Cloud of Cards (ABCD), a home cloud kit

By Tuesday, June 13, 2017 Cookbooks, Projects, Resources, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0158, ABCD, Clouds, Data, Datacenter, ECAL, Infrastructure, Makers, Object, Storage, Tools Permalink 0

Photography: Daniela & Tonatiuh

Research and Art direction by Patrick Keller and Nicolas Nova.

Assistants at ECAL: Lucien Langton & Léa Pereyre. Assistants at HEAD: Anaïs Bloch & CHarles Chalas.

Cloud of Cards, a home cloud kit to re-appropriate your data self, is the principal outcome of the joint design and ethnographic research Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s), accompanied by two books in print-on-demand that document it.

The main results of the project are four artifacts [ A) - B) - C) - D) ], both digital and physical that constitute a set of modular tools (“cards”) that are delivered in the form of an open-source diy kit, freely accessible on www.cloudofcards.org as well as on Github. The purpose of these tools is to give everyone, the community of designers and makers in particular, the possibility to set up their own small size data-center and cloud, manage their data in a decentralized way or develop their own alternative projects upon this personal small scale infrastructure.

 
 

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A) 19″ Living Rack

By Tuesday, June 13, 2017 Architecture, Design, Projects, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0157, A, Cabinets, Computing, Domestic, ECAL, Furnitures, Housing, Infrastructure, Storage Permalink 0

Project developed by Léa Pereyre

19” Living Rack is an open source variation around the standardized 19” computer server rack (or cabinet). Dedicated to be distributed in domestic environments for personal or for small size community uses, the modular base of the standard rack is getting combined with additional functions, to address this renewed small office/home office context.

In making clear reference to the famous Ch. Eames toy, the modular House of Cards project, the 19” Living Rack comes in one technical “Base” that can then be combined and customized into three different types: “Office”, “Home”, and “Garden”, to set up personal and somehow undersized data centers.

For each configuration, air flows have been taken into consideration and act as design and functional factors: the air in the front part of the rack remains temperate before entering the rack and cooling the servers, while the back and top air flows are getting warmed up and dried due to the computers heating process. “Office” functions comes therefore mainly in the front part of the rack, “Home” on the back where elements can be tempered or dried, while “Garden” comes on the top, equipped with moistened plants to clean, re-humidify, perfume and cool down the air.

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B) Cloud of Cards Processing Library

By Tuesday, June 13, 2017 Interaction Design, Projects, Schools, Sciences & Technology, X-Posts Tags: 0155, Automation, B, Cloud, Code, Data, ECAL, Library, Open source, Programming, Service, Storage, Tools, Visualization Permalink 0

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Project developed by Christian Babski (fabric | ch)

Cloud of Cards Processing Library consists in the unification of three different API dedicated to online files and folders manipulation and the development of an additional fourth one specific to the needs of the Cloud of Cards kit and the Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s) research project. The overall final package has been adapted to the Processing development language and linked to the open-source cloud software ownCloud.

Additional behaviors are included that can also be used in relation to ownCloud (or Nextcloud), for both its server and clients. These additional functions are the implemented results of the design research process, linked to an ethnographic study about the cloud user experience.

Through the use of this new library written in Processing and linked to other open-source tools, it is now easier for a wider public to experiment, sketch and develop alternative interfaces, visual or physical applications for the cloud. In particular, the communities of designers and makers that are used to the Processing language.

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C) 5 Folders Cloud

By Tuesday, June 13, 2017 Interaction Design, Projects, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0153, Automation, Behavior, C, Cloud, Computing, ECAL, Service, Software, Storage Permalink 0

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Project developed by Christian Babski (fabric | ch)

5 Folders Cloud is a software implementation (among many possible) of the Cloud of Cards Processing Library and exemplifies its use, server and software side. It is a version of ownCloud with automated behaviors and cascades of events, in particular when linked to the 5 Connected Objects. As a matter of fact, this variation on the cloud combines a client-server architecture with a distributed, almost horizontal peer-to-peer approach.

Linked to the results of the research project’s ethnographic research on the uses of the cloud, 5 Folders Cloud translates in the form of five verbs of action the various identified motivations that seem to push users to drop files and data into this technological setup. These verbs in turn become the main functions and names of five synchronized cloud folders that serve the various files interactions. Each of these folders automates digital procedures linked to these motivations.

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D) 5 Connected Objects

By Tuesday, June 13, 2017 Interaction Design, Projects, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0151, Control, D, Data, ECAL, Gestures, Interaction, Interface, Networks, Object Permalink 0

A project developed by Lucien Langton

5 Connected Objects consist in a physical implementation (among many possible) of the Cloud of Cards Processing Library and exemplifies its use, client side. Linked to the 5 Folders Cloud (both server and software sides), the five physical objects work exclusively as its complements and have no independent digital functions of their own. They seek to propose a form of natural gestures interface (“clients” for the cloud) to locally access, monitor and manipulate ones data or files in the distant cloud, with a Cloud of Cards twist…

Indeed, directly linked to the results of the design research, as well as the ethnographic field study on the uses of the cloud, the purpose of the 5 Connected Objects is to materialize in daily environments the “ghostly” presence of one’s distant data. It is to incarnate as well the “digital anxiety” caused by various problems that can occur to personal files and data when dropped in a distant cloud (fear of losing one’s files, apprehension of erasing versions, of wrong sharing or access rights, of having private files being openly published, of undesired updates, of hacks, etc.)

As a consequence, the objects, and in particular their physical manipulation, can trigger automated procedures linked to these potential problems…

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Cloud of Cards. Early pictures from the final artifacts, a photo shoot with Daniela & Tonatiuh

By Tuesday, April 11, 2017 Design, Interaction Design, Projects, Publications, Schools Tags: 0148, Cloud, Datacenter, Documentation, Domestic, ECAL, Furnitures, Hardware, Infrastructure, Open source, Photography, Software, Tools Permalink 0
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Photography by Daniela & Tonatiuh.

Design by Léa Pereyre, Lucien Langton and Patrick Keller

Naming the outputs of our design research: Cloud of Cards, a home cloud kit

By Wednesday, March 22, 2017 Design, Interaction Design, Projects, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0147, ABCD, Automation, Behavior, Cloud, Clouds, Code, Data, Datacenter, Designers, Developers, ECAL, Makers, Networks, Object, Open source, Smart, Things, Tools Permalink 0

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Cloud of Cards, a personal cloud kit. Scattered 19″ hybrid server racks, elements and kit to assemble and play with. (Photo.: Daniela & Tonatiuh)

 

We’re coming close to an end with the joint design research Inhabiting and Interfacing the Clouds and we’re becoming impatient to deliver the results: a diy small scale data center and cloud kit made of various elements (both physical and digital), to freely assemble at home or in your “garage”. Accompanied by two books documenting our work in print-on-demand!

At this stage though, we’ve given new and final titles to the design artifacts and tools that we’ve been working on lately, together with the research team (for the design & code part: Lucien Langton, Léa Pereyre, Christian Babski and myself).

 

Therefore…

 

Cloud of Cards, is a home cloud kit to help re-appropriate your data self. Obviously a distant tribute to House of Cards, the toy project by the Eames (“Toys and games are preludes to serious ideas”), the kit will consist of four artifacts:

19″ Living Rack is an open source server rack with a few functional hybridations, declined in four versions. Cloud of Cards Processing Library consists in a programming tool to help develop cloud applications with the Processing development language. 5 Folders Cloud is a version of the Cloud (ownCloud) with automated behaviors and cascades of events. It is an implementation of the processing library directly linked to the outputs and learnings of the ethnographic research about uses of the cloud. Finally, 5 Connected Objects physically interface the five automated folders in our version the cloud (5 Folders Cloud) with five “smart” objects and try to embody distant data in some kind of everyday domestic presence.