Depth Sensor and Video Camera Combined

RGBDToolkit is hardware and software which combines the images from a standard video camera with data captured from a depth sensor like the Microsoft Kinect or the Asus Xtion Pro Live. The toolkit mount firmly connects the cameras together to fix the relationship between their lenses. The capture software is used to calibrate the lenses, using a mathematical model of their field of views and relationship to one another. Recording the data streams to disk, the final step of visualization allows you to render the data in a 3D application and export the results as images or object files for use in 3D applications. Thanks to Michael Sussna for pointing us to this video.

Data Vis: Information as Art

Exhibition at UC Irvine Campus: Beall Center for Art and Technology 

Written by Cathy Breslaw

Data Vis: Information as Art is a thought provoking group exhibition curated by David Familianat the Beall Center for Art and Technology on the campus of UC Irvine.  Artists and groups of web developers and designers exhibit their art pieces and projects gleaned from data gathering - traversing the fields of computer science, art and technology by exploring the meaning of data as it is translated into visual imagery through real time data projects, interactive computer displays, as well as sculpture, drawings, and ink jet prints. Sound artist Junichi Oguro and media architect Motohiro Sunouchics’ collaborate on an interactive project called “Sound Mix”.  For the exhibition, the artists set up a globe visualized by clouds of place names that resonate mixed sound scape. During the exhibition, the globe continues going round and mixing the sounds recorded at selected two locations somewhere in the world. When visitors utter a place name into the microphone, the globe starts mixing sounds at the place and sounds are evoked. Another collaborative project called “The Living Air”, by Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg allows viewers to experience real time data showing a delicate visual pattern of wind velocities anywhere across the U.S. on a computer generated map simply by clicking on a location. Other art pieces like “Paris” by  Paula Scher, creates a textual, colorful map depicting Paris’s subway system, while Alice Aycock creates 3D visualizations of abstract mathematical concepts through digital prints of drawings and sculpture. Ingo Gunther’s lighted acrylic spheres depict subjects as diverse as versions of tectonic plate movements, wine production and consumption, and ice drift stations studying climate change in the arctic. Manglano-Ovalle, created a steel sculpture ‘Hurricane Prototype #1’, which represents his work about large scale natural phenomena while Nathalie Miebach creates sculptures based on her meteorological data collected from the “The Perfect Storm” and the sinking of the ship Andrea Gail. These art pieces and more make up the ’Data Vis’ show. It is a complex exhibition that involves work you expect to see in a combination of both science and art centers and requires viewers to concentrate on wide ranging subject matter presented in multi-dimensional formats. At the same time, it is a fascinating opportunity to enter the world of interdisciplinary fields and the resulting projects and art pieces that evolve from their investigations.

Cathy Breslaw is a southern California visual artist, writer and lecturer who has had over 25 solo exhibitions, and 50 group exhibitions across the country at museums, art centers, college and university galleries and commercial galleries. Her work can be found in many private and corporate collections. Her work and writing can be seen at:
www.cathylbreslaw.com
www.artfullifebycathy.blogspot.com
cathybreslaw@roadrunner.com

Another great video on 3-D printing. This one shows how the digital image was rendered.

Computers identify what makes abstract art move us

Take a look at this article sent by John Chalmers which describes a team led by Nicu Sebe at the University of Trento in Italy who used machine vision to analyse 500 abstract paintings at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto. The system measured how color is distributed across each work, as well as the occurrence of different shapes or outlines. Using data on how 100 people responded to the paintings, the system then worked out what emotional impact these elements had. For example, black, spiky features tended to correspond to the bleaker end of the emotional spectrum, whereas bright, smooth features were more feel-good.

Read the entire article at this link:

Computers identify what makes abstract art move us - tech - 16 November 2012 - New Scientist

The latest ASCI is out - check it out here

Local 3-D printer

Kelly Bennett from Voice of San Diego directed us to local SD artist Matthew Hebert who uses 3D printing in his art.  He's been especially fascinated lately by the 3D printer that San Diego State University, where he teaches, just bought. (KCET) You can read Kinsee Moran's article at the link above. We first saw his work at the Art San Diego Fair.

Dodecahedron Chains

Fun with 3 d printing

DNA Augmented Reality

Patty Rangel send us these Ideas for DNA..

My ULTIMATE Google Field Trip experience, would include cool looking Augmented Reality sunglasses and audio tour

 

My ULTIMATE Google Field Trip experience, would also include Fingertip sensors so that I could interact with the Augmented Reality information seen through the AR glasses

 

Ideas for DNA...

Ultimately, my Google Field Trip experience, would be a fully immersive audio and visual experience on the go with smaller hardware

 

Deep Storage Project

In 2013 something extraordinary is going to happen. Something so strange and enthralling, that hearing the concept alone makes your imagination fly.

 

Picture this; A vast iron sculpt, some 8m by 8m by 8m, being lowered into the Marianas trench, right to the bottom 11,000 metres down. With us so far? That’s 200 miles off Guam Island between Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Now, are you ready for the plot twist? It’s going to be full of human blood and hair samples, animal DNA and similar samples taken from both trees and plants.  

 

This is art and hard science colliding head on. 30 locations around the world have attracted 5,000 willing donors, rewarded with certificates proving they believed this might be a second chance.

 

Science is progressing faster than the greatest philosophers dare to predict, so who’s to say that there won’t be a point in the future when these samples can’s be utilized to bring people and endangered species back to life? It could be 500 to 100,000 years from now. Who knows? But this is a chance to be there when it happens!

How will we have evolved? How will humans be different? The Deep Storage Project is fighting back against the natural decay and erosion destroying all that we know and understand. People are embracing the ideals of the The Deep Storage Project, and in doing so, they are becoming a voice to be heard in the future.

 

http://www.deepstorageproject.com/Deep-Storage/INTRODUCTION
 

Art and Science Inspirations

This art and science quotes by the great and good are meant to give you some inspiration to pursue your dreams.......or to distract you from them!

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these
aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the
sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards
freedom.
- Albert Einstein
'Moral Decay', Out of My Later Years (1937, 1995), 9.

Science and art are only too often a superior kind of dope, possessing this
advantage over booze and morphia: that they can be indulged in with a good
conscience and with the conviction that, in the process of indulging, one is
leading the 'higher life.'
- Aldous (Leonard) Huxley
Ends and Means (1937), 320. In Collected Essays (1959), 369

Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one
another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its
goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process.
- Franz Grillparzer
Notebooks and Diaries (1838). In The Columbia World of Quotations (1996)

The faculty of art is to change events; the faculty of science is to foresee
them. The phenomena with which we deal are controlled by art; they are
predicted by science.
- Henry Thomas Buckle
'The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge,', a discourse
delivered at the Royal Institution (19 Mar 1858) reprinted from Fraser's
Magazine (Apr 1858) in The Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry
Thomas Buckle (1872), Vol. 1, 4. Quoted in James Wood, Dictionary of
Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893),
426:46

and from Dolores Kaufman, DAG member:

Carl Sagan said "The creative process is a partnership of the 
unconscious and conscious mind"

 Steven Hawking said, "I follow my nose, one thing leads to 
another and I don't know what I'll find next."




and from Joe Nalven, DAG founder

Georges Braque said, "Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain."


 

Revision DNA by Andrey Gorbunov opens at Erarta Galleries London

 London presents Revision DNA by Andrey Gorbunov. Marking a break with his earlier more painterly approach to image making, Gorbunov’s new work questions the relationship that links art and science and our lives with technology, asking if it is possible to assume that we are dealing with two opposing factors. On the one hand, the positive and confirmed structure of scientific knowledge and the ordered binary coding of the internet, and, on the other, the intuitive nature of art produced by the irrationality of biological man. Where science is to be considered the product of pure rationalism, the result of procedures amply verified, the search for unequivocal truths, certain and impossible to confute, Gorbunov asks if this rationalism translates to the virtual world of the Internet? Read the whole article here from ArtDaily.org


Revision DNA by Andrey Gorbunov opens at Erarta Galleries London

London presents Revision DNA by Andrey Gorbunov. Marking a break with his earlier more painterly approach to image making, Gorbunov’s new work questions the relationship that links art and science and our lives with technology, asking if it is possible to assume that we are dealing with two opposing factors. On the one hand, the positive and confirmed structure of scientific knowledge and the ordered binary coding of the internet, and, on the other, the intuitive nature of art produced by the irrationality of biological man.

More Information: http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=58243#.UHcQYq5OSSo[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

LONDON.- Erarta Galleries London presents Revision DNA by Andrey Gorbunov. Marking a break with his earlier more painterly approach to image making, Gorbunov’s new work questions the relationship that links art and science and our lives with technology, asking if it is possible to assume that we are dealing with two opposing factors. On the one hand, the positive and confirmed structure of scientific knowledge and the ordered binary coding of the internet, and, on the other, the intuitive nature of art produced by the irrationality of biological man. Where science is to be considered the product of pure rationalism, the result of procedures amply verified, the search for unequivocal truths, certain and impossible to confute, Gorbunov asks if this rationalism translates to the virtual world of the Internet? Are our verifiable virtual constructs of self more real than our physical bodily being, and should the Internet be evaluated as a product of mathematics and science or as an organism growing and evolving under its own initiative? Observing the monumental canvases of Gorbunov we can immediately and easily understand his vision of contemporary life and culture. The virtual world has become an integral part of each of us, similar to a new dimension influencing our social and biological rhythms. It is impossible to imagine the world without computer technologies today; everyday we immerse ourselves more and more deeply as network chats supersede actual human interaction and our Facebook and Twitter profiles grow. Not only have our moods, but also our lives, started to depend on the number of comments and “likes” our virtual egos successfully amass. Thus, contemporary culture is not a culture divided between ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’, or life and technology, but rather it is conflated into a ‘technoculture’ – a hybrid where diversity and quantity prevails over genuine identity. Gorbunov adopts a focused vision of the relationship between art and science, life and virtual life: No longer are we dealing with opposites in a dialectical vision, a view which appears more than ever superseded, but with complementary, interacting and intersecting aspects of a futuristic civilisation. The Virus paintings that make up the exhibition Revision DNA draw a parallel between biological and computer viruses, and Gorbunov highlights the similarities between man and the internet, both living entities that grow and change daily, and both vulnerable to infections. Scanning the QR codes in the paintings will reveal information about notorious computer viruses, but all computer specific terms have been removed – the affect of these viruses is human. Ironically, QR codes may become the malicious points of infection for future viruses, as reading the codes puts the privacy of the user at risk by “attagging” the identity of user. Though science has recognised the truths of nature, it had abstained from modifying them for instrumental aims, but in contemporary technoculture, in genetic engineering and biotechnologies, the object of scientific research is no longer sacred and untouchable, the essence of truth, but an object that can be manipulated and transformed, by means of experimentation by those studying it. Similarly, in the macrocosm of the Internet, and our engagement with it and use of it, Gorbunov questions the balance of power – who is using whom and to what end? Andrey Gorbunov is a graduate of the Nizhniy Novgorod Art College and St. Petersburg’s esteemed Mukhina Art Academy, where he now teaches in monumental and decorative painting departments. Gorbunov has exhibited extensively throughout Russia and his paintings can be found in private collections in Russia, the UK and the USA.

More Information: http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=58243#.UHcQYq5OSSo[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

LONDON.- Erarta Galleries London presents Revision DNA by Andrey Gorbunov. Marking a break with his earlier more painterly approach to image making, Gorbunov’s new work questions the relationship that links art and science and our lives with technology, asking if it is possible to assume that we are dealing with two opposing factors. On the one hand, the positive and confirmed structure of scientific knowledge and the ordered binary coding of the internet, and, on the other, the intuitive nature of art produced by the irrationality of biological man. Where science is to be considered the product of pure rationalism, the result of procedures amply verified, the search for unequivocal truths, certain and impossible to confute, Gorbunov asks if this rationalism translates to the virtual world of the Internet? Are our verifiable virtual constructs of self more real than our physical bodily being, and should the Internet be evaluated as a product of mathematics and science or as an organism growing and evolving under its own initiative? Observing the monumental canvases of Gorbunov we can immediately and easily understand his vision of contemporary life and culture. The virtual world has become an integral part of each of us, similar to a new dimension influencing our social and biological rhythms. It is impossible to imagine the world without computer technologies today; everyday we immerse ourselves more and more deeply as network chats supersede actual human interaction and our Facebook and Twitter profiles grow. Not only have our moods, but also our lives, started to depend on the number of comments and “likes” our virtual egos successfully amass. Thus, contemporary culture is not a culture divided between ‘ars’ and ‘scientia’, or life and technology, but rather it is conflated into a ‘technoculture’ – a hybrid where diversity and quantity prevails over genuine identity. Gorbunov adopts a focused vision of the relationship between art and science, life and virtual life: No longer are we dealing with opposites in a dialectical vision, a view which appears more than ever superseded, but with complementary, interacting and intersecting aspects of a futuristic civilisation. The Virus paintings that make up the exhibition Revision DNA draw a parallel between biological and computer viruses, and Gorbunov highlights the similarities between man and the internet, both living entities that grow and change daily, and both vulnerable to infections. Scanning the QR codes in the paintings will reveal information about notorious computer viruses, but all computer specific terms have been removed – the affect of these viruses is human. Ironically, QR codes may become the malicious points of infection for future viruses, as reading the codes puts the privacy of the user at risk by “attagging” the identity of user. Though science has recognised the truths of nature, it had abstained from modifying them for instrumental aims, but in contemporary technoculture, in genetic engineering and biotechnologies, the object of scientific research is no longer sacred and untouchable, the essence of truth, but an object that can be manipulated and transformed, by means of experimentation by those studying it. Similarly, in the macrocosm of the Internet, and our engagement with it and use of it, Gorbunov questions the balance of power – who is using whom and to what end? Andrey Gorbunov is a graduate of the Nizhniy Novgorod Art College and St. Petersburg’s esteemed Mukhina Art Academy, where he now teaches in monumental and decorative painting departments. Gorbunov has exhibited extensively throughout Russia and his paintings can be found in private collections in Russia, the UK and the USA.

More Information: http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=58243#.UHcQYq5OSSo[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

Kaz Maslanka ASCI Featured Artist of the Month

The DNA of Creativity member, Kaz Maslanka, is the featured artist of the month at Art and Science Collaborations INC. You can check it out at this link

Innovation Incubatpr project

National Science Foundation awards a $2.6m grant to the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership to lead a national innovation incubator project integrating arts-based-learning and STEM (What we in SD call STEAM).  

On Tuesday, October 16, at 9:30 a.m. in the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center Community Forum, San Diego Innovation Alliance members are invited to join a special informational meeting with Harvey Seifter, Art of Science Learning founder and the project’s director and principal investigator. We have received a number of inquiries about the project, and this a great opportunity to ask questions and learn more now that it is beginning.

Call to Pioneers STEAM

This comes from John Chalmers via Roger Valina

Call to Pioneers in Collaboration between Science-Engineering and Arts-Design-Humanities

9 September 2012, 8:49 pm

Bronac Ferran is coordinating a SEAD white paper
http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/white-paper-abstracts/abstracts/
looking at lessons learned by pioneers in collaboration between science/engineering and arts/design/collaboration. If you are such a pioneer- active in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and would like
to have your thoughts included in this white paper please contact Bronac directly
or contact me at rmalina(at)alum.mit.edu
SEAD: TO SUCCESS AND SUCCESSION. DRAWING ON PIONEERING WORKS
AND FORMING A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE
Coordinator: Bronac Ferran
Amnesia can dominate when it comes to building new forms of support for art/science/technology research and practice. Despite practical experiments and theoretical analysis stretching back for more than a century, there is often a ‘year zero’ assumption – a sense of building something entirely new. Structures and systems of support tend to come and go with few if any signs of critical accumulation. This White Paper will reference the lineage behind highly contemporary practices and argue that accessing the critical wisdom of earlier pioneers across arts and science borders is an important part of strengthening the seemingly new. Often these pioneers have had migratory careers, moving between institutions or even countries, which has contributed to a sense of dispersal of knowledge and a lack of integration into formal structures. We should explore some of the challenges involved with drawing together distributed viewpoints, disparate processes and (often) contrasting ideologies. We need to observe a continuum of ‘praxis’ alongside the joy in ‘discontinuity’ perfectly described by Jonathan Benthall when he commented, writing in Studio International in 1969, on how: ‘ discontinuities between science and modern art’…are….’as interesting as their interactions’. Benthall also wisely pinpointed the value of difference and divergence within SEAD practices. In his view: ‘there is no apparent correlation between the stature of a given artist and the validity of his scientific assumptions’. In 1969, also in Studio International, the great artist-engineer Naum Gabo wrote about how he had seen little success in terms of bringing together the arts and sciences. This leads to a second very important challenge and question for this White Paper which is to ask how might we choose to evaluate success across the breadth of the terrain signified by a framework such as SEAD? Without evaluative processes there can be no methodology for learning and passing on wisdom. As curricula and reading lists are being formed to underpin emerging Masters courses in ‘art and science’ might the SEAD initiative finally help signpost a stable direction in this productively unstable terrain? Is it feasible to produce a summative assessment of what constitutes success in the interdisciplinary domain and what might this mean for future institutions? How might art and science pioneers now define success? How might the value of preceding events and practitioners be more readily accessed? The SEAD community is invited to contribute to the development of proposals to address some of these fascinating challenges.

Gathering Steam

From John Chalmers:

GATHERING STEAM: BRIDGING THE ARTS AND SCIENCES TO EXPAND PUBLIC INTEREST IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATH

Coordinators: Marjory Blumenthal and Ken Goldberg
from http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com

Many of the world’s most important innovations resulted from collaborations among specialists with different backgrounds; almost all scientists and engineers recognize the power of collaboration and communication across STEM disciplines. As in STEM, creativity also flourishes in the arts and design. Brilliant and highly original novels, plays, films, and artworks engage and inspire audiences around the world, while people in all walks of life appreciate the fields of architecture, graphics, and industrial design. Those latter fields can translate directly into innovations. Even with steady progress in interdisciplinarity generally, connections between STEM and the arts and design remains limited, although they have been growing over the past decade. The trend points to a historic opportunity for experts from the Arts and the Sciences to begin a new series of conversations and collaborations.

Bridging the Two Cultures is a grand challenge. There is a fundamental asymmetry and complementarity between them: the word Science comes from the Greek “to cut.” The word Art comes from the Latin “to join.” The results can be extremely productive by expanding public interest and engagement with both sectors, bringing new topics to new audiences, and educating and inspiring the next generation to transcend existing boundaries to discover and create the future of innovations. STEM fields have always valued creative minds, and the best artists excel at highly unconventional, unorthodox thinking. Artists also are excellent at capturing and representing the zeitgeist in elegant, compelling ways. That quality suggests that fruitful collaboration between scientists and artists can yield not only interesting ideas and “products,” they may also build in effective modes of communicating the value of that work to a wide audience.

We endorse the acronym STEAM as a shorthand to describe new collaborative initiatives that engage experts from both the Arts and STEM.1 A key emphasis is new ways to achieve synthesis—connections among disparate modes of thought, viewpoints, and cultures—as a means toward the ends of discovery and innovation, as well as more effective education and communication about the intrinsic value of STEM and the Arts. We propose convening a cross-disciplinary committee to explore the potential for STEAM, focusing initially on computer science and engineering to formulate recommendations for action.

Background and Next Steps

In the early 2000s, the potential impact of linking computer science and the arts was recognized beyond the niches of computer graphics and computer music. The Rockefeller Foundation commissioned a study by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies. Their report, Beyond Productivity (2003),2  introduced the term “information technology and creative practices” (ITCP) and spurred the Creative-IT program at NSF.3 In the ensuing years, the political and technological landscapes have changed dramatically.

Understanding of both opportunities and issues may be served by conducting STEAM case studies. A few recent exemplary collaborations between scientists and artists include:

Doctor Atomic opera about the Manhattan Project

• Breaking the Code, Broadway play about Alan Turing
• A Beautiful Mind biography of John Nash
• Laurie Anderson as NASA Artist in Residence
• LOGICOMIX, graphical novel about the history of Logic
• Bruce Nauman’s installations using infrared surveillance cameras
• The Listening Post and Moveable Type collaborative projects of Mark Hansen (statistician) and Ben Rubin (artist)

We believe now is the time to:

• Define STEAM and characterize exemplary case studies
• understand where are the most promising and high-impact activities, projects, programs, and domains and the roles of different kinds of players, such as universities, not- and for-profit private-sector organizations, government organizations, and philanthropy
• explore what it would take to engage the most talented scientists and artists in STEAM
• consider novel mechanisms, such as engaging “principal artists” alongside “principal investigators” (as well as providing incentives to engage people who are hybrids, skilled in both the arts/design and computer science/engineering (or other STEM fields)
• engage leading artists (fine, applied, and performing) and designers with experts from STEM fields to collaborate on new ideas and approaches that can effectively reach the broader public and provide the foundation for future innovation, education, and synthesis.

1 We recognize that some use STEAM to focus on educational activity; we use the term more broadly to cover research and other productive output as well as the education that enables it.

2  See http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10671 and
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/CSTB/CompletedProjects/CSTB_042322.

3 See http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=501096, solicitation 09-572.

Principals of Limited Sloppiness

Adam Brown and Robert Root-Bernstein Speaking in Vienna 2011

This fascinating lecture was sent to us by John Chalmers. It speak to the origins of the species and to the use of the arts in science in a profound way. 

Yeast to Clone Obama

Artist Using Yeast to Clone Obama, Gaga, Jesus: On September 13, artist and "experimental philosopher" Jonathon Keats will have some of the world's most famous people at his exhibition opening at New York's AC Institute — including Lady Gaga, Michael Phelps, and Barack Obama — in the form of yeast-based clones he's developing from cultures based on the celebrities' various diets. "It's a new way of thinking about cloning," Keats said. "Genetics is not the whole story, the breakthrough field is epigenetics." (See the video below for a clip of Keats talking about what it means to be an "experimental philosopher.") [Discover News]

Augmented Realty Update from CommNexus

One of the four projects of the DNA of Creativity project (the Batt App) is going to have an augmented reality (AR) component. I had no idea what that meant this time last year, but bit by bit I am learning about this exciting new area of communication. I hope to give you a brief description of my discoveries and some links so you can see for yourself how exciting this technology really is that combines elements from the physical and the virtual world to create new experiences at home, in business, and by smart phone where ever you are connected to the internet.

Please note in my descriptions below, you must click on the links to really get an idea as no written explanation is adequate to describe these new technologies.  

I went to a presentation in May produced by Commnexus called Augmented Reality: Is It Real? hosted by the law firm Mintz Levin. The first presenter, Mike Gonzales, Creative Director and Brand Digital Manager of Wow Wee USA Inc is producing a line of AR toys under the brand AppGear which will sell for only $9.95. That is an incredible price when you realize that the child (or child at heart) will get a toy that acts as a marker to launch the technology similar to computer games purchases as dvds. The toys will be collectable and the AR component will lengthen the play time from the usual few hours to days and days of interaction.

This is the natural progression when the ipad, computer and smart phone become the playthings of our young people. The company started with a $100 robot which sold 6 million units and will probably come out with a $39.95 robot that will allow you to use your smart phone to see smoke trails when rockets are launched and do virtual repairs. But the first set of apps will include a small toy plane (Foam Fighters)  which attaches to your device and makes that device into a control panel for flying through the digital landscape. It has gaming capacity for multiple players and other games in this line can make your tabletop into a game board. Mike has produced toys in the Far East, but lives and has his head office in Carlsbad.

That brings me to our star local company Qualcomm which is no longer making actual phones but streaming ahead with software. Jay Wright, Senior Director, Business Development, Qualcomm is so confident of the augmented reality technology that the firm is offering free software to develop apps using it called  Vuforia.    Go to this link to see some incredible videos of what this software can do.  This, more than anything, has convinced me that AR is not a flash in the pan, but an alternate reality that will be here to stay. Retailers will use the AR apps and that will generate income and of course, apps will continue to be sold for $.99 in the millions.

Qualcomm sees AR in three distinct areas: 1. gaming and play (like WooWee), 2. Interactive media (like offering more information at point of sale, expanded advertising techniques and added value in use of products) and the last big area is 3. instructional (all those how to use, construct and repair manuals will be interactive). I loved the catsup bottle label that turns into a recipe book.

The goal is to treat your phone as much like your eye as possible. Not many of the applications that I have learned about have actually materialized yet, but they are really coming. They already have 26,000 software designers using the software which recognizes 400 phones and already 800 apps have been developed. There are challenges that the technology faces.  These programs are battery suckers and there is no unified viewer so you have to download each app. The idea of AR glasses or goggles is still in the future.  

We have no idea at this stage what aspects we will be incorporating into our upcoming smart phone application for SDVAN. Will we use it for promotion or will our resources be able to use it to add layers of information to their programs? We are only at the beginning of this research.  

Here are two more links that are already resident on the DNA of Creativity Blog. If you are not yet following this blog, it is great fun to see the variety of art and science collaboration that are out there.

Augmented Reality Pop Up Books - DNA Of Creativity

Mar 24, 2012

Augmented Reality Pop Up Books. Augmented Reality Pop Up... NokiaTattoo that vibrates

Augmented Reality Tshirts and business cards - DNA Of Creativity

Jan 08, 2012

In our sample DNA of Creativity application we give a link to Elipse augmented reality. You can use your phone to see added featured on images that are processed to be recognizable by the camera of your smart phone.

Call for DNA of Creativity promotion videos

If you are an amateur video maker and would like to help us promote the DNA of Creativity Project, please contact us and we will load you video (up to one minute) on the DNA of Creativity Blog.  We are happy to include a link back to your own website in exchange for this support of our non-profit.

The follow is a sample to inspire you. We know you can all so better!

Contact Patricia Frischer patricia@sdvisualarts.net  760 943 0148

Pigs Bladder Football

Leave it to the Brits. Pig bladders have for centuries been used in the manufacturing of sports equipment. Light, solid, and stretchable, they made perfect airtight membranes inside the first footballs. Artist John O'Shea is now going back to this traditional method, fusing it with cutting-edge biotechnology to create the first football made with a pig bladder entirely grown in a lab..Commissioned by the Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival and funded by the Wellcome Trust, Pigs Bladder Football was inspired by the first successful transplant of a bioengineered organ, a urinary bladder, in 2006. August 30-September 7, 2012, CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment), Manchester; Abandon Normal Devices Festival, August 29 – September 2, 2012, throughout Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire, and Cumbria.

Tom Chatfield: 7 ways games reward the brain

We're bringing gameplay into more aspects of our lives, spending countless hours -- and real money -- exploring virtual worlds for imaginary treasures. Why? As Tom Chatfield shows, games are perfectly tuned to dole out rewards that engage the brain and keep us questing for more. Tom Chatfield thinks about games -- what we want from them, what we get from them, and how we might use our hard-wired desire for a gamer's reward to change the way we learn

Get the picture? Art in the brain of the beholder - 17 July 2012 - New Scientist

Get the picture? Art in the brain of the beholder - 17 July 2012 - New Scientist by Kat Austen

"My child could have done that!" Wrong – neuroaesthetics is starting to show us why abstract art can be so beguiling

STANDING in front of Jackson Pollock's Summertime: Number 9A one day, I was struck by an unfamiliar feeling. What I once considered an ugly collection of random paint splatters now spoke to me as a joyous celebration of movement and energy, the bright yellow and blue bringing to mind a carefree laugh.

It was my road-to-Damascus moment - the first time a piece of abstract art had stirred my emotions. Like many people, I used to dismiss these works as a waste of time and energy. How could anyone find meaning in what looked like a collection of colourful splodges thrown haphazardly on a 5.5-metre-wide canvas? Yet here I was, in London's Tate Modern gallery, moved by a Pollock.

Since then, I have come to appreciate the work of many more modern artists, who express varying levels of abstraction in their work, in particular the great Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, and contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. Even so, when I tried to explain my taste, I found myself lost for words. Why are we attracted to paintings and sculptures that seem to bear no relation to the physical world?

Little did I know that researchers have already started to address this question. By studying the brain's responses to different paintings, they have been examining the way the mind perceives art. Although their work cannot yet explain the nuances of our tastes, it has highlighted some of the unique ways in which these masterpieces hijack the brain's visual system. 

The studies are part of an emerging discipline called neuroaesthetics, founded just over 10 years ago by Semir Zeki of University College London. The idea was to bring scientific objectivity to the study of art, in an attempt to find neurological bases for the techniques that artists have perfected over the years. It has already offered insights into many masterpieces. The blurred imagery of Impressionist paintings seems to tickle the brain's amygdala, for instance, which is geared towards detecting threats in the fuzzy rings of our peripheral vision. Since the amygdala plays a crucial role in our feelings and emotions, that finding might explain why many people find these pieces so moving.

Click this link  to read the whole article

For a fun look at how artists hack your brain:
http://www.newscientist.com/special/six-ways-that-artists-hack-your-brain

How Creativity Strengthens Community by John Eger

ArtsSmarts, a non-profit helping schools across Canada use the tools of arts integration, recently announced its plans to explore the larger issue of the role of the whole community in fostering creativity.

Through their annual confab this fall, entitled "Cultivating Creative Communities: Arts, Education and Spaces for Successful 21st Century Learning," the effort asks "how (can) arts-in-education programs serve as catalysts for reimagining spaces that cultivate creativity and innovation?"

The concept of teaching the curriculum through the arts -- arts integration -- is not new and has been a staple in many educational programs in America for some time. So it's not surprising that Canada, through its many provinces, established arts integration as a vital and necessary part of the nation's educational strategy over 20 years ago.

In a way, it's not fair to compare the U.S. with Canada.

They are different countries and of a different size. The U.S. does have The Right Brain Initiative in the Northeast, Arts for All in Los Angeles, Big Thought in the Dallas area and the A+ Schools Program in North Carolina, among other initiatives.

It is too early to tell how America is responding to President Obama's Committee on The Arts and Humanities report called "Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America's Future Through Creative Schools." It unveiled the Committee's thinking about the important connection between art and culture and creativity, and promised an agenda for reinventing education in America.

Yet few countries have embraced the powers of the arts, and particularly arts integration, as an essential ingredient in fostering engagement and as Dana Gioia, former Chair of The National Endowment of the Arts, once said, nurturing the "pleasure, beauty and wonder" of learning.

Creativity is clearly a core competency for Canada's ArtsSmarts, a skill most in demand by employers around the world.

Among other findings the Obama Committee came to after over two years of study and research was that "arts integration" works, and that the "field of arts integration' (could be accelerated) 'through strengthening teacher preparation and professional development, targeting available arts funding, and setting up mechanisms for sharing ideas about arts integration through communities of practice. In this recommendation we identify roles for regional and state arts and education agencies as well as private funders."

Arts Integration, sometimes referred to as arts infusion, is about interdisciplinary education using the tools of the arts. As a unique consortium of arts organizations expressed it in a report called "Authentic Connections" such interdisciplinary work in the arts enabled students to "identify and apply authentic connections, promote learning by providing students with opportunities between disciplines and/or to understand, solve problems and make meaningful connections within the arts across disciplines on essential concepts that transcend individual disciplines."

Canada, believing that a mechanism for sharing ideas about arts integration through communities was essential, formally established ArtsSmarts in 1998 concentrating on art integration exclusively.
ArtsSmarts, importantly, is an organization that relies heavily on its partners and their communities of artists, teachers, parents and students, to work collaboratively in establishing programs in the schools. Perhaps for this reason, ArtsSmarts sees itself more like the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (CAPE), which likewise, involves everyone in unique collaborations depending on the interest and desires of each community.

The organization has formed 16 key partnerships active in all 10 provinces that work with a total of 110 community partners and organizations. Together with their partners they have

"impacted the lives of over 475,000 students, 21,000 educators, 8,500 artists and 2,800 schools in 300 communities across Canada. In 2010-2011, our national network of partners completed 282 projects involving 22,672 students in 148 rural and 138 urban schools, facilitated by 370 artists, 1,164 teachers and 737 volunteers."

More regions of the world are coming to the realization that education is everyone's concern, and that the role of art-based training is critical to success.

Communities that fail to see the connections between education and economic development are left behind in fashioning strategies to compete in the world. Now that we are entering a new era in which creativity and innovation are the new drivers, failure to reinvent the city-the region-into a "creative community" will suffer as well.

Follow John M. Eger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeger62 

Bubbles in Space “Mad World” Mastermind Michael Andrews Collaborates with High Tech Hig-School Kids On New Video

Bubbles in Space on Nowness.com.

Psychedelic flashes of Hello Kitty and Albert Einstein blend into vignettes of summery nostalgia in Josh Hassin’s animated music video for Michael Andrews’ “Bubbles in Space.” Comprising 3,000 frames hand-drawn by more than 100 students from San Diego’s High Tech High International, the flipbook-style piece was based on a live-action film Hassin and retro-pop singer-songwriter Andrews shot with their children, but takes Andrews’ lyrical concept of new fatherhood to an unexpected place. “I have a little girl, Mike has a little boy, and we think they’re so cute,” says Hassin, who has created videos for the likes of indie rock bands Metric and Celebration. “The school kids drew them and put crucifixes on their foreheads and other crazy stuff. But this is what goes on in their brains. So we just let that roll—it’s honest and that’s what this is about.” A prolific film composer with credits including Donnie Darko, which featured his breakout cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” with Gary Jules, and Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, Andrews is currently working on the score for Mira Nair’s new film adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Ahead of his new album Spilling a Rainbow, the musician talked us through his pregnant musical journey, from being uncomfortably numb to stealing love songs.

Susan Cain: the Power of Introverts

This Ted lecture from 2012 helps us see how both introverts and extroverts are a necessary part of creativity.

Practice and Skill - Mental and Physical - Design and Craft

This excerpt was taken from delancyplace.com

Practice. Rather than being the result of genetics or inherent genius, truly outstanding skill in any domain is rarely achieved with less than ten thousand hours of practice over ten years' time.

"For those on their way to greatness [in intellectual or physical endeavors], several themes regarding practice consistently come to light:

1. Practice changes your body. Researchers have recorded a constellation of physical changes (occurring in direct response to practice) in the muscles, nerves, hearts, lungs, and brains of those showing profound increases in skill level in any domain.
2. Skills are specific. Individuals becoming great at one particular skill do not serendipitously become great at other skills. Chess champions can remember hundreds of intricate chess positions in sequence but can have a perfectly ordinary memory for everything else. Physical and intellectual changes are ultraspecific responses to particular skill requirements.
3. The brain drives the brawn. Even among athletes, changes in the brain are arguably the most profound, with a vast increase in precise task knowledge, a shift from conscious analysis to intuitive thinking (saving time and energy), and elaborate self-monitoring mechanisms that allow for constant adjustments in real time.
4. Practice style is crucial. Ordinary practice, where your current skill level is simply being reinforced, is not enough to get better. It takes a special kind of practice to force your mind and body into the kind of change necessary to improve.
5. Short-term intensity cannot replace long-term commitment. Many crucial changes take place over long periods of time. Physiologically, it's impossible to become great overnight.

"Across the board, these last two variables -- practice style and practice time -- emerged as universal and critical. From Scrabble players to dart players to soccer players to violin players, it was observed that the uppermost achievers not only spent significantly more time in solitary study and drills, but also exhibited a consistent (and persistent) style of preparation that K. Anders Ericsson came to call 'deliberate practice.' First introduced in a 1993 Psychological Review article, the notion of deliberate practice went far beyond the simple idea of hard work. It conveyed a method of continual skill improvement. 'Deliberate practice is a very special form of activity that differs from mere experience and mindless drill,' explains Ericsson. 'Unlike playful engagement with peers, deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable. It ... does not involve a mere execution or repetition of already attained skills but repeated attempts to reach beyond one's current level which is associated with frequent failures.' ...

"In other words, it is practice that doesn't take no for an answer; practice that perseveres; the type of practice where the individual keeps raising the bar of what he or she considers success. ...

"[Take] Eleanor Maguire's 1999 brain scans of London cabbies, which revealed greatly enlarged representation in the brain region that controls spatial awareness. The same holds for any specific task being honed; the relevant brain regions adapt accordingly. ...

"[This type of practice] requires a constant self-critique, a pathological restlessness, a passion to aim consistently just beyond one's capability so that daily disappointment and failure is actually desired, and a never-ending resolve to dust oneself off and try again and again and again. ...

"The physiology of this process also requires extraordinary amounts of elapsed time -- not just hours and hours of deliberate practice each day, Ericsson found, but also thousands of hours over the course of many years. Interestingly, a number of separate studies have turned up the same common number, concluding that truly outstanding skill in any domain is rarely achieved in less than ten thousand hours of practice over ten years' time (which comes to an average of three hours per day). From sublime pianists to unusually profound physicists, researchers have been very hard-pressed to find any examples of truly extraordinary performers in any field who reached the top of their game before that ten-thousand-hour mark."

Author: David Shenk  
Title: The Genius in All of Us
Publisher: Anchor
Date: Copyright 2010 by David Shenk
Pages: 53-57

The Genius in All of Us: New Insights into Genetics, Talent, and IQ

by David Shenk by Anchor

Paperback ~ Release Date: 2011-03-08

If you wish to read further: Buy Now

If you use the above link to purchase a book, delanceyplace proceeds from your purchase will benefit a children's literacy project. All delanceyplace profits are donated to charity.    

VW Floating car

Sponsored links: The Volkswagen Hover Concept Car is a pod-like zero-emissions vehicle that uses electromagnetic road networks to float above the road.

The "People’s Car" project allowed Internet users in China to post ideas about cars of the future. From the 119,000 ideas received. three vehicle and technology concepts were produced and are now on display at the 2012 Beijing auto show. Watch this brave a Chinese couple hover around the city in the first (computer animated) test drive of this Volkswagen concept car. 

The following link is a art and science blog that has a lot of interesting work. Please check it out here at the link

Marketing with Augmented Reality

Another cool effect for Augmented Realty for Green Lantern promotion. Thanks to Patty Rangel



Check out more on her site.

JoAnn Kuchera-Morin demos the AlloSphere

Our thanks to Patty Rangel for turning us on to JoAnn Kuchera-Morin  who demos the AlloSphere, an entirely new way to see and interpret scientific data, in full color and surround sound inside a massive metal sphere. Dive into the brain, feel electron spin, hear the music of the elements ...The Allosphere is at UC Santa Barbara

Linking Artists and Scientists: Getting Down to the Basics of Creativity

by National Endowment for the Arts on Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 7:52am ·

by Whitney Dail

Image courtesy of San Diego Visual Arts Network

Creativity is a hot topic today. We as a society are fixated with asking, “What is creativity?” How are creative sparks ignited? And can these sparks lead to new ways of looking at the world around us? Well, the San Diego Visual Arts Network (SDVAN) asks: What could happen if artists and scientists partnered to explore its possibilities? SDVAN has organized a cross-disciplinary project that connects the arts with sciences to increase our understanding of creativity and its role in our daily lives. Their project DNA of Creativity brings together artists and scientists in the San Diego area for four different creative endeavors. These artist-scientist teams—with specialists in theater, music, visual arts, design, biology, engineering, mathematics, and physics--have begun collaborating to produce a series of activities, publications, and lesson plans centered on a variety of art/science works. The results of these collaborations will include a smartphone app for locating art events with augmented reality, structural design for preserving urban wildlife, theatrical skits surveying the aesthetics of art and science, and a multimedia exhibition raising awareness for marine conservation. To learn more about DNA of Creativity’s development and culmination, we spoke with Patricia Frischer, SDVAN’s founder and coordinator.

NEA: Patricia, can you tell me about the DNA of Creativity and how the project began?

PATRICIA FRISCHER: SDVAN is always searching for new collaborations and ways to build audience for the visual arts. Our high- and bio-tech industry are real drivers of the San Diego economy and involving science in art projects seemed a logical next step for our organization, which has put on numerous large-scale collaborative projects. The idea of the DNA of Creativity is to actually understand the added value that a project has when matchmaking an artist with a scientist. We could have also called the project the DNA of Innovation; but as we are a visual arts organization, we are comfortable with the word creativity.

Once I started to explore what was out there on the Internet about art and science in 2010, I realized there was definitely room for another project, especially in San Diego. I started gathering information, which eventually was shared on our DNA of Creativity blog. I was then contacted by Harvey Seifter who was putting together the Art of Science Learning conference in Chicago, San Diego, and Washington, DC. He wanted help getting out the word about his conference and--with our 4,000-5,000 unique visitors a month and one million hits a year--we were able to fill a few seats and also document the conference. I met some exciting people and felt confident that we were going in the right direction. We held one large networking gathering to see if there was popular interest with both artists and scientist locally. We used that occasion to discuss various types of collaborations and to start brainstorming possible projects. In no time at all we had more than 150 people interested in the project.

NEA: The mission of the project is described as “in-depth team explorations” to demonstrate the creative processes of overlapping artistic and scientific inquiry. What are some of the goals that have been set?

FRISCHER: Our mission for DNA of Creativity is to make connections between the art and science worlds with a goal of fusing the energies of both communities to produce a series of projects, which will enhance the viewing public’s perception of creativity and its role in our lives. We are a supporter of the idea of changing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) into STEAM by adding the arts. The project is divided into four components. Teams of a minimum of five,with a combination of artists and scientists, choose a theme for their project, which they have approximately 18 months to realize. Then each team must document the process of the collaboration and how creativity/innovation is enhanced by the relationships of the team members. Each team has to create lesson plans based on their project theme and then make a public presentation of their project in whatever format they choose.

Our goals for this project are aligned with the general goals for the SDVAN. We hope to meet the challenge of making the complexities of art and science collaboration accessible to a new and enlarged audience. We want to showcase the aesthetics of both the arts and the sciences and enhance the viewing public’s perception of creativity and its role in our lives as thriving, positive, empowered, and fun. We hope that describing the creative process will encourage appreciation of excellence in the fields of art and science and reinforce the idea of San Diego as an innovation destination. It is important to us to create additional awareness for all the supporting organizations in this field including corporate, non-profit, political, and never forgetting educational. Invigorating students of all ages to support the arts and sciences either as participants or beneficiaries is always a high priority.

NEA: What do you see is the connection between art and science?

FRISCHER: There are numerous similarities between art and science. They both balance direct experience with thinking. They both need skills of design and craft. But the more interesting questions might be--what are the differences between art and science? We think of a scientist questing for those things that are repeatable and can be proven. Artists are often involved in fantasy as well as reality. What we have found is that many of the participants on the teams are both artists and scientist with the majority of those being scientists first and adding an interest in art later in their careers. The connection will certainly be varied and changing depending on the people involved and the theme of the project.

NEA: Where did the name "DNA of Creativity" come from?

FRISCHER: We really want to focus on the scientific components that contribute to the structure of creativity so DNA became our shorthand for that idea. I was actually surprised when none of our projects was focused on formal DNA studies, but maybe we are redefining the word.

NEA: How is DNA of Creativity funded?

FRISCHER: SDVAN is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and we are funded by donations made by those who want us to reach our goals. We received donation for as little as $5. But in order to assure this project could be additionally funded, we received grants from private foundations including the Smart Family Foundation and the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation.

NEA: Four artist-scientist teams have been selected to embark upon investigation with topics such as augmented reality, climate change, wildlife preservation, and aesthetics. How were the teams chosen?

FRISCHER: We were pleased that the selection committee for the grants included prestigious members of the arts and science community: Harvey Seifter, Art of Science Learning Director and Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation grant; Ron Newby, Bronowski Art and Science Forum; and Ruth West, Research Associate, UCSD Research in Computing and the Arts…. This was not a competition but instead a desire to help teams work toward the best possible projects. We asked for help in assessment from the DNA of Creativity administration team in the early stages, looking for the following: extent of cross-disciplinary innovation; degree of scholarly risk-taking, integration of concept explored and form in which it is executed; feasibility for completion within the time frame; relevance to individual team members’ disciplines; ability to create a community involvement component to the project; PR-friendliness to raise awareness about all participants; and inclusion of for-profit corporations, businesses, and individuals as well as non-profit associations.

NEA: Kaz Mazlanka’s team proposed a series of participatory theatrical skits. What other types of artistic media will be explored?

FRISCHER: Jason Rogalski’s team will be constructing architects’ design habitats for wildlife, which will be mixed media constructions, the Batt App team will be looking into augmented reality software, and Kira Corser’s Changing Ocean team is looking at multi-media installation with glass, fabric, dance elements, and video.

NEA: What can we expect to see as outcomes from these art/science collaborations?  

FRISCHER: Because each team has to document the process of collaboration, we are expecting to see a variety of collaborative strategies demonstrated. Ruth West, who has vast experience in this field, helped us to pinpoint what those might be: putting the process of the scientist on view, reconceptualizing science and making it into art, challenging new cultural forms in a reflective use of science, and affecting science by pushing new scientific ideas to be formulated. We are hoping to showcase the added value that is gained when artists and scientists collaborate.

NEA: So far, have there been any challenges?

FRISCHER: Language is always a challenge when you put experts together as they have a developed vocabulary in their practices. Having worked with teams before, we know about the challenges of team collaborations. We have arranged a special workshop on team development, team management, meeting structure, and conflict resolution. As this is not a project that is funded with salaries for the participants, we are aware of time usage issues. That is one reason we wanted quite large teams instead of small teams to share the workload.

NEA: What are the plans for DNA of Creativity’s exhibition and education?

FRISCHER: We put no limit on the media and mediums that are acceptable by the teams. Some of the public presentations will be exhibitions, theatrical presentations, panel discussions, and lectures. The Oceanside Museum of Art has stepped forward and is offering exhibition space as is the Escondido Art Partnership, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries Service, and Mira Costa College. Since collaborations are sought, we are open in the next year to make relationships with anyone interested in the project. We are expecting a minimum of one lesson plan from each of the projects and those will be published and available online for free. Results of the lesson taught by teachers and the project will also be highlighted on the DNA of Creativity website.

NEA: Any additional comments you would like to share?

FRISCHER: As a visual arts activist, one does not take on a project like this without a firm belief in the power of art to enlighten and enhance our lives.

Art and Science of Gaming: Games Making a Better World

Jane McGonigal Selected as SIGGRAPH 2012 Keynote Speaker

Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.

Reality is broken, says Jane McGonigal, and we need to make it work more like a game. Her work shows us how. Full bio » 

Reality needs better game design. Jane McGonigal is a visionary game designer and futurist, and she is harnessing the power of the Internet games in new ways to help solved some of the biggest challenges facing our world today and tomorrow.

McGonigal has been selected as keynote speaker for SIGGRAPH 2012. She is director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future (IFTF), where her research focuses on how games are transforming the way we lead our real lives, and how they can be used to increase our resilience and well-being.

“As both a visual artist and innovative game designer, Jane McGonigal is the ideal keynote for SIGGRAPH 2012 as the perfect illustration of this year’s conference theme,” said Rebecca Strzelec, SIGGRAPH 2012 Conference Chair from Penn State Altoona. “Her vision, vocation, and world-renowned accomplishments truly embody the collision, juxtaposition, and interaction of art and science.”

McGonigal is a visionary game designer and futurist, using alternate reality games to conduct research, build communities, connect with markets, and solve real-world problems from curing disease to addressing issues of poverty, hunger, and a world without petroleum. She has created and deployed award-winning games in more than 30 countries on six continents and directed the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game, Superstruct, which brought together more than 7,000 future forecasters from 90 countries.