Archives by Category · technology

1. Interactive Muzak

Augmented Architectures is the experimental research team of architect Nancy Diniz and computer scientist Cesar Branco. Their approach to space centers around the variable and evolving interaction between person and physical surround. Described as “Situated Living Pieces”, Nausea Transformer is one of three projects comprised of fabricated “skin” operating in direct response to exterior stimuli. Their inventions “feel” the environment via the input information from movement, light, and sound sensors. This data is then translated by a genetic algorithm, which regulates adaptive corollary behavior. Nausea Transformer is specifically attuned to sonic conditions and it is programmed to output an ideal sound environment, which is “...defined by low amplitude (not very loud) and by a small difference in frequency between two consecutive samples averaged for a number of samples”. The machine indicates a disturbing direction for the next generation of muzak, where sound is no longer a cloak for unwanted noise but rather a strategic tool used to placate and conform surroundings toward a controlled environment. The indications of responsive sonic surveillance take on a ominious quality when considering the recent commercial use of ultrasound waves in public space as well as our oblivious adjustment to interruptive technology.
2. New Romantics


Caspar David Freidrich, The wanderer above the sea of fog

Michael Bell Smith, Continue 2000

Read this tidbit from things magazine, one of my favorite blogs, this morning: