View allAll Photos Tagged Complexity
Entry in category 3. Locations and instruments; Copyright: CC-BY-NC-ND: Yves Suter
My complexity image is shot on a Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera, with a 35mm lens on analog Kodak Film (ISO 200) Material, at afternoon daylight. In my complexity work, I try to show raw jungle. Not like a tourist agency would show it, just how it really is. Pure, untouched jungle. I tried to set range in a very complex environment, showing the complexity and dense mixture of flora and fauna far from human civilization. By focusing like this, you can stare and catch a glimpse of this somewhat barbarian wildness. The bigger you print this picture and the longer you watch it, the more you can get lost in the complexity of nature.
Wireless Web Enabled Camera Monitoring Systems.
www.monitor-systems-engineering.com/wireless_web_enabled_...
Monitor Systems Engineering (Pixavi) are major players in the field of high definition wireless camera based communication, conferencing and monitoring systems. Monitor Systems Engineering SUPPLY, INSTALL and COMMISSION Wireless Web Enabled Camera Monitoring Systems for all key industries; (1) oil and gas, (2) manufacturing, (3) energy, (4) shipping and yards, (5) surveillance, (6) teli-medicine, (7) police, (8) fire fighting, (9) peacekeeping, (10) journalism and (11) architecture.
By limiting the need for long and costly cabling and wiring, Monitor Systems Engineering provides a high quality, cost effective wireless solution. Monitor Systems Engineering are able to deliver various wireless camera configurations and solutions for your industry and specific application.
Industry Scenarios
Wireless Web Enabled Camera Monitoring Systems.
(1) oil and gas: The complexity of the offshore oil rigs, often required very dedicated service persons that can quickly determine faults should they arise. However, on some occasions, the call for even greater knowledge resources are required to help recommend a proper service action, in order to prevent a shut down. The Xcaster EX-5000, Ex certified, wireless video conferencing system, is able to combat the toughest of elements and situations.
With real-time video and audio, the offshore service persons can seek assistance from onshore knowledge banks, to determine the best and most safest routine to complete the service job.
(2) manufacturing: A car manufacturer has a team of 20 crash test experts located all around the world. The manufacturer has built a brand new crash test center at a certain location. Traditionally the experts would travel to this site once a month to perform crash tests and evaluate the results. Today, this crash test center is using Monitor Systems wireless video conferencing products to communicate, document and analyze crash tests. The experts can stay at their fixed location and do not have to spend valuable time and resources on travel.
Cut your costs with a system from Monitor Systems Engineering, contact us today for more details about what we can offer your key industry.
(3) energy: A power company has several power plants in operation. Often times, service personnel are required to assist in a resource heavy maintenance routine, but due to logistical complications, it just is not possible to travel to the site when the problem arises.
Enter the Xcaster ST-5000 and its real-time, video and audio capabilities. Service personnel on site, can send images and audio to other knowledgeable centers for help in order to make critical repair recommendations, so that the equipment and the power plant can continue to operate.
(4) shipping and yards: A shipyard in Korea is building a ship for a Norwegian company. The complexity of ship building puts complex demands on communication between the vendor and the customer. By utilizing wireless video conferencing and advanced unified communication, the two parties are able to solve complex problems without having to travel to the site and thereby saves both time and cost.
The Xcaster series of products allows for quick and reliable remote collaboration from the field, in order to help make solid and exact build recommendations.
(5) surveillance: A large sporting event is planned in one of the world’s biggest countries. The event is a possible target for terrorists and unwarranted activists. To ensure that both safety and intelligence is managed, a comprehensive HD CCTV camera network is installed on the site. The introduction of wireless, battery operated cameras clearly poses benefits in such situations. The Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster and Xcam products, along with the wireless infrastructure products, provides a very credible ad hoc and temporary surveillance capability. This capability gives event organizers, police and security official a great weapon to combat potential infiltrators.
(6) teli-medicine: An emergency vehicle comes to a large accident site which, in turn, puts high demands on the emergency personnel.
Luckily, the personnel are equipped with the Xcaster ST-5000 wireless video conferencing devices and can thereby consult with physicians and medical experts virtually anywhere in the world.
With high quality (High-Definition) images and video, plus two-way audio, life saving information can quickly be transmitted, in order to provide the field personnel with better information that will help the patient.
(7) police: Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams must analyze large quantities of information in order to make critical tactical determinations. Often, the large amount of information cannot be processed quickly enough to translate in proper reconnaissance information. However, with the use of live video and real time communication, like with the Xcaster ST-5000, SWAT officers, in conjunction with an operation center, can often be supportive in determining a proper course of action.
Live, in-the-field video and audio becomes the best tool to combat the situation!
(8) fire fighting: A firefighter is facing considerable risk when entering critical situations.
The more information that is available to the fireman, before his/her arrives at a scene, can ultimately mean life and death in some very specific cases.
With the rugged Xcaster technology in hand, on-scene fire officials can quickly report, in real-time video and audio, back to command posts, that can quickly offer tactical recommendations, which can translate into a more effective and efficient handling at the incident.
(9) peacekeeping: There exists, unfortunately, problematic areas of the world that require dedicated peacekeeping missions. In one example, a new peacekeeping representative runs into a potentially troubling situation while on a basic mission to check on a remote refugee center. As the representative is somewhat inexperienced, he / she can utilize the Xcaster series of products, in order to record or send live video and images from the incident. Officials in regional support centers, can quickly get a full view of the event, and offer the in the field representative, good advice and information on how to handle a potentially very complex situation. Solid and reliable information is a key factor in helping to solve problems and make decisions.
(10) journalism: The use of live, in the field correspondence has become increasingly popular in the media business. Traditional broadcasting equipment is becoming outdated, and the faster, more effective Xcaster technology is gaining footing in a very demanding arena of usage. With the Xcaster ST-5000, reporters can quickly access a wireless network to transmit a full, High-Definition quality, live, wireless video conferencing report from the field, when a developing story is unfolding.
The video feed can be transferred using Internet access or satellite links and stand ready to go live within seconds.
(11) architecture: It is often critical that architects work through problems and issues during the building phase in close coordination with the construction builders themselves. Irregardless of where the building is being built, the architect can use the Xcaster wearable video conferencing technology to connect parties directly in-real time to any situation requiring advanced collaboration. Through efficient and effective wireless video conferencing technology and wireless networking, architects, construction contractors and property developers can now start increasing efficiency, competitiveness and profit margins.
Further Reading
Oil and Gas Industry:
Applications within the oil and gas industry: Monitor Systems Engineering is proving its worthiness in some of the world’s toughest environments. The oil and gas offshore installations have long been deemed a very brutal and unforgiving place of business. With the introduction of Monitor Systems Engineering technology to these areas, large oil and gas companies have gained cost saving attributes and a safer working environment.
Over the past eight years, many of the world leading Oil & Gas companies along with Oil & Gas service companies have utilized the Monitor Systems Engineering intrinsically safe video cameras to communicate and collaborate within these harsh conditions. The ATEX Camera with its two way audio and video allows workers in the field to address issues, problems and situations with colleagues anywhere in the world. With its dynamic and revolutionary technology, the new Xcaster EX-5000 high definition wireless video conferencing system enables fast, secure and effective information flow from point to point allowing for discussions or effective multiparty collaboration all in real time.
To shut down or not to shut down: The decision to order a shut down is costly. Both time, money and safety elements are on the line. During these situations the Monitor Systems Engineering technology has time and again proven itself as an invaluable tool essential to critical information flow. On many occasions, the live video streams have helped managers, engineers and roughnecks alike to illustrate problems, and to determine quick and responsible paths to corrective measure to quickly have the shut down minimized. On many occasions, shut-downs have all together been completely averted, simply by establishing a video collaboration between parties onshore and offshore, to which colleagues could quickly conclude that issues could otherwise be handled without shutting down production!
Refineries: The Xcaster EX-5000 mobile video conferencing system is able to deploy at a moments notice when time is critical. With the ability to operate in hazardous areas both onshore and offshore, this Wi-Fi camera is able to maneuver quickly to various parts of the oil rig or production plant. By using the Monitor Systems Engineering EX-AP-A explosive proof, ATEX certified access points in these ATEX required areas, the Xcaster EX-5000 equipment can immediately begin to send High Definition (HD) quality video via the wireless network to virtually any point in the world. The Xcaster EX5000 is also able to help in cases of E-learning and safety inspection. Essentially: Maximize your resources and minimize travel needs.
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Manufacturing Industry:
Applications within the manufacturing industry: The manufacturing industry is a very demanding and competitive industry. On occasion, large machinery breaks down and consequently requires immediate servicing in order to keep the production facility operating. However, sometimes key service personnel are not able to respond quickly, due to logistical distances, thereby keeping the machinery at full stop and not producing.
The Xcaster ST-5000 has been designed with just such situations in mind. By utilizing the Monitor Systems Engineering wireless video conferencing technology, company officials and service agents can quickly via two-way audio and video, determine what the problem is by being able to actually see the faulty equipment directly from the site, back to wherever in the world the service agents are.
Through an established wireless network at the site, the Xcaster ST-5000 can quickly and effectively communicate utilizing IP video streaming to establish a true, in field and live mobile video conferencing collaboration session. The key service agents can thus maintain help to trouble-shoot the faulty machinery and in most cases get the machinery rolling again, so that manufacturing routines are not halted, and profits not lost. In this situation, discussion, diagnoses, and error checking can all be done in real-time!
In order to allocate more and dedicated service personnel, management and consultants to various operations, the wireless video conferencing systems by Monitor Systems Engineering, can help create a better forum of resources in which to pool from. In the case of heavy machinery, service companies can outfit a designated service person with the ST-5000 wireless video conferencing system, in order to collaborate and discuss a repair with other company service members that might be located anywhere in the world, in order to discuss a proper course of action for a repair.
Safety is also a major concern during repair operations. Service personnel can quickly and efficiently, utilize the real-time audio and video features of the Monitor Systems Engineering ST-5000, discuss an effective service routine with managers far away, to ensure that a safe work routine will done.
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Energy Industry:
Applications within the energy industry: The commercial energy industry is a very important segment of our global community. Large electrical and generating plants play a large role in our everyday lives. And with today’s focus on the environment, new and reusable energy sources are creating the need for technical and communications equipment and solutions that are environmentally friendly as well. The demands for more and simplistic methods to share work is increasing. The requirement for more information from the field is also on the rise.
On many occasions, researchers and scientists alike, require technology tools that allow them to discuss and be present in conferences, meetings and industry seminars to share their opinions and findings. The Monitor Systems Engineering line of wireless video conferencing equipment, including the Xcaster ST-5000 and EX-5000 model, allows these individuals to quickly and effective report directly from distant locations. They are able to share visual images of progresses, send high quality images of various findings, as well as discuss solutions and opinions with other scientists and participants around the world.
Monitor Systems Engineering with it solid knowledge regarding products designed to operate and function in demanding environments, has created a line of products that include the very latest wireless 802.11n technology and HD video. We have implemented them into a tough and durable package, that offers live mobile video conferencing capabilities, all in High-Definition (HD) quality images.
Large power plants rely on a high level of safety and predictability. The increasing number of power plants puts high demand on expertise and skillful understanding on how to address continual concerns on maintaining the optimal running conditions in these large facilities. With the Monitor Systems Engineering line of wireless, mobile video conferencing solutions, technicians, plant project managers and experts can maintain stabile communications from the field to any location in the world.
The Monitor Systems Engineering technology bridges distance, creates efficiencies and allows for real-time collaboration, so that knowledge can reach those areas of need.
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Shipping and Yard Industry:
Applications within Shipping and the Yard Industry: The commercial shipping industry requires precise and dedicated information to insure that cargo and ships adhere to logistical conditions and time requirements. The Xcaster ST5000 and EX5000 mobile video conferencing systems provide a stabile communication platform to provide shipping companies a method to review and check the status of loading and off loading operations and cargo registration in remote ports of the world. Featuring Wi-Fi based technology, crews are able to stream live video, while discussing specific load shipping with agents and customer alike, sometimes located continents away.
Ship Yards: are increasing utilizing parts and services from various locations around the world. Actual ship construction can take place in Norway, ship design in the United Kingdom and hull manufacturing in Poland. The key to a successful building platform is to ensure that all these parties are continual updated on work progress and that eventual delays and construction circumstances are reported promptly.
Introduction of the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster line of wireless video conferring cameras, has brought about a revolution in information gathering and information allocation to this industry If managers in Norway, require visual inspection of hull assembly in Poland, the Xcaster mobile video equipment can quickly be engaged to walk inside and outside the hull sections in Poland, to provide a real-time, IP video conference to any and all people in the organization, that need this information. By utilizing network video in this regard, all parties save travel time, and can otherwise gain useful knowledge from the comfort of their respected place of work, all without having to leave their office.
Transportation and storage: In locating items for transport or discussing load operations on ships in harbors, the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster series of wireless video conferencing technologies, helps transportation agencies by being able communicate with other staff members on or off location. Transport personnel can access files, talk with other crew members and discuss loading operations by way of high quality audio, IP video and data to an array of different groups.
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Surveillance Industry:
Application within the Surveillance Industry: Dependable surveillance equipment is a critical element of the total security efforts each company or organization puts forward to protect life and property. The ability to view, survey and detect an activity before a crime or intrusion is committed, saves costs towards theft and large scale property damage.
As a CCTV manufacturer, Monitor Systems Engineering can afford a company or organization at any level affordable and high-quality wireless CCTV solutions. Monitor Systems Engineering can custom design our security cameras to fit many types of physical and environmental settings. Monitor Systems Engineering designs its security camera systems to comply and interact with all types and standards of company network parameters.
As a leader in developing products associated with wireless technologies, Monitor Systems Engineering has many years of experience which is reflected in its line products and solutions. Monitor Systems Engineering has delivered its wireless CCTV solutions to military organizations, the oil & gas industry, security agencies, and energy industry to name a few. The Monitor Systems Engineering wireless security camera solution has been proven in many challenging circumstances, and continues to prevail as a high performance and reliable system for CCTV needs.
Rugged, corrosive resistant material and proven High Definition camera technology create a solid wireless CCTV security camera solution that is effective to combat the very toughest of environmental circumstances. By limiting the need for long and costly cabling and wiring, Monitor Systems Engineering can position a high quality security camera system to fit the needs of many different conditions.
Monitor Systems Engineering is able to deliver various wireless security camera configurations and solutions, dependent on the breadth and scope of what each individual customer requires. Additionally, Monitor Systems Engineering has the capability to apply solar panel driven wireless technology, should this be of interest.
Today’s world is becoming increasingly dependant on solid and well functioning surveillance technology. The increasing threats of terrorist groups and criminal activity are putting high demands on video quality. Monitor Systems Engineering has the skill and knowledge to present a full and dedicated wireless CCTV security camera solution for your organization today.
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Tele-medicine Industry:
Applications within Telemedicine Industry: Emergencies are critical periods, when seconds count. Quick, decisive action is required to save lives. Unfortunately, some accidents do happen in very remote locations, allowing only critical first aid to victims before extrication to a medical facility sometimes hours away. With the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster ST-5000 series of High Definition wireless video conferencing cameras, medics treating wounded person have an innovative tool at their disposal to help in their efforts.
By utilizing IP video, audio and data communication, the remote medical assistance groups are offered a way in which doctors, nurses and other medical personnel can be readily available to help at any time, regardless of location or time zone.
With the essential video collaboration link between field and hospital established, the Xcaster ST-5000 operating on SIP, H323 protocols, provides doctors at the hospital quality still images, and high quality High Definition (HD) video streaming to ascertain the nature of injuries, thus allowing them to prescribe a course of treatment to the medics in the field.
Real-time, Wi-Fi capable, the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster ST-5000 wireless video conferencing system allows for a visual and audio window between the remote location and the medical staff far away. Ultimately, the medics in the remote location, actually become “doctors in the field” as they can quickly gain strategic treatment recommendations by using the powerful visual medium and discussion, so that the wounded patient can receive the very best treatment for their injuries before arriving at the central hospital.
Quick, effective and reliable information can save lives. The Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster ST5000 can help bridge the gap that time and distance often brings to critical situations.
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Law Enforcement / Security Industry:
Applications within Law Enforcement / Security Industry: Police, intelligence officers, Law enforcement officers and security personnel are often times presented with many hazardous circumstances and situations which challenge their training and skill on a daily bases. Monitor Systems Engineering video collaboration technology can help give officers at every level an advantage, by utilizing real-time audio and IP based, live video streams during emergency situations to attain more insightful information to ensure that a proper course of action is taken.
In the event of a crisis situation, officers in the field utilizing the Xcaster ST-5000 are able to report, in real-time, back to command central, so that quick and precise planning and action can be taken. Through a dedicated Wi-Fi network, the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster wireless video collaboration tool can bring the situation to virtually anyone, anywhere in the world. The video streams are encrypted with highly advanced algorithms like AES.
With a greater visual and audio overview of the situation, officers stand a much greater chance of successfully ending a potentially tragic situation. Trough both a dedicated audio and visual medium, officers can quickly communicate back to commanders that can, in turn respond with tactical recommendations, thus creating a safer, more well prepared operation.
Monitor Systems Engineering can also help during training sessions. Officers allocated with the Xcaster ST-5000 wearable video conferencing system, can be educated on tactical methods from instructors that might otherwise be sitting in central locations somewhere else in the city, country or world.
Utilizing the stabile 802.11 abgn network standards, the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster wireless video conferencing technology brings reconnaissance routines, anti-terror training and skillful insights to a new level. Via powerful live video stream, over IP, the Xcaster technology delivers secure and tactical information to the sources that can help!
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Fire Fighting Industry:
Applications within Fire Fighting Industry: Firefighters often times arrive at a critical emergency scene with little actual knowledge of the situation they have been requested to respond to. A reported small contained structure fire at the time they leave the firehouse can quite easily escalate to a full, very complex, multi structural building fire by the time they arrive at the scene.
In order to help determine the best logistical approach to battle the fire, firefighters and on scene fire officials can quickly transmit live IP video and images from the scene, back to commanders ready to assist with instructions, guidance or suggestions on how to best combat the fire. The revolutionary Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster EX-5000 wireless video conferencing technology creates a running forum of up-to-date, real-time information for all the fire fighting personnel to join. Time is critical, and the more accurate and secure the information is, the better organized the firefighters will be when they engage the fire itself.
The explosive proof, Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster EX5000, is designed and certified to tackle harsh and unforgiving environments. And as the level of on-scene activity grows, and as temperatures rise, the Xcaster is able to deliver High Definition (HD) live and still images to fire command. In return, command officials can afford firefighters crucial tactical recommendations that otherwise create an advantage in how best to contain and resolve the emergency.
The Xcaster technology can also be recommended for use at fire training academies. Individual fire cadets, equipped with the Xcaster mobile video conferencing unit, allow training officials to monitor step by step maneuvers by the cadets and thus be able to quickly afford them insightful knowledge during the training exercise, which will ultimately serve them well once they are in the field in real operations.
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Military Industry:
Wireless Video Streaming within Military Industry: With the increased demand for peacekeeping missions, so is the demand for knowledge resources to help control, inform and delegate materials and mission critical information to those troubled areas.
Monitor Systems Engineering has a wide variety of products and solutions, that can help facilitate even the most troubling of situations, within the most demanding of environments. Should the need call for high-quality, mobile, wireless video conferencing, or durable weather proof antennas that confirm to toughest criteria, Monitor Systems Engineering has the solution to help the cause.
With the Xcaster ST-5000 mil spec. wireless video conferencing system, peacekeeping forces and aid workers can freely move within difficult terrain, maneuver through brush and obstacles, to report in real-time to operation centers, quickly and efficiently. With High-Definition image quality, the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster ST-5000, transfers the detailed images straight from the field, thought a dedicated network, back to the operations centers.
Should a dedicated wireless network not be readily available, the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster ST-5000 has a built-in flash memory allowing it to function as a rugged mobile video camera, as well as a still image camera, producing high quality video and pictures. Once the mission reporting in the field is complete, the mission worker can bring the Xcaster back the operations center, and upload all the video and images, and stream this information directly back to those decision makers, responsible for managing the mission. With the image information in hand, clear and decisive measures can then be taken as to how to handle a particular situation.
Should the demand require real-time, video streaming from the field, Monitor Systems Engineering can create custom wireless network infrastructures for very demanding customers, in demanding environmental conditions. The Monitor Systems Engineering EX-ANT-B antenna is one of a handful of wireless infrastructure products that are constructed to handle extreme conditions, poor weather and demanding environments. Designed principally for the Oil and Gas industry, the explosive proof, intrinsically safe, EX-ANT-B antenna has proven that it is very much able to work in other harsh and demanding environments, outside the bounds of this particular industry in order to help create a dedicated wireless network. The EX-ANT-B antenna can be affixed to a number of standard access points available on the market. Connected, the rugged EX-ANT-B antenna and access point deliver a dedicated wireless environment to which the Xcaster ST-5000 or EX-5000 can freely operate in order to report live and wirelessly from field.
As the situation in a troubled area intensifies, so does the need for constructive and meaningful information. Monitor Systems Engineering presents several levels of equipment and technology that can significantly help to keep workers, officials and commanders abreast of the situation, in real-time, in full HD image quality and in constant dialog. Anytime, anywhere the situation may call.
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Journalism / Media News Industry:
Applications within Journalism / Media News Industry: News organizations associated with print and visual media reporting depend on quick and reliable facts to ensure that their reports generate the clearest and most concise information possible. The Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster technology allows local, nation and global news agencies to report directly from the field, in real time, through both real-time video and audio streaming directly to network television or internet portals on their respected websites.
The Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster ST-5000, with its ability to operate as both a Wi-Fi still image camera or powerful video recorder, can otherwise quickly engage the wireless network (802.11 abgn) transferring into a real-time video streaming system to be able to report all the stored images or video segments directly to the network.
Should the reporters find themselves in the field covering an important news story, the Xcaster offers dependable, proven technology to help transfer images and dialog directly from the area or event. Sporting events, weather reports and critical news updates, can all benefit from using the revolutionary Xcaster technology.
Generating interest and opinion are critical factors in news content. The Xcaster gives the journalist a significantly greater opportunity to process these facts, allowing for more complete and accurate reporting.
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Architecture / Building Industry:
Applications within Architecture / Building Industry: Architects and civil construction engineers require a solid understanding of their work sites in order to correctly place, build and detail structures. In coordination with its customers and third party contractors, the architect or property developer can hold live, in the field, video conference meetings in order to gain insightful knowledge on the project. Quick, efficient and useful feedback from the customer, construction manager and project official are essential in order that the optimal building criterion is realized.
In today’s modern communications world, wireless networks are becoming more common and prominent, even on building construction sites. By engaging the wireless 802.11 abgn network at the construction site, the architect can deploy a Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster ST-5000, wireless video conferencing system to communicate with live IP video, real-time video steaming and full duplex audio to his/her clients virtually anywhere in the world. The Xcaster ST-5000 mobile video conferencing technology, can also allow architects to take high quality still images, as well as High Definition (HD) quality mobile video for archiving and storage on the Monitor Systems Engineering Xdrive.
It is often critical that architects work through problems and issues during the building process phases in close coordination with the builders themselves. Through efficient and effective wireless video conferencing, architects can establish solutions and criteria that are critical to the construction progress.
In essence, as buildings and construction routines become more complex, architects on location take advantage of the using a mobile video system by having the ability to send and receive, high quality HD video, high resolution still images and collaborate on specific project tasks from remote locations to central facilities or other locations situated elsewhere in the world.
The increasing presence in the construction industry of third party contractors with very narrow and specialized fields of know-how, requires a common, clear and thorough understanding of the work site.
Building construction: It is often critical that architects work through problems and issues during the building process phases in close coordination with the builders themselves. Regardless of where the building is being built, the architect can utilize the Monitor Systems Engineering Xcaster wearable video conferencing technology, to connect parties directly in real time at any situation requiring advanced collaboration dud ring the building process. Through efficient and effective wireless video conferencing technology and wireless networking, construction contractors and property developers can now start increasing efficiency, competitiveness and profit margins.
Woodland is always a difficult thing to photograph... with such 'noisy' backgrounds it can be hard to pick out compositions... unless, of course, you have some mist to help you out... I wasn't so lucky on this occasion. Slowly but surely I can see myself improving though... and I'm quite happy with this one.
I really liked the looks of this particular rose shrub. Remind me of the simple complexity of women, yet what do I know? These three roses are from the same shrub.
The complexity of a small alley (waiting for the trash truck).
As I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been staying in my grandparents’s house where is located in the countryside of Hsinchu City.
A few days ago, my grandfather’s pulse rate became very slow, so we called an ambulance sending him to the ER of the nearest hospital, luckily his status stabilized and transferred into a regular ward. My mother is staying in the hospital with him now, and I can’t get inside due to the government policy of Covid, makes me the house organizing helper now, my daily job has became to trash dumping instead of care taking.
Because I don’t have much things to do during the daytime, so I began to observing neighbors while doing my daily trash dumping, and there’s one thing I find very interesting.
People usually says countryside lifestyle is simpler than lifestyle in major cities, but the truth is the relationship between neighbors in a small alley can still be very complicated. You can tell is a man had a fight with his wife from his facial expression, or to know the other neighbor’s son is actually a debt collector in the nighttime. The funniest part is trying to identify which part they revealed to you is true and which part is a lie, usually it’s mixed. I find this is a perfect example to prove that nothing is absolute, everything is blurry.
I’m not being judgmental to any of my current neighbors, it’s just a fun fact to me, I’m not going to stay here for long anyway.
Image processed by using Capture One Pro.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Following good performance from the pioneering diesel-hydraulic locomotive the DB Class V 80, the Deutsche Bundesbahn planned in 1953 to build several types of new diesel locomotive, primarily to replace steam powered locomotives.These were: V 60, and V 65, both shunters, the V 65.2, also for shunting as well as light freight trains, the heavy DB Class V 200, for express passenger trains, and the universal V 160 for both freight and passenger work on the main network.
The new V 160 class was a central piece in this line-up, because it would replace important steam-powered engines such as the BR 03, BR 23, BR 38.10 (former Prussian P 8 class), BR 39 (ex P 10), BR 50, BR 57 (ex G 10) and BR 78 (ex T 18). Steam heating for passenger coaches was necessary, and a top speed of 120 km/h was specified. Initially, a 1,600 hp powerplant, consisting of two engines of the same type as in the light V 80 was planned, the first newly developed diesel locomotive built for main line service by the Deutsche Bundesbahn (but only built in 10 examples). This dual engine arrangement had already been successfully introduced in the heavy V 200, which was initially powered by two 1,000 hp diesel engines. However, it was soon realized, that, if a single, high-powered engine could be used, weight, complexity and therefore maintenance and other costs would be considerably reduced. The V 160’s design was modified accordingly and a single MTU V16 four-stroke diesel engine was chosen. Both two-axle bogies were powered via drive shafts from a two speed hydraulic drive from Voith, which offered a compromise between the requested high speed for light passenger trains and the alternative reduced second gear with lower top speed, but much higher torque, for freight train service. Gears could only be switched when the locomotive was standing still, though.
In the spring of 1956, V 160 development began at Krupp. Welded steel components along with other lightweight materials were used to keep the axle load well below 20t, so that the V 160 could be safely operated on secondary lines. However, in the main production series of locomotives, some of the lighter weight welded construction was abandoned in favor of less expensively produced components - leading to an increase in axle weight from ~18.5 to ~20t, which was still acceptable but lowered overall production costs. This was furthermore not regarded as a major problem since the DB perspectively started to abandon branch lines, switching to more economical diesel multiple units or giving them up altogether towards the Seventies.
The first V 160 unit was delivered on 6 August 1960, with eight more following by 1962 from both Krupp and Henschel. These prototype units, due to their rounded, “busty” front end, were later to become unusual amongst the entire V 160 family and earned them the nickname “Lollo” (in allusion to Gina Lollobrigida). A final prototype V 160 010, the tenth, was manufactured by Henschel in 1963 and the first to feature the serial locomotives’ angled front end, which was inspired by the design of the super-heavy V 320 Henschel prototype.
Despite the single main engine, the V 160 was still a complex locomotive. In addition to the main engine, the V 160 featured a small, independent auxiliary diesel engine, driving a generator providing the 110 V electrical supply for lighting as well as driving an electric air compressor for the brakes. The steam heating apparatus, sourced from Hagenuk and powered by fuel oil, took up one end of the locomotive, between the engine and drivers cabin. It had the capacity to satisfactorily heat 10 coaches when the outside temperature was -10°C. For passenger train service, most V 160 locomotives were also equipped for push-pull operation, as well as for multiple working, controlled via a 36 pin control cable and respective sockets on the locomotives front ends.
The prototypes performed well, and volume production began, numbers V 160 011 to V 160 224 being built between 1964 and 1968 by Krupp, Henschel, KHD, Krauss-Maffei and MaK. The first V 160/216 locomotives entered service on the Hamburg to Lübeck line, working push-pull double decked passenger trains, replacing the BR 38.10 and BR 78 steam engines. The engines were also used on freight workings as well. On push-pull passenger working, the locomotives were sometimes found in the middle of the train - which facilitated easier separation of carriages en route.
By the time the 156th example was under completion, the Deutsche Bundesbahn changed its numbering system. From then on, the V 160 class were re-designated as Class (Baureihe = BR) 216, with the individual unit numbering continuing as before. Over the next decade, because of changing requirements – mostly in terms of increased power, speed as well as the requirement for electrical passenger heating – a number of related classes sprang up, the BR 210, 215, 217, 218 and 219. Although some were a little longer and carried additional components (e.g. an auxiliary jet engine), all of them were essentially based on the original V 160 and more than 800 machines of all types were eventually built.
Since the 1990s, the Bundesbahn’s BR 216 locomotives scope of work started to shift more on freight than on passenger trains because of the lack of steam-heated passenger stock. From 2000 onwards, the Deutsche Bahn AG’s BR 216 fleet was phased out, with the last locomotive being decommissioned in 2004.
Several locomotives were sold to private operators like rail construction companies and remained in frequent use, and some retired BR 216s were re-built and offered for sale, too. The first in the series of rebuilt Class 216s was called type “DH 1504” and created in 1998 by the firm 'On Rail'. Despite only little external changes, the result was an almost completely new locomotive, only the transmission, bogies and frame were saved from the original locomotive. The original V16 diesel engine with 1,370 kW (1.900 hp), was replaced with a lighter but more powerful 1500 kW (2,085 hp) V12 four-stroke diesel engine, also from MTU. On customer demand, a new electric Webasto heating system could be installed instead of the original steam heating system, making the DH 1504 capable of operating modern passenger trains, and for this purpose the units were also fitted for multiple working as well as for remote control operation (e.g. for shunting). Another option was additional ballast, so that the axle load could be kept at 20 tons for better traction. Otherwise, 18 t axle load was standard for the revamped DH 1504.
Since 1998, 6 of these locomotives were re-built for private operators in Germany. By late 2019, three DH 1504 locomotives were in the use of the Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen (OHE), two work for the Niederrheinische Verkehrsbetriebe (NIAG) and one for the Mindener Kreisbahnen (MKB). However, the biggest sales success for OnRail’s modernized BR 216 was the export to Poland, where the PKP (Polskie Koleje Państwowe, Polish State Railways). After its privatization in 2001, the PKP was looking for a low-cost replacement for its last ST-43 Class diesel electric freight locomotives of Romanian origin, which dated back to the 1960ies. Twenty DH 1504 locomotives for mixed duties were built by OnRail between 2001 and 2005 and entered PKP service as Class SU-29 (spalinowa uniwersalna = mixed-traffic diesel locomotive with hydraulic transmission and multiple-unit control). Their initial primary field of duty was the cross-border freight traffic on the east-west relation on the PKP “Polskie line Kolejowe”, the so-called “Niederschlesische Gütermagistrale”. Since 2005, this route had been expanded, electrified and became double-railed, so that the SU-29s gradually took over more and more passenger train duties on non-electrified major lines. The SU-29 machines are expected to remain in PKP service beyond 2030.
General characteristics:
Gauge: 1,435 mm (4 ft 8½ in) standard gauge
UIC axle arrangement: B´B´
Overall length: 16,800 mm (52 ft 57⁄8 in)
Pivot distance: 8,600 mm
Bogie distance: 2,800 mm
Wheel diameter (when new): 1000 mm
Fuel supply: 3,800 l
Service weight: 80 t
Engine:
MTU 4000R20 V12diesel engine with 1500 kW (2,085 hp) at 1,800 RPM
Gearbox:
Voith L821rs 2-speed gearbox
Performance:
Maximum speed: 120 km/h (75 mph) or 80 km/h (50 mph)
Torque: 235,2 kN
The kit and its assembly:
Well, this is a rather unusual what-if “build”, since this not a model kit as such but rather the conversion of a readymade H0 gauge model railway locomotive for the “Back into service” group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2019.
The inspiration was not original, though: some time ago I stumbled across a gift set from the former East-German manufacturer Piko, apparently for the Polish market. It contained a set of double deck passenger wagons, and a (highly simplified, toy-like) German BR 216 in PKP markings. It was called SU-29 and carried a very crude and garish green livery with yellow front ends – inspired by real world PKP diesel locomotives, but… wrong. I found this so bizarre that it stuck in my mind. When I dug a little further, my surprise even grew when I found out that there were other national adaptations of this simple Piko BR 216 (e .g. for Denmark) and that Piko’s competitor Roco offered a similar BR 215 in PKP colors, too! This time, the fictional locomotive was designated SU-47 (which cannot be since this would indicate a locomotive with electric power transmission – poor job!), and it also wore a bright green livery with yellow front markings. Bizarre… And the PKP does NOT operate any BR 216 at all?!
However, with the GB topic in mind, I decided to create my own interpretation of this interesting topic – apparently, there’s a market for whiffy model locomotives? The basis became a 2nd hand Märklin 3075 (a BR 216 in the original red DB livery), not a big investment since this is a very common item.
In order to easy painting, the locomotive was disassembled into its major sections and the body stripped of any paint in a one-week bath in oven cleaner foam, a very mild and effective method.
The heavy metal chassis was not modified, it just received a visual update (see below).
The upper body underwent some cosmetic surgery, though, but nothing dramatic or structural, since the DH 1504 described above only differs in minor external details from the original BR 216. I decided to modify the front ends, especially the lights: Locomotives in PKP service tend to have VERY large lamps, and I tried to incorporate this characteristic feature through masks that were added over the original light conductors, scratched from styrene tube material.
In the course of this facial surgery, the molded handles at the lower front corners were lost. They were later replaced with three-dimensional silver wire, mounted into small holes that were drilled into the hull at the appropriate positions. Fiddly stuff, but I think the effort was worth it.
The original vent grills between the lower lamps were sanded away and covers for the multiple working cable adapters on the front ends added – scratched with small styrene profile bits.
For a cleaner, modern look, I removed the original decorative aluminum profile frame around the upper row of cooling louvers. The roof was modified, too: beyond the bigger headlight fairing, the exhaust for the auxiliary diesel engine was removed, as well as the chimney for the old steam heating system. The diesel engine’s exhaust pipes were lengthened (inspired by similar devices carried by DB BR 218), so that the fumes would be deviated away from the locomotive’s hull and the following wagons. Horns and a blade antenna for each driver’s cabin were added, too.
Painting and markings:
Both Piko and Roco V 160s in PKP markings look garish – righteously, though, since PKP locomotives used to carry for many years very striking colors, primarily a dark green body with a light green/teal contrast area on the flanks and yellow quick recognition front markings. However, I did not find any of the two model designs convincing, since they rather looked like a simple toy (Piko) or just wrong (Roco, with a surreal grass green contrast tone instead of the pale teal).
I rather went for something inspired by real world locomotives, like the PKP’s SU- and SP-45s. The basic design is an upper body with a dark green base (Humbrol 76, Uniform Green) and a pale green-grey area around the upper row of louvres (an individual mix of Humbrol 96 and 78). The kink under the front windows was used for waterline reference, the front section under the windows (in the dark green base) was painted in bright yellow (Humbrol 69) as a high-viz contrast, a typical feature of PKP locomotives. The chassis received a grey-green frame (somewhat visually stretching the locomotive) with bright red (Humbrol 19) headstocks, a nice color contrast to the green body and the yellow bib.
Silver 1.5mm decal stripes (TL Modellbau) were used to create a thin cheatline along and around the whole lower section. At some time I considered another cheatline between the light and dark green, but eventually ignored this idea because it would have looked too retro. The locomotive’s roof became medium grey (Revell 47).
The running gear and the tanks between the bogies were painted in very dark grey (Humbrol 67, similar to the original DB livery in RAL 7021) and weathered with a light black ink wash, some thinned Burnt Umbra (simulating dust and rust) plus some light dry-brushing with dark grey that emphasized the surface details. This used look was also taken to the upper body of the locomotive with watercolours (Grey, Black and some Sienna and Burnt Umbra) for a more natural look of daily service – rather subtle, and I emphasized the louvres, esp. on the light background, where they tended to disappear.
Individual markings consist of single decal letters in silver and white in various sizes (also TL Modellbau) for the locomotive’s registration code as well as of H0 scale catenary warnings from Nothaft Hobbybedarf, plus some generic stencils from various model decal sheets (incl. Cyrillic stencils from an 1:72 MiG-21 decal sheet…).
For a uniform finish I gave the locomotive an overall coat of matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can – it still has a slightly sheen finish and matches well the look of Märklin’s standard rolling stock.
A different kind of what-if project, but this has not been my first H0 scale locomotive conversion. The fictional PKP SU-29 looks a bit weird, with the garish paint scheme and the oversized headlights, but this strangeness makes this model IMHO quite convincing. The model is fully functional, even the light works well in the enlarged headlight fairings. Maybe I’ll sell it, since I do not have the appropriate model railway set at hand to effectively use it (which is also the reason for the rather limited scope of pictures of the finished item). And I am curious what people might be willing to pay for such a unique, fictional item?
7/365
I'm a software tester. I didn't realise this until about seven or eight years into my testing career - my role was a bit of a hybrid of job types - but for over ten years I have tested software, both application software and embedded.
I love it, because I'm a bit sad like that. I love a technical challenge and my job regularly provides me with problems to uncover. I'm not bad at it either.
I like to read the testing trade magazines (like the pictured TEST magazine) and these often cover areas of my job role that I don't necessarily get involved in myself. I think that keeping up to date with career skills is important, otherwise you get stale and stuck in a rut, so to speak.
I decided a couple of years ago to start a degree in Computing and Systems Practice from the Open University. It fitted in nicely with both my career plans and personal interests, and next month I'll be starting a level 2 sixty-pointer module called Understanding systems: making sense of complexity.. This module is one of two key modules from my chosen degree and I think it will help no end with my career.
Everything I work on requires me to consider how it works as a system, how each part interacts and interferes with other parts. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into it, although I have the previous module to finish off too. There is overlap. I'm going to be very busy for the next few months
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
Throughout South Hero, Vermont USA • For over thirty years, gardener Harry Barber found a unique way to blend his native country of Switzerland with his new home in Vermont. He created miniature buildings from local Vermont field stone. Five castles, three houses, and several garden structures remain in the Islands. They vary in complexity. Some castles feature glazed windows, interior fireplaces, or dungeons. Others are wired for electricity and have the capability of running water in the moat. … All his creations are privately owned, and public access is not permitted; however four out of the five castles can be seen from the road. – From a brochure issued by the Lake Champlain Bikeways.
☞ From another biker: Here is a story I heard about the creator of these little castles. … Harry Barber was born and raised in Switzerland. As he traveled his homeland and Bavaria he was attracted to the designs and shapes of the castles including Swan Mt Castle. In the 1920s he was injured in a mining accident and received some sort of monetary settlement from the government. With this money he decided to travel to the Americas. His plan was to go to Chile, South America.
Along his way he spent a night in Marseilles, France, partying with the ladies. When he woke the next morning, he had been robbed of his money.
He now had to change his plans to cross the ocean and decided to work for his fare aboard a freighter. The only freighter he could find willing to take him was headed to North America. In fact it was Canada, a far cry from South America. The freighter went as far as Montreal, where he began his journey, on foot, south. When he reached Grand Isle, VT he happened upon a young woman selling fruit. She saw that he was hungry, and offered him an orange. He had never seen and orange before and she had to show him how to peel it. He was impressed by the hospitality of the young woman, and decided to stay for a while. He asked about finding some work to earn some food and he was directed to a farm that used the Providence Island just south of South Hero. He worked there tending cows and sheep. He continued to see the girl at the fruit stand and married her and they made residence in South Hero. As he returned from work each evening, he would pick up stones to bring home to use for masonry. Between 1930? and 1966, Harry worked several jobs, but his true love was for the castles he had seen back home, and he used these stones to built many miniature stone castle masterpieces. He was commissioned to build these by both locals and the wealthy, some of which were lighted garden fountains. He took great pride in his craftsmanship and decided to try to get one of his castles displayed at the nearby museum. He tried persistently to see the museum owner so he could convince her. After several days, the owner, being annoyed by his loitering, told him they were not interested in his work. He was heart broken and so proud of his work, feeling he had lost his dream; he went home and committed suicide. But his passion lives on. There are still some of these fountains and planters displayed on the lawns of several homes in South Hero. You can see examples of his passionate craftsmanship by touring the south end of South Hero.
… – From Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site.
The Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed (Russian: Собо́р Васи́лия Блаже́нного, tr. Sobór Vasíliya Blazhénnogo), commonly known as Saint Basil's Cathedral, is an Orthodox church in Red Square of Moscow, and is one of the most popular cultural symbols of Russia. The building, now a museum, is officially known as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, or Pokrovsky Cathedral. It was built from 1555 to 1561 on orders from Ivan the Terrible and commemorates the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan. Its completion, with its colors, was made in 1683. It was the city's tallest building until the completion of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in 1600.
The original building, known as Trinity Church and later Trinity Cathedral, contained eight chapels arranged around a ninth, central chapel dedicated to the Intercession; a tenth chapel was erected in 1588 over the grave of the venerated local saint Vasily (Basil). In the 16th and 17th centuries, because it was perceived as the earthly symbol of the Heavenly City, like all churches in Byzantine Christianity, the church was popularly known as the "Jerusalem" and served as an allegory of the Jerusalem Temple in the annual Palm Sunday parade attended by the Patriarch of Moscow and the Tsar.
The cathedral has nine domes (each one corresponding to a different church) and is shaped like the flame of a bonfire rising into the sky. Dmitry Shvidkovsky, in his book Russian Architecture and the West, states that "it is like no other Russian building. Nothing similar can be found in the entire millennium of Byzantine tradition from the fifth to the fifteenth century ... a strangeness that astonishes by its unexpectedness, complexity and dazzling interleaving of the manifold details of its design." The cathedral foreshadowed the climax of Russian national architecture in the 17th century.
As part of the program of state atheism, the church was confiscated from the Russian Orthodox community as part of the Soviet Union's antireligious campaigns and has operated as a division of the State Historical Museum since 1928. It was completely secularized in 1929, and remains a federal property of the Russian Federation. The church has been part of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, weekly Orthodox Christian services with prayer to St. Basil have been restored since 1997.
Construction under Ivan IV
The site of the church had been, historically, a busy marketplace between the St. Frol's (later Saviour's) Gate of the Moscow Kremlin and the outlying posad. The centre of the marketplace was marked by the Trinity Church, built of the same white stone as the Kremlin of Dmitry Donskoy (1366–68) and its cathedrals. Tsar Ivan IV marked every victory of the Russo-Kazan War by erecting a wooden memorial church next to the walls of Trinity Church; by the end of his Astrakhan campaign, it was shrouded within a cluster of seven wooden churches. According to the report in Nikon's Chronicle, in the autumn of 1554 Ivan ordered the construction of the wooden Church of Intercession on the same site, "on the moat". One year later, Ivan ordered the construction of a new stone cathedral on the site of Trinity Church to commemorate his campaigns. Dedication of a church to a military victory was "a major innovation" for Muscovy. The placement of the church outside the Kremlin walls was a political statement in favour of posad commoners and against hereditary boyars.
Contemporary commentators clearly identified the new building as Trinity Church, after its easternmost sanctuary; the status of "katholikon" (собор, sobor, large assembly church) had not been bestowed on it yet:
On the Trinity on the Moat in Moscow.
In the same year, through the will of czar and lord and grand prince Ivan began making the pledged church, as he promised for the capture of Kazan: Trinity and Intercession and seven sanctuaries, also called "on the moat". And the builder was Barma with company.
— Piskaryov Chronicle, 1560 (7068 per Byzantine calendar)
The identity of the architect is unknown. Tradition held that the church was built by two architects, Barma and Postnik, the official Russian cultural heritage register lists "Barma and Postnik Yakovlev". Researchers proposed that both names refer to the same person, Postnik Yakovlev or, alternatively, Ivan Yakovlevich Barma (Varfolomey). Legend held that Ivan blinded the architect so that he could not re-create the masterpiece elsewhere. Many historians are convinced that it is a myth, as the architect later participated in the construction of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow as well as in building the walls and towers of the Kazan Kremlin. Postnik Yakovlev remained active at least throughout the 1560s. This myth likely originated with Jerome Horsey's account of Ivan III of Moscow having blinded the architect of the fortress of Ivangorod.
There is evidence that construction involved stonemasons from Pskov and German lands.
Architectural style
Because the church has no analog—in the preceding, contemporary, or later architecture of Muscovy and Byzantine cultural tradition, in general,—the sources that inspired Barma and Postnik are disputed. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc rejected European roots for the cathedral, opining that its corbel arches were Byzantine and ultimately Asian. A modern "Asian" hypothesis considers the cathedral a recreation of Qolşärif Mosque, which was destroyed by Russian troops after the Siege of Kazan.
Nineteenth-century Russian writers, starting with Ivan Zabelin,[5] emphasized the influence of the vernacular wooden churches of the Russian North; their motifs made their ways into masonry, particularly the votive churches that did not need to house substantial congregations. David Watkin also wrote of a blend of Russian and Byzantine roots, calling the cathedral "the climax" of Russian vernacular wooden architecture.
The church combines the staggered layered design of the earliest (1505–1508) part of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the central tent of the Church of Ascension in Kolomenskoye (1530s), and the cylindric shape of the Church of Beheading of John the Baptist in Dyakovo (1547); but the origin of these unique buildings is equally debated. The Church in Kolomenskoye, according to Sergei Podyapolsky, was built by Italian Petrok Maly, although mainstream history has not yet accepted his opinion. Andrey Batalov revised the year of completion of Dyakovo church from 1547 to the 1560s–70s, and noted that Trinity Church could have had no tangible predecessors at all.
Dmitry Shvidkovsky suggested that the "improbable" shapes of the Intercession Church and the Church of Ascension in Kolomenskoye manifested an emerging national renaissance, blending earlier Muscovite elements with the influence of Italian Renaissance. A large group of Italian architects and craftsmen continuously worked in Moscow in 1474–1539, as well as Greek refugees who arrived in the city after the fall of Constantinople. These two groups, according to Shvidkovsky, helped Moscow rulers in forging the doctrine of Third Rome, which in turn promoted assimilation of contemporary Greek and Italian culture. Shvidkovsky noted the resemblance of the cathedral's floorplan to Italian concepts by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Donato Bramante, but most likely Filarete's Trattato di architettura. Other Russian researchers noted a resemblance to sketches by Leonardo da Vinci, although he could not have been known in Ivan's Moscow. Nikolay Brunov recognized the influence of these prototypes but not their significance; he suggested that mid-16th century Moscow already had local architects trained in Italian tradition, architectural drawing and perspective, and that this culture was lost during the Time of Troubles.
Andrey Batalov wrote that judging by the number of novel elements introduced with Trinity Church, it was most likely built by German craftsmen. Batalov and Shvidkovsky noted that during Ivan's reign, Germans and Englishmen replaced Italians, although German influence peaked later during the reign of Mikhail Romanov. German influence is indirectly supported by the rusticated pilasters of the central church, a feature more common in contemporary Northern Europe than in Italy.
The 1983 academic edition of Monuments of Architecture in Moscow takes the middle ground: the church is, most likely, a product of the complex interaction of distinct Russian traditions of wooden and stone architecture, with some elements borrowed from the works of Italians in Moscow. Specifically, the style of brickwork in the vaults is Italian.
Layout
Instead of following the original ad hoc layout (seven churches around the central core), Ivan's architects opted for a more symmetrical floor plan with eight side churches around the core, producing "a thoroughly coherent, logical plan" despite the erroneous latter "notion of a structure devoid of restraint or reason" influenced by the memory of Ivan's irrational atrocities. The central core and the four larger churches placed on the four major compass points are octagonal; the four diagonally placed smaller churches are cuboid, although their shape is hardly visible through later additions. The larger churches stand on massive foundations, while the smaller ones were each placed on a raised platform as if hovering above ground.
Although the side churches are arranged in perfect symmetry, the cathedral as a whole is not. The larger central church was deliberately offset to the west from the geometric centre of the side churches, to accommodate its larger apse on the eastern side. As a result of this subtle calculated asymmetry, viewing from the north and the south presents a complex multi-axial shape, while the western façade, facing the Kremlin, appears properly symmetrical and monolithic. The latter perception is reinforced by the fortress-style machicolation and corbeled cornice of the western Church of Entry into Jerusalem, mirroring the real fortifications of the Kremlin.
Inside the composite church is a labyrinth of narrow vaulted corridors and vertical cylinders of the churches. Today the cathedral consists of nine individual chapels. The largest, central one, the Church of the Intercession, is 46 metres (151 ft) tall internally but has a floor area of only 64 square metres (690 sq ft). Nevertheless, it is wider and airier than the church in Kolomenskoye with its exceptionally thick walls. The corridors functioned as internal parvises; the western corridor, adorned with a unique flat caissoned ceiling, doubled as the narthex.
The detached belfry of the original Trinity Church stood southwest or south of the main structure. Late 16th- and early 17th-century plans depict a simple structure with three roof tents, most likely covered with sheet metal. No buildings of this type survive to date, although it was then common and used in all of the pass-through towers of Skorodom. August von Meyenberg's panorama (1661) presents a different building, with a cluster of small onion domes.
Structure
The foundations, as was traditional in medieval Moscow, were built of white stone, while the churches themselves were built of red brick (28 by 14 by 8 cm (11.0 by 5.5 by 3.1 in)), then a relatively new material (the first attested brick building in Moscow, the new Kremlin Wall, was started in 1485). Surveys of the structure show that the basement level is perfectly aligned, indicating use of professional drawing and measurement, but each subsequent level becomes less and less regular. Restorers who replaced parts of the brickwork in 1954–1955 discovered that the massive brick walls conceal an internal wooden frame running the entire height of the church. This frame, made of elaborately tied thin studs, was erected as a life-size spatial model of the future cathedral and was then gradually enclosed in solid masonry.
The builders, fascinated by the flexibility of the new technology, used red bricks as a decorative medium both inside and out, leaving as much brickwork open as possible; when location required the use of stone walls, it was decorated with a brickwork pattern painted over stucco. A major novelty introduced by the church was the use of strictly "architectural" means of exterior decoration. Sculpture and sacred symbols employed by earlier Russian architecture are completely missing; floral ornaments are a later addition. Instead, the church boasts a diversity of three-dimensional architectural elements executed in brick.
Colour
The church acquired its present-day vivid colours in several stages from the 1680s to 1848. Russian attitude towards colour in the 17th century changed in favour of bright colours; iconographic and mural art experienced an explosive growth in the number of available paints, dyes and their combinations. The original colour scheme, missing these innovations, was far less challenging. It followed the depiction of the Heavenly City in the Book of Revelation:
And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats, I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.
— Revelation, 4:3–4 (KJV)
The 25 seats from the biblical reference are alluded to in the building's structure, with the addition of eight small onion domes around the central tent, four around the western side church and four elsewhere. This arrangement survived through most of the 17th century. The walls of the church mixed bare red brickwork or painted imitation of bricks with white ornaments, in roughly equal proportion. The domes, covered with tin, were uniformly gilded, creating an overall bright but fairly traditional combination of white, red and golden colours. Moderate use of green and blue ceramic inserts provided a touch of rainbow as prescribed by the Bible.
While historians agree on the colour of the 16th-century domes, their shape is disputed. Boris Eding wrote that they most likely were of the same onion shape as the present-day domes. However, both Kolomenskoye and Dyakovo churches have flattened hemispherical domes, and the same type could have been used by Barma and Postnik.
Development
1583–1596
The original Trinity Church burnt down in 1583 and was refitted by 1593. The ninth sanctuary, dedicated to Basil Fool for Christ (the 1460s–1552), was added in 1588 next to the north-eastern sanctuary of the Three Patriarchs. Another local fool, Ivan the Blessed, was buried on the church grounds in 1589; a sanctuary in his memory was established in 1672 inside the south-eastern arcade.
The vault of the Saint Basil Sanctuary serves as a reference point in evaluating the quality of Muscovite stonemasonry and engineering. As one of the first vaults of its type, it represents the average of engineering craft that peaked a decade later in the church of the Trinity in Khoroshovo (completed 1596). The craft was lost in the Time of Troubles; buildings from the first half of the 17th century lack the refinement of the late 16th century, compensating for poor construction skill with thicker walls and heavier vaults.
1680–1683
The second, and most significant, round of refitting and expansion took place in 1680–1683. The nine churches themselves retained their appearance, but additions to the ground-floor arcade and the first-floor platform were so profound that Nikolay Brunov rebuilt a composite church from an "old" building and an independent work that incorporated the "new" Trinity Church. What once was a group of nine independent churches on a common platform became a monolithic temple.
The formerly open ground-floor arcades were filled with brick walls; the new space housed altars from thirteen former wooden churches erected on the site of Ivan's executions in Red Square. Wooden shelters above the first-floor platform and stairs (the cause of frequent fires) were rebuilt in brick, creating the present-day wrap-around galleries with tented roofs above the porches and vestibules.
The old detached belfry was demolished; its square basement was reused for a new belltower. The tall single tented roof of this belltower, built in the vernacular style of the reign of Alexis I, significantly changed the appearance of the cathedral, adding a strong asymmetrical counterweight to the church itself. The effect is most pronounced on the southern and eastern facades (as viewed from Zaryadye), although the belltower is large enough to be seen from the west.
The first ornamental murals in the cathedral appeared in the same period, starting with floral ornaments inside the new galleries; the towers retained their original brickwork pattern. Finally, in 1683, the church was adorned with a tiled cornice in yellow and blue, featuring a written history of the church in Old Slavic typeface.
1737–1784
In 1737 the church was damaged by a massive fire and later restored by Ivan Michurin. The inscriptions made in 1683 were removed during the repairs of 1761–1784. The church received its first figurative murals inside the churches; all exterior and interior walls of the first two floors were covered with floral ornamentation. The belltower was connected with the church through a ground-floor annex; the last remaining open arches of the former ground-floor arcade were filled during the same period, erasing the last hint of what was once an open platform carrying the nine churches of Ivan's Jerusalem.
1800–1848
Paintings of Red Square by Fyodor Alekseyev, made in 1800–1802, show that by this time the church was enclosed in an apparently chaotic cluster of commercial buildings; rows of shops "transformed Red Square into an oblong and closed yard." In 1800 the space between the Kremlin wall and the church was still occupied by a moat that predated the church itself. The moat was filled in preparation for the coronation of Alexander I in 1801. The French troops who occupied Moscow in 1812 used the church for stables and looted anything worth taking. The church was spared by the Fire of Moscow (1812) that razed Kitai-gorod, and by the troops' failure to blow it up according to Napoleon's order. The interiors were repaired in 1813 and the exterior in 1816. Instead of replacing missing ceramic tiles of the main tent, the Church preferred to simply cover it with a tin roof.
The fate of the immediate environment of the church has been a subject of dispute between city planners since 1813. Scotsman William Hastie proposed clearing the space around all sides of the church and all the way down to the Moskva River; the official commission led by Fyodor Rostopchin and Mikhail Tsitsianov agreed to clear only the space between the church and Lobnoye Mesto. Hastie's plan could have radically transformed the city, but he lost to the opposition, whose plans were finally endorsed by Alexander I in December 1817 (the specific decision on clearing the rubble around the church was issued in 1816).
Nevertheless, actual redevelopment by Joseph Bove resulted in clearing the rubble and creating Vasilyevskaya (St. Basil's) Square between the church and Kremlin wall by shaving off the crest of the Kremlin Hill between the church and the Moskva River. Red Square was opened to the river, and "St. Basil thus crowned the decapitated hillock." Bove built the stone terrace wall separating the church from the pavement of Moskvoretskaya Street; the southern side of the terrace was completed in 1834. Minor repairs continued until 1848, when the domes acquired their present-day colours.
1890–1914
Preservationist societies monitored the state of the church and called for a proper restoration throughout the 1880s and 1890s, but it was regularly delayed for lack of funds. The church did not have a congregation of its own and could only rely on donations raised through public campaigning; national authorities in Saint Petersburg and local in Moscow prevented financing from state and municipal budgets. In 1899 Nicholas II reluctantly admitted that this expense was necessary, but again all the involved state and municipal offices, including the Holy Synod, denied financing. Restoration, headed by Andrey Pavlinov (died 1898) and Sergey Solovyov, dragged on from 1896 to 1909; in total, preservationists managed to raise around 100,000 roubles.
Restoration began with replacing the roofing of the domes. Solovyov removed the tin roofing of the main tent installed in the 1810s and found many original tiles missing and others discoloured; after a protracted debate the whole set of tiles on the tented roof was replaced with new ones. Another dubious decision allowed the use of standard bricks that were smaller than the original 16th-century ones. Restorers agreed that the paintwork of the 19th century must be replaced with a "truthful recreation" of historic patterns, but these had to be reconstructed and deduced based on medieval miniatures. In the end, Solovyov and his advisers chose a combination of deep red with deep green that is retained to the present.
In 1908 the church received its first warm air heating system, which did not work well because of heat losses in long air ducts, heating only the eastern and northern sanctuaries. In 1913 it was complemented with a pumped water heating system serving the rest of the church.
1918–1941
During World War I, the church was headed by protoiereus Ioann Vostorgov, a nationalist preacher and a leader of the Black-Hundredist Union of the Russian People. Vostorgov was arrested by Bolsheviks in 1918 on a pretext of embezzling nationalized church properties and was executed in 1919.[citation needed] The church briefly enjoyed Vladimir Lenin's "personal interest"; in 1923 it became a public museum, though religious services continued until 1929.
Bolshevik planners entertained ideas of demolishing the church after Lenin's funeral (January 1924). In the first half of the 1930s, the church became an obstacle for Joseph Stalin's urbanist plans, carried out by Moscow party boss Lazar Kaganovich, "the moving spirit behind the reconstruction of the capital". The conflict between preservationists, notably Pyotr Baranovsky, and the administration continued at least until 1936 and spawned urban legends. In particular, a frequently-told story is that Kaganovich picked up a model of the church in the process of envisioning Red Square without it, and Stalin sharply responded "Lazar, put it back!" Similarly, Stalin's master planner, architect Vladimir Semyonov, reputedly dared to "grab Stalin's elbow when the leader picked up a model of the church to see how Red Square would look without it" and was replaced by pure functionary Sergey Chernyshov.
In the autumn of 1933, the church was struck from the heritage register. Baranovsky was summoned to perform a last-minute survey of the church slated for demolition, and was then arrested for his objections. While he served his term in the Gulag, attitudes changed and by 1937 even hard-line Bolshevik planners admitted that the church should be spared. In the spring of 1939, the church was locked, probably because demolition was again on the agenda; however, the 1941 publication of Dmitry Sukhov's detailed book on the survey of the church in 1939–1940 speaks against this assumption.
1947 to present
In the first years after World War II renovators restored the historical ground-floor arcades and pillars that supported the first-floor platform, cleared up vaulted and caissoned ceilings in the galleries, and removed "unhistoric" 19th-century oil paint murals inside the churches. Another round of repairs, led by Nikolay Sobolev in 1954–1955, restored original paint imitating brickwork, and allowed restorers to dig inside old masonry, revealing the wooden frame inside it. In the 1960s, the tin roofing of the domes was replaced with copper.
The last round of renovation was completed in September 2008 with the opening of the restored sanctuary of St. Alexander Svirsky. The building is still partly in use today as a museum and, since 1991, is occasionally used for services by the Russian Orthodox Church. Since 1997 Orthodox Christian services have been held regularly. Nowadays every Sunday at Saint Basil's church there is a divine liturgy at 10 a.m. with an Akathist to Saint Basil.
Naming
The building, originally known as "Trinity Church",[8] was consecrated on 12 July 1561, and was subsequently elevated to the status of a sobor (similar to an ecclesiastical basilica in the Catholic Church, but usually and incorrectly translated as "cathedral"). "Trinity", according to tradition, refers to the easternmost sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, while the central sanctuary of the church is dedicated to the Intercession of Mary. Together with the westernmost sanctuary of the Entry into Jerusalem, these sanctuaries form the main east–west axis (Christ, Mary, Holy Trinity), while other sanctuaries are dedicated to individual saints.
Sanctuaries of the cathedral
Compass point Type Dedicated to Commemorates
Central coreTented churchIntercession of Most Holy TheotokosBeginning of the final assault of Kazan, 1 October 1552
WestColumnEntry of Christ into JerusalemTriumph of the Muscovite troops
North-westGroin vaultSaint Gregory the Illuminator of ArmeniaCapture of Ars Tower of Kazan Kremlin, 30 September 1552
NorthColumnSaint Martyrs Cyprian and Justinia (since 1786 Saint Adrian and Natalia of Nicomedia)Complete capture of Kazan Kremlin, 2 October 1552
North-eastGroin vaultThree Patriarchs of Alexandria (since 1680 Saint John the Merciful)Defeat of Yepancha's cavalry on 30 August 1552
EastColumnLife-giving Holy TrinityHistorical Trinity Church on the same site
South-eastGroin vaultSaint Alexander SvirskyDefeat of Yepancha's cavalry on 30 August 1552
SouthColumnThe icon of Saint Nicholas from the Velikaya River (Nikola Velikoretsky)The icon was brought to Moscow in 1555.
South-westGroin vaultSaint Barlaam of KhutynMay have been built to commemorate Vasili III of Russia
North-eastern annex (1588)Groin vaultBasil the BlessedGrave of venerated local saint
South-eastern annex (1672)Groin vaultLaying the Veil (since 1680: Nativity of Theotokos, since 1916: Saint John the Blessed of Moscow)Grave of venerated local saint
The name "Intercession Church" came into use later, coexisting with Trinity Church. From the end of the 16th century[66] to the end of the 17th century the cathedral was also popularly called Jerusalem, with reference to its church of Entry into Jerusalem as well as to its sacral role in religious rituals. Finally, the name of Vasily (Basil) the Blessed, who died during construction and was buried on-site, was attached to the church at the beginning of the 17th century.
Current Russian tradition accepts two coexisting names of the church: the official "Church of Intercession on the Moat" (in full, the "Church of Intercession of Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat"), and the "Temple of Basil the Blessed". When these names are listed together the latter name, being informal, is always mentioned second.
The common Western translations "Cathedral of Basil the Blessed" and "Saint Basil's Cathedral" incorrectly bestow the status of cathedral on the church of Basil, but are nevertheless widely used even in academic literature. Especially during the 19. century, in English and other languages the Saint Basil's Cathedral was also called (Cathedral or Church of) Vassili Blagennoi.
Sacral and social role
On the day of its consecration the church itself became part of Orthodox thaumaturgy. According to the legend, its "missing" ninth church (more precisely a sanctuary) was "miraculously found" during a ceremony attended by Tsar Ivan IV, Metropolitan Makarius with the divine intervention of Saint Tikhon. Piskaryov's Chronist wrote in the second quarter of the 17th century:
And the Tsar came to the dedication of the said church with Tsaritsa Nastasia and with Metropolitan Makarius and brought the icon of St Nicholas the Wonderworker that came from Vyatka. And they began to offer a prayer service with sanctified water. And the Tsar touched the base with his own hands. And the builders saw that another sanctuary appeared, and told the Tsar. And the Tsar, and Metropolitan, and all the clergy were surprised by the finding of another sanctuary. And the Tsar ordered it to be dedicated to Nicholas ...
— Piskaryov Chronicle, 1560 (7068 per Byzantine calendar)
Allegory of Jerusalem
Construction of wrap-around ground-floor arcades in the 1680s visually united the nine churches of the original cathedral into a single building. Earlier, the clergy and the public perceived it as nine distinct churches on a common base, a generalized allegory of the Orthodox Heavenly City similar to fantastic cities of medieval miniatures. At a distance, separate churches towering over their base resembled the towers and churches of a distant citadel rising above the defensive wall. The abstract allegory was reinforced by real-life religious rituals where the church played the role of the biblical Temple in Jerusalem:
The capital city, Moscow, is split into three parts; the first of them, called Kitai-gorod, is encircled with a solid thick wall. It contains an extraordinary beautiful church, all clad in shiny bright gems, called Jerusalem. It is the destination of an annual Palm Sunday walk, when the Grand Prince must lead a donkey carrying the Patriarch, from the Church of Virgin Mary to the church of Jerusalem which stands next to the citadel walls. Here is where the most illustrious princely, noble and merchant families live. Here is, also, the main muscovite marketplace: the trading square is built as a brick rectangle, with twenty lanes on each side where the merchants have their shops and cellars ...
— Peter Petreius, History of the Great Duchy of Moscow, 1620
Templum S. Trinitatis, etiam Hierusalem dicitur; ad quo Palmarum fest Patriarcha asino insidens a Caesare introducitur.
Temple of Holy Trinity, also called Jerusalem, to where the tsar leads the Patriarch, sitting on a donkey, on the Palm Holiday.
— Legend of Peter's map of Moscow, 1597, as reproduced in the Bleau Atlas
The last donkey walk (хождение на осляти) took place in 1693. Mikhail Petrovich Kudryavtsev noted that all cross processions of the period began, as described by Petreius, from the Dormition Church, passed through St. Frol's (Saviour's) Gate and ended at Trinity Cathedral. For these processions the Kremlin itself became an open-air temple, properly oriented from its "narthex" (Cathedral Square) in the west, through the "royal doors" (Saviour's Gate), to the "sanctuary" (Trinity Cathedral) in the east.
Urban hub
Tradition calls the Kremlin the centre of Moscow, but the geometric centre of the Garden Ring, first established as the Skorodom defensive wall in the 1590s, lies outside the Kremlin wall, coincident with the cathedral. Pyotr Goldenberg (1902–71), who popularized this notion in 1947, still regarded the Kremlin as the starting seed of Moscow's radial-concentric system, despite Alexander Chayanov's earlier suggestion that the system was not strictly concentric at all.
In the 1960s Gennady Mokeev (born 1932) formulated a different concept of the historical growth of Moscow. According to Mokeev, medieval Moscow, constrained by the natural boundaries of the Moskva and Neglinnaya Rivers, grew primarily in a north-easterly direction into the posad of Kitai-gorod and beyond. The main road connecting the Kremlin to Kitai-gorod passed through St. Frol's (Saviour's) Gate and immediately afterwards fanned out into at least two radial streets (present-day Ilyinka and Varvarka), forming the central market square. In the 14th century the city was largely contained within two balancing halves, Kremlin and Kitai-gorod, separated by a marketplace, but by the end of the century it extended further along the north-eastern axis. Two secondary hubs in the west and south spawned their own street networks, but their development lagged behind until the Time of Troubles.
Tsar Ivan's decision to build the church next to St. Frol's Gate established the dominance of the eastern hub with a major vertical accent, and inserted a pivot point between the nearly equal Kremlin and Kitai-gorod into the once amorphous marketplace. The cathedral was the main church of the posad, and at the same time it was perceived as a part of the Kremlin thrust into the posad, a personal messenger of the Tsar reaching the masses without the mediation of the boyars and clergy. It was complemented by the nearby Lobnoye mesto, a rostrum for the Tsar's public announcements first mentioned in chronicles in 1547 and rebuilt in stone in 1597–1598. Conrad Bussow, describing the triumph of False Dmitriy I, wrote that on 3 June 1606 "a few thousand men hastily assembled and followed the boyarin with [the impostor's] letter through the whole Moscow to the main church they call Jerusalem that stands right next to the Kremlin gates, raised him on Lobnoye Mesto, called out for the Muscovites, read the letter and listened to the boyarin's oral explanation."
Replicas
A scale model of Saint Basil's Cathedral has been built in Jalainur in Inner Mongolia, near China's border with Russia. The building houses a science museum.
"Isso tudo que está aí, esse lixo, essa violência, essa discriminação, esse estupro social, esse desemprego, esse favoritismo, essa incompetência, é o que se chama de 'ordem natural das coisas'" (Millôr Fernandes IN: "Milôr Definitivo - A Bíblia do Caos", p.157)
“Tutto questo che è lí, questo rifiuto, questa violenza, questa discriminazione, questo stupro sociale, questa disoccupazione, questo favoritismo, questa incompetenza, è ciò che si chiama di ‘ordine naturale delle cose’” (Millôr Fernandes in: “Millôr Definitivo – A Bíblia do Caos”, p.157, trad. libera)
“Everything that is here, this dirt, this violence, this discrimination, this social rape, this unemployment, this favouritism, this incompetence, is what we call ‘things’ natural order’” (Milôr Fernandes IN: “Millôr Definitivo – A Bíblia do Caos”, p. 157, free translation)
a complex structure of the railway station liège-guillemins, by Santiago Calatrava
more pictures of liège-guillemins on my website:
Wupatki Pueblo, Wupatki National Monument
The Pueblo ruins, or Wupatki (tall houses) were scattered on the arid plains near Sunset Crater, whose eruption in the 11th century caused an influx of dwellers due to the volcanic ashes that were suitable for agriculture. The intricate complexity of these houses, built merely with the local sandstone sheets, was a pure form of art to me.
Visualization of the terms:
"Complexity", "Management of Complexity", "Networking", "Knowledge Networking"
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
The vertical image of scenery along the ring road from Myvatn to Eglisstadir. The moss and grasses on the hills in the highland area became vivid color of autumn.
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
Vizualizing complexity, a project by masterstudents of HDK Götenborg, Sweden - exihibition in Malmø.
Sharp critical visualisation of the refugee stream coming to Europe.
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011