SpacePlace

[Space and Place] Lyon\'s festival of light: multimedia art everywhere inna city

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From tomorrow to this week end, the "Fête des Lumières" is going to happen in Lyon, France. Of the most famous event there, a mix of popular event (everybody put small candles on the windows) and a arty festival with art installation everywhere. The red line is that it's about light, providing people a lively experience through the urban environment. This year it's about light and nature. Of course there might be some impromptu parallel event like concert, dub sound-systems or conference about art/urban stuff.

[Space and Place] Lyon's festival of light: multimedia art everywhere inna city

in

From tomorrow to this week end, the "Fête des Lumières" is going to happen in Lyon, France. Of the most famous event there, a mix of popular event (everybody put small candles on the windows) and a arty festival with art installation everywhere. The red line is that it's about light, providing people a lively experience through the urban environment. This year it's about light and nature. Of course there might be some impromptu parallel event like concert, dub sound-systems or conference about art/urban stuff.

[Locative Media] Location matters says CIA technology arm

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If your are not convinced that geospatialocationbasedservices shtuff matters, check how In-Q-Tel's point about it. In-Q-Tel is the non-profit organisation funded by the CIA to invest on cutting edge technologies (that serve "US national security", well it's broad). They have the same agenda as all of us:

  1. inter-operable geospatial software components
  2. delivery of geospatial information to multiple devices and clients
  3. technologies for location services
  4. fusion of multiple data sources
  5. visualization mechanisms
  6. supporting multiple views of the same data.

[Locative Media] Restoring the role of Gestures in Mobile communication

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IDI's presentations are always interesting if you're into interaction design. Gaurav Chadha's thesis is:Restoring the role of Gestures in Mobile communication: How do we communicate emotional content through gestures over distance?

My goal is to explore the feasibility of designing a mobile telephone with an articulating case that can transmit subtle physical gestures to restore lost information back into the communication and thereby improve it. Some of these devices use articulating cases that include a physical ‘head’ that appears on the mobile phone screen (here prototyped using a Pocket PC). The virtual head would mimic the speaker's head gestures to add an additional channel of communication. (The eventual goal would be to add the listener's gestures as well). The movements of the head are detected by an accelerometer in the hands-free ear piece. The prototype uses one accelerometer, but if we use three, one for each plane of movement, then we can sense and mimic almost all of the real tilt, bend, twist and roll movements of human head gestures. These are then transmitted through a PIC/ PC to be represented as the head movements of a virtual character.

[Locative Media] Balog: location based aggregation system

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Via Libby Miller, Balog : Location-based information aggregation system (.pdf) by Hiroki Uematsu, Kosuke Numa, Tetsuro Tokunaga, Ikki Ohmukai, Hideaki Takeda. Their representation of location data in RSS is interesting in this regard

Balog is a location-based information aggregation system with GPS-enabled mobile phones. Balog system collects location-based information via E-mail and RSS and represents it either with association with maps or with the weblog style, i.e., entries near the location displayed in reverse chronological order. We also propose representation of metadata for location embedded in RSS and its utilization.

[Space and Place] Programming for cities

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(via), Programming for cities: workshop about code and architecture/urban stuff in Amsterdam

"Programming for Cities" is a workshop that reinforces a long existing link between code and architecture. Many fine buildings can be reduced to a few lines of code, and a quick glance backward in time shows that is a consequence of architectural theory. This workshop will start with a short but broad overview of this longstanding connection between programming and architecture. After this the basic elements (about 6 of them) of programming will be discussed. The main part of the workshop will be consisting of a hand-on approach to design a city from code.

[Space and Place] Combining military software with imagery beamed from satellites

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A paper in the NYT, 3-D Maps From Commercial Satellites Guide G.I.'s in Iraq's Deadliest Urban Mazes: the Army has been using a new weapon that combines software with imagery beamed from satellites to make missions somewhat less unpredictable.

Taking soldiers into any urban environment is hazardous. But the Army has been using a new tool before going into Iraq's restive cities, like Mosul and Falluja, that helps officers answer critical questions and make their missions somewhat less unpredictable. The new weapon is called the Urban Tactical Planner, which combines advanced computer software tools with high-resolution imagery that is beamed down to earth from a new generation of commercial satellites.

[Space and Place] Urban Trees in Geneva

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There is currently a nice urban project in geneva, though temporary: Festival Arbres et Lumières.

Chaque année désormais au mois de décembre, les arbres du centre ville, qu’ils soient hêtre, platane, peuplier ou séquoia, sont mis en lumière, en couleurs ou en musique, peints ou emballés. La ville et ses arbres deviennent alors une œuvre d’art. A travers ces œuvres issues d’artistes suisses et étrangers, l’art contemporain investit la rue et prend place dans le quotidien des genevois pour un mois, illuminant les arbres endormis pour l’hiver.

[Space and Place] D-tower: cool machine

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D-tower is a really crazy piece of architecture I fancy a lot! It reminds me something in-between the Robotech zentraedi battle pod and John's Christopher's Tripods. There is also a webcam.

The D-Tower is a 12 meter high sculpture. It is a coherent hybrid of different media, where architecture is only part of a larger interactive system of relationships. It is a project where the intensive (feelings and qualia) and the extensive (space and numbers) start exchanging roles, in which human action, color, money, value and feelings all become networked entities. The project - which will be built in the city of Doetinchem, The Netherlands, by early 2003 - consists of a physical building (the tower), a questionnaire and a web site. All three parts are interactively related.

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[Space and Place] Skateboarding versus Defensible space

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I have always been amazed by the way urban planners try to re-model the city so that skateboarders cannot carry out their activities. I have to take picture of this urban struggle. A common way is that they place "metal discs in the joins of these makeshift skate ramps. These discs prevent a skateboarder from getting any speed or distance on these runs. The same concept can be applied to hand rails to prevent dangerous riding stunts on hand rails." (via). Urban Structure addresses those issues. Like him, I think skaters are always creative and can find ways to by pass this. For instance, a picture taken from daily lobo:

[Space and Place] Defensible Space

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Defensible space appears to be a real trend these days in urban settings. According to the Center for urban research and learning:

Defensible space commonly refers to architectural and environmental design used to reduce criminality by increasing field of observation and ownership. When space is used in such a way that makes people feel safe and secure in the community, it fosters the likelihood for increased social interactions- a primary source of crime deterrence. Techniques, such as lighting, fencing, and landscaping, can define spaces in a manner that promote community safety by decreasing criminal activity. Oscar Newman (Defensible Space- Crime Prevention through Urban Design)