Cause and effect

I’ve been commissioned by Andre de Jong at the artist-led space VINYL to produce a piece of work for this Autumn, the set-up being that I’ve been paired with artist Nita Newman and Andre’s leaving us to riff off each other and see what happens.

A while ago Nita and I went for a stroll around Digbeth looking for inspiration. We explored a few different spaces and ideas, but we kept coming back to the Duddeston viaduct: 355 yards of futile endeavour.

Duddeston viaduct

… originally built to connect the GWR‘s B&OJR line to the LNWR‘s Curzon Street station. As stated elsewhere, the GWR fell victim to the LNWR’s politicking which meant that whilst the LNWR stopped the GWR gaining access to their station, the LNWR still demanded the viaduct be built even though they knew it would never be used.warwickshirerailways.com

Nita’s developing a site specific audio composition (call for participants currently on her website at http://nitanewman.wordpress.com/news/), so I’m taking my cues as being the following:

• effort
• journeying
• separation
• railways and engineering

I have some proto ideas that I’m investigating for feasibility since they’ll involve some data-streaming from a moving bicycle.

In the meantime I’ve also been doing some exploring of old railway lines and cunning mechanisms.

Initial results from the Chin Up Chapeau

Having made a hat to measure my posture as I walk around different parts of the city, I’ve spent the last few days testing it and getting a feel for what sort of results it produces.

Diagram showing position, direction I'm facing and the angle of my head. Click for a much larger version...

Pretty much exactly as I was expecting really, which is probably a good reason to avoid drawing any sweeping conclusions from it – at least until I’ve got to the stage where I collect data without being aware that I’m doing so…

On the plus side, it does reveal lots of unexpected things – posing yet more questions in the process – and that, I believe, is the sign of a good tool!

For these renderings, green represents a neutral head position, with the pointer getting redder as my gaze is lowered. Here are some noticings:

The lower, horizontal section shows me walking along a fairly busy road: eyes front, head direction and angle reasonably constant. The upper section is along a footpath next to a river: my interest is drawn in all sorts of directions and this is shown by the inconsistency in pointer direction and colour

Close-up of a high interest area - head angle changes a lot, as does the direction I'm facing

Head angle decreases slowly as I approach the High Street, but returns to a neutral position a lot quicker as I leave it behind me

High Street Mode gets switched off as soon as I go into the Post Office, on another day it fades slowly as I walk away.

It’s becoming apparent that I need to include some sort of calibration so that I can more reasonably compare tracks from different walks. Currently, differences in how I’m wearing the hat are too easily read as differences in head angle when I put all the traces on the same diagram.

I’ve also expanded the arduino code so that I log date, time, latitude, longitude, altitude, course, speed, bearing, pitch and roll. I think there are some very interesting potential correlations to investigate (for example: when my head angle decreases, do I also walk faster?) and, whilst I may not be investigating them right now, I want to make sure I’ve got the data when I do!

Introducing the Chin Up Chapeau

[or the Shin Up Shapeau. Or the Chin Up Chap! Oh!]

The Chin Up Chapeau

I’ve been thinking a lot about how my posture changes in relation to whereabouts I am as I walk around Birmingham.

As I approach what I perceive to be high risk areas I believe I adopt a significantly more defensive stance: lowering my gaze and stooping slightly. Of course, there are hunches and there are hunches…

I made the Chin Up Chapeau to measure the angle of my head and log it along with locational data so I can see exactly how my posture relates to space. Do I really stoop, or is it, y’know, all in my head? Where are the danger zones? Are the boundaries clearly defined?

The Chin Up Chapeau sports a gps receiver [EM 406a], a tilt-compensated compass[CMPS10], a logging device [OpenLog] and an arduino clone microcontroller [RBBB] along with a few other accoutrements like a soft switch and an indicator LED.

There are still a few niceties to be sorted out, but here’s a visualisation of a quick walk last night:

Head angle, bearing, location ...and a loaf of bread from the Co-op

I’m going to log data as I walk around the city, but I’m very aware of how easy it would be to ‘fake’ the outcomes to match what I think they should be.

Or perhaps I’ll be concious that I’m watching myself and instead make an effort to keep my chin up at all times…

At the very least I now have an electrically heated hat to keep me cosy!