Final presentation

Heres the link to my flash website:

http://www.wix.com/nikhodgson/studio2

For some reason the wix website is no longer running and has been down for quite some time. Im not sure if the server has shut down or not, perhaps it will be reactivated. In the event that it does feel free to check it out. :)

Finalising

It seems as though the work is getting a little one sided, I feel as though the group isnt doing as much as they should be as a whole. I felt that at the rate we were going nothing was going to get done so I had to step up and get the ball rolling for everyone. However the deadline is very close and we really need to get everything sorted. We finally have a solid framework to work around. All we need to do is make the clues/props and set up the opening crime scene. There has not been much blog work after the last post quite honestly because I have been so swamped with doing the work for the project. There has been quite simply too many things to even blog about. For example, the CD case, the emails, the story, setting up, filling gaps etc. A lot of this work fell on me to complete as I had the most solid grasp of what we were actually doing with the game. I did try my best to keep my journal and blog up to date, but eventually the workload just took over. Near the end of the game it was more a stage where we had to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Changes

Once again, we have changed our ideas slightly after another talk with Maggie. At the start of the project we said to ourselves that we really didn't want to do the same thing as everyone else. We didn't want people being lead to meaningless clues one after another. We felt as though this took a lot away from the experience we wanted to portray. Upon review, we realized that we had been leading ourselves down this exact path. We took a step back and decided to change our clue system. We simplified it down a lot and decided that the main clues that we would show the players would be using images. There are also the other clues within the office. Because of this we are now focusing our journey mainly on discovering the hidden plots of our story.

We were not entirely pleased with TJ's  script that he wrote so we made quite a few changes to it. We also began to create some of the intel that we wanted the players to discover. These including such items as emails between the Lieutenant General and John Key.

Talk With Maggie

After another talk with Maggie we realised that we were planning things a bit too far ahead of ourselves. We were aiming at completing the entire game. However  we found out that we did not have to finnish everything. Just give Maggie and Gabe a taste of what we wanted to convey to the players. We only have 30 minutes to present so we are simplifying almost everything. This is disappointing as I had high hopes and saw a lot of potential in our game.

I went outside to inspect the surroundings and found a billboard that could come in very handy for placing something like a QR code. Because we do NOT want to involve the public on any level with this game, I decided it would be a great idea to split the QR code in half. The idea of the particular clue would be to join the two pieces to reveal information about the terrorist. By doing this we also limit only people in BCT to be able to read the AQ code. The person following around Gabe and Maggie will have to have an app on their phone which can read these codes.

We also have started to put up posters around BCT about NZ army recruitment's. We wanted to do this emphasize the fact that our troops are in fact fighting with America in the war on terror. This is not highlighted in media a lot so we really wanted to make the BCT building feel that we are at war.

ATMOSPHERE

Today I thought it would be a good idea to go around the internet and find articles relating New Zealand with the war in Afghanistan. I found a gold mine of information on the nzherald website. I thought that it would really immerse players by being exposed to these headlines that have been popping up over the last year or so. It shows that we are in fact involved in the war on some level, and that the reality being exposed is not fairy tale. I want to scatter these around the murder scene to show how the cubicle has been ransacked and searched for information. By doing this, players will instantly make the assumption that it is terrorist related. On the papers I will scramble messages and highlight words. By doing this it will convey the idea that the man murdered was onto something big and that he has been obsessing about it. All these small details add to the overall atmosphere of the moment.

Fake Terror Threat, I repeat, FAKE!!!

Here's a video I made by editing an existing Bin Laden interview video. I used adobe premier to add text over the top of the video to make it seem like a legit threat against our country. This video will be used in our opening scene. I wanted to video to target New Zealand  and focus on deployment of troops to aid America in the war on terror.

For our bomb episode, Supa also went home and designed a program that we could use for the defusal. It works by using a combination of 4 numbers. When you type in a combination it will let you know if you have the right numbers or if you have them in the right location. You have 15 attemped before the bomb will blow up. The more attempts you make the faster the bomb beeps. We decided that we would not leave clues lying around to help with the number sequence, the bomb itself will be a completely separate game in itself. The main game will be to locate the bomb. The idea for the code itself came from a flash game that we found online.

Terrorist THREAT?

Remember my talk with Maggie, I realized that blurring the lines between reality and fiction is a huge aspect of this project. I came up with an idea today that does this flawlessly. I watched a south park episode a while ago where they re dubbed the subtitles of a terrorist video for comical reasons in regards to airing a picture of Muhammad on national television. We could do exactly the same thing, except instead of doing this for the purposes of comedy, we could use this technique in order to make viewers actually believe that terrorists are making bomb threats to our country. Most people cannot understand the language of Arabic so there is nothing for them to question the subtitles being presented to them on the video screen.

We have a rough idea of what roles we will be playing over the next week or so to get work done faster. I will be focusing on media to put together a video for the crime scene, TJ will be writing the journal and filling in parts of the backstory as to allow the players to understand whats going on. Supa is in charge of the programming aspect for the picture recognition and bomb sequencer, and Joseph is making posters.

More development of the story.

Yesterday we tried to set  our story in concrete. The back story is that New Zealand is sending more troops to Iraq  to fight the war on terror, despite the astounding amount of protest against it. In retaliation, terrorist have planted a bomb somewhere in the city in close proximity to the WT building. The government has found out about the bomb and has chosen to do nothing about it because it wants to win over the support of the protesters. The government did this because america promised our country a portion of the oil supply. An agent who went rouge has discovered this information and has tried to find and defuse to  the bomb. HOWEVER, the government has found and killed this agent. Aware of this impending death, he has dispersed his research throughout the area for players to find and decode where the bomb is. The government may know about the bomb, but they do not know where the bomb is. They will stop at nothing to prevent us from finding the bomb. At the specific locations that players will be lead to will also be classified documents that have been stolen from the government that give the background story of what has been going on.

To create an authentic feel I want to place all documents in classified folders like this one.

Constatints

With our idea we are going to encounter a lot of constraints which will greatly affect how our idea develops. For example, we wanted to stage a crime scene outside with fake blood, however this most probably will not be allowed. It is recommended that we keep it within our year group only.

UN-REALITY

Yesterday we were given our next assignment which i feel is going to bring a lot of our skills that we have learnt over the past year into use.In my group I have Supa, Josh, Jo, TJ and myself. On the first day of brainstorming we explored many ideas however we continuously hit brick walls with our ideas as we did not have a proper grasp on what we were being asked to create. We were focusing on recreating games into real life, and this was our problem, we were not concentrating on generating an experience rather than a game. We are all gamers at heart so we struggled to break though the barriers that were holding us back. We all had a perception of a game as something with a start and an end with activities in between. But after our talk with Maggie we quickly realized that we had been following the complete wrong route. She told us to go out and explore the assigned area for us to work in. We walked around the block and we simply just could not see anything interesting for us to work with. We came back to discuss this with Maggie and we soon came to realize that we could play with the fact that there was nothing interesting. We realized that we needed to use this to our advantage. Perhaps we could change the environment to change peoples perception of it. We looked at the empty boring street that runs beside the library and thought it was rather boring. However after much discussion we figured that we would explore the possibility of how this area changes during the night. Instead of being a boring street we could slowly turn it into a crime scene. Peoples perception of this "safe" street would drastically change, generating, and making aware a completely new reality. And this, was how our idea was born..

Finally

Ok, so after a lot of trouble I finally was able to cut it all out successfully. However Instead of engraving the CD holder I chose to glue a thin layer of plastic of either side of the middle instead, this saved me a lot of time. I also changed the back design as well as the vectors were too complicated to cut. In order to cut the project I had to import it into rhino and then save it back as a AI and read it into the 3d lab printer. This simplified my issues a great deal. Overall, the design looks extremely slick and i am very happy with what I have produced. I only managed to get two done, but that was because someone had taken the remaining scraps I was going to use from the 3D lab. Nonetheless, this still proves that I was able to manufacture multiple units. The only difference between the two is that the two middle pieces of plastic were white on one and see through on the other. Although I thought this created a whole new look to the case which was a positive aspect.

3D model

I manged to catch up with James and talked to him about the situation with the lazer cutting all being either out of order or closed. He  agreed that I make a 3D model of what the design should look like and hand in the actual case when the lazer printer is back up and running.

Here's a rough copy of what it should look like. I couldn't find a copy of solid works so I had to use pro engineer which didn't have any glass texture loaded on to it. The designs I also could not put on the case because they are far too complex. However the model does show how the case will operate.

Here are also my illustrator files that I have been trying to have printed this entire week. If you can imagine the designs rastarized onto the different surfaces. All materials being used will be see through perspex.

Really getting sick of this.

Ok, so I have all the materials needed as I found some more scraps I could use. However, both the rapid prototyping lab and the 3d labs lazer cutter are unusable on the last day before the project is due, really really not happy about this. I've been trying to get my illustrator designs printed non stop for a week now and have been unable to gain proper uninterrupted time on any lazer cutter. I dont know why but there was no one in the prototyping lab, whats worse is that I left all my materials inside and there's no one who can open the door. I also talked to the head technician of the 3d labs and he informed me that the lazer cutter there was malfunctioning and probably would not be usable in the next week or so. I really am not sure what to do here, its too late to change my entire design. I feel as though I have not had proper access to any facilities that I was promised.

I really need to talk to James but he is doing interviews so that is out of the question, I hope he can understand my predicament. I think tonight I will go away and make a 3D model on solid works or pro engineer to show what I have been meaning to make. However, my designs will not be transferable to this program as they will be far too complex.I will however be able to show the overall shape and operation of my device.

If I am given more time to wait for the printers to be back up and running I could very easily print out my case. The illustrator documents have been ready for over a week now.

I am searching around for a commercial printer to use but it will cost far too much to accomplish what I want to achieve.

Lazer Cutting Round 2

I decided to just use paper for the first few attempts just to make sure the printer was working properly before i wasted anymore plastic. FOR ONCE it actually worked, so i chucked in my plastic and for some reason, it decided not to print anything rastarised. The technition (i think) in the lab has been completely rude the entire time I have been in there and has kicked me out on more than one occasion for absolutely no reason and so I haven't been able to get any of my printing done as well. I think it is extremely unfair of BCT to limit us to printing on just the last week of the holiday, especially when there are NO SUPERVISES to help print. And we are not allowed to print without one I am told. I am going to go try get the 3D labs to help me out, but if they cant I think it would be appropriate to give us an extension to get our lazer cutting done with James around instead of the current people in the lazer cutting room who are no help at all.

I did manage to get one section of my CD case done however, but it was just a practice attempt. I am very glad i did get this part done as I found out that the measurement was off by about 1/5 of a mm and so the CD didn't fit in properly. The depth was also very hard to regulate, as I needed it to be an exact depth of a CD. After a bit of trial and error I found that if the lazer was on 100% power and 10% speed I could get it to a suitable depth. Other than that, i did waste more plastic so I am going to have to somehow find more for Monday to lazer cut. This is going to get expensive I think.

I may ask James if it would be alright for me to just make 2 or 3 copies instead of 5 as the perspex that I would like to use can get very pricey indeed.

Lazer Cutting, Disaster

I decided today that it would  be important to actually test out what I have made in illustrator on the lazer printer. I really didnt want to leave it to the last minute. And BOY am i glad that I did this. The lazer printer was a complete disaster. First of all, it took almost 30 minutes to get the printer to actually cut, when it did, it cut off page. I re adjusted the printer to the right location as defined by the user. Great, everything should be ready now. Wrong, it started to print the persons design that last used the printer. Started to print again, and after cutting out the basic shape, the printer refused to even read the vectorised image and engrave it. I tried to print again, and for some reason it printed in the completely wrong location and cut my original print in half. I asked the supervisor in the room to help and he pretty much gave me to the cold shoulder and told me to leave him alone as he didn't have time to help. So I am at a stand still at the moment,I have no tutors to ask what is wrong because everyone is away and I have no idea if my idea is even able to be printed. Lets hope tomorrow will be a better day.

On a good note, i did manage to print out my CD's  today,

I have created the illustrator images over the past couple days and everything seems to be going ok. I still am not happy with the design, as it seems rather simple. But on the other hand, i feel that we were asked to create 5 copies for a reason. And that reason is that the paper wants us to create something reproducible and not something that is extraordinarily complex and hard to make. I feel, as a designer, that I could have done a lot more on the aesthetic side of things. Ie in Photoshop, but I really wanted to stray away from 2D images and do something different. I was talking to a friend who does architecture and he informed me that my images were far too complex even after I had simplified them down. To fix this I simply reduced the line weight of the images so that the lazer would only have to do the outlines. This really helped a lot as time is definitively a huge factor in this project. The fact that we have only been able to lazer print in this last week is a pain...

Hating Illustrator Right Now

I have never really used illustrator before, so it is virtually all new to me. The vector system is very confusing,but at the same time I can see its advantages. Since I want to be doing some complex engraving I have been live tracing some images  to experiment with. I have found that most images are generating extremely complex vectors which will take an eternity to engrave, because of this, i know later on I will have to simplify down the images. THe plan is to have  a top layer, a middle layer and a bottom layer. The middle layer I plan to engrave the shape of a CD on both sides. This way 2 CDs can fit on either side. The top and bottom layer will hold the CD in place.

Illustrator

I finally got an idea that I would like to continue with. I am not 100 percent happy with it, but I have decided that if I do not start making the design I wont be able to get it complete before the deadline. The design revolves around the idea of transistions. Instead of using a coffin as representing the death of the CD I have chosen an entirely different approach. I want to use the human as the symbolism of nature. The case will be made  of perspex so the entire package will be see through apart from the CDs on the inside which will act as the iris of the eye. The case will contain 2 CD's, and so the design will be double sided. On one side you have a natural eye, representing unchanged nature, while on the flipside the iris is designed with electricity and engraved with wires. This symbolizes how humanity and technology are constantly growing together it is as if the technology is part of the human body (or eye in this case).

CD case

Ok, i have finally, kinda, got an idea what I want to go with, I have done a fair bit of development, but since 3D printing costs such a ridiculous amount (especially when we have to make 5 copies) I chose to flag it. Instead I went up to the 3D labs and got myself some perspex plastic which I will use for my project instead. I have been playing around with designs of electric PCB boards in my design, inspired by the new microchips that are now encased in see through plastic. I wish to somehow incorporate layers into the design so that you can peel each layer back 1 by 1 to reveal the CD case inside. I feel it is important to show some kind of progression in the design, ie, the closer you are to the CD the less wires U will see, to show how the CD is trapped within the case. Furthermore, I have also been playing around with the shape of the case and I wanted to use the idea of a coffin. In a way, the coffin represents the death of the CD and how everything is becoming more and more digital these days. This relates to the audio because in the audio it shows how a progression into a more electronic state.

I also wanted to incorporate a blue LED in the case, but it seems that option will not be very likely as having batteries inside the case with random wires would make the design look rather tacky in my opinion.

It is going to be an arduous week ahead ....

Design Exercises 1 & 2 Final Business Cards

Here are my final business cards for our first exercise when we were learning how to use adobe illustrator. There are 4 images, each business card has a front and a back:

My contribution

I felt as though I have made a large contribution to all our assignments that we have been presented with. In the first assignment I was first to come up with the structure of how we would go about  putting together the final samples. I thought it would be a great idea to turn industrial sounds into the sounds of nature to show that the environment we create as people is different in so many ways but at the same time can sound quite similar to elements of nature.For example the idea of nails falling to the ground as individual rain drops. All these elements In my section of the audio I took advantage of the microphones volume control to use Britomart trains as the sounds of waves crashing upon a beach. It sounded exactly how I wanted to to. The audience even made note that it was a soothing sound that made them feel relaxed and at ease.

In the second assignment I really decided to try and go outside the  box. We each assigned ourselves roles in the group, and I was focusing on mainly the piezoelectric microphone. I decided to bring in an array of tools four our performance including a brass shell, hair clippers, and a handmade adjustable rubber band instrument. All of which I attached a microphone to in order to record their vibrations and relay it to the audience. However, i think the most important prop I brought in was my sub. I found that the vibrations and the magnetism from the sub generated the most important sound to our presentation. It really gave it another level of depth. The best thing about it was that it was found by pure accident just before the performance.

On the third assignment I felt as though the project was not intended for group work, everyone went off on their own to create their instruments. Once again, I felt as though my instrument made our performance stand out  from the clutter rubber bands and balloon horns. I created an enlarged flute/didgeridoo. My instrument was extremely hard to hear but when placed up against a microphone it created a very interesting sound that differed from most other peoples instruments. I waved the instrument towards the mic and also away from it to enhance the droning sound  where the audio was getting closer and further away from the audience. Overall, I felt as though once again I  had pushed my musical boundaries.

On the final project I came up with the idea to use keyboard hacks and water for the conductivity. I was looking for a way to get away from using boring cliche switches and sensors and really incorporate something new. In the final project I found the recording on the water sound from a drain in Myers park. I purchased all the piping, and also helped build the prototype experiments that our group conducted. Marty and I also tested the tubing in the WT building down the stairwell to made sure we had proper water flow. It was also a huge task to install the wires and piping on the stairs which took quite a few days of hard work. I placed the keyboard hacks down the piping with the help of a pair of scissors, compass and roll of tape. This was an extremely arduous task  because  if the holes were too big water would leak out. Not only that but if the wires were too close the water would build up and conduct continuously which we did not want. If they were too far apart or not centered there would be no conductivity at all. While Matt and Lucy had the unfortunate job of assorting the 16 wires into the keyboard hack I was in charge of the sound effects added to the water sound. Using ableton I linked numerous effects together and assigned them to specific keys. This took a few days because the CPU kept overloading as we were adding too much sound over the top of each other. I  simplified it down and added Marty's samples on top and by the presentation day it was sounding exactly how I  had imagined it only better.

Check Previous blogs for audio files

The Final Presentation

Finally, we had completed all of the installation just in the nick of time. We did a few test runs and to our surprise  it actually sounded extremely good in the stairwell as it added an interesting echo effect to the sound. Everything went off without a hitch, except for the small factor of the fire alarm going off literally seconds before our presentation in front of the audience. Marty was literally centimeters away from pouring the liquid down the pipe just as it went off. A minor hiccup and a lucky save.  After a few minutes outside waiting for the alarm to stop we all re entered the building and began. The audience seemed to be quite impressed with our features true complexity. I wish we had given the audience the opportunity to pour their own water and interact with our feature. All in all, I was very  pleased with our groups performance as a whole. I think the audio could  have sounded better, but once again, it is random every time so you never know what you will hear.

Installing the keyboard Hacks.

The task of installing the keyboard hacks was extremely frustrating. We knew there would be A LOT of wires, but not this many. We literally went through 4 full rolls of wire and had to make regular trips to surplus electronics to top up. Because the power was downstairs with the speaker, it meant we had wires travelling from the top of the stairs to the very bottom. Because there were so many wires, when they were all gathered at the bottom it was very confusing, we had to label all the wires individually to their specific pairs. However when we labelled them, we didnt write down which wire belonged to which keyboard hack. This changed how our overall audio would wound, but for the better we decided. We originally had one pipe for samples and the other for effects to the water sound. But once again, we didn't want the sound to be linear. By randomly connecting the keyboard hacks to specific keys it increased the randomness of the sound.

While Lucy and Matt were connecting the wires it was my job to create the program to link the keyboard hack with ableton live. Using previously recorded combinations of wires (which made the keys) i linked each key when pressed to either a sample or an effect. The CPU on the program was being overloaded because we were playing so many sounds at once. To fix the problem I took out some samples and replaced them with effects. Overall, it sounded beautiful.. (to my ears anyway)

WT building Test

We knew the water would flow down the tube rather fast if it was at a continuous downward angle so we decided to take 25meters of the pipe and run it down the stairwell of the WT building next door to us.  Apart from getting a few strange looks from passers by we managed to conduct a very important prototype because it told us approximately how long it would take for the water to flow from one end of the pipe to the other. Unfortunately, we realised that it would take about 30 seconds to travel down the entire pipe. Since we wanted to  have 2 pipes on our project to allow the audience to play the instrument this meant we would have to cut that time in half as well. 15 seconds was not a lot of time. Hence we decided to spiral the pipe down the vertical section of the railing (top to bottom to ensure proper water flow) and then have the pipe going straight towards the top  of the next vertical section. This decreased the angle of the pipe and slowed the water down a great deal giving us a lot more time in between each keyboard hack. This also created an amazing accident. We found that with the decrease in angle, it was a solid portion of water flowing down the tube. It flowed in bits and pieces. Which  meant that the keyboard hacks would randomly turn on and off with small and large droplets of water that followed the main stream. This was perfect because it meant that the sound would never sound the same every time and generated a sense of 'randomness.'

Scoping Out the Audio Foundation

Originally we all wanted to have water features incorporated into the design using perspex plastic, but we soon came to the conclusion that incorporating these on the stairs would be next to impossible. And with all honesty, it would not have been unnecessary in conceying our idea to the audience (as awesome as it would have looked). We also had no idea on how we would go about placing the tubing on the stairwell, we took EVERYTHING into consideration including the ceiling. If we were to do this then we would have to construct a board that  would be able to support the weight on the pipes and suspend them above the audience. However, I anticipated that there would be a few drops of water falling from the tubes due to the holes of the keyboard hack. Not only was that a major con, but we also felt it neccessary that the audience be in close contact with the pipe and actually be able to see how it all worked. If we were to spiral the tubes down the railing it also gave off the idea that as people decend down the stairs, they are decending into a zone where the normalities of the outside world do not apply. We measured out the lengths and finally had a concrete idea to work off. It was only uphill from here on (or so I thought).

Testing the Waters

On the first day of conceptual development I came up with the idea that we could use water as a conductive method to interact with a set of keyboard hacks, the idea originally came from my research where I discovered a sound installation where a fungi dropped spores through a laser which caused a sound to play. I thought that we could use the same feature, but instead of spores we could use droplets of water that hit keyboard hacks to cause conductivity and sounds to occur. Together our group sifted slowly through ideas and eventually we came up with a plan to design a  system of keyboard hacks placed down different tubes. Water would flow down and trigger keyboard hacks which would feed into ableton live.

After some experimentation and prototyping to eliminate the hurdles we thought we would face we discovered that water itself from the tap was not conductive. This however did not set  us back, after a quick Google we discovered that impurities in water were what gave it its conductive property. Thus, we added salt to the water. After running it through our prototype (a 1m long pipe with 1 keyboard hack) we were successful. But we also encountered another problem.  And that was the fact that if the wires were too close then the water would get caught on the wires and it would keep printing out the same key over and over. Because of this, we knew we would have to be extremely careful on how we placed the wires down the pipe. They would have to be spaced out enough to conduct for a short  period of time but not too close to create a build up on water.

The Project is here...

Today on our 4th week into our music paper, we have been introduced to our project. However I was extremely confused as to what we were asked to do. All we have been told is that we need to perform either a performance or an installation in front of the audio foundation. I wish we were given specifics of what exactly is being asked of us, but I guess it could be a positive aspect as we are FINALLY free to dig deep into our creative side which in previous exercises was blocked from us.

We were also greeted with a guest speaker today who really gave me and insight as to how sound art could be applied and used into society. I loved her ideas of incorporating sound into areas that you would never expect to be used. The bridge that had looping sounds of creepy children whispering in the middle of the woods really impressed me. Although I thought she could have expanded on the idea by using interaction instead of just looping sounds. I'm sure it would scare countless people! By the end of the lecture I had a rough idea of what exactly an installment is. I now need to go home and brainstorm ideas for how my group can think outside the box!

Instrument Building!

On the third week were were introduced to a new temporary lecturer by the name of ________. Immediately i knew that this man knew exactly what he was talking about and from the get go provided a huge range of advice and skills that would definitively come in handy. We learnt about the foundations of what lies behind sound/music such as the uses for membranes, resonance, and how to create simple methods of amplification using things as cooking woks. We were also shown quite a few different videos on YouTube of people who had ingeniously gone about creating their own music using patchwork construction. Most interesting of these videos for me was the video which involved a man who utilized something we can all relate to from our childhoods, the tin can telephone which created a very interesting echo effect that to this day I still have not manage to understand. He had knowledge in almost every field of music all the way down to Shaolin monk throat singing. Truthfully, at the start of the week when we were shown the makeshift instruments I really just couldn't take it seriously, but by the end of the week I realized that sound is such a strange anomaly that can be explored much further than whats on TV and embedded in mainstream society. It is a subsonic realm that many are not familiar with. By having the opportunity to create my own instrument, or rather I should say MANY instruments. I realized that it is a tool that is easily molded into many different varieties and forms. I went through countless ideas ranging from a motorized wheel among many other designs but I found myself always in a desperate attempt to copy an instrument that has already been made and used before. I was always focusing on drums, or something I could hit to create pitch. However after 4 days of deliberation I decided to mix 2 instruments together including a flute and a didgeridoo to bring to life something different from the rest of the horns and balloon sounds. I wanted to create a acoustic device using my fingers and was aiming for a high pitched echo-like sound. In part i did create my intention, however I must also state this this did not entirely go to plan. In fact, i create a whole new noise. The reason being is that the placement of the 'reed' was extremely hard to nail. The sound produced was very eery but gloomy and soothing, on the downside it was very quiet so I had no idea how it would sound on the mic. During our groups jam in front of the class I was amazing to hear the sound of my instrument amplified in such a way. It truly was amazing and nothing I had ever heard before in my life. And to think that I produced this music brought about a feeling of accomplishment. Overall the exercise was fun, however since we were all creating our own instruments I felt the groups to be unnecessarily as we were off on our own most of the time either constructing or researching. However I was happy with our performance. (video to come)

Circuit Bending/Contact Microphones Exercise

On the second week of experimenting with sound we were introduced to a new device called the Piezoelectric microphone (aka the contact microphone). This device, as intricate as it sounds, was truly a simple device that delivered astonishing results. Instead of  measuring direct sound like we had done on the previous exercise it allowed us to experiment with vibrations on both large and small scales. At first I thought it would be easy to create interesting sounds using this device, however I soon discovered that it required a certain degree of creativity. I was focusing on surface textures where as I should  have been thinking outside the box. The night before the presentation for this exercise I was getting a haircut and all of a sudden i realised that the hair clippers themselves were a great idea for  using the contact microphone. It generated the exact sound I was wanting, a slow and melodic drone that I thought would compliment our  group production. From there I began to experiment with rubber bands and even went as far as to create my own adjustable instrument that could change tune by twisting a 'crucifix' like  structure to change the tension of the rubber band to deliver high or low pitch bass.

In regards to our circuit bending, our group all miraculously purchased the same electronic toys which was a real pain because we struggled to generate unique sounds. We worked out  that by adjusting the resistor and capacitor on the circuit, we were able to change the pitch and speed  of the sound produced  into something more usable. This was great exercise for me because I come from an electrical engineering background at Auckland University. It was all about equations and formulas. This was the first time I was actually able to play around with the circuits themselves and break free from the constraints of mathematics. I never realised that such simplistic circuits from toys could generate such interesting sounds. We managed to turn our toys shallow, polyphonic-like sound into  something out of this world and robotic.

The 'Jam' on Friday where we combined all our created tunes and melodies together was truly very interesting indeed. We  never practiced before hand, and literally had no idea  how it would all sound. It required a  lot of improvisation and team work to generate a sound which was bearable to listen to. The amazing thing was that our group actually produced something which generated a lot of positive feedback. Not only that but during the production I discovered things which I  never had noticed before which definitively worked in favor of our demonstration. I realized that the magnet of the hair clippers was interfering with the sub that I brought to uni and it created a very strange droning sound which really drew all our 'instruments together.' I brought in about 4 instruments, used 2 of them and created another on the spot. It proves to  me that performance truly is a skill of adaptation. And this to me is one of  the most important lessons I gained from this weeks exercise.

Aural Terrains Exercise

Our first exercise to become familiar was to create our own sound art. At first our group had absolutely no idea what we were doing so we set out into the city and recorded random sounds that we thought would go well together. Our original idea was to record to types of sound. One type would be used to convey the idea of nature and the other as construction. These 2 sounds contrasted to create the idea that human construction is taking over natural environments. However as we talked more with Zoe we realized that perhaps we were going about the assignment in the wrong manner. What set me on track was Zoe's quote: "Its not about the paintbrush, its about the paint." It  made me realize that we needed to think outside the box. After roaming the streets I brought up the idea that perhaps we could go to the AUT workshop and experiment with machinery and other textures there. We experimented with many unique sounds such as nails falling to the ground, air vents and many other alternative sounds. The next day in class I was struggling to think up an idea that would fit with our original sounds. After listening to the sounds we recorded, closing my eyes and thinking, I thought up a whole new idea. It came from the sound of dropping nails and other debris to the ground. It resembled that of rain falling to the ground, gradually escalating to a downpour. I thought to myself that we could use the sounds we  recorded and assemble them in a way  so that they appeared like the natural sounds that we are so familiar with. Eg the train we recorded sounded like waves washing up onto the beach, the fan sounded like the wind blowing along the coast, and sand paper that sounded like actual sound moving  along the beach. All in all, it strikes the idea that perhaps our environment has its similarities to that of nature. Although our surroundings may look entirely different the sounds that we are exposed to on a daily basis do resemble that of natures intention.

Sound Rooms

Because our next assignment is going to be revolving around sound, we were all given the opportunity to talk to a lecturer who had a lot of experience with the industry. We learnt many things about the basic principals of sound and also insulation. To fully grasp the concept of sound we were also allowed to explore 2 chambers. One of which was called an acoustic and the other an an-echoic chamber. The acoustic chamber is a large round room with an instrument in the middle that could rotate. The room was mainly used to test materials for the insulating capabilities and how they affect the pressure waves of sound. The main attraction for me however was the an-echoic chamber. Inside I was amazed to see that the floor itself resembled that of a giant circus trampoline (i assumed to prevent reflection of sound). The walls were also covered with hundreds of precisely cut out pieces of foam. In doing so, it meant that sound waves were unable to reflect and spread within the room. You could barely hear yourself speak which was an amazing feeling as I had never experienced anything like it in my life. I could compare it to trying to talk under the water, it just sounded muffled and distorted. I couldn't hear people ac across the room either. Sound was almost completely absent, as if i were drifting out in the vacuum of space. For me, it was a great experience because it gave me a grasp of how much we as humans are able to alter sound itself. It is much more than just vibrations escaping speakers. It is a science in itself that I am interested in exploring further. 

Sound Art

Over the first week of being back from holidays we were gradually introduced to a whole new world that surrounds us. A world that we  barely ever recognize in our everyday lives. This world to my surprise was sound. I had only ever interpreted sound to be art in the form of music. However over the past few days I have come to the realization that sound has many other uses, and that the word art has no boundaries. Zoe introduced the class to artists by the likes of Loren Chasse who explore sound on a whole new level than ever before. Something as simple as the movements of blades of grass and the crunching of glass can conjur up a whole range of emotions just as any other art would in people. However some of the videos that we were shown did frustrate me a great deal. For example, the video we were shown where a famous artist composed a piece on the piano. But this was no ordinary music, it wasn't music at all, it was simply silence. He wanted to show the audience that silence is just as important as sound itself. However, it just seemed like it was taking it too far. Everyone was expecting to see something extraordinary and what we were greeted with was 3 minutes of our lives wasted watching a man turn pages. I appreciate that he was trying to make a point, but in my personal opinion, as much as I agree that no label should be placed on art, I have to admit, this art was not my taste. It was more of a statement. Another example that I absolutely hated and despised was the YouTube video Zoe showed us where a woman videoed herself acting absolutely crazy, jumping around, and screaming in situations where you just would not expect it. She screamed and made a scene outside a business building, in the street and in other strange areas. But i ask, for what?? It just annoyed people. We were told she did acts for live shows and that she could only perform for less than 3minutes because she vomited after every act. To me this is a waste of attention and not art. After watching the video, I literally had no idea what the point of it was...

The VISUALISATION

The fun part came when we were able to actually get outside and experiment for the first time with the device itself. People were curious as to what exactly we were doing out in the city with this strange object filming them. This was perfect because it meant that our performance was working. We tried to use a range of textures from brick, cobble stone, and even grass to convey our theme. It lead to  some very interesting footage. I felt as though the visuals were very artistic, and because of the videos abstract nature, we found ourselves accident getting some awesome visuals. Even something as simple as someone looking at their phone really stood out in my eyes.  When ever the robot was off the ground the visuals 'fuzzed'  out and went black, this really helped with editing as it always gave smooth transitions between videos and gave a very smooth flow to the video as we changed from each persons individual use.

The presentation

All our hours of hard work has finally payed off. Not only that but our presentation was also a success.  We incorporated the hexagon shape into its overall design. We glued still images onto the surface of black hexagons which were then glued onto 3D foam hexagons on the wall to further relate to our project which revolved around 3D.  We also had a light shining from the roof which cast shadows on the walls to further reinforce this fact. The best part about the formal presentation was the fact that we gained vital feedback as to  what the tutors really thought about our design and ideas. The had anxiously been waiting for this, and it gave me a lot more understanding of the project itself and how it could have been improved not only physically but also conceptually. I felt as though the production was a bit too rushed as we only finnished the project a day before we were due to present. I knew that Cory and Tom were doing a lot of the work for the presentation and I offered to help continuously but it since a lot of the work required the 3D workshop to finish cutting out pieces of foam it was necessary that all 4 people went to the 3d lab. I felt unwanted as I had no experience with the lab. I refuse to say that I didn't take part because i did, every time they went up to the that I would come with them, but they didn't want any of my help, yet i still came to show i want to be involved. I edited the visualization and put it all together, helped paint, shopped around for the glue and string to put it all together, programmed the servo to run the phyical visualization,  among many other chores.. So to claim that the group was split in half with one side doing work and the other slacking off would not be true just because 2 members did a lot of the fabrication work. We also only just finished the project before the weekend and during the weekend I was working all through the day. I offered to come in and help after 5pm but no one wanted to stay after that time. I stayed at uni many times late at night but 12pm is my last bus and I literally have to go home after this time. I believe that i did make a large contribution to this group and tried to work as hard as I possibly could 100% percent of the time. Being the programmer I felt distanced from the group as they were always in the 3D lab fabricating the design,  which is why I  think the group felt so much tension near to the end of the project. Nonetheless, up until the presentation we all worked very smoothly. I enjoyed this project, it was  a lot of fun and i enjoyed working with the group.

Project 4 - Three Experimental Works

ARTIFICAL NATURE:
While researching ideas on our project I managed to stumble upon a very interesting concept in development at the moment. Artificial Nature is a transdisciplinary research project of creativity in complex systems that investigate environment generation through the computational generative ecosystems. Its whole purpose is to explore creativity as a form of art, study and play, by taking inspiration from nature's creativity but recognizing the potential of natural creation more than just the physical aspects. Spectators can witness, control and manufacture amazing, complex and intuitive patterns evolving from the behaviors of the species, as the organisms in turn interact with their dynamic environment. It uses unfamiliar data and uses it to create art in a way that has never before been used. And it is all inspired by the combination of art and animation. Furthermore, it is simply a tool that provides the means to create art using the imagination. I thought this was very relevant to my project because it absorbed data to recreate a piece of ever changing artwork. I can relate to this because my project will do exactly the same thing. We are hoping to use flex sensors in order to record the texture of our surroundings and use that information to generate a new perspective on the environment. Artificial nature allows viewers to view nature from the microorganism level and gives insight as to how complex nature truly is. It goes far beyond just ‘animals.’ People fail to consider where it all originated from on a cellular level. This to me is a great way of allowing people to view a different perspective of the wilderness in an evolving 3d environment. This relates to my project because we too are showing the city from a different perspective in the sense that most people view it as a static object as a whole. People fail to see its true fragility and how it came to be.

3D PROJECTION:
Another example I found of experimental technology that relates to my project was 3D projection. I thought it was a great source of information and explores the use of texture very well. It dissolves and breaks through the restraints that architecture has set in our modern world. The structure of buildings restricts its artistic value. However with 3D projection, the boundaries are limitless. It allows the structure to adopt any kind of texture that it wishes. Perhaps in the future we will see buildings, pristine and smooth, void of architecture, and instead its design will be solely based on projectors. It relates to my project because we ourselves are exploring a similar concept of texture. As above, I believe our texture recording concept is showing us the outdated surfaces that surround us every day within the CBD. We see cracks, and flaws everywhere we look. It gives the city a ‘grungy’ feel to it to see these features. Buildings are simply a solid façade. 3D projectors allow us to uncover different interpretations of conception, geometry and aesthetics expressed through graphics and movement.    

PETER CAMPUS
While researching I also fell upon a contemporary artist called Peter Campus. He was not any other art I had seen before. He was able to explore the world beyond its face value in 3D video like never before. His works are old but I feel they need to be mentioned because they are still relevant to this day and also have a great importance to our current project which is being developed. The most striking video that I watched was one called 'Three Transistions.' In this video Peter explored surfaces beyond their face value. He cuts through a wall of paper, but as he enters the hole he has cut he also is emerging at the same time (weird i know). He showed that surfaces can be more than their 2D perception. Just like in the city where the walls themselves are an illusion. The walls, from a distance seem to be 2D and flat, where as when you get closer you become aware that nothing is as pristine as it seems at first. Even the smoothest surface has blemishes, and this is the point that I wanted to highlight with our project.       

Project 4 - Further Construction

After a short drive to sylvia park, we managed to buy ourselves some rather expensive styrofoam (60$). I have no idea why it was that expensive, but we ended up forking over the money for it. That day we went straight to the 3D lab in order to sculpt some components to the roller. These components were to be used in order to contain the arduino board and also the webcam away from sight as to make the device a little bit easier to look at ascetically. In order to get the right shape we sanded it down after cutting out a rough estimate. This foam would also be used for our time based visualization.

I cant help but feel we are falling behind. It seems as though we are focusing in on such minute details without actually focusing on the project as a whole. We have the ideas but it seems we don't know how to go about executing them. After experimenting with the foam in regards to our visualization I found that our original idea of threading string through it in order to lift it up in layers wasn't quite going as planned. The string was actually cutting into the foam which meant it couldn't possibly rip through it when being used with a servo, this is a risk I am not willing to take after spending 60 dollars on it already. I think that using this type of foam was a very bad idea.

I have completed all the programming successfully and it is ready to be used, its simply waiting for the device to be fabricated. Its getting frustrating waiting around for things to get done. Despite going to the 3D lab to help I cant help but feel as though I am not needed. There doesn't seem to be a need for 4 people in the 3D lab. Nevertheless I am determined to get this project completed even if the deadline is very close within our view...

Project 4 - The last Day. So close yet so far away...

Today I wanted to get some testing done but due to complications of implementing a webcam into the program instead of a built in laptop webcam proved be much harder than at first thought. My computer wouldn't support the webcam for some reason and I ran into continuous errors. I consulted forums and found that I was not the only person to encounter this. I followed all instructions such as re downloading quicktime, Qtcap, and quicktime for java but nothing worked so  we tried it on Toms computer which worked surprisingly enough (dam macs). However his computer had MORE problems than i had. For some reason openGL would not work and we had to find patchwork code to fill in some gaps so that it would work on a mac. The arduino codes also did not work as the numbers were printing out random WTF values such as 0 and even 44 million. It was not surprizing that this caused major problems. To combat this error we worked for more than 4 hours trying to figure out the problem and evidently it turned out that the structure of the program meant that the arduino serial code had to be placed below the open GL code.... And this is the exact reason why i hate programming. Tedious problems take hours to crack. Another problem we currently have is that the video flickers if we use the flex sensor values to change the intensity of the 3D effect. The smaller increments of X and Y mean that there is less flickering which is strange because it uses much more GPU and CPU power. However if we play with the ratios of the arduino flex sensor values we could fix this i think.

We also decided that it would be a good idea to take the program out into the city using the webcam to see what kind of results we would see in the real world. We found that it worked very well, however in some places the sun was too bright and made seeing anything hard. However since the program works on brightness intensity we can use this to our advantage when objects are silhouetted against the brightness it will give a greater 3D effect. At the end of the day we managed to get one test in using the device on the fabrication concept. To get variation in texture we simply created our own course for it to run over using our books :)We used books because we assumed that this would be the maximum variation in texture we would encounter such as uneven bricks out in the city.

Project 4 - Programming ALMOST Done!

After hours of tedious programming trying to communicate arduino with processing I have finally succeeded in my mission. This aspect was the main feature of our project because without it, the flex sensors would be absolutely useless. I found out that there is a huge different in arduino between the ports A0 and 0, including A5 and 5. When i was using analogRead to record the values, it was generating a string that was vertical in the arduino serial console. This did not coincide with my processing code because my processing code was looking for a string that had a horizontal structure similar to this: xxx,yyy. This is why I could not convert the string into 2 int values within processing. I feel as though i have a much broader understanding of how programs talk with each other  Before this project I didn't even think it was possible to do something like this. Using these values from the flex sensor we can now feed them into a 3d pixel program that I have altered. By doing this I hope that I can change the intensity of the 3D illusion. The code is based on color intensity and vertexes. If I can find a good use for the variables I can convert the texture of surfaces onto the video which will give us a point of view of the city from the materials that are put together to make it. I think this is a great idea and I think it will be easily done from this point onwards. All we need to worry about now is the physical visual presentation rather than the video side of the project.