Stephen E. Dinehart's IMD Blog

This is the beginnings of my idea for Peggy’s 518 class.

What is reality but a series of unfolding narratives occurring in a polyrythmic order over time? An infinite amount of stories exist at any given moment, some are starting, ending, just reaching climax, others still not even a dream. What if you were to take reality and cut a cross section of it? What would it look like?

I believe our present perception of being is actually a wave moving up the hyperstring which is our four-dimensional being. We live in a brane world, as in a membrane moving through the bulk of time.

A part(ment) is a exploration into the moment. The positions of various membranes frozen in the bulk of time will be examined. It will be a flash piece, inspired by the work of Hi-Res.

This is a further elaboration of the structure for my peice A part(ment). I view this as a chaotic system for navigation of a point in space-time. It would be impossible to map all of the occurances with-in a moment (definitons 1,2). What I seek to create is a modular mutidimensional nodal structure, which when navigated (via V/U or program) can give the ability to move betwix space-time itself. This process, is an experience only likened too jumping through a wormhole or Einstein-Rosen bridge





This jump can be minute though, not nessecarily over vast distances of space-time, from say human too human perspective or too one of micobial biofilm.

I will try to create a low-bandwidth version of my first demo of A part(ment), which I created for Peggy's 518 Class, later this after.

I choose the title for two reasons. First, when the idea hit me I was in my friends apartment so the nodal system I visualized at that moment was relative to that space-time location. Second is the pun or play on words which is implied-
ripped from dictionary.com

a·part·ment (-pärtmnt)
n.

1. A room or suite of rooms designed as a residence and generally located in a
building occupied by more than one household.

2. An apartment house: a row of high-rise apartments.

3. A room.

4. A suite of rooms within a larger building set aside for a particular purpose
or person.

5. A compartment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[French appartement, from Italian appartamento, from appartare,
to separate, from a parte, apart : a, to (from Latin ad-. See ad-) + parte, side
(from Latin pars, part-. See part).]

com·part·ment (km-pärtmnt)
n.

1. One of the parts or spaces into which an area is subdivided.


part (pärt)
n.

1. A portion, division, piece, or segment of a whole.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin pars, part-. See per-2
in Indo-European Roots.]

ment

2. Action; process: appeasement.

3. Result of an action or process: advancement.

4. Means, instrument, or agent of an action or process: adornment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin -mentum, n. suff.



other links:

Black holes
in the news

Experiental
Spatial Mapping

On the advice of my fellow students, I have posted a link to a page containing my Flash based Alpha phase concept for Apartment. I will be developing this out as a combined final project for Interacive writing 516 and for Interactive Animation 501. Please examine it and let me know what you think.
SED

Link to file

I have been having some interesting experiences as of late wandering the urban landscape of LA ripping data with my Mobile phone. Should I even call it a phone? The Nokia 3650 seems to go way beyond the traditional role of a telephone, or even a cellular phone; with it I can rip audio, video, stills and upload or e-mail them with GMS, GRMS, etc.

As I wander through life I am able to create a database of recorded experience, which I can later remix to create meaning; allowing me to build semi-factual urban narratives. I have loved so many American cities, dwelled in their bellies and called the street my own. Detroit, Chicago, LA, each are my home, I want to honor these cities and their many colors.

This vein of work seems to be becoming of great interest to me. I think mobile lifelogging combined with the story telling theories of structuralist naratology might just make for my thesis work. I will try to put up a series of installments here on the blog that document some of these urban narratives, these city symphonies.

Last night I had an interesting experience at my friend Phil Adkins show @ the Gig. His band Otis performed a great set of pop rock. I attacked the stage with my 3650. Realizing I had broke the mobile ice, a series of hand-held mobile devices popped out of the crowd and began ripping media files. I tried to glean what I could from the situation. Despite the lack of light and the high decibel level of the sound, the phone performed well. I created a one-minute video with the data I ripped, gleaned, gathered from the show.
A small QT version of the file is here (760kb)

Stay tooned for more!

I have been having some interesting experiences as of late wandering the urban landscape of LA ripping data with my Mobile phone. Should I even call it a phone? The Nokia 3650 seems to go way beyond the traditional role of a telephone, or even a cellular phone; with it I can rip audio, video, stills and upload or e-mail them with GMS, GRMS, etc.

As I wander through life I am able to create a database of recorded experience, which I can later remix to create meaning; allowing me to build semi-factual urban narratives. I have loved so many American cities, dwelled in their bellies and called the street my own. Detroit, Chicago, LA, each are my home, I want to honor these cities and their many colors.

This vein of work seems to be becoming of great interest to me. I think mobile lifelogging combined with the story telling theories of structuralist naratology might just make for my thesis work. I will try to put up a series of installments here on the blog that document some of these urban narratives, these city symphonies.

Last night I had an interesting experience at my friend Phil Adkins show @ the Gig. His band Otis performed a great set of pop rock. I attacked the stage with my 3650. Realizing I had broke the mobile ice, a series of hand-held mobile devices popped out of the crowd and began ripping media files. I tried to glean what I could from the situation. Despite the lack of light and the high decibel level of the sound, the phone performed well. I created a one-minute video with the data I ripped, gleaned, gathered from the show.
A small QT version of the file is here (760kb)

Stay tooned for more!

Update:

Sorry all that tried the link, I have fixed the problem, and it should work fine now.

From yesterday the 17th:

It's my 26th B-day and as fate would have it my bike was stolen late last eve. Boo-hoo.

On a more positive note, I had this amazing situationist experience the other day. I took the Metro over to LAX and rented a car. Wandering the city aimlessly I stumbled onto this graffiti park in east LA. There was a hispanic man there with his children, they laughed and played as their father and I spoke of the work. I created a brief montage of the data files I gleaned from the experience, it is available for viewing and download at the link below.
Semi-factual Urban Narrative July 9 2004

Update:

Sorry all that tried the link, I have fixed the problem, and it should work fine now.

From yesterday the 17th:

It's my 26th B-day and as fate would have it my bike was stolen late last eve. Boo-hoo.

On a more positive note, I had this amazing situationist experience the other day. I took the Metro over to LAX and rented a car. Wandering the city aimlessly I stumbled onto this graffiti park in east LA. There was a hispanic man there with his children, they laughed and played as their father and I spoke of the work. I created a brief montage of the data files I gleaned from the experience, it is available for viewing and download at the link below.
Semi-factual Urban Narrative July 9 2004

I believe that stories can be created from the chaos of experience. All my life I have sought to record my experience of reality as it drifts by. As a child I frantically learned to use a sketchbook and camera whenever possible, to take things down before they disappeared. With the use of mobile data gleaning devices you can make a multimedia record of your experience. This experiential diary could be used for many things; one of primary interest to me is remixing.

I believe that through remixing these fragmented files, from a life-log database, you can create narrative where it was not read previously. That is, you can use life to create emergent narratives, stories that will come forth from the natural polyrhythm of life’s chaos. I want to experiment with life-log remixing systems in three ways to create montage: linear, live (performance based), and interactive non-linear.

Below is a link to a new installment in my semi-factual urban narrative series entitled “Afternoon Train”. I pushed some social boundaries for this one. After engaging in data gleaning performances more regularly I have become used to pushing the strange social boundaries of interaction that are required to gather such data. I find that I tend to encounter one of three responses, 1) my big white phone and I are ignored, 2) laughter, 3) dirty looks. People are so passive and rigid they hardly seem to notice my mobile and me spinning around them grabbing an array of files. The only ones who I’ve really seemed to push over the edge so far are my roommates, they can’t stand that I’m always recording things. I’m really interested in seeing what kind of new sociological issues will be created out of the use of mobile devices, like the 3650.

Download file

I’ve been flying around town ripping data files, the increased sense of agency over life the activity of experiential data gathering has provided leaves me feeling, well, alive. I’m flying to Chicago in a few hours and will be sure to continue the gleaning on my journey. Now that I am actively building as LifeLog Datatbase, I wish I had begun doing so from moment one, being able to navigate through fragmented data gleaned from life experience is amazing, it puts so much into perspective. I have created a new Semi-factual LifeLog Database remix called “Flour” the link is available below. Please let me know what you think good or bad (critique is good!)

Download file

View larger file

Instructions:
Mouse press on an element and release outside to keep a drift log still, press again to put element back in drift.

Abstract:
Immersive lifelog; create a spatial representation of thought and allow lifelog entries to drift by as they are drawn from a database.

I want to swim through my gleaned media "memories", and allow serendipity to bring them to my attention, as opposed to searching a temporal or meta-data driven database for them. Different spaces could be used to address various segments of life, family, spirituality, school, sex, music, etc; each themed with a different customizable experiential skin.

12:30 PM December 4, 2005
I just had a great idea, it’s Sunday and sure I should be working on my thesis, but dammit I want to have some fun. I was on the porch sipping some café and behold I realized how beautiful my neigborhood was. Surely this would be a great chance to experience life as it occurs around my home and to use the marvelous new tools of my 6682 as they impact my work in Semi-factual Urban Database Narrative.

My tool is the Nokia 6682, my medium is life, and the expression, agency.

So off I go more when I return!

Click image below to watch my moblogged experience/creation

Sun 12/04/2005 15:58 Meditation1

2:24 PM December 4, 2005

Life is a doing, an action of many things, but each thing unto itself is meaningless, the only way to explain it is through its web of relationships to other things. I am, I do, is an illusion, we are one, and each thing but a piece of that which is beyond space and time.

We all begin in existence, once we realize that is not enough, we begin living, and it is in this state that we maybe go beyond suffering, to become truly awake, laughing with the illusion, timeless, and one with all.