C++ script using openFrameworks, no coding skills required) to render video output of pointcloud manipulations [code & manual]
cloudBloomer
cloudBloomer is a short piece of C++ code that uses openFrameworks to manipulate pointcloud data. It is the result of Jack Wolf and Manu Luksch’s collaborative search for visual metaphors to express the notions of the quantified self and algorithmically-managed space.
Coded by Federico Foderaro and Mukul Patel.
Free download: [cloudBloomer userManual] [installer]
cloudBloomer is responsible for the ‘visual data dust’ FX of the installation artworks Third Quarterly Report and The Empty Quarter, award-winning short film Algo-Rhythm, and the music promos The Devil Has a Hold on the Land (Band of Holy Joy) and Our Light (Traumpatrouille).
ARTEFACTS OF RESISTANCE
Balancing visibility and anonymity is a central concern of Artefacts of Resistance, an interdisciplinary research and design project that brings together urban geographers and intermedia artists to document and elaborate the solidarity networks and infrastructure that grow at sites of mass protest. A concept costume that transforms through movement is one public-facing aspect of the project, which at its foundations is an open-access media archive documenting contemporary that builds on transnational solidarity networks [read more…]
ARTEFACTS OF RESISTANCE
Artefacts of Resistance: Creating Archives of Transnational Protest Movements
How can protestors balance their need for visibility and anonymity? This was one of the central questions of Artefacts of Resistance, an interdisciplinary project that brought together urban geographers and artists around some significant recent protests in India.
The concept costume by Manu Luksch addresses the protestors’ dilemma by transforming through movement [more info…]
Another response is the open-access media archive designed by Mukul Patel, which gathers audio interviews and other materials obtained through fieldwork at protest sites across India; data are translated, transcribed and tagged before being uploaded. It is intended be a secure database for resistance movements, a research tool to articulate new relationships within the data (by accommodating rich, searchable metadata), and serve as a repository of narratives. Through its use of open protocols, the archive offers protestors a secure alternative to proprietary social media platforms. [see video documentation below]
Presentation schedule: check What’s On listings
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Artefacts of Resistance: Creating Archives of Transnational Protest Movements is a collaboration between Srilata Sircar of King’s College London’s King’s India Institute and Manu Luksch as part of the King’s College London x Somerset House Studios Programme
in collaboration with Ufaque Paiker, Ashoka University; Mukul Patel, emergence.is; Raktim Ray, UCL.
Archival materials are drawn from the project Transnational Infrastructures of Resistance: From Empire to Occupation funded by the Antipode Right to the Discipline grant.
The team has secured support from the AHRC Imagining Futures fund 2023 to further develop the project.
LIBERTIES REWIRED
A tech-info-bazaar at Volksbühne Berlin exploring responses to the challenges faced in our increasingly algorithmically-managed society
THE ART OF VOTING
Harvie Branscomb is an independent monitor, activist and expert of voting procedures in the USA, and has analysed and developed recommendations and campaigned for fair and secure voting for more than two decades. In this video interview, Harvie discusses manual, mechanical, electronic and hybrid voting systems, and his ideas for reform. [read more]
HEAR/HERE TO SEE
A free (and ad-free) iPhone app that guides participants on a 30-minute walk around Westminster, London, revealing the ubiquitous use of algorithmic decision making in public space and by government and the private sector. [read more]
Checkpoints
CETC’s three-dimensional portrait and integrated data doors – special machines that are used in some of Xinjiang’s checkpoints to vacuum up people’s identifying information from their electronic devices. This is placed at the entrance to the Aq Mosque, in Urumqi, 2018. Photo 2018 Joanne Smith Finley
– China’s Algorithms of Repression. Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App 2019 Human Rights Watch
They arrive at the far shore of the Blue Water.
Cautious doors hesitate.
Then, allow her in.
– Manu Luksch, FACELESS (2006 AT/UK). Co-written with Mukul Patel. Narrated by Tilda Swinton. Film excerpt.
Data shadow
Predictive profiling is used to socially sort populations . Through denying credit or screening career opportunities, negative profiles can haunt an individual across various domains. A person’s data shadow does more than follow them; it precedes them.
– Rob Kitchin, Continuous Geosurveillance in the “Smart City”
They say that if you meet your double, you should kill him. Or that he will kill you. I can’t remember which but… the gist of it is that two of you is one too many. By the end of the script, one of you must die.
– Johan Grimonprez Double Take (2009 Belgium/Germany/ The Netherlands/ USA)
Facial Recognition
There is a large number of categories. Whereas the alphanumeric character recognition problem may have only 36 categories, the facial recognition problem can have millions or even billions.
– Dr. Woodrow Wilson Bledsoe for Panaromic Research, Inc; FACIAL RECOGNITION PROJECT REPORT (March 6th 1964)
A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: FACECRIME, it was called.
– George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four. (1948. Chapter 5, paragraph 65)
Happiness
Happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.
– Yevgeny Zamyatin, We. 1924
Creating happiness is the final result of the smart city agenda. Once we are able to manage and meet people’s experiences, we will be able to rise on the happiness index. It is vital because if people are not happy, they don’t stick around in the city, they leave.
– Ahmed Bin Byat, CEO of Dubai Holding (gulfbusiness.com, 10/02/2015; Accessed 29/01/2018)