Smart people are out there

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Random incoming email yesterday from James Showalter, who writes a thoughtful blog about evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology and it's force on culture. Barbaric Rage & Love Totally worth clicking, one of the best things he does is keep a list of books and articles, which I've never had the discipline to compile. Plus frequent updates and posts...at it about 6 months - hope he keeps it up.  Very cool. Love it when you find people spending tons of personal energy toward something high-quality that pays absolutely no $$. Restores faith in human-kind. ;-).

Here's a little promo for him. Go take a look, and keep an eye out, he's writing a novel.

Self-tracking dashboard....handbuilt

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Very soon, all the data about us will be easily and invisibly tracked via sensors in our clothes, and little patches we stick on our skin. But then WHAT? You've got to have a way to extrapolate, summarize, compare and deliver a quick portrait of how you're doing and what it means. I think pattern is the answer.  And physical texture (hello 3D printers!) will be the way to produce little art objects quickly, easily, disposably. This 12in x 12in has a moodjam chart, pointcare plot of heart rate variability, 8 nights of REM and deep sleep and daily upset stomach scores. Encoded in a language that you begin to read and understand.

Researchers mapping the connectome might find the connection between neural patterns and how you experience the world

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I've been working for several years on the premise that eventually neuroscience will find a relationship between visual patterns you experience in the world and an innate or embedded neural pattern in your mind.  I have no desire to sound nutty.  But as an artist I get a little leeway here.   Researchers are describing their quest for mapping neural brain wiring....the connectome, much like mapping human DNA the human genome.  The belief is that eventually with computer assisted analysis and electron microscopes, the billions of neural connections...the wiring of the mind can be mapped. If the recall of a memory is stored in a series of neural connections, then the pattern and location of synaptic spikes could be captured, decoded and replayed.  What if we eventually understand that the desire to see and anticipate patterns in the world....are not so different than the unique neural patterns in our mind.  Memory and the feel of memory is captured as pattern in time.  I think there is a relationship, and am excited to see the new images of Connectome mapping of the C. elegans (worm) and one neural muscle of a mouse.

Sebastian Seung's TED talk is simple and easy to get...'I am my connectome'.  His MIT course syllabus has much more detail of Connectomics reading. And his recent book... Connectome: how the brain's wiring makes us who we are is an easy read.

One of the best visual descriptions is this short 3D reconstruction (click to see the video here). 

 

 

 

 

 

Can color capture your mood better than words?

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Installing the show at Edward Cella in Los Angeles this week. In addition to the 4 collage pieces in the show based on self-tracking data -- I built a 12 ft by 12 ft wall 'Moodjam' based on tracking your mood in color. Made from 5000 Abet Laminati, italian countertop samples I found at the recycle center (and after I ran out the president of this company kindly sent me more). Based on the premise that not so far in the future a combination of facial recognition, GSR (galvanic skin response) and HRV (heart rate variability) will be able to automatically capture and assess your stress, nervousness, and general mood. I manually track my mood most every day at my friend Ian Li's site www.moodjam.com . Try it, it's more accurate than you'd imagine.

Show opens on Saturday Feb 11. If you're anywhere in Los Angeles before end of March 2012, totally worth a visit. Edward Cella on Wilshire, directly across from LACMA. Tim Hawkinson (loooooong time favorite artist) and Lynn Aldrich, amazing sculpture are the 3 artist exhibiting in this show. 'Death and Life of an Object".