All three of my chosen projects for this Looking Outwards have to do with music. I thought that I focused more on video and games in my previous entries, and music seems like it is quite different but has no less of an ability to be manipulated with programming. The first work I chose is called Chimeres Orchestra, and is a project that is designed to be installed in public space. It is a kind of “spider” that uses it’s “legs” to strike whatever object it is attached to, creating different sounds depending on the size and material of this object. Some possible examples include street signs or lighting “in an urban environment,” or simply a pole that happens to be present in an installation room. The ability of this work to be set up in an almost unlimited amount of places, and for it to be programmed by the user to creative different music, is really interesting. If I were walking down the street and saw one of these I would probably stop to listen!
Although the video is a little silly, and seems to not display the full capabilities of this work, the concept is well thought out. There are a series of pumps attached to a machine that allow various users to control the amount of a sound that is present depending on how fast they pump. This means that user interactivity is actually required for any sound to be produced at all, which I think is pretty cool. And it also encourages interacting with other people at the same time, to produce more interesting combinations of sound. It was kind of hard to tell if the speed of pumping had a direct correlation with the tempo of the beat, but I think it should, as it would require the users to be in sync to produce something that sounds good.
The last work I chose is BeatBearing by Peter Bennet. As the video shows, this work is highly interactive and, like Pumpbeats, encourages multiple people to interact at once. Depending on the placement of the balls, the beat changes. Rows can even be pre-constructed to allow for quick changes and the tempo can be speeded up and slowed down as well. The ability to directly control the sound output of this work is something not quite present in the other two works I chose. Where you place the balls decides the beat, so if one ball is placed differently, the output will not be quite the same. While Pumpbeats seemed to have the user manipulating a pre-made beat, BeatBearing has the user constructing the beat. It seems like a very hands-on way (with immediate feedback) of writing music.
The video below shows an electronic harp which is made up of an Arduino and some lasers. This is the first time I see lasers used for making a musical instrument and I thought it was really cool in terms of the idea, but also very cool visually. Jean Michell Jarre is a musician who actually uses an electronic harp in his concerts. It is interesting that this harp is actually made with an Arduino (the one on the video) so it seems like something that I could potentially do by myself perhaps as a final arduino project. The name of the maker of this project is Stephen Hobley and you can find his website which is his name .com
I found this wearable motorcycle when I was looking for “real iron man” suits, it is not the first thing that comes up but it was there. I think this is a pretty cool concept and it is by a guy who was a college junior when he made it, his name is Jake Loniak. I’ve always been interested in enhancing the capabilities that humans have through technology that we not only use but that it is part of us. So we and the technology become one. This motorcycle which I see more as a suit, reminded me a lot of the people in the movie Wall-E who live sitting in a chair but the chair takes them everywhere, I posted an image of it below.
The last project is one that is very similar to a led lights project which Craig showed where by turning on and off leds in certain patterns, shapes are created. The specific shapes in the example we saw were birds. The project I found is made using an Arduino but it has the same idea of the example we saw. It seems like also a cool possible final arduino project although I am not sure how complicated it would actually be. I found the specific blue leds along with the music used very relaxing and aesthetically pleasing.
A wall that challenges your body by using letters. Personally, I see it as a clever and mean way to make people fall and make fools of themselves. Anyway, basically, as a letter forms via LED, the button that is lit will also push out, letting someone climb on it like a foot hold or handhold. But if you put pressure on the wrong one, you will lose your footing and fall. clever yet mean.
This is a site that has many artists who primarily work in installation and sculpture. Some of the works have to do with arduinos and interactivity, others have more kinetic aspects, others are simple sculptures, but there are lots of cool things.
I found this particular project interesting because of my desire to be in game design. I think it to be an interesting experiment in taking a digital game and making it into a tangible product. What I like is that the game seems to still maintain an arcade-esque, simple, video game feel that is consistent with the classic Mario Bros. game. The one thing that is a disconnect between the videogame and this project is the ability to be mass-produced; I wonder if something like this (which is very much hand-made) could be made in large quantities. Again: I’m always excited to see something that is explained as “relatively simple” with a medium I’m learning.
Chris Eckert’s and Martix Fox’s To Do
The main appeal in Eckert’s and Martin’s work isn’t the medium used, but how relatable it is to my habits. I’m constantly making a to-do list, whether in my head, on paper, or most commonly on a word document. I do this most often (almost daily) for homework and studio projects, so much so that all the lists follow a predictable pattern and contain similar events. I bet if I were to make a project like this, the mechanism would eventually produce a list that is precisely what I would have to do. I find the translation from something so geometric and precise as the machine appears to a personal signature to be very interesting. It reminds me of Tim Hawkinson’s Signature. Signature
My understanding of Pimmel’s Compressed 02 is that it uses the arduino, along with some hardware (possibly magnets?) to control the flow of ferrofluid and ink through soap bubbles, capturing their motion in a time-lapse. I find this to be a very satisfying piece visually. I love to see the way the different liquids travel around the edges of the bubbles, pulling out patterns and shapes that are less noticeable (and much more commonplace) without them. The shapes and patterns they form almost remind me of Venom (of Spiderman) and his symbiote webs. I can’t imagine how the arduino is used here, it’s way over my head. One of the most remarkable things about Compressed 02 is that it uses the device invisibly, and if I was not told, I would not have guessed the arduino was involved at all. This makes me consider how broadly applicable arduinos are in producing various kinds of work.
Lotus by Daan Roosegaard is an interactive wall made from smart foils that respond to human interaction. As people pass by the foils fold open in an organic way, making the wall immaterial. Lotus explores the relationships between space and people, as well as what is public and what is private.
Another Roosegaard piece I liked, Dune is an interactive landscape that brightens in response to visitors’ movement and sound. Described as a “hybrid of nature and technology,” Dune provides a futuristic look into the relationship between nature and urban space.
Zee
Zee, by Kurt Hentschlager, is an immersive environment composed of artificial fog, stroboscopes, pulse lights, and surround sound. The audience is allowed to roam freely through a space that is filled with a dense fog that completely obscures its boundaries. The stroboscope and pulse lights illuminate the fog in an evenly dispersed manner, which create three dimensional kaleidoscopic images. Hentschlager describes this work as ” psychedelic architecture of pure light, an abstract luminescent landscape enveloping the visitor.”
The floating orchestra is just one of a handful of cool projects that Poietic does involving interactive media. This project works from a touch screen of an ipod, which controls the movement of the balls.
Some other projects include The Tropism Well which is an elegant water fountain basically that detects when a person is nearby, and lowers itself upon approach simply to serve that person water. There is also an amazing machine that transfers sound waves into gas output to make FIRE. pretty cool stuff.
Interactive Data Visualization by Vimeo Member- Montani struck me as a piece that I personally feel is within my reach. Though this work is by no one famous, the way Montani is utilizing the hardware makes sense to me, and resonates with how I feel I could employ programming and or an arduino. The piece is simple, but powerful. It creates a new way to watch a movie, but still remains a show. Though not the most complex piece, this work stuck out because I can begin to formulate how I would accomplish this.
Similar to the piece above, Singing Trashcan by Luis Daniel was a piece I selected becomes it seems approachable. Yet, more importantly, the piece is very satisfying in it’s humor and simplicity. It’s also the type of work that opens a lot of doors for more complex pieces. Though the trashcan is singing something funny, what if it asked every person that threw something away if it was recyclable? A simple change of output using the exact same code and hardware gives the piece a whole new meaning.
This work, Breathe by Hilary Hayes of OCAD, creates an incredibly interesting dialogue between technology and biology. The lilly pad arduino embedded in the scarf is hooked up to a temperature sensor. When a warmer temperature is detected, lights fade in and then out as it cools- all in response to your breathing. The actually set up for this piece is very simple, we even made this circuit in class. However, utilizing this simple set up during a time when being aware of ones temperature and their environment is even more pertinent heightens this technology to a whole new level. It’s a beautifully simple visualization of a biological function.
Tunable Sound Cloud 1.0 was created by Fishtnk and responds in real-time to in-comming sounds to enhance the “acoustic performance” of a space. The piece consists of 3 parts; a sound absorption layer above, an acoustic chamber in the middle and finally the sound reflective surface. I like the some what twitchy movement of the sound reflective surface and it seems to resemble breathing at some points. I think this piece would be interesting at an even larger scale to encompass the ceiling of a room.
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Vending Machine was created in April of 2009 and is a humorous commentary on the economic recession. Harrison reprogrammed an old vending machine to “only release packets of crisps when news relating to the recession [made] the headlines on the BBC News RSS feed”. A monitor installed alongside the vending machine displays the incoming news feeds for the audience to see. I enjoyed that the typical user interface of the vending machine was over ridden by Harrison’s program which gives the machine an odd comical life of its own. I thought the idea of integrating programming into an everyday object made for an interesting piece.
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