Mass Movement with MassMotion

Isaac Asimov

When I was young I loved reading Science Fiction.  Of all the fantastic characters I encountered, one totally captured my imagination, thanks to Isaac Asimov.  And that was Hari Seldon, the inventor of PsychoHistory.  Through his genius and the science he created, he was able to predict the behavior of populations and, through that, forecast what would come.  In Asimov's Foundation series, Seldon's advance planning allowed civilization to thrive far into the future.  


I was so intrigued by this idea of predicting behavior that I ended up a Psychology major in college and even did a little graduate work in Social Psychology, before I saw that we were a long, long way away from even understanding behavior, much less predicting it.

But now we have MassMotion, software that predicts how masses of people will behave as they pass through a specific location, such as a train station or whatever.  Here's a link to a MassMotion video showing crowd behavior at Toronto's Union Station.  They expect in a few years that 70,000 people will pass through the station at rush hour.  The MassMotion video portraying people in this space is a bit eerie, to say the least.  


The software was created by this person:

His name is Erin Morrow and recently Bloomberg
Businessweek ran a profile of Erin and his software.  Now you might think that this is all about vectors and geometry.  But more than that, movement is about desire -- to get somewhere, have some coffee, go to the bathroom, meet a friend, whatever.  And that's what makes MassMotion interesting -- it's about predicting behavior.  


Here's how Businessweek describes it:


MassMotion takes 3D computer models of buildings and fills them with “agents,” virtual figures that represent people. These avatars aren’t mindless and in fact have specific personalities. Some meander. Others are busybodies in a rush. The agents will linger in front of signs and puzzle over directions, and they’ll also grab smokes together outside of exits. “They all have certain things they care about,” says Morrow.

Businessweek writes that MassMotion is also used by police to predict how crowds will disperse.  And to forecast how people will evacuate buildings.  Actual results are reported to be virtually identical with what the software showed.

Perhaps this is all benign, just a new useful tool for architects and planners.  But if you take the mountain of data that all of us generate when we make a purchase or fill out a form or join something on the Web.  And add to that a growing ability to predict behavior.  Then maybe it's not too much of a leap to wonder if predicting behavior will someday morph into controlling it.  

Krazy Kat and All the Kittens

Oh to be Cleon Throckmorton, bon vivant, artist and proprietor of the Krazy Kat Klub, a haven for artists, poets, actors, and those kool kats embracing the Bohemian life in Washington, DC.   That's "Throck" on the right.

And here he is with his pals, out back of the Krazy Kat, somewhere near DC's Thomas Circle.

I love the photos.  You can just see what a great time Throck and the gang were having in stuffy old Washington, DC, back in 1921.

Well, the Krazy Kat would have it's ups and downs.  Poor Cleon, busted for running a disorderly house amidst all those futurist and impressionist  paintings.  Oh my.  


But he'd leave DC to pursue his art, designing sets for hundreds of plays, then serving as an art director for CBS and continuing to paint the ladies.  


Some of that work graces what is now Volare restaurant in New York City.

All of this I discovered when I happened upon Shorpy.com, a site devoted to old photos, posters and art.  If you like perusing images from bygone eras, I highly recommend it. It's a chance to mingle with a wide variety of work, from the sublime to the ridiculous.  And to maybe raise a glass to Throck and his Krazy Kats and Kittens, wherever they may be.  

Louise Rosskam Rediscovered

Color photos of Washington, DC by Louise Rosskam

One of the less known Farm Security Administration photographers who documented America during the Great Depression, Louise Rosskam may enjoy greater attention with an exhibit at the American University and the publication of a book "Reviewing Documentary:  The Photographic Life of Louise Rosskam."

In their informative artist bio, The Library of Congress calls her "one of the elusive pioneers of the Golden Age of Documentary Photography", and a post on the blog Secondat gives additional insight into her work.  Although, she seemed to stay in the shadow of her photographer husband, she had great empathy for her subjects and perhaps a more creative approach to her work.  And she pursued her photography hoping it would be a catalyst for social change.  


15 photographers worked for the FSA but only 3 were women.  During her FSA years she photographed in Washington, DC, Vermont and Puerto Rico.  I like how she captures people within a sense of place.  As you meet them, you also get a feeling for how they live their lives.  As she said of her time in Washington, she would pass by areas of poverty and never know they existed.  Until she started taking photographs. 


Here's how she put it:  "With a camera it means you have to talk to the people and you suddenly see an alley dwelling. There it is, these people are alive and living in it... It's there and it becomes part of you and you can't run away from it anymore once you are actually faced with it.  And the next best thing to that is seeing it in a photograph." 


And, " But gradually as I began to see these things and feel them really, I had to react to them so that other people would feel them and see them too." 


You can read two interviews, one with her and her artist/photographer husband Edwin from 1965 and one from 2000 (after her husband had passed).  And you can find some of her images archived at the Library of Congress website American Memories.  

Louise in 2000

I've always been taken with that period in American History and the important work the FSA photographers accomplished.  They brought attention to the lives of every day Americans, capturing a sense of the desperation of the times as well as the courage and dignity of people struggling to cope with those difficult days.  And they did it with work that was eloquent, intimate and engaging.  And by doing so, they changed forever how we see ourselves and the world around us.