#SpaceImage&Sound

[matthewblandnz]

Space, Image & Sound #7

(Unsteady prototype, picture taken by Michael)

This week we, at last, put our components together and prepared a playtest within the studio space. We all had a play with the prototype before playtesting and from my solo perspective the sounds were great fun to experiment with and the tactile visualizers really helped the audio feel distinct as well as enjoyable to play.

Our playtest was very loose and observational, we invited people to come over and try out the installation with only basic instruction on how to ground yourself with the wrist band. The playtest quickly drew more participants as our peers began playing with the different objects, a level of intrigue was apparent and soon users began playing and experimenting collaboratively.

(Videos - Michael and myself, Edited by Bligh)

The playful and collaborative experience our users partook in greatly subverted and exceeded our expectations for the project outcome, I feel the project has shifted from the concept of space/object enhancement through adaptive audio to a more collaborative play experience through tactile objects and audio.

Fortunately for us, our set up using tape and loose wiring held remarkably well through both the playtest and our in-class show and tell with Clint. Though the experience could go many ways and the paper is ending, I am extremely happy with the unexpected outcome of our project and look forward to seeing where else Michael will take this project for Studio.

[colabpixelpusher]

Construction Process

Over the last 6 or so weeks Colin, Jolie and I have been in the 3D labs working on building our installation piece by piece. It has been a very long and at times slow process, but because of the nature of our installation and the moving elements it contains, we knew that if we didn’t spend a lot of time squaring edges and checking measurements then it was simply not going to work.

Because of how busy we have been building, unfortunately blogging has fallen aside somewhat, as an attempt to remedy the situation I have put together a short video containing photos over the last couple weeks as well as a few notes regarding our process. Enjoy :)

[metallic-frog]

No title needed :) DONE

[hektikcreations]

The Proposal (Revenge of SIS)

The proposal read as follows:

There are many discussion worthy points thus far, but in an attempt to keep this brief for further reflection, I will select the three most important.

The Team: This semester, Nicholas, Tobias, Hayden and myself are working together. Nick and I have worked with each other on at least one project every single semester (why break the streak?). We work super well together because we can be brutally honest with each other and our visions are usually mutually inspired. Nick is also one of the top coders in the class. Toby and Nick have worked together, but Toby and I haven’t. I have always admired a lot of Toby’s work (like most of the class has) and Im really excited to see how his keen intellect will drive this project. Hayden and I have continuously consulted each other on many projects throughout the years. The last space image and sound paper was no exception. As this degree has moved forward, Hayden constantly creates deeper and more exciting pieces. His studio project from last semester was nothing short of impressive. Hes no doubt the best fabricator in the class. 

Safe to say, this team has a real chance of creating something really exciting for our last semester.

The Topic: The meaning behind this project is very near to all of us. All 4 of us have struggled with anxiety at some stage in our lives. My anxiety is very has been a lot better ever since I moved to New Zealand. I had one or two panic attacks monthly from 18 - 21. I never had them before I moved out of home, but after I did, I used to wind myself up somehow and not be able to regain control. This is a real passion project for all 4 of us.

The Concept: Although we are trying something new as a group, we all have a lot of previous experience in the main components of the planned installation. I have made numerous soundscapes for different works, however I plan to make it more of a focal point this time around. 

[stasiaalbct]

27.02.17: (Space, Image & Sound) Introductory Class

I just finished my first class of the year, and I am more than excited to get back into the university life. This paper to me sounds very unique and very creative technologies because we get to create an installation and whack out all our creativeness within us. We got asked to write a 300 word proposal by Friday, however, if I have to be honest, I have absolutely no clue on what I want to do. 

Of course, I want my idea to be very creative and fun. Something that people will be attracted to and enjoy looking at or interacting with. I’m definitely going to have to do a lot of research during the week to find inspiration and see what I can do. Some ideas I have in mind include Arduino and coding which are not my strengths, however, if it is required to use them then I am willing to re-learn. 

My goal for this paper is to use my creativity and knowledge to create a strong installation - learn more about coding. I want my installation to be memorable to people and eye-catching. The reason for this is so that I can build a reputation and gain exposure for my work which would be very interesting. 

[apod]

2019 October 4

InSight on a Cloudy Day Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Mars InSight

Explanation: Clouds drift through the sky as the light fades near sunset in this three frame animated gif. The scene was captured on sol 145 beginning around 6:30pm local time by a camera on the Mars InSight lander. Of course, InSight's martian day, sol 145, corresponds to Earth calendar date April 25, 2019. Under the 69 centimeter (2.3 foot) diameter dome in the foreground is the lander's sensitive seismometer SEIS designed to detect marsquakes. Earthquakes reveal internal structures on planet Earth, and so tremors detected by SEIS can explore beneath the martian surface. In particular, two typical marsquakes were recorded by SEIS on May 22 (sol 173) and July 25 (sol 235). The subtle tremors from the Red Planet are at very low frequencies though, and for listening have to be processed into the audio frequency range. In the sped up recordings external noises more prevalent on cool martian evenings and likely caused by mechanical shifts and contractions have been technically dubbed dinks and donks.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap191004.html

[4rt-kp]

For the past week i was having trouble with the sound part of this project. My Arduino couldn’t recognise the sound file, Julia helped me work with the code and connect all the parts together. The only problem that we found was that in order to have the sound play we needed a smaller SD card. It was a mission trying to even find a 3gb card but at the end Steven from my studio group had a 1gb SD card which solved the problem. The sound is activated when the clips are pulled apart. I positioned the clips on each side of the bag flaps so when a person opens the bag to “seek” whats inside, the sound of the snake plays. 

I tried many sounds of the snake but due to the Arduino’s capacity, i couldn't make the sound louder, and even if i did edit the sound file, when the sound processed through it sounded disturbed( like squeaky noises). It still sounded alright but again due to the speaker being buried underneath all the material and at the bottom of so many layers of tissues and fabric it made the sound dubbed and all you can hear when the switch activates is a slight hissing noise with a bit of disturbance. 

The main focus was to make the audience disturbed by firstly disturbed and left unknown as to what this thing is, though it did resemble to look like a bag. As the individual would open to look whats inside, the first reaction would be to feel disgusted because the insides of this item resembles the cut up flesh of an animal, reptile or an human. 

[karendanegee]

SIS last week

The box came breaking apart, so we had a lot of time securing everything, and stress testing. We also had a couple of people tested it and see if they would pick it up. most of them didn't pick it up at first, but as they go around they ended up picking it up, it just takes them awhile. We also asked them if they do understand the theme we are exploring and how it is about voyeurism, Sujay was confused at first but as we explained it to him, it gets clearer, I guess it usually depends on the person’s point of view. One thing I was worried about the design of the box is the tracing paper, I thought is would be a bit useless if it is shown in the back, but as Patricia says, the boxes are faced down, and it’ll be douche for the viewers to put it up, so I guess it’s alright, other than that I thought we expressed voyeurism��in the digital world quite successful and it wasn't literally and obvious.

[earli-glo]

sounds and vibrations of the creation of earth

[matthewblandnz]

Space, Image & Sound #6

This Wednesday we had our crit session, we presented our project and though Clint's response was positive and difficult to learn from, it was comforting to know we’re on the right path.

Over yesterday and today, I’ve been learning Wire Tree making for our second artifact (More on it here) and it has been an interesting challenge.

The first thing I did was make a simple diagram illustrating how each branch would connect without having the branches touching. The idea was to have the insulated wire run up the inside of the trunk, push through a layer of rubber for each branch, and connect to the branch. This became an issue as wire trees are constructed from tightly wound strands much like rope, this means that unless the insulated wire is surrounded in a vast amount of copper wiring it will almost always be visible within the strands. So why not just use more wire? Aside from the difficulty of working with possibly 20+ strands of 1mm copper wire, any rubber protecting the inner wire is almost always frayed and destroyed by the more resilient wires that cover it.

Despite the somewhat janky process, making the tree from essentially 4 different parts turned out to not be too difficult if not a bit unconventional.

In the end, it turned out to be easier and safer for the insulated wire to incorporate it into the twisted trunk rather than have it hidden inside, despite this not being the desired outcome, the purple and copper colours I find complementary considering that orange and purple were a part of our Autumn colour palette.

Though far from a masterpiece, I feel that this will at least serve as a decent prototype and a second version shouldn't be too hard to fabricate (maybe with thinner wire) should we need a better one.

[colabpixelpusher]

Boyfriends of Instagram

This webpage is about some of the ‘fake’ moments of instagram, and how the photos are produced. The below photos a few of the highlights from the page. They relate to my group’s studio stream this semester, and embody the problem with social media platforms - staging and presenting the highlights of life, not the full story.

References:

MetDaan. (2017, September 1). Boyfriends of Instagram are the new extreme instagramers. Retrieved from http://www.metdaan.com/boyfriends-extreme-instagramers/

[metallic-frog]

Space, Image, and Sound: final models

Considering Holo-Vision is designed for commercial use, I have decided to scrap my 3D models of the bust and landscapes and create something new that could be considered commercially viable.

Holo-Crunch Cereal is a make-believe brand of cereal designed to encourage the viewer to consider what they themselves could be using Holo-Vision for.

To accompany the new imagery I have also added cereal sound effects for the sound aspect of the project.

[hektikcreations]

Space, Image & Sound: 005

During the past two weeks, Nicholas and I have a had a few triumphs with the code and a few crashes. I'm really lucky that he is so switched on when it comes to this kind of stuff because there were a few times where he was typing out some pretty high level stuff. Far past my level of knowledge. As the team captain, I've really tried to play support for both Hayden and Nick. I've set out time frames and soft due dates for each of them. Nick and I both made the decision to switch from arduino UNOs, to 101's. The 101's have intel chips and gyros on board so we wouldn't have to use auxiliary gyros.... this ended costing us a lot of time and about $150 because they didn't work at all like we had hoped.... every time we tried to run our code, the board crashed because we were recording data and sending it simotaneously and these "new" "great" boards couldn't handle it. This is one of the current problems with Arduinos... there is never enough documentation on the more obscure uses of them and way too much on the really obvious uses. Maybe over time there will be more and more documentaion on the more out there uses. All that said, we switched back to the UNOs with the exterior gyros and everything is running perfectly. I'm in charge of all the soldering next week, so that's what's on the forecast. Hayden has been working really hard on fabricating all of the rings so that the spin is perfect.

[stasiaalbct]

28.02.17: (Space, Image & Sound) YEARS

This is another short video I found on Vimeo which I fell in love with. The simplicity is well done, and the way the installation functions is mind-blowing. This record player isn’t like any other. Instead of playing music from records, it plays music from slices of wood. This installation was created in 2011, and it is probably one of the most unique installations I’ve seen from my entire few hours research. 

On the artist’s (Bartholomäus Traubeck) website, it is written: “A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently.” 

I was very amused with this installation and I want to bring the uniqueness of it into my project I want to work on. The act of an object that is not recognised to do a particular task to achieve it is amusing and different. It is strange, but it is intriguing. I want to create an installation that is intriguing, but also strange in its own way. This short video reminds me of how simple and small an installation can be, but if it is unique, it can be very memorable and fascinating. 

References

Bartholomäus Traubeck. (2012). YEARS. Retrieved from Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/30501143

[karendanegee]

SIS

Week 11

This week is the due week, meaning everything is due by the end of this week, so everything needs to be done, however, God was against me, because I caught the flu and ended up being sick for the first couple days of this week, thank God I caught up with the work.

I just need to have another (paint) coat for the box so it looks neater.

Update

When I met up with Patricia, she had an idea to have a better way the paper will light up, so the image will be brighter. I was already fine with just having it printed in a normal white printing paper and by just using indoor light, but I was definitely open for improvements. She had an idea what is we mount it on the glass window, so it’ll be much brighter, as well as it is a metaphor. I thought this was pretty clever, so I totally agreed with her, however, how will we mount it on the window.

We did a quick brainstorm on ways we can mount it on the window

Using a nylon string, mounting it on the ceiling

Using suction cups

 All of them are risky and unstable, so we ask for Clint’s advice. He simply suggested to why not just make our audience put it up on the window, funny we never actually thought about that.

Less work, and it’ll make our message or theme we are exploring clearer and stronger. This would make sense as we do choose to follow someone else’s lives.

So we just have a couple more things to do, lots of tweaking, and making the box stronger.

Grab architect tracing paper from Gordon-harris

Grab clear acrylic sheet from Modern signs

Print image

Laser cut instruction

Playtest

Drill acrylic

Glue printed image to the box using a stab

 Instead of just a simple white printing paper, we will use tracing paper to print the image and top it off with a clear acrylic sheet so it’s sturdy and strong, especially it’ll be held by people, so it needs to extra strong.

 Also, we don’t want the instruction to be straightforward, but it’ll act kind of like a clue to what they need to do, it is something like “Try to peek through the box and see what it is”, just something to tell the audience that yes they can hold it up. This is why we need to play test it.

One last point, I want to point out is that we choose to create our installation fully non - digital, I guess making it more digital, would make it too literal and obvious, in terms of the use of social media.

[metallic-frog]

Studio: Space, Image & Sound - - IT WORKS