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About to embark on some new projects here in Berlin. Here’s my reading list at the moment…

Free: The Future of a Radical Price
by Chris Anderson
July 7th 2009 by Hyperion

Traditional economics operates under fundamental assumptions of scarcity–there’s only so much oil, iron, and gold in the world. But the online economy is built upon three cornerstones: processing power, hard drive storage, and bandwidth–and the costs of all these elements are trending toward zero at an incredible rate.

The Exploit: A Theory of Networks
by Alexander R. Galloway, Eugene Thacker
October 1st 2007 by Univ Of Minnesota Press

“The Exploit is that rare thing: a book with a clear grasp of how networks operate that also understands the political implications of this emerging form of power. It cuts through the nonsense about how ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ networks supposedly are, and it offers a rich analysis of how network protocols create a new kind of control. Essential reading for all theorists, artists, activists, techheads, and hackers of the Net.” —McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto

Group Work
by Temporary Services
New York, NY: Printed Matter. 2007

Based on a pamphlet published by Temporary Services in 2002 titled Group Work: A Compilation of Quotes About Collaboration from a Variety of Sources and Practices, this publication provides a multitude of perspectives on the theme of Group Work by practitioners of artistic group practice from 1960s to the present.

I’ve been trying for a few hours to run a Python script from The Sunlight Foundation Labs which downloads (and updates) a campaign finance database from the Center for Responsive Politics. See their original post for more information.

In the process of getting this working I accidentally broke a working copy of MySQL and overwrote a database installed on my MBP (which I had stupidly not backed-up since last year). FYI, you can rebuild any MySQL database with the original .frm, .MYD, and .MYI files if you 1. Recreate the database in the new install of MySQL and 2. Drag the files into the mysql data folder.

I struggled quite a bit getting Python to work with MySQL via MySQLdb. I’m documenting some of the headaches and resolutions here in case they are useful. I’ve tried to include error messages for searches as well.

The Sunlight Foundation instructions require Python and MySQL, but don’t mention you have to have already wrestled with the madness involved in installing Django on your machine. Here is what I did to get it working on my MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo. I’ve included their original instructions with my own (and a host of others).

Instructions

1. Install MAMP.

   While I had working installations of MySQL and Python (via installers on respective sites), I couldn’t get Python to connect to MySQL via MySQLdb. I decided to download and try MAMP for a clean start.

2. Install XCode

   Past installs are available on Apple Developer website.

3. Install setuptools

   Required for the MySQLdb driver. Remove the .sh extension from the filename (setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg.sh) and in a shell:

   ~$ chmod +x setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
~$ ./setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg

4. Install the MySQLdb driver

   After downloading and unzipping, from the directory:

   ~$ python setup.py build
~$ sudo python setup.py install

   Continue following the advice of this post to the end How to install Django with MySQL on Mac OS X.

   I also followed another piece of advice in Python MySQL on a Mac with MAMP to change the mysql_config.path from:

   /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

   to

   /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql_config

   Especially useful is his test script for making sure that Python is indeed accessing MySQL.

5. Create a symbolic link between Python and MySQL in MAMP

   This is required in order to use a socket to connect to the MySQL. See How to install MySQLdb on Leopard with MAMP for more information.

   ~$ sudo ln -s /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock /tmp/mysql.sock

6. Create a directory and put the two Python files in it.
7. Modify the top of the sun_crp.py file to set certain parameters–your login credentials for the CRP download site and your MySQL database information.
8. Install pyExcelerator

   Error: ImportError: No module named pyExcelerator

   I had to install this module next.

9. Comment out multiple lines

   Error: NameError: name 'BaseCommand' is not defined

   In download.py comment out the following:

   The line: from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand, CommandError

   Everything from class CRPDownloadCommand(BaseCommand): to the end of the document.

10. From the command line, run the script by typing, from the proper directory: Python sun-crp.py.
11. It will take several hours to download and extract the data, especially the first time it’s run. But after that, you’re good to go.

ISEA2010 RUHR Conference in Dortmund, Germany

P26 Public Interventions
Tue 24 August 2010
15:00–16:30h
Volkshochschule Dortmund, S 137a
Moderated by Georg Dietzler (de)

• 15:00h | Owen Mundy (us): Automata: Counter-Surveillance in Public Space
• 15:20h | Christoph Brunner (ch/ca), Jonas Fritsch (dk): Balloons, Sweat and Technologies. Urban Interventions through Ephemeral Architectures
• 15:40h | Georg Klein (de): Don’t Call It Art! On Artistic Strategies and Political Implications of Media Art in Public Space
• 16:00h | Georg Dietzler (de): Radical Ecological Art and No Greenwash Exhibitions

About my talk:

Automata is the working title for a counter-surveillance internet bot that will record and display the mutually-beneficial interrelationships between institutions for higher learning, the global defense industry, and world militaries. Give Me My Data is a Facbook application that help users reclaim and reuse their Facebook data. The two projects, both ongoing, address important issues surounding contemporary forms of communication, surveillance, and control.

Howdy, it’s been awhile since I last shared news about recent and ongoing projects. Here goes.

1. You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore

You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore is an installation that projects moving US Geological Survey (USGS) satellite images using handmade kinetic projection devices.

Each device hangs from the ceiling and uses electronic components to rotate strips of satellite images on transparency in front of an LED light source. They are constructed with found materials like camera lenses and consumer by-products and mimic remote sensing devices, bomb sights, and cameras in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

The installation includes altered images from various forms of lens-based analysis on a micro and macro scale; land masses, ice sheets, and images of retinas, printed on reflective silver film.

On display now until July 31 at AC Institute 547 W. 27th St, 5th Floor
Hours: Wed., Fri. & Sat.: 1-6pm, Thurs.: 1-8pm

New video by Asa Gauen and images
http://owenmundy.com/site/close_your_eyes

2. Images and video documentation of You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore will also be included in an upcoming Routledge publication and website:

Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice
by Rebekah Modrak, Bill Anthes
ISBN: 978-0-415-77920-3
Publish Date: November 16th 2010
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415779203/

3. Give Me My Data launch

Give Me My Data is a Facebook application designed to give users the ability to export their data out of Facebook for any purpose they see fit. This could include making artwork, archiving and deleting your account, or circumventing the interface Facebook provides. Data can be exported in CSV, XML, and other common formats. Give Me My Data is currently in public-beta.

Website
http://givememydata.com/

Facebook application
http://apps.facebook.com/give_me_my_data/

4. Give Me My Data was also covered recently by the New York Times, BBC, TechCrunch, and others:

Facebook App Brings Back Data by Riva Richmond, New York Times, May 1, 2010
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/facebook-app-brings-back-data/

5. yourarthere.net launch

A major server and website upgrade to the yourarthere.net web-hosting co-op for artists and creatives. The new site allows members of the community to create profiles and post images, tags, biography, and events. In addition to the community aspect, yourarthere.net is still the best deal going for hosting your artist website.

Website
http://yourarthere.net

More images
http://owenmundy.com/site/design_yourarthere_net

6. The Americans

The Americans is currently on view at the Northwest Florida State College in Niceville, FL. It features a new work with the same title.

More images
http://owenmundy.com/site/the-americans

7. Your Art Here billboard hanger

I recently designed a new billboard hanging device and installed it in downtown Bloomington, IN with the help of my brother Reed, and wife Joelle Dietrick.

Stay tuned here for news about Your Art Here and the new billboard by Joelle Dietrick.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Your-Art-Here/112561318756736

8. Finally, moving to Berlin for a year on a DAAD fellowship to work on some ongoing projects, including Automata.

More images
http://owenmundy.com/blog/2010/07/new-automata-sitemaps/

I’ll be giving a paper about Automata at the upcoming ISEA2010 conference in Ruhr, Germany.
http://www.isea2010ruhr.org/conference/tuesday-24-august-2010-dortmund

Many thanks to Chris Csikszentmihályi, Director of the Center for Future Civic Media http://civic.mit.edu/ , for inviting me to the MIT Media Lab last August to discuss the project with his Computing Culture Group: http://compcult.wordpress.com/

—————-

Thanks for listening.

~
Owen Mundy
http://owenmundy.com
http://givememydata.com
http://camplajolla.org
http://yourarthere.org
http://drainmag.com
http://yourarthere.net

I am very much enjoying the video my friend, Asa Gauen, is working on for You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore, which is installed at AC Institute in New York until July 31.

My friend and collaborator, Katherine Sweetman, has just posted a great video documenting the Lucent project we did at the University of California, San Diego.

A deconstruction of defense contractor website data structures.

You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore opens tonight at AC Institute in Chelsea.

July 1 – July 31, 2010
Opening: Thursday, July 1, 2010 6-8pm

AC Institute [Direct Chapel]
547 W. 27th St, 5th Floor
New York, NY

Gallery Hours: Wed., Fri. & Sat.: 1-6pm, Thurs.: 1-8pm

Here are a couple installation shots of You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore leading up to the AC Direct installation in New York. Everyone should be so lucky to have a retired shop teacher for a father in law!

BBC News reports on Give Me My Data. Their website and video player is pretty clunky, and while they avoid crediting the developer, its still a nice plug to wake up to.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/8744514.stm