[Patina] Re: next meeting

Tue Feb 8 21:01:19 GMT 2011

Hi Enrico,

Comments below:

-----Original Message-----
From: Enrico Costanza [mailto:ec at ecs.soton.ac.uk] 
Sent: 08 February 2011 17:13
To: Southampton-specific mailing list for PATINA project
Cc: Earl G.P.
Subject: Re: [Patina] Re: next meeting

Hello.

Thanks Graeme for sharing your thoughts.

I like the idea you describe about haptic feedback related to the roughness of the bones. I especially like the idea of
> not simply replicating a real interaction but is using touch to interact with patina - the breadth of data and potentially interpretations of a group of objects.
It makes me think of research in the area of "sonification" -- where different signals are converted to audio with the aim of making patterns in them easier to distinguish by humans. (doing a prototype with audio may be a lot easier than with haptic actuators, at least in first instance) However, I have the impression that this goes more in the direction of translating physical artefacts to digital, rather than augmenting them.
Is this within the scope of PATINA?
(in any case, I'd be interested in discussing this further, if appropriate, even outside PATINA)

>>> I think the augmentation technically just has to be in terms of the space, so augmentation of the physical experience of space would be fine, even if this is via digital datasets feeding haptic (or acoustic) devices.

I started to think again about the library scenario, which was discussed at the Brighton meeting, and I realized that the most library-like aspect of the labs we visited is probably the reference collection in the osteology lab. Could it make sense to focus on that (the reference
collection) rather than on the specific bone under study? I guess (please tell me if this is not the case) that individual bone finds are studied and manipulated by a smaller number of people than those who use the reference collection.  You also mentioned that Southampton has the best fish bone reference collection in Europe, and that people come to visit it to use it. So it may be easier to foster collaboration around the collection rather than around individual bones.

>>> Actually I think that it is probably more people who interact with the bones than the collection. The collection is there as a backup for when things are indeterminate. They offer a hint of the likely identification and potentially also as per my example of variations in the morphology. Because these are not standardised they are difficult to determine automatically. I do agree that the reference collections strikes a nice chord with the wider issues of the project.

Could it be interesting, then, to instrument the reference, for example the boxes, to keep track of who uses them? So for example if I am looking for a specific type of bone, I may realize that someone else in the department has looked at something similar recently, and I may go and ask them about it, or perhaps that someone looked at this long ago, so I may want to go and see if they published about it. One could also look at aggregated data, and see if there are patterns.

>>> That sounds good. And I imagine that that interaction with the reference collection could be augmented haptically or acoustically? 

I then realized that I saw this somewhere else:
http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~yarin/touchcounters/
..still, applying this to archaeology may be enough of a difference, not to mention differences in implementation..

>>> That is really cool and does fit with the earlier and this PATINA discussion. I guess I would be interested to explore how that approach could scale, in terms of small individual objects and of large collections of these in dense collections. 

I think this fits quite well with what Graeme wrote:
> there may well be value in recording repeated processes as a means for enhancing practice in the lab i.e. walking in the footsteps of yourself, in addition to your predecessors. Whilst an individual object may not have 'patina' in this sense there will be a build up of 'patina' on classes of object and classes of information about those objects.

However, would this be too much of an instrumentation of the environment, therefore out of PATINA scope?

>>> Imagine that the bone or other non-document object in the archive (reference collection) could be identified through some means e.g. assuming that the bone is already numbered or the box it is in is already numbered, then I think this is in scope as it is not changing behaviour. This is using extant 'markers'. It would enable us to track  pick up/ put down of the box or object at least. If we had a label on the box and writing on the bone then it can also track opening the box and closing the box. What we are proposing is that knowledge of the type of object would then retrieve information that could be fed back in a way that parallels the haptic research practice, rather than as some other kind of information. An interesting question would be whether there are any blind or partially-sighted osteo-archaeologists?   

I see potential big privacy / tracking / big-brother issues around this..
Another issue is that opening the box is just one thin slice of the process. Do we need to track what people do before and after opening the boxes? Probably so. How do we do that? I don't know.
>From this point of view, tracking the use of smart-phones scanning markers/tags could be very easy, but how do we ad that to the existing work flow without causing too much disruption?

>>> Now getting really crazy but would it be impossible to have the whole device worn on the hand? Something to identify the object, like a finger-print reader but pointing outwards from the index finger? That would identify the box or the bone. Another finger has the haptic device attached that provides relevant contextual sensations. Then the other fingers are used to manipulate the object as usual. This would blur digital and physical on the same hand. 

Cheers,

Graeme

Please do not take this as a finished idea, I just wanted to share some thoughts as the crossed my mind, and hopefully trigger reactions.

Enrico

On 07/02/2011 18:37, Earl G.P. wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am teaching all afternoon Thursday and on Friday morning. I suggest that you all meet and then I catch up via Angeliki or Tom afterwards. I have been deep in thought since we met and am trying to articulate my thoughts at present. I felt like we reached a particular low after the visit to archaeology, and in particular Enrico made me appreciate the need for clarity. However, I have spent the whole time since then thinking about what we have to gain from the archaeology scenario and I do keep coming back to the physical nature of archaeological research. Whilst some components of archaeological analysis are indeed mechanical, for example the identification of species, others involve a whole combination of analytical and interpretative tasks and end up with an assessment that is characterised by 'greyness' i.e. uncertainty.
>
> The fieldwork scenario is I think still perfectly suited to a deployment focussed on collaboration. Having spoken to some other colleagues I do think Tom needs to spend time in another unit as well as Wessex and we think Cambridge would be very good. Wessex is well known for being compartmentalised (and as a consequence very efficient) in its workflows but other places do have more of an integrated approach. One of the directors at Cambridge is particularly renowned for encouraging a more egalitarian spirit on site with the explicit reasoning that this improves the quality of the archaeology undertaken. So, to summarise I think there is lots of potential in the area of collaboration that Tom and I have concentrated on so far. The issue of dealing with uncertainty is also important here, and the opportunity to replay research activities on a site. Portus will provide a good potential focus for this.
>
> Personally I have had considerable doubts since last week about the lab deployment however. Again having spoken to a number of colleagues we believe that whilst making staff in the field aware of lab activity and results could be very valuable in many cases the lab activity happens when the excavation is completed - a deliberate disarticulation of processes designed to ensure that the stratigraphy, drawing etc. is defined first. However, there are still times when post-ex might be happening together with the excavation so it is a valid approach. What I am less convinced by is the benefit to the person working in the lab of being aware of what others in the lab are doing. The idea of collaboration here is not necessarily bidirectional. However, there may well be value in recording repeated processes as a means for enhancing practice in the lab i.e. walking in the footsteps of yourself, in addition to your predecessors. Whilst an individual object may not have 'patina' in this sense there will be a build up of 'patina' on classes of object and classes of information about those objects.
>
> For example, as I recorded the specific femoral adaptations for a project when I was a student (the process that I discussed when we visited the human osteology lab) I developed a growing understanding that would then be brought to bear on any future work. It would have been very helpful to retrieve information about what I had worked on before. For example, if we ignore the visual, an entirely haptic feedback of the roughness of the trochanteric spicules I recorded on the human femurs could deliver a relative sense of roughness to that of the object I was currently working on. Were I to design an intervention on this basis I would want to have a device that provided a sense of roughness to my finger that corresponded to some dataset e.g. a scan or even a greyscale photograph of the bone morphology. I could then switch between the device and the real object to develop a purely haptic comparison. The data could also be transformed to represent an average rather than a specific example. Using a z-buffer camera I could very simply create new datasets as I worked on new bones. The beauty of the haptic basis is that it fits perfectly with physical practice, and also that it is not simply replicating a real interaction but is using touch to interact with patina - the breadth of data and potentially interpretations of a group of objects.
>
> This may be completely off track but let me know what you think.
>
> G
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk [mailto:patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Chrysanthi A.
> Sent: 07 February 2011 16:11
> To: Southampton-specific mailing list for PATINA project
> Subject: [Patina] Re: next meeting
>
> Same as Mike!
> Cheers,
> Angeliki
>
> Angeliki Chrysanthi
> PhD candidate
> Archaeological Computing Research Group University of Southampton 
> Avenue Campus
> SO17 1BF
> ________________________________________
> From: patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk [patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk] 
> On Behalf Of Michael Jewell [mjewell at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 2:27 PM
> To: Southampton-specific mailing list for PATINA project
> Subject: [Patina] Re: next meeting
>
> Hi!
>
> Both Thurs and Fri are fine with me!
>
> Cheers,
> Mike
>
> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Frankland T. <tf4e10 at soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'd prefer Thursday after 3pm as well if possible.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Tom.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On 7 Feb 2011, at 08:59, "Enrico Costanza" <ec at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> On 07/02/2011 08:48, Luc Moreau wrote:
>>>> The first draft of our intervention is due in a week's time ...
>>>> so it would be good to meet again.
>>>>
>>>> What about:
>>>> - Thursday 2.30pm onwards
>>>> - Friday morning
>>>>
>>>> Enrico told me he preferred Thursday.
>>> I still do, but after 3pm.
>>>
>>> Friday is also possible (eve though not preferred).
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Enrico
>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Luc
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dr Enrico Costanza
>>> Lecturer, Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group School of 
>>> Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton, UK, SO17 
>>> 1BJ
>>>
>>> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ec
>>> http://d-touch.org
>>>
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>>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/patina
>> _______________________________________________
>> Patina mailing list
>> Patina at ecs.soton.ac.uk
>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/patina
>>
>
>
> --
> Dr Michael O. Jewell
> ECS, University of Southampton
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>
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>
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--
Dr Enrico Costanza
Lecturer, Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton, UK, SO17 1BJ

http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ec
http://d-touch.org