After talking with Shaun on Wednesday I decided it was about to time to just get stuck in and start making stuff, so I went down to toys r us yesterday and got a little kit that uses a motor to vibrate and it make the brush attached to it look like its sweeping.
It’s quite a sweet little thing. But what I really wanted it for was to get me thinking about electronics and feedback – as we know vibration is a commonly used for sensory feedback.
Here’s the sweepbot in action…
Here’s a few photos of its building…
Next…
I’m on the look out for another kids kit with sensors in it, to learn a bit about them and how i could maybe use them in relation to a leaf for instance.
I had a quick chat with Shaun today after yesterday’s group meeting. I just feel like I have a whole heap of questions and I never seem to progress anywhere with them, and I’m very conscious of time at the moment – at the rate at which its disappearing!
This is pretty much what i emailed Shaun before we met:
‘As you know I really like the mud tub project and I think (although I don’t 100% know) that I’d like to make a similar sort of project.
I like the idea of mixing nature with computing, as it’s something we’re all familiar with but often have little to do with as technology determines most of our day.
I’d like to make some kind of interface maybe but I’m not sure where to start, which is why I thought talking to you may help.
Maybe interface is the wrong description, feedback is important, maybe different feedback to what we are accustomed to at the moment such as vibrations. Maybe a different type of feedback heat or something might be interesting.‘
Bit jumbled I know!
Nature featured quite heavily in our chat and I started thinking maybe it would be interesting for natural objects to react or feedback when we interact with them. It’s based on the idea that deep down we all think of ourselves as at one with nature, but realistically it’s difficult for that to be possible when our day to day live are so heavily influenced and determined by computers and technology.
Based on our chat i scribbled this down:
Shaun seemed cool with this area to investigate and suggested making stuff and get stuck into something that way I’ll know if it’s the right path or not to go down.
I’ll be honest i took this idea with me to the project meeting, i was just too cautious to talk about it as it didn’t really seem to fit in with everyone else’s ideas, but now i don’t think that’s such a bad thing.
The image pretty much speaks for itself, it’s an idea about a different kind of ’screen’ to one which we’re maybe used to. A ’screen’ that’s not necessarily a screen…
Placing sensors beneath the ’screen’ would react to what’s happening on top of it.
I’ve touched on natural surfaces and i think i’d like to further explore this now, creating some kind of interactive surface which involves nature, perhaps and we think of it, or perhaps more man-made.
My idea hasn’t really changed, I’ve been looking into how I might go about actually making it instead.
I’ve had a play with after effects and 3ds max to see which is better for the 3d object I’d like to create, at the moment I think perhaps 3ds max but I’m not sure.
I’ve started storyboarding what I’d like my ‘film’ in its loosest sense to look like.
A chat with Mike is needed I think, and soon. Don’t want to waste anymore time really.
So what am I going to actually make for this 4d project? That’s a very good question! The 3D Visualization of Lorenz attractor in a VR System video in my proposal post (see this post) is my starting point.
Bear with me as I try to explain the idea I can see in my mind! Here goes… The Lorenz Attractor video is a 2d representation which is seen from a few angles of the complete ‘pattern’. I think it would be interesting to create a ‘pattern’ which is actually forming as time passes, which the camera is able to move through and around. Does that make sense?!
2D videos
I’ve always had a interest and liking for these types of images and videos, seen below. Lines moving and flowing in a range of ways creating very interesting visuals. Theses are just two examples that.
I don’t remember this Nano advert, but I wish I did, it’s great. Very visual, quick paced, angle of animation changes and has different view points to point out a few things.
3D videos
The videos below could be described as the 3d versions of the above videos, but from inside the moving lines.
I think the moving from within the tunnels to outside them following the lines as they create patterns could be an interesting path to follow and explore.
What next…. Now I’ve seen that it’s possible to visualise my idea I think it’s important to look into After Effects and get hold of a few tutorials, see if I can make any small projects and get the ball moving on this project.
I’m intrigued by the use of sensors in the Hyperfabric pieces and in Mud tub. I’ve just come across this site which is pretty interesting. I’m not sure if it’s called ‘Kobakant‘ or ‘how to get what you want‘. Anyway they have a sensors section explaining how to make a range of sensors, and what can be one with them. This might prove to be a useful site if and when I know what my idea is.
They ran a workshop earlier this year called “bend, sew, touch, feel, read“, have a look.
This photo is great, I really like the idea of mixing textures and human touch and getting some kind of response from it.
This quote on the site intrigued me “Human bodies and plants are not rigid, but flexible, soft and pliant. Computers, keyboards, mice and peripherals, all rigid, fixed, made from plastic or metal”
This one too, “Participants will explore the relationship between body movements and feedback, getting to know the characteristics of fabric sensors and soft circuitry.”
This workshop sounds like it would have been interesting to attend, with reference to all the areas i’m looking into for my project
I came a cross this after looking around for alternative interfaces, which i think is a really interesting project. It’s called ‘Hyperfabric‘ and it’s about creating a more immersive experience for the user than the standard user interfaces we’re accustomed to.
Adam Montandon and the team at HMC MediaLab created Hyperfabric, which is 7 feet high and is capable of supporting a person’s body weight. The Hyperfabric screen is specially designed to communicate with a computer to generate interactive computer graphics, in realtime.
Future Feeder describes it as follows; “Hyperfabric is a new interface that lets you reach beyond the screen. It’s a very ‘touchable’ surface, made out of an elastic-like fabric called ‘Hyperfabric’. The screen warps like rubber, and can sense how hard your press it, where you press it, and you can even have lots of people using it at once. You really feel like you are going ‘through’ the screen.”
From the guys that created Hyperfabric, a page in their brochure explaining what it is (page 7):
www.hmcinteractive.co.uk
Otherwise there only seems to be snippets of information, none very detailed, about hyperfabric, here are a few:
The best technical description of the system i could find was found on EzPC’s blog, but it was written in Russian. The translation of it is;
“Complex consists of screen, infrared sensors, video camera and projector. Screen is prepared from the elastic material, which is deformed and caves under the external action. When user concerns by the hand of cloth, its wrong side caves in. Infrared sensors and video camera, established after the fabric from “the hyper-cloth”, record changes in the form of screen and transfer information into the computer. Assembled data are processed by the specific routine, also developed by the command Of [montandona], after which projector reproduces the appropriate picture already on the deformed “display”, creating three-dimensional illusion…The acting prototype of system uses a fabric from “the hyper-cloth” by width into one meter, by height into two meters and generates the volumetric image of forest.”
I really like this idea of interacting beyond a screen. As far as I’m concerned touchscreens arent really that interactive and so hyperfabric is an exciting move, although it’s not a new piece, it seems very relevent at the moment.
Interested in understanding human behaviour and its relationship with interactivity.
Could interacting with a computer be more like real interaction between people and objects in the world.
Increase in popularity of touch screens and multi-touch screens.
Natural computer interfaces:
In a very literal sense.
Tom Gerhardt – Mud Tub
Tactile feedback
Interactivity
Natural behaviour
Intuitive
Based on the ‘Mud Tub’ project, I’ve begun to have the following sorts of thoughts and questions…
Would the user feel so inclined to interact with a system like Tom’s if the physicality was removed?
So you were no longer actually playing in mud but a computer generated version of mud which would interact with you in the same way that real mud does.
I’ve been thinking about the Rubik’s cube and what intrigues me most is that to me the cube represents, to a limited degree, a sense of chaos when all the faces are jumbled up and ‘random’. I like the fact that you can have the cube in this state or you can ‘order’ the faces back to their correct places and have the sides all the same colour.
This quote sums it up quite well i thought:
“the paradox of chaos theory is that chaos is not actually random, that chaos contains order, and that order contains chaos”Dr. David Pincus
From a brief group discussion of the Rubik’s cube I’ve got the following words;
Simultaneity
Derived from the adjective simultaneous, meaning occurring, existing or operating at the same time.
(Collins Dictionary)
From simultaneity I’ve looked up synchronicity, care of Wikipedia:Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.
Transformative
Derived from the verb transform, meaning to alter of be altered in form. (Collins Dictionary)
Fragments
Meaning, a piece broken off or detached or an incomplete piece. (Collins Dictionary)
Non linear
Obviously non of a straight line, especially with regard to dimension. (Collins Dictionary)
Keeping each of the terms in mind and doing some research I found the following videos which have begun to help my thinking process.
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4D Animation & Apophysis One Fractal Animation
In both of the videos above I like the way all the patterns appear to stem from the centre. It is the opposite of this idea of synchronicity, two events completely different events happening at the same time, as it seems the lines emerge from a central source, so I’d like to investigate further, two lines to start with from different points amassing in to something in the center.
In 4D Animation I especially like the fluidity of the movement and the collapsing in on itself of the object. It reminded me a lot of black holes, vortexes, the disappearing nature of time and objects being sucked in and vanishing.
Apophysis One Fractal Animation
While researching a bit more into the idea of non linear and fragments i back came across fractals.
Care of Wikipedia and B.B Mandelbrot “A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole“
There’s some open source software called Apophysis to render fractals, which creates some really beautiful pieces of what i would consider art. Further understanding of the software and the scripting behind it might make for some interesting visual pieces, which are can be animated to show the fractals mutating and changing in real time.
Some examples of the type of images being produced using Apophysis can be seen below.
While i was thinking about this idea of chaos and order, the ‘chaos theory’ came to mind. It’s not something i knew anything about other than the name of so i thought this might be an interesting path to follow and see if it went anywhere.
One definition of chaos theory is;
‘”chaos theory’ comes from the fact that the systems that the theory describes are apparently disordered, but chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in apparently random data.”
Edward Lorenz is credited with discovering the theory whilst working on a meteorological problem. Full explanation can be found here. What i found more interesting than the chaos theory itself was the ‘butterfly effect’ Lorenz’s discovery inspired. The image below has become the symbol for the chaos theory, it’s called the ‘Lorenz attractor’ or the butterfly.
This video is very good at showing the information it contains as a form of narrative, we watch the light pass along in a linear, as far as time is concerned, and traditional way.
In keeping with the chaos theory and depictions of it I found this really nice video, which i think could inspire my project.
3D Visualization of Lorenz attractor in a VR System
Once you get past the fact that there’s a guy stood right next to the screen blocking the image, I really like the ’fly through’ feeling or the video. Perhaps this would make for an interesting project in the dome? I loved the feeling of flying through when we were shown the universe demonstration, going thought the galaxies etc. Combining this with perhaps a 3D experience is an avenue I’d be interested to follow.
Where am I going with this?
Synchronicity.
As I’ve said I’d like to investigate how to show creatively two lines from different points amassing in to something very visual in the center. Stripping down synchronicity I think the idea of having two lines each line representing a very different ‘event’ from the other and how the combination to create something, at the moment i cant get an explosion out of my head (this isn’t really what i want to depict).
By lines i don’t mean straight lines, I’m thinking rubbery lines which bend and move in a very fluid natural way created using a 3D modeling software perhaps.
Another area I found interesting after our hour in the uni’s immersive theatre is the ‘fly through’ feeling i got while watching a computer generated film. I’d quite like to maybe create something which can be viewed in the dome. Panning around an animation, flying through it, looking at it from different angles, zooming in and out of the emerging structure trying to keep the viewer on edge.
Video is a good way of showing time as it passes and creating narratives based upon this or indicative of this, I’d like to use this as inspiration but create a more interactive digital representation of this.
What I’ve been referencing in addition to the videos and images:
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT (2004) The tag line for the film is ‘Change one thing, Change everything.’ Hollywood’s depiction of the butterfly effect using conventional film techniques, moving backward and forward in flashbacks.
I’ve been looking into alternative interfaces and input devices for both my dissertation and project and came across an artist called Tom Gerhardt and his piece ‘Mud Tub’.
Straight from his website:
“Tom Gerhardt is an artist and hardware/software developer living in New York City. Through custom-built interfaces utilizing everything from mud and fire, to electronics and electrons, Tom endeavors to reconcile modern man’s dual citizenship in the physical and digital worlds.”
Here is Mud Tub
Again straight from the website:
“By sloshing, squishing, pulling, punching, etc, in a tub of mud (yes, wet dirt), users control games, simulators, and expressive tools; interacting with a computer in a new, completely organic, way. Born out of a motivation to close the gap between our bodies and the digital world, the Mud Tub frees the traditional computer interaction model of it’s rigidity, allowing humans to use their highly developed sense of touch, and creative thinking skills in a more natural way.”
I think this piece is brilliant, the idea of interacting with something so natural as mud and being able to control a computer application is incredibly creative and innovative as far as i’m concerned.
At present we consider multi-touch screens interactive and at the cutting edge of technology, but is it really that interactive to operate a computer by brushing your finger across its flat surface? Maybe this deserves a bit more investigation…
