premise of the course tools task for the course workshop, task1, IO blog requirements references,links schedule

exhibition extended task ----------------------- link to Arduino -----------------------

‘The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name’. Marshall McLuhan Understanding Media, the medium is the message.

‘The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem.’ C. E. Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication.

Our daily live is largely affected by digital technology; Computation pervades the stuff of the everyday : public transport displays, computerised workstations, video games, music production and reproduction, mobile phones, RFID tags, credit cards, internet dating, animals with embedded chips, intelligent home appliances … That side of the spectrum of our lives is out of the scope of designers: We design mostly the envelops, the plastic and other materials wrapped around computation and media in general.

But, if as according to Shannon’s claim, the meaning and semantics of all communication are irrelevant to the engineers, who is then designing and critically developing that part of our everyday experiences increasingly informed and mediated by electronic technology and devices of communication, between people, people and machines and even between the machines themselves? In the efforts to remediate this situation, designers develop concepts, ideas and designs that are often carried out by engineers and technicians. We become creators of meanings and messages, falling for Shannon’s separation between signal and meaning, medium and content, and overlooking McLuhan’s fundamental maxim that ‘ the medium is the message’.


In Transformations we will try to address things differently, and avoid the believe that the media of communication are ‘meaningless’ in themselves, and meaning solely dependant of content. We will do this by working with technology as our design material. Our basic concern is summarised in Claude Shannon’s excerpt which describes communication as a process of translation of a message form one point in to another. We will deal thus with the transformations or translations of inputs into outputs, and the design of their capabilities for generating meaningful information. The project will develop close to what Mark Weiser defined in the late eighties as 'ubiquitous computing', that is, computation embedded in the physical experience of our everyday realities. As Mark Weiser tells, it is easy to find 40 microprocessors in a middle class U.S. home today; ubiquitous computing deals with this incorporation of computers in to cloths, furniture, pets and other everyday objects, which it is already a fact, and which will presumably continue to penetrate the fabric of the everyday.

Task:
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The goal and task of the course will be to develop simple mechanisms that transforms inputs in to outputs in meaningful ways: in Groups of 2 or 3, each group will decide an everyday object or possible situation, existing or projected, in which this transformation may add some exciting, calming, informative or irrelevant information that will affect the qualities of that object/situation.

For achieving this we will introduce a number of techniques (input/output), enough to produce some interesting work, particularly through the workshop. However, you are encouraged to find your own technologies, already available in common devices such as toys or home appliances. A number of sources for this are given in the links and references.

The final results will be part of an exhibition/presentation, and of a web project, which will help to make public and available to other designers working in similar lines around the world. This is with the intention of helping others, and to be helped and receive feedback from others. For this specific documentation will be demanded at the end of the course. Material will be also constantly submitted and shared for discussion within the course through the use of group blogs. These will include images, text with descriptions of progress as well as schematics of electronics and Wiring/Arduino code.
more details:

Tools:
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MATERIAL: ARDUINO + ELECTRONICS.

The main ingredient for our research will be Arduino; Arduino is a simple developing environment for artist and designers, made by artist and designers. Arduino's heart is a micro controller, the Atmega8 from Atmel, in essence a very small computer, like those found in home appliances and electronics or control systems in vehicles .

As another component of our ‘hands on’ approach we will use very simple electronics, ready-made components that are part of our everyday environment in the form of toys, gadgets and consumer electronics, off-the-shelf mechanical and electronic components.

Lack of knowledge of electronics will not be an obstacle, but on the contrary, it will constitute a source of ingenuity in the generation of innovative approaches to the design of technology. A Low-Tech approach will not only be a remedy to such possible lack of knowledge, but will be intentionally sought because of its possibilities for cheap production and testing, both within the course and perhaps in some cases by suggesting possible industrial fabrication.

Workshop: IO (Input-Output)
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As a first introduction to the techniques and to very basic programming we will spend the first week of the course on a workshop investigating different forms of input and output. For this each group of 2 or 3 people will be given an Arduino board, a simple electronic kit, and one input and one output component. In general, and in this context, input is made through Sensors (they sense something) and output through Actuators (they actuate, or do something).

The idea is that you share your findings, in terms of diagrams, photographs and code, are available to the rest of the groups through your blogs, creating all together a library of sensors and actuators for the course (at least 5 of each, providing 5X5=25 possible combinations of inputs and outputs). More importantly, the information will be available for other people working with similar ideas, that may find what you have done interesting and useful.

The teams you will form now will be kept for the rest of the course. The workshop will provide with the basic tools and knowledge for the rest of the course.

introduction to programming.

Blog:
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An important tool during the course for recording and shearing the progress of your work will be the blog. Each group will set a separate blog (we will get an introduction to it the first day of the workshop) that will be used for submitting and publishing images, diagrams, sketches, comments, schematics of circuits, procedures, results and code. Entries to the blog should be made daily, and a minimum of twice a week.

Instructions for setting up your group blog here.

Exhibition:
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The works produced during the course will be exhibited in the entrance hall at Konstfack, in the space to the right of the entrance, in fornt of the library and conference rooms. The exhibition will open on Friday the 2nd of May at 5pm (after the final crits in the space) and will last for the next continuing week, until Friday the 9nth.

Requirements for passing the course:
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-Minimum assistance of 80%.
-Completion of the final task, that is: a functioning prototype of the proposed daily object/situation.
-Blog submissions, at least twice a week. The blog should include a minimum of 4 photographs, 1 code example,one sketch and comments for each entry.

Schedule:
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References and links:
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tools:
Arduino.
Wiring.
Processing.

Resources:
LowTech.
Make, hacking technology.
InstantSOUP.
hack a day.
Physical computing at NYU.
Tetsuo Kogawa.

Design references:
hehe.
Jürg Lehni.
Interaction Design Institute IVREA.
we-make-money-not-art.
Physical computing at NYU.
Tiletoy.
MIT, Media Lab, Tangible media.
Natalie Jeremijenko, live wire.
ArtBots.
Loop.PH.
Ralf Schreiber.
kram/weisshaar.
Åsmund Gamlesæter.
haque design and research.
Aether Architecture.
Krets.
armyofclerks.
Interaction Design 3; Sensors and Senses.
Smart Studio, Interactive Institute.

Material shops:
farnell.
elfa.
Clas Ohlson.
Spark Fun.