iChats A-Br :: 2005-Present
Since 2005, I have been saving a log of all of my iChat and gChat conversations. These logs save automatically into a folder on my hard drive, and I have never really given them much consideration. I always know they are there, but they have served no purpose for me. In looking at my initial brainstorming map, I wondered how I could visualize this data. Essentially these conversations, that span over 6 years, document my history. It isn’t until I actually read them, that my memories are ignited.
Zach Gage created a project entitled Selt-Portrait Bot, which was an auto chat bot comprised of several years of logged chat conversations. I felt that this was a fantastic precedence, as he used the exact type of content that I am looking at visualizing. However, I was interested in creating something more textural and transparent. Where Gage only shows you small snippets of these chats through a specific interaction of “talking”, I wanted to display these records more candidly. This led me to wondering: What do all of these chat logs look like when they are presented together? What does it mean to have all of my conversations displayed for everyone to read?
I decided that I was interested in printing these conversations in their entirety. I began by exporting all of the chats out into one single text document, which included the chat names of the people involved, the date and time stamp, and the conversation itself. I knew that the length of all of these chats was going to be quite long, so I decided to print it on the largest paper size available on the plotter printers. 42 inches by 120 inches, or 3.5 feet by 10 feet. That is a very large piece of paper.
Using inDesign, I started experimenting with the most logical way to lay out these chats. It was a process of trial and error, as I needed to keep decreasing the font size to be able to incorporate more of the text. What I came up with was a row of 240 columns, each a half an inch wide and 3.5 feet long. In each column are the chat conversations printed at 4 points. Once I was able to fill those 240 columns with my chats, alphabetized by the name of the person I was chatting with, I realized I had only gone from A-Br. I didn’t go so far as laying out all my conversations yet, but if 10 feet only gets me to Br, how long is it going to need to be to get me to Z?
By printing out these conversations at such a small point size, the actual text becomes abstracted. With even a foots distance from your eyes, it becomes illegible. It is only when you are right up to the piece of paper that you are able to read what is printed on it. I find this metaphor to be quite poignant. There is something extremely intimate about exposing these logs of conversations. They are personal and private to me and the person I had them with. I am interested in sharing these with others, but I am asking them to get up close and interact with the conversations in a very different way than I initially intended. This interaction, of literally having to stick you nose to the paper in order to read what is written on it, I find extremely interesting. It raises such questions as “What are the physical boundaries of personal space?” and “How close am I willing to let people get to me?”
After it was printed, it was amazing how intrigued people were when they saw me carrying it around all rolled up. Nobody beilieved me when I told them it was a collection of my instant message coversations. And then when they took a minute to squint and see the fine printed, they realized I wasn’t lying and were very drawn to the magnitude of all of the information. After my presentation in class this week, there was a similar response. As soon as I rolled the 10ft long piece of paper out onto the table, the whole class jump up out of their seats to look at it. There was something exciting about being allowed to read this intimate collections of conversations.
Video Trail
After exploring the idea of documenting movement from a sequential perspective, I created a prototype that explored this more interactively. Using Max MSP, I repurposed an existing patch that uses motion tracking to display movement. When ever there is movement in front of the camera, those specific pixels are displayed. In order to create a more recursive effect with the projected image, I pointed the recording camera at the projection itself. This results in the patch projecting the patch, kind of what happens when you point a a mirror at a mirror. This helps to create a trail of movement, quickly displaying in a slightly delayed manner, a series of projections.
Below is a screen shot of the max patch followed by me improvising with the tool:
The feedback I recieved in class regarding this specific prototype was positive. It was suggested that I potentially consider developing a whole tool kit of interactive resources for performers to use in the creation of their work. I think that this is a very interesting idea, and would love to develop a whole series of tools in the open source spirit.
P-Comp :: Reengineering Liz’s Light Organ
So today’s in class assignment was to look at a fellow student’s light organ and build it from our own materials.
Here is Liz’s organ in action:
Luckily her construction was quite similar to my light organ so I could keep the set up of my bread board in tact. The only thing that I needed to do was reprogram my arduino, so that it functioned the same. Unlike mine, hers fades on and off when the buttons are pressed. All I had to do was change some functions to include both the fading in and out. I also simplified the loop function, so that the LED wouldn’t stay on when the button was pressed.
Here is my reengineered light organ to mimic Liz’s:
P-Comp :: Response to Reading
Overall I really enjoyed delving into the first 6 chapters of Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software. The language and style of writing is probably the most casual of any code or programming book that I have ever read, and I really appreciate this approach in delivering the content. It makes reading, what could be considered dry and boring material, exciting and enjoyable.
In the first chapters explores the nature of binary codes, and demystifies the logic behind Morse code and Braille. For someone who is unclear with how these methods of communication work, it was so interesting to realize how these languages have been developed. I didn’t realize that they were built upon mathematic foundations, powers of 2, combinatorics, etc., but it makes complete sense. Math, however, was never a great friend of mine, so I am interested to look at in from a new perspective while discovering the logic of coding.
Chapters four through six looks at building simple circuits, and the necessary components for connections to function. I appreciated his approach to teaching the reader the symbols of schematics, by slowly introducing important symbols. I will admit that I am still struggling with the mathematic component of measuring voltage, amps, and ohms. I think I need to go back and re-read those parts where he explains in depth how to calculate them.
P-Comp :: Arduino Light Organ
My attempt a making a quick prototype sketch of a light organ using a speaker. LEDs and push buttons. After programing the buttons to correspond to the specific LEDs, I worked on having the LEDs fade in and out. Then I added different sounds, using the tone library.
I built a little cover for this out of cardboard and reflective shimmery plastic, so the lights could bounce off and create more of a glow. If I work on this further, I will try to space the LEDs out more so that they fill more of the space, rather than being in a single row.
I had a much easier time with the code this week. Being mastering the art of arrays, and they are so useful for this type of programming. Makes the whole project easier to scale and organize. I have also being trying to write more of my own functions, so that most of the code can live outside of the loop.
A note about the video: The sound is a little too soft, as I might have been covering the microphone. But I swear there is sound, you just have to listen closely.
Download the source code here.
Algo :: Week 3
Whitney Tribute
We were asked to create a tribute to animator John Whitney using the techniques he used in his compositions.
Download Source Code Here
Visualization with Sound
I decided to create a variation on my Whitney Tribute and put it to sound. This version is a lot more intense,
so I paired it with The Best Revenge by Fischerspooner. I felt that the hard fast electronic beats, complimented the complexity of the sketch.
Download Source Code Here
Natural Organic Movement with sin/cos
For this sketch I wanted to attempt to emulate the motion when a leaf or feather falls. A natural swinging motion occurs as it slowly falls.
Download Source Code Here
Creature
Fluxus Experiment
Our assignment was to create a 2 minute video inspired by the fluxus movement of the late 60′s. I decided that this work was going to be much more about the process than the product, as I felt that embodied the fluxus mentality. I uploaded and downloaded a home video 87 times to youtube to see how the process would degrade the audio and visuals. I then cut them all together at two minute intervals, to achieve the effect that it was slowly deteriorating.
Week 2
animation experiment
fastest non moving speed
.004 inches per second
.00002 miles per hour
Download Source Code Here
fastest still perceptible speed
11.9 inches per second
0.7 miles per hour
Download Source Code Here
click to change pta and ptb
shaper controls something else besides position
I decided to have my shape float between random points. When it gets to posa, posb becomes random and vice versa. The shaper is controlling the color fading between random RGB values. The shaper is also controlling the radius of the circle, which is based on the ofGetTimeElapsed function. So the longer the sketch runs the larger the circle will be.
Download Source Code Here
multiple xenos
multiple xenos trails
P-Comp :: Arduino Simon Says
Building this was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed figuring out how everything should connect to each other, and it was extremely gratifying to press the buttons and watch the LEDs light up.
The second part of this assignment proved to be more difficult. I spent about a day and a half trying to program Simon Says from scratch. I was able to get the basic functionality, but in the end I could not get it to play right. However my dysfunctional source code is available here for download.
I was able to find an online reference to an existing Simon Says game on an Arduino. I used this as a reference to see what was wrong with my code, and I found that I had generally set it up pretty similarly. But after being terribly frustrated with my broken game, I decided to take this source code and play around with it. I changed all the variable and function names. I also broke it down a bit and created many of my own functions. So with the help of some online code you can download my Simon Says Game here.
And for the video:
Slideshow
