Hello

My name is Chuck. I have been using the Gigapan, and teaching it to others in the Computing Workshop. It’s very fun. I am excited about this new image making tool. I think this robot will slowly revolutionize image making as we know it. The gigapan image has such a powerful ability to command detail and render information, it will ultimately change the way humans see. This will take a while to happen, I admit. Nevertheless, it will change us.

This is a truth about all revolutionary technology. These new tools descend upon us. We build each new thing, in order to change the technology. Then the technology takes us over and changes how we see. We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us, you see?  We deny this at first. We evaluate every new technology in terms of the old ones. Each new tool is evaluated and valued in terms of its contribution to a time long gone. We are continually focused on the past, instead of the future. We have our gaze fascinated on the tools of the past and how they work. We sort of, walk into the future, backwards. Firmly fixated on the past. We call it  “hindsight”. Our vision of yesterday shapes the tools of tomorrow. As the smells of the old darkroom slowly fade, we clutch the rolls of film tightly in our hands, refusing to release the artifacts which are already dead, passed away and, more and more, useless. Do you see?

A new twist to “I Spy With My Little Eye”

Wanda of Computing Workshop notes:

     Gigapan panoramas are so very useful for esoteric, educational, and instructional purposes.  But, I feel that one of the most fun aspects of it is the ability to play that age-old childhood game of “I Spy”!  It’s a treasure and scavenger hunt, all rolled into one. 

     As an artist, I am always interested in the little details and the patterns I see.  When I first looked online at the wonderful images possible with Gigapan robotic technology and software, I immediately focused in on things like brick patterns on buildings, stone strata in landscapes, color and pattern in street scenes, and the geometry of manmade and natural scenes.  Then it became a game to look at the tinier, more notable anomalies.  For example, it was fun to find a child with a toy, to find a book title on a shelf, to find a reddish stone amid all the grey ones, and to spot the frowning person amid happier people. 

     In our Computing Workshop, we enjoyed looking together at a Gigapan image and isolating some items that we put on the comments category.  In our comment, we used the “I Spy” technique.  It would be fun to create our I Spy list in rhyme, similar to the way the published “I Spy” books are presented, and perhaps to make a sequence of stitched panoramas on a particular theme.  The possibilities are truly endless, and I’m excited to be involved with this program and with these students.

www.wandamarie.etsy.com

www.myspace.com/easilyamusedstudio