The project uses each RFID tag as a playlist. The ID of the card triggers a specific playlist using Max-Msp. Each playlist is represented by a colored circle which shows your popularity.
The Trash Yard is made of electronic junks and diverse material where the RFID tags are hidden. The remote control car becomes an hardware system with the RFID reader in front, connected to the Arduino board on the hood and to color LED’s on the top. Each tag scanned turn one of the LED’s on.
O Cuerpo Delicado works with RFID readers and tags connected to the Arduino board. The data are hijacked by Processing which is also used to create the sound and visual animation.
Hans Project uses the RFID readers and tags connected to the Arduino board and the data are hijacked by Processing in order to create the animation.
You can try a simulation on Hans website:
http://www.hansup.be/processing/RFID-people.html
The talking Cups project uses an independent hardware system made of an Arduino board, a RFID reader, a mp3 remote control and a mp3 player.
Here is a blog where they have found the commands for iPod that they have used in the Arduino code:
http://www.rosiedaniel.com/search/label/ipod
Here are some pictures on how to connect the iPod remote control to Arduino:
http://www.jonasolson.se/content/arduino_tutorial/
You can download the procedure and the Arduino code they made here: talking-cups-code.pdf
Hans Verhaegen, visual artist, Belgium
http://www.hansup.be/
Valérie Cordy, theater director, Belgium
http://www.metamorphoz.be/
Bart Vandeput (aka Bartaku), media artist, Belgium
Angelo Vermeulen, visual and media artist, Belgium
Interview by Régine Debatty on we make money not art
Morgan Riles, Film student at Ohio University, USA
Wendy Van Wynsberghe, professional chipoteuse, Belgium
http://www.constantvzw.org/
Charon RC, media artist, Belgium
http://www.alphathink.net/
Cédric Dumetz, media artist, Belgium
Riin Kranna-Rõõs, media artist, Estonia
http://mobiilipaev.blogspot.com/
English version: http://www.plektrum.ee/festival/?page_id=61
http://tunnelitta.blogspot.com/
http://soundcinema.blogspot.com/
Sylvie Leclercq, chipoteuse, Belgium
Ingrid Simon, media artist, Belgium
http://artefakt.be/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=32
We are already on Day 3 of the workshop and all participants are busy building their first prototypes. For the public presentation on Thursday evening, everyone will be able to present an installation of their projects in the big room of iMAL and visitors will have the possibility to test it.
Here are the proposals until now:
Bartaku proposes a hide and seek game of tags hidden by a person on his/herself. You will have to find them by scanning his/her body and get granted by sounds and values.
He also proposes an installation where by scanning his/her personal RFID tag, the visitor can gets his past, present and future in a text format.
The Riin/Sylvie team proposes talking tea cups asking to bring them to the kitchen. Each RFID tag attached to the cup has its own little voice and language. As for Bartaku, the hardware system does not use a computer and they hacked a remote control for mp3 player in order to play the soundfiles.
The Charon/Cédric team is working on a simulation for their Ventilation project. They are looking for a technology that will allow them to detect the activity of the users, and especially when he/she will be walking in one of the three Plexiglas tunnels of the installation. For this they need a long distance RFID system. So here, they will simulate it on a smaller scale and while the visitor scans his own RFID tag, the video and soundfile will start depending on his/her sensory affinity.
The Angelo/Morgan team proposes a remote control car game in a trash park. After passing the gate of the park, the timer starts and you have a very short time to find and scan the RFID tags hidden in electronic junks. The LEDs on top of the car indicates the timer. Here also the hardware system will be embedded in the car and does not use any computer.
The Ingrid/Valérie team wants to make a jukebox party. But a really kinky one! Each person gets a RFID tag with its own playlist. When you scan it, it plays your own songs but after a while you get more and more limited. You will also see your popularity score raise on the screen. Well, if nobody interrupts you…
Hans proposes a screen display where a visual appears when the user scans his/her own tag. As more you scan it, as more you fill the screen. When another user scan his/her own tag, the visuals get superimposed and the screen displays a history of its visitors.
It sounds that in only three days our workshop attendees have already developed some funny projects. We are really curious to see their installations on Thursday for a playful evening at iMAL!
Day one of the workshop, we all get started with our RFID tags and readers and learned how to connect the readers to the Arduino breadbord. The assembling is quite easy, and here is a little scheme:
Of course the following part has asked more concentration, we had to download a driver for the Arduino from: http://ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP and a firmata for the RFID Parallax kit from: http://code.google.com/p/as3glue/downloads/list. And finally, we could upload all these on the board through the Arduino software interface. Then, normally the RFID tag number could be read when you scan it on the reader and a green light appears to say “Hello world!”.
We were really lucky this morning to start with Régine’s lecture presenting very serious issues of Ubicomp illustrated by very cheerful projects. Of course, as answer on “is RFID dangerous for our society?”, we all have agreed that it’s not the technology that is dangerous but well the usage made by people of this technology.
She presented various projects as by artists as by companies or authorities showing that information, data concerning individuals are recorded everywhere, from sonogram of you as a fetus to cookies of your virtual life, passing by video records (CCTV) of your public behaviour. We give a lot of data without even beeing aware of it. “There is an electronic shadow following us and RFID is just one them”, to quote Régine.
Furthermore, borders between public/private life are getting blurred. Our own voyeurism leads us to watch closely each other espacially on the cover of terrorism fear and increase of criminality. Big Brother is back, managing our own behaviour (but was he really gone…?).
Little by little, technology is taking control of us (GPS direction, tagged luggages deciding for us our destination, octopus card bugs in Hong-Kong making metro free of access,…). People risk to become sheeps by following their Tom Tom…
The fact is that as all new technologies, RFID was frightening us, while now it’s no more shocking. For artists, it’s just a new tool that can be used for interaction. But by hacking existing RFID from our everyday life environment, we will question our society and push the topic further.
Régine has nicely gathered a lot of information she discussed about during this lecture on her blog we make money not art. You can read her post here! And here are the slides of her presentation.!
She also has sent me some links concerning the projects she discussed in her lecture and here they are:
Thanks Régine!!!
Microchip & Delhi cows:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi
Battelfield RFID rocks:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0
Mexico, rfid and attorney general de la concha:
http://www.informationweek.com
http://www.theregister.co.uk
rfid razor blades at Tesco
http://www.guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk
A week in the Life: http://dasautomat.com/?p=119
Asbo TV:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk
Jonas Dahlberg: http://hosting.zkm.de/ctrlspace
Tracking Transience: http://trackingtransience.net/
freezone: http://www.stanza.co.uk
floatable jellyfish: http://haque.co.uk/floatables
Recoil: http://trackingtransience.net/
wave bubble: http://www.ladyada.net/
eliza: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
my ggogle search history:
http://www.albertinemeunier
Book: Shaping things
http://mitpress.mit.edu
Bruce Sterling on spimes:
http://www.boingboing.net
these flocks: http://www.theseflocks.com/
peripheral needs:
http://interactionivrea.org/en
zapped!: http://www.zapped-it.net/
Amad Greenfield, Everyware, the downing age of ubiquitous computing:
http://www.studies-observations
Place@Space, the new exhibition at Z33 (Hasselt, Belgium), takes a look at the relationship between people and their spatial environment, art and technology.
The show presents installations by Paul Casaer (B), GRRRR (Ingo Giezendanner) (CH), Ryoji Ikeda (J), Irational.org (UK), Limite Azero (I), Alice Miceli (BR), Haruki Nishijima (J), Egle Rakauskaite (LT), Reconfigurable House Team (HU), Traces of Autism (NL), Arturas Valiauga (LT), Peter Westenberg (B), Jeremy Wood (UK). Their works are presented in 4 overlapping areas of tension:
Visible/invisible, local/global, narrating/creating and private/public where the artists try to draw attention to controlling networks that are not always visible to us, such as databases, RFID (radiofrequency identification) or surveillance cameras.
The exhibition will run from March 15th till May 25th, so if you have time to pass by Hasselt before/during/after the RFID workshop, that might be a good input for inspiration!
More info about the exhibition on its blog or on Z33 website.
They organise also a workshop about art and hybrid spaces.
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