This video shows how I used Arduino to control one of the sliders in PD. I used a potentiometer to control the circular webcam window, which can be seen in the GEM window and in the PD patch, with the yellow slider moving.
*Listen for the sound from 01:10 mins onward…
This project is a result of further experimentation with my earlier project, which saw one webcam image generate sound. It shows 5 separate live images, all controlled by a different set of sliders.
I chose to work with this as an early prototype also, as it fits with my theme on surveillance and how I want to create an installation environment that reacts to those who pass by or interact.
This screen recording shows my PD/GEM project where I created a software video mixer. The two videos I used are ones I made the day of our SyntJuntan workshop (details of which can be found in the iMedia workshop blog page)
A proposal based on a painting by William Leech in the Hunt Museum
Taking into account the brief for this project (designing a piece based on the Hunt collection, looking at the themes of invisible, scaling and miniature), our early sketches and research led us to approach the brief from a perceptual direction. We were interested in illustrating how the perception of the viewer is involved when viewing a piece of art, even perceiving the world around them. We wished to show how the perception of depth is achieved by having two eyes to view the world, providing a stereoscopic image (pair of images) to the brain. The resulting images when perceived together give the viewer a 3D view of the world made from two slightly different images, a little more of the left is seen by the left eye and a little more of the right is seen by the right eye. This effect has been used in the photography and film industry since the 20’s to produce 3D imagery.
Early prototyping involved selecting from the Hunt collection (painting by William Leech) and digitizing it. Once digitised we were able to divide the image into parts and rescale them. The rescaling was done so that the parts of the image could be positioned at different depths in the room and still appear to fit the other parts when viewed from a certain position in the room and through one eye. For this we intend to place a fixed tube for the viewer to look through. The basic idea, based on Leech’s painting is to work with the existing painting, but from our specified viewpoint, unveil a subtle change whereby the girls eyes now look across the room (instead of straight ahead) and her arm is pointing to meet her gaze (instead of down by her side). To add to the ‘invisible’ side, if the viewer follows the stare of the girl, they will find that she is pointing at a flower, which is the same as what is in the painting and which will be placed either on the floor or window sill.
Using the influence of decoupage, the piece was deconstructed and digitally manipulated. This was made possible by firstly cutting apart the doctored verson of the work. Through various protyping and experimentation the desired effect was achieved after the sections of the piece were printed at various sizes. They were then cut and placed hanging at various lenghts and angles in front of each other. This, when viewed from anywhere in the room, can appear quite abstract but when viewed through the strategically placed tube, are flattened by the eye to reveal ‘our’ 2D version of the painting
This project is based on the principle of the previous balloon project, in that it uses objects to make sound. I made the keys in Adobe Illustrator and bounced the piano octave as separate notes in Logic Pro 9. The bee makes another appearance, and can be seen following the mouse at a specified distance, above the notes. A hand with a pointed finger is placed by the mouse cursor to make it look as though it presses the keys. Again, this placing was achieved through trial and error. The code for this part is as follows:
hand.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, moveHand); function moveHand(e:Event):void { hand.x=mouseX + 30; hand.y=mouseY + 60; //places the hand beside the mouse cursor at the specified coordinates }
Bee.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, moveBee); function moveBee(e:Event):void { Bee.x=mouseX + 30; Bee.y=mouseY + -195; //places the bee up over the hand at the specified coordinates }
Today, for our second assignment for Ethics class we had to do a ‘theatrical’ presentation on employee monitoring. The photos above show a still from our ‘CCTV footage’ which we staged regarding a ‘rating’ scandal that emerged in a professional firm in Dublin back in 2010, as well as our group all dressed in our shirts and goofy glasses for the live ‘court case’ scene. I found the research for this project interesting as it gave me an insight into the pros, cons and reactions to employee monitoring and surveillance in the workplace. The first case we studied, which was back in the ’90’s, was interesting because the employee in question successfully sued the English Government for monitoring her internet and telephone usage without informing her. Since then, the law has changed so that employers must make all employees fully aware of all monitoring with details of surveillance measures to be undertaken clearly identified, for example:
Who in the workplace has responsibility for surveillance?
This shows my own modified version of the second Flash experiment that we did in class during the semester. Apart from changing colours etc, I added in some of the bees that appear on my website. I also added a jitter mod which allows for their mid flight flutter on screen, after the balloon takes off. This is the section of code that I added for this:
bee_mc.y += jitter* (Math.random() – 0.5);
bee2_mc.y += jitter* (Math.random() – 0.5);
bee3_mc.x += jitter* (Math.random() – 0.5);
As well as this, I decided to add an effect that makes another bee follow the mouse cursor, to make it look as though he bursts the balloon. This required a lot of trial and error to get the positioning just right. This is the code I added:
function movebee2_mc(e:Event):void //Makes bee follow mouse
{
bee2_mc.x=mouseX + 20; //location of bee in relation to mouse X axis
bee2_mc.y=mouseY + 25; //location of bee in relation to mouse Y axis
}
I really enjoyed working out the ‘bee bits’ in this as it involved a deeper understanding of the code, which once I got the hang of, I really started to enjoy. As someone who has zero background in, or experience in coding languages, I have found that between this and creating my actual website, I really enjoyed the whole troubleshooting experiences involved as I felt a real sense of achievement when i figured out any issues 🙂
The graffiti artist Banksy did a lot of works that act as direct criticism of our ‘Big Brother’ society that sees surveillance infringe upon our daily lives.
*the images are with permission from http://commons.wikimedia.org and http://www.banksy.co.uk/
orlakelleher 