Tuesday, AUG. 26th - Outline the tools and goals. What are the sensors we need an how do we get them to work?
Thursday AUG. 28th - Gabe will show botanical twitter demo.

FALL 2008: CEMA LAB: ENVIROCASTING
Environmental Sensing and Broadcasting

Deliverable: Both groups will present strong beta testing projects by the start of the interim semester.

PRECEDENTS

-Botanical Twitter

SOFTWARE/HARDWARE/WETWARE
-Arduino
-Daily Dump
-Processing

WHAT?

This project is about the relationship between information technology and the natural environment. How does the proliferation of sensor networks and ubiquitous computing in the built environment change the dynamics or create novel interactions between human and non-human actors?

WHY?

We live in a world of radical urbanization. The majority of humans live in cities. densely populated built environments have the potential to separate humans from the ambient environmental cues and awareness of the eco-system services which sustain life on the planet.

Alienation from the flows and cues of environmental patterns has an effect on human consciousness and decision making. This project is an attempt to use the explosion in urban computing to reconnect citizens with the natural processes, cues and patterns that provide the material (and often spiritual) sustenance for human life on spaceship earth.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

What is the current relationship between urban human and ecosystem services? Where are they strong and where are they non-existant?

Given that humans have a threshold to the amount of information that they can process and retain what current elements of the information environment will or should be displaced by the new information we are creating?

How do you allow a non-human actor to speak for itself with humans?

DATES:

READINGS & RESOURCES
Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing by Adam Greefield
Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling
Telematic Embrace by Roy Ascott
Making things Talk by Tom Igoe
Tactical Biopolitics by Kavita Philip and Beatriz de Costa
Digital Ground by Malcolm McCullough