SEVERAL YARDS APART BUT CLOSE ENOUGH FOR EASY COMMUNICATION BY VOICE
Demarcation; A Description by R. Brothers
This website contains background information about the projects in the exhibition 'Several Yards Apart But Close Enough For Easy Communication By Voice' by Tom Kok & Jan Willem Deiman at NP3, Groningen.
The website is divided in four chapters, one for every project that is part of the exhibition.
Pictures of the projects and artworks in the exhibition can soon be found on kokanddeiman.com.
Opening
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Performance
"Demarcation; A Description by R.Brothers"
(March 11 & April 8, 2012 at 16:00)
Exhibition
February 15, 2012 < > April 8, 2012
NP3
Hofstraat 21
9712 JA - Groningen
Open
Wednesday - Saturday 13.00-18.00
This website is under construction.
SEVERAL YARDS APART BUT CLOSE ENOUGH FOR EASY COMMUNICATION BY VOICE
Demarcation; A Description by R. Brothers
Foxholes
2011/2012
The mathematical function is used to test the strength of certain algorithms but visually resembles an interesting abstract form of inverted architecture, a theme that is obviously also present in the military connotation. The sloppy and humorous sketches of these temporary one or two-man settlements made by the american army are in striking contrast with the perfect mathematical precision of the function.
Therefore we are investigating the possible intertwinement of the two despite the strange distance between them.
Topics in the project
Military Foxholes (one or two-men settlements)
Mathematical Foxholes (functions of De Jong)
Bamboo Scaffolding
Military Foxholes
(one or two-men settlements
Defensive fighting position
A defensive fighting position (DFP) is a type of earthwork constructed in a military context, generally large enough to accommodate at least one person. A DFP is known more commonly within United States Army slang as a "foxhole", or the slang term "ranger grave", within United States Marine Corps slang as a "fighting hole", in Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) forces terminology as a "fighting pit", in Australian Army terminology as a "Gun-Pit", within the British and Canadian military argot as a "slit trench", or simply—but less accurately—as a "trench".
History
An Indian Wehrmacht volunteer in a Tobruk DFP along the Atlantic Wall, 1944. Early in World War II, during the fighting in North Africa, U.S. forces employed the slit trench. This was a very shallow excavation allowing one man to lie horizontally while shielding his body from nearby shell bursts and small arms fire.The slit trench soon proved inadequate in this role, as the few inches of dirt above the soldier's body could often be penetrated by bullets or shell fragments. It also exposed the user to assault by enemy tanks, which could crush the man inside a shallow slit trench by driving into it, then making a simple half-turn.
After the Battle of Kasserine Pass, U.S. troops increasingly adopted the modern foxhole, a vertical, bottle-shaped hole that allowed a soldier to stand and fight with head and shoulders exposed.[2][4] The foxhole widened near the bottom to allow a soldier to crouch down while under intense artillery fire or tank attack.[2] Foxholes could be enlarged to two-man fighting positions, as well as excavated with firing steps for crew-served weapons or sumps for water drainage or grenade disposal.
Tobruk
Hardened fortifications known as "Tobruks" were used by the Germans in North Africa and later in the Atlantic Wall fortifications. They were in essence a foxhole made from concrete. They were officially known as Ringstände by the Germans, and "Tobruks" by the Allies, as they had first been encountered there during the fighting in Africa.
more reading about military foxholes:
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/FM7-10/FM7-10-I.html (Infantry Field Manual, June 2, 1942)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_fighting_position (Defensive fighting position)
http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1005/m1/2/zoom/?zoom=2&lat=4088.5&lon=5231.5&layers=BT (Foxholes are life savers)
Mathematical Foxholes
(functions of De Jong)
"An analysis of the behaviour of a class of genetic adaptive systems" (De Jong, 1975). De Jong chose these functions because they represent the common difficulties in optimization problems in an isolated manner. By running the comparisons on these functions, one can make judgments about the strengths and weaknesses of particular algorithms.
ROSENBROCK is the nightmare. It has a very narrow ridge. The tip of the ridge is very sharp, and it runs around a parabola. Algorithms that are not able to discover good directions underperform in this problem.
more about mathematical foxholes:
http://www.denizyuret.com/pub/aitr1569/node19.html (De Jong's test suite)
http://www.it.lut.fi/ip/evo/functions/node16.html (Modified Shekel's Foxholes function)
Bamboo Scaffolding
Scaffolding is a temporary structure used to support people and material in the construction or repair of buildings and other large structures. It is usually a modular system of metal pipes or tubes, although it can be from other materials. Bamboo is frequently used in some Asian countries, such as Hong Kong.
Nicknamed "spiders" for their gravity-defying skills in web-like constructions, Hong Kong's bamboo scaffolders have risen above predictions that their trade would disappear.
They remain a common sight high above the streets of the city, scaling the sides of towering, ultra-modern steel and glass buildings on traditional bamboo poles linked through ancient design concepts.
"People prophesied in 1957 that bamboo scaffolding was finished," former construction industry instructor Dan Waters told AFP, recalling the talk at an exhibition of new steel and aluminium gear.
The prophecy has proved accurate in some other parts of Asia such as mainland China and Singapore, where bamboo has largely been banished from high-rise construction sites in favour of modern materials.
But in Hong Kong, 1,835 registered bamboo scaffolders continue to play a vital role in forming the constantly changing skyline of the Chinese territory, and each year a handful of new recruits sign up.
more reading about scaffolding:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaffolding (Scaffolding)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iNHQI8ymQdlreb6QzgkKd13e-L9g (Hong Kong 'spiders' stick to bamboo scaffolding)
Demarcation; A Description by R. Brothers
2011/2012
Topics in the project
Richard Brothers and the New Jerusalem (religious maniac)
The Board
The Logo (Embroidered patch)
Aardvarks (Orycteropus Afer)
Game Equipment (Extensions)
Gymnasium Floors
Richard Brothers and the New Jerusalem
(religious maniac)
As an educated gentleman and naval officer, Richard Brothers dramatically altered eighteenth-century expectations and perceptions of what prophets were and the nature of prophecy itself. The messianic messages delivered to Londoners by the self-styled prophet are central to the religious politics and culture of the 1790s, mockingly referred to by one contemporary critic as the "age of prophecy."
In 1793 Richard Brothers declared himself to be the apostle of a new religion. He began to see himself as possessing a special role in the gathering of the Jews back into Palestine. Brothers proclaimed himself to be Prince of the Hebrews, literal descendant of the Biblical House of David, and the Nephew of the Almighty who would rule over Israel until the return of Jesus Christ. Brothers declared he would achieve all this using a rod he had fashioned from a wild rosebush with which he would perform miracles like Moses had done.
Brothers began to attract quite a following, but due to his rejection of organisational work and eccentric nature he did not develop any sort of social movement. In consequence of prophesying the death of the King and the end of the monarchy, he was arrested for treason in 1795, and imprisoned on the grounds of being criminally insane. His case was, however, brought before Parliament by his ardent disciple, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, an orientalist and a member of the House of Commons. As a result Richard Brothers was removed to a private asylum in Islington.
Brothers spent the last 30 years of his life designing the flags, uniforms and palaces of the New Jerusalem. John Finlayson of London finally secured his release from the private asylum in 1806, and Richard Brothers moved into his London home where he died a lonely figure on 25 January 1824, in London, England.
more reading about Richard Brothers and the New Jeruzalem:
Wikipedia (Richard Brothers)
Wikipedia (The New Jerusalem)
Amazon (The Paddington Prophet)
Ebook (The Rise and Fall of the New Jerusalem Church...)
Google Books (A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity, and Modernity in Britain..)
The Board
This performance is, as we said, based on a two-dimensional engraving of a city-plan by Brothers, and can be seen as a strategic board game. Brothers' designs (the exact and mathematic structure of his urban planning in particular) reveal, according to us, his remarkable and radical ideas.
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance (e.g. rolling dice) or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve.
Early board games represented a battle between two armies and most current board games are still based on beating opposing players in terms of counters, winning position or accrual of points (often expressed as in-game currency).
more reading about Board Games:
Wikipedia (Board Games)
Wikipedia (Go Game)
Wikipedia (Game Studies)
Wikipedia (Game)
Game Boards (Old Game Boards)
Wikipedia (Mandala)
Youtube (Time-lapse video of Buddhist Monk working on a Sand Manadala)
The Logo
(Embroidered patch)
Logos in Baseball
From the beginning, graphic designs were used to identify teams. Often an Old English letter was worn on the chest. This style survives with the Detroit Tigers and their gothic style "D" on their home shirts. Road jerseys were more likely to identify the city, as with the Tigers wearing the word "Detroit" on their road shirts. The Oakland Athletics currently have an Old English "A" on their caps and their alternate gold jerseys.
As official nicknames gained prominence in the early 1900s (in contrast to media-generated and unofficial nicknames of prior generations), pictorial logos began emerging as part of the team's marketing. Some early examples include a small red tiger on the black cap of the 1901 Detroit Tigers, as they were officially the Tigers from the beginning; and a bear cub logo on the Chicago Cubs shirts by 1907, as that unofficial nickname was then adopted officially by the club. In another famous example, the Boston Americans (an unofficial designation that merely distinguished them from their across-the-tracks rivals) adopted the Nationals' abandoned red stockings in 1908, and have been the Boston Red Sox officially ever since then.
By the 1930s, nearly every team had distinctive logos, letters or the team nickname on their home shirts, as part of the team's marketing. The trend of the city name on the road jerseys continued. In recent years, with team nicknames being so strongly associated with the clubs, logos that were once only used at home also turned up on road jerseys, in place of city names.
Embroidered Patch
An embroidered patch is a piece of art which is created by using a fabric backing thread and some form of a needle. Embroidered patches can be attached with a pin or can be sewn on, but some of the more modern methods of attachment include both an iron-on and Velcro backing.
The art of making embroidered patches is decades old but the introduction of new high speed, computerized machines have brought a once rare, time consuming art into mass production. 
Today, embroidered patches are used by government (including uniforms of the military, emergency services and other specialized workers) sports teams and companies in the private sector to denote rank, job, specific position or specialized unit. Youth groups, including sports teams, scouting organizations and specialized clubs often wear clothing emblazoned with embroidered patches. They are also used by space agencies on the uniforms of astronauts to denote the mission.
more reading about logos and patches:
inspirationfeed (70 Beautiful Animal Logo Designs)
wikipedia (Logo)
wikipedia (Embroidered patch)
Aardvarks
(Orycteropus Afer)
Aardvarks live throughout Africa, south of the Sahara. Their name comes from South Africa's Afrikaans language and means "earth pig." A glimpse of the aardvark's body and long snout brings the pig to mind. On closer inspection, the aardvark appears to include other animal features as well. It boasts rabbitlike ears and a kangaroo tail—yet the aardvark is related to none of these animals.
The oldest-known fossil reveals that aardvarks lived about 20 million years ago in Africa (Kenya). Moreover, numerous extinct species, aged between 15 and 3 million years, have also been discovered in Europe and Asia.
Aardvarks are nocturnal. They spend the hot African afternoon holed up in cool underground burrows dug with their powerful feet and claws that resemble small spades. After sunset, aardvarks put those claws to good use in acquiring their favorite food—termites.
more reading about Aardvarks:
edgeofexistence.org (General Info)
aardvarkafrica.org (Research Insitute)
wikipedia
Game equipment
(Extensions)
Grip (tennis)
In tennis, a grip is a way of holding the racquet in order to hit shots during a match. The three most commonly used conventional grips are: the Continental (or "Chopper"), the Eastern and the Western. Most players change grips during a match depending on what shot they are hitting.
In order to understand the grips, it is important to know that the handle of a racquet always consists of 8 sides, or in other words, has an octagonal shape. A square shape would hurt the hand, while a round shape would not give enough friction to gain a firm grip. The eight sides of the handle are called bevels. We can number the bevels from 1 to 8 as follows: if the blade of the racquet is perpendicular to the ground, the bevel facing up is #1. The one next to it rotating clockwise is #2 if you are right-handed, and counter-clockwise if you are left-handed, and so on.
The polo mallet has a rubber-wrapped grip and a webbed thong, called a sling, for wrapping around the thumb. The shaft is made of manau-cane (not bamboo because it is hollowed) although a small number of mallets today are made from Composite materials.
more info on game equipment:
Youtube (Stephen Maguire using 3 extensions Snooker World Open 2010)
wikipedia (Cue Stick)
wikipedia (Tennis Grip)
wikipedia (Mallets)
Gymnasium Floors
more info on Gymnasium Floors:
gymfloorresource.com (Gym Floors)
If You Succeed You Will Bask in Glory
2011/2012
About the project
"If You Succeed You Will Bask in Glory" is a research project with the focus on investigating the visual form of language. The aim is to expose the underlying structures of specific languages. At the center of this this research are two subjects: the Chappe Semaphore, and the communication between honeybees.
These examples provide a way to experience only the visual layer of these languages apart from it's meaning. Furthermore the inevitable associations with contemporary mass communication means (such as internet) and visual languages (such as digital interfaces) can provide an interesting perspective on this topic. The friction between these very primitive communication examples and contemporary communication culture will be central in researching this subject.
Topics in this project
The Chappe Semaphore
Google's Philosophy
Communication of Honeybees
The Chappe Semaphore
(Claude Chappe)
Chappe Semaphore
This visual communication system is developed in 1793 by the french inventor Claude Chappe. The Chappe Semaphore was a large wooden structure placed in open spaces or on towers, each 10 km apart. The Semaphores had identical moveable arms which could be placed in several set positions. Each position represented letters or words and thus could be used to send compact messages across great distances. The tower-watchman would copy the positions of an other tower which would then be passed on the next.
The total network reached from Amsterdam to Venice branching out into Germany, France and Spain. Unfortunately this analogue mass communication system would only be in use for 30 years after which in got destroyed and taken over by the electronic Morse system which was more efficient. This interesting first attempt to create a large mass communication network left only its visual remains: a few left-over wooden structures and an unusable almost cuneiform-like alphabet.
Claude Chappe (December 25, 1763 – January 23, 1805)
Claude Chappe was an unusual man. Under the most unlikely circumstances, in the middle of an eighteenth century revolution, he managed to build a telegraph network that spanned the entire country of France, with branches leading into Holland, Germany, Italy, and Spain. His success in France inspired similar work in almost every other European country. Optical telegraph lines of many different designs sprang up in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, England, Poland, and Russia, almost as quickly as the word about Chappe's success could spread.
What characterized Claude Chappe was not luck, but an admirable drive and a relentless dedication to perfection, even under adversity. He faced the violence of the French Revolution, with many people around him literally losing their heads over lesser causes than Chappe advocated. He also faced sometimes severe competition from others who claimed to have built a better telegraph, or a different one, or who simply claimed to have done it all before. Although some of the latter claims may have been partly justified, as we shall see, it was perseverance and dedication that made the difference between Chappe and his predecessors.
more reading on Claude Chappe and Semaphores:
Wikipedia (Semaphore Lines)
Harvard (An Early History of Data Networks)
Wikipedia (Claude Chappe)
Gallica (Semaphores)
Google's Philosophy
more reading on Google and their Philosophy:
Google (The Manifest)
Ten Things (Ten things Google Knows to be true)
Wikipedia (Google)
Communication of Honeybees
The Dance
Honey bee dancing, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of their biology, is also one of the most fascinating behaviors in animal life. Performed by a worker bee that has returned to the honey comb with pollen or nectar, the dances, in essence, constitute a language that "tells" other workers where the food is. By signaling both distance and direction with particular movements, the worker bee uses the dance language to recruit and direct other workers in gathering pollen and nectar.
When an experienced forager returns to the colony with a load of nectar or pollen that is sufficiently nutritious to warrant a return to the source, she performs a dance on the surface of the honey comb to tell other foragers where the food is. The dancer "spells out" two items of information—distance and direction—to the target food patch. Recruits then leave the hive to find the nectar or pollen. Distance and direction are presented in separate components of the dance
Karl von Frisch
The late Karl von Frisch, a professor of zoology at the University of Munich in Germany, is credited with interpreting the meaning of honey bee dance movements. He and his students carried out decades of research in which they carefully described the different components of each dance. Their experiments typically used glass-walled observation hives and paint-marked bee foragers. First, they trained the foragers to find food at sources placed at known distances from the colony. When the bees returned from gathering food from those sources, von Frisch and his students carefully measured both the duration and angle of the dances the foragers performed to recruit other bees to help gather food. Their findings led them to the concept of a dance language. Von Frisch's work eventually earned him the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1973.
more reading on Karl von Frisch and Honey bees:
PDF (Honey Bee Recruitment)
PDF (Can An Insect Speak?)
Wikipedia (Bee Learing and Communication)
Wikipedia (Karl von Frisch)
Bio Tracking (Videos of Animal Observation)
Love Wave
2011
About the project
The Love wave project focuses on models of earthquakes. In contrast to the chaotic ruins created by the earthquake in reality, the schematic representations of earthquakes show a very regular, patterned image. One seems to have the vain desire to capture even the greatest forces of nature, that are completely beyond human control, by displaying them in a schematic way.
To make it even more contradictory, one of the earthquake models is called 'Love wave'. Giving the impresion of some warm and happy social-movement, the Love wave actually is one of the most devastating waves that move through and around the earth.
Topics in the project
Seismic Waves
Foam cubes
Earthquake House
Seismic Waves
Seismic waves are the waves of energy caused by the sudden breaking of rock within the earth or an explosion. They are the energy that travels through the earth and is recorded on seismographs.
There are several different kinds of seismic waves, and they all move in different ways. The two main types of waves are body wavesand surface waves. Body waves can travel through the earth's inner layers, but surface waves can only move along the surface of the planet like ripples on water. Earthquakes radiate seismic energy as both body and surface waves.
The love wave is named after A.E.H. Love, a British mathematician who worked out the mathematical model for this kind of wave in 1911. It's the fastest surface wave and moves the ground from side-to-side. Confined to the surface of the crust, Love waves produce entirely horizontal motion.
Large earthquakes may generate Love waves that travel around the Earth several times before dissipating. Since they decay so slowly, Love waves are the most destructive outside the immediate area of the focus or epicentre of an earthquake. They are what most people feel directly during an earthquake.
more reading about seismic waves:
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/waves.html (What Is Seismology and What Are Seismic Waves?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_wave (Love Wave)
Foam cubes
Kids Science
These elementary science activities demonstrate to childeren how blocks of land move upward when the land is squeezed together and downward when the land is pulling apart.
Foam Pit
The foam pit is a soft landing surface designed with a bed of foam chips underneath. A loose foam pit is built into the ground. It is usually 6-8 feet deep. The walls are covered by polyethylene foam that is usually glued to the concrete. The foam that covers the covers the concrete must be over an inch thick to decrease the chance of injuries.
more reading about foam cubes:
http://www.kids-earth-science.com/earthquake-activities.html
(Earthquake Activities, Fault Blocks)
Earthquake House
Big earthquakes can shake a house apart, possibly causing serious injury to it's occupants. But our forward thinking inventor has a solution, the roll-with-the-punches Earthquake House! His idea is simple, build a round house that has earthquake sensors built into it. If the Richter sensors signal the big one (earthquake that is), the house is automatically released from it's tether lines, it's anchors and it's utility lines, allowing it to freely roll wherever the shakin' sends it. It's like Mother Nature's giant bowling ball. Don't worry, the big biosphere has a self righting inner living structure so you always remain upright, even if you're uptight about your house rolling through the neighborhood. We don't recommend this for a hillside home and we have concerns about your house rolling over your neighbors house or maybe even your neighbors, because there aren't any brakes to stop it!
