New Media Initiatives Blog

Several months before I was employed by the Walker, I was one of the “resident artists” that participated in the OPEN-ENDED exhibition. The project that my collaborators, The Revolutionary Party, and I came up with was called Nothing (Nowhere) to Hide. We were asked by the Minnesota History Center to bring the project out of the archives for the opening of The Enemy Within: Terror in America - 1776 to Today. The opening reception will be Tuesday January 29, from 7-9pm.

The project is an examination of the aspects of secrecy in the government, and how much the government wants to know about the goings-on of citizens. The idea for the project was largely inspired by the warrantless wiretapping scandal, broken in the New York Times. We wanted to show how government secrecy is, for the time being, still a two way street, at least in a token manner, but highlight the disparities in the flow of information.

The project consists of four parts. One is documentation of de-classified, re-classified documents from the National Archives, a separate, but perhaps more mind-boggling example of government secrecy. The second is documentation of the FOIA request letters and responses to our request for our own FBI files (we requested them). The third part of the project is a computer and printer kiosk where users can fill out an on-screen form with their information to generate FOIA and Privacy Act letters to request their FBI file. The final aspect of the project is a video we created explaining how to request an FBI file. We shot this video with local actor Jim Bovino. Here’s the video, it’s kind of fun:

How To Request Your FBI File from Justin Heideman on Vimeo.

Sadly, our FBI file request generator does not work online, as it was designed for a specific browser and printer settings, but the site Get My FBI File seems to do the same thing (maybe even better).

Just a quick note, as we’re busy prepping for the sold out After Hours Preview Party tonight. As per usual, the pictures from Party People Photos will be uploaded to flickr during the event, and will show up in this set and also in the After Hours group pool. Don’t forget to join the group and add your own photos if you’re at the event and have a digital camera.

We’ve set up something special to happen with the photos (see above). I’ll share more after the event is over.

One of the first big projects I worked on when I came on board here was redesigning the Walker shop’s online storefront. This effort has now come to fruition and I’m happy to present the new Walker Shop. Here are some interesting tidbits about the design:

• The design makes heavy use of our identity system, Walker Expanded, as implemented on Shop materials, and extends this into the web version.
• The shop home page borrows the poster design metaphor from the main Walker homepage, since it works well to exemplify the different neighborhoods, and in the shop, item categories.
• Each of the item categories also have different photography in the header that closely tie in with the items as they are seen in the physical shop.
• In creating the design, I also did research on what information shoppers look for or need when shopping. The resulting pages are located in the bottom 3 columns on every page.
• The cart icon in the shop is from the Drunkery Love icon set and the plus icon is from urlgreyhot.

In terms of technology powering the site, we worked with EVT Retail to handle the back end work. EVT hosts the entire operation, but their software is able to talk to the point of sale system and inventory system that our shop uses. This means that the online shop has accurate knowledge of what items are for sale and how many we have left. Not every item that is in the physical shop is online, but there is much more available than the old shop. The new shop also talks to our membership database so patrons with memberships can also get their 10% discount (it shows up in the checkout process).

If you attended the After Hours party for Heart of Darkness, odds are you might have participated in one of the 300-plus photos taken during the night. Another After Hours is happening again tonight, and PPP will be there for all the action.

This time around, the technical setup is more automated and much improved. Photos will be automatically uploaded to flickr during the party. You won’t have to wait for me to come into work the next morning, batch process them, and upload them. I’ll try to post some more technical details on the workflow next week, since it has taken a bit of debugging and might be useful for some to know.

In the meantime, you can find the photos in the Kara Walker After Hours flickr set, and also in the After Hours group pool. If you take any photos at the party with your own camera, add them to the pool!

At this Friday’s After Hours event, we’ll be debuting our latest crowd pleaser. “Party People Photos” is an installation that lets people take their own photos and have them projected onto several screens during the party. Additionally, we’ll be putting all the photos up in a Flickr Pool for all to see and even add their own photos to the pool.

The idea for the project grew out of the theme of the ads for the party, “Party People”, which uses images of people from the expansion opening party back in 2005. We like the opening photos, but we want more of them and we want everyone to be able to experience the party. We did a test run of the installation on monday and it went quite good. Word got out among some of the staff and we captured quite a few photos. Funny, sassy, weird… Exactly what we’re hoping for.

Below is a screenshot of the projection movie from the test, which is what it will look like on Friday night.

Quicktime h.264, 880K

Capturing
We’re using an iMac with a built-in iSight to capture the images. The iMac is hooked up to a Canon Eos 10D via USB, which is the camera that actually takes your picture when triggered. To trigger the capture, we have a big red button connected to the computer via an i-pac. I soldered up the connection for the button and the iPaq, which marks the first time I’ve ever got to do soldering at my day job. The button took some googling to find, but it turns out the company that makes it is actually located in Roseville, MN. The flash on the camera is a ring flash, so they have a sexy, fashion photo feel.

Tying all of the inputs together is Max/MSP + Jitter. When the button is hit, it acts as if the “x” key has been hit on the keyboard, which starts the countdown. At 7 seconds, the camera capture is started. As I talked about in a previous post, we’re using gphoto2 to handle the capture. It takes a few seconds for it to happen, but goes off at right about 0. The built-in iSight on the iMac is used to give a preview image so people can compose their shot with the proper amount of sass and pizzaz (heavy on the sass, please).

Some geek porn:

Once the photo is downloaded, it is dropped in a folder where launchd sees it and triggers a script that rysync’s it to the projection computers. At this point, the capture station is ready to take another photo.

Projection
The projection isn’t quite a slide show, but achieves the same goals as a slide show in that it shows a collection of images. We’re using quartz composer to do this, since it’s the hottest graphic tool on OS X and makes this kind of thing very easy and very smooth. In this patch, the images around the edges randomly pick an image from the pool of available images and display it. The center images have a simple algorithm that displays a mix of the most recently taken images, but some other random ones as well. This way, if you’ve just gotten your picture taken, you’ll be able to see it big, but you’ll also have an opportunity to see other photos.

Even more geek porn:

If all goes well, the projection will be showing on “The Rock” in the Bazinet Garden Lobby and on the shades in the Cargill lounge.

On the Web
Once the party is over, we want the fun to keep rolling, so all the photos are going up on flickr. Not only do we want an easy way to show the photos, and flickr has one of the best web-based interfaces for that, but we also want people to be able to add their own. We’ve set up a group for the After Hours parties, where we’ll be putting our photos. If you go to the event and take some photos with your phone or digicam, join our group and add it to ourAfter Hours Flickr Pool. We’ve also set up a page on the walker site that has some info about After Hours and the flickr group.

One small note: By attending the party and getting your pictures taken in the photo booth, you give us the rights to use your photo in documentation of the party and project. This is all covered on the back of your ticket for the event, so it is basically a condition for getting in the building. If you add your photos to our pool, they’re covered by whatever copyright restriction you put on them in Flickr.

So, go to the party, get your picture taken, take some photos of your own (just not in the galleries), join our flickr group, and upload your pictures. If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it.

There are going to be some changes in the New Media department coming up. After 4 years of working here as a New Media Designer I’m off to New York to try my hand at freelance interaction design. My position is being filled by the very talented and capable Justin Heideman who is a fellow MCAD alum, member of the Revolutionary Party and an all around good guy. I’m sure he’ll start blogging soon.

This is my last day in One Groveland but not my last post on the Walker blogs. My colleagues in New Media are going let me keep posting here, but anyone who wants to get in contact with me after today should use my other email (eric AT helveticore.com).

Robin and I were just working on the Hennepin Avenue Projection yesterday so we got to walk right by the new offices under construction. Here is Robin the Director of New Media Initiatives in her future space.

Walker Blogs received a big facelift today with the upgrade to WordPress 2.0. Of course nothing is as easy as I plan it to be, and the upgrade took longer and broke more things than I’d hoped. We’re using a clever(??) hack to keep our blog software synchronized across multiple blogs - rather than installing and maintaining unique versions of WP for each blog, I’ve got one shared installation pointing at multiple databases. WP looks at the url to determine which database to use, and from the DB gets the rest of the settings including template, etc. Works well, mostly, and it means I only have to do one upgrade and everyone gets the new version.

… it also means when something breaks, everything breaks. WP 2.0 now uses a caching mechanism which was attempting to be shared across the blogs - you’d be viewing content from one blog in another’s template, and couldn’t log in to anything after you’d been to one blog. A big mess, and a bit hard to track down at first.

Anyway, it’s all solved and working - nothing much looks different to the end user, but the writing interface got a huge upgrade so hopefully that will translate into more and better posts. Enjoy!

This article first appeared in the October 2005 Walker Calendar.

The online experience has been changing and growing over the past few years, and the New Media Initiatives team has been working hard to enable the Walker to share information efficiently with its audiences.

Dial-up art.
Art on Call has been up and running since April; anyone with a cell phone can call 612.374.8200 and hear interviews with artists or receive information about artworks on view. Unfortunately, those who tried to download that content onto an iPod (or other MP3 device) or computer were out of luck--until now. The material is currently online in a completely free, downloadable form at newmedia.walkerart.org/aoc. Slap on your headphones and stroll through the galleries day or night with the resonant voices of Chuck Close, Jasper Johns, and many other artists informing your footsteps and thoughts.

Downloadable date book.
Feeding information directly to desktop applications instead of the Web browser is an exciting new trend that continues to gather momentum. To help keep that ball rolling, the Walker is now providing feeds from its calendar directly to applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Apple iCal. If you use one of these, you can include Walker events in your daily schedule without ever leaving your calendar program. For a complete listing and instructions online, just go to calendar.walkerart.org and click on the "News Center" button.

Blogs: Up close and personal.
It's not all about technology, though; it's also about content. The staff at the Walker has been in need of a way to publish announcements, ideas, and progress reports. Enter blogs.walkerart.org, which enables a direct line of communication from the Walker to all. So far, the blogs are filled with posts about recent performances and upcoming shows, official announcements, fresh ideas, and reflections on the work process at the Walker. If you're not sure what blogs are all about, click on in. They're constantly being updated, so you'll always find something new to read.

Wired news.
The site has also expanded to offer RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. Think of it as the Walker's online news wire. Content goes out over this wire and anyone can add it to their site or bring it into their software application.
This format promotes a new level of interconnected sharing on the Web, and it also fuels a whole new breed of software called "news aggregators," which are usually simple programs that sit on your desktop and periodically check for updates on your favorite sites. When the program finds something new, it automatically downloads the content and shows it to you--all without ever opening a Web browser. These aggregators are useful tools for people who check more than one site often or who read a lot of news regularly. If you haven't heard of RSS yet, you will soon--it's a standard already widely accepted by small software developers that is being quickly adopted by larger companies such as Apple and Microsoft. The Walker is among the first art institutions to take full advantage of what is sure to be an explosion of use in published feeds.

There have been some links to our Wiki page out there which made me realize it was kind of a mess. Of course wiki’s tend to be messy but still ours needed a clean up. I organized our front page a bit and added a couple of new development resources. We’ve talked about opening up some of our source files for a long time here, but in the rush to get projects done many files (at least my files) end up poorly commented and not of much use to someone not familiar with the code or structure. While I was debugging a problem that surfaced in the Flash on our programing department pages I had a chance to comment and clean up my source code. Since this is a more general purpose movie than most and turns out to be well commented I released it on our wiki. Hopefully this the start of a new well documented trend in Flash development here. If you do download that source and have feedback just drop me a line via the comments.

Art on Call has been up and running now for almost two weeks! I’m super pleased with the outcome and the fact that people seem to be using the app - for my part it was great on opening day to be able to stand in front of the artwork and listen to the artist or curator talk about what you’re seeing, all without the hassle and overhead of checking out an audio tour device. Very cool.

How did it go getting it finished? Busy. The biggest drama came just before the launch, and involved the text to speech (TTS) engine — when we turned on the high quality TTS it was taking almost a minute(!) to render the text for event descriptions. A user would hit a key and the app would just drift into silence… (details on the problem and solution - it’s solved - can be found on the nmi wiki). So between that and the mad rush to produce content for the opening, it was busy all around - I think the team did a great job getting it launched on time..

Now we’re proceeding (Brent and I) with a website for the project including an interface to the audio clips for each “stop” or artwork id. Not quite the same as standing in front of the art, but I think it will be a good experience for people who can’t make it to the Walker galleries, or who didn’t have their cell phone with them at the time…

Keep watching the blog and wiki for updates as phase two commences - hopefully adding a “browse by artist” function, possibly event reminder callbacks, a set of downloadable MP3 files to put on your iPod to take into the galleries, and more…

We’re working on creating two web kiosks for the Vineland Lobby in the new building, and Nate and I have been creating these for the last couple days. We’ll be using two iMac G5’s as our kiosk stations, and the kiosk software we’ve chosen is wKiosk. We’ve also decided to run a proxy server on the machines, to cache content and make the machines faster. For that we’re using the open source software SquidMan. It works very well.

The initial setup was very quick and wKiosk is fairly simple to use, and it really does lock down the machine well. Testing turned up a few issues however. We’re giving the user featured links on the left hand side of the screen. To do this I’ve made a frameset that we can modify, that allows the user to click and view any pages we decide to feature. The problem was that there are many parts of our website (both old and new) that use hrefs with target=”_top”, which of course breaks you out of a frameset. Clicking on said links when browsing these sites gets rid of this featured link nav I set up for the kiosk. Not good.

We simply can’t change the live sites, but we can’t live with thier current implimentation for the kiosks either. Nate had the idea of dyanmically rewriting the HTML as it was requested, changing all targets to target our main content frameset instead of _top. He found another open source app named Privoxy that does just this, and it works great! Now we can happily surf around on the kiosk without the fear of busting out of our kiosk frameset.

As we poked around some more, we found issue with our Walker Channel. Most media on the channel is Real Media. We normally require users to load video into the Real Player to view it. wKiosk does not allow this as it takes over the entire OS, rendering other apps inopperable (which is great as a security feature, but not for usability of the Channel). Privoxy to came to the rescue again, changing every link of a .ram file into a link to a dynamic page I created to embed the Real file into, thus allowing it to play on the kiosk. But we weren’t quite done yet.

The videos were taking forever to load up, and it wasn’t the buffering that was the problem, it was connecting initially to the file. We figured this was a result of using a 801.11b wireless access point, and that the bandwidth just wasn’t there, but the videos played fine once they started, it just took forever to start. After many hours of trying to figure this out, Nate noticed that he had the firewall on blocking all the ports that Real Player was trying. It would go down its list trying a port to connect on, be refused, then try the next one. It took a long time for it to find the port it needed to get the video, thus the delay before the start of playback in the Channel. That’s now fixed and it works great!

Testing still needs to be done, but right now most everything is working as planned. It looks like this will be a pretty nice kiosk when it’s all said and done. Museum patrons should have a good time with it.

The Art on Call project continues to hurtle forward. The admin interface for the Walker to begin building dynamic menus and associating audio content with artwork is almost done - let’s call it in “beta”. Here’s a rather poor screenshot so you can further appreciate the design skills of Eric and Brent as compared to mine:

Today begins integration test - tying together the xml produced on my side with the VXML produced at the IVR. Fingers crossed…

The table had a big week last week. Marek finished adjusting the cameras and the lights in the table. He put the glass on and Jakub got the gesture recognition interface plugged into the table interface so we could see it working. Turns out the glass on the top of the table is actually two layers. The bottom layer is a peice of plexiglass with surface treatment on one side that leaves it rough but spreads the light out very nicely. The surface of the plexi is sensitive so you can’t touch it or it will get all smudged up and gross looking. So there is a peice of safety glass on top of the plastic to protect it. I snapped some picts with my phone of the table in progress. I ran out of battery though so Robin promised to post her pictures of people actually using the table.

Thats the table right before the glass went on. Someone mentioned before that it looked like a giant sea monster?

Well I told Nate about the sea monster comment so he felt compelled act out being eaten by the table.

That computer on the cart is the server for the two tables.

The table has got the plexiglass on it.

There is the projection on plexi.

View from the hallway.

As requested i took some images of the tables and it’s guts the last time i walked by. Marek was adjusting the lights inside the table all day. There are little plastic rotating arms that hold small rakes of infared LED lights. You can see them in some of the pictures. The arms and lights are the white plastic things on the inside. The LED lights are a new addition in this version apparently they are much brigher and last much longer than the old bulb style.