Reading Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” was a murky affair for me. Filled with comparisons of different time periods and art mediums, Benjamin’s essay touched on changing perspectives of art as exposed to technology. What defines art? What is the value of art and how has that shifted over time? At its heart, Benjamin’s essay questions how technology, mass production, and mainstream accessibility have transformed the art world. I question Walter Benjamin’s positioning of art values in his approach. Why can’t accessible technology, artistic expression, and commercialism coincide together? Why do they have to stay in separate camps if they don’t have to? It’s a very narrow world if works of art can only exist in one realm.

What makes a work of art unique? Does universal access to artwork (in reproduction mode or exhibit-readiness) devalue the artwork’s existence? Benjamin admits that outside factors – from the opinion of the masses to socioeconomic access – can affect the perception of art and it’s value, all of which are factors outside of an artist’s control. A better question to ask is whether an artist a sell-out for mass-producing their artwork?

In his essay, Benjamin cites photography and motion film as mediums that merited artistic expression after it gained popularity from the masses. However, what about present-day artwork like interactive media, graffiti, and graphic design, which can tiptoe the line between commercialism, art, and possess a zero transaction cost in their digital reproduction? What comes to my mind? Present day, influential artists like Shepherd Fairey and Takashi Murakami. Shepherd Fairey is an American street artist who became world-renown for his iconic “Hope” poster of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. The poster has been replicated many times over and was distributed to the public to disseminate. Has this lessened his appeal to art critics and the public? Hardly. Takashi Murakami is a Japanese artist who is well known for his high and lowbrow art in mediums from fine-art (paintings) to digital (animations) and commercial artwork (illustrated handbags for Louis Vuitton). These are just a few examples of contemporary artists who straddle multiple arenas in creating and distributing their artwork to a global audience.

For this lab session, we had to familiarize ourselves with the multimeter in testing electrical setup for parallel and serial circuit layout.

#1 Disclaimer: If you sense heat, smoke, or an extremely glowing LED, DO NOT touch the voltage regulator. Disconnect power ASAP. I learned the hard way and burned my finger by accidentally touching the voltage regulator. Plus I kinda melted the plastic hole peg on my breadboard… So, kids, please make sure your breadboard is set up properly. See my chart below.

Meet the Voltage Regulator (above) –  look at the 3 prongs — remember IGO (Input, Ground, Output).

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While visiting the Bronx’s Tree Museum, I came across the conundrums that must plague an exhibit designer: how do you pay tribute to a local landscape and make it accessible to people? Artist Katie Holten makes a valiant attempt to document the memories of residents’ and their connections to the trees residing along the historical Grand Concourse boulevard in the Bronx. One hundred trees are marked with small plaques indicating visitors to call a number, punch an extension, and listen to audio narratives of people reminiscing about the local tree they were standing in front of. Was it effective? I believe her design implementations fell short of her goal for: poor visibility, sound quality, and lack of effective storytelling.

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

That classic question can apply to Katie Holten’s Tree Museum exhibit. The Tree Museum has no definitive, more importantly, visible start point that was seen along the Grand Concourse. From the 161^st/Yankee Stadium subway stop to the Bronx Museum itself, I encountered one lonely tree marked by the Tree Museum plaque. The outdoor exhibit signage is hidden inside Joyce Kilmer Park. While standing in front of the sign, I overheard a Bronx resident on her cellphone, muttering, “What’s this Tree Museum? I’ve lived here all my life and never heard of it.” Perhaps, a better way to direct folks would have been to include the Bronx Art Museum logo with the Tree Museum plaque so folks could visit the Bronx Art Museum or a website address for more information (including finding maps, brochures).

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In E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” the author delivers a subversive vision of a mechanized utopia, where mankind has been provided a constant life of comfort and pleasure by machinery. It seems like a good bargain – until the reader discovers how these future citizens live and what they’ve been deprived of. Here, Forster makes a bold statement in implying technology – used to it’s fullest, maximum potential – would be an opiate for the masses. If technology is invented to make life easier for humans, what happens if humans become completely dependent on these machines? As good science fiction should, Forster’s short story forces me to criticize the society depicted – not technology – to blame.

In Forster’s world, a series of unexplained events led this future mankind to choose a life ruled by technology. The machines aren’t the ones subjecting mankind to live indoors, eat pills for food, or become agoraphobic – it is the central government, Big Brother, who dictates how people should live their stifled lives. Through indoctrination, the humans depicted in Forster’s world have become so conditioned that to imagine a world of the unknown (nature) is more terrifying then the known (mechanized). Over generations of time, this utopian society never questions the government’s decision to permanently live underground and not attempt to restore the Earth’s surface by using technology.

The only challenger to this notion is Kuno, the son of Vashti, a scholar who is content with her lifestyle. Kuno, himself, is a dissatisfied citizen. Through her eyes, we witness Kuno’s defiance against his society’s conventional norms, his tale of escaping to the Earth’s surface, and his punishment when he is returned forcibly back underground. Despite hearing his story, Vashti is unmoved. She is a symbolic lemming in a society where nobody questions authority because they prefer the comfort that it doles out. To question otherwise is to face death by homelessness (i.e., being ejected to the Earth’s surface to suffocate in it’s poisoned atmosphere).

Vashti and Kuno are victims of a society where technology has been used to control and deny people the chance to move freely and make decisions independent of what their government allows. The machines are depicted as automatons that provide these humans everything – transportation, housing, entertainment, etc. How the humans choose to conduct themselves is left to them. In this case, people only interact over screens, they do not engage in bodily contact, and sex only comes as a result of perfunctory reproduction for the benefit of the human race.  The machinery, itself, is in the background. Ultimately, while the failure of the machinery led to the demise of this human colony, it was really their government’s decisions that led them to that path of destruction in the first place.

Meet my latest invention inspired by the Fantasy Device for Intro to Physical Computing: Stay+Awake.
Designed for folks who need to stay alert, this wearable technology will detect impending fatigue and forewarn users so that they may take action before dozing off — whether at work, at school, or behind the wheel. How many times have you attempted to stay alert during a lecture, corporate meeting, or late night drive? If there was a warning system, would you pay attention to take care of yourself before you lost your senses?

Wearable technology for Stay+Awake:
Camera Sensor EyeGlasses – Camera Sensor, WiFi transmitter chip
Alert Sensor Watch – Microchip, WiFi Transmitter

User Needs: To avoid falling asleep in embarrassing or dangerous situations

See how it works in the slide images below.

In Orality & Literacy, Walter Ong examines the history of oral culture, the evolution of literate societies, and how understanding both cultural backgrounds shows the influence of how they shaped human consciousness and comprehension throughout time. As a reader, this was especially interesting in how previous age-old arguments – is one form of communication more artistic then the other? What is the best way to learn? – is revisited over and over. In reading Ong’s analysis, a reader can apply these thought processes to technology and culture. For example, a modern day question that plagues scholars about the increasing tide of technology used in our everyday lives: Does technology degrade our interpersonal communication?

The differences in learning between oral culture and literate cultures were quite vast. Words equal power in oral cultures. Interaction among a community fostered a collective bond that helped keep knowledge alive and passed on word-by-word to the next generation. As a result, spoken language blossomed and in some cases, produced classic stories that are still told today; for example, Homer’s Odyssey and the Illiad are now acknowledged by academics to originate from Greece’s period of oral culture. Oral culture measured memory recall through endless repetition, formulaic phrases/expressions that allowed individuals to retain complex information. Stories were recalled through a person’s association with events, actions, and involvement with their communities rather then in literate cultures where an individual recalls knowledge from a text source.

In some ways, the advent of writing provoked anxiety among ancient traditionalists who preferred oral culture and its spoken word traditions. Socrates argued that the act of writing removed the individual from their actions and denied the audience from reacting to their statements in person. However, while Ong stated in 1982 that people applied that same argument against computers – let’s face it, the advent of the Internet and social networking have transformed that one-way relationship. Now, whether on blogs, social networking sites like Facebook, or in online news-voting portals like Digg, people can interact, comment, and provide nearly instant feedback to each other’s commentary. The Internet provides multiple channels of dialogue – whether you choose to leave a note on a blog, create a podcast, or tweet your reaction on Twitter. On YouTube, people are providing video comments and teaching each other with video tutorials that touch on Ong’s feedback about learning in oral cultures.

On a multicultural perspective, I found Ong’s summary of the academic study development of oral culture, how scholars overcame cultural/racial biases with new discoveries, and the global commonalities of oral culture to be fascinating. For example, cultures that are still rooted and influenced by oral learning exist in the Middle East, parts of Africa, and in North America’s indigenous tribes.

In the end, Ong’s distinction is that writing cannot exist without oral speech whereas the long-term preservation of oral culture cannot exist without written documentation by scholars and archivists. Technology can be a bridge to help preserve that. Not only that but intuitive technology (like the iPhone interface, touch-screen gaming, Nintendo Wii) is reactionary to wordy, overly technical interfaces that required a textbook to read in order to operate. In some ways, technology designers are open to elements of oral culture that make learning more accessible to individuals wanting more active engagement with technology. Just as an example, play Wii Fit. You will interact with a virtual avatar to learn new skills and fitness techniques.

Lab: Analog In with an Arduino

For the 2nd Week into Intro to Physical Computing, my labwork involved two parts. Part 1: Connecting a variable resistor to a microcontroller and reading it as an analog input. FYI, a variable resistor allows the user to control the flow of voltage from zero to maximum output. By doing so, variable resistors can be used to make a digital output appear analog (dimming lights, etc) by use of it’s handheld twist nob to adjust settings. 

Notes from the Lab:

1. Don’t breathe in solder fumes when having to solder wiring to the Potentiometer (variable resistor listed on bottom of photo). Bad.

2. For analog output, Analog Pin Slots (0-5) are proper places to stick wires in. Likewise, you connect a potentiometer to analog in pin 0 of the module.

3. To create a “fake” analog output, a wire must be threaded to one of the Digital Pin Slots (9, 10, 11) as indicated as PWM (Pulse Width Modulation). That way, signals can be controlled in pulses that simulate analog outputs (rather then digital output’s 1=ON, 0=OFF). Here, we linked an LED to digital pin 9:

I made some handy infographics that show how the Arduino Code relates to the circuitry with the BreadBoard here. Click to view.

NYU Intro to Physical Computing Lab: Analog In with an Arduino from cindy wong on Vimeo.

Deciphering Arduino terminology:

analogWrite():

analogWrite(pin, pulsewidth); — Tom Igoe in Analog In with an Arduino  Lab.

• analogVar is an integer variable containing the result from the ADC (analog-to-digital converter). 
• The command in Wiring is the analogRead() command. It looks like this:  analogVar = analogRead (pin).                                                                           
• Pin is the analog input pin you are using;  
• analogVar is an integer variable containing the result from the ADC.

int potPin = 0; // Analog input pin that the potentiometer is attached to
int potValue = 0; // value read from the pot
int led = 9; // PWM pin that the LED is on. n.b. PWM 0 is on digital pin 9

void setup() {
// initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
potValue = analogRead(potPin); // read the pot value
analogWrite(led, potValue/4); // PWM the LED with the pot value (divided by 4 to fit in a byte)
Serial.println(potValue); // print the pot value back to the debugger pane
delay(10); // wait 10 milliseconds before the next loop
}

Part 2: Read changing conditions from the physical world and convert them to changing variables in a program.

What I used: Photo Cell, LED. 

Cause & Effect relationship: Rig the photo cell to act as a touch sensor “dimmer” for the LED incorporated into the Arduino breadboard. 

Video below:

Intro to Physical Computing: Photo Cell, LED experiment from cindy wong on Vimeo.

Here’s the initial breadboard setup with 1 LED light interacting with a photo sensor.

Update: Added an extra light and caused both to light and dim simultaneously.

Red and Clear Light Sensors Dimmed from Fingers placed on top of sensor.

Red and Clear Light Sensors brightened without interference from me.

Here’s another handy infographic  I made to relay the information of the Arduino to the BreadBoard.

Arduino Code Used:

int potPin = 0;    // Analog input pin that the potentiometer is attached to

 int potValue = 0;   // value read from the pot

 int led = 9;    // PWM pin that the LED is on.  n.b. PWM 0 is on digital pin 9

 int led2 = 10;    // SECOND PWM pin that the LED is on.  n.b. PWM 0 is on digital pin 10

 int x = 0; //initiate the variable

 void setup() {

   // initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:

   Serial.begin(9600); 

 }

 void loop() {

   potValue = analogRead(potPin); // read the pot value

   x = potValue/4;

 analogWrite(led, potValue/4);  // PWM the LED with the pot value (divided by 4 to fit in a byte)

  analogWrite(led2, potValue/4);  // PWM the LED with the pot value (divided by 4 to fit in a byte (256))

   Serial.println(potValue);      // print the pot value back to the debugger pane

   delay(10);                     // wait 10 milliseconds before the next loop (streams the rate of binary numbers appearing in debugging panel)

 }

Week 1: Digital Input and Output with an Arduino

For the first lab, I dived headfirst into  basic fundamentals of Arduino: assembling a breadboard and uploading a basic input/output program into my Arduino processor. As a disclaimer, prior to ITP, I had no experience with wiring, wire stripping, soldering, etc. I would recommend practicing these skills PRIOR to working on your assembly project. Don’t be like me and end up snapping wires, scaring your classmates, and cursing the Electronic Gods. I would also recommend having a lab partner so you can have a second reference for quality assurance. My first and second attempts were unsuccessful due to clumsy wiring, bad wire stripper tools, and soldering issues with my button switch.  

After buying a proper wire stripper from the NYU Computer Store, I was much more successful in planting wires into the BreadBoard. I recommend this wire stripper (as pictured here). 

Here is my successful Week 1 project assembled.

Here is a video of me testing the Digital Input and Output with an Arduino

Intro to Physical Computing: Digital Input and Output with an Arduino from cindy wong on Vimeo.

For Creativity purposes, here’s my Combination Lock using my mirror compact.

ITP Physical Computing: Combination Lock from cindy wong on Vimeo.

Lessons Learned (that weren’t included in the Lab Wiki): 

1. “LED’s have polarity, meaning one leg must always be positive, and the other always negative. The negative leg is always the shorter. Make sure that the shorter leg of the LED goes to ground on your breadboard, while the longer is in the same row as it’s corresponding resistor.” — Chris Cerritos, ITP researcher 

2. Make sure that the resistor that you’re using for the LED is in fact compatible for the lab test. Make sure the color stripes match up. One easy, color-coded way to see if the OHM is correct is this website – Identify Your Resistors! 

3. Always check your wire connections. Make sure that your wires are all solidly stuck in your breadboard. You can have them all in the proper place on the BreadBoard but be mucked up by bad wiring/stripping.

4. Bread Board: Red Line = Power. Blue Line = Ground 

5. Make sure that the ports that you’re plugged into on the Arduino correspond with what you specified in the
code.

6. When you strip the wires, don’t strip too little or it won’t adhere to the Breadboard when you plug it in.
Example from the code used:
// declare variables:
int switchPin = 2; // digital input pin for a switch
int yellowLedPin = 3; // digital output pin for an LED
int redLedPin = 4; // digital output pin for an LED
int switchState = 0; // the state of the switch

 Supplies Used:

 1 Solderless breadboard

22-AWG hookup wire

1 Arduino microcontroller module

2 LEDs

1 Push button/Switch

Arduino Code (from Tom Igoe’s Lab Wiki):

“Here’s a program that reads the digital input on pin 2. Then it turns on the LED on pin 3 if the input is high (i.e. the switch is on), or turns on the LED on pin 4 is the input is low (the switch is off):”
// declare variables:
int switchPin = 2; // digital input pin for a switch
int yellowLedPin = 3; // digital output pin for an LED
int redLedPin = 4; // digital output pin for an LED
int switchState = 0; // the state of the switch

void setup() {
pinMode(switchPin, INPUT); // set the switch pin to be an input
pinMode(yellowLedPin, OUTPUT); // set the yellow LED pin to be an output
pinMode(redLedPin, OUTPUT); // set the red LED pin to be an output
}

void loop() {
// read the switch input:
switchState = digitalRead(switchPin);

if (switchState == 1) {
// if the switch is closed:
digitalWrite(yellowLedPin, HIGH); // turn on the yellow LED
digitalWrite(redLedPin, LOW); // turn off the red LED
}
else {
// if the switch is open:
digitalWrite(yellowLedPin, LOW); // turn off the yellow LED
digitalWrite(redLedPin, HIGH); // turn on the red LED
}
}

For Tom Igoe’s Intro to Physical Computing, the class is documenting the daily interactions we encounter with sensors. Here’s a sample of the interactions I saw people encounter with sensors and devices around my East Village neighborhood.

Pinball Machine - Talk about sensors galore for pinball games – you got flipper buttons, machine lights, game sounds, etc. 

Coin Machine – Sensor determines currency fed into machine and returns the determined amount in coinage.

Laundry Dryer – Sensors determine input for temperature settings, open/close door , timer, currency fed into it’s machine. 

Cellphone - Keypads act as input for user’s message sent via SMS.

Emergency Services Call Box – The only red emergency call box I’ve seen in New York. No lights, no sound effects to attract attention or indicate it’s purpose until you flip the metal flap to see the instructions.

ATM Machine

 Spa Salon Nail Dryer : You can’t see it in the photo but women have their nails dried with a nail dryer (example below)