CD Packaging: Developing - Fold it

Going with my best idea, which is the origami box, for developments in to a final folding pattern I would have to learn the mathematics behind them in order to modify and create my own crease pattern for the box.

Before I jump in to that though I'll explain why origami box is the best idea for me.

In the previous project the concept was human presence and sustainability. I went more for the sustainability part and how our installation was made. We constructed it using trash and various found objects, including the wood which was also trash.

I also thought about wastage of materials in choosing the origami box. If you go around the supermarket and just pick a random box of product, I can tell you that to me it is an annoying stupid design. What's the point in having a box when it's annoying to open because the flaps sometimes rip and because after you open it you still need a rubber band to close it shut anyway? Also, the inconvenient design also wastes a lot of the material it's using because some bits aren't even functional.

If you're going to use more material I think every part should serve a purpose. This is why origami is a great idea. It minimises wastage of material because every area has a use so it is not wasted.

I could also use found materials to make it as well, which would relate back to how my group and I made our previous project. At first I was thinking of making my own special paper to use, that's a maybe. At the moment the material I'm most likely to use is stiffened fabric.

A key issue in sustainability is things lasting for a long time. I want that to be the same for my design. I don't want the packaging to be completely worthless after people simply stop using CDs. Thus, I want the packaging to have multiple uses besides storing CDs so that it can still be useful after CDs fall into disuse.

Now back to crease patterns in development. As I said before I'll have to use existing crease patterns as a base to begin my own modifications. These are the designs which I will learn from, which I folded today.

I made three categories of the designs I chose to study. They're pleated, helixes, and S-curves.

I chose a selection of pleated designs to do developments on because as the name implies, in pleated models you have the pleating of paper. This pleating joins up where the box closes with radial geometry and gives the self-locking property I'm after. Meaning that it can stay closed by itself.


From left to right and top row to bottom row: 32-sided tato, 17-sided tato, 8-sided tato, pentagonal petal tato, octagonal tato with modified bottom.

A close-up of the 17-sided tato. The part in the middle is the self-locking point where the flaps cross over each other and keep each other closed.





Helixes are really amazing. The reason I chose some helixes is because they can collapse and expand according to their own helix structure. This allows for the model to fit anywhere depending on the size. I was also thinking that if I put slots into a helix structure I could put in multiple CDs and can later use them to hold other flat objects like people's contact cards.



This is the multiple layer, octagonal helix.



And this is a one layer helix.

S-curves are beautiful and elegant. They're also surprisingly simple to achieve. What happens with S-curves is that the edges folding out are actually straight believe it or not. The edges folding in are curved, and when they work with the straight edges folding out, the curves warp the straight edges into the curves you see on the models below. The only exception down there is the bowl, since both the inside and outside edges are curved. That one was folded to understand how S-curves work.

From top to bottom and left to right: peppermint drop bowl, smart waterbomb, onion, and 7-sided tato box with curves.

For folding these paper models I got the crease patterns from Philip Chapman-Bells' blog. (Chapman-Bells, 2010) The exception is the 8-sided tato which I got from Jorge Jamarillo. (Jamarillo, 2009)




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Chapman-Bells, P. (2010). The Fitful Flog. Retrieved August 30, 2011, from http://origami.oschene.com/

Jamarillo, J. (2009). Petal Box CP. Retrieved August 30, 2011, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/georigami/3193396658/

CD Packaging: Concepts

Started making concepts today. I had some in my head and I drew them down, then had a look around online for inspiration. I found that my two favourite ideas have already been done though. However, I'm not going to panic on that. Just because something's already been done doesn't mean I can't make it new and distinctly me. A lot of the time I've found that people in general when it comes to art and design are a bit obsessed with being "the first" to do something. But that's just unrealistic. And why should you be so concerned about something already done before? In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether something has been done before as long as you do it YOUR way. If you do it your way, it will naturally be different from everyone else's.




My favourite idea is using origami to create the packaging. Personally, I really hate packaging where there's excess useless bits of paper that are flipping inconvenient to open. Origami uses ALL the paper. In particular, if it's radial geometry in the specific origami design the top will "self-lock". Meaning that the flaps can lock into place by crossing over themselves according to tangents to the centre of the circle. It makes it easy to open as well. A little twist and it opens and closes easily. The design above is an example of this though it isn't purely origami up there. (wewow ltd., 2010) That one is more of a net that cuts out areas in between it's little flaps to make it easier to fold. Pure origami doesn't use any form of cutting, as it is strictly folding of paper.




This is an example of a pure origami CD case, there's no cutting involved at all. I'd like to do something like this, maybe come up with my own origami design to suit my specific requirements. I think that's what will happen in the development stage. I'd of course have to make existing origami designs first to understand how they work in order to make a design of my own which can work for me. Will need to do calculations and ratios again to get a working design and to figure on which side can have graphic designs printed on them and how the graphics should be designed.



My second favourite was the book idea. Sections are cut inside a book which you can then put the CD in to. In my concept for this one I want to use old books to make the casing and paint the cover with my graphic designs on to. The example above uses the entire book in the design turning it into a visual story book with the CD art clearly being a part of the book. (jordan, 2011)





Here are my seven concepts.





This has nothing to do with this project, more like personal interests. The onion; I love it. Looks like Taj Mahal to me. Very beautiful curves. Here's the folder's blog as well, which could teach me some things if I go with the origami idea, which I probably will because it's my favourite one. In their blog they teach you how to fold more complex origami models and explains the mathematics behind various structures in origami.





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jordan. (2011). Chris Tarry Rest of the Story CD Packaging. Retrieved August 30, 2011, from http://jordannews101.blogspot.com/2011/04/chris-tarry-rest-of-story-cd-packaging.html

wewow ltd. (2010). wewow launch creative, eco-friendly CD/DVD packaging solution - WowSpiral. Retrieved August 30, 2011, from http://eco-cd-dvd-replication.typepad.com/wewow_industry_experts/2010/06/wewow-launch-creative-ecofriendly-cddvd-packaging-solution-wowspiral.html

Design: Crit Session + new brief

Here's my finals for the business cards.



I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, other than a few things that I didn't like about them.

Today was the crit session and I have to agree with the feedback that the typography is in fact on the weak side. I think I definitely could have done more with the type and experimented more with the type. In the concepts and developments the typography was never sketched out and were just placed with squiggles to show where the type is going. I think it may have been more beneficial for me to actually write in the typography in normal handwriting just to see how it would look. I think that would work with me better so that I can see what's happening with the type and the possibilities on how to use it more easily.

I think I also need more practice with Illustrator, I'll have to use it more to fully understand how it works and not rely on PhotoShop so much to do these designs.

Overall, it was a reasonably good effort and this exercise showed me what I need to pay attention to more for our new brief and specific weak points that I need to focus on when designing.


As for the new brief I have to admit that I am disappointed that it leads on from our previous project. I was hoping to break away from the last project and do something new and fresh. Nonetheless, effort 100% as always whether I like the brief or not. For this one, I'm hoping to incorporate origami into making the CD packaging, which could get interesting. More research on that later.

Design: Day 2

After finishing up the 15 concepts I realised that a lot of them were quite similar. So I went back and drew up some additional ones so that I had a better range to select from for the development of two concepts.

For developing I wanted to make the information on the card more fun to find. So in one selection you have to tear away her hair to get to the contact details. In the other the card is like a little envelope, you have to open it to get to the information. In both developments the goal is to make the designs more beautiful with visual interest and to make the finding of the contact details more enjoyable than normal, conventional business cards.

Design: Day 1

Some inspiration of business cards that really stand out. I don't want to make a boring flat piece of paper. It should be more interesting than that or else nobody is going to remember your contacts. So for me I'll probably try to stay away from conventional, flat rectangles.

I drew up some really quick sketches that were to do with hairstyling/hairdressing first to find all my options at the beginning.


Then I picked out my favourite ones to expand on to see what I could do with them visually.



After that I began to plan out some concepts, but first I wanted to get some inspiration on making interesting business cards as opposed to a boring rectangle with text on it that maybe has a tiny little picture which does nothing to make it more interesting on it.

There were several different cards which I thought were really interesting. I think they're quite charming too, so if I ever got one of these given to me I wouldn't throw it away. I want my cards to be like that; something people would want to keep and remember.

This is a fold-out one which I really like. It feels warm and at home because it has a 3D look due to the fold-out and because the graphics is in a hand-drawn style which makes it more personal. (Venus, 2008)


This cut-out one is very relevant to the person I chose. (Betterprint, 2011) I did the hairstylist/hairdresser one. I like this one because it lets the person you're giving it to add their personal touch to the card. I think it really relates to hairdressing other the cutting action since when you go get a haircut you add your own personal touch to your style by telling your hairdresser what you want.


I thought this one was lovely because the card actually does what the client does: puts things back together. (Mail Digi, 2009)


I like how the fold-out in the middle makes the flat space of the card work for it here. (Ivan, 2008)






These ones are just delicious. (McKenna, 2009) Business cards made of food for chefs, bakers, cooks, and so on would be perfect. It's like giving a little sample of what your food tastes like. So if somebody liked the taste of your business card they'd HAVE to remember you and come back for another taste.







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Betterprint. (2011). Betterprint: Business Card Hall of Fame. Retrieved August 24, 2011, from http://betterprint.tumblr.com/page/2

Ivan. (2008). Cool business card designs, Part 2. Retrieved August 24, 2011, from http://creativebits.org/cool_business_card_designs_part_2

Mail Digi. (2009). Creative Business Cards. Retrieved August 24, 2011, from http://maildigi.com/creative-business-cards/

McKenna, J. (2009). 52 More Unique Business Card Designs. Retrieved August 24, 2011, from http://www.reencoded.com/2009/02/18/54-more-unique-business-card-designs/

Venus. (2008). 20 Clever and Creative Business Card Designs - Part 3. Retrieved August 24, 2011, from http://www.crookedbrains.net/2008/08/interesting-and-creative-business-cards.html

Nightingale floor: Exhibition day

Today was exhibition day, so most of the time was spent prepping for the night. We had to do the wiring on site so that it won't be such a hassle watching out for the wires when we're moving the two sections. Ben connected the two sections together and Jenna taped up the piezos into position on each plank for optimum vibration detection.


I connected the wires to chocolate blocks and then Jenna connected the other end of the wires to the Arduino.


And this is us testing out the floor. At first there were some glitches with which planks activated which sounds. They got a bit mixed up and at first some of them weren't responding quite so well.


However, in the end we got it working right on time. It turned out really well I think even though the program started frying up a bit when loads of people went on it at a time. It still worked nearly as well as we wanted it to though. Too many people on it actually made it sound more random and chaotic and made the distortions sound more obvious. This, I think was a good thing. So overall, I'm proud of my group's work and I think we did the best we could with all the time and effort we put in to that floor in a short time.




Now my favourites! I'll talk about my top three in no particular order.

My top three was double Cory, Chris + Josh, and Lee's group.

I loved how for double Cory the sound was inside the room and it really sounded like what they were going for. Sounded like there was something human and horrible was happening in the room and I like how you had to press your ear on the door to hear it more clearly as well. I think it was effective in evoking some strong imagery which works well with their concept on war.

Chris + Josh made some really beautiful sounds with their synths, I love the crescendo throughout the whole thing.

For Lee's group I enjoyed how scary it sounded. They used the space really well too, enhancing the atmosphere with the added light and the fan to create shadow.


Some other ones that I really liked was Nick's group and Jason's group. I really liked the salt water connecting the switches for Nick's group. I thought that was really interesting. With Jason's group I liked how personal their idea was to the history of the building.

And here's a recording of what my group's installation sounds like on its own, click the link to hear it.


Contribution:
We put so much effort in to this installation and I am so proud of what we've achieved in a short time.

As for individual work we did not have many blurred roles, there were some distinct ones. In this installation I was the mathematician, artist, and secondary fabricator.

While the structure of the floor was being decided upon a basic plan was needed with all the required angles and measurements in order to know what was the best way to build it. So using simple knowledge of angles and parallel lines I calculated all the angles that we needed to know and calculated the ratios between measurements of the lengths to work out whether we had enough wood or not to create a proper frame. During fabrication simple divisions of angles were also used in deciding where to cut the wood so that the angles were maintained. At first I forgot to do this, so to fix the problem, which widened the structure horrendously, I corrected the angle and Ben recut that particular length of wood.

As the artist I did the decorating, Ben did decorating as well. My main role for decorating at first was folding enough roses to put on to some of the planks, then I attached various materials as required to the planks to complete the look.

As a secondary fabricator I helped Ben up at the 3D labs in cutting the wood and putting it all together. I also helped Jenna with the wiring before the exhibition.

Nightingale floor: Weekend

In the weekend we came in to test out the program and to do more decorating.

Jenna got the program working really nicely. The piezos are attached in a way that makes it impossible for any kind of footstep to be undetected. Even my lightest footsteps triggered them and I'm the lightest person in the class. So we're really pleased with that.

Got most of the decorations finished off as well with most things stuck on. Then today Ben and I went up to the 3D labs to nail gun the fabric to the planks.

Need to do:
-Hot glue down remaining polystyrene on a plank
-Find more trash to put underneath planks in the visible holes
-Sufficient prep for tomorrow's exhibition

Nightingale floor: Decorations

Today I began with the decorations while Ben was up at the 3D labs finishing off the wooden structure. Then we got some help from Supa, Emile and Tim with carrying it down back to the studio, so huge thanks to them.

For me, I started with the decorations first by getting the little mirrors off the disco balls we got, cutting up the polystyrene balls and making the roses we're putting on some of the planks out of the pages of an old book.

Below is a closeup of one of them I made. Overall today was a quiet, slow day. The good thing is that we got things done and that's what matters.

Nightingale floor: Piezo tests

Today we tested out the piezo mics with the frame and decking. By the end of it we found that they worked with program exactly how we wanted them to, and we found that playing the mics right in the middle of the double planks gave the best pick up of vibrations due to the flexing of the wood, which causes the sides to rub against each other thus creating a decent amount of vibration for the piezos.

We finished the screwing on the decking today as well. Tomorrow it would be on to decorating. Huge thanks to Jim as well for giving us an extra pair of hands today for marking things out, taking photos, and helping us move the decking and frame.

We marked out exactly where each plank would go so that when we need to unscrew the decking to put in the circuitry underneath we'd know where it was before.


And this is what it looks like from underneath. A pretty cool view I think.


Everything's going so well it's hard to believe that this is actually happening. Having everything working the way we want it to on the first go has NEVER happened before for me in previous projects so I'm quite amazed with how things are coming along. We even have a good concept to go with it too, which is something I've been struggling with all year I think. For me thinking conceptually is a bit of a challenge, but I won't stop trying and learning.

Nightingale floor: Main Frame

Began and finished constructing the main frame for the floor today. Ben and I marked out the angles to cut off the ends of some of the wood in the frame so that they could fit together nicely while Jenna headed back to the studio to get going on the programming side of our project.

But on the first go we mucked up some of the angles of the cuts because at first we didn't realise that the angle you scribe in your lines has to be parallel to the line that marks the division of the inner angle of the frame in two. This made a part of the frame far too wide for the corridor, so we fixed that up by changing one of the angles to swing everything into place to match the preferred length.


We used that saw pictured above to chop off the ends. It has a laser built in to it which helps line up the saw to the angle we want it to cut in to the wood.

Afterwards we added the supports on either end of each piece and screwed all the pieces in to place, and now we have our two separate sections. For tomorrow, we can start fixing the decking over the top and start decorating the decking to complete the floor. We could also start testing bits of the program on the floor as well.




I'm so proud of my group right now. I think we're progressing faster than I anticipated on this project. I thought we'd be VERY tight on time since we've made this project so big for us with the construction, deadline, and all; so I'm very glad that our timing is pretty good for this. Things also seem to be falling right in to place at the right time as well. I'm confident that we can get this done to a fine standard and ensure all group members a good pass.








I also played an interpretation of Jenna's blind drawing on my instrument from the last project, as required.

Here's the URL for it so that you can have a listen:

Jenna's Blind Drawing (Also pictured below)

Nightingale floor: Begin construction

Now, our final concept if the idea of human presence in relation to sustainability. It's about the effect on the human presence on resources. Through sound, the longer you stay on a particular plank the more distorted the audio will become. More details of it can be found in our proposal.

Today, we made a start to constructing the frame and putting the structure together. Ben and I are going to be taking care of fabricating it while Jenna takes care of the programming since she's a very good programmer.

For me, I worked out all the angles and ratios we need to know based on an initial idea for the design on paper. This can be found in my journal.

After that we made our way to the 3D labs where Jenna dropped off our wood (pictured above) to see how the design to work out and to make any necessary changes to it according to what we've got to build it.


First we decided on a good height for the floor we're building. Here's Ben marking out the correct height so that we can cut the wood for the frame to size.


Next we arranged the frame into suitable shapes that work with the length and width of the corridor we're using. It took a few tries to get the size right as well as getting it to look aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Personally, I think the zig zag shape gives visual interest and it also shows how availability of resources fluctuate; responding to the choices, therefore presence, of humans.


The final thing we did was decide how to arrange the planks on top of the frame. This was particularly important especially when putting the programming, circuitry, and choice between using types of switches and sensors in to consideration.

The double plank layout shown above is better for stability and makes it easier to cut grooves in to the frame. A point today though is that we might not need to cut in grooves since we will most likely be using piezo mics as vibration sensors. However, stability is still important because we don't want anyone getting hurt. The gaps in between each double would also have to be a little smaller so that nobody would trip up if they miss a double plank. Our group favours the double plant layout over the single plank layout below.

The single plank layout looks neater and can proved more vibration to the piezo mics. However, this gives the problem of whether all planks have their own difference sound or not, if yes the circuitry would be more complicated than necessary and would take more time to cut the grooves in to the main frame. So we opted for the double plank layout since we don't need that many different sounds and also because the single plank layout is weaker than the double plank one. This makes it more dangerous to walk on, as we've discovered, because it does flex quite a bit giving the danger of snapping in half due to weakness. The double plank doesn't have this problem provided that the width is narrow enough to strengthen support.



As shown, it was worthwhile laying everything out to test which way works best.

We've cut the height of the main frame to size today. Tomorrow the aim is to finish the main frame, begin decorating the planks and get going on the circuitry. I'll help with circuitry too if that is needed.

Nightingale floor: Development of concept

Today we looked more into our concept and decided that we needed something deeper to inform our work and let it grow. So we had a look at "presence" as a point or speck in the vast space of time.

Since the look we're going for in terms of how the floor section looks is going to have a DIY, messy look as mentioned in the previous entry, it is no excuse to be any less deliberate than doing something clean and sharp. We needed a source of inspiration to guide us in the design.

With the idea of "presence" in its relationship with time, we turned to retro. The word "retro" means to go backwards. Retro as in the style is all about nostalgia, reminiscent of a past era, specifically after WWII; going back in time through the retro style. For New Zealand in particular retro was particularly strong in the 70s and 80s. So we're going for the retro aesthetics here since its qualities of looking back to the past relates to our nightingale floor.

The nightingale floor answers the question "Did this person exist in this set time and space or not?" It is a device that acknowledges presence in an instant. So here, this retro platform recognises the walker's presence and with each accumulation of seconds gone by while they are still on the platform older, scratchy sounds plays to induce the feeling of an older era (nostalgia) and records the environment around the floor in that particular period of time, while movement (movement = moving forward = forward in time creating the present) would give newer sounds and playback the recording of the environment of that moment gone by as a reflection, a glance back in to a fresh moment fallen into the past.

Presence here in relation to time is the existence of a particular state of an object, in this case a human. Thus, in this sense the present is but a fleeting moment. An almost invisible point between the vast past states and infinite future states. This "moment" is something that we're trying to highlight, thought it will never truly be caught as it is devoured by time as quickly as another is born.

At the moment this concept has gotten quite large. The aim now is to condense it in to a short, cohesive, easy to understand form to avoid any possible confusion and to narrow down our direction of approach towards this project.

In addition, we've already started collecting potential materials to build the retro nightingale floor with.

Nightingale floor: Core theme and change of plans

Today we went to the audio foundation again with Ben so that he can see the space too, since he was sick yesterday, and so that we could decide on some measurements for our floor. As a group with all of our inputs, we decided on a different space and as a result our idea also took a completely different direction in terms of construction.

For us the original floor was going to look pristine and pure, going with the Japanese Zen theme linking back to the nightingale floor's Japanese origins. However, the spaces available were warm, fuzzy, and somewhat chaotic in terms of the objects already there within the space. The original floor as such would seem very out of place and it won't be communicating so well with the rest of the room, especially with the audio added in to it.

To fit with the surrounding environment we're going for more of a DIY, found objects aesthetic. This also allows for more exploration in the aesthetics of the design as well. I'm thinking of contrasting materials and colours. Something like Juliana Santacruz Herrera's decorated pothole art.

Here's an example of her work below:


I like that splash of colour amongst the dull, grey path there. Also, we'll be raiding rubbish heaps tomorrow to get any possible materials we could use. We spotted a whole load of wood and cardboard, so we'll be getting those tomorrow.

As for the idea, the basic idea we drew from, which is the nightingale floor hasn't changed. But we still need to pin a core theme to it to help inform and expand our work to a deeper level. We've decided to go with the idea of "presence/existence". Since the nightingale floor highlighted the presence of people. There's no place to hide on that floor. How this relates to presence is how even if you don't know that a person exists, they do exist. Only that you don't know that so they don't exist to you only. This is like the question "If a huge tree falls in the middle of a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?" With this theme of presence we got the idea for the audio as well. Recording the sounds of the floor being constructed, then let people trigger those sounds through a variety of sensors after it is finished, built, and running. This acknowledges the floor's own creation into reality.

We also discarded the switch trigger, as it seemed too literal and it's too easy to relate the action to what the audio does. We'd like something more random and unpredictable for a wider variety of experiences from the floor.

To link the presence of the walker/audience, we're going to try and have the sensors detect the people and record the environment as that time in an audio sense, and have that sound played back for an echo effect. A bit like an acknowledgement and evidence of a moment, an existence gone by.

Nightingale Floor: Concept

Today we start the last audio project. My new group is with Jenna and Ben Cornelius. At first we had more people, but it turns out the maximum group size was restricted to four people so we had to cut down to the original three.

To be honest I'm secretly glad that this happened. Before, I was trying to gather more people so that our group could be stronger in manpower and so that our budget would look amazing. Extra hands also means more detailed and specialised roles for each person. However, restricting the group size to a smaller size levels out all the groups and for me it reduces the absolute necessity for my group's project to be mindblowing. Not that I'm less motivated to push everyone to do their best work of course. I want my group to do our personal best, to do the best we can. So that our project would be amazing and so that we won't feel horrible in case we fail, because we know that we tried our hardest.

Anyway, our concept. We went through several possible ones, with the most prominent ones recorded in my journal. In the end we settled on our idea of the modernised nightingale floor.

A nightingale floor was used in ancient Japan as a security measure against assassins, specifically ninjas. The most famous example exists in Nijo Castle in Kyoto. In summary you sneak along these floors and the pressure causes special pins and bolts holding the floor together would rub against each other, the sound bounces off and into these urns underneath producing sounds like that of the Japanese warbler bird. That's a traditional nightingale floor.

Here's a video of a traditional one that's been made by someone else:



For my group we will be using special circuits and sensors underneath the panels to trigger a variety of sounds. The constructed floor itself would become a large musical instrument. The sounds would be louder with more calming timbre when treaded softly, since apparently nightingale floors produce louder sounds with lighter pressures compared to heavier pressures, and quieter, rough sounds when people stomp hard on it.

This is to highlight the presence, the idea of existing and what it feels like to exist. We're going with the Zen approach with constructing the sounds. It it meant to be peaceful and tranquil as the walker journeys across the floor, like a simulation of meditation. It is simply that. The person is simply walking across the floor doing whatever it is that they do on floors. As such, you exist simply because you are. There is no deeper meaning. You just ARE.

More on the concept will be developed as we go alone though. Perhaps we will find more meaning at later stages. I think we'll find it when we get to making the sounds.




Also went up to the Audio Foundation to check out the available spaces as well. We'd want a place with reasonable length and width to accommodate our raised section of floor. For us the corridor for the fire exit is the top candidate. It has great length, and if we put our floor there it won't be in the way of everyone else's work.

This is the corridor we're after.

And here are the other available spaces offered:



Another available space was a short length of corridor that leads to the toilets.




We had a lecture this afternoon as well, with Rachel Shearer showing us here work. My favourite is the recording of the clicking communications between fish and other sea life. I thought that was amazing, because I didn't know that fish could do that. If one day the speech of animals could be understood by humans things would get interesting.

Instrument-making: Performance day

Today was performance day for instrument-making. It was fun to be honest. Let's talk about my favourites first.

I liked many of the performances, but these are my top three in no particular order:

Cory B's group, Chris'(guy Chris) group, and Emile's group.

I loved the timbre of Cory B's group. I liked how they were all wind instruments too which gives it a really particular feel. It sounded very ethnic and made me think of being in a rainforest. My favourite instrument for this group was Cory's one with the glass bottle and rubber glove filled with water. I liked how simple it was and how clean and pure the sounds are.

Chris' group had great sounds too. I love the percussion there. If I remember correctly all members had percussion instruments, either that or three of them had percussion instruments. The rhythm in it felt young and fun, quite ethnic as well to be honest. For this group Chris' instrument produced my favourite sounds here.

Emile's group had heaps of instruments that were favourites of mine. My absolute favourite out of that group's instruments was Jenny's one though. The one with all the skewers and with marbles on the inside. I loved the sound of that, it sounds like rain. I quite liked the bass spring and the primitive guitar made by Emile as well. I thought the sounds were very well put together.

As for my group I'm not actually sure whether it turned out great or not. Personally, I think the sounds as individuals were great, but as a group I don't think they worked together enough. It felt a bit like the communication was down and there seemed to be some hesitation as well. I don't know whether this is just me being too critical of my own work, but I'll pass my final judgement once I get the footage of us performing off Edrian. I'll post it on here as soon as I've got the footage. Big thanks to him for filming us again today and huge thanks to Tom T for helping us with setting up as well.

Here's our performance:



Contribution:
For instrument-making in this week’s project all the roles of each member are very separate with each member having their own instrument.

I built my own instrument and brought in various materials that anybody could use. Such as balloons to make a membrane for drums or flutes, rubber bands for strings and to hold membranes in place, cans as resonators, and bits of scrap wood to mount things on to. I made mine out of two cans, four violin strings, one nylon string, one rubber band string, beaded balls to hold the nylon and rubber band strings into place, some kind rubber cylinder with a slot in it that can be used as tuning pegs for the strings and wood to mount the structure on to.

For actually performing together as a group I worked with the other string instrument in the group to create some form of melody while the remaining group members who had percussion instruments were in charge of creating the beat and deciding when to start and stop the performance. Performing together was actually quite difficult. I think it is because this group I had in particular was quite timid and quiet so nobody really had a strong lead in the performance to become the core and decide what goes on during it.


Edit (August 9 2011): After seeing the video it turns out we sounded quite alright. It was a great effort and the instruments actually do fit together to make a great combo of sounds. However, I still feel that communication was lacking as a group.

Instrument-making: Final Instrument

Finished making the final instrument last night. Had a dig around dad's toolboxes and found suitable bits and pieces to make it, which was quite lucky I think. I didn't know that we had all this stuff so I was quite pleased.


These are the tuning pegs at the back. They're in quite tight, so for tuning you've got to use pliers to turn them and to keep the pegs secure.


Strings pulled taut from the can. E and A string was hard to tune properly, however, when not tuned perfectly it does give quite a lovely metallic sound. Also, when you add pressure on any string with something hard and begin plucking you get a variety of pitches. When the pressure is slid, you get a sliding pitch. The variety of sounds between strings is something that I quite like. I love the bass sound of the rubber band, the quaint twangy quality of the nylon string and the metallic sound of the violin strings.


Unfortunately the D-string broke. So I'll have to find a replacement for that. I don't know if I have any more D-strings though. Will have to have a look around the house.


The violin strings have their own little stopper to prevent the strings from flying out the hole, but the rubber band and nylon strings don't. So I tied beaded balls, which is a leftover from a previous project, on to the end as a topper for those strings. They're quite strong, so they work well as stoppers.

This morning Sam D showed me how using something hard as a pitch changer sliding up and down strings can get you cool sounds and a variety of pitches. I quite liked that. So I'll get something for that to fit on to my fingers. No doubt there will be something lying around the studio at the end of the day and I'm pretty sure I'll find something random at home that would be suitable, that happens quite a lot for some reason.



Today we were talked to about the next project. We can do either a performance or an installation. And we can work solo or in groups. Some examples were shown too, I'll talk about my favourite ones.

For the performance examples my favourites were the Printer Orchestra and Pierre Bastien.

The Printer Orchestra was uniform, beautiful, and powerful. I really love it when you have many of the same thing doing the same thing or working cooperatively. This is especially the case when you apply that to things with free will, like humans. I love it when humans do the exact same thing at the same time like in military parades or the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in 2008. It's really powerful when you can get humans with free-will to do something together. The synchronicity I'm talking about in my view adds to the performance of the printer. How they start off making the same sound, their screens flashing together and separating into different layers later on.

I've always loved music boxes. At one point I wanted to make one, but never found the means to make one or any of the needed materials. This is why I love Pierre Bastien's work. His water activated music box really caught my attention. It seemed fun and jolly. His works are derived from toy-making and they're machine-like and have many triggers. I love that aspect of his work. Personally I love toys and if I have something to fiddle and play with I'll be happy for the rest of the day. So this is another reason why I like his work. You can touch them and play with them. It's fun.

For installations I had two favourites as well. Both of them are the works of Celeste Boursier-Mougenot.

The first is cute zebra finches playing electrical guitars. They land on the instruments, hop around on them, pluck at the strings and little twigs, which makes a sound on the instruments. They looked rather confused. I thought it was cute and funny.

The second is floating ceramic bowls in water. It was lovely, soft, gentle, peaceful, and tranquil. I thought that was beautiful and it was lovely how the atmosphere is affected by its soft twinkling sounds in addition to the aesthetic qualities of the space it was in.

I like how in Celeste Boursier-Mougenot's work things just happen. Nothing's planned and its simplicity grown into something interesting really catches my attention. I'd love to do an installation like that.

For me, I think I prefer installation as opposed to performance. I'd like to work in a group as well, but I'm not sure about it since classmates have free will and they might not want to work in a group. If I do get to do installation I want it to be simple, but repeated simplicity to create one whole.

Instrument-making: Improve design and make the final

Did more tests this morning and got some advice from Phil about the change in design. He said that I'd get a lot more sound and vibration if the strings are coming from the closed end of the can. I did some tests on that, and he was right. The sound was much better. Still a bit quiet though so I put a piezo mic in there as well. That amplified the sound quite well. Since this seems to work quite well with all strings I can now think up a better design for it.



This is the full diagram of the simplified and improved the design. It's now down to two cans with the open end facing downwards and all strings going up to the tuning place at the top. A three-sided wooden frame holds everything together. Can A has violin strings on it, which will be played by a bow. Can B has one rubberband string and one nylon string on it for plucking. Hopefully this would work out. I'm quite confident it would, but you can never be sure that it will. I'm considering ditching the bow, because when plucked the violin strings make really good sympathetic strings.