I´m born into a house with no computer

Week 1 Assignment:
Make a “thing” that communicates what you are interested exploring in this class.

Response:
I´m interested in exploring social interactions in Public Spaces. ( main interest at ITP)

Keywords:
People + Interaction + Public Spaces = an object

This is tough!! My head is hearting me --- too much thinking the last days ---- anyone knows where is the switch ?

I start with some ideas but I was missing one of the key points of the assignment: Public Space. I was trying to explore the idea of making the invisible, visible. How can we represent through an object the connections between people and how can we measure/quantify that connection?
I came out with some interesting ideas that I can develop later, i guess.

So I went back to the beginning and start thinking that the " function " of this object that we will "use" in Public Spaces, is make people interact/ communicate
People <--> object && People <-- object-- > People

I thought in simple forms, like rectangles, squares, balls as a starting point in define the object. Something to be for example in a park, static or in movement, that require multiple interaction, input from people to breathe and live

Meanwhile, i remember one project i saw sometime ago, that was a wall made of wood with embedded sounds and that required that the "user" to get closed to the wall to ear the sound. I think it was in London..i don´t remember quite well... but it make me think about using sounds within the object.

Since my idea is to create something low tech and with sound, one idea is to use the participant's voice as the input. They can sing, yell, talk, speak. So people create sounds ( need somehow a place for input) and people listen to the sounds created by the others participants (place for output)

Idea:
The Ball of Sounds is an object that lives in public spaces that needs simultaneous human voice input to "live". It works as communication device and it aims to encourage social interaction in public spaces. The Ball is reacting to the input of the participants, inflating and deflating based on the amount of input from the participants. If you don’t use it, he will die/fall and if people make him happy he ´ll become bigger and happier.

Object
An inflate transparent ball with a labyrinth of tubes inside. The idea is to have at least
10 to 12 tubes and having some tubes that work as input and others that work as output of the sounds created. Some of the tubes will be connected together, making the different sounds mix together. The idea of using a transparent ball is to bring some kind of visibility to the project. You can see the different participants and their location but at the same time, since there is a labyrinth of tubes, you don't know to who you are talking.

How to do it ?
A) Create the inflate ball, using the instructions kindly gave by that Huong Ngo, an artist based in NY that created the Pop-Up Studios based in inflated structures.

B) Find a malleable material to build the labyrinth. I though on one way to make it and I have to build the structure..i guess

C) Think in a system for the grown of the ball.

D) Hope it will works...at least i not going to crash (hihihih)

Problems:

Wind: maybe the object will fly...
Sound of the generator/fan that makes him live
Find a material that can inflates and grow/swell
Find a material to make the tubes

Find the right material to create the prototype :

So I spend yesterday running from one store to other, trying to figure out how I can build this object.
I was thinking of using plastic bags to create the inflate ball ( reusing materials) but I decided to change and use a ball already made, like a beach ball to create this prototype. I went to Canal Plastics and bought 2 half transparent circles made of plastic that was ideal to build this prototype since I had to put the labyrinth of tubes inside the ball.

To create the labyrinth, I bought plastic cables that is used to protect wires and with sculpture wire inside I shaped them to create the desire effect of a labyrinth.

One of the most difficult part was to decide how to create the holes on the plastic ball, in order to create the inputs and outputs and also to put each individual tube out of the ball. First I thought in using the drill but I decided to try using the solder iron to "burn" the plastic and this way create a hole. Yes...the soldering iron is dead..maybe i can use it again to burn something else..but it worked perfect to create the holes.

Here is the result of this experiment:

The first thought, as a graphic designer, that came after class where we talked about modularity was about modular typefaces. So I though about playing with shapes for my assignment, but I didn’t had time to explore this idea. But here are some interesting ideas related to this theme

Modular Type/ Pixel Fonts

Max Kisman

Toypography
"Fragments of letters, that can be put together to either form English or Japanese letters and characters. The thing about Toypography is, that Japanese expressions can be transformed into English expressions of the same meaning"

Modular Tape

For this assignment, I decided to go back to the first project and use the object I created as my module. This object (ball) will function as a module for a system of connected balls .

The idea is to have two or more connected balls that allow “conversations” between the participants of different balls. Like a multi-user environment, where each module is, at the same time, sending to and receiving information from others modules.
If each module alone is reacting to the input of the participants, inflating and deflating based on the amount of input from the participants. When the same module is connected to the system, to other modules, how is the interacting btw them? A question for later.
So it’s like a system (one ball) inside another system (multi balls connected), with interactions at different levels.

My first idea was to create a system of connected modules that are physical connected by a tube, like the tubes that are inside each module but bigger and longer. Each module will function as a sender and receiver, creating a multi-user collaborative environment of sounds, words or music and connecting the different participants.
( an idea: have speaker around the area in the park that output that collaborative work ( even if it only conversations)

The idea of communication at a distance always was an ambition of man and society. With the telegraph and the telephone, the relation btw time and space changed forever and opened the possibility of sending messages “ without body”, as Claudia Giannetti says in her essay “ Ars Telematic: Telecommunication, Internet and Cyberspace”.
This idea of communication at a distance and the way artists in the twenty-century worked with emergent technologies for communication or connecting remotely always seduced me.
The experiments in the late 70´s, when artists started to work with network systems to create live performances creating a real time virtual space, were an important attempt to collapsed geographic boundaries and explore connectivity.

Examples of works:

Kit Galloway
Hole-In-Space: A Public Communication Sculpture

"A three-day, life-size, unannounced, live satellite link allowing spontaneous interaction between the public on two coasts Video cameras and rear projection screens were installed in display windows at Lincoln Center for the Performance Arts in New York and The Broadway department store, Century City, Los Angeles Each screen displayed life-size, full-figure images of people on the opposite coasts There were no signs or instructions Passers-by drawn to the windows discovered an open channel through which they could see, hear and talk with people on the other coast almost as if they were standing on the same street corner Pictured A woman on screen from New York City leans forward to visit with silhouetted people in Los Angeles"

Eduardo Kac
Interfaces

"Interfaces was a live exchange conceived and organized by Eduardo Kac which took place on December 10, 1990, between a group of artists in Chicago and another group in the Center For Creative Inquiry, at the Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh. This piece dynamically explored the formation and dissolution of identities online. It was experienced projected on a large screen in the auditorium of the The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

"Interfaces" established a visual dialogue between the participants in a way that was purposefully similar to a verbal exchange between two people -- bringing the improvised and spontaneous feed-back loop of a personal conversation to the realm of video. This "visual conversation" explored the characteristic top-to-bottom, vertical rendering of slow-scan TV (SSTV), to produce unexpected faces in real time.

Participants in Chicago were not aware of the exact images that would be transmitted by the Pittsburgh group and vice-versa. This unpredictable situation added an element of surprise to the process. As images overlapped on the screen, parts of a face (from Pittsburgh, for example) were slowly scanned over another face (previously sent by the Chicago group). Successive faces were created in the virtual space of the screen as the performance progressed.

The concept of Telepresence, communication over distance, can be today faced as an old concept and we forgot that the Internet is a big Telepresence environment that allows us to be present all over the world in multiple contexts.

My idea is to base my approach in these ideas and concepts, exploring connectivity and collaboration btw # physical spaces. Instead of creating a system of two or more modules in the same location and having them physical connected through tubes, each module is in a different location, maybe another country (exploring different languages and the misunderstanding of language).

Each module has a group of 3 tubes that are connected. Two of them are physically closer in the module, one is the input and the other the output and both are connected to a third one (output) that is on the opposite side of the ball
The input tube will work as the sender to the remote module, the closer output tube will be the receiver of the other module and the third output tube will be receiving both, outputting the conversation btw two modules.

For this assignment I have to think , in relation with the system that I purpose in the previous assignment, how each module is connected to the other and also how the system work in each module. Since inside each module, there is a kind of labyrinth of tubes, how can I create connectors that easily allow me to connect and disconnect individual tubes?

I thought about using connectors that are used in the normal tubing system. A T-joint where I can connect 3 tubes or a 4 joint where 4 tubes can be connect.

An ideia of what can be used to hold the tubes to the inflated module:

This pieces can be made of metal or plastic and they must be also connected to the tubes.

Another thing that I also have to think is the technology involve to send data from one module to the other module. I can use a cell phone inside the module to send the information to the other module or a wireless connection that send data from one module to a computer and then send it to another computer that, again, sends the data to the other module.

As a conclusion of this project, I think that the idea of using the ball as a module of a collaborative environment and having 2 or more modules connected will work better if we think that it will happen as a performance, prepared to happen once. And having just one ball, like the initial idea ( assignment one), as an object that can be installed in a park for some weeks.

This week we worked in groups. The assignment was to create a network and in our first meeting we talk about the concept of network and the idea around it. We start thinking in making a network with sounds and thinking about the idea of a bad, disturb network -- is it still considered a network ?
We decided to move based in this idea and thinking about how to build a networks of sounds in the class. Computers? Laptops? The idea of having something more physical and analog pushed us further and we decided to advanced with the idea of people plugging in and out sound cables to connect/ disconnect from the network.

As a final idea, we build a network of sounds where each participant act as a node of the network. Each node as a particular role :
- Pod: node with music as input. Also can receive another input from another pod. Have one output. It can be connected to another pod, to the mixer or to the speaker;
- Mixer: node with control of decision - can mix two inputs and can connect to the speaker;
- Speaker: acts as the output of the network and can control the volume of the sound

The network is open to all kinds of connections btw the different nodes and is up to the participants to engage in this network, understand the rules through the process and collaborate to create a sound network. They way the connections are made, change the output of the sound, since sounds are been mixed according to that connections

We created 8 boxes made of clear plastic that the participants can put somewhere in their bodies with an elastic strap ( we like to use them around the head). We decided to have 5 pod's ( to create a variation in sounds), 1 mixer and two speakers. The sounds were made by Ithai ( great work)

some photos of the process:

testing:

some photos of the experience in class:

photos of the group:

Kate, Petra, Alex, Ithai, Thomas

It was a very good experience working with this group of people. We were connected from the beginning and very open to the ideas of everyone.
Thanks, guys for this pleasant experience!

What is energy?

Maybe is a vague concept, maybe the concept differs from area to area, from person to person.
I like the idea of thinking of energy of something that is constantly being transformed, mutable and that has different physical manifestations. I like the fact that we can see it, we can touch it and feeling it but at the same time it is such an abstract concept.

For me energy is something that somehow has to related to light and water.
Light because of the sun. The amount of light in our everyday life completely influences my energy, my mood, and my relation to the world around. Water because of my relation with sea and the necessity of being close to it. I need to feel water around me to be somehow connected to the world and maybe because I grow up near the sea and in a very warm city in the south of Portugal, I have this special connection and when I am on a beach I feel completely renovate and full of energy. My first dip (dive) every new year is for me a kind of ritual, when I see by body and myself renovate, ready for a new year. For me is like the first day of the year, so completely changes my notion of time, days and years.
Also, I see energy very related to the way I am connected to people and friends. I feel the necessity to be around people, to share my energy with them, to give and to receive energy. I think that is very important in my life and that changes a lot my energies. ( just some personal ideas to what is energy to me)

Despina mentioned that last year, in this assignment, a student created a necklace that used lemon and cooper to build a battery.
My curiosity was so big that when I arrived home, i decide to search online about it and I discovered that is also possible to create a battery not only with lemon but also with vinegar, with a potato and with the human body.

My first idea was to try to create an object/ light that needed multiple people to light up
I was interested in working with light and also with people. After searching how to create a human battery, I had the idea of creating an object that changes behavior according to the number of people that are connected to it ( every person act as a battery). Maybe doing a lamp with a table, I don't know... but the idea of having this kind of experience to see how many people need to be connected to light up a bulb, attracted me.

I tested a little bit with a multimeter to see how many volts one person and two person can create alone and together. It was just a little, around 0,03 or 0.06 volts. Maybe I'll do this experience later but because now I'm having so many assignments for this week, that I don't have time to develop this idea.

Since I started this class that I wanted to explore electronics with jewelry/accessories.
I had order some solar cells. They arrived this week and I decided to explore them, learn how to use them to create energy to build a necklace with light ( using led's)
From the previous description of what energy is for me, I decided to explore the concept of light and put the other two on the side ( water and people).
On the other hand, I thought that doing something for me and starting to use electronics ( breaking the fear) was a way to give me energy ( and i need lot) by learning and exploring new things.

The experience was great! I learned that isn't in one day that we learn how to work with delicate things, such solar cells. I have to say that I though that was much easier and even if I didn't manage to finish the necklace, I did the circuit working on the breadboard and I did a prototype of the necklace at least to people see the effect that I wanted to produce.

And I was happy! Happy because in one day I was able to understand how solar cells work ( thanks Alice for the schematic and information in your blog), built the circuit and built the necklace re-using material that I had at home ( i did some jewelry before).

I will post photos here but I left the camera in my locker, at school.

Isn't easy to keep track of all of what we waste during a week and also is terrifying to be conscious of that. Good assignment!
Here is some things that I tracked:

- Lot's of yogurt cups ( 10)
- Water bottles (6)
- Tissues: i was so sick the last weekend ( lost how may)
- Cigarrets butts: yes...even sick i was still smoking a lot
- Food: I waste a lot, it's true
- Paper: tickets, receipts, drafts, printer...( 12) ( recycle)
- Tea Bags: i have some teas that are just the leaves but other have bags
- Home Coffee grounds : maybe using it for a facial or body mask ( i think it's good)
- Plastic cups and plastic food container when at school (6) (3)
- Paper brown bags ( 4)

I'm not the perfect person in terms of sustainability and waste. I do recycle at home. We have 3 different containers but the NY system of recycling, at least near my home, is very strange. I only can put the garbage twice a week and only Monday is the recycle day. In Lisbon, I has living in a historic neighbor and there they gave garbage bags and different color strips to put in different plastic bags to everyone. It was a very good plan and I have to agree that helped a lot.
Even at ITP, where the term sustainability is so common, I see people not worry at all with the kind of trash they produce and also even, in putting it into the right place.

I think we have to change a lot and change our costumes. This week I tried to close the water in the bath. This is a very bad habit I have that I have to change. I'll try to start using my own water bottle ( i don't no the name) and my mug. In relation with the food I waste, that is a big problem I have, I'll try first stop doing that (not eating everything - well, i have to say that i don't eat anything at all, so I waste a lot) and see to who I can give the food ( like what Eugene did with the homeless).

The idea and concept I've been exploring and developing in this class and through the different assignments, is the idea of creating objects which behavior changes, according to the number of people that are connected to them and that encourages social interaction.

*Even if this didn't happen in the last assignment, it was the present in first idea that I had for it.

This week I worked with Allister ( we talked about working together for some times). I approach him with an idea/concept that was inspired by an amazing movie I saw some years ago called "Yi-Yi" ( in english - " A one and a two") from Edward Yang.

In the Movie, Yang Yang * the young boy that is discovering feelings - love and sexuality, takes pictures of the back of people’s heads to show them what they cannot see. As we can only view what is in front of us, we really only see 50% of the truth. This represents, in my opinion, the movie's philosophy, that there is a second side of every story and that having the perception of that other side reveals new things and it was what remained in my memory in relation with the movie.

So for this week assignment I wanted to explore this and try to create an object that allows people to see their back as a way to create a reflection ( this word fits perfectly here since the movie is all about reflection) about their own perspective in life.

My first idea was to create a necklace made with mirrors that brings the image for our back to the front. When I started working with Allister, we started discussing about this idea and we thought about using cameras instead of mirrors and ended up choosing to create a back harness that could be attached to the body like an accessorie that someone could use in a special occasion. This accessorie consist in a back harness and in a necklace mirror that allow us to see our back neck. What is reflected in the mirror is what is projected in the back harness - we are using a reflecting plastic sheet ( even if this paper creates distortion, it allows to create the desired effect)

We started by doing some sketches and to create a model in paper to adjust and to get the desire effect and dimension

Testing:

The final result:
We asked Yan Yan to model for us for the final Photos ( thanks, Yan Yan ).

Edward Yang died this last summer. In this homage to him, u can take a look in one of the moments of the film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPxfbbGzI-E

I started thinking how can we represent sound as space. My first idea was how could we represent speech as sound but when making some research I found some works that were based in this idea, like this work, Watashi-chan

When we think about visualizing sound today in the digital realm, the first think that came to my mind was the soundwave that, for who work with sound, is very familiar.

I started thinking about sound as space and space as a timeline. In the digital representation of sound, when there is no sound we only see a black thin line that has no sound but time representation. Then that line starts to change according with the sound that that track of music contains and each track have different soundwaves.

I wanted to combine this week theme - space - with the theme for the next class - interactivity. I think that both themes could complement each other and I could develop a solid work. (i think it went to the opposite way but ideas and concepts are still valid for development one day)

So my idea for this week assignment was to create a space that could represent a timeline, a very thin corridor that contains no sound. When the visitor enters the corridor, walking through it he could manipulate that space in order to create sound with his body. The idea is that the visitor function as the playhead of the sound file, walking forward and backward and manipulating the sound file. Another idea that I liked it but it was far more complicated was the idea that using a flexible corridor that could be manipulated by the user and this way as we has walking through the corridor and moving his arms he could draw his own soundwave.

I made a small prototype of the corridor ( no picts) and made some tests in Isadora, trying to simulate how could the visitor manipulates the sound. I enjoyed the experience and the tests, because It made me realize that in order to listen to the sound file with the correct rhythm, the visitor must walk with the a constant "speed" or he could choose only to have fun with manipulating the sound going back and foward.

I has very interesting in trying to develop the second idea, where is the user that creates the sound when walking and manipulating the corridor with the arms ( more open or less open). I had the scheme of the installation prepared, using lights and cameras to track the distance and position of the arms in the corridor but to make the manipulaion of the sound it was very hard and I had to learn MaxMsp to do that and it was impossible to do it in 2 weeks.

Maybe I will have the opportunity to develop this idea in the future.

For the missing assignment, my idea is more conceptual that pratical and again, the themes of space and interactivity are combined.

Portuguese people have a special characteristic, very human indeed but for me very peculiar - we love to complain. We complain about everything that happens with us but we don´t do anything to change. I know that this is a commum characteristic of people but as a Portuguese I think that we exceed a little bit. Maybe living in New York gave me more awareness of this fact and also because I don´t see that happen so much here. People are more relaxed or at least they don´t expose so much their complains to the outside. That it´s also another question that remains but in the end I think that there is different cultural aways to approach and view the world.

But, going back to the assignment, my idea is to design a Complaint bag that listen to all your complains. This way, we can put everything out from inside without having to through that negative energy into someone else. The bag becames a friend that listen to all your complains, a shoulder where you can relieve everything.
As we are talking with the bag, complaining, complaning she starts to change it´s shape ( inflate), like trunks of a tree. When we stop complaining, after a while she go back to it´s normal shape. If you complain to much the trunks started to grow and roll over your body making you prisoner of your own complains.
The Complaint Bag wants to give you awareness that complaining so much about the world, people, normal life only affect yourself and that you have to get ride of it or if not you get trapped.

It´s funny because this idea is inside me for a long time, maybe influenced by the ScreamBody, a work by Kelly Dobson and also because I suffer from complaint as a typical portuguese girl.

The idea is to create a bag that could be inflated and that have different holes, from here the trunks start to grow, as we are complaining. The bag have a microphone.(listening to our voice) and in each hole there is a fan that is activated according with the duration of the complain.

I need to make some drawings in order to turn the idea more clear and also to try to make a prototype to study how can the trunks grow in order to roll around the body.
But I love the idea and the concept because is very related to here I came from.

For this week assignment, Kyveli and I decided to play color pencils shavings. We wanted to play with the delicate aspect of the shavings and see what we could do with them.

We made some experiments mixing the shavings with different kinds of glue to create a flexible transparent surface/material. We could use them to make bracelets or if we had larger surfaces we could a bag or something else. We liked the effect of this surface when exposed to light.

We started thinking about the delicate aspect of the shavings and how we could transform this fragile material into a rigid material, trying to change it's appearance and maintaining the beauty of it.

We started by overlapping layers of shavings with glue to get the desire effect of rigidness and playing with the color of it. The result took a form of a pin/brush.

During the process we took some picture to document this assignment and I really like it since the aesthetics and colors of the shavings were really beautiful

This week I decide to create a prototype of a project that I though doing it as a gift to my mother. In one of the first softness class, Alex presented a concept for a project that explored the idea of an object that could transmit presence over distance for people that are separated or live in different parts of the world. It was nice to have the discussion on the class about this kind of artifacts that can communicate over distance some kind of presence . I liked the idea. Is very hard to have relationships over distance
and sometimes you just want to be there but you can. It is also true, as Despina pointed out, that this kind of objects try to substitute something that is not possible to happen and that normally is an object that at the beginning can be funny or playful but it's lifespan ( find a better way to explain this) is very short - like a toy.

For the assignment of this week I decided to explore this topic. I use Skype to talk with my mother and normally we talk every other day but since I started school it's very hard to find time to talk with her and when I have some time I call. Sometimes she doesn't ear the call and miss it and even if Skype has an option that allows you to see who called and all the missed calls, my mother never see that and thinks that I never call her.
So my idea was to create an object that could create some idea of presence to my mother at the same time trying to solve that problem of the missed calls.
Since she is always asking me for a portrait (with a recent picture) I decided to create a portrait that lights up every time I call through skype and if my mother miss the call, he portrait keeps light up, dimming over time, giving some awareness of the passage of time and allowing my mother to know if I called and how long did I called.

I started by building the circuit with led's and programming it in Arduino.

When this part was done, it was time to start by building the prototype. I printed a picture in a clear paper ( to give the light box effect) and I started building the prototype in cardboard.

With the structure was completed was time to take the circuit out of the breadboard and put it into the structure. It was the first time I did this and I was happy because it worked at the first time.

With the circuit done, now I think I have to think how to:
- build the structure in other material and in a way that it can be easy to change the picture and to change the batteries
- create a program that can access the Skype ( using an API) and track the missed calls

I am very happy with the result of this project and how in a short period of time I has able to build the prototype and having it working and also, doing something for my mother.

For the last assignment of the Softness of Things, under the theme of Transformation, I presented the project i have been developing for the Physical Computing class.

The idea of the project is to create a device that enriches the experience of visiting a museum at the same time that allows social interactions by connecting visitors with similar experiences.
When visiting a museum our emotions are constantly changing. We like some artworks that we see, we don’t like others and our body responds differently according to the stimulus received/given from an artwork.
What if we could map the emotional responses of our body in relation with what we are experiencing? Later on we can have access to that information and visualize how our emotions changed during the visit to the museum and see, for example, how our body reacted to a specific artwork that we really liked.
What if, having a device that captures our emotions and maps them, we could create a way of linking people that share similar experiences? By being linked (visually) both visitors have something in common and that could be a good starting point for a good conversation.

Now I'm just developing the first part of the project, where the device saves your emotional response when visiting a museum and allows you to see the visualization of your emotional response, transforming the values of the GSR into a visual representation.

Representation in real time - simulates what can happen. This part of the program in not visible to the visitor. Is the part of the program that is receiving the data from the GSR and the data ( event based) when an artwork is tagged.

The aesthetics of visualization are not completed and I was experimenting a more organic organization of the viz, since we were visualizing the emotional response of
the body. This is an example of that viz where the size of the circles represented the value of the response.

This is the result visualization through time where we can see the graph of our emotional response an when we were "supposedly" seeing a specific artwork. Also allows to see the graph of others visitors.

Another important step of this project was the design and building of the device. I used neoprene as a material because I needed something resistance and elastic. Here is some pictures of the process:

Please see the project website for more information.
(since is not update it please download Posted by qwertyfun on December 13, 2007 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)