memory place identity

No prob with investigating gear.   But  before we go really far down a gear-specific path, I'd like to send this out to the group. ...    And ... also call in some expert experimentalists who are good for this sort of work: Satinder Gill in Cambridge, and Helgi Schweitzer in Innsbruck.  They've been interested in our work.   Helgi Schweitzer in particular is a master experimentalist who's worked with questions of of collective rhythm and synchrony.   http://www.dalaielian.de/jon-helgi/

And Satinder's coming to workshop with us March 1 - 8.  So she may as well get warmed up :)

Cheers,

Xin Wei

Hi, dear Memory+Place folks!

Hello, did we miss a step?  What are our scenarios?

The problem with almost all HMD experiment is that they are designed from an ocularcentric perspective, which in turn comes from putting a sharp divide between observer and the observed .    Our MP starts from a thoroughly  embedded perspective, so to speak, so we have to be very careful that our experiment does not buy  the framing assumption along with the tech.   Having been around visualization research plus a lot of the AR stuff for a few decades I can attest to the enormous and rigid representationalist assumptions that are hardwired, literally, into HMD's, starting with what is "3D."

So I'd be very very  careful to design experiments that retain whole-body movement in physical space.   Of course this increases the challenge of designing a scenario that'll allow  the phenomena to emerge.

Part of our "non-methodology" is to avoid pre-judging as much as possible what the salient "observables" are in a given situation.

The predominantly ocularcentric "VR" and "AR" tech is designed squarely under  the naive sensory-mode-specific assumptions, that either cut out the body altogether (focussing on what the subject sees as representation ,  or more subtly, assumes that being in the world is simply summing the sense-modalities together, as if experience is merely the linear sum of video input  + audio input  +  ___ input.   

Of course we can use the gadgets without the engineers' perceptualist or cognitivist assumptions, but typically the more complicated the gear, the more we have to unbuild or hack around in order to use the gear outside its spec.

Sorry I was not present on Friday last week, else I would've been able to express this more easily verbally :)  

Constructively, I would propose two design strategies:

(1) Let's try to mitigate the representationalist tendency by going to auditory transference rather than visual.   There is a significant practical issue as well.  Audio data takes so much less bandwidth and processing power that we can do a LOT richer augmentation and experiment with sound streams -- more phenomenological research for less engineering.  Less experiment-specific gear means  working with more familiar props.  I propose to follow a modified version of Grotowski's "poor theater" and instead of building  entirely synthetic perceptual fields, see what experiments we can design that work by defamiliarizing familiar things and bodies and places  in situ.

(2) What I think is utterly crucial at this stage is to imagine what we would  do  with the such transference gear.  

For example, I propose we talk more in email the scenario set-up.    Where should this occur? 

Ideally what to bodies do , in what sort of space?   Empty,  cluttered with familiar domestic, or public props? indoors?   One or more than one person at a time?  

EXAMPLE:  WALKING EXPERIMENT:  

Scenario:

For example: Hard shoes, bare wooden floor.  Blindfold one person hearing binaural sound of footfalls from another person.   Some "exercises"

(A) Walk with that person.

(B)  Take a walk for 5 minutes.  Return to where you were.

(C)  Listen to recording of another person.  Try to walk as that person walked.

This can involve time, but also orientation if we unleash the full power of our spatialization set-up:  we can ask the person to try to walk not only at the pace, but also where (in the apparent trajectory) of what s/he hears. This is very different than the usual externalist, representationalist approach : A  observes B and tries to imitate B.   Here we are putting A in B's place -- A hears what B hears  -- and we ask A to corporeally do what B may have done corporeally in order for B to have heard what is in A's headphones.

SO, let's hear more scenarios?

Cheers,

Xin Wei

On 2010-02-08, at 8:56 AM, Timothy Sutton wrote:

Hi all,

I've just forwarded the links David & Zohar collected to a researcher
friend who just conducted a VR experiment in his research lab. As a
subject I tried the glasses they bought, which I suspect are probably
out of our range — but he may have some input. They had the particular
need of needing to track the movement on the same device to input into
a first-person game sim, which I'm not sure would be necessary for
MP's purposes. (though helpful) The glasses were a bit uncomfortable
and the awkward ergonomics of movement took a bit out of the
experience, but the size of the frame and quality of the image was
close enough for jazz. By my memory they seemed like something along
the lines of the 3DVisor product.

From a quick look at the i-Glasses 920.. the proprietary processor
seems at least to be able to deactivate the 3D feature.

I assume that anything above standard-def resolution is unnecessary
cost? Since a small mounted camera would not provide any better
resolution anyway.. we would just have to deal with outputting back to
a composite signal, ideally getting as low latency as possible in the
input-output loop. DV latency one-way is bad enough, but the DFG I/O
(not DV), is probably about the best we've got. I forget if you can
use two of them on one machine (two FW busses?) to get the input and
output. And I forget if both of ours are in working condition.

Tim

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 10:26 AM, zohar <zohar@zzee.net> wrote:

The TAG group might have some, I will ask.

On Feb 8, 2010, at 9:41 AM, "David Morris" <davimorr@alcor.concordia.ca>

wrote:

We hadn’t set a next meeting. I don’t think the 12th will work for me. I

have meetings 9-6, and really should go out after the 6 to take a speaker to

dinner, so, unless Xin Wei is physically going to be in town, I don’t think

I could fit in this meeting. The19th I am away.

Can Zohar and others do research on the goggles. One other factor is

availability, actually being able to get them in Canada.

I also wonder if it might be the case that some other lab on campus has some

that we could borrow, if things work this way when you’re doing experiments,

etc. (So far the only thing I’ve ever need to borrow is a book.)

David

From: Sha Xin Wei [mailto:shaxinwei@gmail.com]

Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 4:19 AM

To: David Morris; memory-place@concordia.ca

Subject: Re: Googling for Googgles

Hi Everyone

When's the next mtg Friday Feb 12 6 pm?

I would like be present  so we can decide on what to get etc.

Cheers,

Xin Wei

On 2010-02-06, at 10:40 AM, David Morris wrote:

Dear MIPers,

We had a nice go round with Mazi's goggles displacing us via videocam

hijinx, but we're realizing there are limits on those myVu goggles. First,

lo-res, second, people with eyes like mine, with heavy duty glasses, can't

seem to get their image into focus.

So, I've been googling around a bit, and come up with these which I leave

our tech people to look at further (we'd also been thinking 3d goggles would

be better to get independent inputs to each eye), as a start:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_Vision_Main.html These look nice, cheap--but

proprietary system for getting input into them.

http://www.3dvisor.com/ Probably very good for our application, would work

with glasses, but expensive, at best we could afford one pair. But, from the

faqs, it looks like researchers like us are interested (e.g., one q is can

you use them in MRI machines, another is can you use them with noise

cancelling headphones)

http://www.i-glassesstore.com/i-3d.html midrange, but again I wonder about

proprietary 3d inputs. (haven't had a chance to read through these things

thoroughly, but e.g.,

http://www.allvideoglasses.com/blog/2009/10/06/hr-920-specifications-1, this

review here says " 3D Video Format: Interlaced 3D Video" for the i-Glasses

HR 920, which I'm guessing would mean the two pictures are transmitted as

one interlaced signal, and then decoded in the glasses, which would mean

that we'd need to get interlaced output from jitter, which might also mean,

I guess, half the frame rate per image? Or a higher frame rate output? Do s

composite signals have a variable refresh rate, I don't know how they're

structured.

This might be a good resource: http://www.allvideoglasses.com/

http://www.edimensional.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=28 --can't

quite figure these out.

Also see this re. my idea to use a Wii to track head rotations and use the

motorized mount that the mirror is currently on to guide the cameras on a

tripod head. http://emol.org/3dentertainment/3dgaming/news/3dwiipc.html

David

Hi Elena,

At yesterday's meeting we decided to go ahead with 

(1) dressing a "mirror" -- Michael M had a good idea: use a half silvered mirror, to give a sense of the "mirror-ness" -- maybe use a video mixer like the one the Jerome checked out from Hexagram for Frankenstein to blend in the image of camera with live see-through, to achieve some of the effects desired.

We should design the experiment and tun it during the summer.

(2) Setting up the "tabletop theater"  -- so we can get ideas for designing the fall experiment.

2.1 Mount a small Mitsubishi projector over the oval table, and also a camera + digitizer;

2.2 Run cables to a G5 that we can use for this.  I agree that we should use a separate G5 that we can add to the ozone network for this.   

This same G5 should also be the acquisition machine for sensor data from one of the SensorDocks.  I will work with Patrick to attach a SensorDock to thee same G5 that we designate.  Let's confer on which one can be multiply purposed, and how.  (Use your Hexagram account, and maintain run version of code on SVN on tml local?)

I'll work with you on this, too, so we can define a protocol :)

Xin Wei

cc as courtesy FYI Ozone and other folks who may be able to advise you, or have an intellectual interest in this.

Applied and Experimental Phenomenology: Memory, Identity and Place
Orienting Readings

David Morris, Sha Xin Wei, Concordia University, 2008

In this research project, which is funded by a seed grant from Concordia (see the summary appended below), we are going to be exploring the interrelation between memory, identity and place, including things in the places around us. We want to get a sense for how our experience of identity and memory is sedimented in places/things around us, rather than being ‘onboard’ us, such that places and things are interwoven with and buoy our memory and identity—and conversely memory and identity are woven into and buoy experienced things and places. To give an image: we might think of the snail as ‘carrying its home on its back’; we could think here of our identity and memory of ourselves—our sense of self and being at home in the world—not as being coiled into something that we carry along with us, but infiltrating places and things in our built and lived environment, and thence tying us up in tendrils with things and places. Hence phenomena such as homelessness, displacement and so on, of being lost, not ourselves—phenomena in which we can be disturbed as it were from the ‘outside’, which show that the outside is not quite outside. That is, much as we ‘come back to ourselves’ when reviving from a faint, we ‘come back to ourselves’ and are reminded of ourselves when we come home, or come back to our workspace, or finally become oriented in the ways and places of a new city. 

To get a sense for this connection between memory, identity and place, we are going to be developing experiments that vary and play on this connection. We want to do this to get results relevant for philosophy, comprehending human experience, and making art (for example, seeing how to make new sorts of things, perhaps textured, rhythmed, lit environments that call up new senses of memory, identity, or thinghood). 

The development of these experiments involves two axes of exploration: a substantive one, concerned with place, memory, identity, especially in relation to the body, movement and things; a methodological one, concerned with how to go about doing phenomenological experiments. Here we might note two things about phenomenological experiments: first, they would be more focused on enabling precise descriptions of experiences, from a first person point of view and tracking the dynamics of the individual experience, rather than quantifying over populations according to variables already specified by the experimenter; second, they would be more focused on arriving at the conceptual framework proper to the experience generated in the experiment, vs. constructing an experiment to fit an already given conceptual framework—or at least they would keep open this arrival. 

To prepare for these exploration, we are going to be holding an orienting seminar. Initially we had planned to this over several weeks in the summer 2009, but given scheduling matters, we think it better to have a compressed seminar in the beginning of fall 2009. What we give below are sets of reading that we think appropriate to getting the conceptual juices flowing. The idea is that participants would read these at their own pace over summer, taking notes, or writing up small observations, and then we would gather over a one or two days, say some Friday and/or Saturday in the earlier part of the fall term, for intensive discussion of at least the key texts. We’ve divided the texts into key texts, and complementary/supplemental texts which are given in []. They range from easily accessible texts that would make for fun summer reading, to more dense philosophical texts. Most of the text focus on the substantive axis of exploration. We think we’re going to be inventing a lot on the second one. Thoughts for readings here are welcome. We’re initially going to be using experiments suggested by DM’s paper about mirrors as a test bed for the methodological axis.

Reading list:

1) Introduction to phenomenological method and phenomenological interrelation of body memory, things and places:

Russon, John. Human Experience: Philosophy, Neurosis, and the Elements of Everyday Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Introduction and Part 1, “The form of human experience”, chapters on interpretation, embodiment, memory, pp 1-47 [This is a very accessible introduction to some of the relevant issues about phenomenological method, embodiment and memory, giving key ideas about our memory being in things, and the importance of movement.]

Casey, Edward S. Remembering: A Phenomenological Study. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. chapters on “Body Memory” and “Place Memory,” pp 146-215 [An accessible, rich and perceptive study of the various ways that memory is embedded in the body and place.]

[Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: The Humanities Press, 1962. “Preface”. This introduces phenomenology and its method as embedded in our concrete existence, and anticipates the need for phenomenology to appeal to concrete experiences, including experimentally produced ones, to advance its investigations. Much denser reading.]

2) Studies of the importance of place and our moving interaction with to our making sense of where and who we are

[Casey, Edward S. Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1993. A superb and substantial account of the importance of place in relation to our bodies and movement.]

3) A phenomenological account of space and our relation to things:

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. Chapter I.III, “The Worldhood of the World” [About 45 pages, skipping over section B. This is a crucial phenomenological study of what it means to be in the world, and how our being in it is not a matter of an abstract/geometrical spatial locatedness, but our meaningful relation and connection to things around us. Dense, but small—if it’s too technical and opaque, don’t get bogged down in it but leave it for our seminar.]

[Heidegger’s “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” and “Art and Space” can be read here to get his later views of the importance of place/space to us.]

4) Another phenomenological account of space, and an example of phenomenological strategies and motives for deploying experimental data:

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: The Humanities Press, 1962. “Space”, about 60 pages. [Intricate but rich and insightful reading that shows how our sense of space depends on habitual bodily attitudes and interactions with things that establish a spatial ‘level’ that orients us. Includes a study of dream spaces.]

[If you find the above too dense, the following commentary/synopsis can be helpful: Kockelmans, Joseph J. "Merleau-Ponty on Space Perception and Space." In Phenomenology and the Natural Sciences: Essays and Translations, edited by Joseph J. Kockelmans and Theodore J. Kisiel. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1976.]

[You could also read Morris, David. The Sense of Space. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004. This is a further explorations of the interactions between body, movement and lived space, and examples of using experimental data.] 

5) A testbed for phenomenological experiment & methodological issues:

Morris, David. “The Other in the Mirror: On Mirror Reversals, Faces and Intercorporeality,” circulating draft. [This paper aims to show that our experience of left-right reversals in mirrors in fact depends on our relation to  other moving bodies as intersubjectively meaningful to us. So it also shows how our sense of identity is hooked into moving interactions with people, places and things around us. It leads to predictions about how TML manipulated mirror experiences might vary our experience of reversals, and we are going to use these predictions to design experiments to test out the very idea of phenomenological experiments.]

Morris, David. "Bergsonian Intuition, Husserlian Variation, Peirceian Abduction: Toward a Relation between Method, Sense and Nature." Southern Journal of Philosophy 43 (2005): 267-98. A somewhat technical paper that might be useful for thinking about phenomenological experiments, insofar as it points out that the source of variation in experiments is important to what we can get out them: we bias experiments to the extent that we already decide on the parameters of variation or on the dimensions of measurement of the output experience, so we should look to ways in which experience itself, in its own dynamic, tells us how it varies.]

Grant Summary:

This  blogis for recording the team chatter of the team of researchers & students in the Topological Media Lab, philosophy and media arts working to create a series of experiments in the Memory+Place seed project with David Morris and Sha Xin Wei.

The project WIKI is http://topologi.ca/wiki/projects:memory-place

and the email lists are:

Experimental Working Group <memory-place@concordia.ca>

Memory Seminar <mp-seminar@concordia.ca>

- Xin Wei