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How do artists think?

Maya Pruitt

A interactive data visualization of how artists think while drawing from observation.

https://www.mayapruitt.com/icm/2018/12/4/final

Description

This project is the tl:dr version of my undergraduate thesis experiment where expert and novice artists voiced their thoughts aloud while drawing a still life from observation. The interactive data visualization maps the transcriptions of their thoughts to parts of their drawings and allows the user to compare between groups. Its purpose is to communicate scientific research in a way that allows users to parse through complex information at their own pace and engage with it as little or as much as interests them.

Classes

Introduction to Computational Media

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Weather in a Jar

Chunhan Chen, Tianyi Xie

Put the real time weather from your hometown into a jar and bring it with you all the time.

http://tianyix.hosting.nyu.edu/blog/ipc/final-proposal-weather-in-a-jar/

Description

Design Concept:

Have you ever lived far away from home and get homesick? What if there’s an object that could ‘physically’ put your hometown real-time weather into a jar and put it on the table, which allows you to see your hometown weather anytime at a glance.

Some people who lived far away from home tends to bring something from home as a reminder or representation of their connections with hometown. And the goal of ‘weather in a jar’ was to make this connection even stronger. A real-time weather status of a city reflects a very specific moment & location which could create a unique connection between a person and his/her hometown disregarding the distance of physical presentness and time zone.

Process:

Right now, I have the ‘weather jar’ and pepper’s ghost effect worked, assembled and ready to show, and inspired by Chunhan Chen’s pepper’s cone ICM final project, we are hoping to combine our projects and display the real-time weather effect in 3D.

Next Step:

Technology attempting:

In order to augment the visual display, a web version of Pepper’s Cone (originally created by Luo, Xuan etc in Unity) is developed to make the 360-degree hologram with lower cost. Technologically, the Pepper’s Cone For Web exploits customized shaders in GLSL, pre-distortion with image processing, 3D scene building with three.js and development in purely Javascript. In order to real-timely render the scene to a distorted texture, a buffered scene is used for storing models and environmental settings as a buffer texture. Based on that, vertex shaders and fragment shaders would wrap the scene utilizing an encoded map.

Classes

Introduction to Computational Media

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Tinkle

Shu-Ju Lin, Suzanne Li

Installation of a toilet that emotes.

https://medium.com/@sl7211/winter-show-2018-b658bee02a2e

Description

It is not enough just to disconnect. What is needed is more reflection in spaces we inhabit every day such as the most frequented: the bathroom. The incongruity between form (toilet) and content (toilet narrating) can be light-hearted wit, and potentially be a catalyst for thinking. The experience of our reformed toilet experience will elicit intimate and curious thoughts in participants.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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CyberScamp

Heather Kim, Katie Krobock

CyberScamp creates a unique, playful experience where interaction with a pup reaches into both the physical and digital worlds.

https://wp.nyu.edu/krk367/category/fall2018/creative-computing/

Description

CyberScamp is a project connecting physical input to a digital output. Based on the user’s interaction with a physical stuffed animal, there is an animated p5.js output through which the animal responds. These animated outputs would likely be made with an outside program, then exported into p5.js. The project uses an Arduino, a stuffed animal dog, a force sensitive resistor, and p5.js. The resistor is in the back of the stuffed animal. By assigning values to the levels of pressure exerted on the dog, we are able to break those different pressures into ranges. One range is very low pressure, which the animated dog does not respond to at all; he is neutral. The animation would maybe be the dog looking eagerly at the user, waiting for some kind of attention; because this is the animation displayed when there is no pressure being exerted (no user interaction), this scene would encourage someone to come and interact with the project in the first place. Another range is medium to high pressure, achieved through petting or patting the stuffed animal, which the animated dog responds well to. The animated dog would be very happy, possibly rolling on his back with a tongue out. A third range is very high pressure, in the case that the user punches or squeezes the stuffed animal too hard. While this isn’t really an ideal interaction with the project, we feel it’s necessary to add an output that addresses it. The animated dog would react poorly to this treatment, possibly looking sad, upset, and hurt. This upset reaction by the animated dog may last a bit longer than the happy reaction, but would eventually fade back and reset to neutral again.

Classes

Creative Computing

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Aquatic Synthesis

Dan Oved

Aquatic Synthesis is an interactive live performance of a musical instrument that modulates sounds in response to the characteristics of liquids as they mix and change, as a combination of randomness and human control.

https://www.danioved.com/liquidsynth

Description

Often in electronic music, randomness is added and finely tuned by composers to give the sound a more organic feeling. What happens when we replace this source of randomness with something that occurs in a natural or organic form? Aquatic Synthesis explores this concept by using cameras to detect the characteristics of different kinds of liquids and how they slowly change, and uses these changes as random values to modulate pitch, timbre, envelopes, and more in sounds. All of the sounds are synthesized live using highly accurate software reproductions of analog synthesizers, such as the Buchla 259e twisted waveform generator, to give it a more organic feeling and provide many knobs and degrees of control.

While this instrument was created for the NIME live performance, it can also be used as a platform or tool to allow different types of motion or changes in color to affect sound. In effect the audio is driven by the visuals.

The instrument was built using TouchDesigner for all visual aspects including motion and color change detection, and projection during the performance. TouchDesigner would then send Midi control values and pulses into Ableton, which acted as a host for a Softube Modular – a software based replica of hardware modular synthesizers. Ableton would use these midi values to turn knobs and send control voltages into Softube Modular. This way, the changes in what was viewed by the camera would instantly affect sounds in many different ways.

Because of the tight integration, the viewers brain can associate changes in visual and sound together, making the correlation clear. Additionally, the randomness that is sourced from these changes does not seem as computerized as if it was generated by a machine, but feels more natural as it's tied to something organic.

Classes

New Interfaces for Musical Expression

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Access

Son Luu

Access to meaningful interaction has no limitation.

https://sondluu.wixsite.com/itpblog/blogposts/final-project-2-update-2

Description

A visual and sound experience, where Person A controls the sound effects experienced by Person B. In return, B controls A’s visual elements. Then the two can swap positions. For a short few minutes, while losing control one’s own sensibility, he/she provides the other person access to a unique experience. He/she is responsible for what the other senses, sees, hears, etc.

Classes

Comm Lab: Video and Sound, Introduction to Computational Media, Introduction to Physical Computing

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Garden

Julia Rich, Stefan Skripak

Interactive garden that invites viewers to touch and discover.

https://

Description

We present our interactive garden project we are lovingly calling Garden. Our goal with Garden was to design a tangibly stimulating playground. Inspired by experience in arts education for children, Garden was designed by Skripak and Rich for a young audience. We love the way discovery takes a tangible form for children and wanted to create an experience with as many textures as possible. We invite viewers to touch each piece of the fully fabricated set to discover the hidden ways the garden moves. We sculpted, took molds, and cast nine fungi out of resin and silicone. The cave, log, and all rocks and pebbles are made from a mixture of recycled paper and glue that turn into an almost concrete substance. Each flower, blade of grass, and creature is handcrafted from different fabrics with distinct scents added to many. We have four main interactions, some with more complex time-related variable than others. We have a plot of grass that moves wind through bushes when you run your hands through it. if you pick up a rock, glow worms will begin a countdown and creature will pop out of a hole if you wait long enough. If you push on the big fungus one by one smaller fungi will light up until we reach a grove of flowers. There is a creature in a cave that if you move quickly towards, will run away and hide, but if you approach it slowly, it will allow you to pet it. We are really excited to watch viewers interact with the garden and are excited by the opportunity to present it to many more.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing

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11 & 1/4 inch by 7 inch LED-backlit LCD Display, 1280 by 800 pixel Resolution

Jordan Rickman

A Minimalist installation that transforms a laptop screen into a light art and sculptural object.

https://itp.jordan-rickman.net/macbook-display-minimalist-piece/

Description

We live our lives in front of computer and cell phone screens, but we do not look at these displays. We look through them, seeing only the images they render. We look through those images and see only the information they represent. The screen itself becomes invisible to us.

11 & 1/4 inch by 7 inch LED-backlit LCD Display, 1280 by 800 pixel Resolution is a Minimalist electronic installation that catalyzes an encounter with the object of the screen itself. A sheet of vellum diffuses the light of the display, rendering the text and graphics illegible. Thereby, the screen comes into focus as an object in itself. A script loads a series of randomly selected webpages in a fullscreen browser. Here the Internet, as a collection of abstract information and human meanings, is no longer accessible. Instead it appears as an infinitude of patterns of light across a matrix of over a million pixels. In fact, it has only ever appeared to us this way.

Classes

Socially Engaged Art and Digital Practice

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Visual Mode

Alden Jones, Beverly Chou, Ellen Nickles, Ridwan Madon

You be the VJ! (with a twist)

http://bit.ly/visualmode

Description

Dynamically drive screen content for ITP Winter Show attendees. You have two visual modes at your disposal: GIFs and Abstract Shapes. But how can you take control when everyone has access to the controller?

Classes

Understanding Networks

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Sit, Please

Carol Chen, Zhe Wang

When you sit in a chair, does the chair fit you, or do you conform to the chair?

https://

Description

This project inverts your relationship with a chair, and invites you to invent new ways to interact with a chair. In trying to “please” the chair by sitting in a way that conforms to its own rules, we lose control of our own bodies. The chair shapes our body, instead of serving our body. On top that, we want the participants to get silly, awkward, and be entertained by their weird poses and the absurdity of this inverted relationship.

The interaction starts when participants see this chair waving its two hands from a distance. They come close and learn that they can only make it quiet and obedient like a normal chair by sitting on it and conforming to its own rules. The participant needs to cover the flashing spots on the chair, but at the same time avoid the non-flashing spots. The arrangement of the flashing and non-flashing spots is contradicting the natural human sitting pose, and forces people to twist their bodies, stretch their limbs, and completely lose control of their own body to make the chair quiet. Once they finally made the chair happy, it's quite satisfying, but after a few seconds it will change its rules and require you to sit by a new set of rules.

Classes

Introduction to Physical Computing, Introduction to Physical Computing