Yaminie’s Underground blog

Final Project Proposal for Collective StorytellingI loved the idea of ‘Big stories, little stories’ from this week’s reading.  I feel people who actually go through/witness a bigger story playing out tend to undermine their role/experience. I want to people to think about Big stories that they might be a part of, and then tell me their own little story about  their roles, experiences etc.Also, in the same reading the author talks about ‘own story, own words’. And hence, in keeping with the oral theme that I’ve worked on this entire semester, I want people’s stories in their own voices.So, I want to create a site where people can submit audio pieces of their story.Questions for the class1.) How should audio be submitted?How do people feel about submitting audio. Would it be easier if it was in the form of a GUI app on the mobile where you could just click-record-click send and it posts to the website? Or would it be easier for people to record stuff on their laptops and upload? 2.) How should stories be solicited?I am not sure how easy it is for people to think of a little story which might be a part of a big story. So it might be easier to give themes and people to could submit to those themes. Alternatively people could submit stories and their title should indicate the big story. And then other participants can submit audio responses with their own stories, thus forming threads of little stories for one big story…3.) what’s a good starting point (Big story) for ITP?How do I start getting stories? If I want ITPers to contribute, what Big story threads could be interesting?       

It’s spring break. It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I just wanted to speak to my parents.

My father usually comes back home for lunch. By 2 o’clock we would have finished our meal. He would have put his legs up on the table and would have lit his afternoon cigarette. My mom would have been preparing to go into her afternoon siesta. And I would have just been rambling about something that’s been on my mind. The servants would have retired into their quarters. And peace would descend in our household…

I feel like rambling now. But my parents aren’t around. I can’t call them cause it’s not 2 o’clock  in India. It’s late night. And they are probably asleep. I want to leave them a voicemail. I want to tell them I miss them.

Would you also like to do something like this? Maybe some of you do…So i thought of creating this audio blog where people could leave a voicemail for their parents.

This, I think works because

1.) There is something about the spoken word that gets lost when you write about it

2.) You want to do it at that moment, and not after that.

3.) It’s easier to do it on the net cause a lot of us are uncomfortable expressing ourselves on the net, then directly to our loved ones

4.) And it’s best to do it at that moment…rather 12 hours later.

How it’s work

1.) First step : A wordpress/textpattern blog which has an audio file pluggin…you upload audio files of a voicemail that you might want to leave for your parents

2.) Second step: A mobile application that let’s you record your voicemail and uploads it to the open  blog.

Mobile capability would be nice as you can then record your voicemail even when you’re out. You might want to do it when you’re having some crappy pizza some where or when you’re not getting any sleep late at night and you dont wanna reach out to your laptop…

What should I call it?

imissmyparents.com?

voicemailformymum.com?

For my ICM final, I decided to make a digital Kaliedoscope with the live streaming image from a webcam. In the process, I found there are multiple ways to reach the same end (For e.g. I found atleast 2-3 ways of pasting the triangular image form the webcam on the processing window - but there is always one way which is in better style, more elegant way of writing the code! - and this basically gets determined by how easily is the code re-usable..flexible)

There was added functionality of being able to pixelate the images - circles of squares - and define the amount of pixelation using arrow keys….

Here’s a video

I’d like to work with some physical interface at somepoint…to actually be able to control the orientation of the image…

This was Mid-term.

Midge and I were toying with the idea of playing with images and stuff that you would do specifically with your mobile phone.And the we came up with this public installation idea - A simple Mash-up of pictures of different parts of the body contributed by the general public and displayed on a big screen. 

This is how it works — The web-page (which is a flash file) is displayed on a big screen…with all the information.So you can text Mobody to 41411 and upload a picture in the url that comes to you in the message. Label the picture as head/body or legs and then submit it…You’ll see this uploaded to the screen  in less than 30 secs.   

Here is the screen shot - click on it to go to the actual url

 This project is up for user-testing on the floor. We’ve seen people have fun with this…Also it works really well in an area where people know each other.It’ll be interesting to see how people interact with in a more public space… Would they still be interested?Some suggestions that came in during class discussions - add the functionality to scroll through archives.

A school friends of mine started this project Blanknoise.

It’s basically a project that runs in the big cities in India where there is a high percentage of eve-teasing on the streets. Women in these cities often come across the lack of empathy when molested/eve-teased as a lot of people think they dress ‘provacatively’ and hence ‘they had it coming’ or ‘they asked for it’

It’s a bold project that asks women to showcase what they were wearing while molestation, as there shouldn’t be anything such as ‘asking for it’

The project communicates via a blog that is updated from time to time. I saw an opportunity for mobile blogging as this was a specific case where incidents happen on streets, on the go. And it would add immediacy to the campaign if onlookers/victims could post information about such incidents - number plates/photos of the accused/ or the clothes that they were wearing!

I did build an actual blog where anyone could send post via mobile phones. However it’s still a conceptual project as some of the services that I was using, I wasn’t sure if they were available in India. And even getting user testing in that group was difficult as I lost touch with the organizers at some point!

So this is how it works (or can work)

People can send a message to 41411 (Textmarks) with blanknoise in the body.

They get subscribed to the service and get a introductory message from Blanknoise

Clicking the intro link sends you to the upload script

You can upload a picture and write the post and submit it….

It will get posted to the blog and you can view that here

So this was the final product - The robolamp…

Both Mooshir and I were interested in exploring more human and intuitive ways of interacting with objects. What if you could ’shush’ you music system? In the same spirit we built the robolamp….

It’s a lamp with 3-degrees of freedom and you can turn it around anywhere by using simple hand gestures…It was showcased in the ITP Winter Show 2007 and now is part of the gallery venue exhibits for Spring 2008 at the ITP floor.

Ladies and Gentlemen…Presenting the Robolamp

This post has been long due. I never got around doing it due to some issues that I was having with exporting the quictime movie.I did this flash animation for the flash assignment (obviously!) But also continued to work on it for my finals.

I have been very inspired by this one one album from Ananda Shankar “Missing You”. This album was done after the death of his father… The pieces (all instrumental) as deep and moving. Whenever I listen to the album it gives me a sense of being the “All knowing”.So i decided to give visuals to this feel…I’ve tried to create a world in this piece through flash animation…And then I take it back to what might have been the genesis of it all. The shape in the end of the piece is called a “kairee”. It reminds me of a womb. It’s a traditional Indian motif.I used that in end, where I make the world collapse into the womb of the kairee… 

Genesis - This is how it all must have begun 

I really got some nice feedback from the class and Marriane. I am kind of feeling attache to this piece and want to see it finshed to perfection…I will give it another shot and try and take all the feedback!Thanks guys! I love honest critic sessions like this    

This week I wanted to continue working on my previous week assignment. I had recorded a story told by my mom in a language that she was not so familiar with - English.To take the audio assignment a step further, I had added imagery and sub-titles to overcome language/technological issues (as the piece was done over the phone…the clarity wasn’t that great)

For this week, I overlayed it with my dad’s version of the same story. It was interesting to see 2 different perscpective on the same story.

PS: I noticed my obsession with melodrama for the first time…I really wanted to put more powerful background scores to exaggerate certain emotions… I think this is something I inherit form the Indian film culture which is highly melodramatic!

It’s a longish piece (3-4 mins)…I’m still working on my editing skills!

This week I continued to work on my last week’s audio piece - A story narrated by my mom.
As mentioned earlier, I was interested in seeing how language affects stories. My mother is not a fluent English speaker. English is a language she only uses sometimes to get work done. For all conversational purposes she only uses an Indian language ‘Hindi’. She, however is natural Storyteller…

Hence I recorded the most unforgettable story of her life in her words while she spoke in English.

As per feedback, the accent as well as clarity (As the recording was done over VoIP) were affecting comprehension. So, I included sub-titles for this week. Also I added imagery to address other comprehension issues that were related more to context than anything else… How else do you explain that ‘colony’ refers to a localized population with shared characteristics (in this case working for the same Company) and not to the word’s historical connotation.

I do think I went overboard with the animation. That will have to change…

Here is a link to my last week’s assignment with imagery…