Reboot Notes

Get a dose of inspiration from the digital dudes at Duval Guillaume.

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What is the point of work? Technology is making this question ever more urgent | Peter Fleming

We are at a crossroads – technological advances will either reinforce our work-centric society, or free us from it. And crucially, we have a choice in the matter

Peter Fleming is Professor of Business and Society at City University, London. He is the author of Mythology of Work: How Capitalism Persists Despite Itself

As we’ve seen on these very pages, automation is very real and gearing up to obsolete many professions, and unlike what many economists believe, many of these obsolesced jobs are not likely to be replaced with new ones. With poverty and economic inequality at record-highs, it’s becoming clear that an economic paradigm shift is in order. 

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Casual reminder that 3D printed houses are coming sooner than you think.

Source: Treehugger.com

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Mobile Cyclorama

Did you know panoramic art was invented way back in 1793? Anyway, artist Raúl Moyado Sandoval has been working to update this apparently classic medium using modern technology, such as Google Streetview and mobile/cardboard viewing apps. 

A project that continues the legacy of panoramic painting. This mobile web app explores poetic atmospheres of remote sites and pictorial alternative realities depicting the artist personal microcosm. Such pictorial space can only be discovered with the gesture and action of the viewer by moving the device and framing.

This project started using the Google street view technology to explore immersive 360 panorama paintings, eventually it evolved into the Mobile Cyclorama app for tablets & vr headsets. If you don’t use a mobile device you can still explore the paintings in your browser using the Google street view technology.

You can check out some of his panoramic impressionist pieces here.

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Re-lighting photos using Neural Networks

Researchers from Microsoft Research Asia have found a way to train neural networks (last seen on this blog creating psychedelic puppyslugs) to re-light photos, i.e. change the positioning of light sources within an existing image while accurately updating all the reflections, specular highlights, shadows, etc... 

Basically, altering an image after it’s been made in ways even the best Photoshop wizards in the world would baulk at.

We present a neural network regression method for relighting realworld scenes from a small number of images. The relighting in this work is formulated as the product of the scene’s light transport matrix and new lighting vectors, with the light transport matrix reconstructed from the input images. Based on the observation that there should exist non-linear local coherence in the light transport matrix, our method approximates matrix segments using neural networks that model light transport as a non-linear function of light source position and pixel coordinates. Central to this approach is a proposed neural network design which incorporates various elements that facilitate modeling of light transport from a small image set. In contrast to most image based relighting techniques, this regression-based approach allows input images to be captured under arbitrary illumination conditions, including light sources moved freely by hand. We validate our method with light transport data of real scenes containing complex lighting effects, and demonstrate that fewer input images are required in comparison to related techniques.

Source.

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Uncanny Valley

Fractal Fantasy presents ‘Uncanny Valley’, an interactive code experiment by Altered Qualia.   In this piece, Qualia investigates the phenomenon first theorized by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, wherein he found that the closer a non-human entity resembles a human, the more one empathises with it. However, as it comes even closer to absolute human likeness, we instinctively become repulsed. 

Amazing that this runs in real-time inside a browser. 

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PolyEyes 2.0

This experiment by the Interactive Architecture Lab tries to figure out what vision would be like if our heads were shaped like that of a hammerhead shark: 

The Polymelia Project considers the human body as an assemblage; a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction. We think of the body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate, so that any replacement or extension becomes part of a continuing process of upgrading the human entity. The Polymelia Suit (PolyEyes, PolyLimbs, Exoskeleton, Sensing Suit) suggests a new communication language for the future of prosthesis and of humanity.

“You are alone in the room, except for two Raspberry Pi Camera Module spinning in the dim light. You use PolyEyes (aka Hammerhead Vision System) and through the Raspberry Pi Compute Module, you communicate with some other entities in another room, whom you cannot see. Relying solely on the Exo-skeletical Suit Controller, you must decide whether to share or receive stimuli. One of the entities wants to share its own visual field. The other entity wants to send you signals from its sensing body. He/she/it will reproduce through the PolyLimbs the body movement of the other entity. Your job is to explore alternative ways for communicating that distinguish your current performance from an embodied augmented reality.”

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Infinity Room

Trippy room-scale monochromatic Op Art by Refik Anadol. 

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Suaveciclo by VJ Suave

VJ Suave has two audiovisual tricycles adapted with a projector, computer, speakers and batteries. They’re used so that the small narratives with characters and poetry can travel open spaces, lighting the walls on a large scale. The projections illuminate walls, trees, lakes, sidewalks and propose a playful interactivity with the public. With the video manipulated in real time, Suaveciclos bring art to all audiences and create unique moments between the city and the viewer.

This travelling projectionist duo shows that projection-mapping doesn’t have to be fixed in space to work. The animation-app shown being used in the video above is Tagtool Play.

Source: VJ Suave

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JAMKY - Interactive Light & Sound Installation

Take the concept of a grid-based drum-machine and make it physical with wood and pebbles.

More footage: 

Project by Devkid

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VOID

A playground for us to experiment with new visual and sonic concepts and technology...or Soulbath version 2.0 (15 years late).

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NASA Grows Edible Vegetables in Space

For the first time, the NASA managed to grow edible vegetables in space. Thanks to Veggie (hardware), the unit was able to make fresh salad in a cabin providing a controlled temperature, lighting with red, green and blue LED lights and enough nutrients. According to Dr. Ray Wheeler (who works at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida), the idea of growing plants in space thanks to LED lights first appeared in the 90’s.

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Project Sunroof

Another Google (or is that Alphabet?) project to help people make informed decisions about putting solar panels on their roofs.

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Kill zombies in the first VR game centre in Melbourne

It took director Tim Ruse and his team three years of research, development and funding (including a grant from Film Victoria) to launch Zero Latency. Set in a 400 square metre warehouse space—covered in a white grid pattern and fitted out with 129 PlayStation Eye cameras—Zero Latency offers players a free-roam, physical gaming experience.

Read more over at Vice’s Creators Project.

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I-Flip 

Projection Mapping meets Flipbook animation in this short proof-of-concept installation.

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The Motion Aura Machine

Or: a 360° photobooth with an automatic compositing & publishing pipeline.

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GlitchGIF: VJ’ing with animated .gif’s

If you’ve got a collection of hilarious, beautiful or mesmerising gifs then you too can now put together psychedelic lightshows that sync up with the DJ’s beat, thanks to this app. 

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Diplopia 3D: Stereoscopic Projection Mapping

Diplopia is the first 3D anaglyph (that’s the kind with the blue & red glasses) mapping piece created and projected in Spain at The International Mapping Festival of Girona 2015 opening ceremony.

Looks amazing, but I wonder how well the stereoscopic effect holds up when viewed from different angles.