karan kamdar
Antara - The Unison
The project assembly involves a life-size and responsive electromechanical hand attached to a performer which is a metaphor for the 'man-machine duality' that forms the central idea of exploration of my thesis. Four parallel structures (or sub-components) based on this duality will be explored which are a)The Man-Machine Interface b) Mutually incorporated behavior between the Man and the Machine c) Identity and d) Control Dynamics. The structures a) and b) are represented by the Performer and the Hand while the interpretation of the Identity and Control Dynamics structures is dictated as a matter of a time dependent circulatory control given to the entities that are part of a 3 world dynamic between a) The World of You (The Performer and the Hand) b) The External World (The Audience) and c) The World of Illusion (The Virtual Puppet).
The World of You is a world where you have complete control over the machine in terms of its functionality and identity (physically through the Hand and virtually through the Virtual Puppet) i.e. you dominate the machine's existence in every sense. The External World is a world where the machine's functionality and identity are dictated by an external audience that uses the external interface (control panel) to directly manipulate the machine and indirectly manipulate the human performer thereby giving rise to (human over machine), (machine over human) and (human over human through the machine) control dynamics. Finally the World of Illusion represented by the Virtual Puppet is a world that not only represents the machine's virtual identity but also speaks about the almost human-like feelings of the machine when the Virtual Puppet is handed control i.e. the machine's desire to dominate the human existence in every sense.
The exhibit thus works by alternating control between the performer, external audience and the virtual puppet at a delay of 30 seconds each. By doing so the human and the machine is allowed equal latitude of expressing their desire to dominate the other which is in a state of disequilibrium at the moment with our wide scale adoption of intelligent yet presumably commanded machines as part of our daily existence. Our evolution will thus be dictated by either a balance or imbalance of what we think is only humanly innate.
opencoll
OpenColl is a new framework / platform / architecturein the domain of computer supported collaborative work(CSCW). By blending the advances in CSCW such as messaging, blogs, wikis, groupware, electronic meeting rooms, real-time file editing, resource sharing etc. with the key elements that have made stand-alone social networking portals attractive, OpenColl creates a self-organizing,searchable andactively adaptive systembased on user-initiated agent intelligencefor collaborating on various taskssuch as academic / research projects by discovering like-minded people based on personal / professional interests through a network of socially connected individuals.
about the artist
A first year ACE student from UCI's Henry Samueli School of Engineering. My research interests include Software Agents, Artificial Neural Networks, Applied Cancer Research, Robotics and Wearable Computing. I come to the ACE program with a background in Information Technology Engineering but with an openness to exciting emerging technologies such as interactive environments, broadband interaction, animation, sound synthesis, digital multimedia entertainment, 3D vision, heterogeneous multiplayer gaming etc.
I wish to blend my engineering skills with an artist's imagination and critique. I also truly believe in the spirit of entrepreneurship and have worked on a few real world implementable business models such as Stople.com (https://webfiles.uci.edu/kamdark/www/stople.html). My other creative works include self made music compositions and futuristic novels such as "2120 and a Human Re-Engineered". As I can see it, in today's competitive world its not tough to find ideas, there are lots of them if you can see with your eyes wide open, the problem is to find the right ones. Through the ACE program I hope to improve the process and product of my wierdest dreams and imagination.