Assignment 2: ….prelude to assignment 3

February 21st, 2012

Initial Concept:

We imagine a world in which a person’s external form is as they wish it to be, moment to moment. We wear a holographic shield of light in the shape of our own bodies that can be sculpted like clay by manipulating our own flesh. Spikes and spines can be pulled out of backs, imperfections erased, bodies enhanced, exaggerated, and edited.

In our proposed performance, a 3D scan of a performer is projected on top of them, and rigged to puppet their movement. They examine their flesh, and their avatar’s form. They pull, push, and shape their light body until it is as they want it – exaggerated, human, recognizable, subjectively perfect. They exit the room encased in it.

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What we did:

Following the Nightmare Kitty tutorial, we were able to control characters in Unity with our physical motions using the Kinect, and to implement some basic gestural controls.

This was pretty simple, actually, and we planned on creating our own mesh, rigging it with a skeleton, and substituting it for the video game style character in the example.

We used Kyle McDonald’s kinectToStl app to save scans of my body to .stl files, then imported them to the 3d modeling program Meshlab to edit them, and export them in a format readable by Unity.

This took a good deal of time and finagling. Although we managed to make and save scans, then trim, and export them as meshes meshes, to finally import them to Unity – we have not yet managed to rig them to a skeleton model. Additionally, the imported meshes do not behave exactly as expected in Unity, but they do look pretty scary (in a Swiss cheesey sort of way).

We realized that we had jumped the gun in terms of using our own models with functioning skeleton models.

During this process, inspired by the sculptures of Antony Gormley, and the aesthetics of the images we were creating, we came up with a couple of alternative concepts.

1) A multitude of beings stares at us from the screen. One of them starts mimicking our gestures. The beings look at him, then at us, and start copying us as well. Gradually, the entire crowd is moving like us, as they stare in our direction with blank, wide open eyes.

2) As we look into the screen, we see cubic versions of our bodies from different perspectives. They follow our movement, but remain in their position and orientation. They do not acknowledge our presence: we are only one more of them.

+

We created a basic body made of primitive blocks, attached it to a skeleton model and added OpenNI functionality to it. We learned a lot about the ways to do (and not to do) this in Unity.

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Where we are now:

We began with an ambitious concept and a song in our heart. Though we had some setbacks trying to interface with 3D modeling software and are disappointed that we did not get further, we learned a lot are in a good position to fully execute our project for the final. We aren’t so excited about the look of the block man model, but have a better idea of what we will need in order to animate our scans. Apparently this needs to happen outside of Unity – in Maya, or Blender. I downloaded Maya and Mudbox at the suggestions of Patrick and Greg.

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After Lessons – “On Being Memorius”

January 31st, 2012

“On Being Memorius” Recall an abstract space from your memory and recreate it using only programmed primitives, color, and lights.

* After lessons, I spent time in his room. In their room, but his brother didn’t talk.
* His mother gave me technique.
* I practiced and got better, but never less awkward.
*
* He taught me to play grunge rock on his guitar. He taught me to wear flannel.
* His room smelled like wood and, like, cool.
* His parent’s room was across the hall and the possibility of meeting his father scared me.
* It took courage to walk up the stairs and into his room.
* I felt annoying but my crush made me brave.

source

((P.S. I <3 vector math.))

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Midterm Broadcast Guts

November 5th, 2011

In preparation for the Karaoke TV project, I mapped out a script and storyboard strategy for assembling a coherent video, audio, and instructional presentation.

Script:

Storyboard:

Use Experience:

Technical Diagram:

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Intersection/Island – Site Specific Project Proposal Round 1

November 3rd, 2011

Foley Square looks like an island – situated amid a see of tightly packed cars and serious buildings.

Foley Square was an island – situated in an unlikely urban pond.

Foley Square is an island of water – situated in an unlikely urban landscape?

Foley Square was a slum home to brutal gangs

Foley Square was the site of the Brideshead prison, and has been the site of carriages and miscarriages of justice.

Foley Square was the site of a graveyard holding the remains of 10,000 people.

“This bronze medallion is one of five that commemorate various epochs in the life of Foley Square and its environs. This particular relief sculpture acknowledges the presence underfoot of the so-called Negro Burial Ground, in which the remains of as many as 10,000 men, women, and children were interred between 1712 and 1794. Its central image consists of a skeleton and broken shackles.”  (New York Parks Department NYC Parks Department Website)

Proposals:

I propose a project designed for two senses that caters to audiences of differing levels of involvement.

The first part of the proposal is an installation or sculptural element that anyone passing through, or spending time in the park would interact with. It should evoke a peaceful anxiety. A feeling of momentarily intersecting with coexisting but, for the most part, invisible worlds. It should be an interesting object that a passerby would notice and possibly be intrigued by.

The second piece of the proposal requires a more intentional participation. Signs near the installations would direct interested viewers to a url, or smart phone app that would allow them to explore the sonic landscape of these overlapping invisible worlds.

The installation could be:

Subterranean projections situated in large holes covered by opaque projection medium (thick, frosted plexiglass?)

Perhaps the projection is water – a window to the pond that was there.

Perhaps the projection is a skeleton, or human figure (signs of living still?), enveloped by roots.

Perhaps the projection is cobblestone, human and animal paths pass through it.

The installation could be:

Similar opaque projection materials oriented vertically. With the right orientation to the screen, the passerby sees the architecture and landscape that existed in that spot match up with the architecture today. My feeling is this would be more immediately legible as a window to another time -  not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

The sonic environment could be mapped to a larger area of lower manhattan. Using frequent gps calls, in conjunction with data from the accelerometer and compass built in to the smart phone, a fairly exact real time orientation and trajectory through space could be determined (this will be difficult). The sonic landscape would be designed to evoke the feeling of being in different places, and of traveling through time. It would be more evocative, and interpretive than representative, as archival recordings of this place and these moments in time would be impossible to come by. I’m interested in creating a mood that is wistful and otherworldly, and to as great an extent as possible, dictates how audience members think about and perceive their surroundings.

This idea is related to the project I presented at the spring show, that I’m now calling Paths. (video on vimeo) also in the post below this one.

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Paths at the ITP Spring ’10 Show

November 3rd, 2011

Paths is an immersive 3D sound sculpture that a viewer performs by moving their body through space. The physical manifestation of the piece is an empty space inhabited by a distracted, and slowly wandering participant.  A white line along the floor suggests a possible navigation of the sculpture.

By navigating the sculpture, the viewer encounters a spatialized sonic landscape that is mapped to their physical location using a Kinect 3D camera and custom software written in openFrameworks. The combination of sounds at any spot in the sculpture is unique, as is every trip through it.

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Karaoke TV – Two Screen Program Critique

October 26th, 2011

This project was a giant mood swing. I found myself totally abandoned by my group (except for Stepan, who worked on the content delivery side – video player and timed html message), doing absolutely every part of it (writing, voicing, editing, timing, implementing my timing instructions in Stepan’s code), frustrated and furious, and ultimately triumphant. This group exercise makes me never want to work in a group again. Ever.

In the end, Stepan and I made something that actually worked very smoothly. And as the only group who didn’t make a project where viewers suggest images to be greenscreened in behind ad lib-ing performers, it really stood out. Two performers, holding mobile devices, received timed lines and instructions, that guided them through interactions with each other, characters on the screen, and effects in the video and sound design.

The technical setup was actually very simple – the only thing we needed to do was to simultaneously tell three websites that it was time zero, and to keep time in sync from there.

We presented an episode of Star Trek in which you get to be your favorite characters. We did this for practical reasons – mainly because with only 5 minutes, we wanted everybody to immediately know where we were, and what the rules of the world were. This presented the idea in the light of fan fiction, and I think it could take off there. Somebody during the discussion said the phrase “Karaoke TV” and I thought to myself, “Oh, totally. That’s what I made.” This could be really popular in bars as an activity for the night (trivia, karaoke, karaoke Star Wars….). Television or media franchises with huge fan communities would probably take to it easily and with relish.

My original idea was a little different. I wanted to develop a new television format that was not a news cast, sitcom, drama, or reality program. I wanted to make a participatory television event that would tell a story in a new way. You get your friends together on Wednesday night to enact this serial story with each other, not knowing what you will be saying or where the plot will go. I’m not sure this would have wings on broadcast television because it would not be complete without a live component, and would require groups to enjoy it fully. It would be easy to implement, however, as it does not taking information from the audience in. Perhaps as a web based series, you could specify how many people you had who wanted to participate, and the video content could be altered to complement that.

I’d like to move forward with this project, but I’m still a little bruised about the process of making it. I initially thought that I would like to carry it into the final, and perhaps some elements will end up in that broadcast. I feel a certain amount of (emotional) ownership over the idea, however, and I’m not ready to give it to another group of people. To be fair, Matt, Stepan and I were all at the brainstorming session where we came up with the idea. After that, Matt showed up and gave me moral support while I was turning my content outline into a script for an hour. I did not see Liza or hear from her a single time between the day the assignment was given, and the day it was due.I know I’ll have to get over it and learn to trust group mates again (maybe I need to go to group work counseling).

I would like to develop a little more content, and try to present Karaoke TV at the Winter Show. If Stepan and Matt were committed to working on it, I hope they would join me in that venture.

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Foley Square/Thomas Paine Park, Mediation/Instruction Set

October 20th, 2011

Justice/Time Travel

(in the afternoon on a day when the sun is shining)

1.

Position yourself in Foley Square, between the Story Corp structure and the fountain.

Press your thighs against the marble rim of the fountain.

Lean forward and get as close to the water as possible with your feet still on the ground.

Listen to the irregular streams of water flopping into the pool.

This water comes from a polluted underground spring.

It is poisoning the neighborhood.

2.

Turn from the fountain toward Thomas Paine Park.

Find the best tree and approach it.

Place you hand on the tree and find its pulse.

Wait until the pulse harmonizes with the bird’s conversations.

Burrow through the soil with your mind, until you find the man who is encased in the tree’s roots.

3.

Cross Center Street and climb the stairs of the courthouse.

Sit at the base of one of the middle columns and look back at the park.

The island of land is a topographical rift in time.

Cars race around it and do not notice.

To the left, a tepid swamp burbles over the curb.

To the right, the ground swells in a hill of chalk.

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TV Show Critique

October 2nd, 2011

Last week, Kate, Fernanda, the Matts and I produced a slightly botched bit of overambitious interactive television. High Brow/Low Brow, the game show/talk show where serious topics are discussed in a not so serious way.

The most successful parts of the show were the writing and performance, which carried the show through technical difficulties. The live video switcher was also successful, however, it’s success was only barely legible as we were unable to stream it or show it live on a larger monitor, as we had intended. We had 4 cameras with mapped out camera angles for our live set. We also had an opening sequence, theme song, and graphics that we displayed in the studio on a screen.

The vision was to stream the final video signal live to the classroom, and to stream live audio signal as well. We didn’t foresee that the webcams we were using would not be able to read the words were projecting in the studio. That was a concern, and the main reason we decided to have the class come into our studio with us.

We had designed slides, as well as audio and video material that was to be projected in the studio. I set up a google voice account which texts were sent to with word suggestions and votes. We were going to sequence it in Isadora, which we really should have done. With Isadora, it’s easy to send an edited sequence of media, while viewing and working on your desktop. I, the operator, was intending to copy and paste user suggestions into a photoshop slide, then swap it into our Isadora project before projecting it. We ended up using Keynote, which does not allow you to use your computer at the same time as displaying slides. We also used a computer on which the photoshop file was not created. It turned, that I couldn’t edit the photoshop slide I’d made and had no way of displaying the audience suggestions.

We decided to use google voice instead of setting up textmarks the way we did in class because the plan was for an operator to curate the list, and we had other technical things we were aiming for. If we had done it that way, and had it output the same way our slide was set up, the user interaction would have been smoother, however, we were concerned that the two contestants have separate, similarly matched lists. Our show could be totally successful by the end of the semester.

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Super Power/Body Modification

September 20th, 2011

In the future, people will be able to wear their gender like fashion.

Today, I want to be a man. I want to be me as a man.

Today, I want to be a female. I want to be me as a female.

Today, I don’t want to be seen as male or female. I want to be judged on the merits of my ideas

We propose two ideas for our future:

The first is an identity shield. This would conceal gender, race, personal style and voice. It would consist of a cocoon like outer shell and voice modulator. The wearer’s physical form and gender would be completely obfuscated so that the only information other people have about them is their words. These could, perhaps, be mandatory for job interviews, or as school uniforms.

In this future you can choose which gender to be, how to dress, or whether or not to identify as either. Our physical appearance is how we are judged first, and there is currently no way to undermine this. In the identity neutral suit, ideas are the only things that show through.

The second is a gender reassignment suit. This will be custom made for the individual. Mine will bind my breasts and hips, expand my shoulders, raise me 6 inches higher, lower my voice, and provide me with a simulation of functional male anatomy. Meaning that in my man suit, I can use the men’s room.

We are inspired by 70s science fiction authors like Samuel Delany, Philip K. Dick, and Isaac Asimov. We are inspired by the cyberpunk aesthetic of Transmetropolitan. Especially Delany’s Triton, in which identity reassignment surgery is an outpatient procedure. Any person can have their physical presence, and sexual preference totally remodeled – a five foot tall Caucasian female can become a six foot tall African man. The idea of fashion as identity, as performance, as self imposed definition of self is the most interesting thing about getting dressed. And carrying this to the extreme would be an absolute super power. To be able to wear a race or gender like a pair of pants. Today, I’m feeling like a lady in a short skirt. Doing so would allow people to escape the limitations of their physical form, allow them to reinvent themselves daily. In our future, identities are mutable, and physical forms assume a less important roll in defining the self.

In our future, gender concealment suits might be mandatory in the workplace, which causes increased creativity in social dress. Choosing to dress as a man, a woman, a hybrid. Hypersexualized, absurd prosthetics, creams that grow temporary facial or body hair, creams that remove hair just as easily.

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NFL/DrinkingGame/FantasyFootball

September 19th, 2011

I used to watch Monday Night Football every Monday as a child. I had a black and white TV in my room that only got one channel, it was ABC, and that was what was on. And I really enjoyed it. I was in with the boys the next day in class, and in with my uncle if he wanted to watch the game when he came to visit.

Last weekend, I watched the Giants vs. Redskins game with a bunch of drinking friends. Most of whom were from Maryland/D.C. area and had a vested interest in the outcome. The NFL already has a pretty great interactive element – I mean Fantasy Football. I don’t play, but I watched The League and can definitely see myself playing, if football were a bigger part of my social life.

So, any interaction to be added to the existing framework of live NFL broadcasts should build on social experiences that are already working:

team loyalties

fantasy football participation/players as characters, game pieces

drinking with friends/watching as party

getting roudy

I love that fantasy football is a game that plays on top of the game, but it’s a full season commitment. I wonder if you could collapse that idea to a single game.

I imagine a breathalyzer device that communicates with the TV/computer. Friends get together for a party to watch their preferred match, sign in and choose avatars (players in the game). Possibly an individual player, or a mini team comprised of players in the game. The party game would be scored by the computer program and would be based on how the players in the game did (fantasy football scoring?), but also on the gamer’s breathalyzer scores which would be taken every 10 minutes or so. So the gamer is actually a participant in the game and can help their failing team, while dulling the pain of their failures, by getting shwasted.

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