show and write

with spring just around the corner, and the last of my exhibitions coming to an end (until april kicks off a new series of shows), i can turn my full attention to my phd.

a two-pronged attack is required:
1. thesis writing
2. exhibition planning

the thesis is the main focus for now as it has to be submitted by january 4, which gives me 4 months. the guideline is 20 - 30k words, so assuming i max out at 30k, my writing schedule should be about 7500 words a month, or about 1800 words a week. i have about 40k worth of notes, so i should be ok.

the exhibition was going to be a garden of plants trading on the stock market, but it was brought to my attention that a swedish artist made an artwork called Yucca Invest Trading Plant that hooked a yucca plant up to the stock market back in 1999.

Ola Pehrson, Yucca Invest Trading Plant, 1999

so i'm rethinking my approach. my idea was different enough to warrant pursuing it, but other technical limitations are also making it a less and less attractive proposition at the moment. 

in the spirit of keeping my options open i am still looking at exhibition ideas. i stumbled on this today and liked it a lot. it stirred ideas and reiterates my focus on the system synthesis:

A Negative Garden of Eden

the idea of a network of plants coupled with a cultural network is the driving energy of my intention.

but i must thrust my attention into my writing now, some of which will i'll be placing in here as a way or airing ideas and trying out writing style, clarity of voice etc etc.

standing at the end point looking back

nine days in the lab and i've got 3 plants that produce SHUDDER and WAVE functions at my command. that's pretty cool. there's a few little niggly things that aren't right (such as the fact they should be behaving at their own behest, not my command, and they should have more amplified actions), but it's a perfectly acceptable place to put a full stop on the work and let it stand as a basis for future development. the potential is now set to really take this work into some really engaging territory, and i've learnt so much in a the space of a week that i feel quite confident to move forward and experiment on my own.

here's an example of the sort of coding we've been concocting, and i can get some of my head around some of it. enough to play with.

and here they are, sitting out in the gallery space of the warehouse, looking innocuous but all the while ready to pounce into action.

deadends and adaptations

another long day in the lab, although much of it was waiting for tech support.

there's a couple of rather frustrating issues that are going to prune back my ambitions for the completion of the project:
 - the replacement solenoids are quite weak and don't generate a very engaging SHUDDER effect
 - we've run out of time to network the plants together

the first issue is a consequence of having too many functions for the microprocessor. in retrospect, the SHUDDER effect was far more interesting, visually and perhaps interpretively, anyway and if i replicate the project in the future i'll jettison the SWAY effect all together. there was a bloke who dropped in, another techy type, who was very excited bout the potential of lights and sounds being generated, which was always my intention and reinforces the option to use those as second and third effects to add to the mix (and i'm quite certain they'll also require less power drainage).

the possibility of bringing this project to its potential outcome (that is, properly networked plants with engaging effects) is now very much in reach. so although i won't achieve its ideal resolution tomorrow, for the final day, i will have the basic framework to cobble it together more effectively by myself in the studio.

for the purposes of putting a conclusion to the project at medialab, i'll run the plants independently, each one running random fluctuations between their SHUDDER and WAVE functions. it won't be perfect, but it'll still be an activation of the plant body which was the premise of the project at the outset.

recharged for holding pattern

with a belly full of pizza, my head has cleared a little and i'm just waiting for one of the tech gurus to free up so i can rope them into my plant network to tinker together the necessary components. just a waiting game really, as the guys are elbow deep in building for the other projects at the moment.

in the meantime i thought i should sketch out the operations more clearly so i can explain it and also even try to get a grasp on the electronics required.

all three plants will need to be 'sending' a data feed of their HUMIDITY levels to a central point for monitoring....

actually:
maybe the plants should send their datafeed to their PARTNERS in the network..?... because after all, responses are based on either of their PARTNERS' HUMIDITY data hitting numbers ending in 5 or 0. this is far more pleasing, as it feels more like a network, and without having a central nodal point of control the network is more open and responsive to each others' information.

amalgamated hybrids

ok, so i'm pretty much set to bring these plants together but it really requires some coding skills and my brain is basically fried at this point. the lack of the sunlight, the constant focus on the project and 11 days straight working are starting to take their toll. if i was in my own studio, i'd have taken a day off to recharge, but alas, it's a sprint and one must press on!

this is a pretty poor attempt at bringing the humidity sensors into the mix, by looking back at documentation of day 2 and trying to replicate the wiring from the sensor we built. the circuits are getting nice and spaghetti-like with multiple connections cross-feeding everywhere and i have to declare that i am now so desperate for lunch and sustenance that i'm floating in a void of loss. clearly i need to consult the experts, but they're all head down in the other projects and i don't think i can function until i eat something.

i've even started copying and pasting code together but frankly, it's like trying to re-write a arabic text using a japanese dictionary. priority - EAT. then - get some help!

mounted and probed

day 8 of the lab and it's the penultimate day. time to bring everything together and work towards the resolution of the project.

the image above shows the SHUDDER motor on the left there, with the blue wires coming out of it (it's a solenoid which works basically like a piston). you may be able to see the fishing line which runs parallel to that bracket but from the base of the plant and then out to pulley wheels at the edge of the pot and down to the base of the pot, and under the pot plant itself to the 'servo' motor that operates as the WAVE motor.

hopefully the last of the soldering here, with some probes for measuring humidity in the soil, and some ... um ... green thingies which do something with power, like regulate it. i think. my head is way too overloaded with new information.

here's the little guys, all lined up, all locked into place, all probed, all rigged up with wires. next step is get them to start reading the humidity levels in the soil, be able to communicate that information, and then be able to respond to it.

all potted out

today was full on. i true reflection of the idea of the lab to be a 'sprint' - i've been at it from 10am until, well now it's 930pm. but that's it for the day coz i finished off all the mechanisms for the plants, leaving tomorrow simply for programming, fine-tuning and setup for exhibition.

not a lot of documentation today as it was pretty much non-stop drilling, hacksawing, fiddling about with nuts and bolts and measuring and cutting holes and adding springs and so on and so forth. but there's nothing like a solid day at the office/workshop/studio/lab to get the juices flowing.

tomorrow - it's the last day of the lab and i gotta get everything together to show off on sunday.

parrots to guide the build

there's been a constant chirp chirp of bird noises outside the warehouse, pleasant and a very nice counterbalance to the interior industrial space of zero-natural light we're working in.

i had just assumed they'd be annoying indian mynas but much to my delight they're some sort of beautiful parrot.

well, that's kinda beside the point of the this blog, but there you go. i've always had a thing for natural omens, which i think stems from reading homer's epics when i was younger. of course, i have no basis against which to base an omen, good or bad, but there's something to be said for the simple joy of finding a bright aqua and yellow parrot singing at the doorway to an industrial workshop.

so, to the task at hand!

tim and i took a materials-run to bunnings to get my pots and braces and now i'm ready to translate the proto-pot into exhibition pots.

coding action

here's some code i actually managed to construct a small section of (which, i must confess, was mostly a cut and paste job, but i did have a vague idea of what i was doing!)

for the 3 readers who may stumble on this blog - all the code for this project is free if you want it, in the spirit of open source learning.

it's alive!

very exciting day today, as i managed to complete my proto-pot and have a fully functioning, active plant with 2 motion actions: SHUDDER and WAVE.

there was a whole bit of building, something i could get my teeth into without always asking for help (like i need to for electronics and coding, which frankly, i know pretty much nothing about). so, using the trusty milk crate and a hacksaw and screws and bolts and bits of metal and a drill and fishing wire and pulleys and springs - kapow - plant holder complete!

so now, the next step is really just fine-tuning the motions, which are actually pretty close to where i'd like them anyway. jesse's gonna help me attach potentiometers (dials) so i can adjust the speeds up or down and pick the best outcome. this could be really beneficial for adjusting each particular plant, as each one will obviously respond differently to the motors because each plant is a different size and shape.

once the fine-tuning is done, then it's build build build, to replicate the pots for all plants, which will mean finding 3 nice traditional pots from bunnings, which i saw on a recent materials-run for a low $16.67. the only problem is going to be how to drill and attach all the brackets and screws without it all poking out of the side of the pot. perhaps it will require a pot (plant) within a pot (mechanisms) within a pot (outer cover) !