a blog about philosophy and history of technology, of technique and much more

Madeline

Posted: December 25th, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: ENG, Video | Comments Off on Madeline

Madeline Gannon developed a project called Quipt – a gesture-based control software that gives industrial robots basic spatial behaviors for interacting closely with people.

Madeline the Robot (video)


Bias in Technology

Posted: September 26th, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: ENG, Video | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on Bias in Technology


The picture problem

Posted: September 3rd, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: ENG, Video | Comments Off on The picture problem

How do pictures affect our vision? A nice way to answer the question was given by Malcom Gladwell in his article “The Picture Problem”: the problem is what you see in the picture, what information you have to make sense out of it. Basic problem is that when you mount a “a four-million-dollar camera” on a plane, the picture is “nearly perfect, and there are few cultural reflexes more deeply ingrained than the idea that a picture has the weight of truth.”
Therefore the “human task of interpretation is often a bigger obstacle than the technical task of picture-taking.”
A great exemplification of this problem is the work of the Photographer Tomas van Houtryve. In order to show the perception problem he flips the vision, challenging our assumptions about what we’re really looking at.
As many technology create new ways of watching, they create new posibilities for perception, but they do not really change human assumptions.
Enjoy his video of the project Blue Sky Days: https://vimeo.com/128202299


Seconda Natura

Posted: August 5th, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: ITA, Video | Comments Off on Seconda Natura

All’incontrario, all’indietro o in negativo. Le immagini di “By night with torch and spear” di Joseph Cornell sono una piccola sfida surrealista.
Fiumi di metallo liquido scorrono verso la siviera da cui dovrebbero partire. Scintille si avviluppano ritornando in se stesse, fuochi che si estinguono, enormi caldaie ripiene di metallo fuso che scintillano come razzi e partono leggeri verso l’alto come mongolfiere, campane ciondolanti da cui non si versa una goccia.
Un giro di basso e chitarra.
Il negativo, letteralmente come visivamente, sono i suonatori di strumenti mai sentiti, bachi di bruchi mai visti, danze di cui non sappiamo nulla. La seconda parte forse è la prima capovolta, a colori invertiti.
Negativo forse perché a molti risulta ormai più famigliare la nostra seconda natura, la natura tecnica. Anche se all’incontrario, coi colori mutati o all’indietro le prime immagini, quelle della fonderia, ci risultano più familiari e forse proprio per questo le seconde ci risultano velate di magia.