sonification

we were given an introduction to the Sonification project today:
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/impact/sounds.html

just took a walk down to SSL's satellite dish:

the data comes to the mission control room down the corridor:

orientation

everywhere you go in Berkeley SSL is watching you from the hills.....













and the view from there isn't bad either [you can see golden gate bridge, but not on this tiny pic]


we got bikes today and can start exploring even more

mission research

Spent the day getting to grips with the various missions here at SSL.
They're documented really well online with loads of videos and interviews, diagrams, data.... lots of links here to various missions

We're interested in how the data recieved is translated into information we understand, and how those decisions are made and informed.
We need to unpick the mind of things like this great object the aptly titled "instrument data processing unit"!


Also a wealth of images on the network recording various simple magnetic experiments like this one below:















there's a series of these really beautiful electromagnetic drawings/structures

We're finding lots of nice ways in and forming many ideas of how we can work here.

Flea and Farmers market

Day Two

During the weeks running up to our departure for SSL we decided we would like to interview some of the scientists on video as a way to get to grips with the various missions at SSL. We thought this would enable us to focus in on an area of interest, but the more we've considered this, we realised it is becoming a creative process in itself. We're collating questions we want to ask the scientists about their methods of working; ways they use the computer as a tool for representation........ We have ideas that how we interpret these responses could become an artwork in itself.

Day One

If we're looking for coincidences then upon our first day at SSL we were all to unofficially celebrate the colour green...

Feeling really inspired already. As the production of our work is so time intensive, past fellowships and residencies have had more focus on the making rather than developing of ideas. We're really excited about all the potential research time we have here, and the wealth of people,ideas, places......

London to San Francisco

We had an interesting journey to San Francisco from London. Our flight was delayed by several hours as air traffic control for the UK 'went down' when we arrived at Berekely we had recieved a red alert email for auroral activity from the ever reliable:

http://www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iono/aurorawatch/



Rather approprately the timing of the high activty coincided exactly with the communication breakdown in the UK - could it be? This is really preparing us for our Spcae Weather experiences to come.