code demo.mov

Thanks for a wonderful semester Liza. Happy holidays everyone. Off to the other corner of the globe (hobbit-town) for me!

xxx

(I’m having trouble uploading the video so will put it up on vimeo and post the link in a bit!)

Here is my fortune-telling crystal ball!

I designed the behaviour of the LEDs to imitate the magical process of the crystal ball: initially ‘reading’ it’s subject, then slowly detecting imagery, then suddenly exploding in fortunes so that it blows out!  I aimed for the subject’s reactions to reflect these changes: starting off calmed, becoming increasingly curious and apprehensive, building to a climax of excitement, then suddenly stunned by it’s abrupt end…. what did it see?!

I found it challenging to create a sense of randomness rather than repetition with the loop function, so want to work on this further. However I’m pleased overall with the way the LEDs build in energy over time.

Video Reaction:

Crystal Ball meet Anthony!

V = 5/3 = 1.666…

R = 100

I = 1.666…/100

= 0.01666…

V = 5

R = 100

I = 5/100

= 0.05

Video: Circuits

flowerbomb on openprocessing

flowerbomb on github

Petal Paint

FGM Rose

Continuing on with my interactive story last week aimed at raising awareness of Female Genital Mutilation, I wanted to make an animated rose with my new knowledge of sin/cos functions in processing. I wanted the imagery to be mesmerising and elegant, but for it to represent the reality of the situation. So I designed a morphing animation that changes over time from a beautiful full rose to a thick web of threads. This is my interpretation of the main icon for FGM: the sewn-up rose.

The organisation that I’m volunteering for, CAGeM (Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation) asked me to do a campaign video for them for their upcoming Restoring the Rose Walk-a-thon this Saturday. I’d like to share it with you all here: hopefully I can share it in class too – it will give you more of a sense of the positive direction that I want to be going with all these tricky big ideas.

Restoring the Rose Walkathon Campaign Video

Password: rose

Fantasy Therapy

And here is my interactive story “Princesses”:

Princesses

Enjoy!

“Beauty Kit”

PLEIX are a French group of seven video directors and graphic artists producing videos, adverts and installations both personal and commercial. Their focus is to destabilize common perceptions of contemporary culture. “Beauty Kit” is an ironic instructional video commenting on mainstream beauty ideals and plastic surgery.

“Beauty Kit” on Vimeo

“Dreams Result in More Dreams”

“Dreams Result in More Dreams” is a photographic series by Daniel Buetti. Provocative images (mainly of women) are displayed on large light boxes into which tiny holes are pierced to create patterns of light and lines of subversive text. The works are at once beautiful and haunting, often pulling on our innermost insecurities.

Daniel Buetti Website

“Stanley”

“Stanley” is an interactive piano that takes song requests via Twitter. Perhaps as impressive as the piano itself is the video that accompanies the project, tells Stanley’s life story from initial concept, to designing, to coding and construction, and finally to the end product. The video, available online, is a wonderful way to embody the spirit of the whole project, and to encourage user interaction from all around the world.

“Stanley Piano” Website

“Meet Stanley” Video

I’m really looking forward to “Creative & Comp Lab” because I know it will be a challenge where I’m simultaneously elated and extremely fearful, both of which seem to effectuate my best work.  The overarching outcome I hope to achieve from this class is to feel like I stepped (or leapt!) out of my comfort zone and skipped away with a new skill set in my pocket. With no prior knowledge of code other than a secret password, I am here to explore new programs and technologies, to acquire new skills and techniques, and to subsequently gain a sense of new attitudes and possibilities.

As I explained in my brief presentation last week, I am a storyteller at heart. So I view “Creative & Comp Lab” as a way to enhance my storytelling by exploring the interactivity of narrative: to make my stories more dynamic, more organic, more personalized/connected to the viewer/reader/ audience/user, and thus (hopefully) more compelling.

More specifically, I want to play on an analogy between Arduino and the human body. Both are systems designed to receive input from the environment, to process this input and to respond with output. I’m thinking of taking a provocative approach to this analogy, focusing on reproductive organs. One idea is to look at the way sex is often portrayed in mainstream media as formulaic, emotionally monochromatic and entirely predictable, as if it were electronic. Another idea is to to draw upon gender clichés, with men as ‘hard’ware and women as ‘soft’ware. Finally I’ve recently started working as a volunteer with CAGeM (Campaign Against Genital Mutilation) and would like to incorporate that theme into my work as well, starting with my interactive story!