Richard Saul Wurman

American demographics

Richard Saul Wurman is a classic reference in information design recommended to me by Mirja Leinss.
He created the online content understanding USA, a celebration and a visual demonstration of questions and answers leading to understanding.


Information Anxiety

He also created a comprehensive online content on understanding healthcare.


A human dashboard

Interactive dresses

Hexagram is an institute for research and creation in media arts and technologies. They present “Indice de l’indifférence: Walking City”, an exposition by Ying Gao.

The vernissage of the latest exposition by Ying Gao, “Indice de l’indiférence : Walking City” an installation featuring her interactive dresses, will take place at Galerie Diagonale on May 31, from 4 pm to 6 pm with the exposition taking place from May 29 to June 9.

Two beautiful examples of breathing dress





More of Ying Gao's work

Glass fabric lamps

Santa maria della Luce

Intriging angel-like lamps made of glass fabric and aluminium by designer Ingo Maurer.

Anthony James

Anthony James, Bachelor 2x4x2, Holasek Weir Gallery

Anthony James on artnet

Chapi Chapo

le diablotin

The ultimate mobile shopping experience

I discovered Caravan the ultimate mobile shopping experience: A store on wheels in the streets of new York.

Web site

Method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body

Method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body, United States Patent 6754472, by Microsoft 2004.

Abstract
Methods and apparatus for distributing power and data to devices coupled to the human body are described. The human body is used as a conductive medium, e.g., a bus, over which power and/or data is distributed. Power is distributed by coupling a power source to the human body via a first set of electrodes. One or more devise to be powered, e.g., peripheral devices, are also coupled to the human body via additional sets of electrodes. The devices may be, e.g., a speaker, display, watch, keyboard, etc. A pulsed DC signal or AC signal may be used as the power source. By using multiple power supply signals of differing frequencies, different devices can be selectively powered. Digital data and/or other information signals, e.g., audio signals, can be modulated on the power signal using frequency and/or amplitude modulation techniques.

Patent available online

This patent grant the company "exclusive rights to the body’s ability to act as a computer network" via David Adam, “Computerising the Body: Microsoft Wins Patent to Exploit Network Potential of Skin, ”The Guardian, July 6,2004, 3; David Concar, “The Boldest Cut, ”New Scientist, May 29, 2004, 32-37.

Augmenting our collective IQ

Augmenting our collective IQ by Doug Engelbart, invited by MIT.

Abstract
Throughout human history, new artifacts and the training and culture associated with them have served to augment human capabilities. In recent years, the computer and Web have played a central role in the enhancement of human capabilities. This discussion will explore what we can do next to facilitate the human and tool co-evolution to augment our collective capability to serve humankind.

Speaker bio
Doug Engelbart is the inventor of the computer mouse and led research teams at Stanford Research Institute that developed hypertext, networked computing, and early graphical user interfaces. At the 1968 Fall Computer Conference in San Francisco, he presented what became known as the mother of all demos. For a Wired article on this demo, see http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/mouse_pr.html. Engelbart is a recipient of the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Turing Award, and the 2000 National Medal of Technology.

Also available online, mp3 of "Collective IQ and Human Augmentation", Interview with Douglas Engelbart, April 4, 2007.

Douglas Engelbart's definition of augmentation: "everything we have done to increase our capabilities (...) from the tool to clothing".

Machine Therapy

I mentioned the work of Kelly Dobson about a year ago. Today, I attended her VERY inspiring thesis defense at the Media Lab, researching on Machine Therapy. I love her personal relationship to machines. I cannot wait to read her thesis!


Abstract
In this thesis I describe a new body of work called Machine Therapy, a methodology for revealing the vital relevance of subconscious elements of human-machine interactions that works within art, design, psychodynamics, and engineering. This practice highlights what machines actually do and mean, in contrast to what their designers consciously intended. Machine Therapy is a cyclical process that alternates between discussion of and sessions for empathic relationships with domestic appliances, personal extension and connection via wearable and prosthetic apparatuses, and the design of evocative visceral robots that interact with people's understandings of themselves and each other. Combining research and practice in digital signal processing and machine learning, mechanical engineering, and textile sensor design, I have been able to create new objects and relationships that are unique in some aspects while maintaining quotidian familiarity in other aspects. This is illustrated through the documented construction of several projects including re-appropriated domestic devices, wearable apparatuses, and machines that act in relation with users’ autonomic signals. These Machine Therapy devices are evaluated in studies of participants' interactive engagements with the machines as well as participants' affective responses to the machines. The Machine Therapy projects facilitate unusual explorations of the parapraxis of machine design and use: these usually unconscious elements of our interactions with machines critically affect our sense of self, agency in the social and political world, and shared emotional, cultural, and perceptual development.


Dissertation Committee

Christopher Csikszentmihályi
Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Muriel Cooper Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Program in Media Arts and Sciences
MIT Media Laboratory


Rosalind W. Picard
Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Program in Media Arts and Sciences
MIT Media Laboratory


Edith Ackermann, PhD
Honorary Professor of Developmental Psychology
University of Aix-Marseille I, France
Visiting Scientist, MIT School of Architecture

Kelly's Web site
Computing Culture research group

Music performance: water walk

In 1960 John Cage appears in a popular TV show and performs the music piece water walk. He uses sounds of everyday objects to compose. His carefulness and very precise actions show that he must have rehearsed hundred of times to perform his piece. Via multimedialab.

Video


Recently, Nicholas Knouf created an interactive version of John Cage's graphical score Variations 2, called Variations 10b. I tried it during an exhibition at the Lewis Music Library at MIT and found the interface very convincing. The interface allows a performer to change the score and get immediate feedback as to the result. Nicholas hopes that both listeners and performers will develop a more nuanced understanding of the score through the use of the interface.

Paper on variations 10b.


Three dots activated in a performance