Inspiration was drawn from chat roulette, an online site where users can chat with others anonymously, and at random. The most rudimentary method of communication, was through speech – hence, I thought of going back to the basics for this narration project.
The medium of choice remains an online website, where two users, at any one time, is able to log into the site. Their identity will remain anonymous, until they decide to reveal it. In summary, the website will adopt a common online ‘messaging’ interface.
There will be 2 boxes, where each user (who do not know each other) write into the box.
Each user will occupy each ‘station’.
Above the text boxes, there will be a camera input (from live webcam from each user).
Edit: later, after writing this post, I decided to change my layout to that of the above, cutting down on ‘items’ which I have no need for.
The gist of this project is for each user to try and reveal the others. Initially, each webcam will be fully obscured. Over time, little ‘pixels’ to be revealed from each webcam at random. Such that majority of the webcam input remains hidden, increasing the tantalising factor. Users will be able to communicate with each other via the chat boxes, and they are free to take on another persona, or hide their true identity from the other.
Ultimately, what I want users to take away from the project is to play around with the cloak of anonymity, and make some mischief, or have had some fun playing around with it.
I am still exploring the idea, that perhaps, each user can force the other user to reveal more of what is shown in their webcam (via a toggle button), to increase the interactive factor.
Edit: Upon further discussion with my fellow classmates, perhaps moving the project in the direction of a game would give the game an enticing edge.
Further improvements to ponder on:
- a timer to goad each users to quickly find out the identity of the other
- a ‘puzzle’ like format, eg 3 x 3, where each block will be revealed periodically
Update: Ultimately, while I did not work on my own idea for my final project, it remains something I might want to work on in the future, and will shelf it for now.
interesting idea! it is a good starting point i believe. few things that i would consider: 1. technically, would this be something that you can develop independently or you would need someone to help you? if you need someone, start to talk to classmates to see if there is anyone who can do this with you. if you had an experience of working with javascript/maxmsp/processing and doing something similar, then this first point is checked.
2. i think the effects that you can get by revealing few pixels of the camera feed could be quite nice and could influence the communication. i remember that in some versions of the skype there were some animations that you could use and interrupt the dialogue in a strange and interesting way. so by using different effects or just one effect(pixelated image) you will interrupt or enhance or make dialogues go into different direction. i think what would help you is to draw a storyboard in which you draw characters and simulate their conversation that lasts more than a minute. this way, you will see if there is any narrative in your piece and if you need to change few things in the concept or this concept is sufficient…
overall, i think it is a great start.. please let me know if you need any help…