Final post for Aural Terrains - update and conclusion

Aural Terrains - Week 3

Week 3 of the aural terrains project started out quite interesting with a guest, Chris O Connor, coming in to teach us for the day. In the Chromakey Room we all sat around in a nice big circle and got taken through a number of activities relating to improvisation. One that I found particularly interesting was where the whole class had to sing a single note for a while. We did a few different activities based around that idea. With the lights off everyone simply had to just sing a note and continue with that until we were told to stop. Along the same lines, we then had to sing the note of our choice while listening to everyone else and picking a note that we heard and mimicking it. The effect of these were actually quite cool and you really need to experience it yourself to get the right idea of it. With the lights off especially you could really feel the vibration of everyone's voices which sounded and felt more like a sort of deep humming rather than singing. We then used the same sort of technique but had volunteers 'conduct' us. For example the conductor would simply use expressions and everyone else had to mimic their expression to get a certain sound. Again, it was really interesting to hear and feel the result.

After that we went back to our circle and played a game of clapping. It went like this: the first person would clap and say one, the second person would clap and say two, the third person and first person would clap and say one, the second person and the fourth person would clap and say two, and so it went around like that. It's amazing how quickly everyone starts. After doing that for a while it got more complicated and you had to try and switch between the one and two beats. We then continued with that in smaller groups, basically the people who were closest to us and practised doing it together as each group then had to perform it in front of the class. Not mentioning any names but there was someone in my group who didn't really seem to know what he was doing and even when I asked him he said he did but during the practice he kept screwing it up. I was kind of annoyed about that, but I got over it. I think that may have been all we did, I'm not sure now. All in all those activities were a lot more fun than I would have thought if I'd been told beforehand what we were going to be doing.

The rest of the week was then dedicated to coming up with, planning and practising for the much dreaded upcoming performance. I was working with Jess and Rebecca for that. We started coming up with ideas and had quite a few pretty quickly. One that I liked the idea of was using string or nylon or something similar to attach between the levels in the gallery(AUT St Paul's Street Gallery) and make it into a sort of giant harp using the glass it would be attached to to sort of help the sound resonate and become louder. It also meant that we would be able to be on separate levels and not seen as easily, which would have been great for Jess and me, as neither of us enjoy performing. However we didn't end up going with that idea and after more discussion and discarded ideas we decided to use water on glass to make different noises. We were going to use different tools/instruments as well as our hands/fingers to make what would hopefully be interesting noises.

Some tools we thought about using were, things like branches as well as a fly swat and things like a window wiper sort of thing which made a number of different interesting noises, as long as the window was dry. Once we were decided we went up to Rebecca's apartment to practise. We started in a deliberate way, each taking turns to use a sponge, which incidentally made an interesting noise itself, to wet the window (we had one each) and then basically went into improv and did what we each felt was right. The attempts we had went quite well and gave us something to work with.

I think it was after that that we each went home and recorded some sounds which we had to play for the class on Friday (or maybe it was before), I'm not sure now. Here are the sounds below:

Mine:



Jess':



Rebecca's:




The next Thursday was a sort of dress rehearsal where everyone had to give a short performance just to show what it sounded like and to also figure out how long it was going to take to set up.

So the next was of course performance day and I was certainly not looking foward to it. We ran into some technical speed bumps as we were setting up and had to change it quite a lot. Our original plan was to each have one of the big 3 glass panels and play off that but the glass was dirty and wasn't making much sound. Eventually we decided to each use the same bit of glass and play on the smaller space as best we could. Luckily Jess had an amp and a microphone and I had an extension cord which meant that we were able to set up the amp inside and have the microphone against the glass. That did make it kind of difficult to play around but we managed.

One of the worst moments was that even though we were supposed to go second probably less than five minutes before everything was supposed to start we got told: you guys are going first. AHHHHHHH!! So up we went, first, and basically just did as well as we could. It was quite difficult because of how much we'd had to change and also I really didn't know if people could hear it at all so I was really just willing it to be over. Jess and Rebecca both did really well and I'm just glad that I made it through the performance and then was able to just watch the others and know that ours was done. Hopefully it sounded reasonable. To be honest I don't know what it sounded like. I can't bring myself to listen to the recording of the performance, let alone watch the video. Maybe sometime next year I'll manage.

All in all, this project was actually a lot more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be at the beginning and I'm very glad that I managed to get through the performance, however badly I did.

Here is the recording of our performance:

Maths and Art

I've copied all of my previous, and some new, Maths and Art posts onto a new blog. Here's the link:

Maths and Art blog

It's also on the side of the page.

Maths and Art Essay

Here is the link to my Maths and Art essay:

Mathematics and Art Essay

Maths and Art Essay info

At the moment my maths and art essay is for some reason refusing to go onto my blog, so when it final wants to I'll put it on...

Played sound drawings

Here are copies of my sound drawings played by Jess and Rebecca. It's interesting to see how they played them. I played one of Jess' and one of Rebecca's, I thought it would be difficult to read them and play them but I basically just played what I saw, and interesting task. Thankyou to Jess and Rebecca : ).

Rain: (played by Jess)







All drawings: (played by Rebecca)
Train, silence, cars at night, train x 2

Aural Terrains - Week 2 cntd

Circuit Bending:

Well this project has involved soldering, and electronic diagrams that I'm terrible at deciphering. I hated the soldering in the wearable interface project which meant that I was dreading doing it for this project but I found it a hell of a lot easier and actually doable. As I said, I'm not good at reading the electronic diagram things. Fortunately I have some very helpful friends and so thankyou to Chis(Clifton) for helping me so much, I definitely appreciate it : ).

So everyone was making um, devices I guess, to use in an improv performance. We had been put into groups of 3 with people that we wouldn't usually work with, I was put with Nick and Oliver. The only time that I'd ever worked with Nick was for one day in the orientation week and I'd never worked with Oliver. I knew both of them though and enjoyed working with them. The device I used for our performance was called 'The Champ' and it used a piezo disk to make sound. I played through a speaker and also had a volume control. Here are some photos of it below.

I was understandably nervous before our presentation with not much idea of what I was going to do. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and the criticism and feedback we got wasn't too bad. Both are below:

Group performance:



Criticism and feedback:

Maths and Art update

I had my maths and art tutorial a while ago and found it very useful if not kind of overwhelming at the time. When it was my turn to talk I gave my reasons for using perspective as a subjects. The main reason for choosing it as a subject is because I'm interested in that way it works and how it is used in so many different art subjects e.g. sculpture, painting, architecture, photography, optical illusions and also one of my favourites, chalk drawings.

James seemed to also liked the idea of chalk drawings and wanted me to do one myself. Now even though it is one of my favourite examples I wasn't really banking on doing one myself. Someone in the group suggested using a projector to, well project an image onto the ground and copy/trace it with chalk.

This is something that I'm really not confident in doing so I was not looking forward to it at all. The main reason is that my drawings skills are not up to something like this and also the difficulty of getting all of the proportions right. So I was starting to think of other stuff that I may be able to do. However, I was saved by Rebecca who helped me with my ideas about the chalk drawings and I'm probably going to go with that idea now and also develop it by first using thick paper to draw on.

Anyway, I've got to get the essay done first...

Here are some examples of chalk drawings, obviously a lot more complicated than what I will do but also really awesome:
(One example is of a photo of a drawing seen from an angle that shows it in proportion and another is of the same drawing seen from an angle that shows it out of proportion.

Quick note about the blog...

For some reason it has been harder for me to write in my blog in this semester compared to last. I really don't know why and I'm kind of worried about it but I do seem to have improved again recently.

And on that note, above will be a major update on both the maths and art and aural terrains projects. Forgive me if the order of them is a bit messed up...

Shopping list

Ok here's a quick update about the aural terrains project:

Today I/we went and bought some necessary items from a shopping list we were given. This involved finding the items and walking up a ridiculously steep hill... I've got no idea what we'll be doing with them but I am really REALLY hoping that it doesn't involve soldering!! : )

Maths and Art

Well I haven't written very much on the subject and I need to for the upcoming essay and practical, so here's some more on the Maths and Art paper.

Quick overview first:

I have not enjoyed the maths lectures at all, though most of the art ones have been quite interesting, probably for two big reasons: I'm much more interesting in art than I am in Maths and also they're not as long : ). Ok, that was a 'very' quick overview...but not to worry, here's some more info...

Literature review:

I was a but late in starting the literature review - although I had done some research before hand so that was to my advantage, however I did get it done. The main trouble that I had with it was probably that I sort of started it again a couple times. I had an idea and started writing it, then I though it was wrong so I changed my idea and started writing it again and then I thought that was wrong so once again I restarted it. I did eventually settle on one idea though and managed to get it all finished.

After I handed it in I was really worried that I had done it completely wrong and that I wouldn't pass... The day we got them back I was really freaking out about it. Anyway, I was, and still am, thrilled about the mark that I got. Very, very happy : ). However, this does leave the practical and essay to come.

Essay and Practical:

As we are supposed to be documenting/talking about our essay and practical in order to show our though process I'll put in my abstract question to make it easier to follow. Here it is:

"The Mathematics Behind the Theory of Perspective and its Influence on Artistic Beauty"

As is necessary I've been doing some more research in order to help me with my essay and practical. I should hopefully be alright with writing the essay, but at the moment I'm pretty stuck with what to do for the practical. Hopefully I'll figure out something soon. I'll put up some photos of something that I think is relevant to this in the next post ... when I find my camera. : )

Aural Terrains - Week 2

Overall I have actually quite enjoyed the this last week. Going out and recording the sounds ourselves was interesting and fun, as well as being educational. I also enjoyed the actual editing, putting the sounds together to make something that sounds good and portrays an idea, as well as using the sounds that are interesting to me.

We've had a number of guest speakers come in and talk to us this past week, though some more interesting than others, as will always be the case. However, each person did have some interesting things to say and also videos.

I'm not really a musical person, I mean I don't play any instruments (apart from guitar hero :D ), and I don't know how to read music. Because of that I was quite worried that I would struggle with this project. So far though it has been surprisingly interesting and enjoyable (I really need to find some synonyms for those two words..) and hopefully it will continue to be so.

Group Recording

Final group composition:



This is the final group composition of our recordings. The recording was done by all of us but the editing was mainly done by Jess and me. I was very pleased with the final result. The sounds we used in it were intentionally dramatic and worked well. It was very effective when played through the speakers (and in the dark) and you could really physically feel the impact of it. The two tutors seemed to like it, as well as other people in the class which is always a very satisfying feeling.

Individual Recording

My final individual composition:

Field Recordings

Some more field recordings:


Chickens:



Construction Work:



High Heels:



Metal Vibration:



Sea Sound:



Train

Field Recordings

A few (of many!!) of our field recordings:
(Some are quite long because I haven't cut them).

Banging sound:



Beach waves:



Birds:



Boat motor:



Britomart:

Aural Terrains - Week 1

For the first week we were split into two groups to go on some little school excursions.

Sound Walk:
On Thursday the group that I was in went on a sound walk. This involved a walk around the city listening to the noises around us. This was a new experience and quite interesting. Although I am in the city every week day I don't usually intentionally listen to all of the sounds around me which is what we had to do. The hardest thing about it I think was that we had to put sound before sight. I'm used to relying on sight first and when listening automatically associating the sounds with the visual. However, the purpose of the walk was to put sound before sight which I've now discovered is not as easy as it sounds(pun not intentional).

Acoustic Lab:
The next day, Friday, I went with my group to the acoustic lab/department at Auckland Uni (I think that's what it's called anyway). There we did a number of different activities. We were given a sort of lecture about sound and hearing which was quite interesting. After that, our group was split into another 4 to rotate around some other activities.

Following the sound journey of my group:
We went into a different room and listened to multiple different sounds and then had a little test to see if we could correctly identify the decibels and something else(I can't exactly remember what it was...) of each one. I wasn't exactly terrific at that ...

We then went into the anechoic chamber which was also interesting and definitely a new experience. Unfortunately though you should never do something new with specific expectations. It wasn't as impressive as I was expecting it but it definitely was something that I hadn't experienced before. And everything did sound a lot louder after we left the room.

After that we went into a reverberation(?) chamber which was obviously very loud and reverberationy(not a spelling mistake : ) ). I did enjoy that room actually.

And finally we went back to the small lecture room that we had started in and had our hearing tested. Overall, and interesting an quite enjoyable day.

Overview of iPhone application project

Leading up to and just before we started the iPhone applications I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to enjoy it. In my mind it had the potential to be interesting and possibly fun but depended largely on whether or not I was good at it.

We started off just doing some exercises mainly just following instructions and also printed chapters from a book. I actually found all of that quite interesting and was liking it a lot more than the two weeks of processing. After the first couple of days I was finding that I also seemed to be better at the iPhone programming than the processing. I think one reason may be that xcode is more visual than processing and with interface builder I can see how that code needs to be linked to the buttons etc.

Our first project/exercise out of two was to add some extra features to a stopwatch. The next and more complicated project was to design and create our own applications. This had the the option of working either in pairs or individually. Jess and I decided to work together and the idea that we came up with was to make a movie quiz.

For the first week of the holidays we both worked individually on the project and then met up at the beginning of the second week. Throughout the rest of the holidays we were able to work well together by combining the work that we had each done and together coming up with what we wanted to do. We each did specific parts of the code and then again combined them, as well as adding other parts as we thought of them.

I was pleased with our final app and quite unexpectedly enjoyed the project.

Maths and Art

Mathematics and Art lectures:

The art lectures have definitely been more interesting than the maths ones. 3 hours of geometry!!!
I really do not find that interesting at all, which really does make it very hard to concentrate.

Some of it I do find interesting, namely the golden ratio and how it comes up so often in art and also nature. I like the example of the golden spiral with the shell, but it's definitely not my favourite subject.

Week 1

Well week one was pretty full on, basically straight into it all. The first lecture was mostly introduction but also the first Art lecture, situated in a new lecture room.

The intro lecture was the beginning of Mathematics and Art. We were also introduced to the cinematic Flaneur project during the week. Working in groups of about 10-12 people we had to create a time sculpture video. This is the example that we were given for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvwYzXq4E5Q

The group I was in decided to use all available laptops to take the photos in photobooth, which would mean that all the photos taken would be the same format etc. We arranged them in a semi-circle facing two people in the centre. We took the photos in a pattern going around the semi-circle. For example: camera 1 takes a photo, camera 2, camera 1, camera 2, camera 3, camera 2, camera 1, and so on, up to about 8 or 10.

The rest of the first week was mostly introduction but was also pretty much straight into the next project: cinematic flaneur.

Final post for Semester 1

Working up to the final presentation I was getting really stressed out. I had a few pretty late nights trying to get everything finished. It seemed that everything had suddenly just been piled on and that came as a bit of a shock. I was really worried that I was not going to get everything finished in time and was concentrating more on that than the actual presentation.

I am terrible at public speaking and being a very self-conscious person I get very nervous and easily embarrassed. I was quite glad that there were only 4 other people, in addition to 2 tutors, that would be watching me. I also knew at least 3 of the people.

Because I had been concentrating on getting all of the necessary work finished I wasn't really prepared for my presentation. I had a few things written down as bullet points pretty soon before it and therefore had to basically think of it on the spot.

I chose the reverse cinema project to present because it was definitely my favourite assignment and also the one that I've felt the most involved in which made it easier to talk about. I was the first person in my group to talk and therefore didn't have any example to follow. I wasn't really sure how to start so I basically just started talking. I wasn't sure if I was saying the correct things because at the beginning at least one of the 2 tutors wasn't looking at me. But the only thing I could do was keep talking.

Overall I think it went better than I thought it would and it was a huge relief to have gotten it done, but I'm still very nervous about what everyone else thought about it. I was able to answer all but one of the questions at the end although again I'm not sure if I was giving the correct answers. I was also given some advice from the tutors which I will definitely take into account and try to follow for the next semester.

It's a huge weight off my shoulders now that it is finished and I'm happy to be able to say that I was able to give the presentation, and hopefully to a reasonable standard.

Work

The poster took a lot longer to do then it should have, because I kept trying specific things that took up time and then most of them I decided not to use them.
I have heaps of work left to do, I'm not really sure of the order in which to do it all. I'm really worried about it all, and I'm wondering if I'm going to get it all finished.

YouTube link for movie

Here's the youtube link for our thriller movie:
13A thriller film

Poster

I hate this poster! I spent I'd say literally over an hour trying to do some little detail for it. In the end it didn't really work, which is to say, I didn't like it. Such a waste of time....

PANIC

Panic, Panic, Panic, Panic .... Panic, Panic, Panic!!

That just about sums it up

Photos

Here's a few photos that I took to use in our movie. We ended up not using them because we had to make the scene, in which they would have been used, shorter. They're photos of what was the murder weapon, taken to look like it was at a crime scene. The blood was made with food colouring and water, and is actually quite difficult to get off your hands : ), it also now looks like there are blood stains on my garage floor : ).

Update and reflection

I'd completely forgotten to do some posts during most of this project so here is an update but also a reflection and description on what has happened so far.

With being permitted to film only in the 48 hours of Wednesday and Thursday, we had a lot of time for planning. We did this thoroughly, and changed, expanded and developed our ideas many times. Our genre was crime/detective but we found it hard to keep the subject of our ideas within that genre and most of them were veering more toward horror, rather than simply just crime. After a couple of days of this we were allowed to change our idea to thriller, as there was already a group doing horror but thriller was free just for us.

Eventually we settled on an idea and story that we all agreed on, as well as characters, character names and a title name. When planning all of these things, I believe that all four of us contributed equally.
On one of the days of planning, the four of us went to look for props. We walked up to K road, and then all the way down Queen street to the shops opposite Britomart, also checking shops on the way down, looking for our props. On they way back to the Tower, we looked on the other side of Queen street. Apart from buying one thing, the entire journey was a complete waste of time, although thanks to Yuta we each got a sample, albeit a small sample, of really expensive ice-cream : ).

On Tuesday evening we booked our equipment, and being first we were lucky enough to get two cameras. Earlier we had also managed to get a microphone and one of the pole thingys(I don't know the technical word for this : )) to attach it to. We were due to start filming on Wednesday morning, and seriously what a terrible morning we had.

Check 'event no. 4' in the events blog for more details. Though in short: we were wanting to film in Zoe's apartment in the Wellesley Student Apartment building, told we couldn't, got pissed off, went to James, and eventually, after much wasted time, got it sorted out which involved having to succumb to writing a letter.

We had to get our filming done as quickly as possible, because some of our actors were leaving the next day. We had decided to use people outside of our class as actors, because we thought that if we used ourselves it might draw people away from the actual movie, seeing people that we know. I think we made a good choice in doing that, and it also meant that we were able to work behind the cameras more easily.

We managed to get all of our filming done by Thursday night, and also started some editing. Overall, I enjoyed the experience and even though there were some stressful times, there was also a lot of fun. The four of us worked really well together, we all contributed equally in our own ways and I really enjoyed working with the 3 of them.

Our movie was finished enough to be able to show it to the class and I think that all four of us were quite pleased with the result, although the projector made it look a lot darker than it was which meant not all of it could be seen. I think that all of us had the same favourite scene, which was the stabbing scene. It worked really well and looked frighteningly real. It was also really interesting to see all of the other groups movies.

Analysing thoughts

I think that this project of making our own movie might be quite enjoyable, and I actually have enjoyed the small amount of editing that we've done so far(the two short videos). I think this is because I believe that I will be able to learn this program(final cut) much more easily than I have some of the others. I seem to be much better at visual programs such as photoshop rather than coded and non-visual programming e.g. processing and max, although they are totally different so they may not be the best examples, but you get my meaning. This could be seen as slightly strange, in the way that when conveying my thoughts I don't usually use visual methods, rather I find it easier to write. Everyone is different and that is just the way I work.

Back on track: I like the group I'm working with, which will definitely make it more enjoyable than it might have been otherwise. But also what would make it much better is if we had more time. I personally think that the amount of time we have to do these sort of exercises and projects is ridiculously short.

Title unknown

We got our marks on the wearable interface today, and I've got to say that I'm pretty disappointed. Although, I've reread my comments and I now think that they're probably not as bad as I originally thought when I first read them.

I'm not sure if I should actually locally voice my opinion on the following point, but I think I might say it anyway.
Personally, there is a comment in my feedback (I'm not going to say what it is), that I'm not sure I totally agree with. Well I've said what I think and now I'll sign out.. : )

The Wizard of Oz continued

So now we're in groups to make a short movie , 4-6 minutes I think? I'll have to double check. Well anyway, I'm in a group with the fellow members of my genre: 'crime/detective' - (just the same, everyone else is divided into groups of people that had the same genre (that's fairly obvious but I thought I'd point it out anyway)).
And guess what it has to be partly based on..?
.....
....
...
..
.
The Wizard of Oz!!!!!!!! What a surprise...

The Wizard of Oz

Well I'm not a huge fan of this movie...
So what we had to do was cut and choose parts of the wizard of oz and make a 3-5 min video using a genre that we randomly picked. Now mine was crime/detective. Now how the hell are you supposed to make a 3 minute crime version of twoz??!!??
And we were given 1 day...1 day!!

Well I didn't quite get mine finished, once again I kept changing my ideas, I really need to learn that that doesn't help!! So basically what I had, and basically still have, is a beginning and an end, but no middle. Now that would make quite a big flaw in my miniature movie. So I'll just have to keep going with that, hopefully with some currently absent new ideas to add to it.

Final Cut

So we're learning Final Cut now. We had to take a number of random videos with random music that weren't made to be put together...and make a 30 second video out of the one's we chose.
It's amazing how much you can fit into 30 seconds really. I was constantly changing my ideas, which was very annoying because it meant that the video took a lot longer to make than if I'd just stuck with one idea all along. But me, I'm a perfectionist, so that's how I work. Some of the main ideas I came up with, and actually started as well, were using sharks and a shark attack, explosions, crashes, timers and the like. I'm wondering now if I was in a bad mood and was portraying that through my ideas..?
Eventually I settled with using a beating heart, a shark and a woman's face showing fear. The idea of it was basically a heart beating quickly as a shark comes closer, followed by the fear, and then the shark going away. I also added a short video of bubbles in between some different 'scenes' in order to help the transition of the different videos. It also was a way to change the type of music and the bubbles themselves also tied in with the whole theme.
I also added a short video of rain + lightning which actually didn't have any relevance and was mainly put there to just extend the video. Altogether it ended up being 28 seconds.

I was quite pleased with the final video especially seeing as it was the first time that I had used the program. However, yesterday I went back to it and changed some things, plus added and deleted. Now it's 30 seconds!! and I'm keeping that as the final.

Video demonstration

Here's our video demonstration of the project..

'Serious Fun' Summary

Summary of the project 'Serious Fun':

We had to think of how to incorporate at least one of our characters into something that a person could interact with but, also prevent it from being a game. We pretty much decided not to use that puzzle pieces/blocks as they would be hard to fit in with the other characters.

Our first ideas were leaning towards using Max MSP more than processing by using the webcam and filtering a person out of the image while still letting them control the characters. We had many ideas involving a person interacting with the characters by controlling them directly mainly via the webcam and Max.

After a group meeting we realised that we thinking too literally and focusing too much on the narrative of the characters without involving an outside interaction. During the meeting and then after discussing it further afterwards we decided on the idea and meaning of consumerism. Using this general meaning we came up with more ideas but also decided to use only the one character; Corey's rabbit.

After more brainstorming and discussion we decided on a general idea and did ongoing research throughout the project to develop it further until we had what we wanted.
At one point we decided what we were doing was too much of a game and therefore had to change it slightly to more tightly fit the project brief.

A large influence to us during the project was the movie Dawn of the Dead. The characters and story line in the movie have strong associations with consumerism which match our own thoughts and also added to our idea.

Our final idea was to use only the rabbit(in the scene of an office - to portray him as an average human as a typical consumerist) constantly demanding coffee(showing his demands for a product that he wants rather than needs) and also a simple object that can represent unnecessary products that a person is likely to want. What the object may be is open to interpretation by each individual person.

A person was to interact with the rabbit by feeding him coffee and giving him the object(which we had as a random coloured ellipse in processing) whenever he demands it. Specific things would happen at certain times. For example if he hasn't been given coffee or his object after a certain number of seconds, he starts to yell, gradually getting louder and more demanding. Also if he is fed too much coffee he throws up, which also further represents or main idea of consumerism. The cursor is the shape of a hand(to represent the person's hand) and can be controlled either by mouse or colour tracking from Max. We also used an apple remote to control the scene.

Our idea was developed and added to a slightly more to give us the final result that we wanted.

'Serious Fun'

We're finished with the claymations and now staying in the groups(optional but seems to be preferred) we have to use at least one of the characters and develop it further, giving it a 'personality through its visual appearance, type of motion etc'. From the brief(regarding the character: 'creating a work in which the participant playfully interacts with the character.' This has to be demonstrated without it turning into/becoming a game.

Claymation

The day after choosing a character, developing it a reasonable amount and portraying it in a flip book, we then had to make a claymation of it. I'm happy to say that I actually enjoyed doing the claymations, I couldn't say specifically why, but I did. So I was a bit disappointed that we didn't do it for very long.

With my puzzle being basically 2-D it was a bit difficult to decide how to do the claymation. Now, I had thought of that the day before, but being the person I am and wanting to get the first part finished I just decided that I would deal with it the next day...

Instead of using the flat puzzle pieces I changed them to cubes which, though you couldn't see in the video, had the cut out semi-circle and attached semi-circle parts to make them look more like puzzle pieces. In my opinion the claymation didn't turn out very well. I hate to say this again, but I know that if I had been given more time, it would have been better.

After the individual ones were done, we got into groups of 3 or 4 and added our characters together to make a group claymation.
I was in a group with Emma and Corey who's character were, two oranges plus a knife(Emma), and a sort of blue rabbit alien thing(Corey). So we then had to figure out how to combine our characters to make a successful and understandable claymation.

We decided to have my puzzle as blocks and form some sort of block-like bowl in the middle of the scene. As those are moving Emma's orange(singular) starts to come in from the left side and at the same time have Corey's rabbit come in from the right. The orange, which has a face, reaches the blocks(we'll call it a bowl) and out of curiosity looks inside it. The rabbit sees the orange and also walks to the bowl. Once the orange is inside the bowl, the rabbit reaches it, squashes it and then proceeds to drink the orange from the bowl(added sound effect).
While it's drinking, Emma's second orange falls down and hits the rabbit, squashing it and knocking the teeth out(worked well, added detail)(another added sound effect). As the orange hits the ground it turns and smile at the camera, then Emma's knife comes down and cuts itin half(added sound effect). All that survives it the knife(and the bowl I suppose).

The final video looked pretty good, and I think the sound effects worked well. We didn't have a sound track in the background unlike many other groups, but I think that having silence and then the sudden sounds, added to each scene and gave it more impact. Unfortunately the fishwire used occasionally in the video can still be seen as the photoshop'd photos accidentally didn't get put in. Despite that I think it worked very well:

Character invention

Our next exercise after processing was to create a character through original ideas and development. In the end, after much thought and discarded ideas I actually came up with something. If I had been given more time, it's hard to say whether I would have come up with something better or nothing more. What I came up with, was something that could probably have been developed a lot more if necessary, although I may also have just ditched that idea too.

What I had was a completed puzzle which came apart piece by piece to eventually form a different puzzle. There were a number of different images or patterns that the puzzle might make, with the simplest possibly just different colours. The pieces would rotate and move in different directions once they were disconnected and break apart if they collided.

We had to make a flip book of our character in action and because the pages are small and with so many to draw, I decided to just use a puzzle with only nine pieces and no specific pattern. Doing it like this meant that the book would portray my idea, without me having to go into too much time consuming detail and would also allow for further development.

Flip books take a long time to draw, as every new page has to have the same image. To do this properly I just used a light under a glass table so that the drawings could easily be traced to the correct size and shape. While this is very helpful, after having drawn the same image lots of times I started to get not so specific about the detail. Being a perfectionist, this is a big failure for me...

I found that if the pages where lined up together it was a lot harder to flick though them properly e.g pages would get stuck together which meant that not every would be shown. So instead when lining up that pages I moved each piece slightly higher/further up than the previous one. This gave it a sort of step like construction and made it a lot easier to flick through the pieces.

In this post is a video of my book. Not done nearly as well as would have been if I had had more time. The video is slightly blurred but it is still possible to see what is happening.

Processing

Ok well the processing is finished now but here's a look into the past:

Presentations everyday! I mean come on how is that fair? Thankfully(as I've said and need to emphasise), a minute is a relatively short time to be up in front of an audience. Although, after a while the audience started to lessen as many people left before the presentations started...it really is a mystery as to why that happened.

I'm not too fond of 'processing', but then I think I can probably say the same thing about all the programs that we have used, it seems that I am definitely not a programming person. That meant that the two weeks spent on learning it weren't the most enjoyable two weeks of my life.

I stayed up pretty late the night before our 39 exercises were, and eventually got them finished, thanks to some help that I got. The main thing I'm worried about now that they've been handed in is that whether or not they're good enough for me to pass. But I am truly hoping that they will be.

I haven't said all that much, but those thoughts pretty much sum up the two weeks if 'processing'.

Shooting game

Well I've finished my shooting game - pretty much. There's a lot of stuff I would have like to have added to it, but I didn't manage to get those done, which is a bit of a disappointment. That being said, I'm still quite pleased with it(and getting prepared to see people's ones far cooler than mine), and I think I learned quite a bit about the processing programme, although I'll probably forget it all soon. Oh well, we'll see I suppose.

Processing

Right, so now we've got two weeks of learning a new programme; 'Processing'. Well we've done one week so now (obviously) there's one to go.

I'm not really sure what I think of it. Although I don't seem to be great at using this I think with something like this it does just take practice. My main problem is not that I don't understand it(sort of), it's just that I forget what I've learned about it really quickly. I don't know why but it makes it incredibly frustrating. Also what I don't think helps very much is that I don't have much confidence(if any) in my abilities. That definitely doesn't make it easier to learn.

The programme is a sort of extension of Java and my brother is a computer programmer with knowledge and experience of Java. So it's great to have him around to help me : ).

With this, we have to do a presentation of our work every day!! If there's definitely one thing I hate, it's being up in front of and showing my work to an audience. The only upside is, that because of the number of people we only have to be up there for approx. a minute.
Right now I'm working on a game that has to be presented on Tuesday morning. I might be a bit late that morning(not deliberately), and to be truly honest I don't really mind, if it means that I miss the presentations. :P.

I'm not really sure how much we are going to be using this programme. It may be one of the ones that we learn and then stop using. But seeing at we've got two weeks dedicated to learning it, that implies that this one is more important.

Well I haven't said very much, it's mainly just an update.

Final update

Well in each post for this project I've been very secretive about what I've been doing, and I see mo reason for it to change with this last one : ).

I reckon this project has been reasonably successful. Somethings have gone well and some haven't. But I think overall I can be pleased with what I've done.

Another update

OK what I am doing has once again changed. Most things seem to be working pretty well, I think I'm finally starting to understand this a bit.
I still need to figure out what I'm wanting to do for some things before I can go onto actually making the garment. I wasn't sure how long the programming was going to take, but it's taken quite a long time. So hopefully I can get that finished soon in order to get this project finished on time.

:D

Ok I'm feeling slightly better. What I needed to work is now working, so now I can try to carry on with the rest of the project.

???

Alright there is something that I need to do with Max that is just not working!!!!! The exact same thing works for other people but when it comes to me, doing exactly the same thing, it decides not to work!!
It is soooooooo frustrating. I have absolutely no idea why it is not working and I need to get it done!!!
Anyway that's all for now.

Thoughts

Hmm, so this isn't going too well. The only thing that I've got pretty much sorted is my idea of what I'm wanting to do. I know what garment I'll use, I pretty much know how I want to get it soldered and where to put the wires etc, also what switches I will use. So that just leaves the very big problem of Max/Jitter. I am definitely started to get worried. Time goes quickly especially when you want it to slow down.

Should I be worried?

I've changed my idea a little bit but I'm still pretty much sorted on that front. I also now have a new keyboard to use, that means more soldering : (. Buuuuuuutttttt, there is still the very big problem of how to do the programming...
All in all I'm not really sure much progress I'm actually making. I'm hoping for a brainwave soon(to help me with Max/Jitter), but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not going to come)

Update - sort of

Yeh this assignment is not going to be particularly easy for me. With my idea mostly sorted out now I need to test it with Max/Jitter before I can properly get started. This is where I get stuck. I hardly know where to start with this.

We are allowed to email for help if we really need it, but that involves sending the patcher. And it's not really possible to do that if I haven't done anything.

I've got just under two weeks to get this done. At the moment it seems like a long time, but I guarantee you that it will go extremely quickly.

Well hopefully it will all work out. I'll find out in two weeks I suppose...

The beginning...

Ok the Easter break has now begun and straight into this next project.

Ideas... always start right at the beginning. In this case I need to have a good idea and then I can think of the meaning, method, purpose etc.

Right, well I've had a number of ideas and now I think I have finally decided on what I will do. Well what I want to do anyway. Achieving it is in a completely different category.

Well I'd better get back to work I suppose, that's my update for now. I'll come back when I have some more relevant information to share.

Happy Easter. :D

Easter

I'm thinking that this is not going to be much of a holiday, as a definition of holiday is:
'Leisure time away from work, devoted to rest or pleasure'
And that definitely doesn't sound like what I'll be doing over the next two weeks.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too much work to do!!!!!!!!!! I'm mentally preparing for the difficulty and exhaustion that will come with the project that has to be completed during the Easter 'holiday'. Although it is something that is hard to prepare for, I'm always way too worried about failing and that thought is already starting to creep into my mind.

Wow, I really need to start writing some more positive posts. But for now, wish me luck.

Post activity thoughts

Well I did have some success. That success being that in the end I managed to get that little project finished. Although other people had stuff that was cooler than mine, I can still say that I'm glad I got something done. So looking back at that dreadful activity, which I didn't think I would be able to complete, I can probably conclude that I could maybe learn from that horrible experience.
(Is the point that I didn't like it coming across at all?)
I can look at it in the way that I overcame my fears(?) and crushed confidence(which I didn't have much to spare in the first place) and eventually managed to get something done.

But now we come to the next project...big one. And wait for it...
My confidence again has gone dramatically downhill. But back to point I was making; I can hopefully draw from the previous experience and maybe realise that I can achieve something if I really want to, even though I may not think I can. I hope that all made sense.

With this next project I'm again thinking that I may not have the skills to complete it in an acceptable standard, let alone finish it at all. But we shall see and hopefully with each project I will start gain more confidence and a positive attitude, providing that I get this one done and can move on. But see that is the attitude that I should not have and not get into the habit of having.

So basically I need to clarify the objective(?) of this next project to ensure that I understand it completely and come up with some good ideas so that I can work on it and finish it over the Easter break.

Start thinking...

Unhappy

I am seriously hating this activity.

OMFG!!

To be honest I haven't really enjoyed this week as much as the previous ones. We are now definitely getting into the areas that I appear to not have the skills for.

So here's what we've had to use to achieve the individual activities this past week. 2 programmes; Animata and MaxMSP, soldering, and other manual things to do with a keyboard circuit board.

Here's my conclusion about all of those things:
I am terrible at programming!!! I was not good at using the animata programme at first but at least I'm getting a little, emphasize the word 'little' here, better at it.
MaxMSP, I don't understand a word of that.
Soldering wires to the circuit board, I can safely say I'm not good at. And if I do get that working I'll have to figure out what to attach it all to, with switches and other things, and how to put it in it's little box, where to drill the holes etc.

When you put all of those together any sane person can see that I have a very small chance of completing that activity in time, let alone getting it done well.
This is what I was really afraid of before I started this course. I really don't like it when bad thoughts come true. So I'm panicking a little now, and that just makes everything worse.

I have a horrible feeling that I'll be feeling even worse once this activity is due to be handed in.
Well you can always hope. Although I was thinking yesterday that maybe I shouldn't hope for the best, as the saying goes, because then I'll be even more disappointed, unhappy, depressed, upset, truly gutted etc, when it doesn't work out. So I'm not hoping for the best. But if I feel that way it might make it even harder to get the work done. In conclusion I now don't really know what I should be hoping for and I think I'm in for a bad weekend and another bad week.

The day of presentation

Friday

On Friday we had to present Scorpy to everyone. The method we used was that of the 3rd drawing. It went quite well, we got good feedback and also good comments from people in the class.
It was also cool to see all the other group's robots. All of the robots were completely different and it was good to watch.

Photos of the 3rd drawing

Photos of Scorpy

Here are some photos of our drawings, first and second(more on the next post):

Tuesday to Thursday:

Those three days involved many different tests of the robot's structure/design and thoughts about the method that would be used to make the robot move (interaction with it's environment). Some ideas included: using - sound, different shades of light(as has been mentioned), surrounding the robot with boxes(in different arrangements) and making it back away from the boxes when it sensors them, following something (e.g light, a laser, some sort of remote controlled object :P) and a number of other things.

Eventually we got the structure of the robot in a way that suited it's movements. Also the final decision on the method was for the robot to be placed on white paper, with a black border, and to move away from the black when it sensed it. Some photos(one photo, I can't upload others at the moment because of the connection, I'll put lots in the next post):

Once we got everything sorted we were able to get all 3 drawings done(all 3 used the same method of black and white paper and were programmed to turn away from the black paper in a random direction each time).
Drawing 1 was with the holes being poked into it.
Drawing 2 was with a thinish vivid, set to make dots/dashes, with the same distance between them each time.
Drawing 3 was with a thicker vivid and drew its dashes randomly, meaning at random times, lengths and therefore obviously random distances too.

We left the robot going for probably over an hour in the 3rd drawing. All the photos will be on the next post.

Drawing machine

Monday

We decided that our drawing machine would create it's art by pricking the paper with some sort of sharp point e.g a pin or needle(first picture).

The reason for the Scorpion not being used was that, although it did work, it worked too slowly. The tail(which held the pin) took too long to reach the paper, therefore making the gaps between the holes too long. What was left of the Scorpion was completely reconstructed. The new robot was given an extension at the back to hold the pin and move up and down in order to make holes in the paper.

Here is test robot no. 2:


The robot was to be programmed in a specific structured movement while also being effected by it's outside environment in someway. The idea for this was to use light to control the speed of the robot's movement. Light = faster, darker = slower.

Many test runs were used with this design, using a push pin as the sharp object on the end. Eventually the robot got redesigned, once again.

Friday

Friday was the first day of our new project - building a drawing machine. With discussions as a group we came up with ideas and made a few decisions, while still leaving room for more ideas.

This was also the last day for Jester. He got pulled apart and rebuilt as the Scorpion. Once the scorpion was built we imaginatively discussed what could be done with him and removed some unnecessary parts. Here's a photo of the scorpion before some parts were removed(mainly his legs and claws - I suppose by doing that he doesn't look much like a scorpion anymore, but for now that remains his name).

Lastly for the first two weeks of posts, meet the team:

Jester in action

Thursday Jester had another task, following on from the day before and completed on Thursday morning. Put simply, each robot had to get from A - B. A being the entrance and B being a door reasonably far away.
We had Jester follow a line of masking tape in order to reach his destination. His movements ended up looking kind of like constant mini zig-zags. I'm happy to say that he did reach his destination, also completing his other challenge of knocking on the door(B) along with telling a knock knock joke(I'll add that the choice of the joke was not mine).
The video above is Jester in action.

Also added is a photo of our little robot completed in character by a Jester's hat, which if I may say, was brilliantly made :D.

After that we were all given the task of building a drawing machine (see the next post for details).

Jester

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday....
All about Jester!!

So on Tuesday, once again in small groups, we had to come up with a new chess piece with all of its characteristics and protocols etc. Ours was the Jester and his movements were basically those of a bishop and knight combined. Here are his rules:
- Move a maximum of two units diagonally in a normal movement
- To attack, an extra one unit is added to the ordinary movement (in the same turn). It still has to be diagonal but can go in any direction.
- Can only attack(thereby adding the extra unit) if there is another piece in that space.
- Cannot jump pieces in the first two diagonal units

Every group then had to programme their robot to follow the specific directions of their new chess piece ready for Wednesday's competition(see below).

Wednesday's competition:
Each robot was put into a marked square(with a 15 second delay) and had the simple rule of trying to get the furthest away from the square. People seemed to have fun with this(everyone is competitive, that's just a fact), proven in videos that I can't upload because they're either too big or they just take forever. Therefore I'll just make do with some photos.

Photos of situational shuffle

Here are some photos from the situational shuffle. I think I figured out why it wouldn't upload them before. Just me being impatient I think.

Week no. 2

We've done quite a lot so its actually getting quite hard to separate the days. But here is my description of the second week.

Again Monday doesn't really need too much mentioning. The day was pretty short, we just had a lecture (in a new building which I'm happy to say I found) basically just introducing us to creative technologies.

Correction on the comment written in the second post about the opening post: change to - 'the below blog'.

(Just a little comment: the time that the above post says I posted it, is not correct).

And here now is the first week:

Monday doesn't really need much mentioning, it was basically another orientation day, but this time specific to the BCT course.

Tuesday however, was completely different. We split into groups of approx. 12 and then each group was given a blank wall. Each person got a
[pink]post-it note and stuck it to the allocated wall with their name now written on it. 12 questions were asked, and answered, by writing the answer on a different coloured note and placing it
around your own name, not always very close. Each time a question was answered the answer got connected to the correct name though yellow wool/string. After that 12(funnily enough) different colours if string were used to connect similar or the same answers. Here are some photos of the task for viewing purposes.


We then used the programme Gephi to basically re-create our physical 'graph' into a computerised one. All of this done in order to better understand the structure in the information that we gathered.

Now Wednesday...
In smaller groups we had to get our own data and 'generate our own visualisations' from it.
So my team mates and I decided to use information found in that day's newspaper. This information was: the number of positive and negative stories in said newspaper. We then used Adobe Flash to create a presentation of the information. The ideas of these visualisations were partly based around Edward Tufte's reasoning of 'Visual Display of Quantitative Information'.

Thursday:

Situational Shuffle!!
Now I enjoyed this task although I have to say, the first part rather more than the second. So once again in small groups; 4. We were then given the following objects: a set of cards(with different instructions on them), really big chalk pen thingys, and a map of Auckland(downtown). Each group decided on who would have what role for the task. These being:
- Actuator: the subject of the work
- Controller: directs the Actuator
- Tracker: charts the progress of the Actuator
- Sensor: who basically observes and records what happens.
Now me being a keen photographer it is obvious which role I had (the sensor :D). So I basically took as many photos as I could and watched the actuator doing some weird things. Ok, well I tried to attach some photos but for some reason it won't let me. : (
Now that was the first part. The second part; we had to make a presentation of our exciting little adventure. So we used finalcut and eventually got it done.

Fridaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy:
We had to present our finished(:D) presentation to everyone and got given some feedback about it. Now I must say, I'm not sure if ours was positive or negative....
With that done we had our nice little BBQ lunch and the got given our shiny new laptops, just like the one that I'm using to type this up. I will say that I'm enjoying having it so far(even though it's a mac - windows is heaps better!!!!!!!!!! (and I think that the majority of people(based on the info from Tuesday) have the same opinion).

Right well I'm not entirely sure if I've written the right things here, but lets hope. So stay tuned for the info about week 2. :D

First week

Ok, so I'm finally getting around to writing something on this, so here is an introductory paragraph.

The first two weeks were definitely not what I might have expected. Though they were interesting, very social and intellectually profitable (a new learning experience). So here follows a description of the first 10 days.