Body Storming

 

After our short dicussion, En Cui and I have decided to combine the ideas of the talking door and the concept of gaps between multiple conersations to create an interactive hat. The idea of the hat was to create both a visual (Different coloured LEDs for different pitch and/or volume) and audio output whenever someone spoke. The idea was that it would let out a different sound depending on the pitch and volume it sensed from the surroundings, meaning that it will consider the environmental sound as a whole.

Watch the video here:

 

What did you learn from the process?

From this process we have learnt that our concept is hard to connect with the audience, so we should make it more diresct. Though the idea of using the object is fairly simple as it is what it is, which means the idea of a found object is really strong enough to have the audience interact with it without giving much instructions. The reactions can be learnt along the way. We should also make it such that what ever the reaction is should be within the view of the participant, as the lights are on top of the hat. Also our project is very context driven as it relies a crowded, noisy area to link to our concept of the gaps in between conversations.

What surprised you while going through the process?

Shout out to our Tester who is especially cooperative :3c. There was a lot of confusion trying to link the project to its concept, it is not directly understood as an individual or group concept, but I guess that is what happens when you only have one tester and your project responds to them whether in a group or not. The idea of the hat was for portability but we have the idea that it will react to its environment no matter if it is worn or not, this results in some comments that we might want to change the shape it takes. We are also worried about how to convince the audience whether they can grab the object freely.

How can your apply what you have discovered to the designing of your installation?

So we might consider changing the appearance of the artwork. We might tweak the message a bit, and maybe have multiple small things instead of one big thing, to make it less intimidating. Also Lei said we can use P5.js  to do speech to text, we are kind of bombarded with endless possibilities now lol.

Project Idea Development — Be Gentle with Door-chan, She is VERY Sensitive.

I had discussed with En Cui of two projects, and while she is expanding on the idea of the bilboard, I’m expanding on the idea of the talking door.

At first I had talked to Celine about a few ideas, and this one took on a concept that is very similar to hers, revolving around the idea of the door. However, this interstices revolves around the space between your hand and the door, and how you touch something.

The idea was mainly have the door react to your touch according to how you open it.

There will be a sensor attached to the handle, that would sense the vibrations along the door handle, and it would let out a response accordingly. The idea is to have the door say rather accusatory things, like “Who gave you the right to touch me!?”, mostly to give the people who touch the door a shock, let go of the door, and hopefully not enter the room at all :3

 

I Light Critique

I managed to catch a few of the interactive works when I went for I Light. The first being ‘Facey Thing’ by Uji Studios which was a sort of satirical take on the selfie culture amongst the masses in this day and age.

Fig 1. Facey Thing by Uji Studios, 2019, I Light, Singapore.
pictures screenshot from video taken by: En Cui

When you first encounter it, ‘Facey Thing’ is a bright huge screen that is twice the height of an ordinary human.

Diagram 1, mock up of Facey Thing

So the set up is simple, consisting of a screen which is hooked up to a single camera that captures the passerbys that are oving in front of the work. The code that runs this work is set to capture the faces of the people who are standing in front of it.

Fig 2. Facey Thing by Uji Studios, 2019, I Light, Singapore.
pictures screenshot from video taken by: En Cui

Fig 3. Facey Thing by Uji Studios, 2019, I Light, Singapore.
pictures screenshot from video taken by: En Cui

When your face is recognised by the screen it is boxed up as seen in fig 2 above and would later evolve to fig 3. In Fig 3, the faces of the passerbys are blown up and dragged upward almost as though painting the canvas with their face. So in this case the images on the screen are temporarily changed by the people who interact with it, if not it is no more then an ordinary close circuit video recording. It warps the initial intention of Selfies to be one that portray one self as ‘glam’ to being very ‘unglam’ instead by warping the passerby’s faces. 

Fig 4. Facey Thing by Uji Studios, 2019, I Light, Singapore.
pictures screenshot from video taken by: En Cui

The people that decided to interact it were waving their hands of moving about oddly to try and get their face recognised by the system.

Subsequently I caught “Shades of Temporality” by SWEATSHOPPE – Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy.

Fig 5. Shades of Temporality by SweatShoppe, 2019, I Light Singapore
Text: 你好 Lei <3
Written by: En Cui, Christine and Elizabeth

This work has two elements to it, the first being the visualiser projecting the ‘painted image’ on to the wall, and the second being the paint rollers.

Diagram 2, Mock up of the painting brushes used in Shades of Temporarity

Diagram 3, Mock up of the set up of Shades of Temporarity

When the button in diagram 2 is pressed the paint brush head up turns green. this is then sensed by the camera and the visualiser will send an out put of light that will corespond to the area where the paint brush touched, projecting a loop of graphical illustrations of Singapore.

In this case the audience are encouraged to make temporary graffity designs on the wall, hence creating art. the audience is given the ability to write what ever they want to express themselves in anyway they see fit.