Why are publications prior to the 2011 Fall season spelling RTiVISS in the place of the actual ARTiVIS? The project initially started as ARTiVISS, then simplified as RTiVISS – to be read with an english accent. By interviewing the Portuguese population and making them participate in the installations (Hug@ree Summer) we realized the need of a clearer and broader communication, readable by people of every language. By then, people either did not spell it as it was meant, and did not connect the RTiVISS acronym with art or activism. As the research becomes more focused on the use of real-time video for artistic explorations and interactions with the local population, we recognize the relevance to make the name understandable and memorable to all cultures. ARTIVIS is the actual proposal that keeps the essence of art and real time-video for sustainability, and brings more evidence on the connection of arts with an activist approach.

Project website » http://artivis.net

One of the ISDT extra activities was my proposal to go again this year to the traditional Tuesdays hackerspaces meeting. We were very well received by the AZ labs members who gave us a comprehensive tour to their new LCD installations. Here is their report on the visit »

And here are the references I mentioned at the time:
In what relates to the words “hacking” and its purported relationship with criminal activity, the term has had “an unfortunate history”, as stated by Bruce Sterling in his book “The Hacker Crackdown” who points to the original sense.
A propos, here is the MCD (Musiques & Cultures Digitales) publication on the European medialabs, where we wrote the section about the AZ labs hackerspaces network.

As we wrap up, I am willing to share my subjective perspective with some visual notes that will then become our memories – and my mnemonics, too. Take a look at the flickr set and leave your comments, local info, or whatever you where thinking of by then or now »

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Take a look at the flickr set and leave your comments, local info, or whatever you where thinking of by then or now »

The demo version of Hug@ree was improvised with fallen leaves and branches from the park of the University of Santiago de Compostela, where Baleiro is located. In the most playful part of the meeting, the different tools where used in installations, performances and DJ-VJ sessions.

In the chillout extension, Hug@ree became an extra entertainment during the night, grabbing surprising screenshots with the VJ performance and the participants dancing scenario. Moreover, Marta’s face paintings where “estupendas” and lasted for the whole night!

This is the link for the Flickr photos full set » and here is the Hug@ree demo timelapse:

This Hug@ree & VJ unintended jam triggered the idea of combining the RTiVISS experiences Hug@ree and Treeellucinations in the same setup – I can almost hear what my advisor would say about such Hug@reeellucinations idea at this time: “post-doc” (ie, concentrate, do not dawdle for now) – Got it ;) ?

Finally organizing the documentation after arriving home, here’s a set of visual notes that present the Hug@ree point of view of TEI’11 in Madeira » TEI 2011 conference overview [Flickr set]

A big hug saying *congrats* and *thanks* to everyone involved in this great event, especially Valentina, Ian, Ellen, Mark, Pedro, Amon, Edward, Denzil, Mayur, and Ricardo, who contributed to make the whole experience to become possible and wonderful!

At the showcase room, the day started early and the room assigned to us at the exhibition space was quickly crowded with nice people setting up their very interesting projects. Hug@ree was in good company :) :) :) :) :)

First we went about calibrating our multitouch display for the exhibition. Our improvised DI setup worked but turned out to be kind of fiddly to set up and a bit unstable in the tracking. In the end it worked out OK for demoing the concept but needs some work to be of any future use.

At half past three, visitors started to arrive and we demoed the installation to them.

At a certain point we received the vist of a local film crew, that was very interested in hearing about our project. They filmed it from every angle and were even captured in our surveillance camera :)

We also received some illustrious visitors that were attending the conference, like UT Austin-Portugal Program’s Professor Sharon Strover and MIT’s Professor Hirosi Ishii:

The rain made it hard for people to go outside to hug our tree, so we had to go out and do it ourselves, plus a very few brave palm tree huggers, including the student volunteer Ricardo and the The Chameleon Girl herself :) :)

By the end of the showcase we didn’t have as many hugs as we expected on our unique Madeira palm tree, but we got some very interesting surprises, like a lightning triggering the sensors and getting captured on video or the quaint lights that the hotel lit up by nightfall:

All in all it was a very rewarding experience. We met a lot of interesting people and got some really nice feedback. If you like, you can check the whole photo set of our adventures at TEI2011.

See you guys next year?

… no, had never made a 25” presentation before ;) Got it, at TEI 2011 madness session – frantic!

So here’s the presentation at TEI

After testing all kinds of trees and connections at the TEI conference venue CS Madeira, we finally got to this fremework! Ah, and don’t worry about the scarce foliage… we’ll manage to make it spread its leaves with live hugs {[( )]}

… so here’s the plan:

Just a couple of days before we left Lisbon, we had a setback. Our friend Tiago’s professionally built multitouch display had to be used for an unexpected theater play, so being unavailable for the exhibition, we had to improvise fast.

We scavenged a flexible diffuse plastic sheet out of Nuno’s IMG lab and bought some lightweight metal profiles along with some nuts and bolts. Maurício lent us a couple of infrared LED emitters and Guilherme lent us his modded PS3 camera.
In the end we had a DI multitouch setup that would fit on a small plastic tube, normally used to carry posters.

Assembling the frame took about twenty minutes and fixing the diffuse plastic sheet onto it took about an hour and lots of gorilla tape :)

We then setup the surveillance camera lent by the the UT Austin-Portugal Program already used at Popup and went outside to scout the best tree we could find that was visible from our exhibition room. We hugged a lot of very nice trees but had to choose only one :)

By then it was time to go back inside and setup the enclosure that would house our improvised multitouch projection screen. After a quick trip to the local hardware store we repurposed some PVC sheets normally used for wall proofing and once again abused the powers of the gorilla tape to hold everything together as securely as possible.

Next up ws the task of instrumenting our tree. Back outside we measured the XBee radio’s range and signal strength and hooked up the capacitive sensor wires and their controller box to the tree.

… then the outdoor caption:

… followed by hug tests:

And that was it. After a super busy day, our installation setup was ready. Tomorrow we’ll start with the lighting and multitouch calibration and install the final version of the software that will run our exhibit.

If you’re attending TEI2011, come see us on Tuesday afternoon and don’t miss the Madness session first thing in the morning.