http://www.eartotheworld.org

As media creation, distribution and display systems continue to change a certain amount of content gets lost during this migration from one medium to another. For example when HI 8 cameras stopped being used a large amount of content got stored away in our homes, never to be digitized again.
The other day I was being interviewed by someone over the phone and a few weeks later an audiotape of the interview arrived in the mail. Not having owned an audio tape player for many years I was forced to buy a portable tape player from my corner store. A similar fate has been befalling other media such as Film, CD’s, Minidisks, DV tapes etc as well. If the content cannot be digitized into the computer it will eventually be thrown away or stored, never to be heard or seen again.

My curiosity into this subject started when I received the tape of my interview, which got me thinking about the content that was about to be lost in this transition. The Internet at one time was the wild west where anything went and the user could upload all types of content on sites such as You Tube etc. But as organizations get better at controlling the flow of content and identifying users I wonder if the streets will again become filled with bootleggers. Theories that have been born because of the Internet are extremely interesting to implement in physical space. This is why I am interested in an amalgamation of ideas and technologies that are native to the virtual or real, but can be interchanged.

My recent work has involved in the displaying of participatory media in public space with the Internet acting as main vehicle of transportation. However this current project “Lost in transition “ does not use the Internet, but instead humans to carry the content to a location in a public place where they are given the opportunity to play it. Some would say this is the same as a Jukebox, but in my opinion it is more like a barter swap that specifically deals with old media and recycling. The reason it is not like a juke box is because it is not proprietary and because people can bring their own content and take with them someone else’s generated content home with them.

The way it works is that a person can bring a VHS tape and apply a RFID tag to the tape. He/She then inserts the tape into the player, which plays the content. Anyone walking by can tag the content by pressing a button. After the tape finishes playing the content is ejected into the reuse bin. People walking by can pick up the content from the reuse bin and can either take it home or play it.
After f plays if a piece of media is has negative tags it will be ejected into the recycle bin.

The aim of this project is to create an extension of life for our old media. There are things that I might want to throw away, but someone else might find interesting. In this situation the content does not need to go to a landfill. However, a voting system needs to be created for this and that is why this project best exists in a public space.

In some ways I feel that this project represents many other things that have been unable to make the leap into the digital world. For example the elderly in our society can be seen sitting and watching the world go by unable to deal with the online world. It is our responsibility to find a way to include them in our debates and progress.

It is my goal with this project to generate dialog about transition and progress. Just because we find a new way of doing something does not give us the authority discard what was created in the past and bury it. Once something is brought into this world it must be acknowledged.

Lost is Transition is a project that addresses social, environmental and technical issues associated with audio and video content that exist in older formats.  Media in older formats such as VHS, Hi 8, Laser Discs, LP’s, Audio Tapes currently exists in many homes where they have been shelved or are slowly being thrown away.
This project proposes to augment various locations in a city such as New York with modified media players that will allow people to bring content and play it.  The modification to the player will allow the device to tag and separate the media.  The tags would then decide if content is reused or recycled. Thus the main goal of this project is to make transparent the media that is being discarded by people an if possible to extend its life rather than send it to a landfill.
The first media collection and display location will be next to the newspaper boxes – on street corners.  This is because the location references older media that is controlled by an organization.  By creating a space amongst these boxes that supports the idea of participation is in it self an act of intervention.

Some Old Media Players

3. Transformation–A Pacific Atlantis? (circa 2030)

In light of Honolulu’s water and sewage infrastructure crisis, which was brought to the fore during floods in March 2006, city workers have been excavating beneath Chinatown to expand the runoff system, with a view to augmenting its resilience to extreme weather patterns.

[A stormwater drain into Nu’uanu Stream? underground tunnels?]

City worker Richard Lum, 36, stumbled upon a small circular object, Archeologists have been interested in the Chinatown area for some time, and construction beginning in the late 18th century is known to have taken place atop sites sacred to native Hawaiians, but in an earlier era when patrimony and conservation of heritage sites were not yet standard practice. As the
area is an active commercial and residential zone, only rarely has it been possible to revisit sites of interest. [examples]

However, the latest find is sure to intrigue archeologists. Made of an as-yet unidentified material, the objects are unlike artifacts of early Hawaiian settlements are were found several feet
deeper. “There’s always a logical explanation”, said Associate Prof Mark Greeley, a of UH-Manoa’s archeology group. “But in this business, it isn’t always what it seems to be at first.”

Mainstream media are refraining from reporting on the find until verification and authenticity can be determined.

The Mayor has called an emergency meeting with the City Council, planning departments, and the major land-owners in Chinatown.

Real time alteration of artifacts!!

The future is always changing and thereby so are the artifacts that are created with it. By tapping into the actions of people we can have access to the variable that is creating the artifacts. Lets create an artifact that we think might exist and let the public disprove it or prove it….

Augmenting physical space by creating objects/situations that narrate events yet to happen. This is the challenge that we need to tackle. The first step for me is to always study the location that we might me occupying. Below is a satellite image of Marks Garage, in Downtown Honolulu.

Some local issues

-Recycling waste in Hawaii
- Energy Consumption in Hawaii
- Escape to Space
- Human Reproduction in isolation
- Utopia - drowning - The return to utopia - refrencing the past to recreate future
Methods
- Magic- litmus paper as an oracle and other methods of revelation
- Water as indicator