Sample and Hold is an experimental Land Use map. The map is comprised of a wall projection, a surveillance camera, and a TV monitor. The camera records the wall projection at one-frame-per-second and displays it on the monitor. 

We may call the wall projection “Actual,” and the television monitor, “Observed.” The Actual contains a synthetic, geometric ground scene with hundreds of agents moving in apparently random motion.  The Observed scene displays the agents mediated by the surveillance technology.When observed through the surveillance system, the scene appears to be a photo-realistic aerial image with agents moving in an orderly fashion along major road ways. The Observed / mediated scene appears more real than the Actual scene. To produce this effect, the Actual exploits the technical details of the Observation system to appear accurate and orderly—

(a) Taking into account the color response and scan-line resolution of the camera and television, the Actual generates a ground pattern that will appear photographic once passed through the system. The Observed appears more “photo-real” than the Actual.

(b) Taking into account the frame rate of the camera (1 fps), the seemingly random agents are computationally optimized with Genetic Algorithms to produce trajectories at 25 frames-per-second  that explore as much screen spaces as possible so long as an agent finds their way back to the “road” at the moment that the camera records the scene. 

Any technique of measurement, whose use is intended to discipline a population, will always contain within it, the seeds of its own negation. All technology contains blind spots that can be exploited towards radical ends. The most radical forms of urban land use are the ones that appear banal on surface yet strategically exploratory and irrational in actuality.

EXHIBITION

11.08.2011 - 25.08.2011
Landscapes: Worlds Real
The Index Festival
New York, NY

PUBLICATION

Sample and Hold
VOLUME Architecture Magazine 
Vol 47: The System
2016

The Actual is beyond, projected on the far wall. The camera in the foreground films it at 1 fps and presents it on the TV Monitor (the Observed). The Actual projected content is highly synthetic when perceived with naked eye. However, it was designed to appear photo-realistic on the TV monitor, where the mediated appears more real than the reality. The agents on the screen engage in seeming random behavior at 24 frames-per-second. However, their paths are optimized so that they return to the roads when the camera films the once a second. The result seen on the TV monitor is of an orderly progression along major roadways