Saturday, May 8, 2010
Finally transcribing to the Blog!
So tonight I am working on transcribing the entries from my journal to get all my posts actually typed out online! And I just finished!
Project 4: CyberArt Exhibit
Today we had the exhibit for our final CyberArt project in the Digital Art and Animation Studio.
We arrived around an hour early since we already had all of our set and costumes stored upstairs where the show was going to be. We had arranged to get the other items we would need for the show; a projector from Simone, Dan would bring his speakers, and we the computer to play the video on as well as extras just in case. The same video (QuickTime format) that had previously played fine in QuickTime on a Mac, wasn't playing correctly in QuickTime on a PC. Luckily we also had VLC Media Player installed which played it fine though we did get a small last minute scare. We got the exhibit set up and people seemed to enjoy it for the most part. We had added an odd ending to the video just for fun, none of us really thought it was the proper artistic thing, but it was a fun expression of our work we had done together and the relief we felt after investing significant amounts of time on the project.
I think we ended up doing a project where we all had a lot of fun making it. I don't think it's a great work of art, but I am proud of the work we did and what we learned from doing that work. I think we certainly could have ended up with something better, but this was all very experimental for all of us. Great job Team Memento of Oz!
Here is the video we presented...
We arrived around an hour early since we already had all of our set and costumes stored upstairs where the show was going to be. We had arranged to get the other items we would need for the show; a projector from Simone, Dan would bring his speakers, and we the computer to play the video on as well as extras just in case. The same video (QuickTime format) that had previously played fine in QuickTime on a Mac, wasn't playing correctly in QuickTime on a PC. Luckily we also had VLC Media Player installed which played it fine though we did get a small last minute scare. We got the exhibit set up and people seemed to enjoy it for the most part. We had added an odd ending to the video just for fun, none of us really thought it was the proper artistic thing, but it was a fun expression of our work we had done together and the relief we felt after investing significant amounts of time on the project.
I think we ended up doing a project where we all had a lot of fun making it. I don't think it's a great work of art, but I am proud of the work we did and what we learned from doing that work. I think we certainly could have ended up with something better, but this was all very experimental for all of us. Great job Team Memento of Oz!
Here is the video we presented...
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Project 4: Video/Sound Editing
Mia did an amazing job with the video editing in Premiere Pro and next time we met she had a cut with all the video and photos spliced together to form the whole movie. We watched the movie and it was obviously lacking cohesion and flow (at not fault of Mia). Shots would transition from one focus to another with no explanation. We anticipated this and felt it would be fixed once we added in sound. As a whole group, we went through all the scenes filmed on one computer and the Wizard of Oz movie on another computer identifying the timestamps of the sound clips we want to add into the movie. I ripped the audio from the movie and extracted each of the sound clips we wanted and handed them off to Mia. We then worked on Mia's computer to adjust the timing of the video to match up with the audio that we were adding. We met again the day the project was due and added in additional sound effects that we had Andrea record as well as orchestral theme music based off the musical score of the Wizard of Oz to fill in the rest of the video that we had no sounds effects specifically identified for from the movie.
Project 4: Filming
We had a total of 3 days of filming, one at Andrea's apartment for the video recording for Kansas scenes and two at the Digital Art and Animation Studio for the still photography of Oz scenes in the dark.
DAY 1
The first day of filming at Andrea's was done entirely by Andrea and Mia while John, Dan, and myself went to the Blacksburg and Christiansburg RadioShacks to gather all the resources we needed to make the LED shoes. Before we split up, we discussed as a group what we wanted in each transition then Mia and Andrea did a great job making it a reality. Andrea dressed up in a Dorothy costume she had from the Halloween a year before and Mia filmed with the digital video camera. They completed all of the video recordings of Dorothy in Kansas that we needed in around 2 hours since there were no additional sets or dialogue.
DAY 2
The second day of filming was done upstairs at the Digital Art and Animation Studio by the entire group. At this point we had finished creating all of our planned sets and costumes and had all materials that we needed to do the still photography in the dark to show off our world of Oz. Mia took all the photos while the other four of us moved the sets into place for each shot and positioned the characters and lights. Before we actually setup our black backdrop we didn't have a definite idea about how we would position our sets and costumes in frame. We ended up using a mixture of items behind the cardboard to prop them up and people holding items from behind the black backdrop. We also needed two people keeping the black lights in position to get the glow effects to show well on film. We got a lot of scenes finished and discovered that we were missing a few set items that we would prepare for our next day of filming. A lot of the first day was a learning experience.
DAY 3
The third day of filming was also done upstairs at the Digital Art and Animation Studio by the entire group two days after the second day. It was much the same as the second but we had the process of taking photos in the dark and character movement down, the shots we got this day looked a lot better than the shots from the day before and we even redid a few scenes. We had spent the Wednesday in between fixing some sets and costumes. The movement in the shots today was much more fluid and there was less random teleporting in these shots. One issue we continually struggled with through days 2 and 3 of filming was the sensitivity of the circuitry on the LED ruby slippers, mainly the connections to the batteries. We opted out of buying special connectors for the 9 Volt batteries and instead tried to solder the electrical wire directly to the batteries which did not work very well. We finished all filming that day and Mia went home with all of the photos.
DAY 1
The first day of filming at Andrea's was done entirely by Andrea and Mia while John, Dan, and myself went to the Blacksburg and Christiansburg RadioShacks to gather all the resources we needed to make the LED shoes. Before we split up, we discussed as a group what we wanted in each transition then Mia and Andrea did a great job making it a reality. Andrea dressed up in a Dorothy costume she had from the Halloween a year before and Mia filmed with the digital video camera. They completed all of the video recordings of Dorothy in Kansas that we needed in around 2 hours since there were no additional sets or dialogue.
DAY 2
The second day of filming was done upstairs at the Digital Art and Animation Studio by the entire group. At this point we had finished creating all of our planned sets and costumes and had all materials that we needed to do the still photography in the dark to show off our world of Oz. Mia took all the photos while the other four of us moved the sets into place for each shot and positioned the characters and lights. Before we actually setup our black backdrop we didn't have a definite idea about how we would position our sets and costumes in frame. We ended up using a mixture of items behind the cardboard to prop them up and people holding items from behind the black backdrop. We also needed two people keeping the black lights in position to get the glow effects to show well on film. We got a lot of scenes finished and discovered that we were missing a few set items that we would prepare for our next day of filming. A lot of the first day was a learning experience.
DAY 3
The third day of filming was also done upstairs at the Digital Art and Animation Studio by the entire group two days after the second day. It was much the same as the second but we had the process of taking photos in the dark and character movement down, the shots we got this day looked a lot better than the shots from the day before and we even redid a few scenes. We had spent the Wednesday in between fixing some sets and costumes. The movement in the shots today was much more fluid and there was less random teleporting in these shots. One issue we continually struggled with through days 2 and 3 of filming was the sensitivity of the circuitry on the LED ruby slippers, mainly the connections to the batteries. We opted out of buying special connectors for the 9 Volt batteries and instead tried to solder the electrical wire directly to the batteries which did not work very well. We finished all filming that day and Mia went home with all of the photos.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Project 4: Scripts, Sets, and Costumes
We decided to start meeting at Andrea's apartment to design the sets and costumes. Dan, John, and I brought cardboard over and I bought different colors of black light paint and glow in the dark paint as well as a black light. We went over all the scenes we had chosen to include in our film and decided upon the characters and set elements that we needed to create. Andrea stenciled out designs in pencil onto the cardboard for the characters and sets and as a group we painted them. The set elements that weren't painted were done with Christmas lights which required no preparation, both I and Mia brought in some that we already had. The only costume element that remained to be completed was the LED ruby slippers.
First for the LED ruby slippers I had done research online to determine different prices and shipping times as well as learning how to create LED circuits. Shipping times from most places online were going to take too long and would delay our schedule for finishing the project and they couldn't offer us any personal advice so John and I went to check out the different options offered by RadioShack.
Our first trip to RadioShack John and I talked with two employees about our project and photographed all the different LED's we considered using, noting their prices and specifications as well.
We returned to the group who was painting sets at the time and filled them in on what we learned. No one in our group had real experience with circuitry. I had done a minimal amount of soldering and John, Dan, and I had taken Physics II years ago where we learned concepts of circuitry.
Dan and I drew out a diagram of the circuit on paper and analyzing the shoes we determined that we could only supply 18 Volts of energy since only two 9 Volt batteries would fit on the shoe. We wanted as many LED's as possible on the shoe and the lowest voltage LED's we found were 1.8 Volts. This meant that we could only use 9 LED's which took a total voltage of 16.2 Volts so we could leave a potential drop in voltage for a resistor so the LED's wouldn't blow.
We then used Ohm's Law to determine the resistor we needed to use. We have nine 5mm 1.8 volt 20mA high intensity red LEDs, two 9 volt batteries, a 100 Ohm resistor, and a slide switch circuited in sequence on each shoe. Ohm’s Law states that V=IR where V is voltage in unit Volts(V), I is current in unit Amperes(A), and R is resistance in unit Ohm’s(Ω). To determine which resistor we needed we changed the equation and plugged in the following values:
First for the LED ruby slippers I had done research online to determine different prices and shipping times as well as learning how to create LED circuits. Shipping times from most places online were going to take too long and would delay our schedule for finishing the project and they couldn't offer us any personal advice so John and I went to check out the different options offered by RadioShack.
Our first trip to RadioShack John and I talked with two employees about our project and photographed all the different LED's we considered using, noting their prices and specifications as well.
We returned to the group who was painting sets at the time and filled them in on what we learned. No one in our group had real experience with circuitry. I had done a minimal amount of soldering and John, Dan, and I had taken Physics II years ago where we learned concepts of circuitry.
Dan and I drew out a diagram of the circuit on paper and analyzing the shoes we determined that we could only supply 18 Volts of energy since only two 9 Volt batteries would fit on the shoe. We wanted as many LED's as possible on the shoe and the lowest voltage LED's we found were 1.8 Volts. This meant that we could only use 9 LED's which took a total voltage of 16.2 Volts so we could leave a potential drop in voltage for a resistor so the LED's wouldn't blow.
We then used Ohm's Law to determine the resistor we needed to use. We have nine 5mm 1.8 volt 20mA high intensity red LEDs, two 9 volt batteries, a 100 Ohm resistor, and a slide switch circuited in sequence on each shoe. Ohm’s Law states that V=IR where V is voltage in unit Volts(V), I is current in unit Amperes(A), and R is resistance in unit Ohm’s(Ω). To determine which resistor we needed we changed the equation and plugged in the following values:
V=IR
=> R = V/I
=> R = (2*9V – 9*1.8V)/20mA
=> R = (18V – 16.2V)/20mA
=> R = 1.8V/0.02A
=> R = 90 V/A
=> R = 90 Ω
A 100 Ω resistor is the closest value and it does not need to be too precise. Also note that V in this equation is the potential drop between the voltages of the batteries and the LED’s (2*9V – 9*1.8V=1.8V).
We attached the LED’s to the shoes through the holes in the sequins and soldered red electrical wire to create the sequential circuit. We duct taped the batteries to the base of the shoes to hold them in place.
Project 4: Planning
This class we began looking at the different steps we had to complete for a successful project and planned how we would accomplish them. We would need to come up with a script and identify all characters and set elements that we wanted to design. We determined what materials we would need for set and costume design, different colors of black light paint, black lights, cardboard to paint on, black felt, and Christmas lights. We needed to rent a video camera to film the scenes in Kansas and we planned to use Mia's digital camera to take the still pictures in the dark.
We really didn't know precisely how we wanted to do the filming in the dark but we did some test shots with both the video camera and still digital camera in the dark with a small light to see how they would work. We checked and found that we could get the room upstairs in DAAS to incredibly low light levels so we decided to use that location to film our in-the-dark scenes. For the Kansas scenes we decided to film in Andrea's apartment where we often had our group meetings.
After we would complete the filming, we knew that we would need to do a lot of film editing to compile all of our motion and still shots together. We also didn't want to worry about sound while filming so all cohesiveness and context to the story would be added through post production sound editing.
The final part of our planning was how we would exhibit our short film in the art show. We wanted to show our video on a wall using a projector and we planned to display different set and costume elements for viewers to look at so they could see the difference between what we worked with and what they were watching on screen.
We really didn't know precisely how we wanted to do the filming in the dark but we did some test shots with both the video camera and still digital camera in the dark with a small light to see how they would work. We checked and found that we could get the room upstairs in DAAS to incredibly low light levels so we decided to use that location to film our in-the-dark scenes. For the Kansas scenes we decided to film in Andrea's apartment where we often had our group meetings.
After we would complete the filming, we knew that we would need to do a lot of film editing to compile all of our motion and still shots together. We also didn't want to worry about sound while filming so all cohesiveness and context to the story would be added through post production sound editing.
The final part of our planning was how we would exhibit our short film in the art show. We wanted to show our video on a wall using a projector and we planned to display different set and costume elements for viewers to look at so they could see the difference between what we worked with and what they were watching on screen.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Poster Presentation
As a project milestone to demonstrate the progress that we made and to get feedback from the class on our project, we were assigned to create a poster. The poster would also be used as a promotional item for our exhibit.
Together we all came up with a general design for the poster, Andrea created the poster in Photoshop and I was assigned the task of writing up our work progress and future plans. Andrea spent a lot of time creating the visual design and effects for the poster. We even included a film strip along the bottom showing the visuals of what would happen each day along with the sticky note detailing each scene to be included on that day.
We were all unsure of what should be on the poster as we felt we had received mixed/unclear instructions. We were told it was supposed to be presentable at a conference which often means there will be a good amount of text on it. When we presented our poster to the class, we were then told there should be just about no text. We then reworked the poster design to include very little text and instead prominently display the film strip that Andrea had designed.
Together we all came up with a general design for the poster, Andrea created the poster in Photoshop and I was assigned the task of writing up our work progress and future plans. Andrea spent a lot of time creating the visual design and effects for the poster. We even included a film strip along the bottom showing the visuals of what would happen each day along with the sticky note detailing each scene to be included on that day.
We were all unsure of what should be on the poster as we felt we had received mixed/unclear instructions. We were told it was supposed to be presentable at a conference which often means there will be a good amount of text on it. When we presented our poster to the class, we were then told there should be just about no text. We then reworked the poster design to include very little text and instead prominently display the film strip that Andrea had designed.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Project 4: Brainstorming
We spent some time in class brainstorming what we actually wanted to do for the project. We all liked the idea of LED's, but weren't sure we wanted to do a performance piece after the poor results of a performance piece that Andrea and I had done for the first project. We did talk about a live performance where we would arrange ourselves into different stills with LED's on our clothing lit up to display consecutive images to the audience. We then shifted our idea towards a prerecorded piece to get rid of some of the risk of a live performance.
One nice element of our group was that we were all friends with each other and so while we worked a lot, we would also talk about what we did in our lives and let that inspire our work. We decided we wanted to tell a story and we knew that we wanted to stick with the concept of light in the darkness. We started talking about stories that we knew and that our audience would know. We began by discussing fairytales then moved on to discussing movies. Andrea mentioned that the Wizard of Oz was her favorite movie and we felt it would work well because it is a timeless classic that sparked the change from black and white to color cinema and just about everyone in our culture is familiar with the story.
Although we all liked the Wizard of Oz idea, we felt that we needed to do something new with it, not just show it with lights in the dark. Andrea began talking about the movie Memento that she had been watching the night before. We all loved how the the story wasn't told in a linear order, but rather in reverse. We wanted to tell the story of Wizard of Oz like Memento was told, so we thought about how we could tell the story in reverse. One idea was to film it normally and simply play the entire video backwards but we wanted to stay more true to the Memento inspiration. We had the idea that Dorothy could dream and visit the world of Oz over different nights of sleep and we could split the story so that a small section is told is each night. We could then arrange the dream sequences that she has each night to be in reverse order like in Memento. In between the dream sequences we could return to Dorothy waking up from her dreams in Kansas.
The group as a whole appreciated that in the original Wizard of Oz the scenes in Kansas were filmed in sepia while the scenes in Oz were filmed in full color and we wanted to carry that effect into our film. When Dorothy is in Kansas we plan to film her with a video camera and use a sepia filter while in the world of Oz we plan to film using still digital photos in full color. We felt the still digital photos would work better in the world of Oz because we would have more control over the sensitive lighting.
One issue that we knew we had to address was the creation of the LED's for the movie sets, costumes, etc. We began to do research on the cost of LED's and assembly time and quickly learned that it would be far beyond what we could spend to create the entire movie in LED's. Additionally set/costume design alone would have taken more than the entire semester. We instead opted to look into using multiple different non-traditional light sources. Some ideas that we came up with were glow-in-the-dark paint, black light paint, and pre-assembled LED's like Christmas lights. This would drastically cut down on assembly/design time as well as keeping the project within our budget.
Another day we met up and put each key scene in the movie on a sticky note and stuck a large sheet of paper for each night onto a bench. As a group, we then stuck the sticky notes onto the sheet of paper for the night we felt it would fit best. After some time, we had decided which night each important scene in the movie should take place on.
One nice element of our group was that we were all friends with each other and so while we worked a lot, we would also talk about what we did in our lives and let that inspire our work. We decided we wanted to tell a story and we knew that we wanted to stick with the concept of light in the darkness. We started talking about stories that we knew and that our audience would know. We began by discussing fairytales then moved on to discussing movies. Andrea mentioned that the Wizard of Oz was her favorite movie and we felt it would work well because it is a timeless classic that sparked the change from black and white to color cinema and just about everyone in our culture is familiar with the story.
Although we all liked the Wizard of Oz idea, we felt that we needed to do something new with it, not just show it with lights in the dark. Andrea began talking about the movie Memento that she had been watching the night before. We all loved how the the story wasn't told in a linear order, but rather in reverse. We wanted to tell the story of Wizard of Oz like Memento was told, so we thought about how we could tell the story in reverse. One idea was to film it normally and simply play the entire video backwards but we wanted to stay more true to the Memento inspiration. We had the idea that Dorothy could dream and visit the world of Oz over different nights of sleep and we could split the story so that a small section is told is each night. We could then arrange the dream sequences that she has each night to be in reverse order like in Memento. In between the dream sequences we could return to Dorothy waking up from her dreams in Kansas.
The group as a whole appreciated that in the original Wizard of Oz the scenes in Kansas were filmed in sepia while the scenes in Oz were filmed in full color and we wanted to carry that effect into our film. When Dorothy is in Kansas we plan to film her with a video camera and use a sepia filter while in the world of Oz we plan to film using still digital photos in full color. We felt the still digital photos would work better in the world of Oz because we would have more control over the sensitive lighting.
One issue that we knew we had to address was the creation of the LED's for the movie sets, costumes, etc. We began to do research on the cost of LED's and assembly time and quickly learned that it would be far beyond what we could spend to create the entire movie in LED's. Additionally set/costume design alone would have taken more than the entire semester. We instead opted to look into using multiple different non-traditional light sources. Some ideas that we came up with were glow-in-the-dark paint, black light paint, and pre-assembled LED's like Christmas lights. This would drastically cut down on assembly/design time as well as keeping the project within our budget.
Another day we met up and put each key scene in the movie on a sticky note and stuck a large sheet of paper for each night onto a bench. As a group, we then stuck the sticky notes onto the sheet of paper for the night we felt it would fit best. After some time, we had decided which night each important scene in the movie should take place on.
Project 4: Choosing Projects
We had all submitted ideas online about what we would be interested in doing for the final project of the semester and in class today we voted to see which 4 projects would be made and who would be in each group. The idea I submitted was to create an augmented reality application for mobile devices that utilizes their built-in GPS and cameras. This would have been a very ambitious and cool project but ultimately I knew it wouldn't get chosen by any other people due to the amount of time and work that would need to be invested in it. I have always found lighting effects in the dark to be fascinating so I joined up for the project that was supposed to create a choreographed event using LED lights. I was in the gorup along with John Peacock, Andrea Lopiano, Mia Cuneo, and Dan Shanahan. I think we all just wanted to be in a group with people who we knew, liked, and knew would invest the time and work necessary to complete the project not at the last minute.
Project 3: Presentation
Today we finally presented our All Senses but Sight project. We decided to try to impart the experience of the different seasons to individuals through sound, smell, taste, and touch.
Winter:
-Taste: Gingerbread cookies
-Sound: Christmas bells
-Touch: Ice
-Smell: Evergreen spray
Spring:
-Taste: Peeps
-Sound: Birds chirping
-Touch: Grass
-Smell: Floral spray
Summer:
-Taste: Watermelon
-Sound: Waves
-Touch: Sand
-Smell: Sunscreen
Fall:
-Taste: Pumpkin
-Sound: Football chant "Lets Go Hokies!"
-Touch: Leaves
-Smell: Spices
We also used heaters and fans to simulate the temperatures of the different seasons. We showed up an hour before class to setup our exhibit upstairs in the DAAS. Although we had reserved that spot, another group went before us there so we had to wait until they were finished with theirs to set up. The first exhibit had people get blindfolded in blindfolds that smell like smoke, and they were walked over a sleeping bag to sit around a circle emanating heat. Each person was handed a stick with a marshmallow on the end which they put out over the "fire" and when they pulled the marshmallow down it was hot. I found that exhibit to be very immersive and I thought they did a great job.
I wasn't able to participate in the other exhibits because we spent time setting up ours in place of where the campfire exhibit was. We got our exhibit set up and our plan was to lead people 1 by 1 blindfolded to the 4 different stations. We had 1 person at each season station and 1 person controlling the flow of people into the room. Since we let people through 1 at a time it was taking a long time so not everyone got to experience the exhibit blindfolded. I thought our project went very well and I was happy with the end result.
Winter:
-Taste: Gingerbread cookies
-Sound: Christmas bells
-Touch: Ice
-Smell: Evergreen spray
Spring:
-Taste: Peeps
-Sound: Birds chirping
-Touch: Grass
-Smell: Floral spray
Summer:
-Taste: Watermelon
-Sound: Waves
-Touch: Sand
-Smell: Sunscreen
Fall:
-Taste: Pumpkin
-Sound: Football chant "Lets Go Hokies!"
-Touch: Leaves
-Smell: Spices
We also used heaters and fans to simulate the temperatures of the different seasons. We showed up an hour before class to setup our exhibit upstairs in the DAAS. Although we had reserved that spot, another group went before us there so we had to wait until they were finished with theirs to set up. The first exhibit had people get blindfolded in blindfolds that smell like smoke, and they were walked over a sleeping bag to sit around a circle emanating heat. Each person was handed a stick with a marshmallow on the end which they put out over the "fire" and when they pulled the marshmallow down it was hot. I found that exhibit to be very immersive and I thought they did a great job.
I wasn't able to participate in the other exhibits because we spent time setting up ours in place of where the campfire exhibit was. We got our exhibit set up and our plan was to lead people 1 by 1 blindfolded to the 4 different stations. We had 1 person at each season station and 1 person controlling the flow of people into the room. Since we let people through 1 at a time it was taking a long time so not everyone got to experience the exhibit blindfolded. I thought our project went very well and I was happy with the end result.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Project 3: Brainstorming
We were assigned our third project this last class, "All Senses but Sight".
In assigned groups, you will develop a project that involves all the senses EXCEPT sight. You should brainstorm all the human experiences that we call “senses”. The project will probably be a kind of performance or time-based experience, and will therefore need a thoughtful sequencing. This should communicate an idea; your audience should “get something” from the experience. All of this takes planning and rehearsal. It may also take technology.
After eventually finding our groups we began brainstorming some ideas for the project. Almost immediately an idea was mentioned that the whole group was in support of. We wanted to express the four seasons as an experience for the class. We began talking about all the different ways we could do this for each of the non-sight senses:
Sound
-Ambient noise
-Music
Smell
-Nature smells
-Festive scents (candles)
Taste
-Seasonal foods
Touch
-Fans
-Heaters
-Heaters
Project 2: Presentation
We presented our second project for the Hardware Hacks assignment today. After spending the past weekend meeting up many times we had finally finished our glass tornado. Below are two pictures of our project in action...
and a video too...
and a video too...
I felt that this second project went much better than my first project and presentation. This time my group focused more on creating art and leaving the interpretation up to the audience as opposed to my first project presentation where we tried to convey a very distinct message to the audience (which I think we ultimately failed at doing). This project, even if the audience takes no message away from it, they saw a fun looking device demonstrating the goal of hardware hacking from this assignment.
Project 2: Brainstorming and Construction
Project 2 was assigned to us this Tuesday and it is due to be presented next Tuesday. The assignment is shown below:
We checked whether anyone in the group had any hardware laying around their apartments that we could use but no one seemed to have any. Andrea (the art student) did have a lot of tools and items like a hot glue gun that we were able to use. We figured that we couldn't really come up with an idea for a project without knowing what materials we will be able to work with so we decided to check what hardware was available at Goodwill and brainstorm ideas while there.
The next day (Wednesday) we went to Christiansburg and while at Goodwill we found a light-up display case for electronic flowers. We thought it would be cool to utilize the display case and enhance the lighting to display a scene inside the display case.
One idea we had was to remove the existing flowers from the case and to replace them with flowers we made out of glass. We then thought of showing something other than just flowers and the idea came to us to show a tornado. We purchased the display case and glass cups from Goodwill and shopped around for a small device with a motor that we could use to make the tornado spin. We eventually found a childrens toy at Wal-Mart and added it to our supplies.
We met again on Thursday during class to begin work on the construction of our project. We managed to completely disassemble the display case and childrens toy, and smash up a lot of glass to use for the tornado.
We met again on Sunday to rebuild the electronics inside of the display case and to create an internal structure. This involved a lot of soddering and gluing. It was very difficult to hold the motor in place while it was on but we eventually devised a structure using extra exacto-knife blades and hot glue to hold it still. Then finally on Monday we met for the last time to construct the glass tornado on top of the motor. We finished that evening and were ready to present the next day.
Project 2 Houseware / Hardware Hack or Circuit BendingOur group first brainstormed about the different skills that we had that we could apply to this project. Between our group we had 3 CS majors and an Art major. None of us had any real experience working with hardware or circuitry but I did know how to sodder and understood how circuits should work from physics courses.
Hardware hacking can consist of either making new hardware, or simply modifying old hardware. Circuit bending is, to creatively short-circuit devices such as, low voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children’s toys and small synthesizers, to create new musical instruments and sound generators.
We checked whether anyone in the group had any hardware laying around their apartments that we could use but no one seemed to have any. Andrea (the art student) did have a lot of tools and items like a hot glue gun that we were able to use. We figured that we couldn't really come up with an idea for a project without knowing what materials we will be able to work with so we decided to check what hardware was available at Goodwill and brainstorm ideas while there.
The next day (Wednesday) we went to Christiansburg and while at Goodwill we found a light-up display case for electronic flowers. We thought it would be cool to utilize the display case and enhance the lighting to display a scene inside the display case.
One idea we had was to remove the existing flowers from the case and to replace them with flowers we made out of glass. We then thought of showing something other than just flowers and the idea came to us to show a tornado. We purchased the display case and glass cups from Goodwill and shopped around for a small device with a motor that we could use to make the tornado spin. We eventually found a childrens toy at Wal-Mart and added it to our supplies.
We met again on Thursday during class to begin work on the construction of our project. We managed to completely disassemble the display case and childrens toy, and smash up a lot of glass to use for the tornado.
We met again on Sunday to rebuild the electronics inside of the display case and to create an internal structure. This involved a lot of soddering and gluing. It was very difficult to hold the motor in place while it was on but we eventually devised a structure using extra exacto-knife blades and hot glue to hold it still. Then finally on Monday we met for the last time to construct the glass tornado on top of the motor. We finished that evening and were ready to present the next day.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Project 1: Presentations
Today we presented our first project to the class. We had all the materials ready and prepared in advance and had all the lines and activity for the skit practiced, but we had never actually done a full practice run. Since we had never actually run through the full performance beforehand, we didn't know how certain elements would work such as having group members within the audience. In hindsight it would have been good to have practiced with an audience beforehand to get a sense of how it would work and to ensure the whole skit went smoothly. We didn't receive a positive reaction from the class nor professors and if we had run through with an audience beforehand we might have been able to make necessary adjustments so the audience would enjoy it more and understand the message we were trying to convey.
Between all projects I felt like groups emphasized different goals. Some groups aimed to convey a distinct message (some succeeded and some failed) and build their projects around that while others had a cool project that they tried to add a narrative to.
I found some of the other groups presentations very interesting. In particular there was one which displayed Twitter messages real time. The idea of displaying Twitter messages was okay by itself and it had a very nice presentation, but what made the exhibit special was that it was taking actual Twitter messages being posted at that time and displaying them. I know it made me and others think of ways this exhibit could be modified and used for non-art applications.
Between all projects I felt like groups emphasized different goals. Some groups aimed to convey a distinct message (some succeeded and some failed) and build their projects around that while others had a cool project that they tried to add a narrative to.
I found some of the other groups presentations very interesting. In particular there was one which displayed Twitter messages real time. The idea of displaying Twitter messages was okay by itself and it had a very nice presentation, but what made the exhibit special was that it was taking actual Twitter messages being posted at that time and displaying them. I know it made me and others think of ways this exhibit could be modified and used for non-art applications.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Poetry Lecture
This last class was a Tuesday lecture which focused on understanding what makes a form of art good or bad. This spurned a confused reaction in me as I see art as being completely objective to the viewer, what some love, others will hate. We began by splitting up into our project groups and looking at different forms of cyber-poetry then finding an example that we liked and an example that we disliked. As our group went through many different examples, we were able to identify different characteristics that we either appreciated or disliked. A large portion of cyber-poetry that we found were either poetry generators (http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/PoemGen/PoemGen.htm or http://www.poemofquotes.com/tools/poetry-generator.php) or hyper-poetry (http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Hyper-Poetry/fireflies.html or https://www.msu.edu/~corcora5/hyper/Storm/storm.html). We had no trouble at all finding poetry that we didn't like, and honestly were unable to find any that we did like. Sure, if we deeply analyze some we can find some characteristics that are interesting, but the poetry itself is still completely unenjoyable.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Project 1: Design Formulation
This Thursday was the first time our complete group has met together, as well as being the first time we met downtown in the Digital Art Studio. We began by doing a complete review of our previous ideas, identifying the positives and negatives of each, and looking more closely at what general theme we wanted to focus on. In this process we also began coming up with new ideas and one in particular really hit with us all. We wanted to demonstrate the information overload that many people encounter with the use of modern computer technology. Our initial idea was with just social networking but this soon expanded to include emails, music, advertisements, videos, and cell phones.
We decided we wanted to display to the audience the difference between someone working using modern technology (computers) vs. someone working using traditional technology (pen/paper). We would accomplish this by having two group members in front of the class facing the audience, one on a laptop, one writing with a pen. While they are working on writing a paper, what they see is being display on a projector behind each of them. At the end of the performance, the person using traditional technology would have their paper written and the person using the computer would have experienced a deluge of distractions and would have made no progress. We realized to accomplish the effect we desired, the projection of the person working with the computer would have to be prerecorded and we would need a well scripted event. We began writing a script and below is what we have come up with thus far (notes/scripting):
We decided we wanted to display to the audience the difference between someone working using modern technology (computers) vs. someone working using traditional technology (pen/paper). We would accomplish this by having two group members in front of the class facing the audience, one on a laptop, one writing with a pen. While they are working on writing a paper, what they see is being display on a projector behind each of them. At the end of the performance, the person using traditional technology would have their paper written and the person using the computer would have experienced a deluge of distractions and would have made no progress. We realized to accomplish the effect we desired, the projection of the person working with the computer would have to be prerecorded and we would need a well scripted event. We began writing a script and below is what we have come up with thus far (notes/scripting):
-phone call during performance
-phone call during performance
-other group members in the audience provide more distractions
distractions:
1. facebook
2. popups(netflix, penis enlargement, find classmates,...)
3. cell phone call
4. instant messages
Person on Comp
---------------
1. start word
2. type date name and topic
3. email notification
4. email leads to friend request on FB
5. friend details
6. FB IM saying "check out this link"
7. watch the vid on yt (dramatic groundhog?)
8. another FB IM (the onion) comes in and the link is full of popups
9. time for popups
10. cell phone call from classmate
person in class: "wassup?
presenter: "i'm in class chilin, you?"
PIC: "i'm actually supposed to be writing a paper, gotta go"
11. conclusion: starts closing everything and goes back to a blank screen
Person hand writing
-------------
1. writes date time and topic
2. writes paper
3. when finished, closes notebook and walks out
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Project 1: Brainstorming Ideas
Yesterday was our first real day in class with our group to work on our first assigned project titled "Projection; What is Cyber Art?" Our group was merged with another so the group currently consists of myself (a Computer Science major), an Industrial Design major, and two Art majors. We spent the last hour of class presenting concepts and ideas that we had been thinking about individually to the group then brainstorming for new ideas as a group.
There are very few bounds assigned to this project which allowed us to get very creative with our ideas. Below are the two project guidelines we were given:
Various phones in either relationships, or hooking up.
There are very few bounds assigned to this project which allowed us to get very creative with our ideas. Below are the two project guidelines we were given:
- consider, discuss and make art, that questions the social, cultural, political, and aesthetic impact of the computer
- the resulting artwork must be projected in some way or you may consider the projection process itself
Various phones in either relationships, or hooking up.
- The texting is read aloud by the voice of the phone carrier
- Commentary on all communication through devices, we pay them more love than people we know
Live Action Video piece about the "difference" humanitarian effort through social networks, online petitions, and twitter
-People think they are making a difference by clicking buttons
-People really make a difference when they rally (reference the gay march for rights in DC, the Tea Baggers, and the actual protests in Iran)
-Examples of Useless Online Organization:
Question of awareness?
Various electronic plug interaction implying gender and sexual interactions
Devices constricted by their own projection/ implied symbolism of our slave to over abundance of information
-5 people in a circle interaction solely through computer/ or holding up screens for projectors of what they are saying.
-Chat room anonymity: When chatting in a room you only get one persons messages?
How computers change our view of information/entities
-a projector shining light onto multiple objects stacked together to form a shape. The silhouette of the objects land on a screen which is viewed from the other side by viewers. The viewers think they know what they are seeing but the screen is hiding what the silhouette truly consists of.Intro
I just set up this blog to keep track of my work, ideas, and progress over the course of this Spring 2010 semester in CS4984: CyberArt here at Virginia Tech. I'll be making posts about whats going on during the 5 group projects I'll be working on:
- Project 1: Projection; What is Cyber Art?
- Project 2: Houseware / Hardware Hack
- Project 3: All Senses But Sight
- Project 4: Cyber Art Installation Project Poster
- Project 5: Cyber Art Installation
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