Author: Ollie Palmer

Nybble

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Nybble

About

In 1984, philosopher John Searle asserted that there can be no such thing as “hard” artificial intelligence through the now-famous Chinese Room argument. Searle asked whether a non-Chinese speaker, locked in a room with nothing but a book with instructions for translating one Chinese symbol into another – and given the task of translating Chinese symbols passed to him on slips of paper – could ever truly learn Chinese.

The answer, according to Searle, is “no”. There is no difference between the process that the person in the Chinese room is following (i.e. manipulating symbols according to a pre-fixed routine) and the information transfer in computer systems. Thus, Searle argues, if the man in the Chinese room could never learn the meaning of the symbols he is changing, no computer could truly learn the meaning of the symbols it is manipulating, and thus, there can be no “hard” artificial intelligence.
More about the Chinese Room

This installation is a diagram of Searle’s argument; a human-computer, comprised of four dancers and an unseen controller, parse a coded message. Only the public, who are given code-sheets, can read the message over the course of a 45-minute dance. In computing terms a “Nybble” is half a byte of information – that is, four bits (or dancers).

The Nybble codebase

Process

More information about the development of this project can be found in Chapter 2 of my PhD thesis.

Public performance

Nybble was commissioned for the V&A Museum’s Digital Design Weekend 2013, part of London Design Festival. It was funded by Design With Heritage, an AHRC Creative Economies Project between the V&A Museum and University College London.

Credits

Project

Production

Costume Design

  • Magdalena Gustafsson

Dancers

  • Anastassia Bezerko
  • Maria Fonseca
  • Raimu Itfum
  • Olamide James
  • Alexandra Katana
  • Roberto Leo
  • Monica Nicolaides
  • Ughetta Pratesi
  • Prisca Pugnetti
  • Rudi Salpietra
  • Kathryn Spence

Casting

  • Andrea Mongenie

Photography

Thanks

  • Amy Thomas
  • The staff at the V&A Museum

More

Nybble at the V&A Museum

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This weekend (20-21 September 2013) the garden of V&A Museum will be transformed into a large computing device by Ollie Palmer – and a troupe of “human-computers”.

In 1948 Alan Turing designed the first chess computer programme.

The only problem was that he didn’t have a computer to play it on.

He wrote all of the instructions onto pieces of paper, and played a game of chess as if he were the computer himself. Each move took over half an hour. What’s more, his human-powered computer programme didn’t win the game.

Nybble takes Turing’s human computer and combines it with a sense of theatricality in an immersive architectural-scale installation. Four performers, each representing a different part of a computing CPU, will be parsing a message into the V&A’s John Madjeski Garden. The display is playful, silly and fun – and possibly the most analogue computer to have graced the V&A’s Digital Design Weekend.

Nybble_tests

Where

John Madjeski Garden, V&A Museum
21-22 September 2013
12.00, 14.00 and 16.00 daily (performances last 45 minutes)
Admission free

Part of the V&A Digital Design Weekend.

Funded by Design with Heritage, an AHRC Creative Economy Knowledge Exchange between V&A and UCL. www.designwithheritage.org

Moai

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One of my favourite items in the British Museum is the Moai. It is in the Living and Dying room.

Moai in British museum. Photo from Bytes Daily.

I spent a few days on Easter Island in 2005. It’s a funny place – technically part of Chile, and about half the size of the Isle of Wight, and formed from three volcanoes. It’s the most remote island in the world. Most of the three thousand residents live in the town. There are wild horses.

Moai, Easter Island

Moai on the east coast of Easter Island. Photo by Ollie Palmer.

Easter Islands’ stone heads were carved by tribes who lived on opposite sides of the island: the Hanau epe (Long Ears) and the Hanau momoko (Short Ears). Both wanted more heads to prove how much better they were than the other tribe. The construction of the heads led to the deforestation of the island, and used so much of its resources that there was widespread famine, and a huge population loss. It is an example of how an entire culture can lose perspective.

The moai in the British Museum is from the Short Ears side of the island. It would have originally been painted red. It is called Hakananai’a, which translates as ‘Stolen or Hidden Friend’.

My favourite part of the statue is not the fond memories it evokes, but the plinth it stands on. Over the years so many people thought it would be hilarious to touch the sign that says ‘Please do not touch’ that, although it has since been removed, its outline is preserved in greasy fingerprints. It’s like a footpath which emerges on a patch of grass; but this time from lots of people doing the same joke.

“Please do not touch”

Further reading:
– The BBC’s History of the World in 100 Objects
– The Cult of the Birdman, the religion that developed following the famine
– Easter Island Statues

CRM-114

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Consumer Response Mechanism v1.14

About

The Algorithmic Surveillance Systems CRM v1.14 is one of a suite of web-enabled cameras which enable consumer recognition, data capture, metadata analysis and profiling, all without the users’ knowledge.

The friendly, playful and anthropomorphic nature of the CCTV camera ensures that consumers engage with the product without realising that by being in the cameras’ range, they are giving away identifiable and saleable biometric data.

Public exhibition

CRM v1.14 was on public display as part of Virtual Control: Security and the Urban Imagination at Practice Space gallery in the Royal Institute of British Architects from July 9 until September 27, 2015. The solo exhibition by Max Colson explores the spatial and political implications of privatisation of public space.

RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD map
Open 10.00 – 17.00 Monday-Sunday. Tuesdays open until 20.00.
Free entry.
Exhibition website

In addition, you can follow the machine’s twitter feed at @algorithmic_ss or the Algorithmic Surveillance Systems website.

Talk with Natalie Jeremijenko and Kasia Molga

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I am privileged to be giving a talk with Natalie Jeremijenko and my friend Kasia Molga tomorrow evening at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston. Please do come if you’re in town!

Here is the press release:

Sky, ants and talking to plants

Invisible Dust invites you to a presentation by New York experimenter, environmental engineer and artist Natalie Jeremijenko together with the ‘Ant Ballet’ artist and designer Ollie Palmer discussing with Invisible dust host and artist Kasia Molga how technology is being driven by artists to explore, conserve and relate to our environment.

Speaker Profile:

Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. She was recently named one of the 40 most influential designers by I.D. Magazine and listed in Fast Company’s most influential women in technology. Jeremijenko is the director of the environmental health clinic and associate professor at New York University.

Ollie Palmer is a designer and artist. He is a collaborator with Open H2O and Protei (open source projects developing oceanic technologies) and a tutor in the Interactive Architecture Workshop at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL.

Host:

Kasia Molga is a media artist who explores changes in our perception and relationship with the planet in the increasingly technologically mediated world. She deals with real time environment and data visualisation – where the data becomes a pretext, motor and platform behind the work. Kasia Molga is one of the artists working on a research proposal for Invisible Heat, Invisible Dust’s new project about climate change and health.

6.30-8.30pm Tuesday 4th June 2013
Arcola Theatre ,
 24 Ashwin St, Dalston, London – E8 3DL.
Train: Dalston Junction overland station.
Tickets: £5 / cons £3

Plexus talk

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I gave a talk about Ant Ballet at the Bartlett School of Architecture‘s Plexus lecture series.

The entire event was recorded and is available here:

There was an excellent line-up of people who also presented, including:
– Manja Van de Worp
– Vera-Maria Glahn, director of field.io
– Memo Akten – who is one of the best people on Twitter – gave a hilarious, thought-providing talk and run-through of his work to date

Plus the Bartlett’s very own Mollie Claypool as a special guest.

Thank you to Jose Sanchez for the invitation!

Tracing Mobility Symposium

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I will be presenting Open_Sailing at the Tracing Mobility Symposium, held at Nottingham Contemporary on 15 May 2010. There is a very interesting line-up, inclusing:

  • Frank Abbott (UK)
  • Active Ingredient [Rachel Jacobs] (UK)
  • Robin Bhattacharya (UK/CH)
  • Heath Bunting (UK)
  • Simon Faithfull (UK/DE)
  • James Kennard (UK)
  • plan b [Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers] (UK/DE)
  • Katarzyna Krakowiak (PL)
  • Krzysztof Nawratek (PL/UK)
  • Kate Rich (UK)
  • Michelle Teran (CA/DE)
  • Open_Sailing (Ollie Palmer) (UK)
  • Gordan Savicic (AT/NL)
  • Trebor Scholz (US); B
  • Basak Senova (TR)
  • Société Réaliste (HU/FR)
  • Joanna Warsza (PL)
  • Mushon Zer-Aviv (IL/US)

The entire symposium details are available on the Nottingham Contemporary and the Tracing Mobolity websites.