IDAT 210 - Project Proposal

Overview
For this project we are required to:

‘Set a critical inquiry and to provide critically informed, culturally aware and creative response in the form of a practical interactive media project'

The focus of this project is around digital art, looking at its history and influences and how it can be developed for the future. My area of study in relation to this specifically is digital performance and how this can be considered 'new' in terms of its techniques and ideals. It is important that digital art has definition from other art forms, and this is shown by Christiane Paul in Digital Art:

‘One of the basic but crucial distinctions made here is between art that uses digital technologies as a tool for the creation of traditional art objects ... and art that employs these technologies as its very own medium, being produced, stored, and presented exclusively in the digital format.’ (2003:8)
This draws a close link to a major focus in digital art of process over product. Digital art produces a process as the art rather than a final outcome, and so this is a particularly important area to consider in the creation of my project. This can also have a large effect on the roles of the artist and audience, and these have also become elements to work with in digital art production. My project should take this and other knowledge I have on digital art and performance into account in order to produce a critical piece of work in the field.

Overall for this project I aim to produce a generative sound piece that builds upon the here-say process and transformation of communication provided by social networking, and demonstrates the sound of social networking in response to the many visual representations that have been produced previously.

Keywords
For more information on how I chose these keywords go to my Project Keywords post. From this five keywords/terms can be deduced for my project, which are listed below:
Final Keywords List:

• Generative art 
• Digital performance
• Sound/Music production
• Dadaist poetry
•  Social Networking

Context (Research)
As previously mentioned process is vitally important in digital art. This can be seen in many generative art works, as it is the process through which the art is generated that is most important rather than the final result. The concept of process as art however does have links back to previous art forms such as art through instruction. Dadaist poetry such as that by Tristan Tzara is a good example of this as poems were made by following a set of instructions such as cutting up a newspaper and then piecing the words back together. More contemporary works such as those of Stelarc's Ping Body(1996) continue to link back to this idea, in which the body is manipulated using data from the internet. The data is basically instructing the movements and so shows that digital art and instruction have strong bonds.

Sound based work has also often been produced as digital art, or as part of a digital performance. Dance performances in particular have used this in a cyclic way, such as taking a dancer’s movements, converting it to music and then instructing the dancers to interpret the music for their dance. As well as this Golan Levin's Telesymphony(2001) used the audiences mobile ring tones to create a live musical ring tone symphony. This demonstrates that sound as much as visuals is important in digital art and performance.

Finally there is also an important point to make in terms of 'intermedia', a concept created by Dick Higgins, a Fluxus artist. Higgins wrote in his 'Statement of Intermedia' that:

‘in saying that such-and-such a work is basically musical, but also poetry. This is the intermedial approach to emphasize the dialectic between the media.’

This statement is closely linked to my ideas and outlines a key element of digital art about combining various mediums together, like a montage, which will also be an important element to my project.

Field leaders (Inspiration)
For information on the field leaders and inspiration I have found relating to sound, generative art and poetry go to my Related Research post. As well as these projects there are also social networking based projects like social network visualisations such as that below:

(http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~jheer/socialnet/) This was constructed by Jeffrey Heer, a leading social network visualisation artist, which demonstrates the artist’s friendster network covering him, his friends, his friend’s friends and their friends – 3 hops out from himself. Jeffrey has also worked with Danah Boyd on Vizter, a study of visualising online networks. This has included more detailed work into social research that allowed the exploration of gender, community and connections.

(http://hci.stanford.edu/jheer/projects/vizster/) These provide a new perception of social networks that can reveal new and interesting information. However these are all image based and so the aim of my project is to extend this investigation through use of sound. These visualisations are also quite focused on elements within social networking such as friend lists, but my project plans to be more focused on the processes that social networking can provide.


Implementation (Platform e.g. video, installation etc)
For the implementation of my project I intend to look at a way of making a sound piece based on social networking. It occurred to me that we have many visualisations of social networks, but no sound has been created. I therefore intend to create 'the sound of social networking'. Ultimately it will be the process of making this however that will be important as I aim to use social networking to develop the process through until the final result. For example I may be able to write a comment on someone’s wall that they can then reply to. This reply them becomes the next comment on another persons wall, and so the text develops through social networking. These could then be put together as a poem and the poem converted to sound, providing me with both a textual and audio end to my project. The focus of my project will be on the transformations in communication. This ensures there is a continuous connection throughout my project as both text and sound are forms of communication as well as the process being centred on communication through social networking. Therefore the content of the process i.e. the text produced by this will also be related to communication. These ideas are only in their initial stages and so I aim to think about them further before fully implementing the project. However my final implementation will be some form of audio, possibly embedded in a video or stand-alone.

IDAT 211 - Types of Theory

In order to create a functional elearning tool we need to narrow the type of theory we wish to teach down to a small amount so that it can be focussed on in good detail.  The most obvious option for this is to choose a grade to focus on and cover all the necessary sections within the one grade.  If we were to do this it would probably be best to focus on grade 1 as this would associate well with a students initial learning of an instrument which we could use to our advantage.  However there are also other options, such as focusing on musical foreign terms, and covering all the terms available separated into the seperate grades and difficulties.  This is a nice idea as it is quite different to other music theory elearning tools, but may not be as useful as the whole grade tool, as what would be taught is not as necessary when learning music as understanding time and notations. The same approach could be taken however with these kind of topics, focusing on a single section of theory rather than a single grade and covering a number of grades of that topic.  The following is a list of areas that could be dealt with in a focused way:

• grade 1
• foreign terms
• scales/key signatures
• time signatures
• intervals
• chords

I will need to discuss these with Karla and see what content we are thinking of so we can then start looking at how we intend to design the implementation of the elearning tool

Stonehouse - Arduino Boards

For the final part and realisation of the Transforming Stonehouse project we are now investigating the uses of Arduino boards and how we can implement them.  Arduino boards are small circuit boards that can be connected to various inputs and outputs and programmed through a USB connection using Arduino and linked up to other software such as Processing and Flash.  Inputs can include a range of sensors including light sensors, motion sensors, mircophones and magnetic sensors, as well as ethernet data through a computer, while outputs can include motors, sounds, and LEDs.  The flexibility of Arduino boards allows for a massive range of possibilities for projects. A few examples of uses for arduino boards is shown below:


These are onlyvery basic projects and arduino has the capability for much more.  Me and my group now need to work out how we plan to use arduino boards to realise a project for this module based on the work we have done over the year so far.

Stonehouse - Swarming

#bdat An interesting element related to hertzian space and also social implications is swarming.  Swarming in technological terms is related to emergent behaviour that can be created and recognised due to the extension in communication and community acheived by technologies such as social networks, bluetooth and wifi.  This is explained by Brymer: "The comparison of swarm behaviour to human interaction has become increasingly relevant. Digital technology has made it possible for human communities to behave like swarms of our own."(2008)
Swarming can be experimented with in many ways using current technology.  An example of this is Comfort of Strangers.  Comfort of Strangers is a street game that uses iPaq PDAs and Bluetooth in which a player has to find people in the same group as themselves using information provided through their headphones, even though the people they are looking for are complete strangers.  Each player has an amount of lives, and if you get too close to strangers who are on the other team you loose lives.  The following is a video example of Comfort of Strangers:

The Comfort of Strangers from Simon Evans on Vimeo.
For more information on this game go to http://www.swarmtoolkit.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=49. Swarming can be considered the next step in social technology, extending from the single 1 to 1 relationship provided by current mobile devices to a much more fluid, dynamic and social relationship.

IDAT 211 - Elearning Music Theory

The topic that me and Karla have decided on for our elearning application is music theory.  This is because we are both quite musical and both agree that music theory could be made more interesting through an elearning application, as it tends to be quite a dry and uninspiring topic that is difficult to learn because it is not engaging.  Previous methods for learning music theory tend to be book based with support from music teachers, and can include a lot of text and technical diagrams that is difficult to understand.  The purpose of our application therefore is to change this through using modern day technology.

Although music theory has been tackled by elearning facilities before, they are most often still quite a formal tool, which can make the process of learning less engaging. An example of this is emusictheory, an online and software based tool that requires payment for full access.  (http://www.emusictheory.com/)  EMusicTheory provides an entire range of theory drills that cover the majority of theory grades.  It also provides access to both students and teachers to enable teacher support and acts as an assignment tool, where teachers can set students particular drills to do and then find out their marks once completed.  The drills involved in this elearning tool however are still quite plain and are just more interactive versions of the original book format of learning used in most cases.  This tool is also purely screen and application based and does not use other more dynamic technologies to run the program.

In order for our elearning tool to be successful it would be better to narrow the type of music theory we plan to teach down to a minimum so that the functionality can be more focused and effective.  We must therefore decide what part of music theory we wish to cover in our elearning idea. Also it would be good to include ways in which we could overcome the problems had by such applications as EMusicTheory as we are not limited in our brief as it is only a design and so can easily incorporate many different technologies and elements if they are deemed useful.

IDAT 210 - Related Research

There are a number of projects that are linked to the keywords I have chosen that demonstrate possible ways of developing and investigating digital art, and could provide inspiration for my project.  Below are a few of these related projects:

lewis laCooks flash poetry generator 3.0
laCooks flash poetry generator allows users to input their own choice of nouns and verbs which then generates a poem.  This ties in with generative art and dadaist poetry as it is constructs the poem via a process.  This is quite a basic project but does demonstrate a technilogical development of the original dadaist poetry. http://rhizome.org/artbase/11499/pogen3.html

Steven Read Internet Noise 1
Internet noise 1 and other pieces produced by Steven Read are based on the collation of found sounds that are then generated into a musical piece using software.  Internet Noise 1 is based on a collation of found internet sounds that are then randomly strung together using software.  This closely links to generative art as the music is being generated using code.  Also this is closely linked to process as art as these projects are much more based on the creative process than the final product.  This is interesting as in some ways the results can make a comment on the content and diversity of the internet. http://www.stevenread.com/music

Jason Freeman Piano Etudes

Piano Etudes is a collection of musical pieces that are created using small fragments of music pieced together alike to a flow diagram, in which the performer of the etude can choose the route trhough the fragments they wish to take according to the diagram.  The etudes are also available to the public to create their own version of an etude for others.  This is a very process based piece of work focusing on the ways in which the music is created rather than the end product that is produced.  This is an interesting project as it is a very dynamic way of producing a piece of music and has many different possibilities.

http://turbulence.org/spotlight/pianoetudes/net.jasonfreeman.pianoetudes.PianoEtudes/wordpress/

 Boris Muller Poetry on the Road entry 2006

In 2006 Boris Muller created an information visualisation for the Poetry on the Rad festival based on the transformation of a piece of poetry from text to image. This is created by calculating a value for each word, representing it by a position of a circle, and then drawing lines to connect the words together realtive to the poem.  This is generative art as it uses software to generate something from an input of data.  This is interesting as it provides an abstracted view point of an item of text, in which text is re-represented by an image.

http://www.generatorx.no/20061015/poetry-on-the-road/

IDAT 211 - Elearning Brainstorm

In order to start thinking about an elearning application I need to define different aspects of elearning and look through various topics that could be learnt.  I decided the best way to do this is to create a brainstorm of important information that is relevant to elearning.  The brainstorm I created is shown below, to see a bigger version simply click on the image:

Having this laid out makes it easier to consider all the options there are for this project as well as helping to develop ideas.  Once I had created this brainstorm it occurred to me that it would be good to choose a topic that was relevant to me and Karla and that we both had previous knowledge of.  I therefore suggested that we work on a music based project which we both agreed on and then started to work on the details.

IDAT 210 - Project Keywords

In order for me to properly research for my practical project I need to come up with a set of 5 or 6 keywords that can drive the development and investigation of the project, as well as helping to define more precisely what my project is about.  So far I have managed to focus on sound/music and digital performance, but this is not very specific and provides little chance for idea development.  These therefore need to be more focused as part of my keywords and also need to be developed to create the list of words that I need.
Sound and digital performance have always been closely linked as music is performed and performance uses sounds. Sound performances related to digital art are also often developed in a generative fashion, based on software and other inputs that generate the sound.  Generative art is also an area that I am quite interested in as it is based on process, a key point outlined in my essay, and is also coding based, another element that I enjoy working with.  Generative art has strong bonds with Dadaist ideals relating to process and instruction as art, such as Dadaist poetry.  I find this concept of art through instruction quite interesting, and also enjoy writing and reading poetry so would also like to investigate this area for my project.

Final Keywords List:

• Generative art
• Digital performance
• Sound/Music production
• Dadaist poetry
• Social Networking

IDAT 210 - The project

For the second part of our IDAT210 module we are required to:

'set a critical inquiry and to provide critically informed, culturally aware and creative response in the form of a practical interactive media project'

 In the first term we investigated aspects of digital art and its history, and were asked to write an essay on a topic of digital art of our choosing.  The aim of this project therefore is to take the knowledge we have gained whilst writing and researching for our essay and turn this into a practical project piece.  This project must also be well researched and have a critical context from which it is derived. The project does not have to be specifically linked to the content of our essays but does need to be an exploration into an aspect of digital art.
For my essay I wrote about digital performance and whether it can be considered as new in terms of its ideas and concepts. I chose digital performance as I am interested in and enjoy performance work and so this was the most suitable topic for me.  I would therefore also like to look into some part of this for my practical project, but would also like to work with something sound or music orientated as I am also very interested in and enjoy working with music.  I myself am a piano player and singer and so have knowledge that may help be to develop a project in this area.  This provides a starting base from which I should now begin my investigation, to help me develop my ideas and design my project.

IDAT 204 - Augmented Reality Proposal

After much deliberation for my AR project I have decided to design and create and augmented reality orrery.  This orrery will display our solar system in as much detail as possible virtually using a matrix marker and webcam system for delivery.  The aim of this project is to provide a unique learning tool that takes all the advantages of the concept of augmented reality and applies them to create a functional and interesting augemented reality project.  Below is a image representation of how the AR Orrery may look:

For my project I would also like to include further information for the users and more functionality by enabling the learner to use the AR interface (i.e the flash interface built to show the AR) to enable them to select a specific planet and find out or investigate it more.  This depends on how adjustable the technology is and how well I get on in developing the initial idea, but it would be a good added functionality to include. 
This project proposal fits with all the main concepts I felt I wished to include in my Augmented Reality product, particularly in terms of learning and functionality.  This idea has also not been looked at much before as an AR experiment unlike a number of other ideas that I looked at and so is also better for being more unique.
By using AR for this kind of tool it enables better accessibility and ease of use in terms of a spatially based orrary.  It is also better as it provides users with a more investgative approach to the tool as they can manipulate and move it physically to suit their needs unlike that achieved by other computing virtual orraries.  This more direct contact should make the tool more engaging and may therefore lead to a more positive learning experience through the use of AR.

IDAT 204 - AR Research into orreries

 Being that I intend to make my AR tool as a learning tool to enable the investigation of the solar system I need to do some research into information about orreries (physical structural solar system representations) and the planets and solar system themselves. 
Firstly my project wil mainly be based on the orrery concept, allowing users of the AR tool to get a visual demonstration of the solar system in progress, hopefully accurate to that studied by science.  This will ensure that the tool can be used for learning purposes as it will provide accurate information for the learner.  An orrery is a physical mechanical structure that proportionally and accurately represents the solar system according to science.  It includes the Sun and the surrounding 9 planets as well as their moons in a moving heliocentric format designed to show relative distance and speed of planets in the solar system.  An orrery most commonly looks like this:

Orreries are not very accessible these days and are not used very often in the teaching of the universe as they have been replaced by more accessible methods of teaching such as descriptions in books and simulation on computers.  The AR orrery is therefore good as its use of technology makes an orrery accessible to anyone who may want to investigate one and get a better understanding of their solar system. An AR orrery can also provide more information to the user than an original orrery would therefore increasing its functionality and usability.

This project to create an AR orrery is also interesting in terms of its cultural aspects.  When looking at the history of orreries their construction and use has a long history possibly dating back to the 100s BC.  The construction of modern day orreries however began in the 1700s AD and has continued until this day.  Orreries have now in the modern day been taken into the virtual environment through use of computers where a variety of software and online applications have been written to emulate the orrery concept in the virtual environment.

The new element that I am proposing with this orrery project is that the orrery is taken a step further into technological advancement by being as a virtual augmented object in a real space, rather than a flat image on a screen. This way the users can get the observation capabilities of the orrery that were originally part of its design, which has not been possible in the computer environment before.  Admittedly the orrery itself will still be viewed on a computer screen as this is the display for the final composition, but the user will be able to move themselves around the orrery, or the orrery around them in a way that was previously not accouted for in virtual orreries.

To be able to create a successful orrery the information about the planets must also be considered including thier orbits, speeds, size etc.  This information will be looked at in the next post.

IDAT 204 - Brainstorming for AR ideas

In order for me to develop my ideas and place all my knowledge of augmented reality into one place, I decided to create a mind map of everything I could think of in relation to the topic.  The aim of this was to help me explore the various elements of AR that I found interesting including its main functions, uses and content topics.  Below is an image of the mind map I created, you will need to click on this image to be able to explore the mind map properly:

From this exploration of augmented reality I came up with a number of key elements that I felt more focused on and then developed these into a few possible ideas to choose from.  My main focuses were learning, use of rotation, matrix markers, and functionality. These along with the knowledge I had logged were then used to create a few ideas which are listed in the map and include:

• caring for a plant: could be used in schools to teach care and organic science. This however has been done a few times before.
• investigating planets: the rotation could enable a better look at the planets structures up close, and the AR could help to demonstrate the solar system as a whole
• The AR cube based game: as orginally concieved the game would have a 3D cube as the AR object which would need to be rotated in order to solve a puzzle.
• Maternity AR: To help mothers-to-be to get a better impression of their babies growth etc when in the womb.
• AR notepad: important reminders could be placed in locations where they originated using GPS and an interface so that they are more accessible and viewable (if using AR glasses) to all concerned e.g family notices etc

Out of all of these concepts however I decided the planet based concept would be the most successful, as it can be used for teaching purposes therefore giving it fuctionality and a learning basis, will be able to be created using the matrix markers, and matrix marker rotation can be used for better investigation. This project will also take advantage of other key elements that are important to the successful use of AR such as:

• use of space - AR can be used in almost any space as it is virtual and so space is not needed for any real physical objects, apart from the matrix marker, and can be removed easily and quickly at any time
• 3D modelling - provides the user with a virtual 3D object to manipulate - 2D AR does not add to the users experience as it is just like seeing something on a computer screen
• Visualising the unaccessible - It is not possible for people to see the solar system so this use of AR provides them with that possibility.  A range of AR is used for this purpose such as AR hairstyles and AR for architecture.

I will now investigate into my planet exploration concept to develop a specific design for the project.

IDAT211 - E-Learning

For our next project for the IDAT211 module we are required to design an E-Learning application to teach a skill of our choice. We do no have to create a final version of the product, but instead have to produce an in depth design of what we could create with the correct resources and abilities. We have chosen to work in a group of two for this project and so I am working with Karla Anker. In order for us to begin thinking about what to create for this project we must first understand what is meant by e-learning.
E-Learning is basically learning through the use of technology, such as relying on software to provide instruction rather than an actual person.  There are many examples of e-learning, and can be presented through a number of means.  Firstly there is software e-learning in which installed software is used to provide an interface for learners to educate themselves in various disciplines such as touch typing and second languages.  There is also the use of online elearning facilities such as You tube videos and online education companies such as the Open University.   Other examples of this include many school orientated websites such as GCSE Bitesize and textual tutorials.

The challenge with e-learning is how to create an e-learning application that successfully teaches the student without having an understanding of the users learning methods, abilities, or their responses to the teaching provided.  For example in a real teacher/student environment the teacher is able to watch and listen to a student to see if they are understanding what they are being taught, or in the case of physical learning, are able to see whether the actions carried out by the student are correct.  However a computer and the technology involved in elearning is not able to physically read a students responses to what they are being taught.  Therefore the elearning tool has to use different methods such as testing and questioning more often in order to get a better impression of the current status of the students learning.
This means that designers of elearning tools have to think this over carefully when creating their products.

IDAT 204 - My AR Ideas so far

Now that I have identified some key areas of AR that I would like to exploit for my project, I now need to think of a few ideas that can use these techniques to create a new AR product.  The two areas that I most want to exploit are the practical uses of AR as shown by the Priority Mail AR Simulator and also the 360 degree rotation possibilities provided by the use of AR on a horizontal plane.  From these I currently have two possible ideas.
The first idea is of an AR gallery.  The user could use the tool to browse through a number of different artworks, particuarly sculptures, which the user could rotate using the matrix marker, to get a better view of the entire work.  This could be used in an educational format for art students to get a good look at important pieces of art without having to go directly to a gallery.  This idea however does not have much scope as it does not provide the user with much of an extension of the real world if at a small size, and would also have a negative effect on real world galleries.  However this may be a more viable project if the art was to be introduced to the environment at its real life size, so that users could turn their rooms into an art gallery.  This would be better done if using AR glasses rather than a webcam as users would have more mobility to interact with the artworks.
The second idea is a game based on a 3D object produced in AR which requires the user to be able to rotate the shape 360 degrees in order to solve a puzzle or problem.  This would be more viable as it would rely on the 360 degree rotation capability of AR but is not very practical as it would only be used for entertainment purposes.
One example like this but much more in depth is the game LevelHeads shown in the video below:

This game is really well thought out but uses a slightly different technique to my idea in that it uses a cube of matrix markers rather than just one.
Either of these ideas therefore need to be developed further for them to be viable for this project. I think the next step in sorting out my idea for this project is to do a full brainstorm of possibilities to try and find elements that could be interesting and useful for my project which I can build an idea from.

Stonehouse - GPS Journey Visualisation

Mapping out our GPS track from above is one way of visualising the data that provides a new perception of what was created.  However this is not always the most interesting way as there are many other ways of visualising data.  For example a time based representation of information is interesting as it reflects occurences along a journey.  My visualisation of the GPS data below therefore uses this time based element and represents the changes in vertical and horizontal coordinates along the journey:

This visualisation provides an abstract representation of the journey by looking at it in a different way.  The image provides information on the amount of change between x and y coordinates through the journey as well as showing the various times at which data was taken by the device which is demonstrated by the coordinates placed on the image in relation to the timeline.  This is quite a mathematical and graphical representation of the data, but is different to the standard way of outlining GPS tracking and provides further information that could not be discovered through a basic GPS trace image.