Month: March 2018

Trial 2

Using the A4 folded paper tessellation we have done earlier, we wanted to see the effect of projecting a visual on it. Our intention is to do a top down projection of ripple effect. From a side view, it would look like this – the projector will be on top, then the layer of tessellations, then the people walking underneath it.

But first, we need to figure out if the projected ripple visuals can be seen from underneath the tessellations, or will it obscure the visibility of the ripple projection due to its structured shape. Hence we tried by doing a test projection. We felt that it was quite successful as when looking from the “underside” of the paper tessellation, we can see the changes in colour as the ripple projection is being played.

---

Trial 3

Next we moved on to test try how the paper would behave when hooked up to servo motors. In the first try, we placed the paper tessellations horizontally, with its 4 corners tied to the supporting structure. Only 1 corner has been attached to a servo motor pulling the paper in a up-down motion. We felt that the effect was quite minimal.

In our second try, we placed the paper tessellations vertically, with Jin Yee holding onto one vertical side. We attached a string from the center of the opposite vertical side to the servo motor. There was a pulling motion and teh effect was quite obvious. However, we are unsure if this might work out when the paper is of a larger scale as well as the effect of it be held up by strings to hold up the weight instead of a “stronger” hand.

In our third try, similar to the second try but we changed it from vertical planer to a horizontal planar. Here, the paper can barely hold the weight of itself. When the servo motor pulls the string taunt, the paper becomes flat, but when the servo turns and the string relaxes, the whole paper tessellation flops.

13th March (presentation feedback)

For our first presentation we presented on the idea of using two rooms to represent two individual person and how they would affect each other without realising the other’s presence.  The idea was to get Person A in cocoon A to play with the sound and get person B in cocoon B to play with colour and from this we wanted to glitch cocoon A’s visual with cocoon B audio.

Feedback from the first presentation was despite the idea being interesting, the purpose of the 2 cocoons seem unclear or redundant – What was the need for that and why not just program the audio to be random? Also, if one person is affecting another what was the purpose of splitting them if they  are not going to know that they were affected?

22nd March (consultation)

Therefore, we started to re-thinking about how we could better represent our idea as well as have a more immersive feel by involving participants. Therefore we came up with another presentation (click here) presenting some ideas we thought would represent our concept .

So we finalised the way we wanted to present the idea.

Our idea: was to to show how one person affects another  (interconnectedness) . Therefore we wanted to use the idea of the Ripple to represent the concept of interconnectedness. Metaphorically, the Ripple Effect shows how one action can cause literally a ripple or chain effect, this shows how interconnected we all are.

Therefore we came up with four ideas to explore this:

1. Speaker balls
2. Metal tubes (wind chimes)
3. Lily pad inspiration (lalang)
4. Woodblocks

During our consultation we presented the above ideas. We were very stuck in our concept development and these are our idea creation process. During the consultation, we were told to evaluate our 4 ideas according to 3 criteria: feasibility, originality and aesthetics.

We were originally leaning towards doing the lily pad ( lalang ) idea. However, it was not that feasible due to the many motors involved and even then, it might not be able create a convincing movement. We were stuck again. We did not want to make something that already existed and we were really very lost with our idea. Our concept was finalised (interconnectedness—> wave—-> ripple effect) and we just had the problem of representing it.

Our plans for the upcoming class on the 27th March

We plan to discuss with LPD:

1. the blob effect
2. The possibilities to controlling more than one motor with motion region tracking
3. We also plan to discuss with him using origami to explore the idea of interconnectedness.

For now we have met a few times and explored the possibilities of creating a large sheet of Origami and that we tested out different types.

---

Paper folding reference

Different ways of folding we tried 

Reference Video

– Check out the next post for more updates –

For our first test we were attempting to find patches that will aid us in motion tracking as we would like a trail of images to follow the hand movement of visitors. We used the test motion2 patch to play around and realised that not all sensors were detecting the movement. As went through in class, the sound is created from the difference of the frame from the previous frame to the next frame. However, the bottom to sensors were not working. Therefore we decided to try to clear the background to see if we are able to have a clearer vision.

In the next video we used a black board to cover the background and ALL the sensors worked! Hoorah!! From here we were starting to analyse the patch and though that it could be due to a large difference in contrast that created the best sensing. However, we wanted to test out more and then we tried using the a white background and realised that our hands did not work. So then we thought further and realised that:
1. Black background-can sense hand
2. White background- cannot sense hand
3. No background can sense white paper

Trial 1

Conclusion: the sensors are sensing the brightest object in the room and therefore we decided to try It with light as it will be the brightest.

1. Black background-can sense with light
2. White background- can sense with light
3. No background-can sense with light

Next, we will want to add more regions and more sounds to play around with the effecting part of the sensor.

Click here for Presentation slide: My life

Initial Idea

To use dance as an avenue to express depression, hurt and sorrow. The idea was to use the technique of projection mapping. It will be a live performance (contemporary art) by our dancer Yuqing and projection mapping will be casted on her using aftereffects.

Max MSP will be used in the form of motion region that will create certain sounds/ glitches in certain regions of her movement. The initial visuals were more in the direction to explore the suffocation and entrapment created by depression. However , we did not carry on with this idea as it did not represent the idea of depression effectively.

---

Current Idea

Our group consists of 3 beautiful ladies of Jin Yee, Yu Qing and Margaret. We are interested in exploring the concept of the human mind. We liken the mind to a sponge, absorbing everything (be it surroundings, experiences), yet there is a breaking point, our minds are inherently fragile. Therefore, we intend to dwell deeper into the idea of are place in this world and how external forces outside of our minds mould and affect us.

Our final idea is a culmination of two parts. Firstly, an individual crawls into room (A) and pops up through an elevated planar surface at roughly hip height. As you appear in a empty room, you will be confused at what’s going on and will likely flail your arms around a bit as you figure out what you’re supposed to do here or what is supposed to happen here. A motion sensor will detect the movement and produce visuals that will be projected on the elevated plane.
Secondly, the other people enter another room (B) and interact with the interface there. Little did they know, their decisions/actions in this room (B) “affects” the person in the other room (A). This is embodied through the changing sounds in room (A).