transitlab » Singapore

Bio-Fi workshop @ ISEA2008

brian — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:31:41 +0000

Douglas Easterly at the Biofi workshop. Here he is holding an arduino and explaining how great microcontrollers are.

I am attending the Bio-Fi workshop at Republica Polytechnica in Singapore, run by Doug, Matt and Kathrine from swamp.nu

During the workshop we are learning about php and how it can be used for data scraping (e.g. maybe we want to get the pollution/particulate value for a LA highway from the pollution website).

What do we want to do with that?

Well……we can use it to activate an arduino board. The arduino can drive a simple transmitter that talks to a Bio-Fi module. This module is attached to a essential oil vapouriser…. Cool!

Di Ball has a picture of the back of my head at the workshop here.

12 hours and 8 time zones

brian — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:28:12 +0000

Ah, Singapore, where the weather is balmy. Its my first Asian country. My fellow passenger David from www.xm-asia.com described it as Asia on Training wheels. It is certainly that. I was at the Sleepy Sams only an hour after getting off the plane, no queing for passport control, bag already on the luggage carousel, easy to obtain travel card, and quick. Compared to the hours lost in other countries post the plane, this was great. Now to tell my body that it is not 1.30 in the afternoon. So now off to find some food…probably Malaysian.

In transition

brian — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:27:58 +0000

I take up the nomadic art/researcher mode today. Leave sunny Newcastle (yes its actually sunny!) travel down to london to catch a plane to Singapore for the Inter-Society for Electronic Arts(ISEA) conference. In the nature of these events I will cross paths with researchers/practitioners/curators from Lancaster(imaginationLancaster), Manchester(Cornerhouse&Futuresonic), Sunderland(Crumb) and Newcastle(Culturelab).

There will be a large contingent of Australians too. Compared to Europe, Australia and Singapore are practically next door.

What I am looking forward to are the discussions by new media networks and platforms for collaboration between arts and other fields of inquiry. It is not that art has the sole role of making work about social worries, environment or addressing aesthetics, but it is disenginious to say that it has none.

One project that inspires me is Luminous Green, initiated by Fo.am. It asks what are the possibilities and realities of using technology and know-how to envision a luminous green future rather than a dull grey one(this article is interesting on a factor 4-10fold reduce in the use of resources.

I will be talking about locative games in my paper Location! Location? Location!! (10am Nanyang Technological University B1-3 27th July 2008) These are games/experiences that have a sense of place, may use technology like GPS, mobile phones), what it promises and what the reality is.

This activity is supported by the National Lotterry through the Arts Council England Grant for the Arts (hence the logo).