Tuesday, 28 October 2008

References

Hi, I had a major problem with my internet conection last week. Nevertheless, I was working intensively on my projects, even being offline. The fruits of my divagations are materialising just now. But before I describe my projects in details, I would like you to take a look on http://www.immersence.com/ where Char Davies explains her understanding of immersive virtual-reality environments and our self-awareness. 'Osmose' and 'Immersion' by Char Davies have had a great impact on people who experienced 'the immersion effect'. As it is explained: 'Such response has confirmed the artist's belief that traditional interface boundaries between machine and human can be transcended even while re-affirming our corporeality, and that Cartesian notions of space as well as illustrative realism can effectively be replaced by more evocative alternatives. Immersive virtual space, when stripped of its conventions, can provide an intriguing spatio-temporal context in which to explore the self's subjective experience of "being-in-the-world"—as embodied consciousness in an enveloping space where boundaries between inner/outer, and mind/body dissolve'.
Following this thinking, I began to contemplate on human nature and human interaction with surrounding and nature. If human thought is considered as the beginning of evolution, the body is the slave of mind. Nowadays. people have tendency to change nature accordingly to their needs, in the name of development. Our mind has the ability to 'see' alternatives and to re-evaluate. We tend to control the environment with the power of our mind but, in order to make it happen, we need the power of our bodies. Since the finding of the great equation E=mc2 by Albert Einstein we recognize the world and its objects by physical eppearance. Nevertheless, the great minds of our times are trying to find the 'God's particle' by building The Hadron Collider. Humankind is looking for something that seems to be mystical and religious because it has not been yet observed. The ideology behind my project is to try to bring people closer to the understanding of reality as something mystic and enigmatic. Alternative worlds and abstract thinking are part of human nature. For instance, every single piece of a broken mirror is reflecting world as a separate entity and becomes detached from its previous state of a whole.
I am personally interested in the understanding of human emotions on a level of total surprise when on is put in front of unexpected change. Material things are changing its form and values with a human touch.
Do you remember a scene from a 'Matrix' movie when Neo, the protagonist, is entering the world of Matrix by touching the surface of a mirror that changes into fluid? A great metaphor of Alice in Wonderland. People explore using their senses. And so, Neo saw something unusual in the mirror and his next reaction was his finger touching its surface. Sight and touch are the tools of recognition. My project is basing of these factors. A human hand is the medium of recognition in this case. A camera attached to the palm is the virtual eye and the ultrasonic sensors attached to fingers are reality-distorting tools.
This is the ideological background behind my project. More technical details, sketches and information soon.   


Friday, 10 October 2008

Ok, I realized that reading Marcel Proust is unfortunately not enough to pass the egzams at TVU. It suddenly became clear that I need to browse internet in order to find something more contemporary. Except bringing the dusty Arduino board back to life and reinstalling all software from last year, I bought new edition of Maplin's magazine. I actually thought that I will have ideas just by flicking through the magazine:-) Well, apparently, things don't work this way(at least not in my case). Assuming that I inherited my visual thinking after my parents and that people are divided into those who have a visual memory and those who rather remember things just by listening, I decided to look for inspiration watching videos on YouTube. Easy, all you do is tap 'Arduino'. No need of reading books, presto, we live in digital age. The first movie that pops up is the 'Intro to the Arduino' on which two geeks in cool T-shirts are trying to show how cool Arduino can be. Probably you have seen that one so I won't leave a link to it. Then, I found a video of a guy who created sthg called 'Arduino Wireless POV', trully amazing, badass geek style:-) 



This is not what I am looking for anyway. I am interested in using Parallax Ping as an input and Visual effects as output. The process will involve Arduino software and MaxMSP as code holding software. Preferably, I will be using Winamp AVS effects projected on the screen. The Parallax Ping is a relatively small device that can be, for instane, to a finger. And so, if I use 5 Pings attached to each of the fingers, I can create different actions for each of the fingers. Here you can find an Arduino code that can be the starting point of this project:

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/UltrasonicSensor

Hi,Hello, Welcome to my blog dedicated to new technologies in the world of digital art. This blog has been created in order to...make my life easier. Also, I want to share my ideas, thinking processes with my tutors and class-mates from Thames Valley University. Moreover, I welcome anyone interested in electronics or video-processing and so, if you are browsing this blog, I await for your feedback. I am focusing here on Arduino-based technologies, correlation between two mechanisms madiated by Arduino chip, video special effects, video-editing, post-processing and more. I hope, that I will leave posts regularly and that my ideas will be explained clearly enough.