#ctec503movement

[blighbct]

Muddled Mind

Sort of like how our project is going, I have a lot of different things happening all at once, and I am finding it hard to put it all together (but I know that if I do it well, the outcome will be greater then if I just stuck to one subject)

So, onward to random updates.

Above: Left and Right

IMPLEMENTING PIXEL ART

Been looking into how we should implement live action with the pixel art animations we have been creating. As you can see from above, the use of shadows can really help the drawings seem one in the same with the real life photographs.

The photo on the right includes highlights as well, but I think this is because the Pokemon being held are real objects.

Above: Three objects I drew to be used in our questions

SPRITES

I am working on making sprites for the players choices. These will be held up by the deer god, and you will choose which you prefer. Matthew has been working on animating them, to give the sprites more interest when they are on screen.

HYPNOSIS

I know that Wikipedia is not a good source for information, but reading through it’s explanation of hypnosis, I found that it has a lot of ties to what we are exploring with Manipulation and Influence (thanks by the way Quentin for suggesting that I look into hypnosis).

PROGRAMMING

Decided to go over the code today, as I want to make it more readable (and less coding). To do this I am going to make a function which handles questions, all I will need to do is input the objects to choose between, and what the deer man will say...hopefully.

Also added numbers onto the branches, so that navigating where everything goes is a lot easier (for programming, and readability).

[matts4-blog1]

Appreciation post

I just wanted to actually thank my group of rejects for creating something that we all should be pretty proud of. We were all basically forced together from the start without having any overlapping or remotely similar ideas, I mean for fucks sake I was researching the biological effects and positives of competition in humans. But we all managed to come together and get through this pretty grueling semester, even if we didn’t work as hard or as efficiently as possible I still feel that we have made something that we can be pretty damn proud of. 

To be honest all of the people in our group (asides from me) have been essential for the project to keep on trucking, since you all did so much in your respective roles that helped the rest of the group so much.

Shades

Being the complete resource manager of this project and the planning god plus playing the mother every now and then for when we weren’t doing any work, has helped us out a shit ton. Without the planning of stuff and the scheduling and the amount of stuff you did like putting things onto the google docs, typing up things that needed to be transferred from paper, sketching plans and going out and getting alot of the materials that we needed for the things like the screen and the poster and that. You have been the reason why the project hasn’t just blown over and everyone didn’t just lose interest leading in everyone sort of giving up. Finding tasks for us all to do and micromanaging has helped us out a ton. Thanks Shades

Vaani 

You need to stop doing everything please. Seriously the amount of times that I came in to see how much you had done and just realized that it was 100x more than I had done is incredible. You are like the true definition of a grinder and the amount of effort and work you put into this project and the rest of your projects are insane. Obvious things is stuff like ALL of the sanding, most of the painting, most if not all of the visual research, a ton of visual iterations with coding, helping out with keeping us all in line, keeping the best kept blog in the world which has helped all of us actually keep track of whats going on...The list goes on. You’re basically a machine who without this project just wouldn’t have worked out. Always you would do those small things that would just make our project so much better but you never took credit, or complained or anything. Plus somehow you managed to put up with me for an entire semester which is kind of a feat on its own. Thanks a bunch our fave vegetarian.

Kelvin 

Going into the project I think everybody was just dreading the coding part of our project and nobody had like any idea of what the fuck they were doing. But this legend put up his hand and put in some serious hours to basically carry us through the coding part of the project. I’m sure that you’ve probably developed a pretty good knowledge of coding from this project and you should be proud of what you made because it is pretty awesome and incorporated ideas from my crackpot conceptual theories and Vaani’s own personal visual preferences, which is a skill in itself. Thanks dude you really saved us 

Simon

Head PD guy and really the only PD guy since nobody had any idea of what was going on at all in that patch. But you managed to grind that out and get the serial porting working after a close encounter with throwing-laptop-to-other-side-of-room syndrome. Head of lunch breaks and messenger stickers adds to the list and the classic free macca’s was always a bit of a treat for the rest of the group. But actually thanks a whole bunch for saving us with the sounds and everything.

Even though I got so close to leaving BCT for good after I got back from my trip, I’m glad that I stayed because we managed to create something pretty cool that takes from real academic sources of knowledge and is pretty fun to play around with. 

Thanks again guys for making this project an enjoyable one and hope to see you all again next year.

[qzkevin]

The journey we walked

Tomorrow is the deadline for the project. My group and I prepare to show the best as we can do. It is unbelievable that time goes so fast in this year. It feels like the project just starts at yesterday. Back to see my journey, we do meet some challenge and bad thing. But we kick it away, we finish and achieve the goal with everyone's help. It is the first time that I understand clearly about the greatness of having a team. It should be one of the best moment I ever have in my life. I do have some complaint about this project at the start of the year. Everyone in the studio would know the blog Oscar write. In that time I strongly agree with the viewpoint Oscar talk, We are waste our time with no reason. My view change in the day after. Ricardo sees the blog in a super fast speed. He makes a studio just for explain the reason for why and solve the question we have. I feel so surprised that our lecturer cares about our opinion that much. They stay behind us and help us by different ways. I do like the way that lecturer teach us about movement. Specifically Miranda's class. I love to do some experiment rather than just listen to the lecturer talking. I think I am that kind of person can learn more from experiment than books. Miranda's class also affect my idea a lot. I am interested in the human sense that we learned in the class. It might be the reason for why I want to do some interactive project? Ricardo is right. We change our idea a lot. Whenever we learn new things,  some useful point will be included in the project. After a long step about research, the project will not be same as we thought before. It is interesting because it shows how we develop our idea. More change we can do, more great we can be. To conclude my journey, it is unforgettable. I am interested in next year's project. It should have a larger field to develop our creative mind as much as possible. But now, I need some relax to kick out those pressure I have in the week. Hope you all have a good result!

[joshbaxterbct]

Project Statements

Contextual

Conceptual

Reflection: Project thoughts and what I've learnt

Looking back to the preproposal phase I could not have envisaged what 2fold developed into. The end product of this project becoming vastly different to where its premise began. Our fascination with our own experiences working within the disabled community at the Wairau valley special school combined with both of our passion for skateboarding birthed into what 2fold is today. While the result is so far from our initial explorations it goes to show just how far the iterative process can take you.

 Coming into this semester I felt that I had managed to grasp a fairly solid understanding of the iterative process. What I can say now is that I now understand that I haven’t even began to scratch the surface of just how valuable a good understanding of the process can be. In a way, it feels like rather than us shaping this project it has in fact shaped itself. As one idea becomes flawed a new approach is unfolded. I can say while I thought I knew how this looked until experiencing it truly through this project I really was clueless as to what it means or its value. The feeling of the project having control feels far different to you having it. Ideas don’t feel forced the opened ended creates uncertainty, but I have found that there is beauty in what we don’t know. In fact, it is not knowing where you’re going that leads you in the most interesting directions. I would say that I am quite an idealistic person. I like to know what I’m getting myself into and what the end result may look like, because of this I have found myself struggling many time. However, when I say struggle I don’t necessarily mean in a bad way, the project has really made me challenge my way of thinking and opened up my eyes to new horizons as well as different methodologies within the design process.

 Working in such a small group has been interesting. In larger teams, I have observed the way people work to be extremely different to how we approached our project. Sam and I knew from the beginning that in being a group of two had advantages and disadvantages. I think the main advantage being the ability to quickly change direction and push ideas forward. This was something that was extremely valuable for us in that it suited the nature of the project with it wanting to move itself forward. I think had our group been bigger this would have been far more difficult to adapt to change so fast and effectively. Obviously, there is a disadvantage to this also in that at times it leads to through too many direction changes as well as a smaller majority of opinions to bounce ideas from. Having said this, I think as a team Sam and I adapted and worked well together. While we share the same passion, we are two individuals with very different ideas and perceptions about what should and shouldn’t be. This lead us many times into conflict around certain decisions and concepts. What we learnt to deal with together was how to resolve these conflicts in a way that could cover both of our points of reason. In the beginning, this was definitely more difficult especially starting out thinking so conceptually. As the project proceeded the way we dealt with this became vastly more efficient and eventually became a tool of sorts that help further develop the project. I have encountered this previously in other projects however I don’t think in those cases did I learn how to develop an idea or concept out of conflict rather going with one idea or the other. It’s made me have to validate my thinking before expressing an idea giving every decision a purpose that is of contextual relevance and beneficial for the project. I think this is what I would say has been the biggest thing I will take away from this semester, a skill that I don’t think I would have been able to really develop had we had a larger group, this said I could be wrong.

 Do I feel we have accomplished what we set out to do? I think what became apparent the further we dove into the project the more we realized just how large the breadth and depth of the subject really is. I would say while what we have done successfully explores the middle ground between objects and showcases the conative meaning objects can carry. This is merely an entry point into something that could be far bigger than what we have here. The project has been incredibly insightful as to our understanding of meaning things poses. While our project dives rather deeply into this understanding I think there are definitely more ways you could go about exploring it. I think the way we went about combining objects best fits within the objects we choose, but this may not necessarily be the case for other objects. The commonality between objects being movement enabling us to create the weird mashup that it is. I think with objects that lack movement this process and format of display may not necessarily work. If this project were to continue I think it would be of interest to explore other means of portraying these conative meanings around objects.

 From my point of view, I feel that we have successfully communicated the concept within the mediums we choose. Showing the purpose behind what we have done but not giving answers. We want people to come to their own conclusions as to how they see the project. Something we encountered at the beginning of the project was trying to interpret what we experienced into answers. Something we quickly realized we simply can’t do. In a way, I think the project developed itself in this way. The contrast avoidance of trying to interpret things lead us to completely contrast this notion. I’ve found within other projects I have worked on trying to communicate a message with one answer will always we flawed in that people see things differently to each other. With this project, I think in the beginning we tried to do this but learnt how to stray away from being overly interpretive. Whist as you can see through our documentation in various scenarios we label the object as to where we see it to fit. We want this to be challenged this is simply our view, the beauty of the stickers is that it allows other people to label it how they see it. In the setting of this project it works well as there is a correlation between the use of stickers and skateboarding. With other objects, it would be interesting to try to communicate choice in other ways.

 I feel personally this semester I have continued to develop and strengthen my studio practices that began to form last semester. I have been happy in the way my reflective habits have formed I think this semester I have learnt to use it more as a tool rather than a means of documentation, While I would say I started to develop an understanding of it as a tool last semester it wasn’t until now that I have been able to reap the benefits a reflective habit. The countless times we have been required to look back within our process in moving forward with the project.

 While this project has not had the largest digital factors within it, surprisingly it has forced me to play with media that stem beyond my comfort zone. From the physical side in the construction phase of the project having to learn to sue the range of tools required to get where we wanted to go. A surprisingly broad range of digital mediums needing implementation throughout the project, from the videos to the stickers and the display itself. However, I think as a whole it is our representational strategy that has developed the most throughout the project, each element along the way representing an aspect of our experiences or object. I think the real testament to this being t the final exhibit. It being a strong representation and portrayal of our object but also our process and experiences with it.

Posts of relevance for this half of the semester...

All posts can be accessed using #ctec503movement

also view Sam’s blog here: Sam’s blog

Index

Statements

Contextual

Conceptual

Week 14

Video reference

More or less finished setup

Thinking through presentation setup

Playing with stickers

Practice

Test video, confusion and feedback

Week 13

‘Cut n Paste’

Documentation 2

Documentation 1

Thoughts for this week

Week 12

looking forward

Sticky...

Sticker context...

McGuffin

Reflection 

Week 11

Even more workshoppery

More Workshoppery

Workshoppery

Making progress

Quick thoughts

Re-Writing the rubric Sam’s version

Re-Writing the rubric / proposal review

Week 10

lets get bent

How to start?

Carchiriano, Perrota Cancato???

Time to get into it

Thrasher or masher??

Week 9

Are we Interventionists???

Aesthetic Hybrid

Taking inspiration from a 7 year old

Pencils, Tape, Hot Glue and STUFF…

Semantics

Sam reblog prototyping / direction

One a day keeps the doctor away

Week 8

Getting sketchy

Context...

Quick update...

Planning our future

Week 7

A not so great prototype...

Deconstruction

Wheelchair acquired

Solving the brief nots thoughts and recollection

Mid semester break

Studio thoughts

Manifesto

2fold manifesto

[vaanibct]

Movement and Motion

Day 40 (05-10-17)

Honestly, I swear that every Thursday, we seem to go downhill. Over the week (Mon-Wed), we had been making progress, managed to get the motion detection working with the sound and visuals, however, every Thursday for the last three weeks, we had been either doing nothing or ended up being confused and didn’t progress.

Firstly, Matt was sick and didn’t come to Studio, however he continued working on the “Mood Board” at home. Next Kelvin had to leave early due to work, however, him and Shades discussed the Booth Design before he left. I think that we are at a stage of our Project where we need to start constructing and testing. But, there was some progress with the Booth (which Shades can explain in her Blog). Next, Simon also had to leave early because he was getting picked but, but he also progressed with the Sound (which he can also explain in his Blog post).

So, it was basically Shades and I discussing the Booth Design and general Project related worries, because we don’t have much time, and looking at our Time Table (pictured above), there will be group members away on certain days, so we’ll have to work around that. I wrote down the necessary tasks we need to complete in the oncoming weeks - including Booth making next weekend. This seems to be our key task because we know that our Motion Detection is working with sound and visuals, so we can start producing the Booth, in which we have to showcase our Project.

Now, talking about the Booth design was one of the most difficult tasks. Personally, I’m not too educated about wood, materials, construction and dimensions etc. so Shades was pretty good for explaining it to me. She continued designing the frame and the general “look” of the Booth, however, when James talked to us, he brought up a few suggestions, which just ended up confusing us further. Another thing we need to start thinking about is the cost. Naturally, we all will be investing quite a bit of money to the construction of this Project, because materials, softwares and things cost $$$. However, the overall cost will be dependent on the type and quantity of materials we require. So, we still need to discuss that with the rest of the group.

My main concerns with this Project at the moment include: work delegation, dedication and prototyping. We are all working individually on our own tasks and it is now time that we integrate our findings to test and prototype with what we have so far. I believe that this will give us a direction to go forward and make necessary improvements or changes because at the moment, we haven’t done any user experience related to our Project. Also, I wanted to have done a little test with the Kinect during today’s Studio however we couldn’t, so that has been pushed on to Monday. As said by the lecturers many times, this week should be the last week of prototyping and by next week, we should be designing and building and making progress towards constructing the actual “thing.” So, I’m kind of doubting the commitment all the team members have toward this Project, because we will have to start staying in late and working harder to finish it in time for the Showcase. We haven’t been meeting or communicating at all during the weekend or even RED Friday’s, so that needs to change. We also need to be more practical and realistic about the decisions we make regarding our Project due to time constraints and another one of my worries include - team work. We have been working really good as a team so far, much better than I initially thought, and I feel like we need to be more understanding, work together, and get things done!!!

Today, I also made progress with the visuals - it’s slow but it’s good. I was very hesitant about coding before because I don’t really understand it as well, however, not that I’m actually writing the code, I’m getting a better understanding of how things work. I am also really enjoying it because I feel proud every time I make progress, and I’m also up-skilling in a way. But during Studio, I managed to improve the code from yesterday and here’s how it looks… [1]

Later tonight, I also worked on coding from the “Generative Design” [3] book that Shades has issued from the Library. We were looking at the distorting image code, which seemed really interesting, so I decided to try that with my “Galaxy” image that Shades scanned on Tuesday. While copying the code, I made a minor error but soon noticed it. However, I was very happy that it was working and it looked quite cool as well. [2]

Overall, I’m quite happy with my personal progress for this Project today because I’ve gotten more confident with coding, but I really need to work faster and iterate more so we have a varied sample to test. I will continue this during the weekend, but I probably won’t have much time due to working on the Physical Computing Project. But my key task of this Project is to have some coding ready to be tested on Monday. Good luck to me!

[1] https://vimeo.com/236881221

[2] https://vimeo.com/236887719

[3] Bohnacker, H., Grob, B., Laub, J., & Lazzeroni, C. (2012) Generative Design: Visualise, Program and Create with Processing. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

————————————————————————————————————————

[kalebuchanan]

Iterations of the Window

We started out with looking through a ‘window’ toward the storm early in our project when we decided to use the EEG simulate a storm. We decided to use the window, as it creates a frame and also simulates being indoors whilst looking at an outdoor environment. Firstly, we decided to recycle and use a window from an old building, and in our case a house. Throughout the project, Tim and I manged the construction of the window and the other small items that needed to be added to the project or built.

 We purchased the window in the picture above, however we found the main issue with it was that the stained glass with the textures manipulated our projected images too much and it looked unprofessional. We discussed removing the glass from the window, I said this this is too hard and we should ditch this window entirely. I suggested to the group that we buy this window here -

However, nobody in the group had access get the window, so decided on building a window within a wall. We started building the wall, but it turned out to be a complete failure so we took wood, dismantled the wall and began to build a window to be hung. Tim and I did some brief planning and took our inexperienced selves to the woodworking space in the 3D labs to construct this -

We took the window and with the help of Kim & his resources we hung the window and placed fabric on the back Caleb & I got from Geoff’s emplorium down Dominion road. We hung the window and it looked like this -

On Thursday Tim and I made a trip out to Mitre 10, purchased stain for the window and I stained it later that night to create this look for the window - 

Caleb wasn’t happy we removed the material, but it was the only way I could stain it so I am making it up to him, by replacing the fabric at the moment. The window fabric was an important part of the project for him. Since he was busy with other aspects I decided to replace the fabric with Tim to make it easier for him. Now I will complete the display tomorrow when Eden comes in and we will be finished! 

[bctims]

Contextual Statement

Project name: Storm

The idea of our project is to draw in and entice people into figuring out what its purpose is. We created a physical window display, which uses rain and a heart rate monitor to connote the effects of stress on the mind and body. Along with user-input to add an element of community. Throughout our journey, we hope to give users a sense of bliss and leave feeling a bit better about themselves. The purpose is to let users feel like they’re not alone having to deal with stress and anxiety. 

We are projecting the rain over an image of a city we created. This will used because of the city’s association with the stress and pressure of living in the middle of everything and all that is happening[2], as well as being located on the eleventh floor of a high-rise building.

Fortunately, our first brief we wrote was worded in a way that was left very open ended due to the undoubtedly imminent developments we would make:

“Create an Immersive translation of an individual’s state of mind as an introspective experience”

We were originally going to use an electroencephalogram (EEG) to examine someone’s active and meditative state of mind and measure how stressed they were feeling. However, through practice, we found that it was inconsistent with results and fluctuated far too frequently to get a proper, interesting result. We decided to use a heart rate monitor instead, because it gives much more accurate feedback and is simply measured through the pulse in your fingertip. The heart rate is also directly linked to stress levels, which I researched here.

We first looked into using the idea of using white light to represent the opposition to stress here, but we figured that using rain instead would be more compelling since many more people associate the rain with calmness, relaxation and peace of mind. However, extreme weather is also associated with disaster and flooding, which gives people mental and physical stress[1]. This means that the weather has many more connotations surrounding stress (both good and bad), and is why we decided to use it.

The sense of community we are trying to include as well will be carried out through a website we designed where a user will anonymously type in something they are feeling stressed about, which will appear on the window - only to be washed away by the rain itself. After some time, old inputs will be displayed on the screen to that others have previously shared, which will show people the similarities and differences between people around us, and if several people are stressed about the same thing(s).

Being able to properly deal with stress and anxiety is difficult, but is something that we all have to live and deal with emotionally. If users are able to realise they are not alone, and have other people who can help them deal with their problems, our project will have succeeded. Even if we fail to do so, we will take it as a learning experience to see where we went wrong and how we can improve if we ever came back to this project again in the future.

[1] Gergoire. C, (2014), “The Surprising Ways The Weather Affects Your Heath And Well-Being” - from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/climate-health_n_4568505.html

[2] Welsh. J, (2011), “How City Livingh Stresses the Brain” - from https://www.livescience.com/14721-city-living-stresses-brain.html

[sushmita-devi]

Would my past learning help in future?

There is a lot of pressure in this world to be happy. But what is it about human nature that evolves around past learning?

It is indeed a biological approach to psychology that takes us individuals through an educational psychology to deeply understand how people change and grow through the entire lifespan (very well, 2017). My argument is valid in the statement given because according to the research, having an approximate dynamic in the learning that was provided at a young age becomes more powerful as the human brain develops and has a strong focus if the act of documentation is executed. By this, I mean ‘personal learning’ which grows into a form of argumentation within us individuals. This act is performed at a regular basis and is very unclear to some in the process of their performance because it is a natural move. The more the skill is improved in this area, the better we will be at critically thinking, reasoning, making choices and weighing evidence (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017).

Therefore, I strongly believe it is important for us students to mentally encourage ourselves towards making everything accountable for what we learn. I believe this helps understand and defend our position the way we look at the work in general. 

Bibliography  

The University of  North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (2017). Retrieved from argument:  http://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/argument/

very well. (2017, 7 12). Retrieved  from The Major Branches of Psychology:  https://www.verywell.com/major-branches-of-psychology-4139786

[giannisbct-blog]

Studio II Final Submission

Throughout this semester I have learned a great deal bout both project related things and non project related things. I have learned how important it is to choose your team wisely for a group project and also team management skills to keep that group working on track. I have also discovered different workflow strategies to make sure I am at my most productive and also when I need to take a break, for example I now know that I can’t focus solely on Arduino code for a week straight for all of my papers. Having said that though I have learned and further developed my programming skills and have picked up how to program an Arduino. I think the hardest challenge I have had to face this semester is letting other people do the work and trusting that they will get it done. I have always struggled with this as I feel only i know what the quality of the job needs to be but now that I am at university everyone I work with should in theory be at the same level if not better than me when it comes to this so they will have a fair idea as to what the outcome needs to be. What also made this hard for me in this project was that I didn’t really feel I knew my team members well enough, sure I knew Adam but as for the other four (Shane, Josh, Austin and Osamu) I had never really talked to them let alone worked with them so I was not really sure how it would go. I guess that is why it is good to have a blog so you can see what they have done in the past.

If I had to do it all again, I would have worked with a smaller team. That is the main thing I would change simply because it is harder to work with a bigger group especially when things need to happen in a sequence so not everyone can be working on things at the exact same time. Over my last few blog posts i have reflected on the project a little more in depth so you can find those in the index to see some more of my overall reflection on the semester.

Here are the the final videos, the second one is not shown in the installation as it does not suit the whole them of it but shows how the watch reacts to different users and can be used to show their perception of time in different situations. 

Blog Index 

All posts for this project can be found with the hashtag #ctec503movement

Project Reflections: -Revisit of the brief -Installation Completion

Concept blogs: -Initial idea -Potential direction -Scientific Research -Further research and justification -Existing product research -Real world observation -Concept video development 1 -Concept video development 2 -Concept Clarification -Concept reflection -Real world situation idea -Real world test 1 -Ethics issue -Group allocations

Construction blogs: -Initial prototype -Further development -Working prototype and existing product research -Soldering it together -Neopixel development -3D model and presentation research -Prototype test Presentation Blogs: -Initial thoughts and research -Presentation design -Installation Completion

Conceptual Statement

For this project we set out to bring attention to our objective reality and provoke conversation on whether or not we experience the world to the maximum potential we can. “Tyme” measures the user’s heart rate and then presents their own experience of passing time visually in a way that seems more like a natural process (almost like breathing) rather than a mechanical ticking, this is to bring a air of personalisation to it. We used the human perception of time, or chronoception, to develop an insight for the user into how we as humans have gentrified something so complex as time into a basic standard measure which in reality is not how we experience the world at all. In different situations minutes can feel like hours and hours can feel like seconds as our chronoception is the result of a multitude of external factors that we don’t have a whole lot of control over. By focussing on one single aspect that can affect chronoception (cognitive function linked to heart rate) we are enticing the user to consider our visual representation of their experience of the passage of time but also consider all the other factors that can affect it. Thus in turn forcing them to realise that they are only experiencing a small sliver of the world around them and that there is so much more to our universe that we are unable to comprehend but if we could, our entire objective reality would be a whole lot different. By inciting this conversation we are changing the way people look at things, making them consider their surroundings more critically and developing a greater awareness of their reality.

Contextual Statement

The field of time perception and objective realities is relatively unexplored and for the parts that have been researched, the developed ideas and concepts tend to have very mild crossover and a fair amount of contradictions. That is mainly because not a whole lot is known in the fields and so there is no general consensus yet as to what is correct and what is not. This is where our projects fits nicely, as we are not entirely developing any research in the field but more linking the ideas of time perception and objective reality together. Our project draws inspiration from theories set out by Donald Hoffman and David Eagleman which talk about objective realities and time perception respectively. Hoffman sets out the idea that what we are experiencing as our apparent “objective reality” may not actually be the actual reality that we live in, he says that our brain is taking cues from the actual reality and reconstructing this world that we see (Hoffman, 2015). Eagleman places a huge emphasis on the fact that we do not have physical time receipting organs in our bodies and therefore our chronoception relies heavily on other external factors and our brain then reconstructs what we experience as time from these cues (Eagleman, 2009). There is a large crossover between the two concepts that we set out to link and develop and in doing so we have also produced an artefact that goes about presenting the apparent passage of time to the certain individual who is using the watch. In this sense it is much like the breathing clock designed by Max Schmidt [1], a different way of representing time rather than the monotonous ticking that we have come to think of as standard. The main difference between our project and the breathing clock though is that the breathing clock is more of a countdown timer that you set to whatever time you want, “tyme” interprets the users cognitive state and presents them with their own experience of time passing at that moment, so it is constantly changing. Another project that brings awareness to our experience of time is Durr by Skrekkogle [2] which vibrates every five minutes to make the user aware of how fast time is passing. This idea however, is still bound to the assumption that time passes as seconds, minutes and hours and thus differs from our project which focuses on the idea that time is in fact a personal experience that is different for everyone. Through the development of this concept and artefact we have not only challenged the basic assumptions we make about time but we have actually shown how abstract the idea of time really is and that representing it through standard measures (such as seconds, minutes and hours) is completely inaccurate to how we interact with the world, therefore challenging how we experience our world and perceive reality.  

[1]: https://www.designboom.com/design/breathing-clock-by-max-schmidt-shifts-the-perception-of-time/ [2]: http://skrekkogle.com/projects/durr/

Hoffman, D. (2015, March). Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_hoffman_do_we_see_reality_as_it_is

Eagleman, D. M. (2009). Brain time. What’s Next: Dispatches from the Future of Science, edited by M. Brockman. New York: Vintage Books.(Reprinted at Edge. org.)

[krouxbct]

Reflection 

Looking back on this project I can clearly see how my ideas around movement and emotion has developed and changed. During the proposal phase I wasn’t too sure about our ideas and where they would lead but now I can better see that we were headed down an interesting path.

As part of an unusual group I decided to be the one to tackle our issue of coding. None of the group were very confident in their coding skills and I felt much the same. Despite this knew that it needed to get started so I took lead in that aspect. I feel that this projects coding can be summed into two key ideas, research and iteration. Time and time again I was scrolling through forums and coding samples to try understand the mess in front of me only to have new and more complex ideas put forward. One thing that has surprised me as the project has progressed is how many different variations of the code and ideas that have come up. It’s actually quite amusing when u get to the kniect_visuals_attempt_4 and it looks nothing like the original. Overall I feel although my skills as a coder have skyrocketed due to this intriguing project.

At the beginning of this semester I felt that I had a good idea about the iterative process from semester one and didn’t think I could develop those skills any further. Quickly this semester proved that I was not going to be finished with the idea. As shown just above iteration was a key concept in the code and helped us to go forward and adapt as our ideas and goals transformed and developed. Iteration also proved key in the physical side as our idea for a booth and back wall changed with our ideas of time, budget and accessibility did.

Unlike last semesters’ this studio project was done in a group and an unusual one at that. Our group, the Rejects or group R, were formed because we didn’t have any others who our ideas about movement related to. This meant that our team ended up being made of a diverse group of people which in turn lead to some challenges on our points of view. Despite this we managed to come together as a team and used our diversity to instead further the depth we explored to.

Therefore I feel like this project has helped me learn many new skills and helped me to develop as a student of Creative Technologies. I hope that our project will be received with the same enthusiasm that we put into making it and it will achieve the effect we intended.

[rachael-li-mct]

🝞 V∆ΡOƲR TΞK 🝞 : Building Done

It works so well. Well done guys :D This is the final build, everything is working, the fan pulls up the smoke all the way to the top and it spins very well. The LEDs that were included and built into the fan also gives a very interesting effect and we decided to leave it this way. 

We decided to leave it unpainted, it leaves it more natural, human tone. We did plan to paint it white but it would look even more artificial as the acrylic is already enough.

All we need to do now is to attach the Arduino and the other components and to neaten up the top of the Box

[blighbct]

Websites and Cards

https://juxtaposeaut.blogspot.co.nz/

I have been working on a website that we can direct people to for more information on us, and a bit about our project, and to contact us. At the moment it is quite bare bones, and only includes basic information (I plan on adding more to it next week before showcase, depending on how things go).

https://www.facebook.com/JuxtaposeAUT/

I also set up a Facebook page, because I thought it might be easier for some people to get in contact with us, then a website.

I plan on making an email that forwards to our emails as well, but I will probably work on that sometime next week before open day, as I don’t really have enough time to finish it up now.

Front of Card

Back of Card

Very rough business cards that I was planning on printing out, but got a bit swamped with programming. I might still be able to use them though, if I find somewhere that can print them out within 4 days (however I know this isn’t very likely).

Another possible solution is to just print them out on paper, but I really don’t like the idea of that, as it might be worse then not having them at all. If I don’t manage to print these out, I will need to print out something that shows links to our website, and Facebook page, possibly an A4 sheet with the same style as the Back of Card, containing links to the website pages.

[matts4-blog1]

Back to science class

For some reason I thought that it was probably a good idea to go into a proper scientific analysis and research into the data we gathered from our investigation. 

I’m not too sure whether or not we will get too much out of having a proper scientific analysis of this but its probably a good idea to get some sort of formal investigation into the questions we ask and give a chance to have something that can back up our project in an academic way. But here I present the investigation into the emotional effects of creative technology students when subjected to certain visual and auditory sensory stimuli.

Investigation into the emotional effects of creative technology students when subjected to certain visual and auditory sensory stimuli.

Aim 

The aim of this investigation is to gauge whether or not our chosen stimuli of the visual and auditory variety has the intended affect of evoking emotions inside of the students we will be testing. 

Method

We will be exposing our subjects to a test version of our project that has the two main intended stimuli. Visual aspects are rear projected onto a piece of fabric that has motion reactive artwork on it. Audio parts are also movement reactive and are played through speakers that the subjects listen to at the same time as the visuals are shown. After they have experienced the piece they are then asked a few questions which have been crafted to gain as much understanding possible about whether or not they were emotionally effected by our piece at all. The questions that we asked were;

1). Using our piece did you think about how you emotionally felt?

2). Do you think our piece evoked emotion inside of you in anyway? 

3). In 3 or less words describe your experience. 

4). Did you focus on the visuals or the audio aspect of the experience more?

As you can see we are going for a more qualitative response instead of quantitative due to the emotional aspect of our project we thought that it would be a good idea to gain a more personal understanding of it due to the subjective nature of emotional responses, we thought it would be a better idea to get descriptions rather than numbers. 

Hypothesis

My hypothesis for this investigation is that without the finished pieces of our project like for instance the fact that we will have to substitute the projector for a computer screen due to the projector not being available at the time of the testing and us having to use the computer speakers as well, we will not be able to create the large enough presence we want and people will feel disconnected and won’t think about how the piece made them feel. I also feel that with the nature of our testing environment we will not be a personal place and the intended stimuli will be convoluted with other noises and lights etc. from the surrounding environment so I believe that we won’t be able to create a true reflective environment that people will think about their feelings alot.

Data 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3KmxlKyL4ZfSURuOWw0MlgzcGM

Analysis

The data we got was taken over two days with a variation taking place in the visuals on the second day, so the data isn’t completely consistent for the both days but we can still get a feel for the trends with both days separated. 

Day 1 - 

Question 1 analysis: Day 1′s data shows that  85% of people saying they did not think about their feelings at all. this is obviously something we do not want  as the entire purpose of the project is to make people aware of how they feel. 3 people also said that they were too focused on how to make it work to start thinking about how the piece made them felt. 

Question 2 analysis:  For the second question of did our piece evoke emotion inside of the person 4/9 people said no. The other 5 people felt "happy" using it and "confusion" was a common theme.

Question 3 analysis: The "Describe your experience in 3 words" provided us with some clarification in terms of their exact reasons for their feeling s. What was most prominent in the details the basis of interesting and contemplative.

Question 4 analysis: This question varied throughout the day so the results are somewhat inconsistent but what we asked mostly was whether or not the visuals overpowered the importance of the sound or vice versa. From this we gained a mixed response with 5 people saying they were more sound focused and the other 4 saying they were more visually focused.

Day 2 - 

Question 1 analysis:  To this question all 3 participants responded with a "no".

Question 2 analysis: The three participants responded with "yes" but they were not insanely strong emotions, and two of the participants said that they were just too mechanically focused to try to feel the emotion being evoked. This is a trend that we see carrying on from yesterday with 44% of people saying the same thing. 

Question 3 analysis:  The main trend with the describing words on day #2 was that everyone displayed some sort of confusion which was all due to the visuals.

Question 4 analysis: When asked whether they were focused on visuals or sound 2/3 said visuals and they both said the visuals were confusing but the sounds were more confusing.

Discussion 

These results have provided a very good starting foundation for the analysis into the validity of our project. For starters it seems as though my prediction and hypothesis was correct in the prediction that most people did not think about their emotions. The reason for this I suggest is that the atmosphere in which we were testing in was not conducive to thought provoking/deep connections with themselves. This I suggest is because of the atmosphere that was present when we were testing, it was not enclosed and external factors like light and sounds made it feel as if they had not been transported in any way. We need to create an area that makes people feel enclosed and encapsulated in their own thoughts, which in turn creates an area where people can think about things.

Another point I suggest from our data and seeing the comparisons between the two days, we can see that the mechanical aspect of our piece is convoluting the main message of our piece. With this we can understand that people need at least some simplicity in the way they control it, or maybe a much more simply displayed impact of your movements. I suggest we try to have very simplistic and responsive visuals such as the first day compared to the second day where it was more abstract and such. Maybe also we can suggest using the right arm to control the piece as well as which may take away from the exploitative nature but will provide clarity and hopefully a greater understanding of the piece.

Another piece of opinion I have created about our project with this data is that we need to create more of a pressure and maybe create a larger prototype that will have a larger feeling it makes sense. Essentially what we need to do is to make people feel overpowered by the piece in most ways to think people feel overpowered by the piece. When people are overpowered by the piece they might be suggested to the fact that the piece knows more than them in terms of their feelings and emotions. I think that then we will create a great atmosphere for deep thoughts and elicit reflection which will be encapsulated in our booth. Also what ties into this is the universe theme, nothing really conveys that portrays the largest questions in our existence then the stars do so I feel that sticking with this theme is a very good idea to make this project meaningful.

Conclusion

In conclusion this investigation could have been carried out in much better format and a more efficient manner by doing more things that would ensure it being a completely fair test. But regardless we are still able to produce some good conclusions of how we can go ahead and improve our project further. All we can do now is try to implement those changes as good s possible then do another investigation and compare the data and see whether or not these trends are due to factors of our piece or if they are just limitations with our thinking.

[prestonbct]

Always finding precedence.

I ordered a book a little while ago by an illustrator named Phil Hackett. Hackett’s whole illustration style is centred around drawing skateboards in unexpected and odd scenes. While it’s not exactly what we are doing, these illustrations share themes with our project when considering blurring the line between objects. I suppose this whole book can be seen as either objects made out of skateboards, or skateboards in the form of other objects. The fact that this book is all consumed with skateboarding isn't the most relevant theme. It’s the placement and combination of objects within unexpected environments which challenges preconceived perception. In our case, we’re using the skateboard (and the wheelchair for that matter) as placeholder objects for a wider concept of object connotations.

One element which I find intriguing about these illustrations is the play on scale. Depictions of the skateboards range from tictacs to monuments, all while keeping the constant form of the skateboard. I think that could have been an interesting take on our project; to play with scale in a way which stresses the importance of specific components.

What these illustrations show is that our concept is not restricted to merely what we have achieved in the past semester. This ideology can be applied to almost any object(s), and even within skateboarding, has been and will be mirrored many times.

[joshbaxterbct]

Here are some photos from today’s documentation. Hopefully you can see where we are going and what we meant in terms of how we are going about the documentation process. More to follow tomorrow.....

[pezbct-blog]

“The days of thinking of time as a river—evenly flowing, always advancing—are over.”

Eagleman, D. M. (2009). Brain time. What’s Next: Dispatches from the Future of Science, edited by M. Brockman. New York: Vintage Books.(Reprinted at Edge. org.).