The Open source hardware and software DIY forest surveillance kit repurposes surveillance technology to bring people and their communities together to protect their forests.

One of the ARTiVIS outcomes is the design of an open source hardware and software DIY forest surveillance kit common to all the projects' interactive experiences.
Resulting video streams and collected data will be uploaded and become part of the online platform network for crowdsourced surveillance and artistic manipulation purposes.
The kit is also a seed for community workshops to help deploy new ARTiVIS nodes for artistic experimentation in research centers, festivals, hacklabs and local landmarks.

An ARTiVIS kit is composed of a series of hardware modules that can be chosen from common off-the-shelf parts depending on cost, power and network bandwidth or infrastructure restrictions. These hardware modules are controlled by a set of software modules connected to the project’s server infrastructure.

In technical terms, the kit is provided as:
» an open specification for building hardware compatible with the platform
» an open hardware reference implementation that can be used for community workshops and for the interactive experiences
» open source software that runs on the kit and interfaces with the platform.

Furthermore we foresee growing a developer community around the project that helps maintain, improve and adapt the kit to specific environments and for other purposes, like for instance, replacing expensive hardware setups for remotely watching animal behaviour [RIZKALLA09].

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WORKSHOPS » ARTiVIS DiY forest surveillance

Assuming that “to prevent and control destructive forest fires, the involvement of communities is crucial” [FAO04], we propose to trigger people's participation from the project's grounds, involving the ones willing to contribute to expand the raw material database through a workshop on DIY Forest Surveillance with ARTiVIS.
The workshop consists of assembling an open hardware kit for forest surveillance and experimentation with real-time video. By promoting the ARTiVIS community workshop, we teach participants how to assemble and setup their own ARTiVIS node and explore with them the possibilities offered by real-time video streams of forests.

The objectives of the DIY forest surveillance kit workshop are:
I) To teach how to assemble and setup an ARTiVIS forest surveillance node;
II) To empower local populations with a way to share the beauty of their forests;
III) To explore new ways to use real-time streaming video of forests for awareness, activism and artistic purposes;
and ultimately, IV) To foster awareness and respect for nature.

The format comprises a one to two days workshop, composed of two parts. In the first session, participants start by learning about the ARTiVIS forest surveillance kit and form groups to assemble, deploy and test their own nodes. In the second session, participants learn how to access the video and data provided by the node and come together to propose and implement creative explorations.

Beyond a work space and the existence of trees nearby, the workshop requirements include: ARTiVIS hardware kits (Image Sensor + I/O module + Networking module + CPU + power supply) that we provide for the workshop, and additional kits can be acquired by the event organization or participants at the optimized cost estimated at the time; Computers - at least one per kit, for software setup and demonstration (participants can bring their own).

The main audience for the workshop are populations living the the vicinity of forest sites, forest protection activists and artists interested in forest surveillance and working with real-time video.

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Ongoing and future work
Hardware designs were done during the first part of the artistic residency in Madeira, to connect with the SINAIS project – Sustainable Interaction with social Networks, context Awareness and Innovative Services, and are being prototyped and tested in order to become part of the ARTiVIS project's final setup.

RESEARCH framework » + info