Hacking Antarctica

Hacking Antarctica is an investigation focused on rendering aesthetic responses to Antarctica beyond normative representations of the sublime and the imperceptible. It is based on fieldwork in polar and subpolar areas over the last 9 years. At its core, the research uses Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement as a way of understanding what is meant by the sublime and from that develops a practice that examines what a Kantian lack of access to nature implies. This key Kantian concept is explained and devised into art works and then tested through concepts such as translation, transduction, infection and representation, using hacking methodologies informed by bricolage (L ´ evi-Strauss 1968), and diffraction (Barad 2007). The research expands on the taxonomies of the polar to reconsider the Antarctic as a border and periphery, bringing a conjunction of hacking methods and site-specific art that enables a performative causality with which to study the production of site. In other words, a performative approach as Barad and other feminist writers recognize, is questioning the traditional causality of ends and means and observer and observed and rather focuses on processes within discursive practices. Causality is reworked as a local externalization of the intra-acting relations of matter. Within the overall system of research for Antarctica, technical methods used included; Free Libre Open Source software and hardware techniques, black and white and infrared photography, ultraviolet light sensing, sound recordings, hydrophone recordings, very low frequency recordings, AM radio sensing, error in photography (light leakage, displaced focus), in text (cut-up compositions), in video (glitch) and error in bodies as infections; bio-sensing agents (including yeast and lactobacillus), point-array analysis, translation of images to raw data, and from raw data to sound, land art performances, spatialization of sound, stereo panning, quadraphonic sound, interactive embroidery, radio broadcast and installations. Specific outputs include: Antarctica 1961-1986 (2017), an interactive embroidered map of Antarctica showing sites of mineral sources and mineral pollution. The map was installed as an interactive instrument that allowed visitors to participate in the live shaping of the spatialization of sounds recorded in Antarctica. A digital Theremin sensor attached to the map was interfaced with Pure Data software running on a GNU-Linux Debian station. All software was made visible as well as the papers documenting the traces of the plutonium found there. The research through an experimental set of hacking practices supported the hypothesis that Antarctica can be represented outside the sublime through the polar-site produced by hashes of proxies and the diffraction produced when superposing modes of knowing. The interruption of the spectacle to respond to Antarctica is the result

Curated Reasoning by Formal Modeling of Provenance

The core problem addressed in this research is the current lack of an ability to repurpose and curate scientific data among interdisciplinary scientists within a research enterprise environment. Explosive growth in sensor technology as well as the cost of collecting ocean data and airborne measurements has allowed for exponential increases in scientific data collection as well as substantial enterprise resources required for data collection. There is currently no framework for efficiently curating this scientific data for repurposing or intergenerational use. There are several reasons why this problem has eluded solution to date to include the competitive requirements for funding and publication, multiple vocabularies used among various scientific disciplines, the number of scientific disciplines and the variation among workflow processes, lack of a flexible framework to allow for diversity among vocabularies and data but a unifying approach to exploitation and a lack of affordable computing resources (mostly in past tense now). Addressing this lack of sharing scientific data among interdisciplinary scientists is an exceptionally challenging problem given the need for combination of various vocabularies, maintenance of associated scientific data provenance, requirement to minimize any additional workload being placed on originating data scientist project/time, protect publication/credit to reward scientific creativity and obtaining priority for a long-term goal such as scientific data curation for intergenerational, interdisciplinary scientific problem solving that likely offers the most potential for the highest impact discoveries in the future. This research approach focuses on the core technical problem of formally modeling interdisciplinary scientific data provenance as the enabling and missing component to demonstrate the potential of interdisciplinary scientific data repurposing. This research develops a framework to combine varying vocabularies in a formal manner that allows the provenance information to be used as a key for reasoning to allow manageable curation. The consequence of this research is that it has pioneered an approach of formally modeling provenance within an interdisciplinary research enterprise to demonstrate that intergenerational curation can be aided at the machine level to allow reasoning and repurposing to occur with minimal impact to data collectors and maximum impact to other scientists

Ecosystemic Evolution Feeded by Smart Systems

Information Society is advancing along a route of ecosystemic evolution. ICT and Internet advancements, together with the progression of the systemic approach for enhancement and application of Smart Systems, are grounding such an evolution. The needed approach is therefore expected to evolve by increasingly fitting into the basic requirements of a significant general enhancement of human and social well-being, within all spheres of life (public, private, professional). This implies enhancing and exploiting the net-living virtual space, to make it a virtuous beneficial integration of the real-life space. Meanwhile, contextual evolution of smart cities is aiming at strongly empowering that ecosystemic approach by enhancing and diffusing net-living benefits over our own lived territory, while also incisively targeting a new stable socio-economic local development, according to social, ecological, and economic sustainability requirements. This territorial focus matches with a new glocal vision, which enables a more effective diffusion of benefits in terms of well-being, thus moderating the current global vision primarily fed by a global-scale market development view. Basic technological advancements have thus to be pursued at the system-level. They include system architecting for virtualization of functions, data integration and sharing, flexible basic service composition, and end-service personalization viability, for the operation and interoperation of smart systems, supporting effective net-living advancements in all application fields. Increasing and basically mandatory importance must also be increasingly reserved for human–technical and social–technical factors, as well as to the associated need of empowering the cross-disciplinary approach for related research and innovation. The prospected eco-systemic impact also implies a social pro-active participation, as well as coping with possible negative effects of net-living in terms of social exclusion and isolation, which require incisive actions for a conformal socio-cultural development. In this concern, speed, continuity, and expected long-term duration of innovation processes, pushed by basic technological advancements, make ecosystemic requirements stricter. This evolution requires also a new approach, targeting development of the needed basic and vocational education for net-living, which is to be considered as an engine for the development of the related ‘new living know-how’, as well as of the conformal ‘new making know-how’

Conditions Variable: Assemblage Theory and Systems Theory in Creative Practice

This dissertation will situate the twenty-first century phenomenon of Assemblage theory, which originated in the field of philosophy, within the last 100 years of creative practice. Drawing from Manuel DeLanda’s application of Assemblage theory, I will devise a means to discuss creative practice without reducing its analysis to ‘structured fields’ or ‘closed systems’. Rather, comparisons will be made between a system and an assemblage to illustrate how the two part ways, and find common ground. To better understand the way in which systems have been applied in artistic practice, an investigation of two major twentieth-century paradigm shifts will be examined. The first example is the Bauhaus school and its post-European formal offshoot in America, the New Bauhaus, and how it adapted its European predecessor’s principles of design. The second is the technological revolution, which engendered Jack Burnham’s Systems Esthetics, Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) and the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In light of these developments, I argue that a flexible, descriptive, Assemblage theory is needed to better articulate how art (the work and its making) functions within an expanded field of practice as it now exists. The adaptable and transmutable nature of Assemblage theory is also illustrated through example. In the process this dissertation will offer new ways to articulate and understand creative practice and propose a new strategy for art to be understood. Finally, I will employ Assemblage theory to analyze my own creative endeavours

New visualization model for large scale biosignals analysis

Benefits of long-term monitoring have drawn considerable attention in healthcare. Since the acquired data provides an important source of information to clinicians and researchers, the choice for long-term monitoring studies has become frequent. However, long-term monitoring can result in massive datasets, which makes the analysis of the acquired biosignals a challenge. In this case, visualization, which is a key point in signal analysis, presents several limitations and the annotations handling in which some machine learning algorithms depend on, turn out to be a complex task. In order to overcome these problems a novel web-based application for biosignals visualization and annotation in a fast and user friendly way was developed. This was possible through the study and implementation of a visualization model. The main process of this model, the visualization process, comprised the constitution of the domain problem, the abstraction design, the development of a multilevel visualization and the study and choice of the visualization techniques that better communicate the information carried by the data. In a second process, the visual encoding variables were the study target. Finally, the improved interaction exploration techniques were implemented where the annotation handling stands out. Three case studies are presented and discussed and a usability study supports the reliability of the implemented work

Knowledge search for new product development: a multi-agent based methodology

Manufacturers are the leaders in developing new products to drive productivity. Higher productivity means more products based on the same materials, energy, labour, and capitals. New product development plays a critical role in the success of manufacturing firms. Activities in the product development process are dependent on the knowledge of new product development team members. Increasingly, many enterprises consider effective knowledge search to be a source of competitive advantage. This research presents an exploratory case study conducted at an aircraft manufacturer. This investigation uncovered six, empirically derived and theoretically informed, problems to enterprise knowledge search. They have been articulated as (i) the effectual web bandwidth limits search speed; (ii) less relevant search results based on word-frequency recognition models of search engine; (iii) un-useable techniques for enterprise search; (iv) rigour security, reliability, and company policy; (v) poor search performance about unstructured enterprise knowledge; (vi) the lack of tacit knowledge sharing. Existing search methodologies have focused on the internet search, rather than providing effective search for enterprise. This research aim is developed to assist the manufacturing enterprise in meeting the industrial requirements in the following way: a methodology and system that can improve the information and knowledge search performance in new product development process. Based on the exploratory case findings, a knowledge search methodology and system has been developed. Agent technology is used to fulfil the requirements of enterprise search. Some initial tests were conducted to better understand implementation issues and future deployment of the methodology and system in practice

Rediscovering The Interpersonal: Models Of Networked Communication In New Media Performance

This paper examines the themes of human perception and participation within the contemporary paradigm and relates the hallmarks of the major paradigm shift which occurred in the mid-20th century from a structural view of the world to a systems view. In this context, the author’s creative practice is described, outlining a methodology for working with the communication networks and interpersonal feedback loops that help to define our relationships to each other and to media since that paradigm shift. This research is framed within a larger field of inquiry into the impact of contemporary New Media Art as we experience it. This thesis proposes generative/cybernetic/systems art as the most appropriate media to model the processes of cultural identity production and networked communication. It reviews brief definitions of the systems paradigm and some key principles of cybernetic theory, with emphasis on generative, indeterminate processes. These definitions provide context for a brief review of precedents for the use of these models in the arts, (especially in process art, experimental video, interactive art, algorithmic composition, and sound art) since the mid-20th century, in direct correlation to the paradigm shift into systems thinking. Research outcomes reported here describe a recent body of generative art performances that have evolved from this intermedial, research-based creative practice, and discuss its use of algorithms, electronic media, and performance to provide audiences with access to an intuitive model of the interpersonal in a networked world