Just some updates..

Getting closer to the final show! I have created a new sketch for how my work will be displayed according to Jonathan's suggestion. I have also been allocated a space that is "dark-ish" so I have arranged to get an LED light from my college so viewers can go through my book.

Yesterday my friend Florian came over and finished another audio piece for the water colour. There are 5 left.. it will be a race against time, however we know the processes we just have to get to it. In the meantime Maria is working on finalising the interface.

Schedule

Less than two months left!

So hopefully this will be my final schedule and I will stick to it! I am determined to stick to it especially since this last month I had been working on 2d animation for an architectural projection for the final show at the college where I teach, and it took all my time (since I was also teaching and grading at the same time!). Ok I'm done ranting here, I will now explain what I will be doing in the coming weeks.

I will be presenting my final essay with my documentation in a book using Blurb's Blog-to-book (see previous post). I will try to finish this book by next week in order to send it for print. If I don't manage to write my documentation I will simply present it in a separate paper rather than in the book. The book will basically contain my two-year process that is now present in the blog. It will be presented together with my application.

This week I will carry out some final research from a few interesting books I got from the college library. I will also be starting the book (structuring / cover / layout).

Next week I'm meeting my programmer to show her the touch screen and see what we can improve. I will be meeting the sound guy so we can have some sort of sound schedule.

In the third week I want to review and finalise all the water colours. I will also be working on improving the interface and speaking to a carpenter who will create some sort of stand for the touch screen.

In the fourth week I will be finalising all recordings, working on the interface and the stand. During these two weeks I also want to run some tests to see if the improved interface is working or not.

August will be dedicated to finalising the interface, and if there's time, to film some extra stories that can easily be added to the database.

Updates

This month is going to be quite a busy one since I plan to carry out a case study with my students and perhaps even with my colleagues to test out the interface. This of course means I will have to put everything together, with a few missing videos which can then be added in June / July. I have also rethought the sound of the application. The problem was that if I was to do a chance process for the sound creation, it would not have any link whatsoever with the videos. At the same time a direct link would be too controlled. For this reason I have found a sound person whom I will meet in the coming weeks and we can discuss how to create sound generated from the videos through a chance process. At the moment I'm thinking of what the starting point could be, perhaps the waveform from the story recordings.

I have also been thinking about the link between the water colours and the videos, since this was not clear before my assessment for Unit 1. My initial idea was to combine video and abstract animation, and by observing films such as Tree of Life and Enter the void, where animated visuals accompany film, I thought it would be interesting to have some kind of moving water colour to distract from the stories. Although these water colours are disassociated from the stories, their sound will have come from a chance process applied to the recorded stories. In my case study I am interested to see how the user will play with the interface and the links they generate between sounds and visuals that are related in some way but appear and disappear through a chance algorithm and in a database environment. I want to see if they can find some kind of meaning in what they are seeing, and to observe their behaviour and level of interest.

Back to work

The first half of this month was a little break for me. I was extremely busy at work so actually I didn't have any options but to take a short break from my Masters project. This week I will try to film another story, and also set the dates for the music sub-project. I will also try to create some more After Effects water colours.

Finishing the essay and thinking about interface design

http://mariacamilleri.com/moira/

I haven't really been updating my blog so often because basically I have been immersed in the essay. I am find it so difficult to stick to 3,000 words. So many details are being left out- although perhaps this is my fault for finding a wide subject to write about. Nonetheless, I still think I have a good argument and I still think there are plenty of things I can afford to remove.

In the meantime, my developer is finding ways of how to display multiple videos at one go. A couple of things we're discussing:

• I want this to be online so loading too many videos will be slow, therefore I have to restrict the number.
• For the show, for bigger impact I will host the website on my laptop and load a greater number of videos.
• If I display this on a touch screen, the area where the user will drag to make the videos bigger or smaller, or just move them about, will have to be better suited to fingers.
• The borders look bad so we will use a black background, black / transparent borders and when the user hovers, these will be highlighted.

The project is basically "An impossible quest for closure" and it reflects what I am writing about. There will be text on the interface which will give the user the illusion that it is trying to help them find a meaning. Instead this will simply play disjointed recordings, pieces of music, or refresh the page to reveal new videos. Maria, the developer also told me to consider changing the actions of the buttons (text) every time the page is refreshed. Therefore the user might see "What does this mean?" and click on it - only to refresh the page. "What does this mean" might not be there when he/she refreshes, but if it is - this time it might trigger a recording.

I will be compiling a reading list (because I'm afraid I will lose track if I don't!) and also update my Abstract.

Tests and logging

So my developer, Maria has just put up some tests (which I will post soon hopefully) of three videos of different sizes playing, and four audio pieces playing simultaneously on command. I am in the process of editing another video however the logging of the reading material is slow, plus my reading list seems like it will never end.

I am currently logging Umberto Eco's "The Role of the Reader" as well as Lev Manovich's "Database as a symbolic form". It feels like the more I read - the more there is to know, however I cannot keep reading forever so this week or next week latest I will finally start putting my essay together. This week I will also email Antoine Beuger with some questions regarding John Cage and works of Chance.

Today a student presented an HP video where they launched some kind of touch technology back in 2007; it reminded me of my project in its database presentation, as in one could move and scale videos up and down, as well as turn music on and off at any desired time. The difference is that I want mine to be more of a whole than just an abstract representation of multimedia. and rather than having random videos, these will be based on stories since of course the whole exercise is a quest for meaning. In general, this HP project got me excited to work on my own, however made me long for a large touch screen which would made the experience so much more exciting! I still have to discuss these options with Maria to see what is possible.

Abstract is up & I found a developer!

I have just put up my Abstract. It is still under construction however the basic idea for the essay is there. Today I have also met a girl who will be my developer for the project. We have decided to use Jquery and to create the project as a web application that can be viewed on screen / mobile / tablet. She will be sending me a test of how everything will work as a whole. Even though she's taking care of the development, she will be explaining how she did everything to me so I know how the application was constructed.

This is of course great news, because it will give me plenty of time to work on the videos.

We have also discussed the idea of making the website/application open to the public, whereas anyone can upload videos etc... however I felt that this would be a completely different project (although this could be done in the future perhaps). So instead we're thinking of letting the user share their chosen combination of video/audio/music.

The missing link...

So there was one element which wasn't particularly making sense in my project (well... perhaps more than one) but this was was annoying me because it just had nothing to do with the idea of chance, and just picking bits and pieces and putting them together to form some kind of meaning (or not).

This was the music. I felt that just finding ready made pieces of music and 'throwing' them in my interface would be too easy. Too easy in the sense that music facilitates the manifestation of emotions and meaning generation; therefore asking someone to give a piece of music would just take over the whole project.

So instead I have come up with another mini project which involves sound. My idea came from this 'Secondhand Sureshots' video that I had come across around a year ago.

"This documentary film by the dublab.com creative collective is an experiment in sound recycling. Secondhand Sureshots features four amazing, LA-based beat makers: Daedelus, J-Rocc, Nobody and Ras G in a secret mission to create new musical magic from the dusty remains of thrift store vinyl. dublab.com/secondhand"


So I thought what if I did something similar, but based on Chance?

The idea is this:

Two of my friends who are both vinyl collectors, and also have a vast library of samples will be creating one looping piece for the interface.

They will be choosing a number of vinyls (not decided yet) by Chance! (the method has still not yet been decided).

They are allowed to add other layers, pads and effects however the body of the musical pieces has to be composed from samples from vinyls picked by chance, to complement the rest of the project.

The 'music' piece, (and I say 'music' because they might just be ambient sounds and effects) will be presented in separate layers where the user can turn them off and on at the same time or choose which layers to have on and which to leave off. The menu for the interface has not been decided upon as of yet, but it will have to complement the recordings menu.

I will be recording this mini sound project and presenting it as well. I'm just curious to see how this will all turn up. This is the great thing about chance; it makes you feel excited for what's about to happen; for what is unexpected.

So Dynamic Views it is

I just thought... how could I not switch? The structure of this layout is exactly what I am reading about - how culture is becoming - time and space rather than just a single continuous line. Change is good - plus I couldn't find the labels and now I did - I feel that the presented dynamic view is the perfect way of representing my whole project, whilst also allowing for categorization via dates / labels / recent.

Will soon upload a new edited video - this time I have experimented with various recordings at one go since I am thinking about having this available in the final interface: A few keywords & phrases I have been thinking about:

-Ability to enlarge / zoom / fullscreen / view multiple videos at one go
-One layered music piece rather than a variety (I want this to be sampled from different/random vinyls)
-Grid
-Multiple Voice over
-Control
-Search for meaning
-data input
-some kind of result? maybe.

This month I'm having a chat with someone who might be able to help me with all the programming and also to help me choose a platform. I will also try to post my updated Abstract soon.

Inspirational Material & Animation

I'm just back from London, where I went mainly to attend the 'I'll be Your Mirror' ATP Festival curated by Portishead. I must say that even though this was meant to be a break for me, I couldn't help but be inspired by the visuals presented by the artists.

There was an installation by David Wilson which made used of old fashioned praxinosopes. I filmed a couple of them:

The praxinoscopes were actually used in a music video here:

Frame by frame seemed to be a popular medium. Portishead had 'The Rip''s frame by frame (although quite a low frame rate) playing in the background during the performance of the song.

On another note, Joan of Arc performed with 'The Passion of Joan of Arc - 1928' in the background. This kept everyone glued to the screen. Later on the festival booklet I read that the film consisted mainly of close-ups yet still managed to convey the story through the actors' excellent portrayal of emotion. The below video might not play correctly- click to go to the youtube link, there's the whole film on youtube in parts.

Finally, I have also been to two exhibitions - Miro at the Tate Modern, and Tracey Emin at Southbank. This is the first exhibition I have seen by Tracey Emin and I must say it truly leaves a mark of whoever views it. Her works are personal and raw. I found the video of her dancing to be very inspiring and natural. I haven't found it on youtube, so head to Southbank and watch 'Why I never became a dancer' (or something similar...)

As for Miro, I have seen his works before, however this time I was more intrigued by his drawings - the simple black on white pieces, rather than his usual primary coloured material.

As for my own work - I have been storyboarding, filming and animating. Here's my latest frame by frame experiment - which will be finalised after I finish the story's filming on Sunday (fingers crossed).

Some pictures of my storyboard sketchbook:

The growing list of stories

Red = storyboarded, a long way to go!

One of these is filmed, one will be filmed on monday

mixing animation with video - two complex stories

thinking about interaction

before I got my storyboarding sketchbook, I couldn't resist!

Storyboarded yesterday

And the research paper will be tackled on Monday - although I have made progress on the title :)

Considering interaction...

One of the most important aspect of my project is interaction - however it is also an aspect that I have been struggling to incorporate with the other media. On Saturday I posted a frame by frame Flash animation that I am currently working on, and I also included an FLV video in the 'window' of the animation.

Today I continued working on it some more, and started thinking about what the video could actually include. The animation is filmed on a very short story about a woman from Cyprus who moved to the UK years ago and spent the majority of her time crying in bed because she missed her country. I felt including any other video in the window would not add anything to the story or animation.

So I was thinking what if I included a video of another story inside the animation? Then, what if I can click on that video and be directed to another story? This would create an interesting link where the user can click through to move from one story to another. The project would be much more flowing I suppose, and more connected.

Still animating frame by frame

Youuutuuube - an interesting visualisation controlled by mouse, arrow keys and space bar

Works by Rafael Rozendaal - an interesting take on interactive visuals online

Testing, More recordings

Today I have just received a nice batch of stories from a friend in the UK, some in Cypriot others in English, and others also in English but with a south-western accent. It's great to have a mix of all these languages - I think it makes the project less restricted.

Something else I tried doing today was to import an SWF file in After Effects and a movie file in Flash, this is because I will be working mainly with frame by frame 2d animation, video and effects.

The SWF import was a success; I also chose to continuously rasterise vectors so I could scale the file up yet everything was still smooth.

The movie import in Flash failed and I realised the format has to be an FLV or an F4V so I will have to export the movies in this particular format before I can import them into Flash - something I will need to try this week.

Test drawing was still smooth after it was scaled up

*******UPDATED*******

Have just tried importing an FLV video in a frame X frame animation in Flash and it worked. 

 

Updates / more recordings / more filming / more experiments

It has been a day of many accomplishments. It started off with an initially dull and unsuccessful frame by frame experiment in Flash. The final few frames however made it all worth it (I will explain this later).

Together with my friend Eleonora, who's my trustworthy source for technical as well as creative filming/editing advice I set off to film a story I recorded this week. We also visited her grandmother who was nice enough to tell me some stories which I recorded. We came back and have just stopped editing and discussing the project now (3 AM).

We were trying all sorts of effects and filters over the filmed footage, when Eleonora asked me what kind of footage / animation would the user be submitting. I said whatever they wanted, but then realised that if they had to film a one minute video, or a one minute recording, or a one minute music piece, the requirement is so structured and so controlling that perhaps it is not doing its purpose after all. After a long discussion I came to realise that I am going to be tackling almost two projects at once, and it would be almost impossible to get a good result from both of them.

Although I wanted to include the user as much as possible, after various late night careful considerations with Eleonora, we came to the concludion that the submission system has to go. It's painful to see it go but there is something new in store, that is, more interaction - more curiosity - and a way for the user to finally get to his/her closure.

This is what I have decided to do:

There will be the usual one minute footage, one minute recording and one minute music piece. (The amount is not important at this stage). Each footage / recording / music will be given a symbol (this can be anything - again not important at the moment). The user will be presented with three sets of symbols which he/she will need to choose from. The symbols will be ambiguous so the user will not know what to expect when he/she chooses the three symbols.

The three symbols will then play a footage with a recorded voice over and music. The user will then have a choice to go back and try three different symbols... you get the picture.

How can the user win? How can he/she find closure?

The symbol for each story will somehow be connected to its corresponding recording and music piece, although this will not be obvious at first. Finding a link between symbols will reward the user with the 'correct' recording/film/animation/music piece. 

So why have I decided to take my project onto this new route?

1. More interaction rather than just submit and click 

2. A Goal for the user

3. Project is more focused

4. There is still an element of randomisation but within a context

5. A better guideline for my film / animation style

6. The stories filmed are still something which came from a participant, rather than from the artist's mind

7. A greater potential for installation experimentation as well as distribution

8. For the user who doesn't figure out the 'game', it is still (hopefully) a thought-provoking project

9. Element of unexpectedness is still present throughout - yet it can be personalised

10. A stronger concept of the idea of closure, and continuous testing is viable

One more important note is that by including the submission system, I feel I was getting into some complications - mostly the focus of the project was becoming the programming. I wanted the user to interact and be a part of my digital art project, rather than simply using a program that I have made - I felt this was making the project itself slightly too technical, and it was risking of becoming just another attempt at social media.

I suppose a sketch would be a better way of explaining things - which is why I will be uploading one soon. 

Updates

Yesterday during a BBQ near the sea :) I was happy to chat with a friend with regards to what will happen to the project after I'm done. Will it die out, or should I extend it so is available in the form of an application for people to use?

We have decided to put the project on a website using asp and jquery (something I have a very vague idea about). The project can then have two sides. One: my work through the randomisation process, two: an option for the user to upload their own videos, recordings and music - all going into a database and being mix and matched together to produce a whole.

We have also discussed the idea of having 100 stories (actually 50 pieces of work) and both agreed it is feasible and yet shouldn't be an important aspect of the project. If I don't manage to have 50 pieces of work - it's fine, but I'm sure this will motivate me to keep working and experimenting with different narratives and structures as well as media and software.

Updates

So far I have 29 stories from 9 different people.
Two questions going through my head at the moment:

1. Should stories be complete or should they mix together as well i.e. creating a new story?
2. Should I include people in the videos? If yes, how exactly? Is there going to be a uniform way or representing the people in the stories or should it vary according to the story?

This is going to be a busy month

This month I will be working on the college's exhibition so it's going to be slightly difficult to do some work on my Masters, however I have timetabled everything - am going to try and do something everyday. I'm also going to try and see if I can get some students to tell me some stories.

Some good news is that a friend who has more than 10 years experience in filming and editing will be helping me out during the summer, especially with filming (and perhaps even editing). This is a relief for me because I am not a professional film maker, and I don't want technicalities which I might be unaware of, to distract from the project.

Some more good news is that I am currently teaching 'Animation Techniques' evening classes, therefore I am refreshing my memory in Flash and Cinema4D (which perhaps could be of assistance in the project).

Updates

I finally got my Canon 600D camera, just in time to shoot something before mid-term review :)

And in other news, it was the college's sports day today so we went to watch some of our colleagues and students' play some basketball. On my way there I saw the following; incidental interactive art? 

Story tour Day 1

So today I managed to record around 6 different stories from 3 different people. I also took some video footage to record the event which I will upload sometime this week. Wednesday I have another recording planned and I need to try and find one for tomorrow. When I get the camera in about two weeks I will try and get some video footage and do the first tests. This is an important step because I can see what results I'm getting from my project.

Open-ended is exciting.

100 stories.

50 stories will be recorded.
50 will be translated into videos / pictures & visuals.

One of my colleagues who teaches Fine Arts just came by my flat and we were discussing this idea about getting people to tell me their stories; traumatic, funny, happy, sad... my problem was - what will my visuals be about?

I came to the conclusion that half of my stories will be used as inspirations for the visuals. The other half will be used as sound. What I will be doing now is start gathering stories through various people and start deciding which ones I'm going to keep as sound, and which ones will become videos (not literal, but more as inspiration). I will also be looking for some different contexts - artists who have worked with similar themes.

The end result will be a random story recording + a random video/visual + random music (music will be tackled after september)

open-ended is exciting but scary

Every since I've been threading on this open-ended path on my project, it has been changing immensely. I'm not sure if it's good or bad but every time I go back to previous pages on my sketchbook, they start to make less and less sense, so I guess it's good.

I have been looking at one of the exhibits at 'Touch me' specifically Touch me I and II, Yoko Ono's April 2008 exhibition in New York.

Below are the instructions taken from Yoko Ono - Touch me (Charta, 2008)

touch me I

Take a photo of your body part reaching out from the openings.
Make a choice:
1.keep the photo
2.discard the photo
3.pin the photo up on touch me II
4.put a message underneath your photo
5.ask a friend to put a message underneath your photo.

y.o. '08

touch me II

touch me I

touch me II

touch me I

I like how something so simple triggered such a response and such a interesting result on touch me II.

In my last post I said I wanted to show some videos to people and see their response regarding the video. What I didn't like about this idea is that it was centred too much around the video, and less around the people. Today I was thinking about putting the focus more on the people and their stories. Should their stories to connected or separate from the video/visuals? Separating them from the video makes the whole project even more randomised than it already is, connecting them obviously provides a clearer link to whoever is watching, which could be nice - but misses the point of the whole project.

So now I'm left with two things to do.

1. Find these individuals and start collecting stories.

2. Think about what the content of the videos / visuals is going to be.

My idea at the moment is to just get abstract shots through video & connect with the visualisations, but perhaps to include some shots of people searching for meaning / doing meaningless things in everyday life . Anyway, whatever I do - I need to start testing these things out next week.

I think now I'll go make myself some coffee.

-------------------

(10 minutes later)

Slightly more ambitious (because I'm bad at programming) I've been thinking about this idea but avoiding it, but here goes: what I really want to do is to have the project online so that more people can include their stories via a database which then updates the stories to include the new ones. I will try to find someone who understands these applications and see if this is at all feasible.