Project progress Report

To date, I've scanned a hundred or so receipts.  

I research technologies to speed up the receipt data collection.  There is a product called "NeatReceipts" that purports to scan the receipts and pull the data off of them automatically.  It's out of my budget right now so I'm opting for a home-grown approach at the moment.

I've created a mySQL database for holding a bunch of information from each receipt.  Ideally I'd like to capture information about the actual items purchased but for the time being, I'm collecting:

• receipt info
• ID - a unique receipt identifier for the database (primary key)
• date
• time
• total
• vendor info 
• name
• store no
• address (street, city, state, zip)
• phone
• salesperson name or number
• Google Maps URL
• receipt image
• scanned?  (scanned receipt)
• quickened?  (in Quicken)

At the moment, I'm gathering the Google Maps URL info by manually mapping vendor locations in a map I've created. Once I find the location, I copy the link to the location and enter it into the database. By manually collecting these, I may be able to parse out lat/log or GPS data to use by some other means (once I find out the meaning of the geocode info in the URL) or I could use the URL for some other proof-of-concept "behavior" while I figure out the API.

I also want to find out the best way to manage the images so they can be referenced by any program I've created.  At the moment, I'm adopting the convention used frequently by document management systems -- the receipt image field holds the full pathname where the image file can be found rather than the actual image file itself.

I have about 30 receipts recorded in the database right now.  I plan on creating a better data entry mechanism than I'm currently using to speed up data entry.

Project process

So my first project is going to be to explore documenting my locations and movements using Google Maps or Google Earth and my receipts. It lays a groundwork for more complex explorations if I can setup the data store for the purchase data and the receipt images and learn how I can create a mashup that relates that data to locations in Google.

I have a bunch of questions and decisions about the process of creating this project. In particular, I don't know yet what I want to do with the physical artifacts (the receipts) but I have a really strong sense that they're going to be important to me in some aspect of this project so I want to handle them well from the outset.

Questions

Overarching question:  How do I capture all the data for the project so that it is project-agnostic. That is, I don't want to selectively collect data or alter receipts in a way that creates more work or limits me somehow for future projects. Where is the sweet spot between that and bogging myself down in data collection?

I really believe that a lot of the things that engage me in my art practice are going to deal with the relationship between virtual information (or even social) space and the physical world. As a result, I need to create a mechanism for managing the receipts once they're scanned and the data from them is collected.

I'll need to create serial numbers for the receipts for relating images with data records and, ultimately with the physical receipts.

I want to preserve the integrity of the receipts as much as possible without marking them with data that "reveals" the process of managing them. However, given degradation of paper and ink over time, I've decided that I'm going to have to mark them with serial numbers.

I've decided to scan the receipts before numbering them so that the digital artifact will show the original, unadulterated receipt.  Ironic, I think.  The real receipt will have "tool marks" from my work.  The digital one will be "purer" in that respect.

Do I add an image layer that has the serial number so that can be shown or not based upon how I plan to use the image? This is laborious so is it worth the effort?

What kind of numbering scheme should I use? Should they be serialized numbers or should I use a coding system? 

Look up Bates numbering and Dewey decimal system. Is there some numbering scheme that has some implied meaning just by its use (like legal or library in the two preceding examples) that might add an interesting character to this process? 

Do I buy a stamp that auto-increments and capture that data -- it's the least labor intensive but I have to add a field to the database to hold that information. Or do I write the auto-incremented primary keys from my data store on the images.

Are there any ideas about "mapping" that I want to explore with this project from my 511 Maps class or should I just do reading and research  for the second project?

I need to answer the following questions about the form of this project based upon my programming skills and the time allotted  Among them...

• Is there enough time in the term for me to learn the APIs to allow me to do a Google Maps (or Google Earth) mashup?


• I have to decide between continuing what has been a proof-of-concept manual mapping of receipt locations on Google Maps or figuring out how to map them dynamically.


• If I can't dynamically map receipts in the time allotted, what data do I include in the manual map points and is there any meaning in doing that.  Are there other Google Map features that I can use like coloring or tagging of map points, for example, to communicate something about the related data?


• Is there enough time in the term to show purchases temporally using Google Earth.  If not how do I represent multiple purchases at a single map point

Decisions so far...

• Scan each original image at 600dpi   Pros: I can enlarge images for printing or project them for an installation. Cons: Storage requirements are relatively huge for the entire corpus of receipts.

• Mark each image on back in pencil with "s" for scanned and "q" for entered into Quicken (if I record them there also).  Pros: Eases the tracking of which receipts have been recorded.  Cons: alters the original receipt with artifacts of the "process" of creating this work.

• Mark each image after scanning with a unique number as determined above. Pros/Cons, same as above.

• Continue scanning receipts and recording data while a numbering scheme is established.  Pros: continue progressing with receipt scanning.   Cons: have to go back to scanned receipts and number them correctly.

Practice Process

Okay, so I have one major project to tackle -- how to I construct an environment (virtual, physical, both?) that helps keep me on track doing my work for my Art610 Special Projects class. It's an important question beyond the immediate term because I think that this same effort can be applied to my art practice at large.

I've floundered in the 18 months since I've been in an art class. Work, math classes, personal priorities, etc. always have a way of asserting themselves when the imperative of creating some deliverable for a class assignment is gone. My electronics box sits full (of toys and promise) and gathers dust in my garage. I know where it is at all times. I know the lovely gadgets it contains. And it sits, waiting. My art practice is a larger priority for me but one, I tell myself, that has to wait until the more practical business of my life is addressed.

At that rate it will always slip down the list of priorities.

So this is what I've decided to do this term with an expectation that I will continue to apply these principles beyond the semester to my larger art practice at least until that creates a momentum that carries itself along.

I've set an alarm on my phone. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 5:45, 15 minutes before our scheduled class section is to start, an alarm will sound. For those days where we don't meet, that's when I set aside time to work on research or my projects.

My programming class deliverables are usually Tuesday or Thursday meaning that Monday and Wednesday are the crunch days on those so I think this will work well.

Tuesday is research day. Thursday is project day. That's the day when I plan project stuff, create infrastructure, organize, document, etc. Weekends I execute project work on whichever day we don't have a lacrosse game to go to. The rest of the time I commit as I can.

It's mundane, making decisions like that. But between my ADHD and my busy life, I really believe that if I don't, it won't happen.

Process, process, process...

Right now at work we're re-examining everything about how we work, how we handle data and what the security and strategic implications of the decisions we make about the technologies and procedures to support those processes are. It's an exciting time. I love processes.

So my head is completely in that space as I struggle to start down a path of semi-independent study for my Advanced Projects class. What processes do I need to establish to succeed in the class -- to make meaningful progress on projects and to meet the requirements of the course itself.

So I suppose I have been engaged in meta-process assessments. I love meta things. I'm a meta kind of girl (we already know I'm not a blogging kind).

I've decided I have to focus on establishing two separate processes (actually three) to get through this term. The first -- how can I make certain that I carve enough time out of my schedule to do the research and project work that I have to do for my class. The second is an examination of the process required to execute my two projects. I don't know yet whether that same process will serve both projects or if I have to start a new one once the second effort is underway.

Oh the burden of blogging...

I'm not a blogging type of girl. I suspect, having grown up in a world where we learned about one another almost exclusively from live person-to-person contacts, going one step further and publishing my ideas and ruminations on a public site is really uncomfortable to me. I mean that to some extent we were able to control not only the content of the message about us but also how wide a net we cast in broadcasting that message. That is, tell one friend and a small group knows something; tell all your friends and that same news becomes common knowledge among your acquaintances. Put it on a website, however, and the guy that sits down next to you on BART may know more about how you think and what you value than many of your friends do. Worse, if you publish your picture, he knows who you are as he sits beside you and to you he's a complete stranger.

As I said -- uncomfortable.

To add to the irony, not only do I make my living creating mechanisms to share information via the Web, through web sites, internet portals, etc. but I'm also an early-adopter of emerging technology. I was the first of my friends to have a PC (I built it myself), a Palm Pilot, an iPod, my own domain name, an email account, etc. And yet I prefer the feel of paper, its toothiness and weight. I love my bright journals, red and black, with their satisfying heft and soft leather covers. I love how they give and flex when I feel inexplicably compelled to bend them.

I have also come to love the scratch of pencil on paper. I like the difference between filling a space with hash marks or taking my pinkie and smudging that space to create a satisfying, rich, dark fill. The marks on my virtual page, my blog, are each representations of 16 bit integer values. I can construct what I wish with them, within reason, but my tools are rigid. They are pre-defined, prescribed, legislated by "governing bodies." On the contrary, my random scratches with pencil, pen, erasers are my own. If I want to use ketchup, or masking fluid I may.

Blogging, web publishing in general, robs me of the tactile pleasures I get from writing.

Art610 Project Ideas

This semester I think that I will focus on exploring a single "idea" in two different ways. I have been collecting receipts for all purchases that I have made for the last three years and several months.

Here are some questions that I am interested that I may be able to address with my receipts

• Make tangible the amount and nature of data that can be collected just as a side-effect of living our lives in our commerce-centric culture.


• What "story" can people construct about a person based upon reviewing their purchasing data.


• Can purchase data be predictive of a person's behavior (where they'll be, when, what they'll do, etc.) If so, what questions does this raise about personal safety, the loss of anonymity in our culture, etc.


• What does "permanent" nature of record keeping mean for individual privacy?


• What does the public and long-term nature of some data mean in the context of mistake-making and redemption?


• Given impermanent and imperfect nature of paper record-keeping and the long-term nature of digital records, how does an individual defend themselves when challenged by entities like the IRS?

Possible projects

• Map the actual locations of purchases (differentiate between virtual purchase and "brick and mortar" ones. Use Google Earth or some other technology to move through space following the "path" of the purchases. How can we reconstruct the movement of a person through space and time based solely on purchase data.


• Feed purchase data into some kind of generative program to create graphics based upon it


• Create a locative media experience that "reveals" purchase behaviors as we pass by vendors. E.g., Name names, list purchases, etc.


• Contrast the receipts themselves as physical artifacts to their contemporary digital equivalents (impermanence of information, single-point of access, versus virtual access from anywhere)


• Qualify and quantify receipt data and find mappings between data perhaps using network mapping technologies. What patterns evolve in terms of nature of purchases, items purchased, locations, dates and/or times purchased. How can this data be represented to let someone discover who the "purchaser" is.

Preliminary Art610 Research proposal

I'm interested in learning more about how data is "mapped" in space and how data that doesn't have an inherent link to a physical place still may be mapped either in relationship to other data or in relationship to some objective external measure. In at least one of my projects I will be using a literal interpretation of mapping data by plotting purchase locations on a map. But I'm also interested in mapping relationships among the data themselves.

I want to explore three aspects of how researchers, scientists and artists represent data relationships visually. The first, is mapping of data so that data users can navigate among related information -- that is, they can find "neighborhoods" of related data and move within them, between them, etc. This is data mapping as a navigational aid. It's allows a stream-of-conscious movement through data following a path that is meaningful to the data user, perhaps revealing new ideas that have some relevance to them given where they are coming from (both literally and subjectively).

Second, I am really fascinated with how people derive "meaning" from data. In particular, I would like to understand better the ideas of Edward Tufte about visualizing data and learn both about other like-minded researchers as well as their detractors.

And finally, I am interested in what can be done artistically using data that has been mapped or quantified in some way that it can feed into some kind of generative system to create art that reveals the patterns or character of the data rather than the meaning of it.

For example, pieces by George LeGrady use commuter patterns to generate graphics that reveal nothing about the underlying data other than mirroring the frequencies of commuters through waveforms represented on pieces mounted in LA Subway entrances. Other pieces, like those commissioned by the new Seattle Public Library, tell a story about the movement of materials from the library out in to the public. What subjects, titles, topics are being checked out? How many people have borrowed books? How do those texts map to standard Dewey Labeling systems? All of these are represented graphically in such a way as to convey something about the borrowing public.

Lizards and Spiders and Bears, oh my!

Well, maybe not bears. But GC and I are finding that we are cohabiting not just with one another but with a wild assortment of odd creatures who have taken up residence in our apartment. It sat vacant for a while and lies at the boundary of our property and a protected bird sanctuary so we're close to all kinds of wildlife.

We have dodged wild turkeys and slowed down for grazing deer as we've turned sharp corners on our way home at night. There are quietly behaving black-faced sheep at the nearest intersection and an assortment of horses contentedly grazing in their paddocks. And I swear I heard something rooting around in the dirt outside our bedroom windows (which actually sit just above ground level) GC thinks they're probably local wild pigs that supposedly wander these parts.

That's all outdoors. Indoors we've evicted two really charming lizards (I worried that they wouldn't find enough to eat inside) and several really gnarly looking spiders. That aside, I haven't made a dent in the indoor spider population. We have small workmanlike spiders, graceful, long-legged spiders and two really nasty looking tarantula looking things on a much smaller scale.

I'm a catch and release kind of girl so it's slow going but I think there are just too many of them for the two of us. And I can't seem to convince them to leave of their own accord.

Artist Ken Rinaldo on the other hand (www.kenrinaldo.com), might be more successful. Rinaldo is fascinated by "living systems" and the confluence of those systems and technology. In particular, he mentions interspecies communication as an influence in his work. Along those lines, his piece "Spider Haus 2001 to 2005" creates an artificial environment for spiders that allows...

Moving House

While it's neither art in it's "purest" sense, whatever that means, nor is it technology, I've got decorating on my mind. My gentleman caller and I --let's call him GC -- have just setup shop together. Set up shop, living in sin, shacking up, whatever. We're leaving our separate residences and combining two lives and all the accompanying detritus into one studio-ish apartment with a galley kitchen and 2/3 of a 3 car garage as extra live/work space.

It's a challenge but one made pleasant by my guy's generous and easy-going nature. Lucky, lucky girl.

The biggest stressor I have to admit is the notion of decorating. On the one hand it's easy, GC has completely turned over all decorating decisions to me. Plus, he has been living simply the last few years. While it's not exactly two duffle bags and his scuba gear, he doesn't have much that I have to match with my stuff.

That's the good part. The bad part is that I'm decorating challenged. My sister and my friend Victoria both have a breathtaking gift for knowing that this knick is a nifty, nifty thing to set on the mantle or that knack would look perfect sitting on top of the pile of design books in the hallway. I, on the other hand, know that I shouldn't leave my clothes in a heap on the floor. That's about the extent of it.


So I'm spending lots of time on Victoria's blog trying to become inspired. It's a wonder. If you're at all interested in design (of all kinds), in decorating and in particular in a mid-century aesthetic, check out www.sfgirlbybay.com.

Rise and "Shine"

Oh forgive me the dreadful pun but it keeps rattling 'round my brain of late. I was invited to attend a pre-launch event this past Saturday for Yahoo's new foray into online publishing for women. They invited a group of women who were involved in some way or another in online content creation -- blogging, online journalism, etc. -- to come see what they've got cooking. And to invite us to join the party.

Nice!

As of this writing, it's called Shine. I have to say I am not sure what I think about the name. I'm similarly concerned about whether I can get past the fact that "Entertainment" and "Astrology" both feature prominently on the home navigation panels (to the exclusion of more weighty subjects of more interest to me, like "Art and Culture" or "Politics and World Events." That having been said, their editor assures us that it's more an issue of form than function. She reminded us of the dilemma that many of us who develop online sites suffer to resolve -- how to you boil a whole area of content down to one descriptive, understandable navigation label? So "Entertainment" it is; I'm suspending judgment and diving in.

No, not diving, rather mulling, masticating, obsessing over ideas. I've tossed and turned the last two mornings thinking about all the things that I've allowed to slip out of my daily ruminations and into notebooks and folders and project cases gathering dust while I took time to be with my ailing mother and all that entails.

And it has been both torturous and glorious.

Now, as I move my belongings from my apartment of eight years to a new place a little farther away from the city (where we hear frogs and birds as we wake and dodge wild turkeys as we drive home from getting our morning coffee), I think about unpacking my microcontrollers and soldering iron, buying more solid core 18 gauge wire, and pulling out all my project plans. It's time to blow the dust off my ideas, rub the sleep from my eyes and get working again.

Time to rise and shine!!