Week 6

This week we spoke about passive and active viewers and what I would like to elaborate on here is the latter. I went to the Metropolitan University to view a piece of work named ‘Wall Ball’; it was a very large installation and was created by Alexander Wendt, Elaine Thomaszi-Freitas and Luke Hastilow. It was a playful piece which attempted to incorporate cultural identity and position in to one piece.

The way the viewers would interact with the piece would be to throw a ball(s) on to the canvas projected piece. On the canvas would be a 4*4 grid with different parts of the face from people of different backgrounds, and when the ball would hit a square the skin would change to another. Most of the photographed subjects were neither born nor bred in London – it is the journey of migration that unites them here creating a collective of friends originally from European, Asian and African backgrounds.

Metropolitan University - Wall Ball

The whole piece was created using Max MSP and Jitter along with various pieces of hardware. I thought it was a very powerful message being sent out while at the same time being playful, maybe by making it playful the participants didn’t realise how powerful it is until later when they thought about it.


Bibliography

Metropolitan Wall Ball:
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/news/latest-news/april-2009/wall-ball-bounces-from-london-to-new-york.cfm


Also look up:
Ghosting by Roshini Kempadoo

Project Update

I have been thinking this week and here’s what I have settled on.

I shall be using the Arduino software to program the Arduino micro processor. I have also programmed in Processor but I believe it will be more steadfast for me to work in the Arduino language simply because I have been using it for the last few weeks and am feeling more comfortable with it.

Yes or no to a gui? Well I know for a fact that I shall be continuing to develop this project after I hand this in so for the time being I have decided not toad a gui in Flash MX. Primarily I was going to use Flash MX to give a graphical representation of the dots and dashes on screen to move the whole thing to being digital but I have yet to learn how to integrate Arduino with Flash and believe it will be too taxing on time and I will end up not completing it. So just the led for now, a gui later.

Finally a led or a piezo speaker, or both? Well since they have begun using the Morse code system kit has always either been printed on paper or been done by sound but rarely with light. Therefore I decided to make it using light. But I will definitely be thinking about integrating a piezo speaker in to it that works in combination with the sound.

I’ve also been looking at midi shields this week to see how they are to work. I was thinking of replacing the beeps with something a bit more modern, probably a sound effect that’s not very common.


To do:

Begin research for the Morse code language and start on the programming.

Project Update

We introduced our ideas today for our individual projects. After assessing the feedback which funnily enough corroborated with the feedback I received online from numerous people I decided to go with the morse code concept. This is because it seemed simple enough and wasn’t over ambitious.

I am please that I have chosen to follow this route since secretly over the last few days I have been slowly biased towards this concept rather than the binary clock one. I think it will also be fun since it requires one person to enter a phrase to be encoded while other will be required to decipher it.


Next step:

- Shall I use Arduino or Processing
- Shall I consider using Flash MX and give it a GUI
- Shall I use a piezo speaker to sound out the dot’s and dashes


These are the things I will be pondering over the next few days to see which of these will be time feasible.

Orbiter

Sound Installations

During this weeks workshop we were introduced to a few sound environment installations. In the public art sector, this sound installation can be seen as being the equivalent of a sculpture or something similar.


The Orbiter Installation

With this installation, the spectator lies down and relaxes, fixing their eyes on to the extended plane before them. Then using their fingers and pointing upwards they are able to give birth to new stars in to the orbit with musical and distinguishing visual interaction. The pitch of the sound depends on the placement of your star within the orbit and the bigger the star grows the louder the music plays.

The Orbiter - Vera-Maria Glahn & Marcus Wendt

“THE “ORBITER” DRAWS THE VISITOR IN AND TAKES OVER ALL OF HIS SENSES. IT IS A PLACE FOR VISITORS TO LAY DOWN AND RELAX, WATCHING THE FIRMAMENT ABOVE THEM. THE VISITOR CAN CONGER UP NEW RINGING BODIES WITH A GESTURE AND PUT THEM INTO ORBIT. AS IF HE WERE SITTING IN THE BELLY OF THE INSTRUMENT, THE PLAYER IS ENVELOPED BY THE MUSIC, AS ARE THE EARS, BODY AND SPACE”

This installation of theirs is based on custom built software by the artists themselves. It performs a real time analysis of a camera image and even generates a 6channel audio/video signals. The synthesized sounds use in this project has a very late and contrasting 1960-ish feel to it.


Bibliography

The Orbiter:
http://www.microarchitecture.eu/ORBITER.html

Vera-Maria Glahn:
http://www.veraglahn.de/orbiter.html

Video of the installation :
http://www.vimeo.com/303105

Week Five

Some time back we had a trip to see an exhibition with the sonic bed – except it was not there by the time we got there.

Music for bodies was a research project which involved the sonic mapping of the human body in an architectural form; this had been achieved through studies of bio resonance and special interface building. The aim of this project was to find new way to create experimental music and also to make this new type of music accessible to a wider community. The focus of this was to feel the music rather than listen to it.

Sonic Bed – London

Of course none of us ever had the chance to experience it, but from the images all over the net it sure seems pleasurable.


Bibliography

Sonic Bed- London:
http://www.musicforbodies.net/wiki/SonicBedLondon

Jackson Pollock

I remember someone mentioning this name in class last week, and although they did not show his work they described it as best as they could. Now I don’t know whether it was the way his paintings were described or just the way I imagined the painting itself – but one way or the other I became intrigued by his style and thought I’d delve in to it a little further. And I do not regret this one little bit.

“Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.” His pictures didn’t have a beginning or an end – I think that is what made me become fond of his work. This is where the theory comes in play where the artist knew what he wanted to exactly convey to the audience – but the audience don’t know this. So when the audience has a look at it they each manage to decipher a different meaning to what he did and didn’t intend.

Pollock’s unique art style did not just come to over night, he would practice and practice in his barn of a studio vigorously hour after hour until he got it perfected. And it was in this very barn that he perfected his method of spontaneously painting with liquid paint that his first piece of art was given birth to.

Pollock lost at work

The technique of Pollock’s painting was all about the movement of the body (which he has control of), mixed with the ferocious flow of the paint and then you get the power of gravity helping to absorb the paint in to the canvas – I guess this is a mix of the uncontrollable and the controllable. He would drip, pour, fling and spatter the paint while moving around on his canvas, almost as if dancing to the tempo of his artwork, and he doesn’t stop until he created what he imagined in his minds eye.

I really enjoyed writing up about Jackson Pollock, but I shall never forget how it was the media’s fault that Pollock committed suicide after they kept making accusations that his work was not the work of art, and whenever he tried advancing in another direction which hadn’t been explored yet in art they would say the same thing and bring his dance routine to an end. And then after so many times of being halted in so many directions he finally got himself drunk, got in to his car and committed suicide. The media weren’t invited to comment on whether his art was good or bad, if they had just kept quiet then this conqueror may have gone on to explore and take over new depths of impressionism/action art. They may have killed the artist but his art still survives. The art of Jack the Dripper (dubbed by Times magazine, 1956).


Links:

Flash website that lets you work like him:
http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

In depth feature of the artist:
http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/

Artcyclopedia (lots of info):
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/pollock_jackson.html


Books:
Jackson Pollock / Author - Ellen G. Landau
ISBN – 13: 978-0500285848

No Limits, Just Edges: Jackson Pollock Paintings on Paper
Author - David Anfam & Susan Daidson
ISBN - 13: 978-0892073269

Love Affair Memoirs – Jackson Pollock / Author – Ruth Kligman
ISBN – 13: 978-0815410096

Project Concept

After being awed numerous times by (mainly) Jim Campbell and Dan Flavin’s light works I decided to base my work around the same theme. Of course I knew from the start I would never be able to complete anything on the same scale as they do, therefore I would simply create something of a smaller scale. I also didn’t really want to mimic or copy the style of any of their projects because, well then it wouldn’t have any of me in it.

At the moment I have 3 separate concepts in my mind which I wish to advance on, they are the following:

- Binary clock
- Binary counter
- Digital morse code

I’m thinking of creating these pieces with the aid of the compact Arduino processor. I have begun to get the hang of the Arduino lingo and have a growing interest in its capabilities because of some of the stuff that I witnessed being done with it online. Also, I’m sure that I’ll be able to get some help from the online Arduino based forums when I get stuck – which I’m sure I will.

Binary clock diagram

I’ve always been interested in the binary number collection since I was introduced to it in my college days, and I think it’s brilliant how the whole number system can be reduced to just a few figures. I ended up creating a binary counter once as well using the programme Turbo Pascal, but looking back at it now it seems very prehistoric.

Binary counter diagram

Morse code has also been one to busy my mind too, and this has been the case since I started reading the Fantastic Five and Secret Seven books (Author Enid Blyton) from over 13 years ago and came across it in a few of their adventures.

Arduino board with an led attached, eventually the cablewillbe replaced with a battery pack

In order to complete either of these concepts I would need an Arduino board, 1 – 13 led’s and numerous resistors. So it should be quite feasible to start working on the whole thing running and replace any parts necessary promptly.

I presume that I may go for the binary clock since I may actually get some use out of it at home after wards. It seems like I have some pondering to do.


Bibliography

Arduino Board:
http://www.instantreality.org/tutorial/serial-communication/

Binary number system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_numeral_system

Enid Blyton:
http://www.enidblyton.net/