Category Archives: 2010 Fall
By
Ryan
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Published
November 21, 2010
For this prototype, I focused on three specific aspects of the user and object interaction, which were:
- proximity
- user input via physical interaction
- user relationship to the installation piece
Using an Ardweeny, small bread board, MaxBotix Ultra Range Finder, a small plastic encasing, hardboard, and a RadioShack speaker, I created a proximity-based sound box that is mounted on the edge of a bicycle wheel. The mount (made of leftover scraps of wood from the Physical Computing room here at Parsons) is attached to the wheel with zip ties.
I wanted to provide some form of physical input for the person interacting with the piece as well as recognize that if multiple people were involved, each person should have a unique sound experience. By including the bicycle wheel as the method for activating the installation piece as well as PVC pipe that can easily be moved, the user has a direct impact on the sounds that they hear.
As the sound box rotates around the hardboard platform, the PVC pipes that are placed on the platform trigger tones based on their distance to the sound box. The tone rises and falls as the pipe comes into and out of range.
I also started initial prototyping of possible patterns and designs that could be projected or otherwise provided on the platform. I initially played with simple patterns of circles, but based on a suggestion from classmate Brett Burton, I used patterns based on the golden ratio and the fibonacci sequence as well.
By
Ryan
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Published
October 31, 2010
In researching for my Thesis on rhythm, I became fascinated with the front cover of the Wire Magazine book “Undercurrents“. It depicts a record player arm on the rings of a tree, so I wanted to do a piece that had the reference of how the needle of the turntable orbits the sounds as well as how sounds change over time.
The general idea was to provide the understanding that our position (or position of objects within a space) have a rhythmic relationship to each other. I understand how far a table might be from me or how close a person walks past me, but I have difficulty fully understanding the simple relationship that all the pieces have together. This piece illustrates how the position of pieces have relationships over time.
The colors of each of the notes depicted in the piece are inspired by I. J. Belomont’s understanding of the scale and each note’s association with color.
Here is a demo of the application:
In this sketch, I have several instruments that age as they are played. Currently they have two state changes (young and old). I hope in future iterations to continue this idea of aging and rhythm, as well as include the idea of movement within a space. I also want to improve performance and program this for the iPad.
If you would like to try it out, you can download the application here. Once you launch it, just press “f” (make sure it’s lower case), to make it full screen. If you do test it out, it would be awesome to hear your feedback, so please post comments. Remember this is a working prototype.
By
Ryan
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Published
October 29, 2010
In response to my design question “What are latent rhythmic aspects of our lives that can be revealed through technology?”, I shot this video on the F/G train platform at Smith and 9th Street. I believe that each moment is the intersection of experiences, and my project investigates the interaction between rhythm and technology. The goal is to reveal and encourage the use of technology to understand the multitude of rhythms that surround us.
The movement of the clouds, the traffic on the BQE, the grass on top of the subway station, the breeze in the microphone, the arriving and departing train, and the chatter of the passengers all form the symphony of rhythms of my everyday life.
By
Ryan
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Published
October 29, 2010
Fellow Thesis student, Aaron Druck, and I went to the Upper Way-West side today to pay a visit to the Freedom Tunnel. I always had a desire to go there after seeing Dark Days, and since a close friend had talked about it, a friend of his made a documentary there, and the fact that I’m including graffiti as a form for my thesis, I was basically required to go to this place.
Jumping fences is just fun. It sends adrenaline running through the veins, especially when there are Amtrak trains running past you. We entered the tunnel and were surprised at how much light there was. Even on an overcast day, there was plenty of areas where you could see clearly. It was just amazing. The walls just this dusty, choppy texture. The rocks and the lighting made the whole place feel like it was on another planet.
The goal for me was to get a good look at the legendary graffiti location. The new school artists have their own unique places, and since most of the older pieces that were in the streets of New York have been either weathered away, cleaned-off, or painted over, my hope was to see some classic work in the flesh.
Here is a video of our way out, and there was a lot of action on our exit. A train blows by us and some mole people test out there ladder. A little shakey, but I think you get the point. Make sure you check if the train is coming because it comes really fast.
Next scheduled visit is the writer’s bench in the Bronx.
By
Ryan
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Published
October 28, 2010
In keeping with my plan to prototype “slices” of my larger Thesis project, I did some physical installation work the past few days. I started with preparing a series of images using an application I wrote in openFrameworks. Using particle system code that Zach Lieberman provided his Algorithmic Animation class, I made a few changes so that the particles would respond and react to sound frequencies placed within the page. A few interesting patterns and formations came about using this process.
I used the image of Pamela Britton from D.O.A. because during a Visual Music Studio project last semester, I became completely fascinated with the small gestures that she made throughout the film. In keeping with key elements of my precedence, I wanted to amplify an emotion or feeling by capturing a subtle but effective moment of movement.
I then printed a few pieces out on a plotter to make large prints (approx. 80″ X 42″). This took a lot longer than I thought it would take, but I learned a lot about printing on a plotter and sizing an image for large prints. I then made some wheat paste at home and pasted them in the street for public viewing. Here are a few shots from the first night I went out.
By
Ryan
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Published
October 20, 2010
For my upcoming prototype this weekend, I am going to be making field recordings of specific locations, applying the sounds recorded on images of my choice, and then pasting those images back into the original locations.
I will be using code from Zach Lieberman’s Algorithmic Animation class (specifically the particle system code) to process the images. Instead of using gravity or mouse position, I am using the sound waves from the field recordings. As an example, here is an early prototype of how I am applying sound to an image made up of particles (original image on left, processed image on right had 5 seconds of Daft Punk applied to it):
Looking forward to getting outside late at night this weekend. I’ll make a post in the comments if I need someone to come and bail me out of jail.
By
Ryan
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Published
October 13, 2010
The Conflux Festival was held this past weekend, and I volunteered to help out during Friday night’s events at Conflux Café and during the keynote talk by urban-explorer Steve Duncan. Everyone was friendly, and David Darts and Christina Ray really did a great job of making sure the artists had what they needed. It may not seem like much but everyone doesn’t make the extra effort to make sure the artists involved are taken care of.
I had the opportunity to meet Carlos J. Gomez de Llarena, whose Urban Speaker project was one of my precedences during my Thesis presentation earlier that day. Carlos is a really amazing guy, super modest, and had one of my favorite projects from Conflux. I had been looking at other work done in this area, such as Mark Bain’s Action Unit: Instant Riot for Portable People, so it was great to talk to him about why he did it, what he was interested in, and art in general.
I volunteered for this year’s Conflux because last year’s festival made a major impact on my Urban Drifts project. Elizabeth Streb’s talk as well as a number of the projects from last year embodied a number of things I had been thinking about and gave me context for the kind of work I was doing.
On Saturday, I spent most of the day riding around on my bike checking out the different installations that were up in the city. I was interested in seeing how other artists positioned their “un-commissioned” art and how it was received by the public. In general, I was a little disappointed in the visibility of most of the projects that I checked out. The city is a crazy spectacle, and I had difficulty even finding most of the projects despite the maps I had with me with the specific locations of each project.
For instance, here is a photo of Astor Place. It was a little hard to find the tiny QR coded installations when there was a street faire in full effect right in the same area. Instead of QR codes, I found mozzarella corn bread and strawberry/nutella crêpes.
I was able to find a few of the projects, but I also experienced a few technical difficulties. Whether it was AT&T or a faulty link, I wasn’t able to fully explore each piece for all that it had to offer. To me, there were just too many barriers between me and the pieces.
In reflecting on the event, I need to look at my own projects and identify what barriers are in my work between what I am doing and what message I want the participants and collaborators of my work will receive. This weekend had beautiful weather, so if nothing else, it got me outside and experiencing the many things New York has to offer.
By
Ryan
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Published
October 13, 2010
After getting initial feedback from the class, I added some text that provides information for the user of the sequencer as well as a control for adjusting the tempo.
I am currently using a counter to keep the speed of the pattern, so for the next iteration, I’ll be sure to use actual time (such as milliseconds) to maintain the speed and tempo.
Here is a run through of the latest prototype:
Code is posted in the comments.
By
Ryan
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Published
October 5, 2010
Last weekend I volunteered for New Youth Learning for the Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science in Queens. Jessica Klein, a recent graduate from the Parsons MFA DT program where I am currently a 2nd year, reached out for some assistance with New Youth Learning’s booth at the Faire, and I jumped at the chance. An amazing organization bringing opportunities and design process thinking to the youth of New York. And after speaking with the students, I can tell they are hungry for opportunities like these.
There were definitely some impressive pieces being shown at Maker Faire (Zach’s Eyewriter project included), but the most amazing part of the Maker Faire experience was talking with the kids about their projects. Hearing them talk about their process, their choices, and how they felt about the final result made me feel good about the changes that are happening in the way education is being perceived and “administered”.
Here is a photo of some of the folks involved with the New Youth Learning project, such as Cooper Hewitt, New York Public Library, and American Museum of Natural History. For more photos, you can check out my set here.
Keep up the great work New Youth Center. Looking forward to the next time!
By
Ryan
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Published
October 5, 2010
In Code for Art, we were asked to pick an adjective as a constraint for our next project. Since my core thesis topic is rhythm, I chose “rhythmic” as my word of choice.
I had the “a-ha” moment last week after a combination of events, influences, and interests all seemed to intersect (Maker Faire, Trespass book release show, visual music, openFrameworks, QR codes, psychogeography, etc), and I have decided to create a form of visual music graffiti for my thesis project.
In general, I will be creating a custom application that allows musicians and artists to compose music/sound pieces, export them as images, and paste the visual pieces up. Using an app, the public can “read” these images and translate them into the music that is embedded within the image. There is much more to the project but that is a brief overview.
For this prototype, I took my first step toward illustrating my idea:
This program reads the image pixel information from the camera, stores the pixel RGB values in to an array, and based on the actual values, maps the image to the sequencer. Basically it looks for black pixels in specific locations and maps them accordingly.
As I started running out of time before class, I had to hardcode some of my variables, so I’m going to need to go back and redo some of this work. I also would like to add the ability to change the tempo, the number of sequencer buttons, alter what instruments are being played, and include some text for directions.
As a first prototype, it was successful in showing the general idea of the final outcome. Looking forward to doing the next prototype.
