TimBCT2

1 - The buttons after being glued, ready to be mounted.

2 - Our artefact set up in our assigned location for showcase, fabric has been stapled down and trimmed.

Our artefact with the thicker fabric; image is now a lot clearer.

Also a schematic showing the wiring of the buttons.

Update on video progress for studio:

I’ve currently finished 3 videos for the project. Naturally there has been a few iterations of each of them, mainly because I suck at rendering videos and managed to turn a 30second clip into a 9GB monster.

The raw data from our pre-survey.

A quick reflection of the journey this project has been on:

I started with an idea of a project that would alter the users perception in a way that onlookers wouldn’t understand until they tried the device for themselves. I wanted the user to experience some kind of dissociation to make them feel isolated from the environment they were in. I wanted them to feel like they were on a different wavelength to anyone else in the room.

So I started exploring ways to disconnect people, and the immediate way I could think of was to disrupt their means of communication. I downloaded a random clip of people talking from Youtube and threw it into Ableton and started exploring ways to make it incomprehensible, but still having it sound like a language as opposed to just raping it with effects until it was unrecognisable. I found that adding a echo that echoed at different rates for each channel was effective (see previous blogs for that audio) - so I replicated that using live audio in PureData. The delay also had a speech-jamming effect, as having your own voice played back to you at a 200ms delay makes it a lot harder to talk in longer sentences without getting all jumbled up.

The glasses started out as a bit of a gimmick and more of an optional addition to the audio after I realised how quickly that took to accomplish. The initial idea was to emulate a tunnel-vision effect to further dissociate the user - with a couple of spinning hollow kaleidoscopes to fill the users peripheral vision with warped images of whatever they were looking at. The mirrors create a feeling of a larger open space to give the user a feeling that they’ve ‘stepped back’ from their environment and in a passive observer role. The spinning was for a more disorientating effect but mainly to look cool. I’m glad Clint convinced me to ditch that idea as it would’ve been super fiddly to construct and the end result wouldn’t have been worth the effort.

After some experimentation I lengthened the ‘lenses’ to create even more of a tunnel-vision effect, requiring the user to be looking directly at something to see it. This looking quite comical as the user tilts their head around like a meerkat inspecting their surroundings. 

So in summary:

This is a project that attempts to put an individual in the role of a mute, active observer through feelings of dissociation. The user experiences an environment from an altered and unfamiliar perspective, and is encouraged to explore and inspect the world and its sounds without the means to communicate with others.

In terms of potential changes and further refinement, ideally I would like to have some form of wireless microphone as it has to move with the user. Michael had the idea to turn the project into an app which used your phones microphone, which is a brilliant idea that would enable the user to be anywhere and have maximum freedom for exploration. I don’t know how to code apps but this might be something I look into in the future, however I do like the face that the user has to walk up and hold a microphone towards different things/people. I’ve found it generally encourages people to be playful and make weird sounds as well as trying to communicate with the user (which is often very ineffective). The goggles could use a bit of refinement in general - a few gaps you can potentially see out, more ergonomic design etc. 

Fully spray-painted goggles

Picture 1 - Hand-sawed the wood into sections then glued and nailed it together before screwing it in for maximum joint strength.

Picture 2 - My original idea was to use 2 clamps to fix the platform to the T-wall

The latest progress on our studio build.

I did a lot of thinking trying to figure out a way of building a half-sphere that’s as smooth as possible. I ended up buying a bunch of A1 sheets of white card and cutting strips into them to overlap and bend into a pretty decent surface. It took Kevin and I about 2 hours to fully assemble, taping and stapling all the pieces in. 

Sangeeta also gave us the idea to build a platform to mount the projector on top of a T-wall so that we get a better angle of projection down onto the globe. We have enough spare MDF from Kevins laser-cutting so I am going to cut the pieces and build that tomorrow. I’ve designed it so it can be clamped to the top of the wall with G-clamps so we don’t cause any damage to the wall while still having a very strongly mounted platform.

First photo - Our current setup. Thanks to Sangeeta we no longer require a stand for the projector and are instead using the plinth and putting our globe on a table. This gives us more space to display posters and info, as well as manage cables and hide wiring/electronics.