The Cloud – the latest buzz word in technology circles.  What does it really mean?  Well essentially it means remote storage and using the “internet” as a means to run applications, using your computer – and quite often – a web browser as a means to run these applications.  With the rise in mobile devices, this all seems like a logical thing to do.  Keep your data in one central place so that you can retrieve it where ever you are.  This is very similar to the old mainframe model that was used in the past, with a users having a dumb terminal and all data and applications running off of a central computer.  The difference being that these days the device you connect to the “cloud” isn’t as dumb.

At first I felt that the concept was quite interesting, although straight away I realised it’s similarities with the old mainframe / dumb terminal way of thinking.  But over the last year or so of thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s some what sinister from a privacy / personal level.  Personally the hardware is not what I feel is important when it comes to computing.  It’s the tool for me to do my work, and create.  The real important aspect is the Data.  As such I feel it’s important that I have full control over my data, and that I don’t hand over my rights to a third party company.  From a legal point of view you get into situations where a government agency (the Police for example) would need a search warrant to obtain your data if on your personal computer, but if your data is held on a server owned by a third party organisation then it might be the case that due to legislation and company policy you find that your data is no longer protected by such a basic right.

I feel that slowly people are allowing their personal data and personal lives to become open to all levels of intrusion.  A lot of it seems innocent at first, but when you start to look at incidents such as that of the iPhone logging location data (with out the user knowing) and then ponder the usages of this data (which would most probably be for marketing reasons), I have to start to become more wary of what I allow to be stored, and by whom.

On a separate level, a lot of Cloud computing concepts also go against the Free Software Definition.  This is due to the fact that the applications that you are using are not running on your machine (as it were) and you are unable to see exactly what is going on with regards to the programming.  Many online apps (Google Docs for example) are free to use, but they are not FREE.  Also you are overly relying on the services of a third party, and if those services for what ever reason is not available then you are no longer able to continue using it.

I am all for technological advancement, but I have always felt that technology should be there to empower us as individuals and groups.  It should be there so we are able to use it as we please, and use it for a positive reason.  I find the continued expansion of the “cloud” as a means to lock people into services, and essentially hold their data to ransom.  A careful look at all terms and conditions is important when using these services, as it’s not uncommon to find that the data you presume is yours, when stored on these third party servers, actually becomes someone else.

Not all clouds have a silver lining.

gh

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The show is a mixture of disciplines and to my mind some of it erred on the interactive for the sake of it side, sort of pretty and funny but not much to it and then there was work that was truly impressive. The winner of the Prix Ars Electronica in the music and sound art category, Ryoichi Kurokawa was one of the most satisfying digital works I have ever seen.

A beautiful installation of 5 vertical screens, described as a time-based sculpture Rheo: 5 Horizons from the Greek meaning river, it showed landscapes which were broken into digital analyses with corresponding audio tracks. It was so beautifully realised in every way that I would of happily spent 4 days looking at it.

One of the big surprises for me came on the last morning, I’d been recommended to seek out an installation in one of the basements called ‘Song for Earth’, a truly woeful title but by all accounts a lovely piece. I finally found the right corner of the complex and found a low basement space with a single electric guitar on a stand plugged into a small practice amp, there was an electric screwdriver attached to a mic stand which rotated a piece of cord against the frets of the guitar creating a nice sustained drone, as you moved through the space other guitars were placed throughout creating a shifting phased drone that followed you. A really simple piece that was really effective. It was made more impressive by the fact that it turned out to be the work of an 8 year old boy. Sort of demystifying both modern sound art as well as the avant music scene. Nice work.

It’s impossible to adequately describe the scope of the work due to the sheer amount going on but some highlights for me were Merrick by Daan van den Berg, 216 prepared dc-motors / filler wire 1.0mm, 2009 by Zimoun, Chapter I: The Discovery by Félix Luque Sánchez and Earth by Finnbogi Pétursson. There were also some great performances going on over the weekend, notably the Braun Tube Jazz Band by Japanese artist Ei Wada, I don’t know how he did it but he managed to make a collection of old CRT televisions behave like bastardised Theremins and he gave a really joyous demo of what he was capable of, a weird mix of Taiko drumming and Gabba.

On the other hand Telenoid was massively disturbing and it made me feel a bit funny. Why the flipper arms?

Ars Electronica has been running in Linz for 31 years and is testament to the forward looking nature of the city, I will hopefully return next year for another showcase of great work.

dl

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1. 20three generative work 2002

The general process for these generative experiments was that of using a single image, and then manipulating that image by rotating, stretching, skewing and duplication.

The real goal was to use as simple an algorithm as possible, and then from this set of simple rules allow complexity to emerge.

At the time we were using Flash and ActionScript 2 for the development of the images, this was chosen as it’s a nice simple language, and allows for rapid development.

Screenshots:

All the above examples can be seen live by clicking here

After experimenting with generative images that move and rotate, we decided to experiment with images that just create instances of static images.  The reasoning behind this was so images could be generated that then could be translated into a palette for design.

As well as being featured in the 6th Generative art Conference in Milan (organized by the Generative Design Lab) we also managed to use these generative experiments for several commercial projects. The most successful application was a collaboration with React snowboards. We created a set of visuals based on our generative programming and one design went into production – the results of which can be seen below. We also used the same generative programming to create downloadable screensavers and graphic assets for Adam Freeland’s 2002 version of the Marine Parade record label (no longer live).

React Snowboards, 2002

React Snowboards, 2002

React Snowboards, 2002

gh & op

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1. Degree Show: University of Brighton
2. Wiring ::
3. Typographic Brighton

Why Free Software

I am going to quote directly from the GNU site on this :

Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program’s users have the four essential freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

This was taken from here

GNU/Linux is the Operating System.  Linus Torvalds in 1990 (or there abouts) creates the kernel Linux that would be used as one of the kernals for the GNU Operating System.  There are many flavours of GNU/Linux out there, and not all of them adhere to the philosophy of free software, on the GNU web-site they list the distro’s that do.  But, it’s a good step in the right direction for anyone to ditch the main OS and move towards the open source / free software OS.

I have recently been exploring different distro’s – using Sun’s Virtual Box to run different virtual machines so I can try them out before I decide to make a permanent change.  My current trial is that of gNewSense – I’ll make a report on this version as soon as I have had a proper play.  It’s based on Debian (which is great), but sticks more truly to the GNU philosophy.

This post has become somewhat of a ramble, and really all I wanted to do was get peoples interest in the Free Software concept and philosophy.

Let’s take a control back of our machines!

gh

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1. Ubuntu – a flavour of linux
2. FLOSS – free/libre/open source software

I’ve been aware of Wiring for  a good few years now, and have been watching it develop.  It’s a sister project to Processing – so the language is very similar, the difference being Wiring is designed to allow you to create programs that run off of a electronic board, and micro-controller.

Here is a quote from the site

Wiring is an open source programming environment and electronics i/o board for exploring the electronic arts, tangible media, teaching and learning computer programming and prototyping with electronics. It illustrates the concept of programming with electronics and the physical realm of hardware control which are necessary to explore physical interaction design and tangible media aspects.

A friend of mine was selling some wiring boards, and on an impulse I bought one.  The next step was for me to try and  get it working on Linux – and I have to say Hernando Barragán (the guy behind wiring) was a star and helped no end – so that I could get it working on my distro of Linux.

I’ve had an interest in tangible computing for a long time, but never really done anything practical.  So I am looking forward to a new hobby!  The only thing that is holding me back is what I want to do first with it! – so any ideas then please feel free to comment.  I was toying with the idea of creating some sort of novel device for interfacing sound exploration.  At present I am not sure – I’ll be exploring the language, and what it can and can’t do before I come to any firm conclusions on what I want to “create”.  You never know it might just be a system that uses various sensors to keep track of conditions in my green house!  That’s the great thing about it all, I can now start to explore using sensors and other devices to get information from the real world and feed it back into the machine.

I’ll post any developments as and when!

gh

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The design was produced by Kerb designer Will Weaver and the game concept came out of the head of Kerb Interactive Director Carl Hodler. There are still a few tweaks to be made: some re-working of some of the interface elements, extra work laying out the instructions (and re-writing them too) and a little bit of colour correction. We are also going to implement a global high score table with the next Wordagon release – and we will possibly then start to charge for the app.

With absolutely no promotion apart from Kerb employees spreading the word, Wordagon has managed over 900 downloads with a user rating of 4+ (as of Febuary 2010).

Some screenshots:

From the itunes store description: (please excuse the excessive use of exclamation marks!)

Wordagon is a game of high pressure and mental agility. Battle against time and space… and by space, we mean words!

With each letter tile having a value, the bigger the word, the more points you score! The longer it takes it to find a word and submit it, the closer you get to falling foul of the onslaught of new letters taking their place.

Before you get trapped beneath an alphabet avalanche, you need to find words and remove them, but as you progress through the levels, the words you must come up with keep getting longer!

• Key features:
• Bonus tiles for letters
• Bonus tiles for words
• 5 levels of difficulty
• Highscore table to allow you to challenge yourself or your friends

Get it for free from the itunes store here

op

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This apology came about directly due to the petition that was started.

gh

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1. Alan Turing

alan turing

There is a petition of Alan Turing.  You can find out more here .

For those who are unaware of what occurred – then I can sumarise it thus – Turing was an incredible mathematician, his work (along with all the others) at Bletchley Park aided the war effort.  His theories and thoughts on Artificial Intelligence helped push the concepts within the fledgling computer science field.

He was also an homosexual, and was prosecuted and charged, and also chemically castrated.  He took his life at the age of 41 due to this.  The petition is for the UK Government to acknowledge that it was wrong, and that they should apologise for the persecution of this great mind.

gh

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The FLOSS community is truely a freedom movement.  It enables people to gain access to computers with out the hang up of commercialism and a corporate strangle hold.

With flavours of Linux such as Ubuntu , Slax , OpenSuse (for example), becoming more and more stable, it is now realistic to use something other than Windows or Mac OS X on your computer.  I’ve recently moved over to using Ubuntu, (previously I’ve used slackware and other varieties of Linux but have not found them suitible for everyday desktop / laptop usage), and I can honestly say that it’s the best move I’ve done in years with regards to Computing.  I never quite found OS X was “there” – as a Developer I found it annoying that it was so close to being Unix but wasn’t quite there.  With Ubuntu I have found that setting up a development environment has been easy, and any problems I’ve had have been solved with help from the online community.

I see FLOSS as the logical and correct step for humanity to go with regards to computers.  Some governments have also seen the light – for example the Government in Puru has adopted Open Source across all it’s bodies.  Capitalism, when it comes to progressive development stands in the way.  With FLOSS we can see systems expanding and developing in a natural organic way, in a way that enables people, in a way that gives power back to the user.

If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.
R. Buckminster Fuller

gh

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1. Ubuntu – a flavour of linux

Ubuntu

The reasons why I went for a Linux OS is quite simple – as a web developer I wanted a system that I could configure to be as compatible as the servers I deploy my projects onto.  Linux was the only option.

I also wanted to use some windows software, so I’ve been using WINE .  And have found it brilliant.  At present I am running Reaper (a DAW) and AudioMulch (another audio manipulation environment) – and both installed under WINE perfectly.

The final test for Ubuntu was the installation of an O2 mobile broadband dongle for internet access – again ubuntu didn’t fail me.  The device was recognised and all I needed to do was enter the details provided on O2 forum for connection.  It was a breeze.

I now have a functioning laptop that has web access on the move, and allows me to do my development work and play around with music creation, all for around £150, considering the battery life and the decent screen size it means I have not only a decent cheap laptop but I also have something I can watch films and videos on.

gh

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