Category: Art & Culture

Still thinking about changing my final project idea: interactive plant vs blinky lights?

A discussion Monday night got me thinking about my Phys comp final again. I like the bionic gardening, but I also want something really fun. The other student I was talking with was trying to convince me to do my original-ish LED light board idea. So, at home I thought about it a little bit more.

If I had the time to do this, I’d get 108 RGB LEDs, and a perfboard in 5″ x 5″ squares to measure a rectangle 30″ L x 10″ H. Each LED would be spaced 2.5″ from its neighbor, so that there would be 9 LEDs per square.

The interaction: When a user walks by, the LEDs light up in response. The color of the LED depends on how far or close the user is to the LED board. So, the closer, the more red; basically it goes through the visible light spectrum starting from indigo to red.

In addition, my original idea had sound output as well. Sound might be too confusing. I sort of just like the LEDs. I think this is something that would look spectacular, but I just don’t feel that I have enough time.

UPDATE: Perhaps I’ll just do this on my own, anyway. Seems easier than the UV Sunlight watch, but more difficult than the talking plant. In any case, I need to order ton 0′ parts, soon!

Using FSRs to turn on vibration motorsor

Tonight I was working on putting together some of the pieces for my Android Pet Plant.

To make the plant vibrate, I plan to use the 1″ FSRs around the flower pot which will trigger at least 2 vibration motors. To test this out, I cut open a cardboard Diamond Crystal salt container and stuck a piece of foam in the bottom of the container. Then I poked holes through the foam and through them I shoved some leaves that I got from someone’s fruit and the two motors, which I taped to the leaves with electrical tape.

On the outside of the container, I attached the FSRs with masking tape and then covered them in this fake leather stuff, which I flipped over so the soft part faced out. I wrote Pet Me on them, too. All of that went into the Arduino and, when I switched it on, I got vibration when I “petted” the pot.

motors
motors


The code was fairly simple. I simply reused something I’d written before. I suppose I should change the code from LEDs to motors, but I’m just trying to make it work for now.

int analogFSR = 4; // FSR analog input
int motorpin = 10; // Motor pin
int FSRValue = 1; // Value of the FSR

void setup() {
  // initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  FSRValue = analogRead(analogFSR); // read the left FSR value
  analogWrite(motorpin, FSRValue/4);
  Serial.println(FSRValue); // print the FSR value back to the

  delay(500); // gives a 10 millisecond delay
}

Event: The Kitchen Presents – Nancy Garcia/Chase Granoff

Saturday, November 7, I went to The Kitchen with a friend to see a double performance by Nancy Garcia and Chase Granoff. Nancy Garcia is also a graduate of ITP.

As far as Chase Granoff’s work, “The Art of Making Dances”, I quite liked it. I found it easy to “get” quickly, in that I found it both entertaining and provoking in a non-intimidating way. They were offering a copy of The Art of Making Dances after the show. I didn’t get it because, well, mostly because I didn’t want to spend $10. Maybe if it had been $8 or $9, I would have bought it. Plus, I wasn’t alone and I didn’t want to hold up my friend. We were hungry.

As far as Nancy’s work, “I need more”, I really wanted to like this particular performance a lot more than I did. Maybe I was hoping for something that better fit my particular aesthetic needs, or maybe I was hoping for something I could connect with on a more immediate level. For instance, I would have liked to see more of an emotional statement with the choreography, as well as more cohesiveness between the dance sections. Although the four parts flowed one to the other, I also had a feeling of choreographic separation between the parts, but maybe that was done purposefully. In addition, I also did not appreciate the how loud music/sound was, and I didn’t understand the purpose of the singing. On the other hand, my exposure to the type vocal performance she was doing is still quite limited, so I guess I would have always a difficult time connecting with anyone’s show that involved that type of sound/vocal performance. I’m still learning, so there’s still time.

Anyway, none of these things really turned me off to her work, and I only offer these critiques as audience feedback (should she ever check out my blog). In viewing her website, I found her other work interesting and I’m impressed by her continued activity as a dancer, so if I have a chance to see her work in the future I’ll probably take it.

In any case, before I wrote this post, I checked my Gmail account and found the email Nancy sent to me regarding ITP. I asked her advice regarding ITP and she really wrote the most comprehensive and useful response of all the people I talked to about ITP. I wish I had looked it up when I was selecting classes this semester because it was really good advice. Well, I won’t post her answers but I will post my questions:

Hi Nancy,

Midori Yasuda sent me your contact info regarding the ITP at NYU. She
also sent me a link to your thesis, and I thought it was really very
interesting.

I plan to apply to ITP. My background is in dance and human-computer
interaction/usability. I’m interested in this program because I have
been looking for a way to synthesize dance and technology; although I
do not dance as much as I used to, I still have a passion for the art.
Your thesis seems very similar to an example something I might like to
pursue.

If you don’t mind, I have some questions that I’d like to ask:
————————————————————————-
I’m interested to learn more about what led you to ITP? Did you have
any doubts?
What have you been up to since graduation? Did you have a plan for
what you wanted to do after graduating?
What types of ideas did you want to explore?
How difficult was it to pursue study in movement, dance and
technology? What were some of the challenges? highlights?
How challenging did you find the more technical aspects of the program?
Is this still something you are pursuing?
If this was my focus at ITP, do you have any advice for me?
How did you come up with your thesis?

Tuition is a big factor for me. How did you deal with tuition costs?
Are you aware of any scholarships or grants for dance-based work in
technology?

Now that you’ve graduated, what is your opinion of the experience?
Would you do it again? Is there anything you’d change?”

Peaking, at Chez Bushwick

Peaking is a four-person exhibition of video by Janet Biggs, Heather Cassils, Molly Davies, and Andrew Sroka curated by Maya Ciarrocchi. I attended on October 17, 2009 at Chez Bushwick, in Brooklyn, NY.

While all the videos were impressive, my favorite was by Janet Biggs. A clip called ‘Performance of Desire’, from 2007. In this short video, Biggs cut shots of cadets from The Citadel practicing and then performing a drill using rifles with bayonets, with inverted shots of two synchronized swimmers practicing.

I think what I enjoyed about this film was the distant look of concentration in the cadet’s eyes. In one short clip he looked in the direction of the camera, but it didn’t quite register. I also liked the fact that the synchronized swimmers were in their underwater environment and if distraction was a possibility, they would be virtually immune, except that they had the added distraction of coming up for air.

If you’re interested, you can find a clip of that video on her website. Performance of Desire.

Comm Lab: Week 2 – Reaction to “Orality and Literacy” (Ch. 1-2)

(Note: in starting the class late, I haven’t had time to finish week 1’s readings, but they will be posted in due time.)

In reading the first two chapters of Orality and Literacy, I can’t help but think of a time in which I’ve come across the topic of oral and written language. The first was to read Sundiata, which is a story from Mali about Sundiata, the first king of Mali, during an African history class. In the class we learned about griots, who are essentially living historians, and from whom the story has been recorded. My summary, is that they pass the history of a people or person to others by means of an oral tradition, which as I learned in the class, is or was relatively common in this part of Africa, if not in significantly many other parts of Africa.

After this story, I then learned much about the use of information, its preservation and use in our culture. I remember one discussion in particular, in which another student, who was African, had given an example of how he was able to recite the history of his family for several generations. I can’t remember now, but it was definitely impressive and represented the example of oral recitation demonstrated by griots of West Africa. I (stupidly) said something to the effect of how that skill was common to many Africans (because, of course, I was now an expert in African history).

Well anyway, I did enjoy reading the first two chapters. I don’t know if I’ve thought much about how the lyrical patterns in epic poetry can be used as memory aids, but I did find it surprising that anyone would be so shocked. In retrospect it seems obvious that someone attempting to recite the entirety of The Iliad would need some type of memory aid. But, then again, I also suspect that with practice, as is the case with griots, recitation could come relatively easily with practice.

I also found the discussion of how difficult it is for people with written literature to divorce themselves of words, such as with the example given of how to explain a horse to someone who has never seen a horse, or how ‘secondary oral literates’ will see the word “nevertheless” in their mind – I do – when they spell it or say it aloud. Along these lines, the first chapter seemed very concerned with explicating some of the negative impacts of written literature, while also explaining the difference between oral performance art and written literature that is simply read aloud.

Eventually, however, the second chapter has begun to discuss some of the benefits of the written language, particularly the ability of the written language to record the oral, of which, as stated on the second page, many have disappeared or become subsumed by other languages. I didn’t quite understand “bicamerality”, which is discussed at the end of this chapter, but I took it as describing the feeling I have when writing, when I feel as though I’m speaking to myself, and the introduction of the phenomenon of noting bicamerality as unusual occuring in the period of humanity immediately preceding the written language.