Robert André

I spent the last three weeks working extremely hard on multi-million pound projects where my graphics skills have had to come into play. Unfortunately, because these projects are under review I’m not allowed to talk about them. The good news is I did get to see parts of England that I wouldn’t have ever thought to visit.

When I got back I did get to design a new crest for a reborn football team Dynamo North London LFC. Here it is.

The Concept
The proposed idea is an experiential, interactive, global exploration of the world using four senses; sight, hearing, touch and smell.
Sight - View the environment
Sound - Hear the sounds and surrounding of the set environment
Touch – Physically touch the installation and feel the temperature of the environment.
Smell - Smell the environment

Unique selling points
Simulating an environment without the user physically being there – again, using four senses. to Making geography tactile, interfacing within a virtual world, an enclosed, immersive environment.

Getting started
Once it was decided that the project was about interactive geography the team began brainstorming ideas of the levels of interactivity and an immersive experience.
The group explored ideas of:

1. A physical globe with buttons embedded in it that allowed users to press countries on the map;
2. A rotating physical object that emitted lights that gave off a holographic look — a number of LED are arranged on a motorised metal spinning frame. The LEDs, programmed to blink at precise times give an impression of a floating world. Once on, the machine cannot be touched without causing serious injury;
3. A perspex touch-screen spherical atlas — dismissed as it seemed too much like the touch-tables that seem to be currently in vogue
4. A projected globe operated by a smaller globe.

Having dismissed two of the four ideas the group decided to work on the other two (ideas 1 and 4). Both had potential and both need to be tested. Jenny worked on the physical globe with embedded button while Robert and Shazed worked on creating a trackball to interact with a larger globe. Jenny rewired a blue tooth keyboard and mouse to integrate it into a button controlled sphere. Robert and Shazed built a large trackball device, first with a football and then with a large silver sphere.

At the same time Robert worked on putting together an interactive world map that tracked countries through the mouse position. Although the group wanted to use a 3D version of the world they were never sure that Vizard (the interactive 3D programme) would be available, and if it was, whether they would be able to learn it in time to make the project a success. Therefore, a working model of tracking countries on a map was built using Processing. The large track ball worked through a USB port and worked well with the Processing map.
Looking at the options of what was achieved up to that point the group decided that buttons on a globe would be unworkable as the user would constantly be putting pressure on the trackball/globe and might unintentionally press a button. The group discarded the buttons on the globe and went forward with the large trackball idea. The group also decided not to have any information on the ball itself and to use it solely as a tracking instrument.
The group realised that they should also not discount the chances of getting the use of Vizard or another similar programme so Shazed went about creating a 3D Earth in Maya using the same atlas as Robert had used in Processing. Shazed had managed to wrap the map around the 3D model perfectly but now the group had to somehow find a way of getting the model out of Maya and into an interactive environment.
Numerous attempts were made to integrate the 3D model. Programs attempted were: Processing, Flash, a 3D PDF, the unreal tournament engine and VizRT. A lot of time was spent by the whole team trying to get it to work. The group understood that unless the control of the world worked the whole project would fall down. The group were in a quandary. Any deeper work into other iterations could severely hamper the later stages of the project. On the other hand the group felt it would be foolish to just hope that Vizard would work in the last few weeks. They had to, therefore, try yet another iteration, this time using MaxMSP probably the best all round solution.
MaxMSP allowed the group to get a 3D Earth controlled by the trackball. A movie could also be integrated into the programme and space was created to allow external arduino devices to be hooked up that would control the aerosol and the fan heater.
Robert sought advice from a chemist for the way to process the smell.
Yes a lot of the solvents that your smell may be soluble in are most probably flammable or emit fumes that are flammable highly dangerous. There are many ways to first of find a soluble solvent and ‘mixing’ the two. Second drying the solvent when it has these properties is difficult, due to the fact that direct heating with that intensity can cause these products to catch fire or worse explode.
The process in the lab would be the same as at home.
If the product is not yet a powder (crystalline), it needs to be dissolved into a suitable solvent. Maybe with gentle heating to first try encourage the process. The next part of the process is complicated and why chemist do what they do. You have to know if the product is ‘likes’ more the water or the solvent, most of the time it is water
So even when ‘dissolved’ normal and additional reagent is needed to remove your product from the water. after the reagent is added normally under reflux, to prevent losing the product, and to allow complete processing or reagent. The ‘moisture’ is normally removed with impurities through use off a product I cant remember the name it is added to your solution almost. you then filter to remove the solid. now u are left with your product and normally your solvents. they are normally removed by rotary evaporation. Sometime the product doesnt elute in solution and may need help gentle aggitation ‘scratching’. Sometimes your solid might just be stubborn but the dried product will be what you need to mix with the aerosol propellent.
An aerosol propelled by pressure is the same as a spray gun per say. it just about efficiency.

The group decided that we would cross the smell bridge when we got to it and more important than the smell itself was the mechanism for releasing the smell. Robert dismantled an automatic spray dispenser and analysed its mechanics. The dispenser has a simple programme that switches to the users preference of preprogrammed timer: 9, 30 or 60 minutes. By disconnecting the circuit board Robert could instead use the arduino to change the setting of the motor to start for three seconds.
Robert also began working on the programme for the fan heater. The arduino would control a relay switch wired into the fan heater that would ‘switch’ the heater on and off at the press of the same button as the smell control.
Jenny and Robert began trying to deconstruct the MaxMSP programme. Jenny was able to embed video into the programme but the entire group felt that getting Max to work was defeating the main goals of the project. Although some of it might look alright the group would be fixing a small element while letting the larger parts of the project unfulfilled.

By talking to Martin Schmitz the group were able to, at last, get a working copy of Vizard. But now they all had to work at getting an understanding of how it worked. Shazed’s model was not working properly and the image map was not coming out at all. By re-exporting the model in another file format the Earth looked perfect. Unfortunately the Earth was not moving properly on the correct axis. A few days of work finally got the Earth to move correctly.
Final stages
Once Vizard was working correctly the team all pitched in to understand how to add functionality to the structure, i.e. getting the names of the countries on, rotating the world correctly and at the right angle and selecting the right country. As soon asthey were convinced that the basic problems were solved — the ones that needed to be there to at least give the appearance of operation — Shazed was left to decipher the more complex problems.
Jenny continued to find appropriate images and sounds and to edit them together to make a film. Robert worked on the design of the table top. Shaz continued with Vizard and discovered how to incorporate video into the programme.

Although the design for the table was complete a few glitches in the operation of the laser cutter made it impossible to finish. A paper copy was glued to the table and Robert soldered tiny buttons into the control box Jenny had mad weeks previously. The buttons were then wired into the table and larger wooden and glass buttons were added.Jenny’s finished video was added to the Vizard application. The trackball was added to the table which was then connected to Vizard.

Yes, I know I haven’t blogged for a while. I have been thinking about it but not actually doing it. So in the last few months I haven’t written about the historic US election of Barack H. Obama, the deepening banking crisis, the tightening credit crunch or the changeable weather. I also have not reported on my design projects on Sensory Geography, Engagement in a World of Noise or my finished dissertation Who Decides What We Get.

Maybe next time. Soon!

I’m working desperately on my dissertation. I can’t believe it. I started this months ago and now I’m concerned that it won’t get done for the deadline. I’ve certainly done all the primary research… All I have to do is get it all down on paper. My problem is that I edit as I go along which, I’m finding, is very dangerous if you actually want to finish something.

Following is the unedited front end of chapter one Needs and Wants. Oh yeah, I think I’m changing the dissertation title again to: Do we really need it?

In the United Kingdom in 2008 we are inundated with possibilities to consume as much as we can. The whole world’s markets and services seem available to us, if not on the high street then at a touch of a mouse button, via a postal request, through telephone services or even through the television remote control. Are we getting what we need or just what we want? And are our requests and eventual receipt of these products and services really our choice or are others deciding for us?

The American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) formulated a Hierarchy of Needs. His theory states that there are six successive levels of needs that human beings must attain in order to function and feel complete, beginning at the bottom with the most basic needs of air, water and food, and culminating at the top with the need for self actualization – to truly know that your life is complete and you need nothing more. Maslow claimed that it was rare for most to reach that level because humans almost always crave something.

• “I think of the self-actualizing man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away. The average man is a full human being with dampened and inhibited powers and capacities” http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Self-Actualization.asp

The bottom tier of Maslow’s pyramid (fig 1.1) holds the fundamentals of life, common to all animal life. Maslow contests that humans are unique as a species in that once all the needs are met in one category they seek to fulfill other needs. Each need fulfilled opens up further possibilities: the need for shelter, the need to be loved, the need for sex, the need for status. It could be argued that beyond the need for keeping oneself alive there are no real needs, everything beyond the basics are wants or desires, that is, things that make our lives better. And in the twenty-first century is the second to fifth tier correctly placed.

• Many scholars point out that Maslow’s hierarchy lacks empirical verification. These needs may not always operate in a hierarchy, as Maslow says. For example, esteem needs may still motivate even when lower order needs remain unmet. http://www.shkaminski.com/Classes/Handouts/Maslow.htm

Since we no longer live in caves and hunt our own food the needs of life in an industrial and technological age, and especially in the western world, are well beyond those of our prehistoric ancestors. But have our needs changed? Do we still desire the same fundamental things? Is the need for social security still more important than the need for self-respect and esteem? How do we meet our needs? And is that getting within our own power? Who ultimately decides what we get in an industrialized free-market western economy in the early twenty-first century?

Design has played a crucial part in shaping the world to human needs. In order to meet our needs we design artifacts and systems, which sustain our lives, make it better and add to its quality and its comfort.

• The world we live in has been shaped in many important ways by human action. We have created technological options to prevent, eliminate, or lessen threats to life and the environment and to fulfill social needs. We have dammed rivers and cleared forests, made new materials and machines, covered vast areas with cities and highways, and decided—sometimes willy-nilly—the fate of many other living things. http://www.project2061.org/publications/sfaa/online/chap8.htm#1

Within an industrialised western democracy it is accepted (and expected) that government make provisions for its citizens’ needs. These citizen needs are inalienable rights, provisions for which are stated in both the United States declaration of Independence, (JULY 4, 1776), and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (August 1789), and are also implied within the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (1949): Life, liberty , freedom, equality, the pursuit of happiness among others.
Governments in a democracy do not grant the fundamental freedoms enumerated by Jefferson; governments are created to protect those freedoms that every individual possesses by virtue of his or her existence. http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/whatsdem/whatdm3.htm

Should it be reasonable to believe, therefore, that systems are put in place that would ensure that at least the first two basic needs –– the need for air and the need for water — are, while not necessarily provided for but are not intentionally withheld? Of course, as air is naturally occurring and is in boundless supply wherever people live and choose to live it cannot be given or taken away by anyone. However, the quality of air in a given area can be determined by decisions made by industry, transport, urban planning, farming etc, with permission by government.

Problems arise when people, institutions and corporations using their freedom to do as they wish have a direct negative impact on other citizens. A by-product, in this respect, of meeting needs is infringing others’ rights to meet basic needs. We may get what we want but we might also get a lot of stuff we don’t want: unintended but nevertheless, inevitable consequences.

The unintended consequences of industry are numerous and have been since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

• The industrial revolution transformed the ability of humans to affect the world’s environment. Deforestation greatly increased on a global scale. So did water pollution from chemical and agricultural discharges into lakes and streams, and atmospheric pollution from combustion of huge amounts of coal. http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu/eras/era7.htm

But now that the industrial genie has been released from the metaphorical bottles there may be even more consequences. The negative impact on the environment, through the use of fossil fuels, is still there and has large opposition, but with gas and oil reserves running low the west is dependent on Eastern Europe and the Arab states for supplies. And with the supply out of their control there is the risk of excessive price fluctuations, political crisis or a complete halt in supplies.

Finding a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels has been problematic. Viable alternatives (wind, solar, hydro power), are cleaner and while no harmful by-product exists there is still opposition. Nuclear power, possibly the most efficient source of energy, is the most vilified option. The nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986 has made the public at large, already fearful of nuclear energy, even more concerned that it could happen in their own backyard. http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/chernobyl.html
The public fears of what could happen, however unlikely, determines what is allowed on these shores. We may want to reap the benefits of industry and technology but only if the risk to our lives and livelihoods is minimal. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/feb/15/nuclear.greenpolitics1

Rather more dangerously are catastrophic industrial accidents such as the Union Carbide (UC) disaster. Approximately 3,800 people were killed on that December day when dangerous methylisocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the tanks at the UC pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. Thousands more were condemned to permanent and partial disabilities. http://www.bhopal.com/chrono.htm Those chemical plants exist to make agriculture more efficient and cost effective but the very existence in Bhopal took advantage of slack laws, regulations and health and safety measures that were well below the standards of those in the United States. Western Europe and North American restrictions would make it impossible for the Bhopal plant to exist in this part of the world. So while it unlawful to use the same lax manufacturing techniques in the UK or the USA it is perfectly lawful for those companies to exist and sell the products of those factories. In this respect we are benefitting from a cheaper product without the direct environmental consequences because someone else is picking up the slack.

The lowest tier of Maslow Needs is universal to all life. The second tier, however, the need for social security, the need for family, and the need for protection, is altogether uniquely human. Also, while these needs may well be historically correct for a human civilization are the needs of a twenty-first century westerner be identical to those of say an Egyptian peasant in 3000BC, a Roman Centurion in 45AD, or a working class Londoner in 1948? The advancement in technology and living conditions has made it impossible to compare like for like because there has been nothing like this before. The western lifestyle we have grown accustomed to have created more needs that may possibly be need to be shoe-horned between the first and second tiers: The need to communicate, the need to travel, the need to know, the need for money.

As stated above design has been crucial in determining the shape of the world and the condition of human beings. The invention of the printing press made it possible to disseminate information, ideas and images at a more rapid rate than was ever possible before.

The invention of the telegraph meant messages could be sent rapidly over long distances.
Telephone enabled us to speak to people personally to others at length and often.
Automobiles, trains, aeroplanes serve mankind in that we can travel quickly, and relatively cheaply today.
The internet and the World Wide Web have made communication, both one-way and two-way affordable to almost everyone on the planet. We have gotten so used to these products, services and artifacts that they have become more needs than wants. But even then these needs come with a price tag attached.

The cost of driving, flying and ‘training’ is oil, a natural resource that is rapidly dwindling in the west and see-sawing in price if not getting more expensive. Even electric cars or hybrid engines (oil and electric) need to get their power supply from somewhere.

Even the cost of twenty-first communication is not free. While we sit at our computer terminals surfing the internet, sending emails or texting on our mobile phones there is still an environmental price to pay because the servers, the place where these bits and bytes of information are stored, passed through or transmitted need and consume energy, and give off emissions. In 2008 the emissions were equal to that of the entire automobile industry. By 2020 those emissions will be equal to the airline industry.

As if things weren’t bad enough.

The continuing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed over five million lives. Political commentators and aid agencies have claimed that the main cause for the fighting is Congo’s huge wealth of mineral resources one of which is Coltan, a mineral when processed becomes a “vital component in the capacitors that control current flow in cell phone circuit boards.” http://www.cellular-news.com/coltan/

The task for the RSA brief is to find a wall covering for a changing world AND a new way of offering personal care. The two tasks could not be more different. The only glimmer of a connection I can offer is sustainability, ecology and efficiency.

What is the future of wall covering? Paint or wallpaper? Is wall covering just the surface? What about texture, heat, putting up shelves, putting up posters, putting up noticeboards.

I have requested images of people’s walls to get an idea of what a wall is for. So far my question so far has arrived with these (non-scientific) answers: privacy, setting space, decoration, symbolising personality.

The personal care aspects seems obvious but I’m taking nothing for granted. What is it we really want in hygiene? I’ve been thinking about recycling our waste products and splitting the products into water, fuel and cleaning products. The problem I foresee is that while people would be content with using bio-gas, washing in recycled clear water, bathing in a soap that was once faeces may prove unpalatable.

The RSA competition briefs are out and I’ve decided to go for the A Changing World project. I presented the first draft of my idea, The Life Cube, supported by some presentation graphics below.

It’s good to know that there are at least three good shows on television. The bad news is two of them are on their last season. The really bad news is that the two that are concluding are the best two. Well, at least we still have Heroes.

If you like your TV as pure escapism you can’t go wrong with Heroes. Okay, maybe all the plots are cast-offs of X-Men comics circa 1980 but it still has me hanging on to the edge of my seat. These guys have made me rush home to watch despite the fact that I could probably download all the episodes or “watch again” on the BBC iPlayer. I like the fact that I’m watching this when it comes out and I like that I “have” to wait to watch the next episode. It’s like Christmas every week!

But of course that’s because it’s on the BBC. If it was on FX or the Sci-Fi channel I’d have to resort to downloading or buying on DVD. And since I absolutely hate watching movies on the machine I’d have to buy the DVD… which is what I had to do for my two favourite shows: The Wire and Battlestar Gallactica.

If you haven’t seen either, let me just recommend them right here by saying that they are the best two show, not just on TV at the moment but — and I’m sticking my neck out now — the best written TV show of all time!

The Wire is a gritty, realistic police procedural drama. Produced by HBO it profits from the fact that it doesn’t have to race to solve the crime at the end of each episode. One of the resaons I love it so much is that solving the case is not at the forefront of the writers’ story. It’s really about life in Baltimore and how tough it can be whether you’re a police (as they say in Baltimore), a drug dealer, a politician or a dock worker. Everybody’s just trying to make a living and it’s hard! In fact the only two people who seem to be having a good time most of the time is corrupt politician Clay Davis (with his catchphrase: shiiiit!) and the guy who’s brave enough to steal from the drug dealers: Omar. This show should, however, come with a warning: If you’ve got a short attention span, if you want to see the good guys always win, if you want good guys against bad guys, if you don’t like social realism, then this show isn’t for you. On the other hand, every politician, teacher, policy maker, policeman, citizen ought to watch.

But the best show has got to be Battlestar Gallactica. If you’ve seen the original from the 70s, and I have to admit I have only vague recollections, then put it out of you mind. That’s the sort of thinking that kept me away from this brilliant show for so long.

This show explores current social issues within a science fiction context. Like the Heroes each episode is a self contained story and like The Wire there’s an overarching plot that keeps ticking on. This is the only series that has you asking in the middle of the season if the people you’ve been following and rooting for are the good guys?

Unlike The Wire and Heroes where you pretty much see the problems in front of you Battlestar has you asking questions on just what it means to be a human being and what choices you would make if you were forced into impossible situations.

I haven’t seen the any of the final seasons of The Wire or Battlestar I’m waiting for the DVD box set, in my humble opinion the best way to watch.

If it’s in the game, it’s in the game.

For U.S. senator Barack Obama, that means being the first presidential candidate to buy ad space inside a video game.

According to the Associated Press, Obama’s mug can now be seen in nine different EA games connected to the internet, including Madden NFL 09 and Burnout Paradise, in an effort to appeal to the hard-to-reach 18 to 34 year-old male demographic.

“What we’re trying to do is offer ads in games where we’re simulating a real-world environment, so our racing games, our sports games lend themselves to that,” EA spokeswoman Holly Rockwood told the AP on Tuesday. “That’s very appealing to our advertisers.”

The ads will run through Nov. 3, says Rockwood, who would not disclose how much revenue is being made by the publisher in working with the Obama campaign.

In-game advertising made its way into games roughly 18 months ago. But unlike other forms of distribution, where sponsorships are often used to subsidize (or even obviate) the price to consumers, gamers are still required to pay full price for the games they buy, an average of $50-60 (talk about double dipping)/

From: Obama the first presidential hopeful to advertise in games by Blake Snow

I’ve always wanted to own a bank. Now, thanks to PM Gordon Brown and his Darling Chancellor I own five! Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Lloyds TSB.

Happy days are here again.

Now the only thing left to make the world a perfect place is for the Americans to vote the right person in on November 4.

Every so often I need to stock up on groceries. Now, I have a choice between the big two: Tesco or Sainsbury’s.

Tesco is a ten minute walk, I cross six or seven busy streets, pass two train stations, a pub the Evening Standard recommends for acquiring illicit firearms and a housing estate which has hosted at least two grusome murders in the last couple of years.

Sainsbury’s is a twenty minute walk. I cross my road into a little park and then I walk along the River Pool and emerge at the back of a Sainsbury’s superstore. No traffic, no noise, some kids sitting on the river bank, joggers, old people strolling, bike riders, wood pigeons, herons, ducks… I choose the twenty minute walk.

Here’s some photos.