datascapesdartmouth

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“The Analysis of Beauty” is a book, self-published by the artist William Hogarth in 1753, in which Hogarth put forward his ideas about the aesthetics and symbolism of the sinusoidal, s-shaped, waving, snake-like, and (as Hogarth put it) “Serpentine Line”. Serpentine Lines are produced in “The Analysis of Beauty” tribute installation - by art project Disinformation - in the form of musical sine-waves, created using audio frequency outputs from laboratory oscillators, which are displayed on the screen of a laboratory oscilloscope. These signals manifest as a slowly rotating rope-like pattern of phosphorescent green lines, (subjectively but strongly) reminiscent of DNA. After watching the pattern for a little while, it’s easy to persuade these lines to fuse into a what appears to be a solid object, and, in practical terms, the best challenge viewers can set themselves is to decide which direction that object appears to be rotating in? Sometimes the form appears to be flat, sometimes three-dimensional. Sometimes it rotates to the left, sometimes to the right. The direction changes spontaneously… blinking, tilting your head, even thinking about the object in a different way can induce changes in the apparent direction of rotation. None of these changes take place on-screen. All these changes take place inside your own mind. “The Analysis of Beauty” installation provokes the mind into creating illusions of three-dimensional form, despite the absence of all the object-precedence, motion-parallax, stereoscopic-binocular and geometric (vanishing-point) and aerial perspective cues traditionally thought to enable perception of visual space. As such the installation also relates to themes explored in Hogarth’s “Satire on False Perspective”. In addition, the method used to create “The Analysis of Beauty” exhibit strongly resembles imagery described in “The Sound Sweep” by J.G. Ballard (the “cathode tube” referred to here by J.G. Ballard is an oscilloscope, and the “tone generator” is a laboratory oscillator)… “He twirled the ultrasonic trumpet he was playing, a tangle of stops and valves from which half a dozen leads trailed off across the cushions to a cathode tube and tone generator at the other end of the sofa. Mangon sat down quietly and Merrill clamped the mouthpiece to his lips. Watching the ray tube intently, where he could check the shape of the ultrasonic notes, he launched into a brisk allegretto sequence, then quickened and flicked out a series of brilliant arpeggios, stripping off high P and Q notes that danced across the cathode screen like frantic eels, fantastic glissandos that raced up twenty octaves in as many seconds, each note distinct and symmetrically exact, tripping off the tone generator in turn so that escalators of electronic chords interweaved the original scale, a multichannel melodic stream that crowded the cathode screen with exquisite, flickering patterns. The whole thing was inaudible, but the air around Mangon felt vibrant and accelerated, charged with gaiety and sparkle, and he applauded generously when Merrill threw off a final dashing riff… In his four years there his output of original ultrasonic music consisted of little more than one nearly finished symphony aptly titled Opus Zero.” J.G. Ballard http://rorschachaudio.com/2015/08/05/... http://rorschachaudio.com/2014/11/04/... "A living thing is not matter..." but a "vortex through which matter passes" - William Bateson

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The Voyager Golden Record contains 115 images plus a calibration image and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. The record additionally features musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in fifty-nine languages,[1][2] and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. The items were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University.

After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included.[3]

Here is an excerpt of President Carter's official statement placed on the Voyager spacecraft for its trip outside the Solar System, June 16, 1977:

We cast this message into the cosmos ... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some – perhaps many – may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe.[4]

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"Music of the Spheres" – Johannes Kepler's "Harmonices Mundi" realized by Laurie Spiegel

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Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask (28 June 1928 – 29 March 1996) was an English author, inventor, educational theorist, cybernetician and psychologist who made significant contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and educational technology. Pask first learned about Cybernetics in early 1950s when the originator of the topic, Norbert Wiener was speaking at Cambridge University where Pask was an undergraduate student, and was asked to support Wiener during his talk.[1]

Holding three PhD degrees, Pask published more than 250 journal articles, books, patents and technical reports from funding from United States Armed Forces, the British Ministry of Defense, the British Home Office and the British Road Research Laboratory.[2] He taught at the University of Illinois, Old Dominion University, Concordia University, Open University, University of New Mexico, Architectural Association School of Architecture and MIT

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nosvTGd5jx4)

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'Informs viewer of the experimental advances in audiovisual communications techniques Bell Telephone Laboratories' researchers are experimenting with: computer graphics, synthesized speech, computer-made movies and music, and designing prototypical devices. 20:27:20:29 CU man working on... computer screen tracing line with digital pen over graph on screen, sheet music above graph, audio track jumbled notes corresponding to music written on computer screen. 20:27:39:28 man holds pen to digital draught table tracing lines that appear on black computer screen in green. 20:27:44:21 CU typewriter typing random letters on page, camera pan out to man who says "nice", computer in robotic voice repeats over and over again word "nice"; CU black computer screen producing line in steps corresponding to intonation of computer's pronunciation of word "nice." 20:28:02:27 Two design engineers working on Graphic-1 computer; CU disembodied engineer's hand presses pen to round scope touch-screen, drawing points on screen; men draw circuits directly on cathode ray tube screen; computer screen flashes "Data Incomplete On Amplifier." 20:30:22:03 CU red tinted shot of disembodied finger presses button labeled "Execute;" CU two rows of blinking yellow lights; flashing graph on computer screen. 20:30:34:23 CU disembodied hands, on holding red pencil, the other strip of film; man with large moustache looks at strip of film and asks man at chalkboard holding piece of chalk questions; men are discussing idea for early digital movie. 20:31:37:17 Great footage from early Beflicks (Bell Laboratories Flicks) digital movie. 20:31:51:09 Man gives projectionist reels for Beflicks movie; VS man loads film reel in projector, focuses lens; CU disembodied hand punches buttons, each only momentarily in focus as it is punched, fingers press rewind then play button; CU film on projector begins to wind. Excerpted footage from Beflicks films, graphic in first frame has text which reads "The language speaks of pictures as mosaic;" great footage from... digital movie, abstract moving images and letters, text "Man and...His world; Terre des Hommes; El Hombre Y Su Mundo; Der Mensch und Seine Welt" in abstract moving patters, highly pixilated material. 20:33:28:22 CU filmmaker with moustache talks about his dreams of making digital movies; great sound bites "I'll be able to sit some place, maybe in a railroad station and write a movie, or maybe even pick up a telephone eventually and write a movie." 20:33:25:07 Simple graphic of rotating sphere with suitcase-like object in its orbit, clock in top right corner of frame. 20:34:50:14 Man and woman seated behind project at table, man presses button on table turning off the lights, then turns on the movie projector; great footage of op-art film with man perceptual effects. 20:35:37:04 CU black and white page filled with small strange combination of simple symbols including: swastika, car, building, American flag, star of David... 20:36:06:21 Great shot sifting through sheets of punched cards producing electronic music, row of flashing buttons on bottom of machine; CU man using pen to write directly on cathode ray tube monitor to program music; standard music notation on top of screen and geometric shaped graphed in center of screen; man does demonstration for another man on... electronic music computer, computer plays music and sings with robotic voice "Daisy Daisy give me your answer true, I'm half crazy all for the love of you.." 20:37:33:24 CU spinning film reel; CU digital produced graph of sound wave of sound on audio track; great shot two men wearing black framed glasses sitting behind reels of film. 20:38:44:27 Great shot of plaster model of head in profile with open mouth, camera pan around model which is split in two and looks into exposed internal portion of model of human head; CU two spinning red reels of film; audio track robot voice speaks Shakespeare quote "To be or not to be, that is the question..."; CU rows of blinking "Op Code" lights; CU disembodied hand writes with chalk on blackboard various consonant letters of alphabet; woman brings man writing on blackboard cup of coffee; man writes on blackboard in chalk "I like my coffee black" and underlines word "black", CU disembodied woman's hand types on typewriter; woman flips switch on control board of switches, audio track monotone robot voice says line "I like my coffee black." 20:41:06:05 CU man looks at film on reel.' Public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archive, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

[datascapesdartmouth]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7h0ppnUQhE)

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbV7loKp69s)

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eMSPtm6u5Y)

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An IBM promotional video from the late sixties. IBM 2250 graphical terminals connected to a System/360 mainframe, being used in airplane design.

John Whitney Sr’s first encounter with Dr Jack Citron, a physicist and researcher at IBM Los Angeles, in 1965, led to Whitney’s historic fellowship with the computer corporation between 1966-9. For Whitney, the IBM research grant was the ‘major change’ in his creative life: not only did it include ‘a modest annual income’, but it also gave him access to the latest, most advanced generation of mainframe computers – the IBM System/360 – with which to pursue his realisation of an integrated audio-visual motion graphics.[i] The computer architecture of the System/360 was innovative on its release in 1964: it was designed to be tailored to different kinds and scales of use, allowing customers to add to or ‘upgrade’ whilst preserving integration of components and programs through the same operating system, OS/360. IBM offered a range of different processors, giving unprecedented increases in speed courtesy of its own ‘microminiaturised’ Solid Logic Technology; storage capacity was claimed to be ‘virtually unlimited’ (from a few kilobytes on the model 20 to several megabytes in the later model 95 used by NASA for Apollo 11); and all components had built-in remote operations capability via a range of peripheral devices and interfaces – including the 2250 Display Unit featured in the IBM promotional film, Frontiers in Computer Graphics (1967).[ii]

#QUANTUM

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Fractals

Julius Horsthuis (Amsterdam, 1980) is a Visual Effects designer and Fractal artist.

Julius developed a love for film and video at the age of 12. After high school, he started working on various film sets as sound recordist, clapper loader and focus puller in the years 2000 to 2006. Baantjer (2000-2003), Flirt (van Eyck, 2005) Koppels (2006). He also finished a one year video study in the Open Studio (2003) Meanwhile, Julius had developed interest in computer graphics. He worked for several years for different (post) production companies, Revolver (2004-2005) Carbon (2006-2010) and Hectic Electric (2010-present). Years of experience on the movie set proved invaluable, for Hectic Electric worked intensively on the VFX of many big films, such as “De Storm” (Sombogaart, 2009). At Hectic, Julius worked on several films, such as “Sonny Boy”  (Peters, 2011) and “Nova Zembla” (Oerlemans, 2011) He took creative supervision on what was the most VFX-heavy film in the Netherlands: “Koning van Katoren” (Sombogaart, 2012) Upon its release, the critics specifically praised the Visual Effects in the film; something that is unfortunately not often the case in the Netherlands. The movie also won the VNAP VFX award for best VFX in a Dutch film. In 2014, Julius started experimenting with Fractal Environments. As a Fractal Artist, he's created Fractal short films, and Immersive Experiences, which have been exhibited in galleries and film festivals around the world, such as the IX symposium in the Satosphere, Montreal, the Cineglobe festival in CERN and the Vienna Independent Shorts festival. Also, Julius' slow moving Fractal cinemagraphs can be admired aboard luxury Cruise ship Viking Star on a large LED wall in the main Atrium. Online, Julius' fractal art has been covered by international blogs such as The Creators Project, Motionographer, and CGChannel. His experimental Virtual Reality experiences featured on the Oculus Rift website upon release, and became some of the best rated VR-experiences on the site.

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The Engineers Julius Horthuis

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James Leroy Acord (19 October 1944 – 9 January 2011) was an artist who worked directly with radioactive materials. He attempted to create sculpture and events that probed the history of nuclear engineering and asked questions about the long-term storage of nuclear waste. For 15 years he lived in Richland, Washington, the dormitory town for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, at one time home to nine nuclear reactors and five plutonium-processing complexes and the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States. His major ambition while there was to build a "nuclear Stonehenge" on a heavily contaminated area of land in the site, incorporating twelve uranium breeder-blanket assemblies.

Acord was the only private individual in the world licensed to own and handle radioactive materials, and acquired nuclear fuel rods containing depleted uranium from the completed but not operated German SNR-300 breeder reactor to use as artistic materials.[1] He had his nuclear license number tattooed onto his neck.[2] He spoke on art and nuclear science at both art[3] and nuclear industry events in the US and the UK and organised many forums that brought together artists, activists and nuclear industry experts.

He was profiled by Philip Schuyler for The New Yorker [4][5][6] in 1991, and was the inspiration for the character of Reever in The Book of Ash [7] by James Flint.

From 1998 to 1999 he was Artist in Residence at Imperial College London, a residency set up by arts commissioning organisation The Arts Catalyst, and funded by Arts Council England and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

He committed suicide in Seattle on January 9, 2011 [8] at the age of 66

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Chaos All the Way Down is the most recent component of The Theater of Pattern Formation, an acoustic and visual ecology of sound- and form-generating processes that explores large networks of interacting dynamical systems. Coupled chaotic processes produce sound elements, melodic structure, and even spatialization of the sometimes cooperative, sometimes highly antagonistic voices. The visual elements, strange attractors, respond and feed back their own behaviors to the sound ecology. It lives as an autonomous network that evolves, interacts, flourishes, and collapses; a dynamic metaphor for our times. See http://artscilab.com/.

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A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. It is also known as expanding symmetry or evolving symmetry. If the replication is exactly the same at every scale, it is called a self-similar pattern. An example of this is the Menger Sponge.[1] Fractals can also be nearly the same at different levels. This latter pattern is illustrated in the magnifications of the Mandelbrot set.Fractals also include the idea of a detailed pattern that repeats itself.

Fractals are different from other geometric figures because of the way in which they scale. Doubling the edge lengths of a polygon multiplies its area by four, which is two (the ratio of the new to the old side length) raised to the power of two (the dimension of the space the polygon resides in). Likewise, if the radius of a sphere is doubled, its volume scales by eight, which is two (the ratio of the new to the old radius) to the power of three (the dimension that the sphere resides in). But if a fractal's one-dimensional lengths are all doubled, the spatial content of the fractal scales by a power that is not necessarily an integer.[2] This power is called the fractal dimension of the fractal, and it usually exceeds the fractal's topological dimension.

As mathematical equations, fractals are usually nowhere differentiable. An infinite fractal curve can be conceived of as winding through space differently from an ordinary line, still being a 1-dimensional line yet having a fractal dimension indicating it also resembles a surface.

Sierpinski carpet

(to level 6), a two-dimensional fractal

The mathematical roots of the idea of fractals have been traced throughout the years as a formal path of published works, starting in the 17th century with notions of recursion, then moving through increasingly rigorous mathematical treatment of the concept to the study of continuous but not differentiable functions in the 19th century, and on to the coining of the word fractal in the 20th century with a subsequent burgeoning of interest in fractals and computer-based modelling in the 20th century.[9][10] The term "fractal" was first used by mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975. Mandelbrot based it on the Latin frāctus meaning "broken" or "fractured", and used it to extend the concept of theoretical fractional dimensions to geometric patterns in nature.

There is some disagreement amongst authorities about how the concept of a fractal should be formally defined. Mandelbrot himself summarized it as "beautiful, damn hard, increasingly useful. That's fractals. The general consensus is that theoretical fractals are infinitely self-similar, iterated, and detailed mathematical constructs having fractal dimensions, of which many examples have been formulated and studied in great depth.Fractals are not limited to geometric patterns, but can also describe processes in time.Fractal patterns with various degrees of self-similarity have been rendered or studied in images, structures and sounds and found in nature, technology,art, and law.

Benoit B.Mandelbrot  (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born, French and American mathematician. He is recognized for his contribution to the field of fractal geometry, which included coining the word "fractal" as well as for developing a "theory of roughness" and "self-similarity" in nature. He later discovered the Mandelbrot set of intricate, never-ending fractal shapes, named in his honor.

In 1936, while he was a child, Mandelbrot's family migrated to France. After World War II ended, Mandelbrot studied mathematics, graduating from universities in Paris and the United States and receiving a master's degree in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology. He spent most of his career in both the United States and France, having dual French and American citizenship. In 1958, he began a 35-year career at IBM, where he became an IBM Fellow.

Because of his access to IBM's computers, Mandelbrot was one of the first to use computer graphics to create and display fractal geometric images, leading to his discovering the Mandelbrot set in 1979. By doing so, he was able to show how visual complexity can be created from simple rules. He said that things typically considered to be "rough", a "mess" or "chaotic", like clouds or shorelines, actually had a "degree of order".[7] He later discovered the Mandelbrot set of intricate, never-ending fractal shapes, named in his honor. His research career included contributions to such fields as geology, medicine, cosmology, engineering and the social sciences.

Toward the end of his career, he was Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University, where he was the oldest professor in Yale's history to receive tenure. Mandelbrot also held positions at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Université Lille Nord de France, Institute for Advanced Study and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. During his career, he received over 15 honorary doctorates and served on many science journals, along with winning numerous awards. His autobiography, The Fractalist, was published in 2012.

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The Mandelbrot set is the set of complex numbers c for which the function f(z)=z²+c does not diverge when iterated, i.e., for which the sequence f(0), f(f(0)), etc., remains bounded.

The set is closely related to Julia sets (which produce similarly complex shapes). Its definition and its name is the work of Adrien Douady, in tribute to the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot.[1]

Mandelbrot set images are made by sampling complex numbers and determining for each whether the result tends towards infinity when a particular mathematical operation is iterated on it. Treating the real and imaginary parts of each number as image coordinates, pixels are colored according to how rapidly the sequence diverges, if at all.

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