Final Performance

After a final dress rehearsal with the dancers and wiring up of andrew, we had the final performance for my presentation at the Pole Fitness Studio. It was a great way to finish a fantastic paper and mega thank yous to those that helped me get it all together on the day.

Before the Final Presentation

Have been playing around with the projector etc to see how I can establish a mode of displacement through the actual projection of the media also.
I've decided to project onto several pieces of vellum paper that will suspend infront of a mirror wall.
Vellum is a great paper to project onto because you can see the projection either side of the paper and with a mirror behind this paper, will mean the projection is being shown several times to a different scale.

The dancers will also have bare arms and legs so that when they perform infront of the projected image, the dream media is distorted and shown on their limbs.


setting up a large projection

















playing with distortion of image over curtaining

















Projection through vellum and onto a mirror

tidying up

While I haven't been able to discern why the arduino patch is indecisive I have resolved my phaser patch. What I had to begin with was (basically) a four channel alpha phaser however, the main cycle clip, at some points would have such a low alpha reading (because the other channels were reading so high from the IRs) that effectively it couldn't be seen.

However, I want the cycle ride to read the whole time so I've remade the patch so that the cycle patch has an alpha reading of .5 all the time and the three remaining channels equate to .5

erratic arduino

so my arduino is all wired up and my max is patched up, but getting the two to communicate is proving somewhat 'temperamental'- having run tests on the arduino, the hardware itself is fine, and will communicate with my patch when he's in the mood to (after discussions we think it is a core script in the patch that gets arduino communicating with max that may be the problem)...I'm working on making the situation a little more predictable.

however- the IR range finders seem to wire in well and work accordingly- I'm yet to test them with the dancers however. We had a meeting tonight, and will tighten up choreography tomorrow.

Content Development

Whilst I've still been unable to upload the video samples, I have been reconsidering the content of my dreaming media. While I began creating Quartz animations of a clothesline coming out from the streets, into the cyclist's vision with household objects pinned to them. I have been thinking on this however and have decided to restructure this as it is not conducive with my theory of displacement because it then became the clothesline that was the framework of connection for the displaced objects and experiences rather than the dream itself. So it is back to the drawing board on the animations.

I am still going to keep the household objects as they are representative of displacement (objects belonging to the house, that have left the house to crowd the dream as the cyclist drives through the suburb).

Brandon LaBelle: Social Music

Today I had the opportunity, alongside Ben and Stephanie, to attend Brandon LaBelle's workshop on social music- a way of exploring how social contexts and public situation can create or have an effect (real time) on the way we create sound.
Something refreshing (to a student of architecture) that was discussed amongst the group was the ability that sound has to free someone of the burden of meaning: that sound is a reference to meaning with which people connect without superfluous articulation of what that meaning may be. Embodied meaning and the communication of such is an element that is considered in almost every architectural move: particularly in the academic world (perhaps not as much in the applied industry of architecture). In this freedom, the musician (or digital artist) has the ability to address the audience but there is a point [HT LaBelle] "at which you don't have to be so accommodating" to the aesthetic desire of the audience. For me I find this is true in the way in which I am exploring dreaming in my current project: whilst the consideration is that there will be an audience and my piece will be interpreted, I am not considering how the aesthetic of my work may or may not suffice the audience's desire- it is more about the exploration of displacement through dream.


















The Workshop: consisted of a presentation of Brandon's work across Berlin, Bergen, Malmo, Copenhagen and London. Followed by two hands-on exercises:
1. We were to listen to the sounds of Cuba and return them to their site by way of communication via chalk. I began to listen to the dialogue of Cuba as one conversation rather than individual occurrences, recordning the snippets I could hear as a story on the pavement.
2. Walking from Mighty Mighty to Civic Sq. and back, we explored how specific frameworks of information can be used to create sound: each of us had a whistle which we sounded upon finding an informatino we were looking for- I sounded my whistle every time I saw somebody using their hands/arms to communicate. This facilitated an interesting discussion on how ambiguous language can communicate the presence of meaning (where the precedent for the sound is unknown) versus the communication of the meaning itself (where the content is known and being reinterpreted and therefore, newly understood).

work experiments

audio
the audio track I'm using is written by a Norwegian songwriter, Kate Havnevik. The song I'm using, Sleepless is not on her homepage but it's a good reference point for her musical style.

animations
I've been working in quartz on animating some household objects to animate the screen, and looking into Chromakey patching in max/msp to enable certain colours as transparent, creating a better video montage in the performance.

Some quick and rough examples of quartz work-
having trouble with the browser and uploading videos- will come back to do this.



things to consider with the animations- I need to find a way to make them less two-dimensional (this may be in the drawing style?) and I want to experiment with colour (animating the colour- perhaps similar style to Waking Life?


max/msp
This week's experiment has been setting up something similar to a 4 channel mixer for my media samples, each connecting to an IR rangefinder- at the moment they change the opacity of each media sample. Will play around with them also changing the framerate of the media and saturation.

work sample

here's a sample of some of the film editing I've been doing.

read + respond

Live Cinema: language and elements, Mia Makela.
Media Lab, Helsinki University of Art and Design
April 2006

The most interesting section of this reading for me was 4.4 Composition.
I have viewed live cinema (until now) as pure output- a circumstantial experience of layers of video and animation against audio; I hadn't considered it for its many layers of input and that there are structures to these inputs. Even though Live Cinema can appear as though it has been freed from all structure- it has in fact been liberated from linear coordination but still holds an inherent framework that binds these pieces of input footage together (be it audio- or visual- governed).

"As live cinema artists tend to use various clips or visual layers simultaneously, mixing them
together is similar to musical composition, in which various instruments are meant to be
played together, in different combination of rhythms, volumes and patterns. Abstract visuals
could be better analyzed as if they were music, including their compositional strengths and
weaknesses, rhythmic structure, beauty etc...Unfortunately, we are not used to listening to
visuals but rather to watching them attentively, looking for a story." p60

The point I'm trying to make is that unlike [most] traditional film, the binding structure of a Live Cinema presentation does not have to be narrative but can be its almost musical qualities such as rhythm, intensity and hierarchy.

How this will affect my project is I wish to analyse the footage samples I'll have in terms of their structure: rhythm/flow, intensity, speed, brightness, position, clarity; perhaps even create a manuscript language for them, so that whilst their live mixing may be improvisational, it can be a better crafted collaboration of imagery.

precedent imagery

I've been collecting images and videos of work that have similar imagery I wish to achieve in my project.

Here's a sample
one.
VJ Anyone.
(in particular 0:14-1:17)
This mix uses a nice trace and layering effect of the footage in a vignetted frame, suggesting a dreamlike displacement.

two.
VJ Bolverk.
I really enjoy this presentation's ability to take the viewer on a journey with very limited disclosure of context or reality. There is just enough detail offered in places to evoke an industrial setting and enough frame movement and overlaying of imagery to evoke a sense of discovery in the viewer without discovering much at all.


three.
VJ Sayuu.
I'm not a fan of the use of text in the mix, it seems there could have been a more critical approach to its purpose but I love the way animated graphics have been used to frame and 'house' underlayed media.

progress

Feedback from tuesday's session was helpful- the main consideration to be addressed was the audience intervention- as the project is being presented in a cinema style venue, not gallery, the space and expectation for the sort of interaction I was hoping for is not feasible so discussions suggested moving the project toward a performance.
this is the direction I will head and am getting a few friends on board to partake. The "sleeper" will also be an actor to add another dimension of movement: the IR rangefinders will be embedded in the sleeper's clothes so as the sleeper moves, so do the IR rfs so that they are not always in the same place.

















Film footage:
I have decided the footage will be of an artistically shot bike ride, overlaying sketches and doodles of imaginative 'dream irrationality' when the max patches are activated- illustrative examples of this to be uploaded soon.

max:
I'm as green as it gets to this programme, at the moment I'm still playing around with tutorials laced with a bit of trial and error investigation.

Project Two: expressing irrationality

The concept for project two stems from the notion of dreaming [sleep, not aspiration].
Dreaming has a particular fascination- it is universally common yet its purposes and meanings are- while largely conjectured and speculated over- unknown. What I wish to express in this experiment is how everyday rational actions become irrationalities, transforming the banal into a world of rousing possibility.

First thoughts on realising this idea is that the audience is the controller of rationality.
(While this may abstract, for the sake initial scheming...) I imagine there being a sleeper lying on the floor that senses (via infrared sensors planted on the body) the proximity of an audience member: the closer the observer is, the closer they move away from the rational world and into the sleeper's world of the illogical by way of their altering the visual projections on a screen above the sleeper. However- getting too close to the sleeper may cause them to wake, terminating the connection to the dream.


It's important, to me, to be able to control the visual experience without touching or physically manipulating an object to illustrate the sometimes weak threshold between reality and dream and that dreaming itself is generated by non physical stimulations of memory and thought.

audio will also be a large consideration in the project- certainly as an output, perhaps it could be an input controller also...

inspirations for visual interfacing styles:

Imogen Heap [particularly from 1:47]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uryUCVhjtr4&feature=related

(Clip from:) Waking Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km5YGCRb0WM

Ralph I Steeds (sketching)

Here ends project one.

Project One
Final Post

The Concept
The story chosen from the Museum of Wellington is from 1927, the year that the 2YA radio station went to air. It provided new form of entertainment and a sense of connection beyond what was within the accessible household. With a mission to 'radiate joy', the radio station operated between the hours of 7:30-10pm (or there abouts dependent on the broadcast) with music and entertainment but eschewed any political or controversial matters on air.

In our age, the 1920s is often reflected on as a time of affluence and joy however, for New Zealand it was also a decade of racism at it's worse; one of only two countries in the world to [significantly] impose a Poll tax on Chinese immigrants (Canada, the other), our leaders made it increasingly difficult for the race to enter NZ and, once arrived, kiwis were far from welcoming.

It is this paradox that I am exploring through this project; that, whilst the national broadcasting agenda was to 'radiate joy', was it really an exhibition of affluent, joyous culture- or a political agenda to indulge public ignorance of a situation of poverty?

The Fruition of Concept
The interface is not activated until the set of silencers are set upright and placed on the user's ears. The interface explores the key idea of instead of 'tuning into' the contemporary society and its issues, listeners to the 2YA station were in fact 'tuning out' to what was going on around them.
Therefore, stage one [activation of the interface] is 'tuning out'. For this, images of the 1920s New Zealand affluent culture are played over a background of Wellington in 1927.
Stage Two is to 'tune in'- by squeezing the silencers closer to one's ears- as if trying to listen harder- this solicits another mouse click, overplaying images of Chinese immigration and poverty in NZ such as scenes from the gold mines and tax certificates.

The object also allows for the quality of the image to be 'tuned', like an old wireless.

The object uses original Construction ear muff shells in order to associate the imagery of safety: blocking out undesirable or harmful noise, such as immigration at that point in time was viewed, certainly not by all, but by many.


12 macro patches and interpolations-a-plenty later...

Final Build

From concept to concrete.













So many pragmatic problems...







like putting the ear piece on the wrong way








massed mdf has a great weight as an object- at a cost of the object's strength, so made metal plates to ensure connection strength of the ear piece to the headpiece







Creating a framework for a smooth (but not sloppy) 'tuning' scroll.












user comfort


User instruction and correct replacement [in order to reset the digital interface via mercury switch for next user

to an almost there set up...

feedback

REfinements.

last class we met with the Museum of Wellington curator.
This was a valuable session meeting with V one-on -one to discuss the refined direction's of our project.

The most discussed was my visual interface- the hierarchy of some graphics were too strong (e.g. the cloud), some graphics not prominent enough (i.e. the film should occupy the entire sky space) and smaller inaccuracies such as time-relevant typography.

Edits are underway.








It was discussed earlier that perhaps the 'headphones' should have audio, even if faint, to satisfy the user's expectations however, upon mulling this over, it is exactly that 'expectation' that I wish to surprise....or dissatisfy (firstly) but most importantly, they are silencers or ear muffs, not headphones. So, where I wasn't going to retain the neon orange shells of the safety muffs, I now will, to associate a well-known imagery of 'noise protection' to the conceptual ideas in the project.









A minor detail I enjoy about the orange shell is that they have "NZ Safety" branded onto each ear...reminiscent of the efforts of the national Poll Tax in the 20s- a matter a 'national security'.

proto type typing

the object_ having laser-ed up prototype one I decided to change the circuit board I was using for a more dependable (but larger) board- rendering the latest prototype redundant.
However, after tedious edits here and there a new model has been mocked up- fitting the switch board into the ear piece nicely.










a plate has been fastened to the foam piece so the right click is solicited by a 'squeeze' [a squeeze of very little effort to my delight...I was concerned it may have had to have been a forceful squeeze]










However, the tuner is still not resolved, it functions, but it's certainly not a smooth operator.

a little overdue] progress

intention_
by rendering question over the purpose of 1920s broadcasting, the users are encouraged to consider the motive behind contemporary media:
pleasure, perspective or propoganda?

digital_
the digital interface is near basic completion, however there are a several issues that require resolution. One is that rights to film footage is harder to obtain than first expected so I'm compiling images of affluence and racial hardship from the Turnbull Library to regenerate into movie files. If executed well, using animated stills will serve better than film footage, ensuring the lines between television and radio communication aren't blurred [a concern expressed during last review]
to ensure the visual interface is Wellington-locatable, the stasis imagery includes a 1928 photo of Oriental Parade (a then (and now), affluent area of real estate).

Finally, the largest concern for the digital interfacing is ensuring that there is indication that the earmuffs be squeezed therefore, soliciting a right click- this is being pursued but currently uses text to suggest there is more to discover.



object_
prototyping is underway, using construction ear muffs as a basis for investigation. The difficulty has been retrieving a mouse with a small enough switchboard to comfortably sit within one of the ear pieces.

new switches have been soldered on and the switchboard functions as it should.

future design decisions- currently I am redesigning the ear muffs so they can be custom made as a suitable object, considering longevity and suitability.

playtime

past trials in quartz.

_megaphone.
[open images to view full quality]

playtime

past trials in quartz.

_pressure sensitive spark