Bird Box Club (cat version)

I definitely think there's something we should do here as an experiment in surveillance. I propose that we hook up a webcam in mine and Matt's front window, and RFID Inky so that the camera videos the view when he's sat there. I think we'll get some nice footage of pedestrians looking in at him. Mostly people smile when they see him...

So it's him, looking out at them [and other stuff] providing entertainment for them looking in. It's also, obviously, a camera watching outside our house and so it retains a primary function as a surveillance camera. But Inky's in control of it. He might see something important, and if he does then we will know. He'll be able to tell us, a bit like Lassie, only not as smart.

Another CCTV bird box

I just found this. It's by a guy named Colin Matthes. This is his website. We need to know about all of these things, because it helps us define our project more effectively. We need to know why we are not doing this, nor are we doing Celine Shenton's project (the metal-roofed camera box). It's also a strong signifier that we need to move away from just birds. BBC isn't really about bird boxes; right now we have 4 because we need to prototype the act. But there's a different end-point waiting for us somewhere...

From the Seeing Green website Nicolas Lampert writes:
Colin Matthes’ surveillance camera birdhouse is now up. Matthes researched and designed a birdhouse suitable for birds in Wisconsin, constructed it out of wood, and placed it in a river corridor in Milwaukee. For birds, it serves as a perfect home for finches. For people who stumble upon it while walking down the path through the woods, the sight of the surveillance camera mounted to a tree is completely unexpected and raises a myriad of questions about the priorities people place on property, competition and issues of fear and security that dominate city living. The fact that the menacing form of the surveillance camera is humbled and made into a home for finches only serves to further subvert the camera’s original connotation and adds to the surprise of encountering Matthes’ public intervention.

Weird cam

I saw this today on Gloucester Road. It's a video camera strapped to a lamp post. It's just down from the shops (the stretch where there's Margaret Mills, a Ryman and a bookshop etc.) and it's facing up towards the zebra crossing. Looks very low-tech, in that it's not a CCTV camera. It does not speak of The Man.



I'm sorry these pics are rubbish but my phone camera is crap.

Turf wars

It's a shame this guy didn't just do the turf hair-do. I wonder if he would have been jailed just for that? Not entirely useful for our project, but I wonder if just adding the sod (no damage really) would have been an offense.

An ex-soldier has been sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment for defacing the statue of Winston Churchill during May Day demonstrations in central London.

Cambridge-based student James Matthews, 25, was also ordered to pay £250 in compensation to the Royal Parks Agency for the damage he caused. He pleaded guilty at Horseferry Road Magistrates' Court to intentionally or recklessly damaging the statue in Parliament Square.

His defacement of the statue happened on the same day as rioting on 1 May, which saw damage estimated at thousands of pounds caused to central London property.

The figure, which stands in Parliament Square, was made to look as though blood was dripping from its mouth. Graffiti was sprayed on the plinth and a turf mohican was added to the statue's head.

Source BBC News

Acts of benevolent vandalism: response

Point-by-point response to Matt's post based on a brilliant conversation we had in the car but failed miserably to record.

I've started looking for urban objects and infrastructures that need to be 'socialized'. What are the points in our environment that isolate and control us? Is this something forceful and political or is it something gentle and subtle - the little things: the systems and structures that remove a little bit of our humanity?

Directly linked to The Anti-social project, about challenging the way our (urban) environment is regulated and constructed, either by state (legal) or by social (unwritten) mechanisms. There's nothing wrong with that at all!

But if your trigger is the bird-box surveillance idea then we have different readings of where that project could go. Your direction takes "benevolence" as the central theme, and the aim is to address the problems with human interaction in urban residential environments. The bird box fits, because it takes a symbol of oppression and dis-ease (perhaps) and turns it into an object of beauty (in function not form) and benefit. Beneficial to birds (and environment) and to us (for looking at birds).

But in my head that project is more about nature, and us allowing for it within urban contexts, than it is about community or human interaction. It is about taking the language of a new 'natural environment' (i.e. lamp posts, bollards, post boxes, electric service boxes etc.) and making space for wildlife within it. We appropriate the current municipal vernacular (JL) so as to camouflage these wildlife amenities appropriately. At the same time, we are putting classic 'natural' forms of ornamentation back onto the urban furniture (JL). It's like living decoration. So to sum up, this direction takes "urban nature" as the central theme, and the aim is to address the problems with human-animal interaction in urban residential environments.

Two mini projects have come to mind- both maybe shit and the wrong sort of thing, but here goes:

First, is the 'Gated Community'... last week I tried to ride the Thames pathway, it's a beautiful ride that gives you a new sectional view of London, except for the fact I had to steer off course to avoid the dreaded Gated Community. How can we design things to socialize the anti-social? How could we integrate the isolated?

Next is my Lost Winter Garments project... It's a stupid thing that I do, but the thing I like best is the invisible acts of consideration. People place gloves and hats in obvious places to draw peoples attention- the thing to draw out of this is the idea that some people do care- how do we highlight and promote these acts of social consideration?

Well I think "acts of social consideration" is a great idea. The thing is, I'm not very social or considerate so I may not be of much use.

The upshot of all of this is that I don't think any of the thoughts here are shit, but with regard to the benevolent vandalism conversation we all had last Tuesday in the studio, they are in a different direction than I was thinking.

later today i will be mainly making this

OK so I may be going really OTT with the cat thing

but he's really good.

There are some nice and some not so nice things on this page, including him at the end. It's from a site called Modern Cat, in the "DIY" section. I found it by typing "cat shelf" into Google.

This is one of the nicer things. It originally came from here.

Animal vision

Not sure where this is going, but this is apparently how dogs and cats see:

The position of the eyes within the head determines the degree of peripheral vision as well as the amount of the visual field that is seen simultaneously with both eyes. This binocular vision is necessary for judgment of distances. Dogs have eyes which are placed on the sides of the head, resulting in a visual field of 240 degrees compared with the human field of 200 degrees. The central, binocular field of vision in dogs and cats is approximately half that possessed by humans.

The eyes of dogs and cats have many of the modifications typically seen in animals which evolved as nighttime hunters. The pupil functions much as the aperture for a camera and can dilate for maximal light capturing ability in dogs and cats. In addition, there is a reflective layer under the retina called the tapetum which serves to intensify vision in dim light. The "mirror" effect of the tapetum results in the "eye shine" observed when an animal looks into a car's headlights. While dim light vision is enhanced by the tapetum, scattering of the reflected light may result in reduced acuity.

Although it is commonly believed that dogs and cats see only in black and white, recent evidence suggests that animals may have some degree of useful color vision. The perception of color is determined by the presence of cone photoreceptors within the retina. These cone cells function in bright light conditions and comprise approximately 20% of the photoreceptors in the central retina of the dog. In humans, the central retina (macula) is 100% cones. Behavioral tests in dogs suggest that they can distinguish red and blue colors but often confuse green and red.

Us:
Them:
Us: Ink:
It's that blue car isn't it.

Surveillance cat

He must spend hours doing this. Exactly there, sat upright looking at stuff. Surely we can offer him some gadgets to assist him on his mission to sit and watch stuff. It may be going off the point I know, but he's sort of nature.

edit: Maybe we should set up a camera outside to observe his observations. Or, we need a little 'Inky-cam' fixed to his head so we can see what the hell it is he's looking at. Obviously it's probably just anything that moves and might be prey... but you never know. Maybe he knows something we don't?