Building Lumens - Turbulence.orgturbulence.org/.../uploads/2015/07/Building-Lumens.pdf · 2015-09-06 · Building Lumens 11/4/10 10:46:48 AM] Often, it isn’t until after you build

Building Lumens

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Building LumensOr how to network 160 lamps over the internet.

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I just finished a video illustrating Lumens in action shot with my new Xacti 1010.Hope you enjoy it.

VideoPublished on August 11, 2008 in Art. 0 Comments

ResetPublished on July 15, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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LatestVideoResetA Finished Circuit BoardThe OpeningOh Yeah, The Website…The RippleMarianne Has Been Working Her Ass OffLarry Alice Rocks The HouseToo Much To DoThank God For John Schimmel

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Building Lumens


Often, it isn’t until after you build something that you realize all the ways in whichit could have been made better. After a few days of living with Lumens we’vedecided to go back and make improvements where we can. This installation isgoing to be up for 4 months and none of us want it to become a full time jobmaintaining things. One of the things that became obvious to us durring the buildprocess, but we just didn’t have time to deal with it then, was the need for resetswitches on the outside of the box. The boxes were built to house all theelectronics safely, but with the circuit board mounted inside it’s hard to access anddifficult to reprogram if you can’t easily reset it. While we were building, and evenup to about 30 minutes before the opening, we were constantly updating theprogram on all the boxes on a regular basis.

Another thing we’ve seen is that from time to time the microcontrollers seem tolock up. They stop responding to input from the proximity sensor and ignore serialcommands coming from the computer. A simple reset gets them going on their wayagain. Each circuit board has a small reset mounted directly on it. If in the processof resetting, you bump something else on the board, you’re just making more workfor yourself. Most things are soldered in, but a few things, like the fan and theproximity sensor, are socket mounted. When these things get knocked off, it’s areally big pain to get them back in place. So, an external reset switch is the answer.

A Finished Circuit BoardPublished on July 12, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


Now that the dust has settled a bit I wanted to post a couple pictures of a finishedLumens Circuit Board. Above you will find a photo of the front. Note that theTIP120s are covered with heatsinks. Larry helped me work through many of theheat problems as we designed these boards. He informed me that driving six lightbulbs from a single circuit board was going to generate a not insignificant amountof heat, and that I should think about that from the start. I looked high and low forthe perfect heatsinks and these from All Spectrum Electronics were my favorites. Inaddition to the heatsinks each board also has an 18 gauge ground wire soldereddown the length of it, as seen below.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/circuitboardfront.jpghttp://larryalice.com/http://www.allspectrum.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=971&osCsid=afa6ffba00547c2a3426d14b5b3cca7c&sdesc=TO-220+clip-on+heatsink+Model+%23+HEATSINK-TO220-02http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/circuitboardback.jpg

Building Lumens


The trace material on these circuit boards was not designed to handle much heat,and if unaccounted for, this heat could cause the trace to melt right off. We actuallywitnessed this on a board we forgot to solder the wire onto. The heavy gauge wiretakes the strain off the trace material.

We built 36 of these boards by hand, assembly line style, and amazingly most ofthem worked without problem. Cold solders and mis-placed wires were the mostcommon problems.

We used break away headers for the USB adapter, IR proximity sensor, and fan, tokeep these parts socket mounted, and removable. The USB adapter was one of themore expensive components so I wanted to be able to reuse them down the road.

Lumens opened tonight at Greylock Arts in Adams, at the MCLA Gallery 51 Annexin North Adams, and on Turbulence.org. The above photo is courtesy of RyanHutton, The North Adams Transcript. Ryan even shot a great video of the openingand put it on YouTube. Thanks Ryan!

The opening was a huge success, everything worked! But it was looking pretty badright up until we opened the doors. Five minutes before both galleries went downbecause I stupidly chose to reset something. Lesson learned, don’t make any majorchanges five minutes before showtime. The people of Adams where lined up outsidethe door, waiting to see the lamps light up, and nothing was working. I was sick tomy stomach.

Days before the opening I had setup Apple Remote Desktop in both spaces so I

The OpeningPublished on July 10, 2008 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

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Building Lumens


could troubleshoot and fix bugs no matter where I might be. ARD is great, it’s afantastic way to be in two places at once. But then I needed to reset the DSLmodem in the North Adams space and ARD stopped working. Things were sofrantic in the days leading up to the opening that I never had a chance to fix it. All Ineeded to do was get the port forwarding working correctly, and I just never hadthe time.

And there I was, five minutes before the opening, in desperate need to be in twoplaces at once. So I got in the car and drove the 5 miles back and forth betweenboth spaces all night long, troubleshooting, and keeping things happy. I broke myPowerBook’s (Yes, I said PowerBook, antique, I know.) power port in the process,only making things worse. Now my laptop wouldn’t charge, and it was loosingcharge fast. And because I had been using ARD I didn’t think to keep sparedisplays, keyboards, and mice in both spaces in case of emergency, should I needto administer a computer the old fashioned way. Another lesson learned, everycomputer needs a mouse, keyboard, and display, even if you plan to administer itremotely.

It’s truly amazing that Lumens worked at all, given that we never had a chance tofully test it. The only time all three spaces were online simultaneously was in thatmoment, five minutes before the opening, when everything stopped working. Butwhen it came back up, it worked all night, without a hitch. Enjoy photos of theopening below.

Fellow Lumens artist Ven Voisey explains Lumens to the B-HIP interns.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/lumens3.jpghttp://v---v.net/http://mcla.edu/B-HIP

Building Lumens


The MCLA Gallery 51 Annex was packed in North Adams.

People standing outside the MCLA Gallery 51 Annex in North Adams.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/lumens8.jpghttp://mcla.edu/Gallery51http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/lumens11.jpghttp://mcla.edu/Gallery51

Building Lumens


Many artists contributed lamps. Marianne R. Petit’s lamp was made from a backbrace she had to wear as a child.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/lumens17.jpghttp://mrpetit.com/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/lumens19.jpg

Building Lumens


North Adams Transcript reporter Ryan Hutton navigates the lamps at Greylock Artsin Adams.

Lumens project manager Marianne R. Petit speaks with the B-HIP interns about themany challenges involved in building Lumens.

A B-HIP intern browses the lamps in Lumens on Turbulence from the MCLA shuttlebus. Thanks to Wireless Zone of North Adams for providing wireless access to ourlaptops.

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Building Lumens


Visitors browse the lamps at Greylock Arts in Adams.

There have been so many things to do that it’s not totally surprising that one thingshould fall through the cracks until the very end. Marianne has been plugging awayat all the lamp images, getting them clipped out and cleaned up, so they can beinserted into the database. And Abbi has been typing up all the stories andinserting them into the database.

Oh Yeah, The Website…Published on July 10, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


These days I don’t build a website without a content management system. My CMSof choice is Textpattern. It’s great for simple blogging as well as complex websites.I find myself fighting an awful lot with WordPress, or almost any other CMS I’veused, to accomplish anything custom. Textpattern doesn’t get in my way, ever, andfor that I thank it. I haven’t messed with Expression Engine yet, I hear good thingsabout it, maybe one of these days I’ll have the time.

I’ve written an extension for Textpattern that allows it to play nicely with Flashsites. One of these day’s I’ll get around to releasing it to the public. This extensionwith Textpattern provides the foundation for the Lumens site. Flash consumes theXML output from Textpattern to generate the website. I was counting on it allcoming together just in time, and it has. And so here it is, 1:30 pm, the day of ouropening, and we’ve just finished the Lumens website.

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Building Lumens


The web site provides yet another way to experience this installation. It is a way forpeople who visit the galleries to learn about the lamps they’ve seen. It also providesa way for people who can’t visit the galleries to see and read about the lamps. Andin doing so actually illuminate the lamps for a moment in the physical space. Theirpresence then becomes known to the people currently in the galleries in Adams andNorth adams.

The working title for this project has always been Ripple, and the vision that we allhave had for this, has always been that the lamps should respond to people as theymove through the space, as if they were wading in a pool of water. We didn’t wantthe light to look stiff or programmatic at all. Achieving this kind of effect hasalways required that we get a certain density of lamps in each space. I also assumedthat it would require a lot of fussing with dimmer code in Arduino, but now thatwe’ve assigned lamps to every cluster and we can finally see the effect of lampsfading on and off through the space, I can honestly say that this water-like effecthas more to do with the somewhat random placement of lamps around the roomthan with any subroutine.

The biggest problem that we are having is that the proximity sensors are gettingfalse readings as lamps within their field of vision turn on and off. The entire roombegins to oscillate in this increasingly chaotic fashion. It’s really hard to get anykind of meaning out of ones actions within the space. None of us are very happywith the effect because it just seems totally random.

Just a few hours before the opening I discovered that the above was the cause ofour problems because I had mis-set the threshold variable for the sensor on the

The RipplePublished on July 10, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Arduino. This variable defines the point at which the microcontroller should turnthe bulbs on. The sensor is constantly sending a voltage to the Arduino’s input pin.This voltage is always fluctuating up and down slightly as the sensor takes in it’ssurroundings. We have been using Sharp Infra-Red Proximity Sensors, specificallythe 2Y0A02, which has a range of up to 150 cm, 60 inches, or 5 feet, depending onwhich unit of measure you prefer. When the sensor is tripped by someone walkingpast or up to it the voltage goes up and the Arduino can detect this. These sensorscan also indicate the distance of a subject from the sensor through voltagefluctuation.

We considered using several other types of sensors including ultrasonic rangefinders, force sensing resistors, and even video tracking, but ultimately went withthe IR proximity sensors. To make working with these IR sensors easy you’ll want topick up some of these cables as well.

Otherwise the dimming code is quite simple (Note the following code does not usesockets to communicate from one space to another. It has been simplified to onlyshow dimming.):

// i've defined my sensor pin as a constant.

#define sensorPin 0

// the threshold var. consider this a starting point. every sensor is

different.

int threshold = 250;

// the voltage on the input pin is stored in this variable.

int sensorValue = 0;

// used for dimming.

int lumenValue = 0;

// this is called on startup

void setup() {

// the atmega168 has 6 input pins numbered 0 - 5. i chose 0 for my

input pin. see the sensorPin constant defined at top.

pinMode(sensorPin, INPUT);

// the atmega168 has 6 pwm output pins numbered 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and

11. we're going to use all of them.

pinMode(3, OUTPUT);

pinMode(5, OUTPUT);

pinMode(6, OUTPUT);

pinMode(9, OUTPUT);

pinMode(10, OUTPUT);

pinMode(11, OUTPUT);

http://www.trossenrobotics.com/store/p/5447-GP2D12-Sharp-IR-Sensor-to-Servo-Cable.aspx?feed=Froogle

Building Lumens


}

// this is called repeatedly as long as the microcontroller is on.

void loop() {

// analogRead is a built in method that reads a given pin.

sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);

// if the sensor value is above or equel to the threshold.

if (sensorValue >= threshold) {

// turn on all the lamps.

// analogWrite is a built in method that writes a pwm wave to the

given pin.

// paramter 1 is the pin number. parameter 2 is the voltage value

(between 0 and 255).

analogWrite(3, 255);

// so that all 6 lights come on in sequence instead of all at

once use the built in delay method.

// the parameter is given in milliseconds.

delay(100);


delay(100);


delay(100);


delay(100);


delay(100);


delay(100);

// set lumenValue to 0 every time the lights are turned on to

full.

lumenValue = 0;

} else {

// if lumenValue is below 255 (the max value for analogWrite).

if (lumenValue<256) {

// subtract lumenValue (ever incrementing, see below) from

255.

analogWrite(3, 255-lumenValue);





Building Lumens



// this delay makes the fade nice and sexy. not to short, not

too long.

delay(5);

// increment lumenValue.

lumenValue++;

}

}

}

There’s no other way to put it. Marianne has been doing most of the really un-sexygrunt work. That work includes; stripping wires, Photoshopping all the lampimages, sorting out the lamp database, getting press materials ready, and workinghard to keep all of us on track. Below is a before and after of one of the lamps preand post Photoshop to give you an idea of the work she’s been doing. There are160 something lamps that have to be cleaned up, each one has an on and an offstate, you do the math.

Not to mention she prepared all these duplexes.

Marianne Has Been Working Her Ass OffPublished on July 9, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


There is no way to properly thank her for all her hard work.

Larry Alice Rocks The HousePublished on July 8, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


The simple truth is there wouldn’t be a Lumens without the help of Larry Alice.Above, Larry is helping me debug a Lumens circuit board. He has given me adviceevery step of the way, and lately he has been giving up entire days of his time tocome and help us debug stuff. Larry is a local artist with an electronics andprogramming background. Without his help and guidance I’m convinced that noneof this would be working. And I’d probably be curled up in a corner crying rightnow.

Too Much To DoPublished on July 5, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


Five days away from our opening and there is an overwhelming amount of workthat still needs to be done. Pictured above is the inside of a Lumens box. We’retrying to build 36 of these. At the left is a Pyramid 12 volt 14 amp regulated powersupply purchased from Etronics. This provides the juice needed to power the lightbulbs. At the back is MASSCOOL 80mm computer fan purchased from Newegg.Front and center are the power outlets, just like in the walls of your home exceptwe’re only putting 12 volts through them, purchased from the local Home Depotfor 49¢ each. The lamps plug directly into the under-side of the box. And on theright is a finished circuit board complete with a USB adapter from Sparkfun, anAtmega168 microcontroller, six Darlington TIP120 transistors from DigiKey withheat sinks from All Spectrum Electronics, and a mess of wires mostly from RadioShack. Below is an assortment of build photos.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/08/img_2920.jpghttp://www.etronics.com/p-23880-pyramid-ps-14kx-regulated-12v-14amp-power-supply.aspxhttp://www.etronics.com/p-23880-pyramid-ps-14kx-regulated-12v-14amp-power-supply.aspxhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835150007http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8165http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/Product_card.asp?part_id=3303http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=TIP120-NDhttp://www.allspectrum.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=971&osCsid=f94856e7dbd2cd6aca1b80b52b643336&sdesc=TO-220+clip-on+heatsink+Model+%23+HEATSINK-TO220-02http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049745http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049745

Building Lumens


The most important tool, a soldering iron.

Ven, Sean, Abbi, Marianne, and Myself working another long night.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/soldering.jpghttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/working.jpg

Building Lumens


Ven and Sean building and programming boards.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/ven-sean.jpg

Building Lumens


Each box has individual control of six lamps. That’s 3 electrical duplexes per box.

Each box gets a fan to help keep the electronics cool.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/boxbottom.jpghttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/fans.jpg

Building Lumens


A pile of Lumens boxes waiting to be assembled.

Thank God For John SchimmelPublished on July 3, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


Our friend John Schimmel came up this weekend on a rescue mission. We have beenfalling farther and farther behind on our schedule, and with the opening loomingJohn was generous enough to offer his time, expertise, and sense of humor to usthis weekend. John is a resident researcher at NYU’s Interactive TelecommunicationsProgram.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/schimell.jpghttp://www.base2john.com/http://itp.nyu.edu/http://itp.nyu.edu/

Building Lumens


John’s work has been an inspiration to Lumens. One of his projects, Fireflies, arenetworked nightlights that consist of LEDs “caught” in mason jars like real fireflies.Tapping on the lid allows you to send messages to others. Fireflies were part of theLEDs Are Pretty exhibit at Greylock Arts last fall.

He made numerous suggestions and improvements to the Lumens code, and alsopointed out that we were using the wrong proximity sensors. The ones we hadordered had a range much shorter than what we needed. That explains why thingsweren’t working as well as we had hoped. Thanks John!

The LampsPublished on July 1, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


The stars of this installation are the lamps, the stories that accompany them, andthe people of Adams and North Adams who have generously donated them. Aboveis lamp cluster “A” in North Adams. We have been using this cluster as our testsetup. Each cluster consists of a controller box (with all it’s associated circuitry) andsix lamps. Each space will have up to 16 clusters.

We have a lot of lamps so far, but we’re still short of the 180 or so we’d like tohave. We used DownStreetArt to put out a last appeal for more lamps, and theyhave been coming in two, four, sometimes ten a day. Marianne, Abbi, and Seanhave been working tirelessly to collect, catalog, and photograph every single lamp.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/clusterna.jpghttp://downstreetart.org/http://mrpetit.com/http://abbivh.wordpress.com/http://polaresolare.net/

Building Lumens


Above, Sean is photographing one of our favorite lamps. It comes from TimAlibozek of Victory Lighting, a business on Summer Street in Adams, just a fewdoors down from Greylock Arts.

We’ve gotten several lamps created by local artist made specifically for Lumens.We’ve had loaned to us antique lamps, special lamps, cheap lamps, and trashpicked lamps.

DownStreetArtPublished on June 26, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


It’s important to note that Lumens is part of an effort called DownStreetArtspearheaded by Jonathan Secor of MCLA Gallery 51 to bring visitors to Main Streetin North Adams. Jonathan has been working very hard to open four new gallerieson Main Street this summer, and to promote the downtown area to touristsattending MASSMoCA. Three of the new galleries opened today. Lumens will open abit later on July 10th. In addition to Lumens, DownStreetArt features Maya III byJarvis Rockwell, The North Adams Artists coOp Gallery, and Primary SecondaryVolumes 1 and 2. Gallery 51 also opened an exhibition of artist Rich Remsberg’swork tonight titled Terms of Surrender.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/img_2839.jpghttp://downstreetart.org/http://mcla.edu/Gallery51http://www.naacogallery.com/http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=401http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=401http://www.remsbergphoto.com/http://www.remsbergphoto.com/

Building Lumens


Main Street in North Adams during the DownStreetArt Opening.

Jarvis Rockwell’s Maya III, a giant toy pyramid.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/img_2837.jpghttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/maya3.jpg

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The North Adams Artists coOp Gallery features the work of over 16 local artists.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/naaco.jpg

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Jonathan Secor, Mark Mulherin, and Ana Maria Secor stand in front of MarkMulherin’s The Grandfather Paradox on Main Street in North Adams.

Previewing LumensPublished on June 26, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


Today we previewed Lumens at both the North Adams Food Festival and TheSummer Street Fair in Adams. Unfortunately it rained on the Food Fest, but the suncame out just in time for the Summer Street Fair, and it was a beautiful night. I’venever seen Summer Street look so alive.

It was the first street fair in almost 30 years, and the people of Adams really cameout to support it. We were so happy to be a part of it.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/08/summer-st-fair.jpghttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/img_2719.jpg

Building Lumens


Pictured above is Greylock Arts amazing intern Abbi Hermosa demonstratingLumens to the Sisters of St. Stan’s. Below is a photo of Ven asking two of ourneighbors for a lamp donation.

We’re less than a month away from our opening and we need all the lamps we canget. The street fair provided us with a great opportunity to spread the word aboutLumens.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/08/sisters-with-abbi.jpghttp://greylockarts.net/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/08/ven-asks-for-lamps.jpg

Building Lumens


Thanks to all the members of the Summer Street Association of Merchants for alltheir hard work in getting this year’s fair off the ground.

Starting To BuildPublished on June 15, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Building Lumens


It’s been a long time coming, but this weekend, we started building out Lumens. Wesetup an assembly line and just started cranking out circuit boards. We’ve testedone of them, and it seems to work. I hope the rest do. We plan to build out 36boards total, 16 for each space, with 4 spares. Parts have been coming in fromevery direction. Our primary suppliers have been Digi-Key, SparkFun, TrossenRobotics, and of course the local Radio Shack.

Arduino WorkshopPublished on June 14, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/08/lumens-boards.jpghttp://digikey.com/http://www.sparkfun.com/http://www.trossenrobotics.com/http://www.trossenrobotics.com/http://www.radioshack.com/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/08/arduino-workshop.jpghttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/06/14/arduino-workshop/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/06/14/arduino-workshop/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/06/14/arduino-workshop/#respond

Building Lumens


As part of Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting The Adamses we had Tom Igoecome up and teach an Arduino workshop at Greylock Arts today. The workshop wasfree and open to anyone. It was largely attended by local artists curious about howto use electronics and incorporate interactivity in their own works.

Thanks Tom!

B-HIP intern Abbi Hermosa started work today at Greylock Arts. Abbi comes to usjust in time as we are about a month away from opening Lumens. We’re going toneed all the hands we can get. We’ve asked Abbi to blog about her experience inthe Berkshires this summer. You can follow her blog here.

AbbiPublished on June 6, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

PrototypePublished on May 23, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://turbulence.org/networkedrealitieshttp://tigoe.net/http://arduino.cc/http://greylockarts.net/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/abbi.jpghttp://mcla.edu/b-hiphttp://greylockarts.net/http://abbivh.wordpress.com/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/06/06/abbi/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/06/06/abbi/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/06/06/abbi/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/05/23/prototype/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/05/23/prototype/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/05/23/prototype/#respond

Building Lumens


I was able to get a prototype working today! I used this PComp tutorial as a startingpoint and built out from there. Just be sure you use 1k ohm resistors as indicatedin the circuit diagram, not the 10k ohm resisters mentioned at the top of the page.Nothing terrible will come of it, but you won’t be able to take advantage of the fullrange of dimming.

Basically, I’m using the 6 PWM pins on the Arduino Diecimila board to dim lampsattached using standard electrical duplex sockets to a breadboard where I haveTIP120 transistors. The TIP120s allow me to control the lamps, which require ahigher voltage and current than the microcontroller. Here is a datasheet for theAtmega168 used on the Diecimila. The LEDs are just indicators.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/wires.jpghttp://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Tutorials/HighCurrentLoadshttp://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDiecimilahttp://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/doc2545.pdf

Building Lumens


I’m using 12V 15 watt light bulbs purchased from Service Lighting, but I’ve seensimilar bulbs at the local Home Depot for more money. These bulbs are socketcompatible with standard 120V bulbs making it really simple, plug and play. Youjust have to be careful not to plug them into the wall. They’ll fry instantly at thehigher voltage.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/12vbulb.jpghttp://servicelighting.com/http://www.homedepot.com/

Building Lumens


The lamps are drawing power from a Radio Shack 13.8VDC 15-Amp. This bad boyis expensive, so I will look for a cheaper solution because we’re going to need 30+power supplies total. But you can’t beat the convenience of your local Radio Shack.The Arduino is drawing 5V from a separate wall adapter, but in the final design itwill draw power from USB. And remember, everything needs to share a commonground or it just won’t work.

Above, a wide shot of the prototype doing it’s thing.

Circuit DiagramPublished on May 3, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/shackpowersupply1.jpghttp://http//www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103960http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/fish-lit.jpghttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/05/03/circuit-diagram/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/05/03/circuit-diagram/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/05/03/circuit-diagram/#respond

Building Lumens


Above is a circuit diagram for what I hope to build. Its basically just this PComptutorial modified to use all six PWM pins on the Arduino board. Quite honestly Idon’t know what I’m doing here. So use this at your own risk.

Ven has been calling this project Ripple since the beginning, but none of us weresold on any particular name. There has been a lot of back and forth between theartists and the gallery administrators. We had finally narrowed it down to Ripple,Lumens, or Lamplighters, but making a final decision was for whatever reasonimpossible. None of us could agree on anything. We started asking other peoplewhat they thought the name should be, and we got an interesting email responsefrom Jessica Conzo at MCLA Gallery 51:

not that I am really involved- but since you guys have cc’d me… thelamplighter was an infamous strip club near where I grew up and I justcan’t help but think of anything else. it is also the name of a goodnumber of pubs, so I think it will conjure up something for most people.probably not the images you want.lumens makes me think of the mysterious creatures that live in the depthsof the ocean. plus lumens / luminescence are really beautiful, funwords…

Jessica ConzoMCLA, Program CoordinatorBerkshire Cultural Resource Center

That pretty much settles it. Lumens it is!

Whats In A Name?Published on April 25, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/circuit-board.jpghttp://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Tutorials/HighCurrentLoadshttp://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Tutorials/HighCurrentLoadshttp://v---v.net/http://mcla.edu/Gallery51http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/04/25/whats-in-a-name/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/04/25/whats-in-a-name/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/04/25/whats-in-a-name/#respond

Building Lumens


We’ve put off some of the electronic challenges for too long now. Some decisionshave to be made. I’ll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing aboutelectricity. So, take everything I say with a grain of salt. And certainly don’t getyourself killed following my blog. I started by reading as much as I could aboutlight bulbs and in particular dimming light bulbs here, here, here, and here. I foundthis cool project by SeBsZ that was inspirational, but because it was designed for230V AC @ 50hz, it wasn’t as useful to me as it might be to someone in Europe.The U.S. uses 110V AC @ 60hz. For a breakdown of who uses what and why readthis.

Electricity comes into our homes as Alternating Current or AC at 110V or higher,and household light bulbs are typically designed to operate from this highvoltage. AC power distribution was pioneered by Nikola Tesla and pushed into themainstream by George Westinghouse. This method was rapidly adopted worldwidebecause it was superior to Thomas Edison’s DC distribution methods. However, theArduino, and most personal electronic devices for that matter, use Direct Current orDC at a much lower voltage, often between 3V and 20V.

AC and DC are generally not interchangeable, one exception being light bulbs.Light bulbs only care about the voltage they are being given, not the type of

AC/DCPublished on April 8, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulbhttp://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/lumen.htmhttp://www.epanorama.net/documents/lights/lightdimmer.htmlhttp://home.howstuffworks.com/dimmer-switch.htmhttp://sebs89.googlepages.com/homehttp://www.school-for-champions.com/science/ac_world_volt_freq.htmhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/tesla.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternating_currenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Teslahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_currenthttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/04/08/acdc/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/04/08/acdc/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/04/08/acdc/#respond

Building Lumens


current. This got me thinking. 12V light bulbs are easy to come by at hardwarestores and online, here, for instance. They are typically used in automotive andboating applications where the power is coming from a battery. If I’m understandingall this correctly, an Arduino could potentially control and dim low voltage lightbulbs directly from it’s PWM pins. This might be just the ticket for us. I’m going toget my hands on some low voltage bulbs and do some testing.

I’ve been showing a prototype of the Flash front-end to a few friends today togauge their reactions and test for problems. It’s working for about 50% of thepeople I send it to. But for the other half it’s not working at all. The Flash is failingto connect to the PHP socket server on port 1024, or any port over 1023, despitethe fact that the XMLSocket object in ActionScript requires you to use a port greaterthan 1023.

I’ve found that Windows built in firewall is often the culprit. What I asked one friendto disable his firewall it began working. However, asking every user to turn off theirfirewall for me was not going to be a viable solution. After a lot of digging aroundon Google and a couple false starts I finally found a relatively simple solution here.What DjZoNe explains is how to get PHP to allow ActionScript to communicate onports below 1023 by having your PHP socket server supply Flash with a customcross-domain policy file. The policy file looks something like:

Once I implemented something like this Flash had no problems connecting to myPHP socket server. See DjZoNe Blogol for complete details.

XMLSocket HellPublished on February 23, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Connect The Dots… La La La La

http://www.servicelighting.com/General-01515-15A15-12V-3-3-8IN-MOL-12V-Low-Voltage-Incandescent-Light-Bulbhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/lumensproto.jpghttp://www.adobe.com/support/flash/action_scripts/actionscript_dictionary/actionscript_dictionary860.htmlhttp://djz.hu/blog/2007/07/26/php-socket-server-chat-gateway-for-flash-clients/http://djz.hu/blog/2007/07/26/php-socket-server-chat-gateway-for-flash-clients/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/02/23/xmlsocket-hell/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/02/23/xmlsocket-hell/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/02/23/xmlsocket-hell/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/02/17/connect-the-dots-la-la-la-la/

Building Lumens


At the heart of all this is a need to communicate between several differentplatforms. Some of these platforms, Flash/ActionScript for instance, cancommunicate just fine, on it’s own, with a PHP script running on a web server. Amicrocontroller running locally however, and connected to a computer via USB,needs a little helping hand, or proxy. This is because the microcontroller iscommunicating serially and the web server is listening over a socket. Somethingneeds to bridge this gap. I chose REALBasic for this because it’s an environmentthat I’m fairly comfortable with. I know a lot of “real” programmers look down theirnoses at REALBasic, but I think it can’t be beaten for quick and easy, down and dirtydesktop application development. Here’s a great link with a lot of usefulinformation about sockets in REALBasic.

Below are some of the highlights from my REALBasic serial to socket proxyapplication for the two or three people who may be interested:

// the window1 built in Open method

Sub Open()

// setup some variables

dim x as integer

dim serialCount as integer

dim lumenPorts() as serial

dim result as variant

// lumenSocket is my custom socket class

// it is a sub-class of the built in TCPSocket class

// the socket handles communication between the local server and the

remote server

Published on February 17, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/http://php.net/http://realsoftware.com/products/realbasic/index.phphttp://ljensen.com/rb/sockets_readme_framed.htmhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/realbasic.jpghttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/02/17/connect-the-dots-la-la-la-la/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/02/17/connect-the-dots-la-la-la-la/#respond

Building Lumens


lumenSocket.Address = "yourdomain.com"

lumenSocket.Port = 1024

lumenSocket.Connect()

// get the number of available serial ports

serialCount = system.serialportcount

// if there are serial ports available

if serialCount > 0 then

// count through available serial ports

for x = 0 to SerialPortCount - 1

// match only serial ports within a certain name range

// all of the usb adapters i got start with A4 or A1

if (system.serialport(x).Name.InStr(0, "A4") > 0 or

system.serialport(x).Name.InStr(0, "A1") > 0) then

// lumenSerial is my custom serial class

// it is a sub-class of the built in Serial

class

// communication between the local lamps and the

local server happen over serial

lumenPorts.append new lumenSerial

// set all the properties

lumenPorts(ubound(lumenPorts)).Baud = 8

lumenPorts(ubound(lumenPorts)).Bits = 3

lumenPorts(ubound(lumenPorts)).Parity = 0

lumenPorts(ubound(lumenPorts)).Stop = 0

lumenPorts(ubound(lumenPorts)).SerialPort =

system.serialport(x)

// try to open the port

result = lumenPorts(ubound(lumenPorts)).Open

end

next

dim portCount as Variant

portCount = ubound(lumenPorts)

// alert if serial ports are missing

// i'm looking for 14 serial ports total

if UBound(lumenPorts) < 0 then

MsgBox "No Serial Ports Were Found!"

elseif UBound(lumenPorts) < 13 then

MsgBox "Some Serial Ports Appear To Be Missing!"

end if

end if

// the lumenSocket built in DataAvailable method

Building Lumens


Sub DataAvailable()


dim command as String

dim i as integer

// read the socket in

command = me.ReadAll()

// commandIsValid is a custom global method used to validate a

command

// it returns true or false

if commandIsValid(command) = true then

// loop through all the serial ports

for i = 0 to ubound(lumenPorts)

// write to each serial port what came in over

the socket

lumenPorts(i).Write(command)

next

end if

// the lumenSerial built in DataAvailable method

Sub DataAvailable()


dim command as string

dim i as integer

// read the serial in

command = me.readAll()

// lumenNetwork is a global boolean variable used to tell the

local app if the server is up or down

if lumenNetwork = true then

// if the network is up write the command to the socket

// append a Char(0) to signify the end of a command to

ActionScript's built in XMLSocket class

// the PHP socket server script then verifies this command and

if valid sends it to all connected clients

lumenSocet.Write(command+Chr(0))

else

// if the network is down feedback on yourself

// loop through all the serial ports

for i = 0 to ubound(lumenPorts)

// commandIsValid is a custom global method used

to validate a command

// it returns true or false

if commandIsValid(command) = true then

Building Lumens


// the the command was valid so send it

to each lumenPort

lumenPorts(i).Write(command+Chr(0))

else

// the command is not valid

// do nothing

end if

next

end if

While we dink around with the Arduino we also need to start thinking about how tomake things talk across the internet. I make my living primarily as an ActionScriptprogrammer, and I’m pretty comfortable with Flash in general. I know, I know, Flashis the devil’s work, it makes everything on the web suck, etc., but it also pays thebills. While I work on making lamps talk across the internet, I’m also trying to keepa roof over my head here.

I’m starting to think about the web experience for this project. Flash/ActionScript isthe obvious choice for me, not only because I’m comfortable with it, but becauseit’s still the best choice for asynchronously loading data on the web. If we wantpeople to be able to look at pictures of lamps, read about lamps, and turn them onremotely, Flash/ActionScript fits that bill to a tee.

I’ve never turned lamps on over the internet before though so I start by lookingaround to see what other people have to say. It looks like the thing to do is useActionScript’s XMLSocket. From Adobe, “The XMLSocket object implements clientsockets that allow the computer running the Flash Player to communicate with a

Meanwhile…Published on January 27, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/arduino.jpghttp://www.adobe.com/support/flash/action_scripts/actionscript_dictionary/actionscript_dictionary860.htmlhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/27/meanwhile/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/27/meanwhile/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/27/meanwhile/#respond

Building Lumens


server computer identified by an IP address or domain name.” Sockets are ideal forthings like chat applications and multi-user gaming, where data needs to beexchanged in real-time between multiple clients and the server.

Great, but I’m also going to need a socket server script running on my web server. Ilooked around a little more and found this fantastic tutorial on Kirupa.com aboutPHP 5 Sockets with Flash 8. The tutorial contains a PHP script which acts as asocket server, broadcasting anything that is sent to it back to anything that isconnected to it. The script is going to need some modification to make it work forus, but I’m also comfortable with PHP so lets see how far we can go with this.

It’s been a long time since I’ve messed with electronics, and when I did it was onlyfor a brief time during my first semester at ITP. Back then we used the BX24,pictured below.

ArduinoPublished on January 26, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash8/php5sockets_flash8.htmhttp://www.kirupa.com/http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash8/php5sockets_flash8_3.htmhttp://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash8/php5sockets_flash8_3.htmhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/arduino21.jpghttp://itp.nyu.edu/http://www.basicx.com/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/26/arduino/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/26/arduino/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/26/arduino/#respond

Building Lumens


My PComp final project was a radio controlled car built with the BX24. I had funwith it, but that wasn’t really my focus at the time so I moved on to the things thatinterested me. It didn’t help that I was a pretty awful programmer at the time. I stillthink I am, but somehow I just keep hacking my way through problems until thingsfinally start to work.

I kept hoping that at some point I’d find the time and patience to get back intoelectronics post grad-school, but it just never happened. There was always someother, usually pointless, project consuming all my time. I am going to use thisproject as an excuse to get back into electronics though.

Tom was generous enough to lend us some Arduino boards to play with when wesaw him last. If you are looking to get started this is a great starter kit. Idownloaded the software and used this as a starting point. It’s surprisingly easy toget going. Much easier than I remember the BX24 being. The first thing i did wasmake an LED blink, pretty simple, but exciting to see it working. There is a lot tolearn and not much time. Our opening date has been set for July 10th.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/bx24.jpghttp://arduino.cc/http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=68&zenid=e610c2b38c7f0a883981d52d32665049http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Softwarehttp://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/HomePagehttp://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Blink

Building Lumens


My next experiment was to see if I could get a proximity sensor to control theon/off state of an LED. The following is the resulting code:

// define the pins to be used on the microcontroller

#define sensorPin 0

#define ledPin 13

// define the initial value of the sensor variable

int sensorValue = 0;

// compare the sensorValue to this variable to determine if something is

in front of the sensor

int threshold = 200;

void setup() {

// set the led pin to output

pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);

// open the serial port

Serial.begin(9600);

}

void loop() {

// read the sensor

sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);

// print the sensor value

Serial.println(sensorValue, DEC);

// set the led on or off based on the sensor

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/arduinowithledsensor.jpg

Building Lumens


if (sensorValue >= threshold) {

analogWrite(ledPin, 255);

} else {

analogWrite(ledPin, 0);

}

}

Marianne and I have been really busy with an awesome new exhibit opening atGreylock Arts of artist Todd Holubek’s work as well as a side project I’ve beenworking on so I haven’t had time to devote to this lately. The side project is cool,and I have to admit it’s the first advertising project that I’ve worked on in years thatI actually feel excited about. It’s not anything to do with selling something peopledon’t need. And it doesn’t make me feel all dirty on the inside. I’ll post a link whenit’s complete. Reality is setting in though as time keeps ticking by. We need tomake progress.

Time PassesPublished on January 12, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Sean, Ven, Marianne, and I all met with Tom Igoe again this weekend, this time inNYC. Now that we know what we’re going to try and build it’s time to startexperimenting with technology to see not only what’s possible, but what’s easy tobuild and within our budget. We began by going over the basic idea, discussing theinteraction, and finally we talked through potential problems.

Basically, we plan to build two environments filled with lamps, somehow detect the

Testing The WatersPublished on January 6, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/meat-clock.jpghttp://greylockarts.net/everybody-winshttp://greylockarts.net/everybody-winshttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/12/time-passes/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/12/time-passes/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/12/time-passes/#respondhttp://tigoe.net/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/06/testing-the-waters/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/category/uncategorized/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/06/testing-the-waters/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/06/testing-the-waters/#respond

Building Lumens


presence of visitors, turn on lamps in the area of the visitor when their presence isdetected, send information across the internet when a presence is detected, turn onlamps at the remote location in the same general area, and also provide a webinterface for browsing lamps over the internet.

Tom is part of the team of core developers who work on Arduino, an open sourcehardware and software microcontroller platform. So he gave us a quick rundown ofwhat the Arduino is capable of, showed us the programming environment whichimplements the Processing/Wiring language, and provided us with anintro/refresher course on electronics.

We then made a trip to Lighting Plus at 676 Broadway where we purchased a fewdifferent types of bulbs to test. We got a range of incandescent bulbs in a variety ofwattages, an LED bulb, and a dimmable compact fluorescent bulb.

http://www.arduino.cc/http://processing.org/http://www.wiring.org.co/http://www.yelp.com/biz/lighting-plus-inc-new-york

Building Lumens


Tom then showed us a few ways to control the bulbs. We started by looking at X10.X10 is an industry standard for communication among electronic devices. X10devices can talk to one another by sending a series of commands over householdpower lines. If X10 can be made to work for us, it would certainly provide an easy(out of the box) solution to our problem. X10 dimmers work by plugging directlyinto a wall outlet. A lamp is then plugged into the dimmer. These dimmers can bepurchased for around $13 each, so it would also be an inexpensive solution. AnX10 dimmer is typically controlled with a as seen below. But you can also control itwith a microcontroller serially using an interface module, as discussed in Tom’sgreat book, Making Things Talk.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/bulbs2.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard)http://www.smarthome.com/2000.htmlhttp://www.smarthome.com/2000.htmlhttp://www.smarthome.com/1135.htmlhttp://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510510/

Building Lumens


The biggest problem I see with using X10 is that we’d ideally like to have 100 ormore lamps, and X10 can only send one command at a time and each commandcan take up to two seconds to be sent. This may not seem like much, but when youneed to send dozens or hundreds of commands nearly simultaneously, two secondsis an eternity. Used in this way, it would be difficult if not impossible to make manylamps attached to these dimmers actually dim fluidly in the same space.

The other possible solution we looked at was a Velleman DC controlled dimmer.These dimmers are serious business. They cost about $33 each, and come in a kitwhich you have to assemble yourself.

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/x10.jpghttp://www.velleman.be/ot/en/product/view/?id=354314

Building Lumens


The cheapest place I found them was Apogee Kits. Based on how long it took Tomto build one we estimated it would take us 45 minutes to an hour to build eachmodule. None of us are what you would call soldering pros. Sure we’d get fasterover time, but that’s a lot of time spent building dimmers. The end result though isbeautiful. The Velleman’s dim fluidly and are easily controlled from an Arduino, orany other DC source.

We had a really productive meeting, but it left us with more questions thananswers. I’m going to order a bunch of this stuff, and anything else that catches my

http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/velleman.jpghttp://www.apogeekits.com/light_dimmer.htmhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/09/velleman2.jpg

Building Lumens


eye, and start getting my feet wet.

After proposing several of our ideas to Helen and Jo at Turbulence we’ve decided tomove forward with the one that involves turning on lights telematically from Adamsto North Adams and vice versa. The idea began during a brainstorming session withTom when he said something about rippling lights. This idea caught Ven’s attentionand evolved to people sending ripples of light using street lamps to the sistertown/city as people walked down Main or Park streets, the “downtown” areas ofNorth Adams and Adams respectively.

However, once it became clear that a project like that would likely face signifigantobstacles from local government we decided to move the project indoors. Ven thencame up with the idea to collect ordinary household lamps from the citizens. Thelamps would be installed into Greylock Arts and MCLA Gallery 51. The lamps willilluminate as visitors to the gallery walk through the space to investigate groups oflamps. This will also cause lamps in the sister town/city to illuminate in the samegeneral area within the other gallery. Marianne suggested that each lamp could alsohave it’s story told online. And I added that the action of reading a lamp story onthe website could also illuminate that specific lamp in the gallery.

Light It UpPublished on January 5, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Sean, Ven and myself have been meeting pretty regularly since November to discusswhat it is we should do either as a group or individually. Some of the ideas thathave been discussed include: A virtual tug of war, rippling street lamps as peoplewalk by, a networked dance floor, as well as a high school football game betweenNorth Adams and Adams where the teams would swap jerseys.

While doing some research into the dance floor idea I came across this really coolMIT student project called the 1E Disco Dance Floor. It’s a 128 square foot 1,500LED dance floor. Be sure to check out the video. It’s totally crazy!

We haven’t really settled on anything yet. We just keep bouncing ideas off of eachother. Hopefully something will stick.

Bouncing IdeasPublished on January 3, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I went down to the North Adams Public Library today to search through thenewspaper archives for articles detailing the division of North Adams from Adams. Itwas a lot of fun searching through the microfilm. The librarians were very helpfuland even pointed me in a few useful directions. This research is being done for anupcoming project called Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting The Adamses.

Networked Realities is a collaboration of Greylock Arts, MCLA Gallery51, andTurbulence with local artists including myself. Networked Realities seeks toartistically re-connect the Town of Adams and the City of North Adams through theInternet. Adams and North Adams, once a single town in northern Berkshire CountyMassachusetts, where divided in 1878. The project has been made possible through

A Town DividedPublished on December 28, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

http://web.mit.edu/storborg/ddf/http://web.mit.edu/storborg/ddf/video.htmlhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/03/bouncing-ideas/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/03/bouncing-ideas/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2008/01/03/bouncing-ideas/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/files/2008/08/bill-for-the-division-of-adams.jpghttp://turbulence.org/http://greylockarts.net/http://mcla.edu/Gallery51http://mcla.edu/Gallery51http://turbulence.org/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams,_Massachusettshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Adams,_Massachusettshttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2007/12/28/a-town-divided/http://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2007/12/28/a-town-divided/#respondhttp://buildinglumens.newadams.es/2007/12/28/a-town-divided/#respond

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the support of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. with funding from the AndyWarhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the LEF Foundation, and the MassachusettsCultural Council.

I felt it was important to get a historical perspective to better understand why thetown was seperated in the first place. Adams was first settled in 1762. It was thencalled East Hoosac. By the time the town was renamed for Samuel Adams, the northand south ends of town had begun to develop different personalities. One couldcertainly make an argument that they were at best loosly connected from the start.South Adams was largely settled by Quakers who created a farming community.While North Adams became a center for industry due to it’s better access to waterand transportation. The two settlements are separated by five and a half miles.

One local paper, The Hoosac Valley News, was very much opposed to the division.They supported a two thirds vote by the residents to determine the fate of Adams,and pushed for a city charter instead of division. The North Adams Transcript,another local paper which is still around, on the other hand, supported the divisionand was pushing for a simple majority vote.

One of the editorials from The Hoosac Valley News reads, “In this controversyreason and argument are ignored; an irritation has been fostered which too manyare glad to escape from through the door of town division.” And later it reads, “It issaid: ‘there never will be peace until the town is divided.’ There are two answers tothis – First, shall we yield a principle to a clamour? Second, there will be peacewhen the opponents of division teach these agitators through a decisive act of thelegislature or a vote of the people, that only defeat will crown their scheming.”

I had assumed going in that it was North Adams and it’s residents who wantedindependence from “South” Adams, but it appears to have been the other wayaround. Isaac Collins, a shoemaker from Adams, was responsible for spearheadingthe separation. His tombstone reads: By his means and labor, succeeded insecuring an independent township to Adams, in 1878, by setting off North Adamsfrom Adams. The settlements of North and “South” Adams had long fought over thelocation of a permanent meeting house to conduct town affairs. At the time ofseperation the town clerk, as well as a majority of the selectmen and other townofficials were residents of the north settlement. You can see how this would irk theresidents of the south settlement.

The decision to separate was made by the Massachusetts legislature on or aroundApril 10th 1878. Best I can tell the people of Adams never had a final say in theirfate.

This morning we had a brainstorming session with Tom Igoe. Tom is a colleague ofMarianne Petit (my partner in crime at Greylock Arts), at NYU’s InteractiveTelecommunications Program. Tom is the area head for what’s called PhysicalComputing. PComp is basically a way of sensing the physical world through the use

Igoe, You goe, We all goe?Published on December 1, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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of sensors, and using microcontrollers, computers, and software to interpret thisinformation, ultimately to control other aspects of the physical world through theuse of lights, displays, motors, and other feedback mechanisms.

Tom is a really special guy, and we are so lucky to have him as a consultant for thisproject, whatever direction it takes.

Helen Thorington and Jo-Ann Green of Turbulence came to Marianne and I with aproposal to collaborate on a project in our new gallery, Greylock Arts. We have noidea what this might ultimately be, but we are so thrilled with the opportunity to dosomething big. Marianne and I have both received Turbulence commissions in thepast. In fact, Marianne was one of the first artists to be commissioned byTurbulence. She produced The Grimm Tale, an interpretation of a tale by theBrothers Grimm, with John Neilson in 1996. In 2006 she and I both received acommission with Elizabeth Mikesell to produce The Saddest Thing I Own, a websiterepository of people’s saddest objects.

For our newest collaboration we began looking for a third partner almostimmediately. MCLA Gallery 51 seemed like the perfect match for us. Marianne and Ihave always been impressed with the caliber of their exhibitions. Plus, they arebased in North Adams, while we are in Adams, Massachusetts. The idea to re-connect the Adamses artistically came almost immediately.

We then put out a call to local artists and started building a team. Ven Voisey andSean Riley are two artists we’ve known and come to like. Ven’s work is poetic, hehas been involved with The CAC, and we always see him helping out local art

The BeginningPublished on November 26, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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projects. Sean’s work is complex and beautiful, and he has been an active memberin the local arts scene for many years. The decision was made to involve myselfdirectly as an artist because we needed someone local capable of architecting andprogramming whatever might come out of this collaboration. Marianne will besupervising the project.

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Building Lumens - Turbulence.orgturbulence.org/.../uploads/2015/07/Building-Lumens.pdf · 2015-09-06 · Building Lumens 11/4/10 10:46:48 AM] Often, it isn’t until after you build

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