Digitized History and Interactive Timelines: Lots of examples and links for your exploring pleasure!

One of my tech-savvy daughters is a history buff. She decided to research our family's genealogy, and through this process, has uncovered a treasure trove of interesting things during her on-line research.  


Technology has made it possible for historians, archivists, genealogists, antiquers, and other to digitally curate and share items on-line.  One example is the work of the 2 million-plus members of Ancestry.Com, a website that provides a fairly easy way for novices to create their own family trees, search digitized records, and share their findings with cousins, near and distant, about the stories they've come across along the way. (Please excuse the formatting problems!)

My daughter discovered that one of my great-great grandfathers worked as a conductor and yardman for the railroads before he became a miner and prospector, who apparently died penniless, according to an article she found in the Chronicling America website. This website is part of the Library of Congress and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. (The picture of my great-greet grandfather was taken from an article in the Salt Lake Tribune)


Screen Shot:  Chronicling America

Knowing that my great-great grandfather worked for the railroad in Utah led to the discovery of related information on-line. Below are two screenshots from the interactive timeline of the history of the Union Pacific railroad.  This website provides an opportunity for people to share their stories about the railroad's history. The timeline provides multiple means of accessing content related to the the railroad and the role of the railroad in the history of the United States.

Screen Shot: 150 Years: The History of Union Pacific

By clicking on the timeline, the viewer can dig in deeper into each specific era or location by viewing pictures, watching video clips, and reading text, as shown above. The timeline can be downloaded for use on iPad's iBooks 2 or on any computer with iTunes.

Screen shot: Golden Spike Ceremony, Promontory Summit, Utah

  

After my daughter commented that many of our relatives died at a very old age, without the benefits of the life-extending know-how of modern medicine, I wondered what old age might have been like for my elders. This led me to the Elder Web site, which provides an interactive timeline of the history of elder care.  The timeline links to a wealth of pictures and tidbits of information. Links include information obtained from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection. 


For those of you interested in timelines that focus on more recent events and history including the history of the arts, the following examples are fun to explore:

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music (swf), v2.5 (I'm waiting for 3.0)
Note: Ishkur uses colorful, strong language to express his viewpoints and opinions about musical trends.
History of Modern Music: All Genres (Guardian UK)
Interactive Modern Art Timeline
CNN's Interactive Map and Timeline of Iraq and Afghanistan Casualties "Home and Away"
New York Times:  10 Weeks of Financial Turmoil (the credit crisis of 2008)
New York Times: The History of Overhauling Healthcare
New York Times: European Debt Crisis
New York Times: Major Events in the Afghanistan War
Screen Shot: Hard Rock Cafe Interactive Memorabilia



RELATED
Digital Heritage
The American Memory Project
The Ninteenth Century in Print:  The Making of America in Books and Periodicals
Chronicling America
I take up my pen:  Letters from the Civil War
Digital NC: North Carolina's Digital Heritage
Digging Into Data Challenge and List of Online Data Repositories for Humanities and Social Sciences (Includes lots of links!)
U.S. Yearbooks (searchable via Ancestry.com)
What Was There: Digital versions of historical photographs of places are compared with locations on Google Maps, with the goal of creating a means to explore history through photography.
ImageFlow: Streaming Image Search (Microsoft)
Interactive Timelines using Timemap.js
Digital Storytelling Platforms and Multiple Perspectives:  A look at the work of Jonathan Harris (Food for Thought for Interactive Timeline Design)
List of Digital Preservation Initiatives (Wikipedia)

DIY Timelines (more to come)
Tiki-Toki
Dippity
Timetoast
The Best Tools for Making Online Timelines (Larry Ferlazzo)

Comment:
One unfinished project on my "Tech Bucket List" is a multi-dimensional, multi-disciplinary. multimedia interactive timeline.  Although the concept is far-reaching, it would be a useful tool for students, historians, genealogists, and more.


Please excuse the formatting problems!

More about the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Cities

After my recent post about graduate research opportunities at the Intel Collaborative Research Institute on Sustainable, Connected Cities, I came across additional information about the project. The following is quoted from Charles Sheridan's 5/24/12 post, Announcing the Intel Collaborative  Research Institute for Sustainable Cities:

"We aim to create new, cross cutting inter-disciplinary “Systems of Systems” Cities research  methodology to understand key city challenges and technology opportunities."

Charlie Sheridan is the principal investigator of the ICRI Sustainable Connected Cities project, described in more detail in the  following video:

Some of the questions the Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Cities plans to investigate, as outlined by Sheridan (below),  are ones that probably need to be articulated for the general public,  not just  techies.  By taking an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to research, this might just happen.

"How can technology “sustain sustainable behaviours”?"

"How can technology enable ubiquitous integrated services?"

"How do we protect privacy, security and disconnection in a city of a billion sensors?"

"Who pays? Who repairs?  Who Profits?"

"How can you design and evaluate connected and sustainable services and user-centred information for diverse needs of city dwellers?"

"How do you engage city communities to participate in developing technological innovations that will improve their environment, transport systems and local services?"

My favorite:

"What novel interfaces and interactions are required to encourage participation of citizens, business and government?"

This is a serious, large-scale endeavor.  I planned on wrapping up this post with a few pictures from my vast archive of examples of technology "out-and-about", but in doing so, came across a few photos that demonstrate, in a slightly humorous way, why this research effort is important:

Let's throw up a large-screen display to make the recycling process at the food court less complicated!

Let's stick these kiosks and displays over there and watch what doesn't happen!

Let's throw up everything on this display and see if it makes sense to the mom with a toddler in tow!

Let's get great-grandma (my mom) and the toddler (my grandson) together for some Internet-connected HDTV DVR DVD family viewing experience!  

Let's just  give toddlers iPads and see what happens!

(This little one gets to "play" with an iPad just once a week.)

I see endless possibilities here for the future of our cities!

Every little flower I planted yesterday came with a QR code. Are  these biodegradable or recyclable?

I quickly learned that garden dirt and QR codes don't mix.  It was much easier to read the informational text about my vincas on my iPhone, but I wasn't sure about exposing my iPhone to all the  dirt, water, and  beating sun.  FYI: Gardening:  QR Codes can be a Gardener's Best Friend

T-shirt slogan: 

"This was supposed to be future:  Where is my jetpack?"

URBAN MUSICAL GAME: Play with musical-sensor sports balls and friends (Real-Time Musical Interactions team at IRCAM)

One of my favorite things at CHI 2012 was the Interactivity sessions.  I especially liked the  Urban Musical Game, played with musical sports balls.  I didn't want to stop playing!


This just might transform P.E. and recess.


Below is a version of the game from 2011 created for the Future en Seine festival by the Real-Time Musical Interaction team at the IRCAM, in collaboration with NoDesign, Phonotonic, and composer Andrea Cera:

The balls in the game contain wireless sensors, which trigger sounds and interactive music.  It is supported by MO  (Modular Musical Object) technology, and Max/MSP. Below is a video of the balls in action (in French).

Nicolas Rasamimanana - Phonotonic, Paris, France 
Frederic Bevilacqua - IRCAM, France 
Julien Bloit - IRCAM, France Norbert Schnell - IRCAM, France 
Emmanuel Flety - IRCAM, France Andrea Cera - IRCAM, France 
Uros Petrevski - NoDesign, France 
Jean-Louis Frechin - NoDesign, France


Comment:
This would be a great activity for the large therapy room at Wolfe, a program for students with significant disabilities (including autism), where I spend most of my work days as a school psychologist.  I'd love to have it demonstrated in-person for students at the CATA (Central Academy of Technology & Arts), the high school I also serve, to inspire students about the creative aspects of technology.


I would also like to create my experiments with this sort of technology, based on a number of interesting ideas that have popped up in my mind over the past decade or so.  I'm especially curious to know how this could work in environments that also have multiple large interactive visual displays....


How can I make it so?
(Update:  It is a small world.  I looked up one of the people involved in the Urban Musical Game on Facebook and found that we share three mutual FB "friends".)

FYI: Google's Knowledge Graph

RELATED
Google calls Knowledge Graph first baby step towards "Star Trek computer".
The above article originally appeared on theverge.com as Google launches Knowledge Graph, a new intelligent search platform, by Nathan Ingraham (5/16/12)

Children's Drawings Projected on Buckingham Palace and BBC's Public Big Screens in the UK

Children's self-portraits cover Buckingham Palace (News UK)


Children in the UK were asked to create self-portraits for a special arts project designed to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee. The self-portraits were digitized and transformed to create a media facade that was projected on Buckingham Palace. This example of digital art for public viewing was shared on a number of large screen displays in public spaces around the UK.


This project was part of Face Britain.  All children in the UK were invited to submit a self-portrait in an attempt to create the largest on-line gallery of self-portraits in the world.


Below is a video about the media facade:





Photo credit: Face Britain
FACE BRITIAN video:


from Children & the Arts on Vimeo.


RELATED
Below are some examples of how BBC's large displays are used for interactive games in public spaces:


BBC's Big Screen Games in Public Spaces:

Digital Media and Learning: Video presentation by high schoolers, video of John Seely Brown's keynote at DML2012

This is a video of students from Morningside, Crenshaw, Rosevelt, Locke, and Manual Arts high schools in L.A. who presented a session on Education for a Digital Democracy at the recent Digital Media and Learning Conference. 

What I especially like about this presentation is the way the students highlighted the current state of technology in their urban schools, and what they have to say about their schools' policies regarding the use of personal technologies during the school day.

Digital Media and Learning Conference: Kids from Locke High from School Library JournalVimeo. on

Thanks to the School Library Journal and Scott McCloud for sharing this!

If you are interested in digital media/new media/multimedia and learning, take the time to view John Seely Brown's DML 2012 Keynote:
Cultivating the Entrepreneurial Learner in the 21st Century

DML2012 John Seely Brown Keynote from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.

PDF transcript of John Seely Brown's keynote

RELATED

Digital Media and Learning Hub

John Seely Brown's website

Book:  A New Culture of Learning:  Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change

Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown

Keepin' It Real: Organic, Natural, or Reality-Based Interactions? Video of TEI'12 panel discussion: Bill Buxton, Rob Jacob, Mili John Tharakan, and Roel Vertegaal (and more from TEI '12)

TEI '12 is finishing up in Kingston, Ontario.  If you missed it, like I did, don't worry.  Many of the presentations were streamed live, and are available to watch at your convenience.  
(The panel gets started at about 1: 48 on the timeline)


Keepin' It Real: Organic, Natural or Reality-Based Interactions?
Video streaming by UstreamModerator: Amanda Parkes, Columbia University 
Panelists
William Buxton, Microsoft Research
Rob Jacob, Tufts University 
Mili John Tharakan, The Swedish School of Textiles 
Roel Vertegaal, Queen's University


RELATED
Here are some TEI '12 presentations interest me!
Process Pad: A Low-Cost Multi-Touch Platform to Facilitate Multimodal Documentation of Complex Learning
Shima Salehi, Stanford University
Jain Kim, Stanford University
Colin Meltzer, Stanford University
Paulo Blikstein, Stanford University
Process Pad project website


Exploring peripheral interaction design for primary school teachers
Saskia Bakker Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands 
Elise van den Hoven Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands 
Berry Eggen Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands 
Kees Overbeeke Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands 


Others:
Exploring Tabletops as an Effective Tool to Foster Creativity Traits
Mobile Lorm Glove - Introducing a communication device for deaf-blind people
Mobile Lorm Glove project website
The HapticTouch Toolkit: Enabling Exploration of Haptic Interactions

HapticTouch Toolkit from Haptic Touch on Vimeo.

Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction: TEI 2012, Queens Human Media Lab, Ontario, Canada. Now.

The video below provides a nice one-hour overview of the creative works presented at the 6th International Conference of Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI'12). The focus of this conference is OUI - Organic User Interfaces.  (TEI is sponsored by the ACM SIGCHI.)


During the day, you can view live video and slides online.  There are a number of pictures on the TEI '12 Flickr site. Take a look! 



TEI_2012 from TEI_2012 on Vimeo.


#tei_2012 
TEI 2012 on Facebook

TEI'12 Program (pdf)

Below is the description of TEI 2012 from the conference website:

"TEI 2012 is the sixth international conference dedicated to presenting the latest results in tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction. It is being held 19th to 22nd February 2012 at Queen's Human Media Lab in Kingston, Ontario, Canada."

"The work presented at TEI addresses HCI issues, design, interactive art, user experience, tools and technologies, with a strong focus on how computing can bridge atoms and bits into cohesive interactive systems. The intimate size of this single-track conference provides a unique forum for exchanging ideas and presenting innovative work through talks, interactive exhibits, demos, hands-on studios, posters, art installations and performances."

"This year's conference features submissions in the area of Organic User Interfaces (OUI). Reflecting this, the theme of this year's conference is "fold unfold"."

I would love to attend TEI someday!

Interactive Technology: Take a look at Corning's "Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked" Video !

The videos below tell it all:

"Watch and share "A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked," to see how Corning's highly engineered glass, with companion technologies, will help shape our world. Take a journey with our narrator for details on these technologies, answers to your questions, and to learn about what's possible -- and what's not -- in the near future." -Corning Incorporated





Here is the first "Day Made of Glass":



RELATED
A Day Made of Glass 2: Same Day. Expanding Corning Vision

Razorfish Gesture and Touch Platform for the "Retail Experience"

Razorfish Connected Retail Experience Platform (codename "5D") from Razorfish - Emerging Experiences on Vimeo.


The above video is an overview of the "5D" connected retail experience platform by Razorfish Emerging Experience. This concept looks like it was designed for me - someone who loves tech,  has a high need for hassle-free shopping.  Someday I hope I will have the ultimate technology-supported shopping experience : )




RELATED
Razorfish Press Release
Razorfish


SOMEWHAT RELATED 
Previous posts:
Interactive Visual Merchandising
Another close encounter with in-store digital display marketing at Best Buy...
Interactions (ACM) Cover Article - "Proxemic Interactions: The New Ubicomp?" Plus - Close encounters with displays at the airport and JC Penney
Pervasive Retail Part 1: Web UX  Meets Retail CX - Screens Large and Small at the Mall, Revisited
Interactive Displays in Public Spaces
Interactive Display with QR Tag: Close Encounter at the Orlando Airport

Other:
Retail Customer Experience website
Pervasive Retail

GestureTek: Retail Marketing Solutions: Interactive Screen and Window Display Systems for Advertising in Stores, Malls and Shopping Centers
JC Penney Remodel  Interactive Video
Window Shopping Goes High-Tech With Motion-Sensing Interactive Displays
Bridgette Meinhold, Ecouterre, 9/22/11

Flight of the Fireflies, an Interactive Musical Poem/Game for the iPad, by Woolly Robot (video trailer)

Flight of the Fireflies An interactive musical poem/game for the iPad:



Flight of the Fireflies – Trailer from Woolly Robot on Vimeo.

"The fireflies are leaving the city, looking for a new home. Let your touch guide them as they soar through the skies. Find more fireflies to keep them company. Alone each firefly is just a note; together they're a symphony...Flight of the Fireflies is an interactive musical poem that takes you on a journey through places and emotions. Whether you see it as an experimental game or as an interactive artwork, you will not be left untouched."  -Jonathan Hise Kaldma/Woolly Robot


Flight of the Fireflies App (iTunes Store Link)
Flight of the Fireflies Website


Where I found this:
Creative Applications Network
"CreativeApplications.Net [CAN] was launched in October 2008 by architect, lecturer and new media technologist Filip Visnjic and is one of today’s most authoritative digital art blogs. The site tirelessly beat reports innovation across the field and catalogues projects, tools and platforms relevant to the intersection of art, media and technology. CAN is also known for uncovering and contextualising noteworthy work featured on the festival and gallery circuit, executed within the commercial realm or developed as academic research. Contributions from key artists and theorists such as Casey Reas, Joshua Noble, Jer Thorp, Paul Prudence, Greg J. Smith, Marius Watz, Matt Pearson as well as Filip’s numerous festival involvements and curation engagements are a testament to CAN’s vital role within the digital arts world today." -CAN


Other guest writers for Creative Applications Network are Mike Tucker, David Wallin,  Emilio Gomariz, Andreas Zecher, Jason Franzen, and Richard Almond. Alexander Scholz is a contributing editor.

GeekDad's Post: The Changing Nature of App Design for Kids (quick link)

The Changing Nature of App Design and Development for Kids
Daniel Donahoo, GEEKDAD, Wired,  1/16/12


"During 2011, I have observed a real push towards app development and digital design for children that is respectful and purposeful - not just a marketing and money making exercise." -Daniel Donahoo


I encourage you take the time to read Daniel Donahoo's thoughtful post!

RELATED
GeekDad Opinion:  We Need a Children's Apps Rating System
Daniel Donahoo, GEEKDAD, Wired, 12/11/10
Moms with Apps Workshop Summary
Moms with Apps, 12/4/11

Quick Post: Interactive 3D Plug-in for SMARTBoard (Video) Notebook

Christian Bannister's Interactive Multi-touch and Gesture-based Subcycle Project. Use your hands to shape sound, create, and manipulate music. Wow!!

I came across a link to Christian Bannister's Subcycle Labs website when I was taking a look at the Creative Applications Network website.


If you have an interest in music technology and innovative gesture/multitouch applications, you'll appreciate the details that are shared on the Subcycle website.  In the meantime, take the time to watch a few of Christian's videos.  Enjoy!


Blip Shaper Walkthrough

Blip Shaper Walkthrough from christian bannister on Vimeo.
"a) creating percussive patterns with monome b) shaping the individual sounds that make up the patterns with multitouch gestures c) recording touchscreen gestures as automation d) storing, duplicating and navigation patterns e) recording the resulting audio to a dynamic buffer f) manipulating the buffer with a multitouch cut-up approach g) visualizing everything with dual screens"
Subcycle Walkthrough

Subcycle Blip Shaper from christian bannister on Vimeo.

"a) creating percussive patterns with monome b) shaping the individual sounds that make up the patterns with multitouch gestures c) recording touchscreen gestures as automation d) storing, duplicating and navigation patterns e) recording the resulting audio to a dynamic buffer f) manipulating the buffer with a multitouch cut-up approach g) visualizing everything with dual screens"


The following information describing the Blip Shaper is from Christian's Subcycle website/blog:
"For the drum sounds I have Drumaxx running for synthesized sounds and Battery running for sampled sounds.  These are running in parallel so for each voice there is a separate patch running in each VST.  The Parameters are modified with the touchscreen independently but in all cases a single touch gesture on the X-Axis will cross fade between the sampled version of the sound and the synthesized version of the sound.  I love this because I have never seen this before and I can never decide which technique I like better.  The synthesized drums are more malleable and have more interesting parameters to play with but the sampled sounds seem more substantial.  I will post a detailed list of parameters and gestures in the future."   


Christian currently uses Max for Live (ableton), and codes with Processing/Java, using Eclipse for organization.

Autopilot - Subcycle
autopilot - subcycle labs from christian bannister on Vimeo.
"sound visualization, multi-touch interface, break beat performance engine, autopilot, spacialized sound, dsp, max/MSP, fm synthesis, sonic navigation, sound storm visualization, time machine, granular, interactive sound sculpture, joystick array, more at subcycle.org"

SOMEWHAT RELATED 
Community Core Vision
NUI Group

BTW,I'm wondering if Christian or other NUI group members would like to do something with some of my ideas that incorporate interactive music. To learn more, see my post, "It must be  Voronoi: Looking for ideas for my music+art+dance+tech dream...."
...


....

Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn - an awesome book by Cathy "HASTAC" Davidson. (Her blog is awesome, too!)

Who is Cathy Davidson
According to her most recent bio, Cathy "served from 1998 until 2006 as the first Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University, where she worked with faculty to help create many programs, including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the program in Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS).  She is the co-founder of is the co-founder of Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, HASTAC ("haystack"), a network of innovators dedicated to new forms of learning for the digital age.  She is also co-director of the $2 million annual HASTAC/John D. and Catherine T. MacAuthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition."


Here is Cathy's book: Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn
 

Note: I am almost finished with the book. Sadly, it went missing for several weeks, so I have about 50 more pages to read, now that it is found!   I didn't want to wait too long before writing my review, so I thought I'd highlight it here, since it will make a great read-or gift, for the holiday season!   It is well worth reading, as Cathy is a deep thinker who transcends disciplinary confines.


Here are a few Cathy Davidson's blog posts:
So What Again is HASTAC? Post #HASTAC2011 Reflections on a Network Founded on a Theory That's Practice 12/4/11
Why is the Information Age Without the Humanities Like the Industrial Revolution Without the Steam Engine? 1/24/10
Five Ways the Open Web Can Transform Higher Education
12/4/11


RELATED
HASTAC website, where you can discover a number of excellent blogs and interesting links.

Near Field Communication (NFC) for SmartPhones at the Museum of London, plus related video and NFC links

I recently came across the following video demonstrating the use of NFC (Near Field Communication) at the Museum of London.  I wouldn't be surprised if this technology takes root in a variety of applications in the very near future!


Museum of London's use of Near Field Technology with Nokia

London History Museum Adopts Technology of Future
Claire Swedberg, RFID Journal, 8/16/11
"Museum of London has installed NFC RFID tags in its two location, to provide the growing number of NFC-enabled phone users with additional exhibit information, access to social Web sites and vouchers."
Byte at the museum
Trevor, Conversations by Nokia, 9/26/11


RELATED 
Apple, Microsoft Reported to Include NFC in 2012 Smartphones
Christina Bonnington, Wired Gadget Lab, 11/22/11

Gamification and NFC top 2012 Digital Trends
Wenlei Ma, AdNews12/12/11
Microsoft: NFC already supported in Windows Phone
Gareth Beavis, TechRadar.com, 12/9/11

Near Field Communication
Android Developers
Intel joins NFC Forum board
Telcompaper, 12/8/11

Join the NFC (Near Field Communication) Revolution Today
NFC Data Inc, Sacramento Bee, 11/30/11
"Pledge support. Set a new mobile wallet standard for security, convenience, and affordability! Think outside the phone!"

NFC Near Field Communication Tutorial
Radio-Electronics.com
"A summary overview or tutorial of Near Field Communications, detailing what is NFC and its technology"
Vending Machines Now Take Google Wallet Payments

-Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch

Starbucks Cup Magic: Augmented Reality App for iPhone and Android!

The app was developed by Blast Radius.  FYI, Blast Radius is hiring.

"Blast Radius is a global agency that takes a strategic approach to tackling the complex issues of growing brand and revenue in a digitally connected world."


For more information, tak a look at the Starbucks Cup Magic iTunes preview.


Thanks to Ajit Jaokar for the link!

Revisiting Good Blogs: Nathan Yau's Flowing Data

One of my favorite blogs is FlowingData, Nathan Yau's labor of love for the past several years. Nathan is a UCLA PhD candidate in statistics with a focus in data visualization.  He shares interesting tidbits of information on his blog, including those that relate to his main interests, social data visualization, self-surveillance, and data for non-professionals.  He supports accessible and useful data visualization.


Nathan is the author of  the book, Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics,  nicely explained in the video below:

Is the answer Voronoi? Looking for possible solutions to an art+dance+music+tech idea from a recurring dream....

If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you probably know that I sometimes have some unusual dreams about technology.  I don't blog about my dreams very often, but last night, I had another technology dream, a continuation of a dream I had one night last week.  
Voronoi Diagram (Wikipedia)

I'm pretty sure that the last two dreams were sparked by playing an online interactive demonstration of a Voronoi application before going to sleep one night, and also reading an article about "extracting ordered patterns from a triangular mesh surface" in the Novemeber/December IEEE Potentials magazine before turning in last night. 

The dance probably was influenced by my recent viewing of the North Carolina Dance Theater's performance of Innovative Works with my mom, someone who encouraged my  study of music, art, and dance at an early age.

Some of my tech dreams are sort of...practical. For example, in one recurring dream, I find myself coding for a flexible mesh/grid application. Sometimes the mesh/grid has something to do with wireless sensor networks on curved terrain, perhaps related to something like the Smart Grid, and sometimes I find myself working on an application that analyzes streaming data from a variety of sources, for security prediction purposes.  At other times, I'm coding for something more artistic, my preference.

Last night, my dream focused on creating a flexible mesh fabric that used in a multimedia dance/graphic arts/music performance.  I was coding for this performance using a Voronoi-like algorithm.


This is the best I can do to explain this: The fabric is carried by the dancers, and is both reactive and generative. In essence, the fabric is intertwined/embedded in the dance, the music, and the graphics. In my dream, everything looked/sounded/felt awesome and otherworldly, and the music that merged and morphed during the dance was so beautiful, not only the melodies, but the sounds.  (In a previous dream, the mesh contained a "nanotechnology" component, but I'll save that quest for the future.)


I thought I'd look at some of my web book marks and search a bit more for information related to this topic.  For now, here is the "brain dump".  I have more to add to this post, and plan to port it to a reference page for this blog in the future.  I hope that this post will be useful to some of my art/music/dance/tech readers!

RELATED AND SOMEWHAT RELATED


Update:  Right after uploaded this post, I came across a link to a WebGL demo for a 3D music video of pop singer Ellie Goulding's song, 'Lights', by HelloJoy.   Visitors to the webpage can click to interact with the environment. If you keep the button pressed, you fly faster.  If you tweet the link, you'll see your name crop up as you fly around in the soundspace.  For more information about the making of 'Lights' - take a look at  Behind the scenes of 'Lights": the latest WebGL sensation!  (Carlos Ulloa, 11/9/11)


After I watched the 'Lights' video, I recalled Radiohead's 'House of Cards' video, which I wrote about back in 2008: 
 "We were rolling computers all day"...The Making of Radioheads House of Cards using imaging and info visualization software.   The process behind the making of the House of Cards video was described in detail in Chapter 10 of the book, Beautiful Data.

Bradley, E., Capps, D., Luftig, J, & Stuart, J.M. Toward Stylistic Consonance in Human Movement Synthesis.(pdf)  The Open Artificial Intelligence Journal, 2010, 4, 1-19
Bradley, E., Stuart, J.  Using Chaos to Generate Variations on Movement Sequences (pdf) Chaos, 8:800-807 (1998)
Bradley, E., Stuart, J.  Learning the Grammar of Dance.(pdf)  Proceedings Fifteenth International Conference on Machine Learning, Madicson, WI, 1998
E. Bradley, D. Capps, and A. Rubin, "Can computers learn to dance?," Proceedings International Dance & Technology (IDAT), Tempe AZ, Feb 1999.
Chaotic Dance: Using mathematics to generate choreographic variations
Schedl, M., Hoglinger, C., Knees, P. Large-Scale Music Exploration in Hierarchically Organized Landscapes Using Prototypicality Information (pdf)
Fournel, N. Procedural Audio for Video Games: Are we there yet? (pdf) GDC 2010


Voronoi Cells, created by Nathan Nifong.  A version of this interactive work was used in a DanceDraw performance

Patterns in the Noise (Nathan Nifong's site - FYI, Nathan worked with Celine Latulipe with the Dance.Draw project while completing his bachelor degree in computer science at UNC-Charlotte)
Voronoi Dance (Christian Gross, using OpenFramework)
Voronoi art: Slow Trip (Oktalist/Mat)


The above video, by Mat/Oktal, was inspired by his viewing of Thomas Ruff's Substrat images. 
Scott Snibbe Studio (Intearctive art, music, and animation for iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Mac)

Interactive Voronoi Diagram Generator with WebGL (Alex Beutel)
 
The above video was found in Alex Beutel's blog post, "Interactive Voronoi Diagrams with WebGL"

Posts about DanceDraw and related work at UNC-Charlotte:
News from the HCI lab at UNC-Charlotte- Creative Interactions (Videos)
Exploring the Design Space in Technology-Augmented Dance at CHI 2010:  Celine Latulipe's team from UNC-Charlotte
Interactive Surveillance:  Live digital art installation by Annabel Manning and Celine Latulipe

SIGCHI  Digital Arts and Interaction Community:  Building Bridges
The Interdisciplinary World of Dance and Interactive Technology

HTML5Voronoi  (HTML5Code website)

HTML5 Voronoi, Live Version
Update to code to compute Voronoi diagrams (Raymond Hill, 5/22/11)
William Forsythe's "Synchronous Objects-One Flat Thing, Reproduced" - Multidisciplinary online interactive project: Translating choreography into new forms.
BCS HCI 2011 Workshop: When Words Fail:  What can Music Interaction tell us about HCI?
Woven Sound (Alex McLean)
Real DJs Code Live (Robert Andrews, Wired, 7/3/06)
Visualization of Live Code (Alex McLean)
Voronoi diagrams of music (pdf)  (Alex McLean, 2006)
WebGL
Sylvester: Vector and Matrix Math for JavaScript
Generative Art Links (Mikael Hvidtfeldt Christensen)
Schacher, J.C. Motion to Gesture to Sound:  Mapping For Interactive Dance (pdf) Proceedings of the 2010 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2010), Sydney, Australia
Code & Form:  Computational Aesthetics (Marius Watz)
Werghi, N. Extracting ordered patterns from a triangular mesh surface.  IEEE Potentials, Nov/Dec 2011
Last night I dreamt about haptic touch-screen overlays


Hyun-Seok Kim's Voronoi Yacht