careless whispers….

Flash is Hard. Tymm and I had some issues, but we made this, and I like it alot.

Click Here

Sorry for the massive back-log in y documentation here, but I finally got all the pictures Eddie has been taken and want to show this stuff off.

This was one of our first steps, rigging up five photocells and checking their response:

Our Book-Store bought photocells in the breadboard. These are the ones we’re currently using, just because their values are amazingly consistent from cell to cell.

waving your hand over the cells changes their resistence.

The value generated by their electrical resistence is sent directly to processing, via serial communication with the Arduino.

The values are then used to set the greyscale of each individual square on screen. The more light, the whiter the square, the less, the darker.

Our working MUX test set up.

Thhhhhis was a pain in the nutz.

Thanks Tom, Tymm, and Todd for all the help!!!

int val[16];

int a= 3; // SELECT PIN A0 GOING INTO PIN 2
int b= 4; // SELECT PIN A1 GOING INTO PIN 3
int c= 5; // SELECT PIN A2 GOING INTO PIN 4 //variables in this code have been changed from their original value of Int to byte.
int d= 6; // SELECT PIN A3 GOING INTO PIN 5

int analog0 = 0;

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(analog0, INPUT);
pinMode(a,OUTPUT);
pinMode(b,OUTPUT);
pinMode(c,OUTPUT);
pinMode(d,OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
for (int channelNum = 0; channelNum > 1) ;
// shift value 2 bits to the right, and mask all but bit 0:
int pinThree = 1 & (channelNum >> 2);
// shift value 3 bits to the right, and mask all but bit 0:
int pinFour = 1 & (channelNum >> 3);

// set the address pins:
digitalWrite(a,pinOne);
digitalWrite(b,pinTwo);
digitalWrite(c,pinThree);
digitalWrite(d,pinFour);

// read the analog input and store it in the value array:
val[channelNum] = analogRead(analog0);

// print the values as a single tab-separated line:
Serial.print(val[channelNum], DEC);
Serial.print(”\t”);
}
// print a carriage return at the end of each read of the mux:
Serial.println();

}

This is a close up of our wiring. Note the resistors: Without them, you get wicked, confusing, channel bleed that will lead to you speaking in ones and zeros for days.

I just noticed that there is actually one loose wire in this shot. The orange wire, from the arduino to the breadboard, to the right of the chip in the bottom left of the photo, should be plugged into row 29, directly above the green wire. We also got ride of the diodes on the power line into the MUX, as they turned out to be unnecessary.

I’ll try and get a proper wiring diagram up when i have time.

If your code and set up works, you’ll get a print in Arduino that looks something like the shot below, except with analog values where the 0’s are.

1) Shirky Vs. Mccloud; Micropayments and Me.

As an individual who creates media, and as someone who hopes, one day, to actually make some sort of living off of his creations, I have to say that I am in full support of micro-payment systems. Micro-payments, small (defined as under a dollar, I believe, by Shirky) payments in exchange for electronic media such as MP3s, online comics, and other assorted forms of electronic content, allow everyone from up and coming artists to major television networks to make a few dollars off of the content that they produce, place their products directly in the viewers/listeners/readers virtual hands.
I have encountered micro-payments most frequently while perusing the catalogs of smaller music labels, DJs, and producers. Small labels like Ghostly International, Spectral Sound, and Warp will often provide listeners with free, though lower quality; MP3 downloads through their sites, offering better quality files for a small price. This business model suits me perfectly; the lower quality files serve as hook, line, and sinker; if I like the content, I’m certainly likely to shell out just a few dollars for a quality music file. This may seem shocking to hardcore media-pirates, but, for me, spending a small amount of money for the convenience of a high quality song, especially when I know that the majority of what I’ve paid goes directly into the pocket of an artist or label that I support, is completely worth the hours I save not having to sort through content on various torrents and servers.
Another music service that I use fairly frequently is Beatport.com, a sort of ITunes that caters specifically to those interested in electronic music. As a hobbyist bedroom-DJ, I occasionally browse Beatport’s vast track selection looking for new music to play with. Tracks cost around two bucks a pop, and you’re able to download them as uncompressed WAV files, a format perfectly suited for the laptop based software I now use to spin.
When I started DJing, I was more then willing to spend $8-15.00 a pop on records, so $2 dollars seems more then a fair price to pay for a new track. Beatport pays attention to what it’s customers’ desire, and has content that is nearly impossible to find anywhere else. For this, I am more then willing to spend a few dollars.

This was alot of fun to make.

Click here

Amanda and Jose were both awesome to work with….Also, check out the animation Amanda made in addition to this one, it’s pretty amazing. (i’ll post a link to her blog in a bit).

I loved this book. In Understanding Comics, Mccloud discusses the history, means, and methods behind the art of comics in a comic book format, a perfect marriage of a medium and it’s explanation unlike any I have ever seen before. The topics present by McCloud range from timing to cognition, and there is very little in this book that could not easily be applied to nearly any other art form.

I particularly liked chapter seven, titled “The Six Steps”, a fantastic outline of the creative process.

These steps are:

1) Idea/Purpose - Sort out your impulse and ideas…The Philosophy, purpose, and content of your work.
2) Form - Pick a form for your work to take.
3) Idiom - Decide the vocabulary, style, or genre that your work belongs to, or is it creating a genre of it’s own???
4) Structure - How to compose your work.
5) Craft - Constructing the work, applying skill.
6) Surface - Production values, finishing details.

Though it’s certainly impossible to provide a perfect cookie cutter definition of all the steps involved in the act of creating media, Mccloud’s outline is about as perfect a guide as one could possibly hope to get.

I can’t wait to finish this book, and honestly believe that nearly anyone creating any type of media, from static fine art to time based video, could benefit greatly from adding it to their shelves.

Telling a story in five to ten frames is not as easy as one would think….Dani and I decided to keep things relatively simple, leave out dialogue, and just capture a simple instance or event. Also, as both of us are new to Photoshop, we decided to practice with the program a bit more.

This was alot of fun to make.

The story begins with two folks working on their p-comp project….

I have to thank Sofia for her help in this….

Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction;

The AURA, THE AURA!!!!

No, seriously, this is sort of how Benjamin made me feel. Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, as it turns out, is an article that I’ve almost certainly encountered before in my academic career, and managed to almost completely erase from memory…Until now, that is. Like a skeleton from the closet, Benjamin is back, and though his questions were originally poised in 1936, one would be pressed to deny that his points and opinions are still relevant today.
In this rather rambling essay, Walter Benjamin tries to decide how exactly it is that technology (mainly, as you may have guessed, the ability for quick mechanical reproduction) will affect art in general. Benjamin theorizes that what makes a work of art special is the ritual and authenticity that goes into its creation, it’s “aura”, so to speak. Benjamin uses cave painting as an example, believing that in pre-historic periods, viewing a painted image on the wall must have been akin to viewing an act of magic.
In today’s modern age (or Benjamin’s, for that matter, circa 1936), the ability to mechanically reproduce work shatters this “aura”, resulting in art work that it is separated from the ritual of it’s original creation. Benjamin seems to view these technological advancements (he uses both film and photography as examples) in a negative light, citing many instances where ease of reproduction seemingly cheapens the end artistic product. He does acknowledge, however, that these readily reproduced art forms will be more accessible to the general public, allowing the average person access to forms of ideas and modes of expression never before encountered.
Oddly enough, I myself used to agree with Benjamin’s line of thought, and probably could have written a similar rambling essay, perhaps titled “Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction”. When I started art school some years back, I considered myself a painter/drawer, and frowned on digital mediums as a cheap and fast way to create an end product. I will now admit that this opinion most likely grew out of ignorance and a slight technophobia, as I had little knowledge of digital media. As I began to encounter Photoshop wizards, digital animators, and HTML gurus, I began to realize that the craft and care that goes into realizing a digital piece is nearly identical to one that exists on canvas, or is cast in bronze. For me, this care translates directly into a form of “aura”, a high regard for the skill involved in the creation of a digital piece. A Photoshop file, digital video production, or a loop based audio track may not exist in the tangible world, but to deny their power as a finished product is simply shortsighted: These are real art forms with powerful messages, and they are here to stay.
I believe that the views presented in “ Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” are those akin with any person facing a new technology: fraught with skepticism and a slight awe of the potential for change that that technology may eventually bring. Benjamin’s opinions were right, in some regards. Photography, film, and the other advancements of Benjamin’s era certainly made art more accessible to the masses. However, I believe that he under estimated these technologies…It does not matter how many times a piece of art can be reproduced, the “aura” it generates is easily recognizable in both it’s message and the skill and craft it took to create the piece, no matter what the medium.

Damn, I can’t WAIT to read McCloud….

(Post writing this entry note: I was very, very, very cranky and stressed when I read Benjamin and wrote this entry. It occurs to me, after discussing the article in class, that I may have been overly critical here. Once again, I blame this all on the fact that my programming abilities are currently fairly similiar to those of, oh, I dunno, a can of corn chowder. Make that a dented can of corn chowder. Wish me luck!)

Sorry for the late post on this, I didn’t realize we were supposed to comment on these articles, just thought that we were supposed to comment on the video hosting sites.

“The Blogs of War” I thought that this was a great article, though not surprising in the least. In today’s digital age, with so many modes of communication and expression at nearly everyone’s finger tips, it’s not surprising that soldiers have taken up the responsiblity of documenting their daily lives in Iraq. I think that this is in an amazing thing: All media is subjective, meaning that the point of view of the story teller has almost as much impact as the story itself. Major new networks, the government, the political right and left, the protestors and war zealots, every one with any sort of opinion can twist facts and details to fit their agenda. I don’t think there could possibly be a better way to find out what is really going on in Iraq then to get the facts from those that are actually there. It will be interesting to see if, somehow, the government or armed forces manage to stymie these voices….

“Everquest: 77th Richest Country”: What? I mean, WHAT? A virtual world with the 77th biggest economy in the world? WHAT??? I had no IDEA this sort of stuff was going, and am completely shocked by the notion of virtual economies some how colliding with real ones. The topic is highly intriguing. Is a property or good still virtual if it can be bought with hard goods? Doesn’t that, in some way, make it legitimate? I can’t help but wonder if, in the not so far future, virtual real estate lawyers will be settling virtual deeds, or if, perhaps, peoples virtual properties will in fact be taxed in a very real manner.

So odd. So damn interesting.

You Tube: Posted a video here, found the process to be incredibly easy, though it did take a lot longer then I originally expected (can be seen here). I like You Tubes layout, though I find most of the videos suggest on it’s homepage to be fairly, well, let’s see….Um, boring and stupid? It seems fun that one has to dig so hard for good content, though I’m not really surprised given the amount of people posting to this site everyday. Who doesn’t want to see every moment of Bebo the pet chincilla’s funeral?

Google Video: I have to admit I rarely, if ever, use Google Video….I’m not really sure why. I guess the last time I tried to use the site it was still fairly simple. Their interface and method for linking videos seems to have gotten a lot better then a year or so ago, though it’s still kind of weak.

Revver: Whoa, People get money for this? That’s awesome! Apparently you make a damn good video, it gets paired with an advertiser, and you get part of the keep depending on how many people actually watch. Content seems a lot more focused, more like fairly good quality film shorts, then random nonsense.

Blip.tv: This is great! While I’m writing this I’m watching a video about Arduinos (just scored ten dork points with that one). The content of blip seems to be based on more complete shows then just random video snippets. Lots of really great stuff from all sorts of sources, and most of it seems well produced, the blip interface is really smooth. This service is also setup to email you new episodes of your favorite shows. Excuse me while I watch a show about Swedish sea life….

Jumpcut: Looks a lot like Blip and Revver, but weak content wise. I tired to upload a video here, and it would not work, I’m not really sure why. It is pretty cool that they provide an editing platform, though I think they should focus on their glitchy up loader…unless it’s my glitchy computer causing the trouble.

Ifilm: Um, I feel like I need to be eating a steak and drinking Miller to really appreciate this. Apparently, Spike TV owns Ifilm. Not my style, at all.

IFC Media Lab: I’ve been checking out this site for years, it’s fantastic way to waste tons of time. I’m a big fan of the animation category. The content here seems to be a step above most other sites…i.e. people actually TRY. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some terribly over dramatic shorts.

In conclusion, far, far too many people post too much crappy video on the web. It seems as though Blip.tv and IFC are the saviors in this case. Something I really need to learn about is copyrighting stuff on all of these sites: If you submit something, does it become their property? I have to admit feeling sort of weird about posting my little class videos to either of these services, as I wouldn’t want to insult other peoples content. I hope, soon, that I’ll have something well worth posting