Author: Joan

Two-legged giraffe prancing through life.
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Assignment 3 – Response to Chapt 1 from Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman, Thoughtful Interaction Design

This reading discusses about what constitutes a good design and the thought processes that should go through every designer’s head. While there are many different definitions of what a good design is and what design theory means, this chapter gives readers a general idea of core design concepts, and the scope of what should be considered when embarking on a thoughtful interaction design.

The design process encompasses the designer, the resources and the situation at hand, and by considering these elements, newly created designs should aim and participate in problem solving. Unlike logical problem solving, this sort of problem solving is an ongoing process that influences people’s work, leisure and everyday life. On top of that, this chapter generally emphasised on the importance of having a good balance between aesthetic design and its functionality, which in turn constitutes a thoughtful design.

One example of a relevant design with very practical consequences – Changi airport flight information boards, commonly found in the large areas near the entrance of the terminal:

6 LED flight info displays at Terminal 3
Split-flap display at Terminal 1

The efficiency of information transfer between the user and the boards lies in its design. Ideally, the user should be able to refer to the displayed information comfortably, find and effectively remember the details of their flight within a short amount of time. Personally, I prefer the design of the split-flap display for both its aesthetics and functionality.

Visual clarity

Unlike the downward layout of split-flap displays, LED displays lack direction and clarity when all six pages of information are displayed at once. With their attention already divided, one can easily lose track of their search if the information on the screen changes with no warning, resulting in a slower transfer of information to its users.

Tangible vs digital

Despite living in an increasingly digitised world, the process of learning is often more effective and enforced through tangible experiences. Physical tools often have a stronger impact than digital mediums. Similarly, the physical qualities of the split-flap display catch the attention of the viewers and draws them to the neat, structural layout of the electromechanical flaps. The metallic flapping sounds of the display alerts the viewers when the information is being updated, giving users a better understanding and a cognitive map of the information that is being presented to them.

Context

Considering the bright interiors of Changi airport terminals, with floods of both artificial and natural lighting in the day, high amounts of light may reflect off the screens, affecting the visibility range of large reflective displays. Split-flap displays, on the other hand, are non-reflective, allowing wider viewing angles, convenience and viewing experience for the general public.

However, when the budget and spatial limitations are taken into account, LED displays are in fact more feasible in some locations. On other levels of the airport with lower ceilings and less sunlight, these displays are laid out on a straight row instead of the 3×2 arrangement.

This also proves Löwgren and Stolterman’s point where:

“The good of a particular digital artefact also has to be judged in relation to the intentions and expectations present in the specific situation. This means that the artefact users’ competence and skills in judging quality has a great impact on how the artefact is assessed.”

Overall, this was an enriching read that presented many interesting ideas and applicable concepts to us, as interactive design students. It highlighted many key points that should be considered when embarking on any design projects, and provided insights about the processes relevant to the design industry.

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Assignment 2 – The Oceanic Exhibition Report

Sound performance by Tarek Atoui

About Tarek Atoui

Tarek Atoui (Lebanon/France) is a sound artist and electroacoustic composer, known for his inventive instruments through complex engineering. He custom-builds his electronics and setup for his performances, truly utilising technology as a form of his identity and expression. Atoui’s projects often revolve around educational, social themes and extends into the history of music and instrumentation.

In one of his most notable works – Infinite Ear/WITHIN, he explored the different ways in which the deaf can perceive sound, and how they can also influence our understanding of sound art.

The Performance

In collaboration with TBA21-Academy and as a part of The Current Convening #3: Tabu/Tapu and The Oceanic, Tarek Atoui performed a sound piece exploring the human interventions in oceanic ecospheres. The piece lasted for almost an hour, consisting of many harbour and underwater sound recordings and electronically synthesized disturbances. While it was not stated for this piece, Atoui’s performances are usually improvised for the most part.

His performance began with a low rhythmic beat, with subtle tones. As the piece progresses, there was the addition of metal clinking, the sound of machines turning, engines and digitized sound effects. There was a gradual increase in volume towards the middle, although the piece fluctuated between being dominantly soothing and chaotic.

Atoui’s brand of sound art is also characterised by his manic bodily movements during the performance, as he switches between his electronic controllers and computers. Some of these movements include dramatic pushing of pressure triggers and turning of large imaginary knobs above his electronics which triggered real responses in sounds. His bodily movements follow closely the flow of his improvised piece, ranging from rigid, sudden movements for loud machinery sounds, to smooth dynamic movements for environmental sounds.

Considering Atoui’s fascination with history and electronics, I believe this piece plays an important role in bringing his audience on an audio voyage through the evolution of our global oceans. His piece consists of natural recordings build on by the addition of contrasting synthetic sound effects and disturbances, suggesting the correlation between environmental degeneration and human industrial creation. Atoui’s composition of the natural and synthetic suggests a range of ideas as to what these disturbances might be and whom they may have affected: remote communities, traditional tribes (refer to audio recording 8), warship radar and nuclear tests (audio recording 7), and the extraction of natural resources.

Link to audio recordings & videos:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=14HD3BOsxf36JTInRqL6SezktzcqDKtJ-

Link to group presentation with Xin Feng & Tiffany:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/156YK8W4hmqBQNOkiv–JBJNSLWY1P6c3689JvpfOLLA/edit?usp=sharing

References

http://soft-cells.com/about/news/tarek-atoui
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/tarek-atoui-visiting-tarab
https://www.gillmanbarracks.com/others/ntu-cca-singapore/1838

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Assignment 1 – Resume + Bio

1. Resume
2. Bio + Recent Work
3. Work that inspires youBio

Joan is currently majoring in Interactive Media in Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Media & Design (ADM). She graduated from Serangoon Junior College previously, where she was trained mainly in the traditional art mediums. In 2017, she worked as a programmer intern for Multimedia People, where she designed interfaces for Gardens By The Bay and the IRAS Gallery.

She is passionate about bringing attention towards environmental issues and creating works to help people get closer to and appreciate mother nature. She finds comfort and inspiration in nature and has incorporate many of these elements into her past works, such as interactive plants, animal documentation and weather simulators.

She strongly believes that visual arts and interactivity play crucial roles in today’s media and marketing, and its power to change perceptions. In her future projects, she also hopes to inject the element of fun into the interactive learning experiences of people of all ages.

Recent Work

(Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4p9brBXsKM)

UFO (Universal Forecast Object) is an expandable mood umbrella, fitted with real-time temperature and weather display. Our umbrella is shaped like a cloud and covered with waterproof nylon fabric. It changes colour based on the temperature of the user’s hands and expands outwards based on the strength of the user’s grip around the handle. This feature serves as a functional purpose, especially on stormy days where the coverage can be increased with just a tighter grip.

Through this product, we hope to provide people indoors with immediate weather information based on their location, and to better prepare them for their journey outdoors.

Graffiti Nature

teamLab, 2016 – present, Interactive Digital Installation
One of the five interactive projects on display at the ArtScience Museum’s Future World: Where Art Meets Science

Link: https://www.teamlab.art/w/graffiti_nature/

“Graffiti Nature is an artwork that is completely created by the visitors. The ecosystem of flora and fauna expands when visitors draw and colour in more animals and flowers, and butterflies grow and increase where the flowers are. If the animals sense you, they run away. Stand still and flowers will blossom around you. Walk around and the flowers will scatter. Search for your animals, and whilst making the flowers bloom, explore the Future World that everyone has created,” said Mr Toshiyuki Inoko, founder of teamLab.

This work resonates with me as it presents a dream-like reality where humanity and nature co-exists in a harmonious manner. Its immense scale and aesthetic qualities allow a part of the museum to be transformed into an immersive world of digital animals, with designs and patterns created by the visitors themselves. While it attracts audience of all ages, it primarily targets children, providing them with an enriching learning experience and to let their imagination run wild.

 

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Exercise #1: Under the Wraps

Under the Wraps

Life-sized burrito, made with felt, paper and foil
Location: Open spaces in ADM
 by Joan Li and Tiffany Anne

An interactive installation that wraps two individuals within a close intimate space. It aims to stimulate various kinds of human interaction between two unsuspecting persons.

Ideation

We had two initial ideas surrounding the theme for this exercise – Be Part of The Art:

1. Hanging clothes
Setting up clothes lines along corridors or walkways around ADM, and invite students (or anyone else) to participate by clipping the top of their clothes to the line. Much like our laundry at home, several people can be attached to the line in a manner where they cannot undo their clothes pegs without the help of passersby or other ‘laundry’. We were interested to see how participants would react when put under such situations – Will they start socializing? Will it be awkward? Or will they try their best to wriggle themselves free?

2. People as food
Our second idea was the perceive people as individual food/ingredient, and place them together to create a dish. Based on the colors that the participants are wearing, they can play the roles of different foods – for example, red tomato on a sandwich, green lettuce in a burrito or yellow cheese in a taco!

We decided to embark on our second idea and create a life-sized burrito large enough to wrap two individuals together within an intimate space. As burritos are often brightly colored and associated with warmth and blankets (“blanket burrito”), we felt that it was appropriate and would encourage positive human interaction between the participants.

 

Photo Gallery

Some responses & behaviours of participants

1. “It feels strangely intimate to be wrapped inside a burrito with him.”

2. Casual talking between close friends, no signs of awkwardness

3. Awkwardness

4. Signs of teamwork – trying to move around as a pair/trio

Processes

For the tortilla wrap, we sourced some brown paper from the drawing room and used chalk, charcoal and color pencils to create the toasted texture.

For the ingredients inside, we bought some colored felt cloth from Daiso and painted some materials that we found in the IM lab. We made a slice of tomato, vegan cheese and several pieces of lettuce as props

Finally, we packaged our burrito by wrapping its bottom section with aluminum foil.

Done! It’s a wrap 😉

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Interactive Devices – Semester Project Documentation

By Hannah Kwah & Joan Li

 

1. Initial Ideas + Sketches

Our initial ideas include different version of an interactive umbrella, but with different functions, sensing and feedback:
– An umbrella with pressure pads on the top, to sense the intensity of rain. The heavier the rain, the higher the pressure measured.
– A spinning umbrella with servo motors at the handle, to serve as a fast drying mechanism after walking in the rain.
– A ‘night light’ umbrella with photoresistors installed, becomes brighter when it gets dark at night. In the event of lightning, the umbrella LED would correspond and imitate its brightness.
– A weather forecast umbrella that alerts users of the chances of rain, and whether they should carry the umbrella out for the day.
– An umbrella that alerts users if it is misplaced or forgotten.
– An umbrella with microphones attached, and responds by expanding if volume detected in generally loud, for example: during heavy rain, thunder or at crowded places.
– An expandable umbrella that is triggered with tighter grip around the handle, to cover a larger surface area during heavy rain.

2. Chosen Idea

An expandable cloud shaped umbrella, with LCD display and colour changing LED lights.
Sensing: Pressure of user’s grip, temperature of user’s hands, real-time weather data from website
Effecting: Expansion of umbrella and changing of colour depending on the temperature, display weather data

3. Process

Coding:

1A. Using Arduino for LED & temperature:
Our initial idea was for the LED light to change colour upon the person’s temperature based on temperature sensor. Depending on your body temperature the light changes accordingly. If the person is very warm, the light will be on the warmer tone and if the person is very cold, the light will be on the cooler tone.The problem we faced was whenever the LED was plug in together with the temperature sensor, the temperature sensor’s numbers would fluctuate from a negative to positive range. Not only that, the numbers will jump randomly even though we are not touching it. We had an idea of separating the temperature sensor with the LED but it would not make sense as they needed to work concurrently.1B. Using Arduino for LED & knob:
After much struggling with the temperature sensor, we decided to use the knob instead. It also worked in the same manner as the temperature sensor where the LED changes colour too. We used arduino to read the values of the knob and determined the range we wanted to incorporate into the LED when the user turns. We planned the values and colours that we wanted to showcase.

 2. Using pressure pads & servos for expansion:
We used the pressure pad to determine whether the umbrella was to expand or not. We tested out both hardware separately.Based on our knowledge of how a servo works, we tried to code it in a way which allows two servos to work simultaneously. It worked out and changed the direction of each of them according to how we wanted to expand the umbrella.Next, we attempted to use MAX for the pressure sensor. We wanted to use MAX to call Arduino as the pressure sensor controls the movement of the servo. The harder you press the umbrella will expand. The patch worked as the sensor was able to determine whether the user presses it or not.We were facing the problem of trying to read the values of Arduino to MAX as both of them works perfectly individually but when combined together it does not work. We tried to solve the problem by replacing the pressure sensor with a knob to check if there was anything wrong in either end. We scraped the idea of the use of MAX and used Arduino directly through the use of wires. The knob worked perfectly and the servos expanded and retracted accordingly. We switched the knob for the pressure pad and it worked perfectly.

3. Getting weather data from the Internet:
For this, we needed an Arduino Yun shield for Wifi access, and a website called Temboo to retrieve weather data from Yahoo!. Instead of using an Arduino Yun shield, we bought a Dragino Yun shield instead, which provides the same function.

We managed to connect the Wifi from the Yun shield, but it was very unstable and we could not configure it completely. Even though the code worked, we couldn’t get the shield to function properly and therefore was getting distorted values.
Also, we realised that the weather data from Yahoo! was inaccurate, as their data sometimes did not match the current weather conditions.

Nevertheless, we decided to print the weather conditions on the LCD, along with the current temperature, humidity and chance of precipitation. We feel that a weather update display on an umbrella would be convenient for users to gauge the weather for the day, to plan their activities ahead of time, and to decide whether to bring an umbrella out or not.

Prototyping:
 For our cloud shaped umbrella, we decided to use metal wires to construct its 3D frame. The wires we used for our first prototype was too thin and flimsy, and the structure was not sturdy at all. Hence, we decided to use a much thicker wire, but lessen the number of wires used to construct the frame to minimize the overall weight. We also used thin threads to add support to the wires in the frame and to keep the frame from going out of shape.

 One of our biggest challenges was to design the expandable mechanism, with less or mostly lightweight materials, so as to keep the umbrella handy and portable.




First prototype – Expanding mechanism made from jointed chopsticks, similar to the skeleton of regular foldable umbrellas.
This method was quite sturdy and could extend a good distance. However, we also realized that it would require quite a number of sturdy sticks to support the entire 3D structure, which would make it very heavy. We would also need extra support at the top of the umbrella to hold it together.

Second prototype – We tied several threads from the wire frame to the end of the servo motor bar, to create a “contract and release” system. It was the lightest way of suspending our expanding mechanism, although the expansion was a little angled instead of being horizontal.

4. Final Product

UFO (Universal Forecast Object) is an expandable mood umbrella, fitted with real-time temperature and weather display. Our umbrella is shaped like a cloud, and covered with waterproof nylon fabric. It changes colour based on the temperature of the user, and expands outwards based on the strength of the user’s grip around the handle.

Through this product, we hope to provide people indoors with immediate weather information based on their location, to better prepare them for their journey outdoors.

 

Video documentation:


Possible improvement:
– To provide stronger hold on the overall structure & wider expansion, use 4 servos instead of 2
– Lessen the overall weight of the umbrella by using slightly more lightweight materials
– Build a sturdier handle, for better grip and balance out the top-heavy umbrella

 

 

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Final Project – Know someone in need of money?

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI GAOGAO PTE. LTD. right now. Help is always available.

Our broadcast is about two civilians that owe a huge amount of money to an infamous loan shark organisation, Wu Long. The duo had to find enough money around the place so that they could pay the head of the loan shark organisation the total amount of money they had borrowed from him. The debtors had a buffer time of about 5 minutes to collect as much money as they could or hide, after which the loan sharks would start chasing them down. Will the debtors be able to collect enough money before the time run out?

Description

In the live stream, Cher See and Xin Feng were role playing as the infamous loan sharks while Joan and Hannah were role playing as the civilians. The civilians’ mission was to locate all the hidden envelopes that contain money, finding every possible areas that had the hidden stash of money. The head of the loan shark, Long Ge (aka Cher See) had dispatched an underling, Ah Feng (aka Xin Feng) to find the two civilians to pressure them to pay back the money they owe. Joan managed to find the envelopes hidden around the area but was caught by Ah Feng shortly after she found the third envelope. She was brought to Long Ge to check on the amount of money she had collected. Joan had to wait for Hannah to find the remaining amount of money that was escalating every 10 mins. On the other hand, Hannah had to go around and beg people for money so that she could pay back her debts while finding ways to escape the loan sharks. After finding enough money, Joan asked Hannah to come find Long Ge to return back the remaining sum. In the end, both civilians were able to pay back what they had borrowed from the loan sharks.

Hannah & Joan live broadcast

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI GAOGAO PTE. LTD. right now. Help is always available. (a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation)

Posted by Joan Li on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI GAOGAO PTE. LTD. right now. Help is always available. (a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation)

Posted by Joan Li on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

 

Cher See & Xin Feng live broadcast

https://www.facebook.com/sim.xinfeng/videos/10155422573456888/

 

Combine broadcasts

https://www.facebook.com/goh.chersee/videos/10212370482911395/

https://www.facebook.com/goh.chersee/videos/10212370688196527/

https://www.facebook.com/goh.chersee/videos/10212370781958871/

Reveal of all envelope locations

https://www.facebook.com/sim.xinfeng/videos/10155422573456888/

 

Further Improvement

The one major problem that the team faces were the internet connection. It was causing lagginess and disconnection when the team were co-broadcasting. However, the team had came to believe that such limitation were actually working in our favor as it created a more interesting composition and dynamics when things were not working as it should have. There were some shots that were quite unusual and could really sell the narrative that the two civilian were actually running away from the loan shark. Nonetheless, the team were still able to complete the project on time even when the internet connection were poor.

Another problem that we could have improved on were the balancing of the game. There were some envelope that were hidden in areas that were too difficult to find and some that were too obvious. Perhaps the team could strike a balance if we had another chance to improve on our live stream. However, placing envelops at places that requires strenuous effort to locate promote our team members to interact with passersby, borrowing money and help from them. It remove the stagnancy of our co-broadcasting and introduce new elements to keep the audiences entertain in our stream.

My role

In the live stream, I role played as one of the debtors. As the game started, I began searching from the 4th level, and eventually found a total of 10$. The treasure hunting experience was really fun, especially with the aspect of fear of getting caught. The first time I bumped into one of the loan sharks, it was within the buffer time and I received a warning about my ‘debt’. About 10-15 minutes into the live stream, I was officially caught and brought into the WuLong Headquarters. However, I did feel a little bored as there wasn’t much to do after getting caught. I had a hard time trying to get my fellow debtor to co-broadcast with me, as she kept disconnecting for long periods of time. However, I felt that the problems we encountered in terms of the bandwidth helped to balance out the difficulty on both sides; it was a little more difficult for the loan sharks to figure out our locations.

Linking to what we have learned

The CCTV-like footage that the loan shark used to track down the locations of the debtors reminded me a little of A Hole-In-Space. The collage of footage on OBS was a collapse of multiple spaces, much like real CCTV cameras that could collapse spaces throughout a building into one single screen. Without moving from his chair, the head of the Wu Long organisation could reach into and access real-time information from wherever his debtors were located at around ADM. However, the one-way onscreen interaction would render our live performance as something closer to Jennicam, especially while playing the role of a debtor.

Image result for jennicam site

The debtors had no access of the loan sharks’ stream or whereabouts, despite being constantly tracked and spied on by them. Similar to Jennicam, she had no means of knowing who or when someone was watching her and how much of her they saw. During the broadcast, we felt the vulnerability of being exposed to an unknown audience whom may or may not have caught our every movement. We also had the constant feeling of impending danger, and the fear of suddenly bumping into one of the loan sharks in ADM (which I did, at the lift). We felt what most people would have felt when put into the position of Jennicam, although Jenny herself was perfectly comfortable with it. 

The weak Internet connection that we experienced also caused our OBS live stream to play in slow frames, which was similar to the earlier periods of Jennicam where grainy images where replaced every 15 seconds. It gave viewers a small sense of suspense and anticipation as to what image is going to appear next, and piece them together to form a narrative. One interesting aspect of the outcome of our live stream was also the audio. Even though the footage froze on many occasions, the audio actually continued playing in the background. There was one instance where Hannah disconnected from my co-broadcast completely, but somehow her audio still got through.

Overall, it was a fun treasure hunting experience and really interesting to assume a new identity on the live stream and play a different role. Although the outcome could have been better with better bandwidth, I feel that our concept was still conveyed through our final project.

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Telematic Stroll – Reflection

Part I:

https://www.facebook.com/joan.li.165/videos/10155637773263819/

(Video starts at 2:11)

Part II:

https://www.facebook.com/joan.li.165/videos/10155637855048819/

(Video starts at 4:14)

For our telematic stroll, we decided to embark on our journey home in the evening, while exploring our neighborhood estate. As Hannah stayed in Pasir Ris (east) and I stayed in Queenstown (west), we wanted to look for similarities and difference between estates that are far apart, and some of the daily activities we do at home. We chose to broadcast in the evening as we wanted to (hopefully) catch the sunset from two different points of view. Unfortunately, there was no clear sunset in the past week. (It was either greyish blue or too cloudy or thunderstorms)

Our plan:
Start broadcasting – 6:50
Walk around neighboring parks/garden
Compare sunset
Compare features around the neighborhood
Go home by climbing the stairs (approx. 8 floors)
Prepare a snack and eat together
Watch TV together – end at 7:20

We started off the stroll by exploring spaces that were near our homes – Hannah at the ground level of her HDB, and I was at a roof garden on the 14th floor. The reason for our choice of locations was that we wanted to climb the number of flights of stairs up to our homes (10th and 22nd storey) after exploring.

 Interestingly, the sky was much bluer in the east even though the sun sets in the west. HDBs look so similar and generic – those in the east and those in the west blend seamlessly well together even though they are far apart.

After exploring our surroundings for a bit, we climbed up the stairs together to get home. We didn’t want to take the elevator because we would lose connection, and we felt that stairs was a better representation of a journey home.


Aerial view of our neighborhood – parks, roads, construction sites and other HDB buildings

We also planned to eat together, so we prepared food beforehand. However, Hannah disconnected so here’s me eating alone.

We ate together again during the second part of the broadcast, and we happened to find the same drink in our refrigerators.

Entertainment at home – watching programs on the TV and videos on a laptop

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Research Critique – Interview with Second Front

The interview with Second Front was a refreshing experience as we got to be in the virtual space with Second Front! They were all rather laid-back, cool and excited (especially Bibbe), and shared their personal experiences and thoughts about Second Life and their work. They talked about the difference between the virtual and reality, the reason behind their choice of medium and their process behind some of their works. I was surprised by the amount of audience participation in their live performances and how these interactions affect the outcome of their work, as I couldn’t see it in the recorded performances. Hopefully one day I would be able to catch their performances live and interact with them in the virtual world!

Networked Conversations with Second Front, hosted by Randall Packer
Identities.

I found the fluidity of identity discussed by Second Front rather interesting. At the beginning of the interview, each of the members did a brief introduction about their virtual identities and their relationship with them.

Liz Solo’s character was her virtual puppet, while Patrick, Bibbe and Jeremy’s characters were a cross between their favourite artists, celebrities, musicians, and other media influences. It seemed like their identities on Second Life were more of an alter ego than a personal extension of themselves, and an idealised blend of their favourite characters. They could assume the partial identity of another person and act freely with it. Second Life was a channel through which they could express themselves in ways that they can’t in the real world, or as Bibbe would say – “Second Life sets me loose.”

In the virtual world, a character’s identity is something like a mask that can be copied exactly and controlled by another user. This interchangeability of avatars allows further exploration of possibilities in Second Life. One example of changing identities in their work is the Grand Theft Avatar.

Image result for second front grand theft avatar


Grand Theft Avatar was a live performance at the San Francisco Art Institute as part of the “From Cinema to Machinima” panel. It depicts a local bank heist, where the Linden Treasury was robbed by a group of professional robbers. The robbers then flew off in helicopters, freeing the loot from the sky in the process.

In this performance, members of the Second Front started off with their usual virtual identities, and then changed their avatars to impersonate the members of the panel, before embarking on the bank heist.

Related image

Real?

Prior to the interview, I had a few questions prepared and one of them was this:

“How real is Second Life? If you were to perform the same content on a physical stage, would it feel any more or less real, compared to doing it in the virtual world?”

One of them mentioned that performing on a virtual stage merely takes the physical body out of performance art – the important things like emotions and the narrative stays, and therefore it is real. Furthermore, Second Front’s works mostly consists of large scale settings, quirky props and silly actions, all of which can be seamlessly reproduced in Second Life but not in the physical world. (Or would require lots of manpower and money to carry out) Second Life, or any other virtual platform, is perhaps the best medium in which viewers can immerse in and feel the ‘real-ness’ of their performances.

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Final Project – Test Run

Hannah & Joan live broadcast

https://www.facebook.com/littleangel.hannah/videos/10159446580005425/

Cher See & Xin Feng live broadcast

https://www.facebook.com/sim.xinfeng/videos/10155367381841888/

Combine broadcast on OBS

https://www.facebook.com/goh.chersee/videos/10212224901431949/

 

Roles: Cher See (Police), Xin Feng (Police), Hannah (Thief), Joan (Thief)

Co-broadcasting reflection

One of the technical difficulties that we face while we were broadcasting was the lagginess of our stream. We kept on disconnecting with each other and the constant need to stay connected to the internet had therefore limiting our hiding spot. The problem was that our stream requires a certain level of responsiveness. The time delay between all of the live feed might cause confusion and disarray in our communications with one another.  

The audio quality was surprisingly loud and clear and the vocal communication between the co-broadcasters was smooth. At the beginning of the broadcast, we were all in the same room and the echo of audio transferred between the five devices was very interesting. The close proximity of the devices also created some audio feedback. At around 00:13 & 24:00, we experimented with this echo and feedback effect.

As the race started, the thieves headed off to various hiding spots and were able to converse easily through the broadcast. We also noted that the clear audio recording allowed the policemen to eavesdrop easily on the thieves’ conversation and deduce their locations. The comment section for Joan and Hannah live feed was smooth and did not run into any problems. Cher See(police) have posted some riddles for the Thief team to guess.

Future Improvements

For the thieves, we could improve on our camera angle and reveal more of our locations so that it would create interesting footages. It would also allow the policemen to have a better idea and better regulate the race.

As for the riddles given by the policeman in the headquarters, if the thieves are unable to guess it another riddle will be given. If the latter are able to solve it, the policemen will reveal one of the numbers of the padlock.Maybe the police could change position with each other so that the police team would not tire themselves.

We could also add in special effects, sound effects and make our combine stream more aesthetically pleasing.