calc@media

First of all apologies for not posting anything for such a long time, it seems I've been away for ages!! I've not had anything new to post for a while as all of my time has been spent developing an interface for my latest work (telepresent element)... an interface that can read incoming analogue data (such as that from a wind speed anemeter, or the intensity of light through a Light Dependent Resistor etc) and output this to an increasing numerical scale from 0 to 255. The importance of such an interface is that once I have these values, its then possible to do almost anything with them (in a digital sense of course!)

The numerical values 0 to 255 are significant numbers when we think of the web: Hexadecimal notation, for example, is particularly important in computer programming, since four bits (each consisting of a one or zero) can be expressed using a single hexadecimal digit. Two hexadecimal digits represent numbers from 0 to 255, a common range used to specify colours in the HTML language of the web. Not to mention the numerical range of IPV4 addresses (starting at 0 and also ending at 255) With this, the interface that I've developed can read the analogue data and translate this as a 'digital' grey-scale value which can be, in turn, uploaded to a webserver and viewed from any browser.

So what's so great about this then? Well, in terms of my research into telepresence, this interface can be used to ping data across the globe at break-neck speeds - data that can be read by any computer at any location. So, in theory, with this interface we can create artwork that not only responds to changing environmental conditions, but also environmental conditions at remote locations. In a previous post I quoted the Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac who wrote “The shortest distance between two points is no longer a straight line, as it was in the age of the locomotive and the telegraph. Today, in the age of satellites and fiberoptics, the shortest distance between two points is real time” My interface will connect two or more locations and allow my project 'Telepresent Element' (below) to be realised.