ubik2.comubiquity in time and space

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A serie of ideas and real projects around Locative Media and Creativity. I am speaking about various projects born from the GPS Museum website and the art collective Transnational Temps. A serie of artworks mixing geolocation, activism, environment and cosmology.

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Trash Alert!, a Transnational Temps art project for your mobile

Trash Alert! will be a opensource Android App dedicated to the geolocation of micro garbage dumps all around you. Please support the project on Goteo the Spanish opensource crowdfunding website.

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A Walk Through Time, a “Walking” iphone app.

I am currently working on a mobile phone app project with Geoff Ainscow from Los Angeles. We study now a iphone app where each of your steps is one million years during a one mile walk tracing the 4,600 million year the evolution of life on earth. In 1997, at Hewlett Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California, the Walk Through Time exhibit was created for the opening experience of a five day meeting involving 350 scientist from around the world. Every foot of the one mile walk represents one million years of the evolution of life on Earth. 95 color, illustrative panels, describing the state of life at that time were spaced at various intervals. Starting 4,600 million years ago, at the beginning of the solar system, you walk a mile before reaching the present day and realize that the last 1/10 of an inch represents the 10,000 years of our civilization. This exhibit has been shown in many cities and continues to travel around the world. A book was published in 1998.  Today, the Walk moves into the high tech age with the development of this iPhone app.

walkthroughtime.org

As creative designer, the most important idea around the app is that you will have to walk for real to experience the 4,600 Millons years of evolution of life on earth. Each of your steps will be detected by the accelerometer and will move you forward 1 million years. We hope to  start the programming of the iphone app around October 2011.

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Sensodesign, design controled by sensors.

La imagen de síntesis es el interfaz entre el mundo sensible y el mundo inteligible, es el mar entre dos tierras. Partiendo de esta premisa podemos hacer una clasificación básica que mostraría dos grupos de gráfica: el de las representaciones que se encubren al modelo real, es decir que “falsean”, y el grupo de imágenes que, dialogando con el original, ofrecen una síntesis del mismo, además de una información extra que completa la descripción del modelo. Nosotros trabajamos en este segundo estadio.

the web design is changing during the seasons

Sensodesign simulated for the “Turismo de Andalucía” web portal

Sensodesign se define como un conjunto de estrategias que potencian el encuentro entre mundo sintético y mundo real, dando como resultado composiciones digitales “pilotadas” por lo que acontece en el espacio natural. Las composiciones se encuentran ligadas a un medio del que se obtienen las variables, éstas provienen de diferentes tipos de sensores (temperatura, nivel, movimiento, contaminación) y se convierten en condicionantes de la representación digital que vemos en la web. De esta forma, el mar “sintético” de nuestra pantalla se ve afectado por el oleaje de una playa de Gijón, o el cielo pixelado por la previsión de lluvias para mañana. El mundo digital de la pantalla dialoga con lo que acontece a su alrededor erigiéndose como creación live-media.

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Relative Geoloc. Positioning

The Relative Geoloc. Positioning is a creation we programmed for the Laboral Centro de Arte in 2006. The idea is simple, we catch the coordinates of a place and catch some random places all over the world to show the relative distance from the original point. This great piece of programming has been done by Iñaki Quesada. Have a look at this small video bellow…

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Kezako, a intuitive didactic tool to create and share knowledge

Inspired by the representation of the zodiacs, we created a interactive didactic tool called “Kezako”. This strange word is a french expression asking ” what is this ?”. Well, have a look at Piscis below, each white node is a audio comment and the links between nodes is the route. Just follow the routes, zoom in and out automatically or manually, and learn.

Our aim is to create a very simple interactive animation for people to learn about everyting we can explain with a high resolution picture and a voice. The idea is simple, we can create various audio nodes on a zoomable graphic and link each nodes between them to make a audio route. People just load the high resolution graphic and stream the audio nodes and navigate inside the picture.  If you get the editor, you can build your own Kezako audio routes on your pictures, just need a hig resolution graphic and a way to record your voice on the computer. 

In this picture upstairs, a Kezako user created a audio-guide to explain the Propulsion, the vital organs and the nutrition of a Fish. But if you want to explain the Velazquez painting ” Las Meninas”, go ahead.

Kezako applied to the Meninas from Velázquez

Kezako is better than editing a time consuming movie because our system is: really fast to build, lighter to send online, interactive with nodes and editable by the users in a very simple way. It can be a great tool for teachers, museums and educators, for everybody who wants to explain in a intuitive way.

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Smartphone Audio Guide for museums

A novative simple audio guide explained in this audio comment

This Smartphone Audio Guide proposal for museums consist in a software designed to build easily audio guides, managing a set of bricks containing a audio and a picture related to a masterpiece.

More than a brick, the module is a segment of a wall and let users represent their exhibition space with each segment, moving them with the finger in the screen and building a architecture. This simple software let users build virtually the real space of the exhibition.

Finally, the visitors can use the application created by the museum and get information for the masterpiece they want. Rolling over each segment, we can see a fast preview of the painting, picture or whatever we want. Clicking on on it, a audio player appear on the screen and let the visitors listen to the audio guide.

A simple hyper-navigation mode, let the visitor have a preview of all the master pieces at the same time.

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Simimobile, a Transnational Temps art project for your mobile

Digital Jungle Simiomobile invites telecommunication companies to show leadership and commit to preserving biodiversity.

The Simiomobile kit is composed by one hardware modification module to custom the looking of the telephone and a software module with a set of applications. The Simiomobile user get acces to a series of extra services, related to the species you choose to sponsor, like reception of SMS text messages when news arises that’s relevant to the survival of the species, web access to your profile, and networking services for finding others with similar interests and other tools that insure communications between the users of the Digital Jungle like free messages within each animal sponsor group by bluetooth.

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Sit-in Rings on Google Earth ?

Thanks to the collaboration with google company dpt. in Madrid, we will launch a new digital dream in 2011. Based on the “sit-in” spirit from the 70th, you will be able to create some sit-in rings on Google Earth. We are the children of May 68. Lets occupy the digital maps on earth and make some “sit-in” in the strategic places where we should focus our attention.

This screenshot of f the prototype is showing the first sit-in ring we made in Spain in the Google Laboratories, focusing on the contamination of the mouth of the Mississippi river. We invited five experts in marine biodiversity
to participate to the sit-in ring. A earthworm memory base has been sowed at the relative geodesic coordinates.

Well, this is still a fiction ;-) !

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Galaxia Triunfo, a Universe simulator for the mass culture ?

In 2003, we wrote a proposal for a TV show called “Operación Triunfo”, a international TV concept, a singers academy where people can vote for their favorite new talent. I was very interested by the fact that we call a famous singer a “star” and wrote a creative idea, a concept of web community of users voting for their stars in a online 3D universe. But in this case, the singers were not stars but galaxies and each people voting for them, are a star in their favorite singer galaxy.

Users can vote in real time during the show and create a density of stars. All this looks a little bit “commercial” but the most interesting aspect of the project was to build a multi-realities online software based on a true universe simulator. People can connect to the web community and use their created star as a avatar and chat with others stars from the same galaxy, or move to another galaxy whenever they want. The trick is that if the users want to stop chatting they can use the online software as a classical 3D universe simulator and learn about the last theories. Through a simple TV show we virtually propel a high number of people in the online Universe simulator. A interesting idea was to create some crossing between the trajectories of different galaxies  and let people know the user profile of each others crossing their orbit, and break the duality between galaxies. 

The concept of multi-realities software is based on the use of a metaphor to build a navigable interface. Using a metaphor let us build a model based on a knowledge from physics, biology, cosmology…etc and use this as a digital architecture for whatever we want. Do you think we could connect the masses to the knowledge about the Universe ?,perhaps this type of softwares could help to do it ;-) !!

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Earthworm chatroom network

A hole is simply a frontiere, a transition between one thing and another. Each days, millions of holes open space-time travels, bridges to new dimensions in which we can experiment our existence in new ways. From all the posibilities the hole offers to us like phenomenon, we only accept to pass the frontieres without efforts, the ones we can cross without hanging and mostly without jumping in a intelectual meaning.

we are part of a spiritual acrobats generation ready to project ourselves in every void with the intention to explore it, occupy it and looking for everything from it. We believe the hole is the salvation, it is the door from which we want to continue in this world speaking with others in a new manner. We locate ourselves with the feets on the bord of whatever of it’s faces and our thinkings are the act to jump. Earthworm is a way for chatters to creates virtual holes between spaces and time in various dimensions, flowing between the hole of a needle and the hole of a tunnel generating new ways in space and time, new contextual places to let and share information.

Earthworm project is a contextual multiusers chat network based on the posibility to select or submit a picture with a hole to create a context in a chatroom. It is a single chat window where various users can discuss and generate a audio version of their text. Earthworm implements a jpg grafic in the backstage of the chat tool. The idea is that up the hole there is a intercative area where if you clic on it you will load the hypernavigation made of all the active holes or chats network. The target is to propose to people to contextualise their online discussion targeting a subject through the use of specific pictures and then invite to share and exchange informations about specific environments. It is a poetic aproach of the dimension of digital network making links between various dimensions and places generating virtualy connections between remote places on earth. When users clic on the hole the arrive to the hypernavigation network.It is a map composed by all the active chatrooms using the earthworm interface. Users can select another chat place and jump. Users can act like earthworms generating new shared contexts uploading or using the database collection. Each pictures uploaded are recorded and for free use by other users.The condition to upload is to respect a strucutre of the picture uploaded with a specific size and resolutionand the presence of a hole in the center of the picture. Our interface will distribute automaticaly up the picture. In case it doesn’t look good users will have the posibility to erase and upload their pictures as much as they want.

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Fincaloader

La propuesta consiste en proporcionar un sistema informático online de visibilidad e intercambio de información para gestores de edificios. El aspecto novedoso de la aplicación es la facilidad del diálogo y la estructuración del mismo a través de una representación de la fachada de cada edificio (fotomontaje o dibujo vectorial). Cada piso actúa como un espacio de edición de información bidireccional -buzón- (gestoría-propietario). Gracias a un sistema interactivo sencillo, cada propietario y su gestoría pueden editar en forma de bocadillo sobre la fachada virtual, una nota accesible a la comunidad de vecinos. Este sistema proporciona para ambas partes una visibilidad permanente.

Cada información en la fachada está representada por un tipo de icono concreto. Pasar encima del icono permite revelar un resumen de la información. Clicar en el icono abre el contenido relacionado debajo de la fachada. En esta parte, dispondremos una serie de paneles “widgets” según las necesidades. Por ejemplo, se puede añadir una serie de paneles extra que cubren un aspecto especifico de la comunidad como por ejemplo, el calendario anual y la gestión de la piscina o de los ascensores. En esta parte se puede desplegar tanto la información añadida en la fachada como la información en los alrededores de la fachada que no se puede mostrar aquí.

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MINOS, knowledge strings for your mobile and your computer.

Minos

Minos

Minos

Minos

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Electro Aimants

Electro-Aimants is a software showing the flux of e.mail exchange between one user and his network. Based on the metaphore of magnets and their magnetic fields, more intense is a comunication with a user, closer is the contact from the user magnet. This visualization let people see how closed they are from their contacts.

Electro-Aimants is organizing your contacts through the groups created in the agenda, a interesting tool let you create a string of contacts and create a mailing list graphically. If you are sharing information with another user, you can login to the magnet with another ID and discover your friend’s network.

A “Stats” screen let you see your relation with your network in a single view.

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Digital Marine Lab for a New Media Art Center

In 2006, we elaborated a proposal for the art center “La Laboral Centro de Arte” and proposed to design a Digital Marine Lab. We occupy the empty space of the oceans in googlemaps to build our digital laboratory. This art center is just in front of the atlantic sea and was perfect for this proposal. The ocean map is divided by a interactive grid ready to receive the digital art projects.

Each project is a underwater tower, visitors can dive in this modules of stratified informations. In the surface area, just a a preview of the project, but if you dive deeper, you will find a more complex information from the project you dive in.

Another aspect of the project was to change aspect of this lab depending from the real state of the atlantic sea, we cached the data in real time from a marine buoy and changed dynamically the visual aspect of this lab. We extended the concept of the dynamic change of the design by the real data from the ocean to the hole site of the Laboral Centro de Arte. Unfortunately we didn’t have the opportunity to finish this work, due to a misunderstanding of the project. Hope one day a art center near the sea can be interested by this proposal making a bridge between other countries and continents. Yes, the Art Center’s projects can draw a line on the sea and cross the atlantic.