IN stallation

I have been working on/dreaming up ideas for my final project.  I love the idea of the augmented reality 3d figures – as an option on the website – where the user can print out a sheet of marked paper, place it on their physical desktop, where (once they have allowed their webcam access), a 3d figure will appear on their physical desktop (viewed on the monitor) as if in reality, shown on their computer screen, whilst they look on in the background.

BUT… I am thinking it would be such a shame not to take advantage of the space at Wilson Road and show this also as an installation.  I imagine  a room, where the viewer walks in and behind them is a large projection of the animated movie (as in the website), before the viewer would be another projected screen, and at the top of this screen, a webcam/camera focussed on the viewer.  ON the ground would be certain marked patterns.  These patterns would act as marker symbols for the 3d images.  So… the viewer would see in front – herself, surrounded by 3D moving (animated) images, with the projected movie running as a scene behind her.

I am not sure if I am describing/explaining this well enough – I am not certain of the terminology yet, but I am hugely excited by this idea!

This would fit my proposal exactly, and I am hoping it won’t be too much of a brain-twist to do this either (see my earlier comments on the technology being foregrounded rather the artwork, and spending too much time on the technical and so missing out on the creative).

I have started working on 3d models recently – just need to ensure they can be output/exported into the correct extension to work with the code/software I found.  I really didn’t have the time to learn how to code, etc from scratch, so I am hoping this is the answer to my prayers, and I feel it is a much better fit than my original markerless facial tracking idea.

I want to start working on the website movie now – I want it to be an atmospheric, ethereal experience, and so am looking at After Effects here, and looking at researching other artists and the work they have done which may have a similar style.

Lots of work to do – but I finally feel like something concrete is in place now.  Now I can run with it!

Video Blogs

‘Thinking of doing some video blogs whilst sketching, and maybe playing – I mean practicing with software.  Why? – Well, I think it would add another dimension to this blog (gotta look after all two of its readers!)

Pros:

• A bit more interesting
• Shows the creativity in action (warts and all)
• Live, real, an extra dimension to the text/stills.
• Could be used in final output (like the Bonus Features in a DVD!)

Cons:

• Could look a little contrived,
• Could be counterproductive
• Time -to edit, upload, export, plan, etc.

Hmmmm… pondering on this one!

Research Project Presentation

“What are you doing?”

My Research Presentation – just trying to upload this has taken so much time – and the result is far from impressive – shoddy quality imagery (YouTube – bah!)- sorry everyone.  I will attempt to fix this within the week, but for now, my soul is in flagging…

Parallel Selves – Elster

Elster: On Parallel Selves:

“In addition to our immediate personal experience we often enjoy vicarious experience provided by daydreaming, reading novels or writing them.  In fanciful exaggeration we may say that the vicarious experience belongs to a parallel self, one that runs its course alongside the main self.  When I am daydreaming, I am daydreaming.  Yet the fanciful language can serve the function of pointing to the importance that satisfaction by proxy can take on.  sometimes the consumption or creation of possible worlds comes to dominate the life of the mind at the expense of one’s engagement in the actual world.  Instead of speaking of parallel selves, we might think of the person as communicating between parallel lives.”

Elster, J. (1985) ‘The Multiple Self’, Cambridge University Press. P17

“Do not ask me who I am and do not expect me to remain the same.  Leave it to the bureaucrats to see that our papers are in order.”   Michel Foucault

“Cogito, ergo sum”  -  “I think, therefore I am” Rene Descartes

Augmented Transformers

 

Living Sasquatch

This is fantastic – I would love to incorporate something like this into my site….

Follow the instructions: Print out the image and allow your webcam to activate; then focus cam onto printed image and watch Sasquatch appear on your desk!  Loving it!

http://www.livingsasquatch.com/watch.php?id=4919

 

‘Scuse my appearance – early morning!

Augmented and split screen movies

1907 – George Melies – the Hilarious Poster

Characters in a poster come to life in this incredible movie from the inventor of special effects.

 

2007 – MUTO by Blu

2006 Stranger than Fiction

1988 – Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Split screen ~ Duality ~ Augmented

Silhouette – shadows stretching, skipping, digging, diving, rocking…

Changing constant / random / digital – physical -soul -digital -soul -physical

“My Soul Dwells in the Digital”

Highlighting significance  /effect our digital lives impact on our physical world / mental state.

Split screen or augmented reality?

Film – Split Screen Movie:      “In film and video production, split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several simultaneous images, rupturing the illusion that the screen’s frame is a seamless view of reality, similar to that of the human eye. There may or may not be an explicit borderline…Until the arrival of digital technology in the early 1990s, a split screen was accomplished by using an optical printer to combine two or more actions filmed separately by copying them onto the same negative, called the composite.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_screen_(filmmaking), wikipedia, accessed 27/10/09)  Note: NOT like 24!

Action: Watch following movies:  John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966), Richard Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler (1968), Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Airport (1970), Woodstock (1970) and More American Graffiti (1979).

Also: “1967 Universal exhibition in Montreal, commonly referred to as Expo 67, where multi-screen highlights included In the Labyrinth, hailed by Time magazine as a “stunning visual display,” their review concluding: “such visual delights as Labyrinth … suggest that cinema—the most typical of 20th century arts—has just begun to explore its boundaries and possibilities.” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899606-2,00.html, accessed 27/10/09 via wikipedia, ibid.

Augmented:  Blending digital and physical as one; adding webcam apps such as Living Sasquatch (see next post!)

 

 

New Timetable (Oct 09 +)

I need a new achievable short-term schedule.  So here it is:

Mon evenings: Flash practice

Fri evenings: Sketching (Pencil / graphics)

Sun am: Site building / project building

Sun evenings: Reading

Extra sessions: Thursday 29th October – Project pannning/storyboard

 

Long-term:

December 09: Actions: Storyboard + Site started + Sketches complete

                                  Training: Flash / After Effects / ?

January/February 10: Flash movie produced, editing ongoing

March/April 10: Finalising / editing Site

April/May 10: - Completion / final touches

On the Road Again!

Oh it is sometimes so very easy to fall off track, but (once again) I’m back on with the project… New plans afoot now.  Starting with:

1. Getting back into working with Flash (need to update skills, start adding imagery, sketches,etc.)
2. Practice with After Effects as want to incorporate this software 
3. Continue sketching (characters/figures/bodies)

I still have concerns with the end output – I want it to be a flash-style website, running as a movie, but without all the little ’stop’ , ‘play’ ‘pause’ buttons. Not sure how I will end up with this, but I have decided that I will work with that aspect later.  Right now, I want to get the creative juices flowing and start practicing using the software. 

I have gone back to the ‘bones’ of this project.  It was always about the body, the soul, the spirit of living in cyberspace.   The connection, disconnections, embodiment and disembodiment.  Reading around these issues can only help clarify and inspire the work.

I have taken out a few books form the library - ‘Inventing the Postmodern Person: The future of the self – Exploring Post-Identity Society’ by Walter Truett Anderson, Jeremy P Tarcher (1999),  ‘The Multiple Self’ by Jon Elster, Cambridge University Press, (1987) , and am re-reading some old Satre books, and am also looking at my original bibliography.  I watched a TV show on Descartes and his ideas around Duality.  Although his work is mainly around Mathematics, I would like to read a little more around his thoughts on the mind, body and soul.

I am also revisiting my blog entries from last year.  Even though I have gone back to the start (or near enough), this doesn’t mean that these earlier posts are no longer valid:  quie the opposite, they are now extremely important to me.   I would say that I haven’t exactly gone back to the start, but more that I had taken a wrong turn and gone back to that junction, back to the point at which I veered off…  The blog entries up to that point are so important now, as they are my breadcrumbs, my map, my guidance to get me back on track.    Even the wrong turn is valid in itself: I am aware of what happened; that by focussing on the technical gimmicky, I felt I was losing the creative edge and also that once I hit a wall with sourcing the software, I stalled, pannicked and basically hid away from it for a while.  Not particularly constructive, but by geting to that point, I am now re-inspired, my enthusiasm re-lit.

I intend to start adding some sketches and maybe a few practice animations shortly. 

That’s the aim over the next week or so, although I do have to prepare a presentation for the Research Assignment we finished earlier this month.