[TITLE YET TO BE CONFIRMED]

ROEE COHEN // PROJECT CONCEPT AND PLANS // PHYSICAL INTERACTION // JUAN CARLOS VASQUEZ

The following system uses inconsistency of action and misinterpretation of an artifact as a tool to not only
amuse the audience, but to encourage future efforts of sabotaging verification systems. It works in two
stages – press and release, and records user behavior with a button. Stages:

I - Definition of difference between tow operations: The user operates the lever of a squeaky plastic
second hand potato slicer (only the lever is exposed), in assumption that a classic press and release will
operate the machine. Instead, only a playful, inconsistent action of press and release create enough
difference between recorded actions (also indicated by amplified signals through FM coming from a
speaker).

II - The outputted signal eventually serve as a movement pattern to the motor, which itself will rotate
wildly a decorated festive camel. It is in a way a masochistic system, that encourages user abuse, opposite
of the correct match between acquisition and verification, used in many identity recognition mechanisms.

Algocracy stands for “the rule of the algorithm, or the rule of code”1, which shapes behaviors and asserts
authority in cooperation with existing authorities of physical attributes into digital procedures, and runs
as a background process, hidden from the user, although culturally has an increasing influence over the
last 30 years. Computer vision systems merge or compare extracted objects with existing objects.
Comparison allow people to confirm or complicate known relationships between objects. Although
computers now have characteristics of human vision, they need “human to operate as a stable category,
in order to displace it with computer’s phenomenology2.

Two piezo sensors are attached tightly to the hidden machine in different places. Two physical switches
define the three states of the lever – One closes when the button is released, the other when it is fully
pressed:

1. 1:0 – Both recordings disengaged, difference sound converted to dc engine pulses

2. 0:0 – Engine stopped, Definition A recording engaged.
3. 0:1 – Engine Stopped, Definition A Recording Stopped, its length is sampled and used in a metro
to bang a stop of Definition B recording, which is engaged.

DC motor or Continuous servo will be connected directly to the camel’s plate through a 3D printed adapter
(I have experience in this field). Other parts will also be connected to laser-cut box through printed
fittings. If time will allow, other components include Raspberrypi which will operate from within the box,
residing next to the Arduino.

As for the schedule, I plan to finish the initial pd patch and fabrication plans through the weekend, leaving
next week for mechanical prototyping and improvements in the whole operation. I suspect that the switch
system will require many revisions to work properly.

1
Aneesh, A. Virtual Migration: The Programming of Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.
2
Sayers, J, Computer Vision as a public act: On Digital Humanities, MLA Position Papers, 2016.
Very Rough sketch
Initial Pd patch