#ctec503movement

I just wanted to actually thank my group of rejects for creating something that we all should be pretty proud of. We were all basically forced together from the start without having any overlapping or remotely similar ideas, I mean for fucks sake I was researching the biological effects and positives of competition in humans. But we all managed to come together and get through this pretty grueling semester, even if we didn’t work as hard or as efficiently as possible I still feel that we have made something that we can be pretty damn proud of. 

To be honest all of the people in our group (asides from me) have been essential for the project to keep on trucking, since you all did so much in your respective roles that helped the rest of the group so much.

Shades

Being the complete resource manager of this project and the planning god plus playing the mother every now and then for when we weren’t doing any work, has helped us out a shit ton. Without the planning of stuff and the scheduling and the amount of stuff you did like putting things onto the google docs, typing up things that needed to be transferred from paper, sketching plans and going out and getting alot of the materials that we needed for the things like the screen and the poster and that. You have been the reason why the project hasn’t just blown over and everyone didn’t just lose interest leading in everyone sort of giving up. Finding tasks for us all to do and micromanaging has helped us out a ton. Thanks Shades

Vaani 

You need to stop doing everything please. Seriously the amount of times that I came in to see how much you had done and just realized that it was 100x more than I had done is incredible. You are like the true definition of a grinder and the amount of effort and work you put into this project and the rest of your projects are insane. Obvious things is stuff like ALL of the sanding, most of the painting, most if not all of the visual research, a ton of visual iterations with coding, helping out with keeping us all in line, keeping the best kept blog in the world which has helped all of us actually keep track of whats going on...The list goes on. You’re basically a machine who without this project just wouldn’t have worked out. Always you would do those small things that would just make our project so much better but you never took credit, or complained or anything. Plus somehow you managed to put up with me for an entire semester which is kind of a feat on its own. Thanks a bunch our fave vegetarian.

Kelvin 

Going into the project I think everybody was just dreading the coding part of our project and nobody had like any idea of what the fuck they were doing. But this legend put up his hand and put in some serious hours to basically carry us through the coding part of the project. I’m sure that you’ve probably developed a pretty good knowledge of coding from this project and you should be proud of what you made because it is pretty awesome and incorporated ideas from my crackpot conceptual theories and Vaani’s own personal visual preferences, which is a skill in itself. Thanks dude you really saved us 

Simon

Head PD guy and really the only PD guy since nobody had any idea of what was going on at all in that patch. But you managed to grind that out and get the serial porting working after a close encounter with throwing-laptop-to-other-side-of-room syndrome. Head of lunch breaks and messenger stickers adds to the list and the classic free macca’s was always a bit of a treat for the rest of the group. But actually thanks a whole bunch for saving us with the sounds and everything.

Even though I got so close to leaving BCT for good after I got back from my trip, I’m glad that I stayed because we managed to create something pretty cool that takes from real academic sources of knowledge and is pretty fun to play around with. 

We started out with looking through a ‘window’ toward the storm early in our project when we decided to use the EEG simulate a storm. We decided to use the window, as it creates a frame and also simulates being indoors whilst looking at an outdoor environment. Firstly, we decided to recycle and use a window from an old building, and in our case a house. Throughout the project, Tim and I manged the construction of the window and the other small items that needed to be added to the project or built.

 We purchased the window in the picture above, however we found the main issue with it was that the stained glass with the textures manipulated our projected images too much and it looked unprofessional. We discussed removing the glass from the window, I said this this is too hard and we should ditch this window entirely. I suggested to the group that we buy this window here -

However, nobody in the group had access get the window, so decided on building a window within a wall. We started building the wall, but it turned out to be a complete failure so we took wood, dismantled the wall and began to build a window to be hung. Tim and I did some brief planning and took our inexperienced selves to the woodworking space in the 3D labs to construct this -

Project name: Storm

The idea of our project is to draw in and entice people into figuring out what its purpose is. We created a physical window display, which uses rain and a heart rate monitor to connote the effects of stress on the mind and body. Along with user-input to add an element of community. Throughout our journey, we hope to give users a sense of bliss and leave feeling a bit better about themselves. The purpose is to let users feel like they’re not alone having to deal with stress and anxiety. 

We are projecting the rain over an image of a city we created. This will used because of the city’s association with the stress and pressure of living in the middle of everything and all that is happening[2], as well as being located on the eleventh floor of a high-rise building.

Fortunately, our first brief we wrote was worded in a way that was left very open ended due to the undoubtedly imminent developments we would make:

“Create an Immersive translation of an individual’s state of mind as an introspective experience”

We were originally going to use an electroencephalogram (EEG) to examine someone’s active and meditative state of mind and measure how stressed they were feeling. However, through practice, we found that it was inconsistent with results and fluctuated far too frequently to get a proper, interesting result. We decided to use a heart rate monitor instead, because it gives much more accurate feedback and is simply measured through the pulse in your fingertip. The heart rate is also directly linked to stress levels, which I researched here.

We first looked into using the idea of using white light to represent the opposition to stress here, but we figured that using rain instead would be more compelling since many more people associate the rain with calmness, relaxation and peace of mind. However, extreme weather is also associated with disaster and flooding, which gives people mental and physical stress[1]. This means that the weather has many more connotations surrounding stress (both good and bad), and is why we decided to use it.

The sense of community we are trying to include as well will be carried out through a website we designed where a user will anonymously type in something they are feeling stressed about, which will appear on the window - only to be washed away by the rain itself. After some time, old inputs will be displayed on the screen to that others have previously shared, which will show people the similarities and differences between people around us, and if several people are stressed about the same thing(s).

Being able to properly deal with stress and anxiety is difficult, but is something that we all have to live and deal with emotionally. If users are able to realise they are not alone, and have other people who can help them deal with their problems, our project will have succeeded. Even if we fail to do so, we will take it as a learning experience to see where we went wrong and how we can improve if we ever came back to this project again in the future.

[1] Gergoire. C, (2014), “The Surprising Ways The Weather Affects Your Heath And Well-Being” - from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/climate-health_n_4568505.html

There is a lot of pressure in this world to be happy. But what is it about human nature that evolves around past learning?

It is indeed a biological approach to psychology that takes us individuals through an educational psychology to deeply understand how people change and grow through the entire lifespan (very well, 2017). My argument is valid in the statement given because according to the research, having an approximate dynamic in the learning that was provided at a young age becomes more powerful as the human brain develops and has a strong focus if the act of documentation is executed. By this, I mean ‘personal learning’ which grows into a form of argumentation within us individuals. This act is performed at a regular basis and is very unclear to some in the process of their performance because it is a natural move. The more the skill is improved in this area, the better we will be at critically thinking, reasoning, making choices and weighing evidence (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017).

Therefore, I strongly believe it is important for us students to mentally encourage ourselves towards making everything accountable for what we learn. I believe this helps understand and defend our position the way we look at the work in general. 

Throughout this semester I have learned a great deal bout both project related things and non project related things. I have learned how important it is to choose your team wisely for a group project and also team management skills to keep that group working on track. I have also discovered different workflow strategies to make sure I am at my most productive and also when I need to take a break, for example I now know that I can’t focus solely on Arduino code for a week straight for all of my papers. Having said that though I have learned and further developed my programming skills and have picked up how to program an Arduino. I think the hardest challenge I have had to face this semester is letting other people do the work and trusting that they will get it done. I have always struggled with this as I feel only i know what the quality of the job needs to be but now that I am at university everyone I work with should in theory be at the same level if not better than me when it comes to this so they will have a fair idea as to what the outcome needs to be. What also made this hard for me in this project was that I didn’t really feel I knew my team members well enough, sure I knew Adam but as for the other four (Shane, Josh, Austin and Osamu) I had never really talked to them let alone worked with them so I was not really sure how it would go. I guess that is why it is good to have a blog so you can see what they have done in the past.

If I had to do it all again, I would have worked with a smaller team. That is the main thing I would change simply because it is harder to work with a bigger group especially when things need to happen in a sequence so not everyone can be working on things at the exact same time. Over my last few blog posts i have reflected on the project a little more in depth so you can find those in the index to see some more of my overall reflection on the semester.

Here are the the final videos, the second one is not shown in the installation as it does not suit the whole them of it but shows how the watch reacts to different users and can be used to show their perception of time in different situations. 

Blog Index 

All posts for this project can be found with the hashtag #ctec503movement

Project Reflections: -Revisit of the brief -Installation Completion

Concept blogs: -Initial idea -Potential direction -Scientific Research -Further research and justification -Existing product research -Real world observation -Concept video development 1 -Concept video development 2 -Concept Clarification -Concept reflection -Real world situation idea -Real world test 1 -Ethics issue -Group allocations

Construction blogs: -Initial prototype -Further development -Working prototype and existing product research -Soldering it together -Neopixel development -3D model and presentation research -Prototype test Presentation Blogs: -Initial thoughts and research -Presentation design -Installation Completion

Conceptual Statement

For this project we set out to bring attention to our objective reality and provoke conversation on whether or not we experience the world to the maximum potential we can. “Tyme” measures the user’s heart rate and then presents their own experience of passing time visually in a way that seems more like a natural process (almost like breathing) rather than a mechanical ticking, this is to bring a air of personalisation to it. We used the human perception of time, or chronoception, to develop an insight for the user into how we as humans have gentrified something so complex as time into a basic standard measure which in reality is not how we experience the world at all. In different situations minutes can feel like hours and hours can feel like seconds as our chronoception is the result of a multitude of external factors that we don’t have a whole lot of control over. By focussing on one single aspect that can affect chronoception (cognitive function linked to heart rate) we are enticing the user to consider our visual representation of their experience of the passage of time but also consider all the other factors that can affect it. Thus in turn forcing them to realise that they are only experiencing a small sliver of the world around them and that there is so much more to our universe that we are unable to comprehend but if we could, our entire objective reality would be a whole lot different. By inciting this conversation we are changing the way people look at things, making them consider their surroundings more critically and developing a greater awareness of their reality.

Contextual Statement

The field of time perception and objective realities is relatively unexplored and for the parts that have been researched, the developed ideas and concepts tend to have very mild crossover and a fair amount of contradictions. That is mainly because not a whole lot is known in the fields and so there is no general consensus yet as to what is correct and what is not. This is where our projects fits nicely, as we are not entirely developing any research in the field but more linking the ideas of time perception and objective reality together. Our project draws inspiration from theories set out by Donald Hoffman and David Eagleman which talk about objective realities and time perception respectively. Hoffman sets out the idea that what we are experiencing as our apparent “objective reality” may not actually be the actual reality that we live in, he says that our brain is taking cues from the actual reality and reconstructing this world that we see (Hoffman, 2015). Eagleman places a huge emphasis on the fact that we do not have physical time receipting organs in our bodies and therefore our chronoception relies heavily on other external factors and our brain then reconstructs what we experience as time from these cues (Eagleman, 2009). There is a large crossover between the two concepts that we set out to link and develop and in doing so we have also produced an artefact that goes about presenting the apparent passage of time to the certain individual who is using the watch. In this sense it is much like the breathing clock designed by Max Schmidt [1], a different way of representing time rather than the monotonous ticking that we have come to think of as standard. The main difference between our project and the breathing clock though is that the breathing clock is more of a countdown timer that you set to whatever time you want, “tyme” interprets the users cognitive state and presents them with their own experience of time passing at that moment, so it is constantly changing. Another project that brings awareness to our experience of time is Durr by Skrekkogle [2] which vibrates every five minutes to make the user aware of how fast time is passing. This idea however, is still bound to the assumption that time passes as seconds, minutes and hours and thus differs from our project which focuses on the idea that time is in fact a personal experience that is different for everyone. Through the development of this concept and artefact we have not only challenged the basic assumptions we make about time but we have actually shown how abstract the idea of time really is and that representing it through standard measures (such as seconds, minutes and hours) is completely inaccurate to how we interact with the world, therefore challenging how we experience our world and perceive reality.  

[1]: https://www.designboom.com/design/breathing-clock-by-max-schmidt-shifts-the-perception-of-time/ [2]: http://skrekkogle.com/projects/durr/

Hoffman, D. (2015, March). Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_hoffman_do_we_see_reality_as_it_is

https://juxtaposeaut.blogspot.co.nz/

I have been working on a website that we can direct people to for more information on us, and a bit about our project, and to contact us. At the moment it is quite bare bones, and only includes basic information (I plan on adding more to it next week before showcase, depending on how things go).

https://www.facebook.com/JuxtaposeAUT/

I also set up a Facebook page, because I thought it might be easier for some people to get in contact with us, then a website.

I plan on making an email that forwards to our emails as well, but I will probably work on that sometime next week before open day, as I don’t really have enough time to finish it up now.

Front of Card

Back of Card

Very rough business cards that I was planning on printing out, but got a bit swamped with programming. I might still be able to use them though, if I find somewhere that can print them out within 4 days (however I know this isn’t very likely).

For some reason I thought that it was probably a good idea to go into a proper scientific analysis and research into the data we gathered from our investigation. 

I’m not too sure whether or not we will get too much out of having a proper scientific analysis of this but its probably a good idea to get some sort of formal investigation into the questions we ask and give a chance to have something that can back up our project in an academic way. But here I present the investigation into the emotional effects of creative technology students when subjected to certain visual and auditory sensory stimuli.

Investigation into the emotional effects of creative technology students when subjected to certain visual and auditory sensory stimuli.

Aim 

The aim of this investigation is to gauge whether or not our chosen stimuli of the visual and auditory variety has the intended affect of evoking emotions inside of the students we will be testing. 

Method

We will be exposing our subjects to a test version of our project that has the two main intended stimuli. Visual aspects are rear projected onto a piece of fabric that has motion reactive artwork on it. Audio parts are also movement reactive and are played through speakers that the subjects listen to at the same time as the visuals are shown. After they have experienced the piece they are then asked a few questions which have been crafted to gain as much understanding possible about whether or not they were emotionally effected by our piece at all. The questions that we asked were;

1). Using our piece did you think about how you emotionally felt?

2). Do you think our piece evoked emotion inside of you in anyway? 

3). In 3 or less words describe your experience. 

4). Did you focus on the visuals or the audio aspect of the experience more?

As you can see we are going for a more qualitative response instead of quantitative due to the emotional aspect of our project we thought that it would be a good idea to gain a more personal understanding of it due to the subjective nature of emotional responses, we thought it would be a better idea to get descriptions rather than numbers. 

Hypothesis

My hypothesis for this investigation is that without the finished pieces of our project like for instance the fact that we will have to substitute the projector for a computer screen due to the projector not being available at the time of the testing and us having to use the computer speakers as well, we will not be able to create the large enough presence we want and people will feel disconnected and won’t think about how the piece made them feel. I also feel that with the nature of our testing environment we will not be a personal place and the intended stimuli will be convoluted with other noises and lights etc. from the surrounding environment so I believe that we won’t be able to create a true reflective environment that people will think about their feelings alot.

Data 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3KmxlKyL4ZfSURuOWw0MlgzcGM

Analysis

The data we got was taken over two days with a variation taking place in the visuals on the second day, so the data isn’t completely consistent for the both days but we can still get a feel for the trends with both days separated. 

Day 1 - 

Question 1 analysis: Day 1′s data shows that  85% of people saying they did not think about their feelings at all. this is obviously something we do not want  as the entire purpose of the project is to make people aware of how they feel. 3 people also said that they were too focused on how to make it work to start thinking about how the piece made them felt. 

Question 2 analysis:  For the second question of did our piece evoke emotion inside of the person 4/9 people said no. The other 5 people felt "happy" using it and "confusion" was a common theme.

Question 3 analysis: The "Describe your experience in 3 words" provided us with some clarification in terms of their exact reasons for their feeling s. What was most prominent in the details the basis of interesting and contemplative.

Question 4 analysis: This question varied throughout the day so the results are somewhat inconsistent but what we asked mostly was whether or not the visuals overpowered the importance of the sound or vice versa. From this we gained a mixed response with 5 people saying they were more sound focused and the other 4 saying they were more visually focused.

Day 2 - 

Question 1 analysis:  To this question all 3 participants responded with a "no".

Question 2 analysis: The three participants responded with "yes" but they were not insanely strong emotions, and two of the participants said that they were just too mechanically focused to try to feel the emotion being evoked. This is a trend that we see carrying on from yesterday with 44% of people saying the same thing. 

Question 3 analysis:  The main trend with the describing words on day #2 was that everyone displayed some sort of confusion which was all due to the visuals.

Question 4 analysis: When asked whether they were focused on visuals or sound 2/3 said visuals and they both said the visuals were confusing but the sounds were more confusing.

Discussion 

These results have provided a very good starting foundation for the analysis into the validity of our project. For starters it seems as though my prediction and hypothesis was correct in the prediction that most people did not think about their emotions. The reason for this I suggest is that the atmosphere in which we were testing in was not conducive to thought provoking/deep connections with themselves. This I suggest is because of the atmosphere that was present when we were testing, it was not enclosed and external factors like light and sounds made it feel as if they had not been transported in any way. We need to create an area that makes people feel enclosed and encapsulated in their own thoughts, which in turn creates an area where people can think about things.

Another point I suggest from our data and seeing the comparisons between the two days, we can see that the mechanical aspect of our piece is convoluting the main message of our piece. With this we can understand that people need at least some simplicity in the way they control it, or maybe a much more simply displayed impact of your movements. I suggest we try to have very simplistic and responsive visuals such as the first day compared to the second day where it was more abstract and such. Maybe also we can suggest using the right arm to control the piece as well as which may take away from the exploitative nature but will provide clarity and hopefully a greater understanding of the piece.

Another piece of opinion I have created about our project with this data is that we need to create more of a pressure and maybe create a larger prototype that will have a larger feeling it makes sense. Essentially what we need to do is to make people feel overpowered by the piece in most ways to think people feel overpowered by the piece. When people are overpowered by the piece they might be suggested to the fact that the piece knows more than them in terms of their feelings and emotions. I think that then we will create a great atmosphere for deep thoughts and elicit reflection which will be encapsulated in our booth. Also what ties into this is the universe theme, nothing really conveys that portrays the largest questions in our existence then the stars do so I feel that sticking with this theme is a very good idea to make this project meaningful.

Conclusion