Major Studio 1: Interactivity
Professor: Scott Paterson (www.sgp-7.net)

Artist Statement:

I am a Designer, a problem solver with respect for the aesthetics of the solution. I am committed to making work that upholds both design tenents of form and function but with a careful disregard for which follows which.

I am inspired by architecture and industrial design, the geometry and formalism found in the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements, and am comforted by the absoluteness of mathematics. I am interested in making work that contains motion, either on-screen in video and broadcast design or in physical space with interactive, installation-based works that are affected by movement or its absence. I see a compelling tension in the relationship between architecture and the natural environment, particularly where the two meet and how they can benefit and respect one another. I feel as though it is in this physical realm with my concern for the environment that I would like my work to contribute socially.

I like the notion of augmented reality, the word halcyon, and the color #525e6e.

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Superstar Smackdown:

Select a person to act as an ongoing advisor over the course of the semester. Prepare 10-15 minute presentation of their work, ideas, theories, etc. Your superstar should work in at least one of the following domains – art, media, and design. Feel free to question the definitions of those terms to suit your interests. Create a place on your site to record aspects of their work, thinking, etc that are inspirational for your work in studio. We will be ‘debating’ our superstar’s point of view throughout the semester.

Vito Acconci, my superstar:

PDF of presentation: http://a.parsons.edu/~srance/spring06/major_studio2/vito_acconci.pdf

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Field Guide:

The subject of my field guide is security / surveillance cameras around NYC. The first step in my process was to categorize and photograph a wide variety of surveillance cameras in various locations.

After grouping the cameras into the rough categories of inside, outside, and underground I then created spreads containing a full page photo of a camera with a facing page with a description of the type, location, and purpose of the camera. The size and orientation of the field guide’s fold was adopted from scientific notepads or police ticket pads. I allowed the orientation of the photos decide the orientation of the spread into both portrait and landscape and decided to use a two ring binding to collect the pages for easy page turning and allow for single page isolation.

Version 2.0

After instructor and class feedback I changed the three column layout of the landscape spreads to two columns and added a color coded bottom stripe for ease of locating a specific category. The heirarchy of the text also changed to highlight the camera model rather than the location, more like a field guide. The binding also changed the layout somewhat as I had not left room at the spine to allow for hole punching. The “wonkiness” of the rings also made me reconsider the method of the field guide’s binding. I had wanted a tape binding but was unable to find a printer that did this in the amount of time that I had so I ended up using a simple, wire spiral. This second iteration also added a title image and a page for field notation.

Future steps

After further feedback, the two separate orientations of the field guide’s spreads are the biggest problem. The turning of the guide makes for less pleasureable user experience and is the cause of some confusion. I would also like to include another category of cameras: the hidden, or “nanny” class of cameras.

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Final Project

Proposal:

RFID gallery tracking project

For the remainder of the semester I would like to investigate RFID technology and the idea of tracking people as they interact with their environment. Playing with the notions of discrete surveillance, privacy, and interactive spaces I propose to follow the paths of gallery visitors through the space of the Design + Technology graduate thesis show and present them with a visualization of their journey both spatially and temporally as they passed through the gallery. Some concerns I have about this project are its scope, the technical limitations and cost of RFID technology, and the implied complicity of the interaction with no direct user input.

As visitors enter the gallery on the ground floor of 2 West 13th Street they will receive a button similar to those given out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Embedded within this button will be an RFID tag unbeknownst to the wearer. RFID readers located around the gallery space will then track their movement by triangulating position through multiple readings; this will represent their spatial movement through the space. The time spent with each work in the show will also be recorded. As viewers remain in one position, a dot or other visual element will grow in size depending on the length spent in that location. At the conclusion of their visit, viewers will then leave the space and will be presented with a map representing their path, as a line, and time, as a series of dots or circles of varying size. This will constitute the “artifact” that is presented by the piece and whose content is a direct relation to the user’s interaction with the physical space of the gallery.

The use of RFID has been contentions due to the general public’s concerns about privacy and fear of a government which follows our movements. While the current technology is not yet this sophisticated the threat of being surveilled remains. The implied complicity of the interaction / tracking is also in line with the big brother, G.W.Bushesque view that “if you don’t have anything to hide…” The covert nature of the tracking is in contrast to the benign, artistic use of the data yet causes an awareness of the hidden nature of the tools that we come in contact with everyday that keep tabs on our whereabouts.

I have since discovered that triangulation and exact positioning is not possible with current RFID technology. I’ll be posting another project proposal shortly.

New Proposal:

I have come up with the following sentance about my new project idea: I am studying surveillance as it relates to daily travel because I want to find out how and why the information is used, either benevolently or malevolently, in order to understand what we lose or gain as a result of having our movements tracked and inform others of the information that is being gathered.

The solution as I now imagine it takes place in a gallery setting and involves a user swiping their Metrocard through a custom made magnetic stripe reader which then displays, in a yet undetermined way, their recent travels which have been recorded by the Metrocard. I would like to leave the user with an artifact of this interaction as both reminder of what information is being gathered about them and to make this method of tracking more transparent and tangible.