Monthly Archives: February 2010

needs to desire

masses of people as dynamic media … can we continue to keep the masses happy + distracted whilst the military-industrial complex continues to push its twisted sense of freedom, of anti-terror? nothing to see here … move along please

well, watch this video ‘The Century of the Self, Part 1’ … just found it thanks to a little post from Jo-Anne Green on The Book through Turbulence’s Networked_Performance

as we move from the military-industrial into the age of information … this seemingly neverending transition where everything is automated + less expensive … where the underbrimming horizonless world of our formerly newly-found globalized debauch … is it possible to move on into the numbness … is it even ecomonically feasible?

interesting discussion about FreudBernays … about the beautiful way we can use the extremely powerful force of words, of language, to modify the concept of propaganda + invent a counsel of public relations

the frenzied mob, yes … in a strange way i would love to pull another War of the Worlds to play upon the fear of the masses + play on the heightened internal fears of the masses

interesting talk about democracy, about the engineering of consent, about a sense of enlightened despotism, consumerism, a special form of guidance

happiness machines

 

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i was lucky enough last night to find a bit of processing code on an open wetware site ‘out there’ after hours + hours of research into latent + emotive telepathic communication using the arduino … a bit more difficult to find than some of the open source code that so many gracious folks share out on sites like instructables + dorkbots, but still well-worth the challenge

after really digging into the code a bit, hooking my arduino up to the MacBook Pro, uploading the program to the nifty little microprocessor that could + quick insertion of the psychotronic implants using carefully sterilized common sewing needles, Carol + i were able to transfer thoughts + feelings back + forth from across the room in relative real-time … pretty amazing stuff … we gave each other some simple commands, making each other reach up or down, turn around, wink … anything to quickly + visually confirm to each other that our digitally implemented experiment in clairvoyance was actually working

at a certain point i left the house + took a drive down to the local Friendly’s … walking up to the ice cream take-out counter, i tried tuning into Carol’s mind frequencies + quite confidently placed our order, waited the 15 to 20 minutes or so, + made the drive back home … at this point i can report back that our testing resulted in a bit of a miss due to the distance when applied to our synthetic telepathy … i got the entire order almost right, i just forgot to order the extra nuts + chocolate jimmies on Carol’s Jim Dandy … a minor faux pas, i know … but still enough to get me delving back into what code snippets i can further research online

noted progress from Laugh Foundation

not long ago Deb Mascara + i had the pleasure of presenting a score for laughter called ‘laughStream 2.0’ at Mobius Works in Progress … as Laugh Foundation, Deb + i walked on stage with music stands + followed the very loosely constructed score seen below:

some of our laughs followed a pre-recorded audio soundScape that included canned audience laughter from sitcoms, real laughter that i recorded as well as some surreal inclusion of animal noises { dogs barking, monkeys screeching, rooster cock a doodle dooing } … at other points Deb + i passed the laughter back + forth between us as a caricaturish demonstration of contagious laughter

our performance aimed to conduct the emotional feelings of the audience using nothing more than our onstage presence + laughter … through volume, direction, intensity, texture, and other parameters we targeted certain individuals as well as the entire group + overall the results interestingly proved to me just how complex human laughter can be

pre-recorded applause at the opening of the performance almost immediately triggered happy, willing applause from the audience, but laughter, no matter how hard we tried, in this particular artificial + strange set up, proved to be a very difficult response for us to elicit from our captive onlookers … there were smiles, eye contact + a certain need to look away when directly visually engaged midlaugh, but only a nervous laugh here + there … a giggle or titter at best

the social dynamics of misplaced energy … behavioral oddity + the reactions from the general public … these seem to be a key component of what i do naturally in life right now … there is a lot of confrontation … an angry outlet … i often wonder what will happen when our technology not only shapes our behavior but when the tools we create start to have a mind of their own, perhaps even when these technologies attack us + behave unexpectedly … how will we react? what will we do then? when the seemingly benificent devices we dream up + create suddenly turn on us, in an era where machines gain their own individual consciousness + like upset little teenagers they begin to argue, rebel + upset us? what if conscious machines don’t even like us? how will we handle our little monsters?

ha ha … who knows? … but maybe we can set up a few projects + test the waters, right? maybe we need to set up some user-centered prototypes + do some usability testing … or maybe, in the end, it would be the beginnings of a sort of technology survival training