Pantheon - Different View

I've been trying to figure out how to communicate to those people who may not be familiar with the Pantheon, or its interior: the nature of the space... its proportions and configuration, and then also the path that people took while inside of it.  

 Here's a quick sketch of what I'm thinking:

Work continues on the maps of the gps traces and sketches for the thesis.  I'm hoping to defend in mid-June. 

G

Pantheon and Surroundings

Finally making progress on the maps of the Pantheon as well as the other churches of Rome again, after getting the copy of the Nolli Map from the Vatican Archives scanned at 1200dpi (I'll post link to download the full-size high-res Nolli map when I get around to it).   Here's where I'm at:

-g

Borges - To the Son

It was not I who begot you.  It was the dead -- 
my father, and his father, and their forebears, 
all those who through a labyrinth of loves
descend from Adam and the desert wastes
of Cain and Abel, in a dawn so ancient
it has become mythology by now, 
to arrive, blood and marrow, at this day
in the future, in which I now beget you. 
I feel their multitudes.  They are who we are, 
and you among us, you and the sons to come 
that you will beget.  The latest in the line
and in red Adam’s line.  I too am those others. 
Eternity is present in the things
of time and its imaptient happenings. 

-AR.  Borges. To the Son.

Britain from Above

Via BBC



"Satellite technology reveals how the network of city streets is being pushed to the edge of capacity. Watch the GPS traces of 380 London taxis over the course of a single day."



"On a typical day, over 400 ships pass through the straits off Dover. This visualisation shows 24 hours worth of shipping recorded as it passes through the Channel."



"Every day, more than 7,500 aircraft crowd into Britain's skies"



"Activity of British Telephone System over the course of one day."

Geno 2.0 - DNA testing

In order to understand the story my genes tell about my ancient ancestors: where they lived and when, I am participating in the Genographic Project.  While the rhetoric of the Genographic Project is hubristic and trite, the actual science behind it, as well as the implications of the data base as a whole is interesting and important.

 I am sending in my DNA samples tomorrow (from cheek swabs mailed to me) to the lab to be analysed.  Fingers crossed everything goes well... and I have the results soon.

-g

Smart Geometry

Description:

This simulation is merging 3 things together : tangible table interface, video mapping, and particle system mimicking pedestrian flow. It's purpose is to help with quick assesment of the quality of space for pedestrian movement. This tool allows to use direct manipulation of physical objects in informing real-time simulation, thus visualising the impact of changes immediately. It might simply help to assess natural tendencies in movement of people through space, and to finetune the layout of buildings to allow spontaneous flow. Currently a prototype, still under development.. similar techniques will be used during Smart Geometry 2011 conference in 'Interacting with Cities' cluster. more info on smartgeometry.org Software : openFrameworks, Windows XP Hardware : Kinect sensor, table, DLP projector, laptop

From:

http://smartgeometry.org/index.php?option=com_community&view=videos&task=video&groupid=7&videoid=2&Itemid=0

Ant Colony Castings

Pretty  Cool:



Thanks to my brother for the link.

Geoff

*Update: Here are some more....





Reminds me of the Catacombs of Domitilla (see old post: http://blog.geoffchristou.com/2012/06/m1-8-catacombs-of-domitilla.html)

-g

Concectome Project

 "Human Connectome Project" maps in very high resolution connections within the human brain.

http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/

via http://singularityhub.com/2012/08/16/scan-reveals-brains-structure-to-be-much-simpler-than-we-thought/

-g

M1 - 4 - planb

planb (A collaboration between artists, Sophia New and Daniel Belasco Rogers) is engaged in performance work, durational work, participatory projects, locative media and audio projects and have exhibited  pieces in galleries across Europe. 

GPS track through Berlin and countryside. (source: planb)

Zoomed in on GPS track through Berlin. (source: planb)

GPS track through Berlin. (source: planb)

“Our work is site-specific and relationship-specific. Two faces of the same coin. We either explore the nuances of our own relationship or our relationship to a location or both - a kind of looking inward and outward at the same time.” -planb

I took their work as my case study and will present one of their projects here, as well as images from another. 

The project Monday Walks, took place from June 24th to the 27th, 2010 in Leipzig and was "inspired by the demonstrations that took place in Leipzig leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and beyond, the so-called Montagsdemonstrationen (Monday Demonstrations).” -planb 

The Monday Walks consisted of two parts:

1.) “a GPS animation of recreations of the journeys people took to the demonstrations in 1989. Students from the University of Leipzig interviewed people from Leipzig who had taken part in the demonstrations, and then the students reconstructed their journeys, following the specific path taken by the demonstrators. These reconstructions were recorded on GPS’s, and the journeys were then visualized”

2.) “a walk re-tracing part of the Monday Demonstrations, finishing where many of the demonstrations ended, at the Stasi headquarters, the Runde Ecke. The walk was developed in collaboration with the students and it featured original sound material from the actual time, interviews with Leipzigers who took part in the demonstrations, and some live interventions into the space and social fabric of the city”

Students were asked to interview a Leipziger who had taken part in the Monday Demonstrations in 1989, in order to reconstruct the route they took to the protest.  Their responses are documented were document a blog for any interested persons to reference:

I have taken the route of Niels Adam. Now 39, lives in Jena and operates a cinema...Many things he remembered no more, and only came with telling details, such as how he has mastered the way home without a tram. 

-Posted by tim at 02/06/2010 11:29:00 PM and translated from German.

The combination of collecting anecdotal qualitative evidence, a physical re-walking of a historical reconstructed route, and the recording of these re-walkings with GPS provides a very compelling method for documenting the path which historical events took through space, “uncovering  realities  previously unseen or unimagined, even across seemingly exhausted grounds” (James Corner. Agency of Mapping)  

x

On Sacrosanctity

Machiavelli on reading:

When evening comes, I return home and go to my study. On the threshold, I strip naked, taking off my muddy, sweaty work day clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and, in this graver dress, I enter the courts of the ancients, and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world

via