Minimalism in various mediums: Part 2

This is part 2 in looking at works by artists and designers I like. It was really long so there are two parts. In the next post I'll be summarise what I got from looking at the works of these particular people and how I'm going to apply what I learned from them in my own work.

Patrick Smith
Graphic designer who created a series of six posters. The aim was to depict six mental disorders with “the challenge of defining each in a minimal style.” (Smith, 2010)

Figure I. Smith, P. (2010). OCD. Retrieved from http://www.adaptcreative.co.uk/2010/08/mental-disorder-posters/

Here the squares are arranged in a regular grid with a single square slightly askew. It portrays a well known symptom of OCD, which is obsession with order or something being done in a very specific way.

Figure II. Smith, P. (2010). Agoraphobia.. Retrieved from http://www.adaptcreative.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/agoraphobia-500x707.jpg

Agoraphobia is the fear of large, open spaces. Here the square represents the person while the light peach colour is the open space. The fear is shown by the square huddled in a corner trying to avoid going into the open space.

Figure III. Smith, P. (2010). Anorexia Nervosa.. Retrieved from http://www.adaptcreative.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/anorexia-500x707.jpg

Here, anorexia is portrayed quite well. The line is a representation of a mirror. The circle on the left is the person and the oval is how the person’s skewed perception of their body.

Figure IV. Smith, P. (2010). Depression.. Retrieved from http://www.adaptcreative.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/depression-500x707.jpg

Depression is characterised by a loss of hope in all aspects of life. The grayscale here with no other colours at all portrays this perfectly. The lone square emphasises this by representing the person and how a sufferer would normally feel alone.

Figure V. Smith, P. (2010). Narcolepsy.. Retrieved from http://www.adaptcreative.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/narcolepsy-500x707.jpg

Narcolepsy is when the person uncontrollably falls asleep during the day. The light grey triangles represent people without narcolepsy while the dark grey is the narcoleptic asleep. The light blue background shows that it is daytime.

With the exception of OCD, people are represented by simple shapes in the posters. This is a point of interest because here the shapes are given human attributes. The idea that a simple shape can be seen as a person is interesting. Here, it works because of context. The disorders are named on the posters themselves. Thus, for the shapes to be effectively seen as people there needs to be a certain context for the viewer to see the work in.

This reminds of a game called Thomas Was Alone (Bithell, 2012). There is nothing particularly detailed about the graphics. The art is stripped down and minimalistic, using simple shapes. All the characters are quadrilaterals given personality through their abilities and with effective narration. In turn, their personalities are portrayed so well despite being simple shapes, drives forward the story and creates emotional attachment.




Olly Moss
A graphic designer who created the series below. He is well-known for depicting pop-culture icons and his renditions of movie posters (O’hara, 2010).

Here, his works show the Joker, Riddler, and Poison Ivy in a minimalist style. What I love about these is the minimal use of lines in favour of using suggestion of shapes instead. Rather than using line to depict a shape or form, or just straight up drawing the needed shape, they are suggested by the contours of the existing shapes. It also uses our familiarity with certain shapes to make this more effective. In the case of the series below it would be the human face and key features of these comic book villains.

In my own work I think it would be interesting to explore the suggestion of shapes to make a picture. In one of the stories it may be the best option. Because if I use our familiarity with the human form it could put across the story really well even if only small parts of the character are shown.

Figure VI. Moss, O. (2012). Joker. Retrieved from http://payload132.cargocollective.com/1/10/333658/4940027/-1.jpeg

Figure VII. Moss, O. (2012). Riddler. Retrieved from http://payload132.cargocollective.com/1/10/333658/4940027/-2.jpeg

Figure VIII. Moss, O. (2012). Poison Ivy. Retrieved from http://payload132.cargocollective.com/1/10/333658/4940027/-3.jpeg



Reference List

Bithell, M. (2012). Thomas Was Alone [Microsoft Windows video game]. United Kingdom: Mike Bithell

O’hara, H. (2010). Olly Moss: 2010’s Alternative Movie Posters. Retrieved August 19, 2013, from http://www.empireonline.com/features/2010/olly-moss/

Smith, P. (2010). Mental Disorder Posters. Retrieved August 12, 2013, from http://www.adaptcreative.co.uk/2010/08/mental-disorder-posters/

Minimalism in various mediums: Part 1

I looked at examples of Minimalism in various mediums. I picked out some artists whose work I found interesting and had a look at their process as well to see how it would relate to my work.

John McCracken

A Minimalist sculptor who creates wall pieces as well as freestanding sculptures of various geometric shapes and sizes. His pieces are made by hand using industrial materials such as plywood, sprayed lacquer, and pigmented resin. This gives his works a highly reflective, sleek finish for which he is well known (Zwirner, 2011). His signature sculptural form is the plank in monochrome colours leaning against a wall while stood on the floor. The planks embody the way he thinks of his pieces as abstract objects existing between two dimensions: The ground representing the physical world of material objects and the wall representing the spiritual world of ideas, imagination, mental space and so on (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 2013).

He is interested in how his work relates to the space and the viewer. His is especially interested in the idea that his work is something that is an object born out of a different dimension. I see his works as a pure, crystallised form of this idea.

Figure I. McCracken, J. (1989). Teton. Retrieved from http://influx.themissive.com/post/4052834472/magic

Above is Teton by John McCracken. It is my favourite example of his work because it shows his fascination with how objects relate to space and people as an abstract thing in the simplest way. The idea of different dimensions is boiled right down to this lone column. Yet it expresses the idea in a big way because of how it responds to the environment by reflecting it. Teton is made from stainless steel polished to a high degree to give it that mirrored look (Zwirner, 2011). It is in a forested area where it reflects its surroundings making it almost invisible. It is only seen as a strange distortion in space. That is interesting to me because it makes the viewer look twice and really think about their surroundings. For example, what is seen and unseen in a particular place. If I stumbled upon something like this I would be on the lookout to see if there were more around. On the other hand though, I think if there were any more columns it would be too much. One column here is more effective because it’s almost like it’s a glitch in reality rather than something planned and set out in a certain way. If something looks weird or out of place it would make you think about why it’s there and what it means even if it is almost invisible.

Painting:

Ellsworth Kelly

A painter and sculptor famed for multi-panelled pieces featuring saturated colour and precise geometric shapes. Edges in paintings are sharp and precise, suggesting seriousness in creating perfection of form. In Kelly’s work he wants the viewer to have an instinctive, physical response towards the features of the painting itself rather than a response to the painting as a representation of an idea (Gershman, 2013).

This is interesting because with McCracken, his works represent an idea of a different dimension. However, Kelly’s works are meant to be seen and accepted as artworks for what they actually are rather than what they represent. They are independent from context and interpretation. I like the idea of seeing something, an artwork, as what it is here and I think this is where the beauty of simplicity lies in Kelly’s work. For me it brings a feeling of peace and freedom. These feelings I have for Kelly’s work are most evident when I see his botanical drawings.

Figure II. Ellsworth, K. (1961). Briar. Retrieved from http://www.gardendesign.com/ideas/art-botany-ellsworth-kellys-plant-drawings

His drawings of plants have simple strokes, muted colours and reduction of details leaving the contours of the plant. He sees these drawings as portraits of specific plants he found, associated with a memory and a place (Laurent, 2013). In a way, the plants have an identity as a specific plant instead of being a member of a specific species. This leads back to seeing the artwork as what it is rather than what it represents. The reduction of a plant into simple lines makes it feel peaceful to me.

The process he goes through to draw these plants also shows me how I could apply it to my own work. He finds a plant that he wants to draw and he draws it. He doesn’t spend a laborious amount of time on it because he wants to get the “freedom of the line” and “swift curves” in the plants (Sobieski, 2013). I should emulate this process because if you can draw something simple while still giving the drawing clear readability of what it is, you have the building blocks to create more from it. It would also be a good exercise in drawing form.

Photography:

Hans Hiltermann- 'You' from Brett Sayer on Vimeo.

Hans Hiltermann

He does minimalist portraits of people. His specific body of work titled YOU is about people and how we inspire each other through our perceptions of others (Hiltermann, 2013). The portraits taken in YOU are of people without any kind of mask. Their faces are naked from makeup and accessories. They are laid bare for all to see. During the shoots the people were also told to look into the camera as though they were looking into the eyes of someone they were completely comfortable with (Sayer, 2013). The portraits seem honest and they depict the essence of the person. So the portraits themselves have more to say about the viewer rather than the actual person. The portrait becomes a kind of mirror, reflecting the viewer's judgement as a piece of themselves in another person.

Here, I think the relationship between the viewer and the work is really beautiful. It's beautiful in that the person you're looking at and how you see them says more about you than the actual person. So it really is like a mirror. I especially admire the stark honesty of the portraits in portraying the person as just a person without any kind of mask. I think the removal of extra details like a smile, makeup, accessories and so on in the minimalist portraiture here gives it the viewer room to fill in the gaps to make sense of the person themselves. This is what I think is interesting. The suggestion of something rather than a flat out statement. I find that this method is more powerful than directly giving out all the details in a very controlled way.

Kenna, M. (2006). Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Retrieved from http://www.michaelkenna.net/gallery.php?id=17

Michael Kenna takes Minimalistic photographs of hauntingly beautiful landscapes. His photographs are made by taking long exposures of up to 10 hours long, usually at dawn or dusk when the light is most pliant (Bellows, 2013). His work is about the setting as a stage. An impression of a place where stories happen. He sees his work as an invitation for the viewer to explore the landscape with their imagination and make up their own stories of what might have happened in that place (HolgaDirect, 2012). For me this is interesting because rather than putting all the characters and objects of a story inside he strips it all and leaves behind the stage. This could be quite an interesting way to tell a story in one image. Leaving behind the scene but removing all the characters, encouraging the viewer to make up their own minds as to what happened.

In another interview Kenna talks about attaining a style. He said that finding your style in art is about finding yourself because each person is unique in that their perceptions are shaped by their different experiences (PhotographyMonthly, 2010). Another way to develop style is to emulate the style of people you admire. The traditional way he processes his photography is also derived from photographers he admires. For me I think this is important. Because in all honesty I don’t feel like I know enough about myself. Thus, finding my way through drawing and making more art could be a way to get to that. In addition, it would help create a distinctive method to tell a story in one image.

Reference List

Bellows, J. (2013). Michael Kenna. Retrieved August 5, 2013, from http://www.josephbellows.com/artists/michael-kenna/bio/

Gershman, R. (2013). Ellsworth Kelly. Retrieved August 4, 2013, from http://www.theartstory.org/artist-kelly-ellsworth.htm

Hiltermann, H. (2013). YOU. Retrieved August 5, 2013, from http://hanshiltermann.viewbook.com/english-site/you-1

HolgaDirect. (2012). An Exclusive HolgaDirect Interview with Michael Kenna. Retrieved August 5, 2013, from http://www.holgadirect.com/holgadirect-interview-michael-kenna/

Laurent, A. (2013). Art & Botany: Ellsworth Kelly’s Plant Drawings. Retrieved August 4, 2013, from http://www.gardendesign.com/ideas/art-botany-ellsworth-kellys-plant-drawings

PhotographyMonthly. (2010). Michael Kenna: The Master of Landscape. Retrieved August 5, 2013, from http://www.photographymonthly.com/Tips-and-Techniques/Pro-Zone/Michael-Kenna-The-Master-of-landscape

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. (2013). John McCracken (2009). Retrieved August 4, 2013, from http://www.rbge.org.uk/the-gardens/edinburgh/inverleith-house/archive-exhibitions/inverleith-house-archive-main-programme/2009/john-mccracken

Sayer, B. (2013, March 14). Hans Hiltermann – 'You' [Video file]. Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/61833395

Sobieski, E. (2013). The Eyes Of Ellsworth Kelly: The Insightful Artist Turns 90. Retrieved August, 4, 2013, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-sobieski/the-eyes-of-ellsworth-kel_b_3361047.html

Zwirner, D. (2011). John McCraken Biography. Retrieved August 4, 2013, from http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/john-mccracken/biography/

Project Change: One Picture, One Story

So in the previous blog I briefly described what kind of project I originally planned to do for this semester. That has now changed. I did a little bit of work on it for a week. While I like the idea, I didn't feel passionate enough to keep on going with it. Knowing this, the project has to change into one that can hold my interest.

I joined Andy's project that has an interesting focusing question: How to tell a story in one image?

The medium we use to do this project is completely open. At the moment I'm still deciding whether I want to do photography, digital art, cinemagraphs, or a combination of two mediums. Maybe have different sets of mediums expressing the same story and see which one is more effective.

The key theme I want to explore is inspired from a section from the documentary Objectified by Gary Hustwit (2009). The documentary is about the relationship between the users, the manufactured objects and their designers. Dieter Rams was one of the various designers interviewed. He said that "good design is as little design as possible."

Going from that quote it resonates well with me because for me it says "Less is more". So my key theme for the project is minimalism. How to tell a story in one image as simply as possible, using as few elements as possible.

I made a short search to look at examples of minimalist photography on the internet. They feature strong lines, interesting textures, geometric shapes, and strong sections of colours. Most of them don't tell a story. The ones that do rely on symbolism and implication to tell a story. Careful composition and lighting, I imagine, would also help.

My favourite example is this picture below.

Figure I. Khan, J. (2008). Racism ... IV. Retrieved from http://ahmedwkhan.deviantart.com/art/Racism-IV-81071008.

Here the burnt match is ostracised by the other matches for its differences. This theme remains constant despite various interpretations of what those differences are. A commenter suggests that it is about age as the long match is burnt and useless, which is eventually what happens to the other matches. Another commenter argues that it is merely the colour of the match. It conveys the theme of racism in a very succinct and clear way. Using as few elements as possible.

However, is there a difference between conveying a theme, a message, and a story? I think this distinction is important. A theme, for example, would be an idea or concept. Such as sadness. A message builds on a theme to express an opinion of some kind that the viewer is supposed to take from the picture. For example, "sadness is painful". A story, I think, grows further on the message. Fleshing out a full set of details. "This person is sad because this happened, and now they're doing this." I wonder if it's possible to differentiate between a theme, message, and story between pictures. Or maybe in every picture we are predisposed to making a story of our own?



Reference List

Hustwit, G. (Producer & Director). (2009). Objectified [Motion Picture]. United States: Swiss Dots.

New Semester, New Project

This semester I'm doing a new project on my own. It's to improve on an existing work I did last year I for Aotea Centre's DAL exhibition.

The context for the work was to show the world the artist painted in a different way. So the painting changes perspective depending where you are in front of the painting. Giving a sense that you are looking at a different world through a window.

In the improvement I plan to do this semester is to add a layer of context to the new work. Also, instead of paintings, this time the works are musical pieces. The context in question is more about the composer. For example, why they wrote the piece, what it was for, who they were as people, what time and place did they live in, and so on. Then to express these aspects of their music into a landscape.

Thus, the key thing I want to do here is to translate music into a landscape that reflects the world of the composer.

I originally planned out four different paths I can go through to approach this project. However, I quickly realised that it's a trap that I usually trick myself into walking into. I find that I always fool myself into thinking that no matter how much time I have there will never be enough time. Then I panic and begin to make restrictive plans. These plans hurt my project more than anything else. Because they trap me into a very narrow space so I can't really branch out and think in more interesting ways. In this way, the project doesn't develop or grow, but is stunted. Now that I'm aware of this I can relax and begin doing more research to expand ideas instead of caging myself into a small space.

I think the talk about group dynamics we did helped me realise this a lot sooner than I normally would have. I got maximum scores Completer-Finisher for the Belbin roles. I'm not surprised at all to be honest because if I think something is wrong I can't stop thinking about it until it's properly fixed. However, I wonder how effective the models for group dynamics we were shown are in real life situations. There must be many more different models and I'm guessing the effectiveness differs depending on personal preference.

Layering and Urgh

Put together a layering tutorial for Edrian. I tried to make a photoshop action to speed things up. However, many of the steps need human input. The problem is photoshop doesn't let you do human input for these steps so I couldn't make a photoshop action that works for what we're doing. So I made this video tutorial instead that shows him how to do it.

The intersection problem in the middle has been fixed. It's now done in a way so that there's an equal amount of cyan, magenta, and yellow.


Let's explain the urgh. I'm actually annoyed that things aren't being done at the speed I want it to. And a huge part of it is because the original set up of the project made the entire process much, much slower than it should be. Hard and fast decisions weren't being made. What happens when decisions aren't made? Things don't get done. And what happens when things don't get done? Nothing happens. No progress, no nothing. We're better now, but I wish we got here sooner so that we ran into problems sooner. Then we could refine things further and improve everything. An example is how our project is about being physical as opposed to relying on something digital for interaction. Does the fact that a lot of the material we created use digital software contradict this? I think this is something that needs to be addressed in my exegesis.

Second Layering Test

The great news is this test used Cyan-Magenta-Yellow triple and this triple works wonderfully. The bad news is that the layering doesn't work as effectively as I hoped it would.

Below is one of the tests where the spaces between the lines are 3pixels wide. In the intersection between the three shapes there are 3px by 3px squares. The other intersections are fine, in that you can still make out the form of the shapes fine. This is because there's an equal amount of the two colours in those intersections. In the intersection between the three shapes however, there's actually more yellow than there are of cyan and magenta.

Details of eggbeater gears

Realised some finer details we missed on the previous day about the eggbeater gears. There are lots of scribbles because later on I found that some of the things I wrote were wrong, so they've been corrected here.

Above is the gear that changes direction. We'll call that the change gear. This one needs teeth all 360degrees around. The sectors on the right show that the direction you rotate matters. Because you'll only ever rotate the change gear 300degrees. So the point at which a left/right gear needs to catch on to the teeth to make it change direction depends on what direction you're turning the change gear. And once you go in one direction you have to go in that direction the whole time. Turn it back and it ruins the set up, then it won't work properly.

As explained above, the left+right gears need to be on very specific points on the change gear so that the teeth catch at the right time. The diagrams on the right show this. I also explain why exactly half the gear has to have teeth on it. The answer is that only one set of teeth should be interacting with the change gear at any one time. If it's more than half then two sets of teeth would touch the change gear. The left and right gears would then be in conflict, stopping the whole thing from working. If it's less than half then you get an awkward pause where nothing happens.

This explains how to get the size of the left and right gear. I'm not sure if this is completely accurate, but that's up to Jenny to test out.

Potentiometer test

The potentiometers work with the RGB led. It should be fine with a 9v battery, but I'll test it just in case anyway.

Below are pictures of the circuit and a drawn diagram of it.

Basically the turning gear is attached to the "poll" of the potentiometer.

You can get a full range of colours just like when the colour cycle was controlled by the Arduino. True, controlling the colours with Arduino is more sophisticated while the potentiometer is more basic and crude. But that's the point of it. Reducing the interaction into something that is dominantly physical and less controlled through digital means.

Gears

Sorted out gears with Jenny. At first there were problems with timing and it didn't look like anything was happening. At least, not fast enough to meet the deadline. I began to wonder if the gears were actually that crucial. Does it add more to what we want to say about the project? The fact that it's a gear isn't important. It's the physical element in a gear that makes it relevant to what we're doing. So I'd say it doesn't necessarily add more, but it reinforces what we're aiming for in terms of a very physical interaction as opposed to a digital one.

We went through a long list of different gears that we thought might work. But the thing is they don't work. Either because the teeth don't make sense or the gear doesn't change direction. Below are drawings of all the failed ones. It's rather messy, but you get the idea.

In the end the set of gears that do work for what we want is the same as those found in eggbeaters.

Now that that's sorted we'll leave it up to Jenny to get that bit done and add any more developments.

Another RGB test

Different printers give different results. Got two sets of one test printed. One set on the home printer and another from the printing service at Warehouse Stationery.

There's a huge difference in how the colours came out between the two sets. I tested both to see how well coloured light works to make colours appear and disappear.

The home set didn't work as well as the WS set. This may be because the WS set's colour values are much closer to the colours I set on the computer compared to the home set. The colours from WS set are also far more vivid.

Part of this latest set was layering the colours on top of each other as well as testing triples.

Above is an example of the layering tests I did with the triples along with the video of that very same test. The layering I did works in revealing the forms of the shapes when colours appear and disappear. But I think there is a better way to do it. Here I've cut horizontal lines to each colour. The only problem here is that a section of the circle contains no yellow. A better way to do it may be with dots or a different way of setting up the horizontal lines.

The current triples shown here, in this chart are based on the previous test prints, which were done on the home printer.

Since the WS set is shown to be different I printed the full list of seven original colours in addition to cyan, magenta and yellow. Same digital values as the previous one, but printed by WS printer. This is to look for differences and to make the results more up to date. Below is the latest results. The top line refers to colours of light while the rest refer to printed colour. Basically, what happens is some colour turn black and some colours disappear depending on what colour the light is.

Triples are found when they meet these conditions:

-At any one time two of the three colours would disappear on a colour of light.
-All three colours turn black on a different colour of light.

Various triples have been tested but the best is cyan-magenta-yellow. You can see this in the video below.



The first row of colours are yellow, cyan, and magenta from left to right. Note that they all turn black on a different colour. Two of the colours also disappear on certain colours when one is turned black. Although yellow and magenta do darken on blue, the difference in darkness between the two is enough to set it apart from the other triples. With the other triples the difference in darkness is too small.

There were some key differences. For instance, as stated before the cyan-magenta-yellow triple worked most effectively compared to other triples in the WS set. When in the home set it didn't work at all when blue light was shone on it. Therefore, the set to use would be WS as the colours are closer to the values I set. And the triple to use would be cyan-magenta-yellow. Some other triples do work, but not as effectively. For example, some colours would darken at the same time as another. That you don't want.

An interesting thing about the WS set is that purple light turns certain colours (red, orange, yellows) into very bright neon colours (can also see this in the video above). This could be something that we can use if we need it.

Key Theme and Animation Content

The story of the project is how, as a group, we struggled to find unity. Or at least a thread that connects each part of the project together. As actual people, it was trouble in finding something that connect our ideas, ways of thinking, and visions into one.

This aspect has dominated the project throughout this semester. Manifesting itself as conflicting opinions, difficulty in translating ideas into someone else's way of thinking, and sluggish, ineffective decision making. So naturally, in the content for animation this is what the story is about.

Now that we have a theme, we had to create symbols and imagery to represent how we feel about this semester. This is for the animation. First thing we did was summarising how the semester was for us in one word. Jenny's word was lost. This described her experience of the semester where she has an idea of what she wanted to do, but didn't know where to begin. Edrian's was confusion. His one is similar to Jenny's in that he could see and had a vision of what he wanted to achieve. However, he didn't know how to make it happen. My word was trapped. I knew how to do what I wanted to do, but I didn't have a vision of how it fits into everything else.

We also pointed out key traits that make us different to each other along with some similarities that made us become a group at the very beginning. This included our ways of thinking, personality, and work habits. Then they were all summarised into one package for easier understanding: animals.

Jenny's personality is personified as a bear. She has a dominant personality and is very opinionated. Also very assertive and sometimes stubborn. Has big dreams and enjoys eating.

Edrian identified most as a dog. He is very friendly and loyal to friends. Questions a lot; is curious. Also good at talking to people and making them feel comfortable. Style of thinking of strongly visual.

My animal is a cat. I'm independent and introverted, preferring to go off and do things on my own. More inclined to be experimental; is curious as well. I switch hobbies often.

With the theme sorted out and a starting point for inspiration in imagery we have enough to brainstorm on things going in the animation. At this stage we left it to Edrian to work on this aspect. I think it will go great because this is where he will be in his element. 

Presentation and Final Plan

Presentation feedback was helpful and fair in my opinion. It's true that we don't have enough time to do a full blown complex animation that's layered. But there IS a better way which I'll cover later further down, I talked about it briefly in the previous blog post.

Some suggestions were offered to us both before and during the presentation. Prior to the presentation an option was to have still images where the animation would be revealed through changing colours. During the presentation there were a variety based off the still image alternative. For example, changing patterns on the wall or something similar to comic book style changes in image. So it's a little like an animation. Another was to simply have a series of still images revealed by different colours and to spin around or run around to animate them. These are "nice" but inelegant solutions on what we can do with hiding and revealing certain colours. These dumb down the idea and it isn't what we do. So we've clearly ignored these and come up with a better solution that fits what we want.

At presentation I showed the latest RGB light test. Some colours work, some don't. In the final it won't need the Arduino at all and to clarify, none of the colour orders would be predetermined. That depends on where the user turns the gears.




How do the gears connect to the lights? With potentiometers. Jason says you can get potentiometers that turn right around continuously. Before we knew that though I found an example of a particular gear type that can change directions (Chou, 2007).



We were planning on using that to be able to turn the potentiometers smoothly so that there's not a big change from full brightness to no brightness.



Andy suggested that the gears push buttons at specific points to turn the LEDs on and off. I think a saw-tooth shaped gear like those in escapements would work great for that.

Figure 1. An example of an escapement gear with saw-tooth shape. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scappamento.gif

However, a smooth transition is preferred rather than flashes so we're going to stick with the original gear in mind. This is also because we couldn't actually find any potentiometers that could spin around forever. As for taking apart the potentiometer, that's another option. However, it allows more chances for human error and wastage. We don't have time for that.

So what's the final plan? The final plan is to have gears controlling the turning of the potentiometers --> the potentiometers change the colour of light --> the colour of light hides and reveals certain printed colours --> moving printed bars on transparencies over them reveal an animation.

Content of the animation and the theme that pulls all elements together conceptually: struggling to find unity as a group when it comes to this project. So basically it's about unity and putting pieces together into one whole. It's the story of how this project is the way it is.



Reference List

Chou, R. [Roger Chou]. (2007, August 2). Gear System that Changes Direction [Video file]. 
       Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aobPgGzB-U

Optical Illusions

In the previous RGB test it didn't quite work out and I considered looking into optical illusions as mentioned before. I looked at some illusions but they didn't quite fit into what we're doing. Most of them involved staring at a dot so that the illusion could work, which is what we don't want. There were some very amazing paintings that don't form its shape for you unless you're at a specific perspective, these are called anamorphic paintings. However, one particular illusion is relevant to what we are trying to achieve.




In this video (brusspup, 2010) an animated optical illusion is shown where black bars move across black lines, filling in the gaps to give the illusion of a moving image from a still image. I thought this might be useful because it captures what I think animation is very clearly; an illusion where images flick by so quickly that your brain tells you it's moving.

It can also be made in 3D as shown by this product designed by John Leung (2011).


I've seen some like this before where the bars are printed on another layer a certain distance away from the bottom layer. Then when you move around, it appears as though it is animated as your perspective changes. This neat rug and coffee table uses the same concept.

At the time of looking at this type of optical illusion it was intended to replace the RGB light that didn't give the best results. However, after talking to Andy about it as a group we found that it was the RGB light that I had before that pulls all our components together into a package. So the focus should be how we should use what we've got and see what we can do with it. I did more testing with different colours and there were more printed colours that do pair up with certain colours of light. There aren't enough for a full length, complex animation, but there are more than enough to do one of these optical illusion animations. In the next post I'll go into more detail about the presentation and the new RGB light test I did.


Reference List

brusspup. (2010, May 30). Amazing Animated Optical Illusions! [Video file].
       Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq1ms2JhYBI&feature=related 
Leung, J. [johnleungdesign]. (2011, November 25). Magic Carp-pet @ Red Dot Design Award 2011 [Video file]. 
       Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua7HOX32PGA

Testing RGB leds and Printing

This morning I did tests to see for myself how different colours show up on print with different colours light like in Carnovsky's work. I didn't expect it to work though because I couldn't print true cyan, magenta, and yellow colours since they were out of gamut for printing. I need to know more about colour management and printing to see if there's a way to get around this.

There's a simple Arduino circuit I set up. There really should be some resistors on each leg of the RGB led, but since this is a quick test I'll skip out on those for now. As you can see here the printed colours aren't the ones I want. I folded up the paper so that the light can be contained in the box so that I can see what it's doing to the colours better.

The red worked really well, which surprised me. As expected cyan turns black when red light is shone on it. So if we're using red light it can turn out pretty good.

Green and blue light however, didn't work well at all. But they did turn Magenta and yellow to black respectively.

I tried it out with highlighters too on the off chance that maybe it would work or at least look interesting. Didn't really work though and the results were garish. Highlighters are not an option.

With the RGB led I also looked at cycling through the colours. I found an example by jamesotron (2013) which is a small, clear piece of code that makes it easy to understand how it cycles through the colours. Basically it fades each of the three colours at different times, which give you the smooth transitions. At this stage I don't need the colour transition because it's not necessary yet. Maybe it would be something to consider if we still use RGB and connect it up to the gears to move through the spectrum.


Reference List

jamesotron. (2013). Arduino sketch to cycle and RGB LED through the colour spectrum. Retrieved May 16, 2013, from https://gist.github.com/jamesotron/766994

Carnovsky's RGB murals

Figure 1.  An example of Carnovsky's work under normal light. Retrieved from http://www.carnovsky.com/RGB.htm. Copyright 2012 by Carnovsky. Reprinted with permission.

Figure 2.  Cyan layer revealed by red light. Retrieved from http://www.carnovsky.com/RGB.htm. Copyright 2012 by Carnovsky. Reprinted with permission.

Figure 3.  Magenta layer revealed by green light. Retrieved from http://www.carnovsky.com/RGB.htm. Copyright 2012 by Carnovsky. Reprinted with permission.

Figure 4.  Yellow layer revealed by blue light. Retrieved from http://www.carnovsky.com/RGB.htm. Copyright 2012 by Carnovsky. Reprinted with permission.

Carnovsky is a pair of artists, Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla, who created the work above. As stated by Carnovsky (2012), this particular body of work is about experimenting with "the interaction between printed and light colours". In the first image, that's what it looks like under normal light. A chaotic mass of lines that you can't make proper sense of. You see one thing, but wait, there's more on another layer that you can't quite make out. However, each layer is revealed by shining red, green, or blue light on it.

For example, when you look at it there are three colours on the printed work: Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. Each interacts with the colours of light: Red, Green, and Blue. This works within the limits of human colour vision. We see colours in RGB (red, green, blue) values. So every colour we can perceive are a mix of these three colours. When each light is shone on the printed work it would only show its corresponding complementary colour.

Red light shows the cyan layer on the printed work, green shows magenta, and blue reveals yellow.

I appreciate their work because it plays with the natural capabilities and limits of our vision. It could be interesting to look into what our eyes are capable of and our limitations as part of the interface and how people interact with the project. Could it also play with our perspective on how we see things and how we understand them?



Reference List

Carnovsky. (2012). RGB. Retrieved May 15, 2013, from  http://www.carnovsky.com/RGB.htm

Light and Seeing

After a long talk with Gerbrand and Daniel we've narrowed down our focus a bit. For my part we went on to talk about light after I showed them some examples of Petros Vrellis' work. His work is what inspired me to work on the bridge and do some programming for the project.

His most famous work is a beautiful animated Van Gogh painting where the animation also creates a soft twinkling melody on its own. Since then he has adapted his work to go on the iPad due to popular demand, which is shown below (Vrellis, 2012).




Another work of his is what got us to talk about light.




Here the light of the candle gives off a nice digital warm glow and a fine mist of digital particles (Vrellis, 2009). But it looks real and it feels very serene, almost magical. I think the main thing that made it feel that way is because the candle is obviously real. The combination of real and digital is what makes it an enchanting experience. The idea that you can merge something that's happening in the real world with a response made in the digital world. I may not have physically been there to experience it, but the fact that it has stuck in my head for so long is proof enough.

That appears to be very relevant to what we're doing. Since our question is about the relationship between physical interaction and the virtual world within the animation.

You can't talk about light without also talking about seeing. Light is the key thing that stimulates our sense of vision. Everything we see is a result of light bouncing back off of objects then being processed by the eye and brain, giving us a sense of vision.

So we've got light and sight. What do they mean? In art it has represented truth, knowledge, and divinity. Goodness is attributed to the presence of light. With knowledge it reminds me of the Greek myth where Prometheus gives humanity fire, which also educates them. The fire gives life.

In nature you get bioluminescence from plants such as glowing mushrooms and various deep sea creatures. Move on to sunlight and it's interesting to note that various creatures, including us, wouldn't have become the species we are today without gene mutations caused by solar radiation in the early stages of evolution (Hessen, 2008).

On to seeing. A blur looks like a blur because your brain fills in the gaps in between since you can't handle that much information flicking past at once. In certain situations if there's a gap in your field of vision your brain would fill that bit in too (Vanderbilt University, 2007). The question here I'm interested in is this: Is it real if you saw something that isn't actually there? If you saw something that doesn't actually see then DID you see it?

Reference List

Hessen, D.O. (2008). Solar Radiation and the Evolution of Life. Solar Radiation and Human Health, 10, 123-136.
       Retrieved from http://www.dnva.no/geomed/solarpdf/Nr_10_Hessen.pdf
Vanderbilt University (2007, August 21). The Brain Doesn't Like Visual Gaps And Fills Them In. ScienceDaily. 
       Retrieved May 18, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2007/08/070820135833.htm
Vrellis, P. [pvrellis]. (2009, December 18). Interactive Installation "Memory II" [Video file]. 
       Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ydpx7WBfzA
Vrellis, P. [pvrellis]. (2012, September 25). Starry Night (interactive animation) for iPad (3.0) [Video file]. 
       Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms-4W6PLmX4

 

BCT 2013: Term One Review

At present we are two weeks into term two. Let's have a run through what term one was about.

In term one we came up with the original idea focusing on the key question "How can physical interaction interact with virtual animation?" In answering this question we talked about the audience's relationship with the screen and the feeling of separation between the world on screen and the physical existence of the audience. To be honest I'm not sure if this separation is a key theme to the project. I think it may give a reason to asking the question, but not necessarily the soul or substance of the project. I think that will come along as we move along in making the artefact.

The artefact itself is composed of three components. The first is a non-traditional interface with which you will interact with the content on screen. This is the set of mechanical parts such as gears and levers. The second is the "bridge" where the input from the mechanics go through and transformed into some kind of output an animation on screen, that is the third part. Basically, the bridge is the communication between mechanics (part 1) and the animation (part 3).

A later development was to craft the mechanics from ice and using the different states of water throughout the three different parts. However, we were so fixated on the idea of the ice and states of water that it stunted the branching of ideas and possible developments.




There were also several original intentions that have now been changed:

-Having all three of us working on all three aspects of the project. We tried this so that each one of us would know clearly what's going on with all three parts. However, I think this stunted our growth because we were all interested in doing a different part of the project and even on the same part we had our own ideas on how to approach them. Thus, ideas clashed and didn't quite match up. It felt unnatural. Now we have split into our areas of interest. We all have our own main focus while we will also pitch in on what the other group members are doing in their own part. Jenny's main focus would be CAD and fashioning the mechanical parts. I will be focusing on the bridge--this means Arduino and a bit of programming. Finally, Edrian will be on the animation part of the project.

-The changing states of water as a key idea. I can't speak for other group members on this, but I think we were focusing so much on the states of water that it was stopping us from developing further. The idea was festering like bacteria in still water, it wasn't as fresh or as inspirational when we first thought of it. Motivation went down. I felt it was also pulling us further and further away from the question we wanted to answer about interaction and animation. As a result we have now stripped away this restriction, all considerations on what to put into each part, and so on that we can think more on what this project is about rather than what it physically is.

-Video blogs as documentation. Seeing as nothing much was happening there wasn't a lot to document. However, I did do some small experiments and I found that video documentation wasn't doing it for me. I find documenting on my blog (like now) and on paper in journals is better for me. It allows for greater detail and doesn't require me to convert or summarise my written work into a short video. I feel it fits how I work much better compared to video documentation. In terms of group work we will still do group video blogs every once in a while, but individually I will be doing my documentation on my blog and in my journals.




Overall term one didn't see much content being generated because we were being held back by a restrictive idea and certain ways of working that didn't actually work for us. In this term we have split up each part of the project to work with on our own. The intention is to get each part working on its own independently. We're not going to think about how it's going to all fit together yet in favour of developing the parts individually first. I predict that because all three of us are so different in our ways of thinking, interests, and skill sets, each part that we work on individually will have diverse personalities. Especially because at this stage we're not thinking about joining them together yet. It might be seen as a disadvantage or maybe even a problem, but on the flip side it could be very interesting if we still go along with this in the second semester. Since each part will likely be very different it could be interesting to see how we can combine them and what we can come up with.