems, I argue, can be fruitfully addressed by diverse (by definition of diversity) non experts, by open structures of participation. The advantage offered by open structures of participation on this intractable problems is simply that more diverse interpretative resources (i.e. throwing lots of different people at the problem) increases the probability of finding coherent or persuasive interpretations. The argument is a statistical one as much as a political one (although I am pro open structures of participation more generally) that make the open …