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14 Jan, 2009

Making things talk

Posted by: sctv In: electronics

: Image by sctv via Flickr

Pachube, and project2891 are both projects that want in their own modest way to network the planet, but from quite different motivations.

Pachube’s key aim is to ” to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual.” project2891 is Ben Dembroski’s Alt-w funded art project that “is a system of devices which can be collaborated with directly, without direct communication with original artist.”

What links them is the need to have a process by which devices can ‘talk’ to each other, a protocol. From Tom Igoes book “making things talk“, the rules for good communication are:

listen more than you speak
never assume
agree on how you say things
ask politely for clarification

I am stepping into using both of these systems, having made LightResponsiveDevice last year, and thinking further than just being responsive to light, but responsive to other inputs

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Tags: Alt-w, communication, dembroski, Digital, haque, Pachube, project2891, Visual Arts

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Brian Degger is a technologist/artist, he writes, thinks and makes around themes of interactivity, biomimicracy, and collaboration

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