The final thoughts

Overall I would say the project was a success. I say this because we didn't fail anything we set out to do, and the idea worked. However if I could change two things, then I would say that I would have liked to have nailed down a final idea as a group slightly earlier than we did, and linked to that point I would have loved to have been able to have taken this project down to Union Street and test it on location. I think that if we had been able to do these things then we could have seen where our idea would have affected people in the way we hoped, then whether it did or it didn't we could have adapted the project further to suit the location and brief. However there is always a point where you have let go and say it is finished, and I believe we did that at the correct time when we had an idea then realised it effectively.

I have to say that I have learnt a lot in this first year through this module, and I also believe that as I keep saying it has helped me to think outside of the box and see that you don't need the world to achieve your goals. As a group I feel we worked well, but as with any group some people excelled were as some people preferred to follow. If I were to start the project over now, I believe that the core ideas would stay the same but I would be more ambitious perhaps, because I have a skill set where 6 months ago I had none in this area.

Below are just a few pics from the final test.

Testing project

We tested the projection using the same set up as we would on location, the only differences are that we are obviously not on location, and the light source has come from a strip light and not a traffic light. The project works in the way we planned, and outlined in the previous posts. These movies show our project working from start to finish, Ben is holding the light sensor to the light source, Luke is filming the action, and I am at the controls of the computer this is all running through. The first video below is the groups 'official' final film, which as previously mentioned was filmed and edited by Luke Mears, the second video is a video I took of the first test run. Both clearly show the light sensor triggering the mic sensor linked to the arduino board, which in turn triggers the animation of RSS feeds.

How I hacked the toy

Whilst I was changing the remote from a push button to a light sensor, I decided it would be better to document it on video, rather than writing a boring list of instructions. I feel this should be included as it was a large part of our project, and I worked hard on getting it working. It isn't the best quality video, and may not even be the best quality hack, but I found it both fun and interesting, I owe a great deal of thanks to our lectures for opening my eyes to a way of thinking that had never even occurred to me before. Anyway here is the video which I have posted on YouTube. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did making it. J!

The final, final, final project design

Due to some unknown blip in the space time continuum, I am entering this post now, as I believed I had already done so about a month ago. Anyway after the meeting we had as a group to establish what we were going to finally settle on, as a practical doable project idea, we all went away individually and came up with suggestions which we could bring to the table. My idea is stated in a previous post.

When we sat down as a group again certain elements, which had been present all the way through, were obviously set in stone and would not be altered. The main points were that our project was going to be projection based, it was to be based at the 'Old Theatre' location on Union Street, Plymouth, and finally it had to show the bright past of the building along with its modern tragic state. Therefore with that in mind, and everyone's ideas considered, the final project idea took shape.

Using the electronic sound machine, and modifying it so that it is activated through a light sensor, rather than a button press, the remote unit would be placed against the red traffic light nearest to the projection location. When the light turned red, it will activate the remote through the light sensor, and send a signal to the sound unit. This unit will be placed within a sealed unit (i.e. plastic Tupperware box), along with the microphone which is attached to an arduino board, to prevent or limit outside noise accidentally setting off the microphone sensor. When the microphone attached to the arduino board registers a sound, it sends a high reading (1) to the serial port. Along with the arduino, Processing will also be running, and when, and whilst, Processing registers this high reading (1) on the serial port, it will activate the projection.

The projection will consist of thought provoking, controversial, messages and text which will be made up partly by RSS feeds taken from thisisplymouth.co.uk, which show the very dodgy recent past of the building as the 'Dance Academy', it will also start and end with the famous red curtains of the theatre to represent it's great history as a theatre. The projection will last slightly longer than the light change so that people do not become bored before it ends, but also they stay long enough to miss the light change and provoke a reaction from what is happening and what they see.

Below are a couple of images which were produced by group member Luke Mears, the first is a visualisation of what it could look like at the location, and the other two are images of the unfinished RSS reader which he is working on.

Stonehouse pragramming test

A few images which show our group working together on test sketches for the Arduino board.

My toy hack

Just a small post to show some work I have started whilst NOT being in New York.
After talking through our ideas as a group we decided it would be best to have a wireless system going from the traffic signal to the Arduino board, rather than simple wires. So a cheap solution was to try and modify an electronic fart machine, which would give us a wireless transmitter and a sound would be produced which could act as the input for the Arduino.

Below are some pictures of the device, along with some test footage I made, just showing the range and parts of the device. I apologize for the quality as was done with mobile phone.

New Directions

After the past few lectures, which have focused on the Arduino boards, and new ways of looking at currently existing products and what you can do with them by breaking them down to their base components and uses, we have decided to change our direction of our group project.

The past few lectures have completely changed my thought processes, the simplest idea of just reusing existing products and technologies, and taking their uses for different purposes, frankly, had just eluded me. The example of a cheap key ring which flashes and makes a sound when you whistle, being broken down to give you a sound sensor as an input, with a light and speaker as outputs, sounds obvious because that is precisely what the technology is, I had just never thought of it in those terms before. However by changing your thinking this way and combining that thought with the capabilities of a piece of equipment like the Arduino board, you open up a world of possibilities.

The first idea involves the old theatre in Union Street and camera trickery. We still plan to use Union Street as our location, however the rig we would have needed to achieve our previous idea was impractical in every sense, including financially, and the outcome would not have been worth the input. Another reason for changing our project was due to the time of year. Our previous idea hinged on the images fading in and out based on the inputs, which were random, so by aiming for the commuter hours of between 5pm and 6pm the image may have been completely invisible due to the combination of a low input and the daylight at that time of year. So we have decided to change to incorporate the Arduino and these simple ‘hacks’.

To start this process we have decided to come up with separate ideas first, then join together as a group to use either one or parts of these separate ideas. So my idea would be to use a wireless device like a computer mouse and hack it so it acts as an input on the Arduino board. This input would come from attaching a light sensor to the left mouse button, then placing it on the red traffic light signal so when the cars stop the light input clicks the mouse and tells the Arduino board to tell the computer to start the projection for our now captive audience. To link it to our original idea of bringing the history of the area back to the present, the projection will start by displaying the famous red curtains of the theatre, these will open to reveal images which represent modern world data taken from ‘worldometers’, which hopefully depending on how it is represented, people will find these images interesting, artistic, and shocking. The show will stop after a short delay when the lights turn green, with an old fashion TV shutoff style effect back to black. This on off effect will also hopefully mean people will want to stop and wait for the next show.

Also to find out more about low tech toy hacks visit ‘tinker.it’

Arduino project example three

A more practical, ahem, example of modding a modern piece of equiptment using an Arduino board to make it more fun/easier to use

Arduino project example two

Using the board with another package to create an interactive video game

Arduino project example one

This is a cool little segway robot which uses the Arduino board in conjunction with, my favourite, Lego parts and motors

Arduino Boards

"Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments."

The boards can be both bought or made, and the software is free to download. The arduino software is very similar to processing in both appearance and usability, and can be used in conjunction with one another. The software can also be used with other software like Flash, MaxMSP. There are numerous sensors which can be easily plugged into the board to create a very versatile tool.

The five main reasons to choose the Arduino board are:
· Inexpensive
· Cross-platform
· Simple, clear programming environment
· Open source and extensible software
· Open source and extensible hardware

There are copious amounts of websites on the internet which deal with Arduino based projects, and tutorials for the boards and software. Two of the best I have found are ‘Hack a mod’ or ‘Practical arduino’, the next few posts are going to be some examples of projects using Arduino which I have found interesting.

More examples of AR part 2

A really cool handheld augmented reality game which is currently in development, which I believe could easily be replicated or implimented on a device like the apple i-phone.

More examples of AR

Here is the Playstations 'Eye Pet' in action.

Eye pet from Group Vandamme on Vimeo.

Augmented reality

‘’Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery - creating a mixed reality.’’

I find augmented reality really fascinating as a concept, it has been around for many years, 1957-62: Morton Heilig, a cinematographer, creates and patents a simulator called Sensorama with visuals, sound, vibration, and smell. I love computer games, and in this form it started as virtual reality and the old 3D holographic fighters from the late 80’s. More recently it has become more commercial for the Sony Playstation with the ‘Eye’ range of games and most recently with London Studio’s ‘Eye Pet’ where players interact with a virtual pet via a unique symbol being read by the camera on the TV, and creating an object which is interacted with by manipulating this physical piece of card.

Below is an example which one of our group members, Luke Mears, created using the AR application found at ecomagination.

eco AR from Luke Mears on Vimeo.

Thermal WiFi Union Street

Using the hertzian space visualisation I created of Union Street, using a WiFi enabled phone, as a basis and guide, I have created this image mixing the thermal imaging technique to represent the WiFi hotspots. The areas of red are where the signals are strong, and the white bright areas are where the signals are most concentrated. The reverse is also true with the blues and greens being the weaker edges of the signals.

GPS tracker art

This new phenomenon of tracking with GPS markers, then noting the path and transforming them into a work of art, can be seen as an interesting exercise in mapping the ‘natural flow of life’, but can also be manipulated to create a conscious perception of art, like the picture below.

Using a GPS enabled device in conjunction with ‘Google maps’, we set ourselves a few simple rules to follow whilst walking around the city centre, then I mapped the results with my unique interpretation. The rules we followed were to firstly follow a group (3 or more) of male young adults, then change to a group of mixed young adults when their path intersects ours, and then swap to a group of female young adults when their path intersects ours, before going back to the beginning using the same rules.

Below is a basic map with our GPS locations dotted on, and also my take on the findings using a graffiti/modern art look to show the paths as we were in a city centre following youths, and I believed these two ideas could be represented with that iconic style. I also slightly extended the paths to show the direction the groups were heading before we changed direction. I used blue for boys, red for girls, and yellow for mixed groups. I also used a 3D effect with the slight differences in height representing the different group sizes.

Hertzian space

My understanding of hertzian space is that it consists of all the ‘real’ things/objects which happen outside of human perception, i.e. radio signals obviously exist physically, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to pickup radio stations, but we can not see them in the air all around us without a device that can pickup the signals we can not with our senses. This space operates with both natural and man made inputs, and can be used or interacted with in many ways.

Using Union Street as our location we used a Wi-Fi enabled phone to pick out one aspect of this hertzian space, i.e. Wi-Fi signals and strengths. The diagram below is my representation of this exercise, it shows the strength of signal by using different size and coloured circles, green and large are strong connections, red and small are weaker, these are given the name of the connection (therefore showing each signal has a unique identity, and it doesn’t just exist as one object) and also shows whether the connection is secure or not, denoted with a padlock image. I found this interesting as it shows points where you can interact with this entity.

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’.