Final Ideas

Through all our research, as a group we decided that we would focus on the soul and aura of Union Street in Stonehouse, using its rich history to help represent this idea. I believe that this soul/aura can be broken down into three key areas, firstly, the amount of people in the area, the more the merrier as they say. Secondly, those people’s attitudes and opinions, if people are content then the area seems to be happy and healthy. Thirdly, the volume of the area, if the area is silent then people aren’t chatting, no music is playing, and nothing is generally going on, so therefore noise is a representation of liveliness.

The old theatre is the perfect place to show both ends of the spectrum of this soul and aura idea. This is due to the fact that around a hundred years ago, the theatre was the center of Plymouths nightlife, and well recorded as a happy and lively place. Today the theatre is a run down, broken building, closed down after a police raid which found thousands of pounds worth of harmful drugs.

So using a side window of the old theatre (called site B on the previous posts) as a staging site, I plan to represent the three elements that I believe make up the areas aura in a visual way, which is both interesting and easy to understand, whilst at the same time bringing in the rich history of site.

This will be achieved by having three separate inputs running through a website, one for each of the three elements. The first will be a simple random questionnaire on the website. It will have two responses, one positive and one negative. There will be a short repeated video being projected onto site B which will change between positive and negative images, like the test in a previous post “Street projection test mock up”, depending on the ratio of results from the questionnaire.

The other two inputs will come from onsite. One will be a decibel meter, on site, which will record the noise levels in the area and distort the image angle, static effect etc. in accordance to predetermined levels. So when the levels are within 60db and 85db, which are the levels for normal conversation up to the level for a band playing, it is considered noise of enjoyment and the image will be clear. If the levels drop below 60db or rise above 85db, this will shown by a distorted image to symbolise the noise levels being outside of this ‘enjoyment’ zone. The final input will use the Mise en abyme effect, which will be mechanically controlled by pulling the camera further away from the site, or pushing it closer. This will give it a repeating void like effect. The further the camera is away from the site the deeper the void will become, and vice versa. There will be simple movement recognition software which will take the video from a high mounted webcam, and by tracking the number of different movements will give us the number of people in the area. The fewer the people in the area, the deeper the void will be as a symbolic representation of the life being sucked out of the area.

Therefore if the area is heavily populated by people who are happy and sound like they are enjoying themselves then the image projected will be clear, colourful and fill the whole projection zone once. If however the area is abandoned, and peoples are unhappy in their responses then the projection will be unpleasant and very distorted, whilst being ‘sucked’ into the side of the building.

Mise en abyme effect

This is the test that Luke Mears in our group has done. It is a test to show the Mise en abyme effect which is a basic feed back system to give a void like effect which not only looks cool, but can represent many things giving this changing depth and repetition effect.

Proxemics

(Taken from Wikipedia) The term proxemics was introduced by anthropologist Edward T. Hall in 1966. Proxemics is the study of set measurable distances between people as they interact. The effects of proxemics, according to Hall, can be summarized by the following loose rule:

“Like gravity, the influence of two bodies on each other is inversely
proportional not only to the square of their distance but possibly even the cube of the distance between them.”

Proxemics leads nicely into my second idea for the use of the space at our site, and how to interact with the residents and commuters of the area. As our location, and ideas, focus on the life of the area by using the old theatre to represent that, my idea would be to position a camera(s) to cover the open area in front of the theatre, then using movement recognition software, track peoples movements. When people walk within pre-defined areas or ‘hot spots’ this causes the output of the projection to change, and music to play accordingly. The output itself could still be liked to another input, in terms of what it is actually showing, but the movement of people could affect the other aspects like when it was showing. Also if people figured out the link between their movements, and the music and displays, we could tune it so that it almost creates and encourages mass dance. This would link to the history of the building, and increase peoples positive aura. A good basic example of this is the old PS2 game ‘Eye Toy: Groove’.

Hand tattooing

Above is my first draft idea at the assignment for tattooing my hand with autobiographical facts about myself. I took the brief too literally and created what I believe is a good image, but not to the brief given. Many of these elements still exist in my final image below and are explained in the description under the image.

This is my hand tattooed with autobiographical features about myself.
The first decision I made was that I wanted the picture to be of my left hand. This is due to the fact that it allows me to show my wedding ring in the picture, and my wedding was one of, if not the most important and proudest moments in my life. I also emphasized this point by leaving my wedding ring in colour.

I chose to show my hand in black and white as I love black and white photography, and I wanted to show a contrast to the images tattooed onto the skin.
Each strand of colour is made up of facts from different aspects of my life. Each strand emanates from the finger tips, and flows and mixes with the other strands to join up as one ‘vein’ of life blood (all the things that make you your own person, and show your ‘life’).

The strands are also made up of different colours and fonts to represent what they are showing. The font size is quite small as I wanted the text to look almost like an aura flowing on the hand, and not look like a block of text. By doing it this way it also allowed me to increase the amount of history I was able to write.

The top strand is green as it represents my travels to New Zealand, a famously ‘green’ country. The second strand is all about my wife, hence the romantic, swirlly, red font to represent the passion I feel for her. This strand is also on the finger with the wedding ring as obviously the two are linked. The middle finger is about my family, so the colour is blue to show the family ‘blood line’. The finger nearest the thumb describes my hobbies which center around computers so I chose a blocky style font to look like the old computer text. Finally, the thumb symbolizes the place where I grew up, which I love, so I chose my favorite colour, purple, and my favorite font, Arial.

Street projection test mock up

Above is a very short, basic mock up of the idea of projection at our chosen location. It shows two opposing ideals of happy, represented by a bright lively scene, and anger, represented by a dark upsetting scene. These ideas are linked to an input which means the projection symbolises the publics’ opinions, and the changes in this opinion.

Blog presentation - Pecha Kucha

The art of Pecha Kucha or, “how to squeeze 115 presentations in a day where there was only place for 95” Barcamp Gent 28/03/2008, is about delivering a presentation on exactly 20 slides, which show for exactly 20 seconds. There are many reasons for doing this;

1. Keep the interest level up


2. Everything fits the format


3. Pecha Kucha = [pecha-k-cha] = the sound of conversation

So on that basis I have to present my own blog to an audience in a Pecha Kucha style. I have decided to focus the main bulk of the presentation on my thoughts around ‘networks’ and ‘social media’ as it is only a short time, therefore not enough to go into detail on every idea. I have decided to keep the slides simple as firstly, I have not used PowerPoint in over ten years, so stick to what I know, but secondly, and more importantly, due to the time constraints I do not want my audience spending all their time looking up and not listening to the presentation. So I have mainly used pictures of key points to help emphasize these key points, when a picture says a thousand words.

The slides are now uploaded to slideshare.com, under Jon Moore idat 101, so have a look, though they might not make much sense on their own.