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The Bureau of Inverse Technology (aka bit and sometimes BIT) is an organisation of artist-engineers whose stated aim is to be an "". Bureau
Bureau

Bureau may refer to:*Office**Public office**Government agency**News bureau*Desk*Chest of drawers*The Bureau, English New Wave soul group...
 engineers, so-called BIT agents, are involved from design to deployment and documentation of radical products based on commercially available electronic entertainment components such as camera
Camera

A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies. The term comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism of projecting images where an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system; the modern camera evolved from the camera obscura....
s, radios, networks
Computer network

A computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network....
, robot
Robot

A robot is a virtual or mechanical artificial agent. In practice, it is usually an Electromechanics which, by its appearance or movements, conveys a sense that it has Intention or Agency of its own....
s, sensor
Sensor

A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. For example, a mercury thermometer converts the measured temperature into expansion and contraction of a liquid which can be read on a calibrated glass tube....
s etc.

The Bureau was founded in Melbourne
Melbourne

Melbourne is the more common name for the geographic region and Census in Australia of the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area. It is the second List of cities in Australia by population in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million and serves as the List of Australian capital cities of Victoria ....
 in 1991 (though some accounts say 1992), and was incorporated with limited liability in the Cayman Islands
Cayman Islands

The Cayman Islands are a British overseas territory located in the western Caribbean Sea, comprising the islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman....
 in 1991 and subsequently re-incorporated in Delaware
Delaware

Delaware is a U.S. state located on the East Coast of the United States in the Mid-Atlantic States region of the United States. The state takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, a British nobleman and Virginia's first colonial governor, after whom Cape Henlopen was originally named....
 in 1997.

Though its work has long been publicly available, the composition of the Bureau itself is shrouded in some mystery, for some years cloaking its identity in anonymity
Anonymity

Anonymity is derived from the Greek word a??????a, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, the term typically refers to a person, and often means that the Identity , or personally identifiable information of that person is not known....
.






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The Bureau of Inverse Technology (aka bit and sometimes BIT) is an organisation of artist-engineers whose stated aim is to be an "". Bureau
Bureau

Bureau may refer to:*Office**Public office**Government agency**News bureau*Desk*Chest of drawers*The Bureau, English New Wave soul group...
 engineers, so-called BIT agents, are involved from design to deployment and documentation of radical products based on commercially available electronic entertainment components such as camera
Camera

A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies. The term comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism of projecting images where an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system; the modern camera evolved from the camera obscura....
s, radios, networks
Computer network

A computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network....
, robot
Robot

A robot is a virtual or mechanical artificial agent. In practice, it is usually an Electromechanics which, by its appearance or movements, conveys a sense that it has Intention or Agency of its own....
s, sensor
Sensor

A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. For example, a mercury thermometer converts the measured temperature into expansion and contraction of a liquid which can be read on a calibrated glass tube....
s etc.

The Bureau was founded in Melbourne
Melbourne

Melbourne is the more common name for the geographic region and Census in Australia of the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area. It is the second List of cities in Australia by population in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million and serves as the List of Australian capital cities of Victoria ....
 in 1991 (though some accounts say 1992), and was incorporated with limited liability in the Cayman Islands
Cayman Islands

The Cayman Islands are a British overseas territory located in the western Caribbean Sea, comprising the islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman....
 in 1991 and subsequently re-incorporated in Delaware
Delaware

Delaware is a U.S. state located on the East Coast of the United States in the Mid-Atlantic States region of the United States. The state takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, a British nobleman and Virginia's first colonial governor, after whom Cape Henlopen was originally named....
 in 1997.

Though its work has long been publicly available, the composition of the Bureau itself is shrouded in some mystery, for some years cloaking its identity in anonymity
Anonymity

Anonymity is derived from the Greek word a??????a, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, the term typically refers to a person, and often means that the Identity , or personally identifiable information of that person is not known....
. In 2004 the Bureau initiated a "retreat from anonymity" when radio journalist and BIT co-founder Kate Rich took up a 3-month Research Fellowship at Piet Zwart Institute for Media Design Research, Rotterdam in 2004.

Current Bureau products include BIT Radio, Feral Robotic Dogs and the Despondency Index. See for graphic images taken using BIT's innovative Suicide Box.

See also the by Bureau engineers Natalie Jeremijenko and Kate Rich.

The Bureau can be found

BIT Products


A provides the performance characteristics of several Bureau products including BIT Radio, BIT Rocket
Rocket

A rocket or rocket vehicle is a missile, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust by the Reaction of the rocket to the ejection of fast moving fluid exhaust from a rocket engine....
s and the BITCAB Service.

BIT Radio



Commercially available robotic toy dogs re-engineered for semi-autonomous deployment. The dogs are typically fitted with sensors, e.g. for volatile organic compounds, and unleashed in packs to co-operatively and socially hunt the toxins. Because their "hunting-pack" behavior is easily observed and interpreted (e.g. more toxins means more movement and tighter grouping), the dogs represent a new and accessible medium for educating people about their local environments that requires almost no technical or scientific training. Natalie Jeremijenko has led Feral Robotic Dog workshops and courses with students at the Bronx River Art Center, Yale University and the Pratt Institute.

The Suicide Box is a camera that is focussed on the Golden Gate Bridge and which is triggered by a vertical-motion detector when people jump from the bridge. The sensor has been adapted to ignore seagull activity near the bridge. Statisitics from the Suicide Box are used to derive the Despondency Index.


A bizarre economic indicator which correlates, in real time
Real-time computing

In computer science, real-time computing is the study of Computer hardware and computer software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"?i.e., operational deadlines from event to system response....
, the suicide rate measured with the Suicide Box at the Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S....
, to the Dow Jones Industrial Average
Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is one of several stock market index, created by nineteenth-century The Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow....
. Due to its use of real-time feeds and a mix of economic and social indicators, the Despondency Index is more likely to be a more dynamic guide to socio-economic health than the misery index
Misery index (economics)

The misery index is an economic indicator, created by economist Arthur Okun, and found by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. It is assumed that both a higher rate of unemployment and a worsening of inflation create economic and social costs for a country....
, which uses two more slowly moving and strictly financial indicators.

BIT Rockets


BITCAB service




In May 2003, the Bureau opened their Anti-Terror
Terrorism

Terrorism, according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, is the systematic use of terror, "violent or destructive acts committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands." At present, there is no internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism....
 Line (tel: +1 212 998 3394 - press 1 for antiterror), which enables every telephone, home, cell or payphone, to act as a networked microphone. The Anti-Terror Line can be used for collecting live audio data on civil liberty infringements and other anti-terror events.

BIT Agents

BIT co-founder Natalie Jeremijenko
Natalie Jeremijenko

Natalie Jeremijenko is an Associate Professor at NYU in the Visual Art Dept., and has affiliated faculty appointments in Computer Science and Environmental Studies....


BIT co-founder

BIT References


Articles



Exhibitions


Read the exhition catalog entry which also compares the Despondency Indexwith Arthur Okun's Misery Index.

External links

  • in the .