A Temporal Map in Geostationary Orbit: The Cover Etching on the EchoStar XVI Artifact

Geostationary satellites are unique among orbital spacecraft in that they experience no appreciable atmospheric drag. After concluding their respective missions, geostationary spacecraft remain in orbit virtually in perpetuity. As such, they represent some of human civilization's longest lasting artifacts. With this in mind, the EchoStar XVI satellite, to be launched in fall 2012, will play host to a time capsule intended as a message for the deep future. Inspired in part by the Pioneer Plaque and Voyager Golden Records, the EchoStar XVI Artifact is a pair of gold-plated aluminum jackets housing a small silicon disc containing one hundred photographs. The Cover Etching, the subject of this paper, is etched onto one of the two jackets. It is a temporal map consisting of a star chart, pulsar timings, and other information describing the epoch from which EchoStar XVI came. The pulsar sample consists of 13 rapidly rotating objects, 5 of which are especially stable, having spin periods < 10 ms and extremely small spindown rates. In this paper, we discuss our approach to the time map etched onto the cover and the scientific data shown on it; and we speculate on the uses that future scientists may have for its data. The other portions of the EchoStar XVI Artifact will be discussed elsewhere.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomical Journa

Geographies of landscape: Representation, power and meaning

Green criminology has sought to blur the nature-culture binary and this article seeks to extend recent work by geographers writing on landscape to further our understanding of the shifting contours of the divide. The article begins by setting out these different approaches, before addressing how dynamics of surveillance and conquest are embedded in landscape photography. It then describes how the ways we visualize the Earth were reconfigured with the emergence of photography in the 19th century and how the world itself has been transformed into a target in our global media culture

A critical geopolitics of observant practice at British military airshows

ArticleCopyright © 2015 The Authors. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers)This paper demonstrates how visual cultures of militarism take shape as part of a ‘thick’ geopolitics of being-in-place. It draws on historical accounts of, and empirical observations at, British military airshows, which it interprets via the concept of ‘observant practice’. The paper argues that the imaginative and rhetorical force of military spectacle and popular militarism are tied to its markedly enclavic spatiality, i.e. to seeing and doing in-place. By taking seriously the spatial and sensory experience of British airshows, the paper extends recent work in critical geopolitics that questions the spatialised politics of experience, and brings them into dialogue with cultural geographies of tourism. It provides a brief history of the spectacular origins of aviation and of the use of airshows to the practice of statecraft, and demonstrates how airshows are an important element in the cultural phenomenon of militarisation. The paper takes forward debates around ‘the vision thing’ in critical geopolitics by illustrating why the notion of observant practice should not be dissociated from consideration of the spaces in and through which militaries become the object of visual curiosity. It expands, therefore, the potential of observant practice as a critique of popular military cultures.ESR

Influencing machines: Trevor Paglen and Anthony Downey

Abstract How do you train an artificial intelligence (AI), or automated image processing model, to classify and recognize images? This question is central to Trevor Paglen’s Adversarially Evolved Hallucination series (2017–ongoing), a project that employs a generative adversarial network (GAN) to classify, identify and crucially, produce unique images. Paglen’s series demonstrates how images produced by AI image processing platforms—in this instance, a GAN—are, despite claims, never predictable or, indeed, accurate in their classifications. A significant indicator of this unreliability is evident in the potential for GANs, alongside other generative AI (GenAI) models, to hallucinate and erroneously classify images. Notwithstanding this systemic failing, automated image processing platforms remain central to classification tasks, including those associated with facial recognition and surveillance. They remain, for that reason, central to defining, if not pre-defining, how we perceive and look at the world through automated models of machine vision. Encouraged to see like machines, or at least take their classifications seriously and act upon them accordingly, we now inhabit a realm of perception defined by “machine realism”, if not algorithmic delusion. Enquiring into how we can better understand the degree to which AI encodes our perception of the world, it is this regimen of “machine realism” that Paglen and Downey explore throughout the following conversation: If AI models of image perception replace ocular-centric ways of seeing, they ask, do these apparatuses have the capacity to not only (pre)define but, in time, further estrange and alienate us from the world

Life remade: critical animation in the digital age

Introduction to Special Issue of animation: an interdisciplinary journal. Animation and contemporary life are enmeshed like never before. A growing number of the media images we consume are in animated form (from fully animated features to CGI laden blockbusters and advertisements); recourse to common animation software and aesthetic approaches significantly blur the lines between previously distinct artistic and design practices (from video games, to special effects, to architecture and contemporary art); and through techniques of computational modelling and visualization, animation is increasingly fundamental to processes of knowledge production and the creation of various modes or elements of life. This appears therefore to be a particularly 'critical' moment to ponder animation's expanded cultural and political role. This special issue also provides an opportunity to consider animation's own powers of critique – the ways in which the digital animated image is increasingly being deployed explicitly as a means of intervening in social and political arenas ranging from human rights advocacy to ecological activism. And finally, we hope this collection of essays serves to further the already rich examination of the politics of more traditional forms of animation in the current digital age. This special issue thus builds upon recent scholarship that has already begun to contend with animation's expanded presence and its inherent political and critical significance..

KOSI- Key Object Detection for Sentiment Insights

This paper explores an original approach of using computer vision, data mining and an expert system to facilitate marketers and other interested parties to take automated data-driven decisions with the use of actionable insights. The system uses a state-of-the-art algorithm to retrieves all the images of a desired Instagram user profile. Then, the data is passed through a combination of different convolutional neural networks for object detection and a rule-based translation system to determine the interests of this profile user. Further, using a separately trained convolutional neural network with an original dataset developed as part of this study, personality insights are derived. The results from the conducted experiments yield a satisfactory prediction of interests and not very promising results for the personality prediction

Soundwalking and Algorithmic Listening

Soundwalking is a listening and composition method that focuses on the exploration of the envi- ronment. With roots in the 1970s, the artistic practices that sprung from soundwalking engage both with the unmediated soundscape as well as with multiple approaches to its augmentation or the augmentation of the human sensory apparatus. Soundwalking emphasises the listener’s active and participatory role in the construction of dynamic compositions, shaped as much by the environment as by their presence and actions. Given the increasing relevance of computation in physical and public environments, the omnipresence of the metainterface, and how hybrid environments emerge from physical and virtual spaces, this paper discusses how principles and methodologies of soundwalking may allow the exploration and, ultimately, the understanding of computational environments that are increasingly sonic. This paper explores how in these contexts soundwalking can be used as a poetic and aesthetic resource, leading to the development of a listening that emphasises computation and procedurality, an algorithmic listening.</p