I worked with Beverly & Caleb, we made a boxing glove using Eeonyx Pressure Sensing Fabric and found foam material and pom-poms using Eeonyx Pressure Sensing Fabric, yarn and a pom pom maker. We connected it to an LED to show the amounts of fading given the various resistances.
I’m very interested in working with organic material and technology. I chose to work with Kombucha Scoby which is created by Kombucha liquid. After testing it in class, I realized it was conductive, so I used 2 sewing needles connected to wires that ran into the power and ground on my breadboard. The sewing needles were connected on the bottom part of the Scoby and the top. I used a 10k resistor to connect between the ground because I was getting a reading of 7-17k ohms depending on manipulation.
I connected this to Max Msp and mapped the values of the Scoby as it was being manipulated to the frequency of a sine wave.
Further Explorations:
Objectives:
INDEX
SYMBOL FOR ZINE:
ENTRIES
INSPIRATION & EXAMPLES:
Art that becomes more integrated in daily life – we are overly categorized as a byproduct of the dominance of Eurocentric thinking, whose foundation is individualism. Part of this idea is highlighted in “Art of Living on a Damaged Planet” that I read over the summer. Not only is science compartmentalized to a point of scientific inaccuracy, we are learning more and more, so have we divided many other aspects of life due to this particular lense.
Some ideas to also explore: “Object / Subject” “Non-dual Perception”
LINDA MONTANO
“The art/life institute handbook” – designed to make performance available to everyone
Each page contains a topic with preparation, possible events and room for personal comments.
SIGILS / HYPERSIGILS & PORTALS
“A common method of creating the sigils of certain spirits was to use kameas (magic squares) — the names of the spirits were converted to numbers, which were then located on the magic square. The locations were then connected by lines, forming an abstract figure.[3]
The use of symbols for magical or cultic purposes has been widespread since at least the Neolithic era. Some examples from other cultures include the yantra from Hindu tantra, historical runic magic among the Germanic peoples, or the use of veves in Voudon.”
“In modern chaos magic, when a complex of thoughts, desires and intentions gains such a level of sophistication that it appears to operate autonomously from the magician’s consciousness, as if it were an independent being, then such a complex is referred to as a servitor.[9][10] When such a being becomes large enough that it exists independently of any one individual, as a form of “group mind”, then it is referred to as an egregore.[11][12]
Later chaos magicians have expanded on the basic sigilisation technique. Grant Morrison coined the term hypersigil to refer to an extended work of art with magical meaning and willpower, created using adapted processes of sigilization. His comic bookseries The Invisibles was intended as such a hypersigil.[6] Morrison has also argued that modern corporate logos like “the McDonald’s Golden Arches, the Nike swoosh and the Virgin autograph” are a form of viral sigil:
Corporate sigils are super-breeders. They attack unbranded imaginative space. They invade Red Square, they infest the cranky streets of Tibet, they etch themselves into hairstyles. They breed across clothing, turning people into advertising hoardings… The logo or brand, like any sigil, is a condensation, a compressed, symbolic summoning up of the world of desire which the corporation intends to represent… Walt Disney died long ago but his sigil, that familiar, cartoonish signature, persists, carrying its own vast weight of meanings, associations, nostalgia and significance.[6]“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigil_(magic)
The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): Psychology of Ecstasy is a book written by Austin Osman Spare during 1909–1913 and self-published in 1913.
PAUL LAFFOLEY “Mr. Laffoley thought of his “architectonic thought forms” as portals allowing the viewer to enter, transcend time and space, and achieve an expanded state of consciousness.”
MOVEMENT / SOUNDING
MEREDITH MONK
From artist Peter Sciscioli’s sound & movement practice and workshop “Sounding Body: Voice as Movement”
Kimberley Lin and I incorporated Allison’s Middle square method n=6 (http://alpha.editor.p5js.org/allison.parrish/sketches/BygxbtZjz) to our Who’s Your Baby meditation. We created a variable “thing” that is 5 * myRandom and applied it to the video and sound.
Code:
My original idea has been transformed a few times over the past few weeks but has retained the original concept as far as working with organic material, sound and triggers that don’t involve direct touch to be activated.
I worked on the circuitry and code for the Whale Theremin to get the sound and effects triggering with 2 photosensors and a button. Once the basic code and circuitry were working, I shifted my focus to trying to get the Adafruit Capacitive Touch Shield working to trigger organic materials that are conductive such as a fruit or plant.
For some reason this proved to be very buggy and I spent too much time trying to make it work, it would sporadically read the sensors, I caught it when it momentarily worked below.
I then decided to try to get this to work longer wouldn’t be a wise use of my time and I decided to order the Adafruit Capacitive Touch break out instead, which was relatively smooth to set up and start a reading from.
I decided however that I really wanted to work with plants and midi, so it was more of a reading of the state of the plant’s microelectrical currents than just on and off.
I tried to model the galvonometer from MIDISprout’s circuitry. They have a more complex system that includes a potentiometer that effects specific parameters within MIDI and corresponding LED lights that I wasn’t interested in at this moment, my main objective was to show how plants electrically/energetically have reactions to touch / the environments around them and to have that translated into MIDI and then sound. http://support.midisprout.com/index.php?topic=8.0
At Tom Igoe’s advise, I attempted to replicate just the galvonometer aspect of the circuit and to make a more straightforward MIDI communication. I spent several days on this and was unable to get the galvonometer to work properly. This is something I definitely want to revisit in the future and get to work.
I then chose to re-focus my attention onto the whale theremin coding and fabrication further and table both of the touch sensors until the theremin felt complete. There were a couple places that I had problems with my code and Jim, Chino and Mathura (*insert last names*) were very helpful in explaining certain hiccups in my code and/or offering help on how to execute certain functions successfully. I expanded on the visuals in p5 including mapping the 3 color channels to the 2 light sensors. red is mapped to photosensor 1, green to photosensor 2 and blue to both of them. Leon (*insert last name*) helped me execute this properly.
FABRICATION & EXECUTION
There has been some challenges with the construction of the piece mainly since I chose to project on top of the water. Water is very heavy and obviously damaging around electronics. I envision this project to be at a larger scale projecting onto a larger body of water, but currently I’m using a 12 x 12 x 12 acrylic box for now. I’ve lined the seams with DAP Flexible Clear Sealant and have ordered a project box that will sit underneath the box where the arduino will be housed. The photosensors will be on either side of the box.
I found the best remedy for using photosensors and a light projection that requires a darker room is using 2 flashlights, also making the photosensor readings more accurate.
I might switch to distance sensors, as recommended by Tom, but my priorities now are getting the fabrication and execution running as smoothly as possible. I haven’t had that much difficulty with the photosensors because of the constraint function in the P5 code and the relative ease of calibrating according to the light level in a particular room as well.
AUDIO OUTs
I’ve done a lot of research with various waterproof speakers and have ordered 3 now, the smaller one works best so far but is not powerful enough for this amount of water. The most powerful one cuts out when it’s underwater for too long, so I have a 4th one on its way that is supposed to be very powerful and is aesthetically in line with the overall piece.
I figured out how to do a multi speaker out from a macbook and think I’d like to have an audio output inside the water and also outside the water for increased sonic immersion.
USER TESTING FEEDBACK & SPEAKER LOGISTICS
I had the plant present during user testing to see the feedback with it included and everyone suggested using the plant for another project. I’m still interested in triggering the plant through underwater sounds and vibrations but probably will not use whale sounds or imagery.
I was attempting to use my own projector for the playtesting but was unable to and the internet kept going out. For my ICM class in the afternoon I was able to successfully project the water onto the surface of a fish tank and have the theremin trigger the sounds and colors, unfortunately I don’t have documentation because i was making sure everything was running smoothly.
The main feedback I got was how to make the speaker could look good and not interfere with the whale projection, Fanchi suggested netting so it would look more aquatic and it wouldn’t muffle the sound. I purchased a white speaker, since I’ll be making the bottom of my box white for optimal projection, so it can blend in as much as possible. That speaker should be arriving tonight. Another Idea I have is to put a layer of white cotton material on top so the sound can go through but the projection still has a smooth white surface. The speaker also needs to be weighted down so it stays at the bottom of the tank. I think I will be using rocks to do so.
THINGS LEFT TO DO:
Alternate water holder if acrylic box doesn’t work:
This would need to be set up near the sink in the kitchen.
Void Bubble ITP 