And finally..
12.18.2018
Stop Motion Animation
I've worked on one stop motion animation with a group previously and it was a claymation story derived from an audio recording of my partners drunk friend.
Anyway, working with Hyat and YG was a splendid experience. They both were from more technical backgrounds but had brilliant creative minds. We all sat down together in the lobby and started to storyboard some ideas.
Originally we built 3 scenes of this post mid-term itp superhero doing things in their life that school often overrides. Things such as laundry, grocery shopping, working on personal projects, and general relaxing.
Then we realized our ambitions, the time frame, and other commitments to other classes. We only had one day that we were all free to shoot footage and that day also happen to be the day when YG and I could also meet for our other group projects.
So many frames were shot, moved, altered, for hours and hours.
The result is a trimmed down, jumpy version of our ITP man. But it was good to work with these fellas.
Anyway, working with Hyat and YG was a splendid experience. They both were from more technical backgrounds but had brilliant creative minds. We all sat down together in the lobby and started to storyboard some ideas.
Originally we built 3 scenes of this post mid-term itp superhero doing things in their life that school often overrides. Things such as laundry, grocery shopping, working on personal projects, and general relaxing.
Then we realized our ambitions, the time frame, and other commitments to other classes. We only had one day that we were all free to shoot footage and that day also happen to be the day when YG and I could also meet for our other group projects.
So many frames were shot, moved, altered, for hours and hours.
The result is a trimmed down, jumpy version of our ITP man. But it was good to work with these fellas.
12.17.2018
Need More Space
While thinking about a piece in after effects, there was a familiarity. The idea of having layers and compositions reminded me of the Photoshop UI very much. It's all a matter of imagining complete pieces in different layers that requires a level of thinking that I grew accustomed to while studying printmaking. When you created a new layer out of wood, you never quite knew what the outcome would look like until it was pressed against a piece of paper. That reveal and surprise is something unique that I loved.
Perhaps that element of surprise is lost when working in After Effects. Having to deliberately calculate each of your intentions to represent your imagination eats up so much time. Which I felt I never had enough of while balancing these animation projects with projects that were taking up most of my breadth and passion.
All qualms aside, there are so many possibilities that can be achieved with this tool. Motion capturing and playing around with track mats enticed me. I wanted to give motion to video elements that already possessed their own motion. In a way, I was manipulating videos of my past and giving them a new perspective.
The idea was to emulate my previous experience with rotoscoping. An animation effect I dabbled around in the past.
However, manually rotoscoping is always a long process. And my animation teacher in undergrad told me that there are always easier ways to animate this similarly. My goal for the AfterEffects project was not make the best animation ever, but it was to learn a new process of going about animation. I took this class to give new perspective to what I learned over five years ago. Also my classmates who don't have a similar art background as me bring ideas and a vigor that you kind of lose when you already familiar with the subject matter.
It turns out, you need a lot of space to run After Effects. And, even after clearing as much as I could from my hard drive. My 2012 macbook still putzed, crashed, and stalled. I didn't have a good lighting situation to key out my body. Everything came out pixelated and distorted.
I decided to try the rotobrush tool. It probably took me about two full days to figure out how it worked. Then I realized importing that data to another type of computer will completely through off the motion tracking.
But what I did extract out of this was how some of the After Effects algorithms work. I probably need a new hard drive. And now I can rotobrush like a pro. I'm talking with a good computer, I can create a 30 second rotobrush that looks good in a few hours. Which is waaay better timing than If I was doing that frame by frame. What I hope for is on my off time from school, is to be able to enchance the videos I take in my daily life with a bit of After Effects familiarity. And also, why do my animation teachers always tell me there is an easier way to do this, after I already went through the pain of doing it? I guess i'm stubborn in my mediums. =]
Perhaps that element of surprise is lost when working in After Effects. Having to deliberately calculate each of your intentions to represent your imagination eats up so much time. Which I felt I never had enough of while balancing these animation projects with projects that were taking up most of my breadth and passion.
All qualms aside, there are so many possibilities that can be achieved with this tool. Motion capturing and playing around with track mats enticed me. I wanted to give motion to video elements that already possessed their own motion. In a way, I was manipulating videos of my past and giving them a new perspective.
The idea was to emulate my previous experience with rotoscoping. An animation effect I dabbled around in the past.
However, manually rotoscoping is always a long process. And my animation teacher in undergrad told me that there are always easier ways to animate this similarly. My goal for the AfterEffects project was not make the best animation ever, but it was to learn a new process of going about animation. I took this class to give new perspective to what I learned over five years ago. Also my classmates who don't have a similar art background as me bring ideas and a vigor that you kind of lose when you already familiar with the subject matter.
It turns out, you need a lot of space to run After Effects. And, even after clearing as much as I could from my hard drive. My 2012 macbook still putzed, crashed, and stalled. I didn't have a good lighting situation to key out my body. Everything came out pixelated and distorted.
I decided to try the rotobrush tool. It probably took me about two full days to figure out how it worked. Then I realized importing that data to another type of computer will completely through off the motion tracking.
But what I did extract out of this was how some of the After Effects algorithms work. I probably need a new hard drive. And now I can rotobrush like a pro. I'm talking with a good computer, I can create a 30 second rotobrush that looks good in a few hours. Which is waaay better timing than If I was doing that frame by frame. What I hope for is on my off time from school, is to be able to enchance the videos I take in my daily life with a bit of After Effects familiarity. And also, why do my animation teachers always tell me there is an easier way to do this, after I already went through the pain of doing it? I guess i'm stubborn in my mediums. =]
12.14.2018
A reflection
It's here, the end of the semester. Although it feels more like the start. I never thought I would be able to code to this capacity at all. Things sort of just clicked.
My "Business Fan", as it is deemed now, is a working reflection of my experience in ICM and Physical computing. I was working on the digital aspect in ICM and the tangible interactions and movement in Pcomp.
One early morning I was working off the old interface i've made to control my fan (Interface_v1). It was a simple sketch made to represent the angle of the fan digitally and vise-versa. It was plain to look at but I knew I had something there. I wanted my physical fan to have a direct connection with the javascript I was writing. So I made them share the same value. mouseX was the easiest to have a immediate impact to the input and was very precise. So for weeks I've been controlling both aspects of my project with the swipe of my fingers.
As the physical component of my project changed. So did the interface to match. The physical movement of my version 1,2,3 fans are different and needed a digital interface to support these motions. Here is how different the arc opens up in Interface_v2.
In my previous assignments, I kept using this ARC pattern to create a visual component. It was something I was clearly trying to understand. The timelines I created and shifting colors, also resurfaced from past projects. If I had time, of course there would be sound. But the sound of whirring servos and the paper fins brushing past each other will have to do for now.
Oh and arrays, if you look back to the blog post about arrays I made a comment about how it would eventually make sense. And well, sure enough, it makes sense to me now and is what created this visualization pattern. Interface_v3
It is hard to be completely satisfied with my work here. Once I enter a new territory and gain a grasp of my surroundings my mind starts to spit out the possibilities. Paraphrasing here, but I will keep to heart what my professor Dano said during our presentations "...keep your whimsical approach to coding..." And you know what, I will continue to play in the vast playground of digital functions and objects. Who knows what I can stumble on through my travels?
My "Business Fan", as it is deemed now, is a working reflection of my experience in ICM and Physical computing. I was working on the digital aspect in ICM and the tangible interactions and movement in Pcomp.
One early morning I was working off the old interface i've made to control my fan (Interface_v1). It was a simple sketch made to represent the angle of the fan digitally and vise-versa. It was plain to look at but I knew I had something there. I wanted my physical fan to have a direct connection with the javascript I was writing. So I made them share the same value. mouseX was the easiest to have a immediate impact to the input and was very precise. So for weeks I've been controlling both aspects of my project with the swipe of my fingers.
As the physical component of my project changed. So did the interface to match. The physical movement of my version 1,2,3 fans are different and needed a digital interface to support these motions. Here is how different the arc opens up in Interface_v2.
In my previous assignments, I kept using this ARC pattern to create a visual component. It was something I was clearly trying to understand. The timelines I created and shifting colors, also resurfaced from past projects. If I had time, of course there would be sound. But the sound of whirring servos and the paper fins brushing past each other will have to do for now.
Oh and arrays, if you look back to the blog post about arrays I made a comment about how it would eventually make sense. And well, sure enough, it makes sense to me now and is what created this visualization pattern. Interface_v3
It is hard to be completely satisfied with my work here. Once I enter a new territory and gain a grasp of my surroundings my mind starts to spit out the possibilities. Paraphrasing here, but I will keep to heart what my professor Dano said during our presentations "...keep your whimsical approach to coding..." And you know what, I will continue to play in the vast playground of digital functions and objects. Who knows what I can stumble on through my travels?
12.10.2018
AR Me
Since the semester started I have founded a new appreciation for the "process" of my projects. While the end result is more polished, it doesn't always articulate the bumps on the road it took to get there. I carry around a sketchbook where I write everything down for all my classes, and just ideas in general. In itself is a story of the mangled information being spit out from my brain.
For this AR piece I decided to take some of the documentation of my notes and mesh them together with the videos I took along the way. If you asked my 2 months ago I would have never thought I would be applying AR to my notebook. However, I think It is an element that is fascinating to explore.
I did have a piece of chorography I sketched out in my notebook as well!
However, I was faced with a slight roadblock:
Well, here is the video of my dancing for your enjoyment anyway:
For this AR piece I decided to take some of the documentation of my notes and mesh them together with the videos I took along the way. If you asked my 2 months ago I would have never thought I would be applying AR to my notebook. However, I think It is an element that is fascinating to explore.
I did have a piece of chorography I sketched out in my notebook as well!
11.15.2018
An animation idea
I'm a hip-hop dancer and I freestyle a lot. To practice I'll play a song, dance, and film it. Usually I only take a small portion of my footage and post it on Instagram or the sorts. As a result to my sporadic dancing fever, I've collected probably hours of footage of me dancing in front of the camera. I was thinking of editing them together, and masking myself out to create cool effects. Maybe pattern overlays on my figure. Another idea is to create depth and multiple characters on the screen with myself.
11.08.2018
Zoom Zoom
The motor talk we had in class last week rekindled my r/c car fascination all over again. Coupled with my search for the right servo for the job. I've been researching other factors besides the tech specs of a servo. I watched videos on YouTube comparing servo brands and models head to head.
I also had a dream of using a gas engine on the floor to power my fan. Then I woke up, and thought.... if it wasn't so loud, and smelly, i'd do it 100%. Combustion engines are beautiful.
Ha, anyway, the servo is the crux of the mechanics, I had to make sure it satisfied my base requirements. Any extra is always welcomed but money seems to escape me everyday.
As finals week nears I bit the bullet and made a decision on purchasing a servo. Rather than get one of the heavy discounted used versions, I wanted all the accessories that came with it originally. Things such as the rubber grommets and brass "things" they use to isolate vibrations from the servo on r/c cars. Because I was thinking, not that my project will go on an off-road adventure, I could use that isolation to help quiet down everything. Even it was just a little. A whiny servo is pretty apparent from the labs I've done and seen around the floor.
So I found a used one with the complete parts and still saved some money:
This servo is currently being re-routed through my jobs internal mailing system so I should get it by EOD today. Which means I can start prototyping the scale I want it to be!
Also while browsing the internet I found some inspirational posts that I'd like to have in my mind as I go through the fabrication process:
for general aesthetic ideas:
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/10/origami-ballet-costumes/
and for servo mounts:
And I can totally build these servo mounts too. The wood look would blend in better. I'll think of how to fully enclose the servo to hide more of the "inner workings" of the piece.
I also had a dream of using a gas engine on the floor to power my fan. Then I woke up, and thought.... if it wasn't so loud, and smelly, i'd do it 100%. Combustion engines are beautiful.
Ha, anyway, the servo is the crux of the mechanics, I had to make sure it satisfied my base requirements. Any extra is always welcomed but money seems to escape me everyday.
As finals week nears I bit the bullet and made a decision on purchasing a servo. Rather than get one of the heavy discounted used versions, I wanted all the accessories that came with it originally. Things such as the rubber grommets and brass "things" they use to isolate vibrations from the servo on r/c cars. Because I was thinking, not that my project will go on an off-road adventure, I could use that isolation to help quiet down everything. Even it was just a little. A whiny servo is pretty apparent from the labs I've done and seen around the floor.
So I found a used one with the complete parts and still saved some money:
Hitec HS-7955TG High Torque Titanium Gear Coreless Servo
Oof, just the thought of titanium gearing makes it sound so lux. Some reasons why I chose this:
It can run on low voltage
It has high torque to voltage ratio
It is much quieter than other servos with similar specs
Programmable
Smooth operation
This servo is currently being re-routed through my jobs internal mailing system so I should get it by EOD today. Which means I can start prototyping the scale I want it to be!
Also while browsing the internet I found some inspirational posts that I'd like to have in my mind as I go through the fabrication process:
for general aesthetic ideas:
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/10/origami-ballet-costumes/
and for servo mounts:
And I can totally build these servo mounts too. The wood look would blend in better. I'll think of how to fully enclose the servo to hide more of the "inner workings" of the piece.
11.07.2018
Well Rested.
I've been taking some time away from the floor recently. Last weekend I didn't set foot at school. Probably because I was on the brink of losing it on Friday. Multiple people asked me if I was doing ok, even the ones I don't normally converse with. While I thought I appeared fine on the outside, perhaps the stress was emanating gamma rays from my soul.
During ICM Madness we decided to take a calm route. IF we had time we would integrate more fun tricks we learned in class. But, aside from that we played some music and paced ourselves to fulfill the assignment. Ideally, I wanted to incorporate machine learning into the sketch for reasons that it would also take care of my this weeks assignment but alas, no time. Also I was so hungry I chose the dumplings by color and my diet has been largely Pescatarian for over a year. Sooo, that threw an interesting loop to digestive system later.
A little touch base on my final project. So it's a definite yes that I want to combine pcomp and icm. I also have been doing so many accelerated group projects recently so I'd prefer to work alone and control my own pace. I'm also pretty far a long my concept where I just want to build! I've been spending the past week sourcing parts that I need, for the cheapest option possible (Bidding on Ebay, or Haggling for that best price.)
It may come to a time where my pcomp and icm blog posts will become more of the same. And in that case I might combine those as well once the project becomes a functioning concept. I'm all here for efficiency.
To go back on machine learning, I started by setting up the example sketch from the ML5 site. I wanted to use the style transfer program using the webcam to create a collage of these altered photos. However, after setting up everything in p5, I get an endless load when I begin the style transfer. Not sure how to diagnose the problem, but no errors are being thrown.
During ICM Madness we decided to take a calm route. IF we had time we would integrate more fun tricks we learned in class. But, aside from that we played some music and paced ourselves to fulfill the assignment. Ideally, I wanted to incorporate machine learning into the sketch for reasons that it would also take care of my this weeks assignment but alas, no time. Also I was so hungry I chose the dumplings by color and my diet has been largely Pescatarian for over a year. Sooo, that threw an interesting loop to digestive system later.
A little touch base on my final project. So it's a definite yes that I want to combine pcomp and icm. I also have been doing so many accelerated group projects recently so I'd prefer to work alone and control my own pace. I'm also pretty far a long my concept where I just want to build! I've been spending the past week sourcing parts that I need, for the cheapest option possible (Bidding on Ebay, or Haggling for that best price.)
It may come to a time where my pcomp and icm blog posts will become more of the same. And in that case I might combine those as well once the project becomes a functioning concept. I'm all here for efficiency.
To go back on machine learning, I started by setting up the example sketch from the ML5 site. I wanted to use the style transfer program using the webcam to create a collage of these altered photos. However, after setting up everything in p5, I get an endless load when I begin the style transfer. Not sure how to diagnose the problem, but no errors are being thrown.
10.31.2018
It's the Final Countdown
Still the same idea, but more simplified. A large interactive paper fan.
You know, it's easy to let an idea fester in your mind when there is no tangible concept being created. I've been hunting the eBay pages for good servos. I found one that I wanted to try that looks promising. I did some light math on the torque and found it could lift about 3-4 iphones at about my arms length. I was just using my work test devices at the time. So, I could work with that ballpark range and scale down the size if I need to or choose a lighter material. If only this guy wasn't so snobby about the price. I tried to offer a reasonable $30 because it is pretty used and the wire is a little exposed. Yet, he only dropped it down to $45. Granted the servo retails for $100 new. Half the battle is getting a good price. It's in my blood (thanks mom). Anyway, while I go back and forth with this guy on eBay, back to my final project idea/design.
When I originally came up with this idea it was quite complex. Multiple fans, lights, arrangements and even fiber optic cables. You know, I don't even need the fiber optic cables anymore but now I have a spool hidden in the dark corners of my cramped locker. Along with my prototype and paints.
After discussing my idea with plenty of students and staff I decided I wanted to do simple well. One fan, my "biggest fan" I like to call it. And I want the movements to be precise and articulate (hence hunting for a discounted higher-end servo). Servo city still hasn't gotten back to me on my educational discount request but after seeing some servo mishap during the midterm I think a frame to take the load off the actual servo would be a worth while investment.
As for the size, of course I'd like it to be big and elegant to make an impact. However, I'll only be able to test the real world capabilities once I get the servo driving it. I might cave in the next week and buy one of the used ones for $45 dollars. It's kind of essential to the mechanics of the whole thing. Having the servo as my limiter will give me a design constraint which I think will help tame my appetite for a huge installation.
I want the final to be a truly finalized form of my concept. While yes I would love to make a 50 foot fan do the same thing, if I can have a spot on representation of it in a scaled down form perform extremely well, I'd be happy. I decided to toss out the idea of having too many things going on and the potential for it to look more like a prototype than a conceptual build.
I already have a little interface shell built on p5. Now I have to also focus on that. I've been using my ICM assignments to help me formulate an idea for that portion.
The last bit is the actual human interaction. Which I've still to decide on. But the way I look at it is. If I can build both the digital side and the hardware side. While I test it out in a real world scenario, I'll find the right input idea to really bring out what I feel. I've already used various input devices for other projects, so all I gotta do is pick one that I like.
All in all, I'm confident, just a little tired and worn. As we all are.
You know, it's easy to let an idea fester in your mind when there is no tangible concept being created. I've been hunting the eBay pages for good servos. I found one that I wanted to try that looks promising. I did some light math on the torque and found it could lift about 3-4 iphones at about my arms length. I was just using my work test devices at the time. So, I could work with that ballpark range and scale down the size if I need to or choose a lighter material. If only this guy wasn't so snobby about the price. I tried to offer a reasonable $30 because it is pretty used and the wire is a little exposed. Yet, he only dropped it down to $45. Granted the servo retails for $100 new. Half the battle is getting a good price. It's in my blood (thanks mom). Anyway, while I go back and forth with this guy on eBay, back to my final project idea/design.
When I originally came up with this idea it was quite complex. Multiple fans, lights, arrangements and even fiber optic cables. You know, I don't even need the fiber optic cables anymore but now I have a spool hidden in the dark corners of my cramped locker. Along with my prototype and paints.
After discussing my idea with plenty of students and staff I decided I wanted to do simple well. One fan, my "biggest fan" I like to call it. And I want the movements to be precise and articulate (hence hunting for a discounted higher-end servo). Servo city still hasn't gotten back to me on my educational discount request but after seeing some servo mishap during the midterm I think a frame to take the load off the actual servo would be a worth while investment.
As for the size, of course I'd like it to be big and elegant to make an impact. However, I'll only be able to test the real world capabilities once I get the servo driving it. I might cave in the next week and buy one of the used ones for $45 dollars. It's kind of essential to the mechanics of the whole thing. Having the servo as my limiter will give me a design constraint which I think will help tame my appetite for a huge installation.
I want the final to be a truly finalized form of my concept. While yes I would love to make a 50 foot fan do the same thing, if I can have a spot on representation of it in a scaled down form perform extremely well, I'd be happy. I decided to toss out the idea of having too many things going on and the potential for it to look more like a prototype than a conceptual build.
I already have a little interface shell built on p5. Now I have to also focus on that. I've been using my ICM assignments to help me formulate an idea for that portion.
The last bit is the actual human interaction. Which I've still to decide on. But the way I look at it is. If I can build both the digital side and the hardware side. While I test it out in a real world scenario, I'll find the right input idea to really bring out what I feel. I've already used various input devices for other projects, so all I gotta do is pick one that I like.
All in all, I'm confident, just a little tired and worn. As we all are.
10.30.2018
A reintroduction into music
There is always a sense of time travel when I go back into my old music logs. It reminds me of a time and place that is no longer present to me, just a fading memory. Like how light dims as the power drains, so do the images in my brain.
Speaking of old times here is a song I recorded in my old apartment while I had a couple beers. It was by far the most creative my lyrics have been to date. And I'm proud to say they weren't all sad stories about how I was staring at the ceiling one day thinking about heartbreak or something equally upsetting:
Anyway, looking for sound inspiration. I think I fried my brain a little last weekend with thoughts of a normal quiet life by a pond of koi fish. Maybe it was the image of temperatures hitting the lower 70s, sun on my face and the breeze blowing over my shaven head. Tantalizing.
This Monday proved difficult as I started my animation class and felt the burden of my workload just exponentially increase. Ha yea, let's do paper cut-outs. Which, I hope I don't end up doing the bulk of. I'll keep that part out of my animation post.
So back to p5 and finding inspiration. I thought I could build off the fan concept that I first started when I had this confident Epiphany of this beautifully elegant fan that would open like like a flower blossoming on adrenaline. I still dream about it but I feel tired everyday thinking about it and just want to dive in. Am I putting too much thought on trying to make these assignments relevant to me? Maybe I should just learn a small function and, you know, if I run into a project where I have to use some of these skills I'll be like, "I kinda know that shit..." and then go to "maybe I should research it more". I think that's how I'll truly learn the material, when there is a bit more passion behind it.
So here I am trying to find passionate portals of my past life in recordings of old music that I made in either my bedroom in Jersey with my parents outside probably thinking "he should be practicing computer science and become a wealthy programmer so we don't have to worry about bailing him out of debt when we are too old. Least that's what my self-confidence told me.
I feel like typing these keys is like dancing on those colored arrows on Dance Dance Revolution. I was never good at that arcade game. Well, I was good at the finger one using the keyboard arrows, because let's be real, pressing four keys on a keyboard is far easier than moving your feet in this weird pattern that only robots walk like. Am I some kind of robot? No, I am a sleep deprived grad student with a job he doesn't quite want to be in but he has to because life is expensive and I like to eat food.
But enough with my sad blabber into the wind. I want to make a visualizer to my music. But there is already so much code available to make a visualizer. I could copy it and change a few variable names and it would be mine. Isn't that what we are suppose to do? Or do we have to make things unreasonably difficult to come up with a lackluster result. I tried making my nice little fan arc interface react to the music. Which, I got it to work but it somehow changed how the arc reacted. I'm not complaining, it looks pretty cool for being so simple. However, I couldn't progress any farther than that. What if I wanted to add another layer? Like...mids? Highs? All the other elements to sound that would add more tantalizing visual effects like a digital LSD trip.
I'm going to digress again for a moment and say that a lot of the younger IMA students like to say the word "trippy". I found this was common with one of my friends younger sisters who is slightly older than these new undergrads. Is trippy a juvenile way of saying something they cannot comprehend? I don't use that word anymore...I mean I did, when I was 18. I think? But I wouldn't remember when I dropped that phrase. I dated a woman then who liked to use the word groovy. So I tried to bring "far out" back. But I digress. I went to Ithaca. That should explain a lot to whoever is familiar with that area.
After taking Visual Language I have a lot of gripes with this blogger format. It makes me feel dated, but I like to keep the Intergalactic Shoe Store alive with my late night rants and the potential for some great project ideas in this one weird slightly damp area of the internet.
View my Sketch
Speaking of old times here is a song I recorded in my old apartment while I had a couple beers. It was by far the most creative my lyrics have been to date. And I'm proud to say they weren't all sad stories about how I was staring at the ceiling one day thinking about heartbreak or something equally upsetting:
Anyway, looking for sound inspiration. I think I fried my brain a little last weekend with thoughts of a normal quiet life by a pond of koi fish. Maybe it was the image of temperatures hitting the lower 70s, sun on my face and the breeze blowing over my shaven head. Tantalizing.
This Monday proved difficult as I started my animation class and felt the burden of my workload just exponentially increase. Ha yea, let's do paper cut-outs. Which, I hope I don't end up doing the bulk of. I'll keep that part out of my animation post.
So back to p5 and finding inspiration. I thought I could build off the fan concept that I first started when I had this confident Epiphany of this beautifully elegant fan that would open like like a flower blossoming on adrenaline. I still dream about it but I feel tired everyday thinking about it and just want to dive in. Am I putting too much thought on trying to make these assignments relevant to me? Maybe I should just learn a small function and, you know, if I run into a project where I have to use some of these skills I'll be like, "I kinda know that shit..." and then go to "maybe I should research it more". I think that's how I'll truly learn the material, when there is a bit more passion behind it.
So here I am trying to find passionate portals of my past life in recordings of old music that I made in either my bedroom in Jersey with my parents outside probably thinking "he should be practicing computer science and become a wealthy programmer so we don't have to worry about bailing him out of debt when we are too old. Least that's what my self-confidence told me.
I feel like typing these keys is like dancing on those colored arrows on Dance Dance Revolution. I was never good at that arcade game. Well, I was good at the finger one using the keyboard arrows, because let's be real, pressing four keys on a keyboard is far easier than moving your feet in this weird pattern that only robots walk like. Am I some kind of robot? No, I am a sleep deprived grad student with a job he doesn't quite want to be in but he has to because life is expensive and I like to eat food.
But enough with my sad blabber into the wind. I want to make a visualizer to my music. But there is already so much code available to make a visualizer. I could copy it and change a few variable names and it would be mine. Isn't that what we are suppose to do? Or do we have to make things unreasonably difficult to come up with a lackluster result. I tried making my nice little fan arc interface react to the music. Which, I got it to work but it somehow changed how the arc reacted. I'm not complaining, it looks pretty cool for being so simple. However, I couldn't progress any farther than that. What if I wanted to add another layer? Like...mids? Highs? All the other elements to sound that would add more tantalizing visual effects like a digital LSD trip.
I'm going to digress again for a moment and say that a lot of the younger IMA students like to say the word "trippy". I found this was common with one of my friends younger sisters who is slightly older than these new undergrads. Is trippy a juvenile way of saying something they cannot comprehend? I don't use that word anymore...I mean I did, when I was 18. I think? But I wouldn't remember when I dropped that phrase. I dated a woman then who liked to use the word groovy. So I tried to bring "far out" back. But I digress. I went to Ithaca. That should explain a lot to whoever is familiar with that area.
After taking Visual Language I have a lot of gripes with this blogger format. It makes me feel dated, but I like to keep the Intergalactic Shoe Store alive with my late night rants and the potential for some great project ideas in this one weird slightly damp area of the internet.
View my Sketch
10.17.2018
10.10.2018
A Miller High Life
Sunday was filled with the outdoors and relaxation. I spent time with a friend and we ran through Prospect Park. Neither of us had ran all year so just a little pain in the legs the next day, or two. After we parted ways I'm not sure what I did. Perhaps I cleaned my room. Sometimes my rest days are only a haze.
When night started to fall I thought about a painting I started a while ago, before classes started. I bought two beers at the bodega. Coney Island pilsner and a Miller High Life or the "Champagne of Beers" spoken from one of my best friends from high school. He's Swedish. I drank the Coney while I danced and then when I tired out I turned to the painting sitting on my laptop stand on the coffee table beside my bed.
I've always liked impressionism, how the contrast between colors gave way to an image. It was otherworldly. To have something lo-res but detailed at the same time. I patted a few brush strokes on the background. Halfway through I cracked open the Miller. It was refreshing. Some argue that light beer doesn't taste good but I think this is the perfect moment for one. End of the night and cozy under the hue of a lamp fixture that took me weeks to find the right bulb to emulate that feeling of intimacy and accuracy.
My eyes started to sink and I decided to cap my progress for the night. Another time, when the moment is right, I'll pick it back up again and add another swatch. I sat by the end of my bed, legs up on the mattress and head on the floor. As I stared at my ceiling I felt at peace. There is a Japanese fan pinned up above my bed. I bought it seven years ago during the sweltering heat of Tokyo summer. I was inspired by a business man on the train. He fanned himself until the A/C alone was enough. He snapped the fan closed and placed it the front pocket of his blazer. The entire motion without a second thought. I thought that subtlety was beautiful and effortless. I wanted to be able to do that. So, I went out to find my own. Not one with noisy patterns. One with a black bamboo handle. A deep blue accordion with a subtle stripes of white on the creases of the fan. A single red stripe accented the white.
Then, I took out my phone:
I saw an idea for a concept. My final project. I decided to sleep on the idea.
The next day I had work off. I slept in. It was unusual to go straight to school after I woke up. I've been so used to my routine of work then school that I didn't really know what to do. There were no classes on Monday and even if I had so much time to do my other work, I couldn't get the concept I thought of last night out of my head. I told people on the floor about my weekend and naturally I said. "I have an idea for my final project." I tried articulating it, but it's only very clear in my head. In reality it's a lot of hand motions and talk about I need to start buying parts now.
***
I've always liked impressionism, how the contrast between colors gave way to an image. It was otherworldly. To have something lo-res but detailed at the same time. I patted a few brush strokes on the background. Halfway through I cracked open the Miller. It was refreshing. Some argue that light beer doesn't taste good but I think this is the perfect moment for one. End of the night and cozy under the hue of a lamp fixture that took me weeks to find the right bulb to emulate that feeling of intimacy and accuracy.
My eyes started to sink and I decided to cap my progress for the night. Another time, when the moment is right, I'll pick it back up again and add another swatch. I sat by the end of my bed, legs up on the mattress and head on the floor. As I stared at my ceiling I felt at peace. There is a Japanese fan pinned up above my bed. I bought it seven years ago during the sweltering heat of Tokyo summer. I was inspired by a business man on the train. He fanned himself until the A/C alone was enough. He snapped the fan closed and placed it the front pocket of his blazer. The entire motion without a second thought. I thought that subtlety was beautiful and effortless. I wanted to be able to do that. So, I went out to find my own. Not one with noisy patterns. One with a black bamboo handle. A deep blue accordion with a subtle stripes of white on the creases of the fan. A single red stripe accented the white.
Then, I took out my phone:
I saw an idea for a concept. My final project. I decided to sleep on the idea.
***
The next day I had work off. I slept in. It was unusual to go straight to school after I woke up. I've been so used to my routine of work then school that I didn't really know what to do. There were no classes on Monday and even if I had so much time to do my other work, I couldn't get the concept I thought of last night out of my head. I told people on the floor about my weekend and naturally I said. "I have an idea for my final project." I tried articulating it, but it's only very clear in my head. In reality it's a lot of hand motions and talk about I need to start buying parts now.
I started ordering a few parts that I knew I would need. And I could use them for other projects too. The materials to build the installation will come later once I find a concrete concept. I'm debating whether to make it 360 degrees or a horizontal piece, with cascading fans, almost like waves. It'll come to me once I start to piece it little by little. Where I will derive my input is also something i've been pondering about. Should it be musical? A direct input from an analog instrument to create even more of a performance? Or universal, so anyone who approaches can interact and make it feel personal to them. Both? These are questions I will keep in mind as the weeks go by.
It's all a work in progress.
Overthought Lines
So, looking at past examples of the postcard designs, about 50% had a sandwich in them. I decided to keep the sandwich.
I started off simple, then was like no...that doesn't look right. Nor does that. And I used pen. Which it looks so nice when you get it right. But when you get it wrong...damn it's hard to fix a hard black line going in the wrong direction. This is like "destructive editing" in Photoshop...which I also do out of bad habit because it takes longer to make masks and multiple layers. Or at least at the time it feels so.
Maybe I should not use pen.
(To add 3 composition exercise later)
Ha ha, destructive editing at it's best. I overwrote this file already. So the grids are here to stay.
This was more experimental. I wanted to change this text around. But again due to my stellar editing skills i cut up the photo so much that I'd have to start from scratch.
I like this one.
Bee-lieve in Yourself
I went to a K-pop concert over the weekend. A friend of mine had an extra ticket and I thought to myself that would be a new experience. Why not? BTS was playing and this was the first time a major artist from Korea had a tour here in the states. Gotta represent my Asian brethren.
My mom is Filipino.
Well, after the trek to Queens Citi Field we grabbed a bite to eat because I was so hungry I could of had a small hotdog eating contest. I settled with the 'shroom burger at Shake Shack and wayyy to manny fries. I even kept eating other peoples fries after they turned cold. I couldn't stop. It was a french fry loop with no stop condition.
Then the band emerged with fireworks, smoke, dazzling lights. The audience purchased these handheld light objects that seemed to work in sync. I'm guessing, location sensor to run a coordinated light show. All I kept thinking was ICM ICM P COMP P COMP.
So back to bees. Bees are objects, flowers are objects....I am an object? Sounds a little lacking when I use it to describe real life things. I started this assignment in last class knowing I wanted to control the direction of the bee. MouseX and Y was the easiest to program. While it would be fun to turn the orientation of the bee with the keys, change speed based on how long each key was pressed, and then add some cool effects, my main focus was to make my object look like something familiar and not turn my brain into mash potatoes this week. The initial bee was easy to create. But I wanted something extra –moving wings. This is where my brain was tested in math, for 2 hours before I found the eureka moment and made the wings stay on the bee for one, then I could change the speed they flapped at with a few tweaks.
(I wish I could insert my reaction to when it finally worked, maybe I should set up a reaction cam while I code to capture these moments)
The rest was the flowers the bee would interact with. Originally nice purple orbs, I wanted something to look like a flower. Aha! I'll just use an image of one.
While I knew how to call a single object. To call multiple ones in an array was a little abstract for me. My previous projects did not have a need for "For Loops" but with creating multiples of one object, it was kind of unavoidable.
I looked at previous examples of arrays, and got it to work for my program. But...looking at it... I get it, but it still needs some time to sink in. I decided to backtrack a bit and relearn the foundation. Breaking it back down to a "While Loop" on a notepad seemed to help me visualize what-did-what. I re-watched some of the earlier video tutorials and it cleared it up a little more. I just need to keep using arrays until it becomes a muscle memory. They make my life easier and they are important. Right?
Anyway, I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished. It's got a little of a story. I named the variables some fun terminology to help me remember what did what. As the game progresses it kind of makes a beautiful picture full of flowers.
My Bee Program
I like it!
As a bonus here is a bunch of girls losing their shit at this neat dance move:
My mom is Filipino.
Well, after the trek to Queens Citi Field we grabbed a bite to eat because I was so hungry I could of had a small hotdog eating contest. I settled with the 'shroom burger at Shake Shack and wayyy to manny fries. I even kept eating other peoples fries after they turned cold. I couldn't stop. It was a french fry loop with no stop condition.
Then the band emerged with fireworks, smoke, dazzling lights. The audience purchased these handheld light objects that seemed to work in sync. I'm guessing, location sensor to run a coordinated light show. All I kept thinking was ICM ICM P COMP P COMP.
So back to bees. Bees are objects, flowers are objects....I am an object? Sounds a little lacking when I use it to describe real life things. I started this assignment in last class knowing I wanted to control the direction of the bee. MouseX and Y was the easiest to program. While it would be fun to turn the orientation of the bee with the keys, change speed based on how long each key was pressed, and then add some cool effects, my main focus was to make my object look like something familiar and not turn my brain into mash potatoes this week. The initial bee was easy to create. But I wanted something extra –moving wings. This is where my brain was tested in math, for 2 hours before I found the eureka moment and made the wings stay on the bee for one, then I could change the speed they flapped at with a few tweaks.
(I wish I could insert my reaction to when it finally worked, maybe I should set up a reaction cam while I code to capture these moments)
The rest was the flowers the bee would interact with. Originally nice purple orbs, I wanted something to look like a flower. Aha! I'll just use an image of one.
While I knew how to call a single object. To call multiple ones in an array was a little abstract for me. My previous projects did not have a need for "For Loops" but with creating multiples of one object, it was kind of unavoidable.
I looked at previous examples of arrays, and got it to work for my program. But...looking at it... I get it, but it still needs some time to sink in. I decided to backtrack a bit and relearn the foundation. Breaking it back down to a "While Loop" on a notepad seemed to help me visualize what-did-what. I re-watched some of the earlier video tutorials and it cleared it up a little more. I just need to keep using arrays until it becomes a muscle memory. They make my life easier and they are important. Right?
Anyway, I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished. It's got a little of a story. I named the variables some fun terminology to help me remember what did what. As the game progresses it kind of makes a beautiful picture full of flowers.
My Bee Program
I like it!
As a bonus here is a bunch of girls losing their shit at this neat dance move:
10.04.2018
Pots n' Caps, Pots n' Caps, Pots n' Caps
I took a different approach to this week's assignments. While the things we are building now are rather simple, simple things can have a large impact depending on the context. This is my Visual Language lecture starting to bleed into P comp. Also, another way of thinking I started: If this doesn't work, what will? Troubleshooting has always been a good way for me to learn the material. It can be frustrating to have expectations and things not turn out the way you'd like. However, the journey and what you learn in the process is always the most important. Let's be real, it's been a month of school and we are treading far from our comfort zones in as sorts of ways. To be more nerdy, brain interference. If we can put some low and high pass filters to tune into the thoughts we only need to hear, wouldn't that be nice?
Each week, while the progress might look meager, a lot is covered, and a lot is learned. It will come up in the most unexpected ways. Like next time I run into bad pots (I think I'm authorized to use the lingo now, mostly because I never knew how to pronounce potentiometer). Also now I know how those things worked...I used them in guitars and sound equipment all the time with caps (yea, capacitors too!) was kind of mind blowing. A variable resistor huh? It makes sense and I was able to wire one from the shop without thinking about the terminals because It was familiar.
In one of the labs a lot of people used a light sensing resistor. I didn't have one off hand so I used a temperature sensor to emulate the changes in the HIGH and LOW voltages emitted from the digital PWM from my arduino.
The code is relatively the same, but it needs a control value to be set first and the heat of my hand will leave an after affect. I think with some more calibration and sensors I could use this "sense of touch" that is left after I release my hand from the sensor to form a digital footprint. It is not as immediate as light and I kind of like that. The fade from the dropping voltages as the sensor went back to room temp was nice.
Next, I developed ideas and I wanted to use a motor, and started to sketch out ideas in my notebook of spinning light show. Then, I realized I needed 9v and I didn't think this simple idea was worth the application of making a voltage converter from a wall plug-in. And decent 9v batteries are a rarity on the floor.
So I went back to mechanical objects with lower voltages, aka the servo. I wrote the code first, since I knew it'd be rather simple. Then, I was what can I use a servo for. I thought, duh, an arm. But what will that arm do?
Still thinking of "what" I built the circuit and got some fun interference. The servo started moving erratically, only sometimes following the input from the potentiometer. Even when I wasn't touching anything it would spaz and convulse like it was possessed. I started unplugging things from the board to find the source of the problem. I tried multiple potentiometers from my kit and another servo but it was still acting the same. David (Dah-veed) suggested to hard-code the angles to the servo. Thanks man! This is a return for my advice one his handle bar project where he was making his life 100% more difficult. So, without even altering the code I checked the serial monitor and sure enough it was spitting out random angles while everything was untouched. I sighed and grabbed a pot from the shelf and soldered it to the board and viola! A beautifully smooth motion from my servo. Enough to make it dance:
By this point I'm tired and so was everyone else, we started forming soldering partners where we would help each other solder. The more hands you got, the easier it is, always! Especially, when your brain is moving at 10%
So you can tell that my concept stemmed from a tired brain as well. I wanted the servo arm to replicate Gandolf in Lord of the Rings and when the arm went down, it would make a staff hit the ground and light up. It'd be decked out with paper cut outs and if I wanted to get real fancy, maybe some sound effects too. But... what I ended up with was a bunch of incorrectly soldered LED lights, and a magnet that was a little too strong.
I soldered this LED for Digital output. However, what I built off of was a magnetic switch from earlier. Which doesn't need much more than a circuit to be completed.
Then of course, I soldered in the 220 ohm resistor on the wrong side of the LED. Later realizing I could have just kept that on the board...but you know. I knew it'd still light up so I went ahead and tested the bare bones.
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS" Now...just imagine a nice graphical overlay over the feeble resistor wire smashing into the ground.
You know I was excited to make a Gandalf out of paper too (or something else!). Maybe he will be active participate in another project.
Each week, while the progress might look meager, a lot is covered, and a lot is learned. It will come up in the most unexpected ways. Like next time I run into bad pots (I think I'm authorized to use the lingo now, mostly because I never knew how to pronounce potentiometer). Also now I know how those things worked...I used them in guitars and sound equipment all the time with caps (yea, capacitors too!) was kind of mind blowing. A variable resistor huh? It makes sense and I was able to wire one from the shop without thinking about the terminals because It was familiar.
In one of the labs a lot of people used a light sensing resistor. I didn't have one off hand so I used a temperature sensor to emulate the changes in the HIGH and LOW voltages emitted from the digital PWM from my arduino.
The code is relatively the same, but it needs a control value to be set first and the heat of my hand will leave an after affect. I think with some more calibration and sensors I could use this "sense of touch" that is left after I release my hand from the sensor to form a digital footprint. It is not as immediate as light and I kind of like that. The fade from the dropping voltages as the sensor went back to room temp was nice.
Next, I developed ideas and I wanted to use a motor, and started to sketch out ideas in my notebook of spinning light show. Then, I realized I needed 9v and I didn't think this simple idea was worth the application of making a voltage converter from a wall plug-in. And decent 9v batteries are a rarity on the floor.
So I went back to mechanical objects with lower voltages, aka the servo. I wrote the code first, since I knew it'd be rather simple. Then, I was what can I use a servo for. I thought, duh, an arm. But what will that arm do?
Still thinking of "what" I built the circuit and got some fun interference. The servo started moving erratically, only sometimes following the input from the potentiometer. Even when I wasn't touching anything it would spaz and convulse like it was possessed. I started unplugging things from the board to find the source of the problem. I tried multiple potentiometers from my kit and another servo but it was still acting the same. David (Dah-veed) suggested to hard-code the angles to the servo. Thanks man! This is a return for my advice one his handle bar project where he was making his life 100% more difficult. So, without even altering the code I checked the serial monitor and sure enough it was spitting out random angles while everything was untouched. I sighed and grabbed a pot from the shelf and soldered it to the board and viola! A beautifully smooth motion from my servo. Enough to make it dance:
By this point I'm tired and so was everyone else, we started forming soldering partners where we would help each other solder. The more hands you got, the easier it is, always! Especially, when your brain is moving at 10%
So you can tell that my concept stemmed from a tired brain as well. I wanted the servo arm to replicate Gandolf in Lord of the Rings and when the arm went down, it would make a staff hit the ground and light up. It'd be decked out with paper cut outs and if I wanted to get real fancy, maybe some sound effects too. But... what I ended up with was a bunch of incorrectly soldered LED lights, and a magnet that was a little too strong.
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS" Now...just imagine a nice graphical overlay over the feeble resistor wire smashing into the ground.
You know I was excited to make a Gandalf out of paper too (or something else!). Maybe he will be active participate in another project.
10.02.2018
Paper Dreams
New week, new me. This week I took advantage of the assignment to step away from the computer light I dazzle my eyes with all day long. I started with Photoshop and just realized I was replicating everything I would do by hand. So, I hopped over to the art store down the street and found my color palette there.
I also recently purchased a notebook. I know, I'm going real old school here.
To make 6 square compositions comprised of 6 colors that describe me.
I listed things I liked and tried to throw in some adjectives for each.
This would be the foundation of what I ended up cutting out on paper.
I started cutting out shapes, and textures I felt would emulate my ideas. Of course, If I ran into anything that looked nice it didn't really matter what the idea was previously. I actually even liked how these were placed on the cutting board. I told my friend Nick, "I like this the way it is...DONE!" Haha, just kidding.
Dividing up this board into 6 sections of 6x6in squares I started posting my compositions from top left to right. Does it emulate a story of sorts? Maybe, but it looks nice using the same color palette throughout. Even if they are separate compositions I used elements left over from each to further bring some unison. I also kept the lines in between each square invisible to make it easily seen as one big piece instead of 6 smaller ones.
Towards the bottom 3 compositions I was starting to lose it slightly by yelling out "lines, shapes, I need them!" As my cutting got faster and the blade dulled the pieces became simpler and more abstract.
I also recently purchased a notebook. I know, I'm going real old school here.
I listed things I liked and tried to throw in some adjectives for each.
This would be the foundation of what I ended up cutting out on paper.
Clean up
You'd think JavaScript would only teach you fun things on a computer. There is always that personality type that is drawn to fractal imagery and colors oozing into those pixels. But what did I do this week?
Clean up your code, maybe clean up your life too?
When looking at code it is easy to keep adding more ifs, thats, when-whatevers to make it do unusual things. But you know, I'm starting to equate this to a kid who took too many drugs at a music festival because they knew all the "right" people. Those sporadic movements and otherworldly expressions start to lose meaning to the outside world, and thus a very internal pleasure.
While you mule over the phrase internal pleasure, let me tell you about my days off. I've found that I have so little time during the week to accomplish anything for myself. Then I look at my room, with clothes thrown around and objects that were stuffed in my pockets laid out on every elevated surface I could find.
I'm looking at it this way, yes my room serves a purpose to house me for a few hours of sleep and gives me tools necessary to change my appearance...but are those little crumpled receipts under the table, or the lone army of single socks growing in the alcoves affecting me? Like, pieces of incomplete code or variables so ambiguous they start to play hide-and-seek with your mind.
These past two weeks I've invested time to organize. It seems counter intuitive to have a clutter following around in your wake because one way or another you are going to have to deal with it. Starting with my closet I put dividers IN my drawers. My socks have a place, my underwear, my shirts organized by type, baskets containing scarves, and another bin for towels. What breeze it has been to wake up and pull open a drawer and be like "ahh" like a Sprite commercial. This is the only time I feel like Lebron.
Clearing the stuff lurking beyond the folds of my brain leaves refreshed spirit. Instead of, wow my room I should clean it or wow this bathroom...what world did you emerge from? It can be like, oh shit, I have to pay rent and clean up my code.
Whatever the deal is with how we think, we all reach a capacity. Thoughts are energy and you only have so much. So why not invest in not having to think about the mundane to make something brilliant?
I appreciate clean code as much as clean room. I want that fluidity and fresh air in everything I do.
So here's the code I wrote previously. To try and clean up each function I used the comments I made for their names. I wanted three:
fish_turnaround();
background_grad();
fish_touch_sand();
I started off on the wrong foot and put the functions in set-up and would get an error:
But looking at the example we did in class, I was able to put the functions in set-up. I'm guessing is that they were objects? I looked at another classmate's example and they put their functions in draw so I tried that.
And eureka I got it to work! Well, the first two functions. Once I put the fish_touch_sand(); I got only the gradient screen. Which confuses me. The other two work fine on their own...am I missing something?
I commented out the background command and found where my things were hiding...sorta
Haha, just fixed it. Go me, real time troubleshooting:
Order matters! Organize Organize Organize.
Clean up your code, maybe clean up your life too?
When looking at code it is easy to keep adding more ifs, thats, when-whatevers to make it do unusual things. But you know, I'm starting to equate this to a kid who took too many drugs at a music festival because they knew all the "right" people. Those sporadic movements and otherworldly expressions start to lose meaning to the outside world, and thus a very internal pleasure.
While you mule over the phrase internal pleasure, let me tell you about my days off. I've found that I have so little time during the week to accomplish anything for myself. Then I look at my room, with clothes thrown around and objects that were stuffed in my pockets laid out on every elevated surface I could find.
I'm looking at it this way, yes my room serves a purpose to house me for a few hours of sleep and gives me tools necessary to change my appearance...but are those little crumpled receipts under the table, or the lone army of single socks growing in the alcoves affecting me? Like, pieces of incomplete code or variables so ambiguous they start to play hide-and-seek with your mind.
These past two weeks I've invested time to organize. It seems counter intuitive to have a clutter following around in your wake because one way or another you are going to have to deal with it. Starting with my closet I put dividers IN my drawers. My socks have a place, my underwear, my shirts organized by type, baskets containing scarves, and another bin for towels. What breeze it has been to wake up and pull open a drawer and be like "ahh" like a Sprite commercial. This is the only time I feel like Lebron.
Clearing the stuff lurking beyond the folds of my brain leaves refreshed spirit. Instead of, wow my room I should clean it or wow this bathroom...what world did you emerge from? It can be like, oh shit, I have to pay rent and clean up my code.
Whatever the deal is with how we think, we all reach a capacity. Thoughts are energy and you only have so much. So why not invest in not having to think about the mundane to make something brilliant?
I appreciate clean code as much as clean room. I want that fluidity and fresh air in everything I do.
So here's the code I wrote previously. To try and clean up each function I used the comments I made for their names. I wanted three:
fish_turnaround();
background_grad();
fish_touch_sand();
I started off on the wrong foot and put the functions in set-up and would get an error:
I commented out the background command and found where my things were hiding...sorta
Haha, just fixed it. Go me, real time troubleshooting:
Order matters! Organize Organize Organize.
9.27.2018
Traveling Words
Well it's Thursday, right? Ok, I had to check. My mind was a blur this week as I balanced my waking moments with intermittent sleep. Replenished, I'd like to dive into how I grew acquainted with design.
Design to me was always something I was critical of. Even if I didn't know how I was making those decisions. I probably still have a copy of my old resume fresh out of college somewhere laying around. I was applying to a Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn for a bar-back job and I think I used every color and gradient I could find under RGB. Well I didn't get the job because I didn't live nearby and then kinda said I lived in Staten Island, which was still far. In actuality, I was still living in Jersey with my parents and was staying at my girlfriend's grandmas house...in Staten Island. However, the resume did stick out to them and they loved it, as ostentatious as it was.
I worked many odd jobs since graduating, but the one worth mentioning here is my time I spent at the David Zwirner Art Gallery as an intern. It was a lot of coffee runs, artist requests, and some light art handling. Besides being an overworked intern, I was still surrounded by beauty. And it wasn't necessarily the art pieces themselves. It was the layouts they constructed from temporary walls, essentially transforming the space into something completely different depending on the exhibit. I was trusted to build tiny models of the layouts, with smaller replicas of the art to be displayed. I loved it, the aesthetic and even down to the paper that was used.
Fast forwarding a bit, I got a job at Viacom doing digital production work. It would be my home for many years, and still is even now as I work early mornings there to pay for my studies. We were given the the design tasks when the design team was too overwhelmed or not available. Whether it was a massive promo at the top of the site for the most recently aired episode or a "macro" –they were just memes, really, I got a sense of digital design by looking at the templates and fonts used.
Now, here, this Visual Language course is tapping into the light brushes I had with design in my life. It's nice to give definitions and context to things I've been seeing in my head all these years. Occasionally I'll listen to 99% Invisible and Roman Mars nerd out about designs of all shapes and forms.
Anyway, on to travel. Planes, airports and the entire experience involved. I wrote an anecdote in one of my letters asking the school for more money (and if you are reading this, please help me more NYU) about how I'd like to change the experience of flying. Something so beautifully advanced as traveling around the world in under a day above the clouds should not be associated with the stress of long queues and the florescent glow reflecting off peoples disgruntled, anxious, or emotionless faces.
The tradition that permeates at every airport around the world since their first conception. The Boarding Pass, your ticket to the sky. You'd think it'd be like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a golden ticket to something humans have always dreamed of. And maybe if you asked me to do this redesign a 6 years ago I would do something of that nature. But now I have more practical things to consider. What is the most important information that you need to get to your destination. How can you can you create a system that is universal whether you look at your pass, your phone, the screens hanging from the ceiling, the words being called over the loudspeaker, the signs, the maps, the security checkpoints...all of it.
I decided to group information sources together by section. On the left hand side it goes down by what I felt was the most important information first. In many cases things change at the airport. Your flight number is important because that is what is being called on the loudspeakers and on the monitors. Gates change all the time, and having that the main focus can be confusing. It's important but I wouldn't but it on the #1 spot because well, what if it changes and you are in a rush and just quickly glance at your boarding pass and go to the wrong end of the airport? I kept "subject to change" because I feel it's vital information. Seeing a plane takeoff without you is sad. I've flown standby and had this happen to me at Vegas, where I drank a double Gin and lost $20 to a slot machine before they found another seat for me on a plane to go back home. Let's just say the interaction with man at the desk was similar to winning the lottery.
Board time is also important, because once you arrive at your gate, you should know how much time you have before you need to get on the plane. You can browse the shops, go to the bathroom, whatever you need to do, because you have your eye on the time. Departing and Arrival times are more for planning, you shouldn't go by departing time because again, you might miscalculate and end up begging people in the security checkpoint if you can cut them. The destinations are also listed everywhere so anytime there is information being recycled in other forms I think it sticks in the head of the user more.
Now comes the second column. What the hell are those numbers? Do you need them? Probably not for normal travel. This is the information that an employee there would find useful. It's not just about making your end of the transaction easier, but helping their job will make the whole interaction better. Lost a bag? I'm assuming that's your baggage number. Security checkpoint? All they gotta do is look at that section to get the info they need to help you.
The right side always confused me. It made your boarding pass larger than your passport, which I see many people (including myself) use as a bookmark so when they go through security everything they need is on one page. But back to the length, it gets torn and messed up in your pocket or bag and just looks a little tattered after a while. That's not classy. Ever hand in your homework to a teacher all crumpled up, or a resume? No, so why do that here?
But since we are working with the template, let's have a hypothetical situation. If your main boarding pass gets separated from this appendage on the right side, I put in the basic information you need to still figure out how to get around. A more simplified version of the left side will still help you. Maybe you actually want to use that perforated line and tear it off to keep the tab in your wallet. Well, that decision is up to you!
Here is a little peak on what went behind my design process:
Ta da!
Oh, and here are my expressive words! Not much to say about them except animation would make it pretty cool.
Design to me was always something I was critical of. Even if I didn't know how I was making those decisions. I probably still have a copy of my old resume fresh out of college somewhere laying around. I was applying to a Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn for a bar-back job and I think I used every color and gradient I could find under RGB. Well I didn't get the job because I didn't live nearby and then kinda said I lived in Staten Island, which was still far. In actuality, I was still living in Jersey with my parents and was staying at my girlfriend's grandmas house...in Staten Island. However, the resume did stick out to them and they loved it, as ostentatious as it was.
I worked many odd jobs since graduating, but the one worth mentioning here is my time I spent at the David Zwirner Art Gallery as an intern. It was a lot of coffee runs, artist requests, and some light art handling. Besides being an overworked intern, I was still surrounded by beauty. And it wasn't necessarily the art pieces themselves. It was the layouts they constructed from temporary walls, essentially transforming the space into something completely different depending on the exhibit. I was trusted to build tiny models of the layouts, with smaller replicas of the art to be displayed. I loved it, the aesthetic and even down to the paper that was used.
Fast forwarding a bit, I got a job at Viacom doing digital production work. It would be my home for many years, and still is even now as I work early mornings there to pay for my studies. We were given the the design tasks when the design team was too overwhelmed or not available. Whether it was a massive promo at the top of the site for the most recently aired episode or a "macro" –they were just memes, really, I got a sense of digital design by looking at the templates and fonts used.
Now, here, this Visual Language course is tapping into the light brushes I had with design in my life. It's nice to give definitions and context to things I've been seeing in my head all these years. Occasionally I'll listen to 99% Invisible and Roman Mars nerd out about designs of all shapes and forms.
Anyway, on to travel. Planes, airports and the entire experience involved. I wrote an anecdote in one of my letters asking the school for more money (and if you are reading this, please help me more NYU) about how I'd like to change the experience of flying. Something so beautifully advanced as traveling around the world in under a day above the clouds should not be associated with the stress of long queues and the florescent glow reflecting off peoples disgruntled, anxious, or emotionless faces.
The tradition that permeates at every airport around the world since their first conception. The Boarding Pass, your ticket to the sky. You'd think it'd be like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a golden ticket to something humans have always dreamed of. And maybe if you asked me to do this redesign a 6 years ago I would do something of that nature. But now I have more practical things to consider. What is the most important information that you need to get to your destination. How can you can you create a system that is universal whether you look at your pass, your phone, the screens hanging from the ceiling, the words being called over the loudspeaker, the signs, the maps, the security checkpoints...all of it.
I decided to group information sources together by section. On the left hand side it goes down by what I felt was the most important information first. In many cases things change at the airport. Your flight number is important because that is what is being called on the loudspeakers and on the monitors. Gates change all the time, and having that the main focus can be confusing. It's important but I wouldn't but it on the #1 spot because well, what if it changes and you are in a rush and just quickly glance at your boarding pass and go to the wrong end of the airport? I kept "subject to change" because I feel it's vital information. Seeing a plane takeoff without you is sad. I've flown standby and had this happen to me at Vegas, where I drank a double Gin and lost $20 to a slot machine before they found another seat for me on a plane to go back home. Let's just say the interaction with man at the desk was similar to winning the lottery.
Board time is also important, because once you arrive at your gate, you should know how much time you have before you need to get on the plane. You can browse the shops, go to the bathroom, whatever you need to do, because you have your eye on the time. Departing and Arrival times are more for planning, you shouldn't go by departing time because again, you might miscalculate and end up begging people in the security checkpoint if you can cut them. The destinations are also listed everywhere so anytime there is information being recycled in other forms I think it sticks in the head of the user more.
Now comes the second column. What the hell are those numbers? Do you need them? Probably not for normal travel. This is the information that an employee there would find useful. It's not just about making your end of the transaction easier, but helping their job will make the whole interaction better. Lost a bag? I'm assuming that's your baggage number. Security checkpoint? All they gotta do is look at that section to get the info they need to help you.
The right side always confused me. It made your boarding pass larger than your passport, which I see many people (including myself) use as a bookmark so when they go through security everything they need is on one page. But back to the length, it gets torn and messed up in your pocket or bag and just looks a little tattered after a while. That's not classy. Ever hand in your homework to a teacher all crumpled up, or a resume? No, so why do that here?
But since we are working with the template, let's have a hypothetical situation. If your main boarding pass gets separated from this appendage on the right side, I put in the basic information you need to still figure out how to get around. A more simplified version of the left side will still help you. Maybe you actually want to use that perforated line and tear it off to keep the tab in your wallet. Well, that decision is up to you!
Here is a little peak on what went behind my design process:
Ta da!
Oh, and here are my expressive words! Not much to say about them except animation would make it pretty cool.
9.26.2018
Observations of People and Technology
I was stuck in traffic this morning as I rode in a cab. My driver was getting agitated, honking the horn every time the light was green but there was no movement. I've been living in New York for about 4 years now and this has always been a prevalent issue, was traffic. The unpredictability of people's decisions while driving coupled with too many cars in a congested artery gives people road rage and deep sighs.
This took me back to a time when I was talking to a friend about traffic lights. In the suburbs where I grew up sometimes you'd be waiting at an intersection for minutes at the middle of the night. You'd be the only car, but it was just busy enough of a road that if a cop saw you run it, it'd be more trouble than it's worth. They said that some lights have light sensors to detect the cars headlamps at night when the traffic was sparse. We would try flickering the hi-beams on and off in attempt to agitate the sensor and give us the green light. I've also heard in other places that there were pressure sensors on the road to influence when the traffic signals change.
Like any city or town, there is a type of infrastructure, and in this modern day technology is integrated but in a very arbitrary way. And this would boil down more to politics and money. Which is sadly controlling a lot of creative advancements.
Is traffic a problem that cannot be fixed? I thought as my driver raced onto the oncoming lane and veered off the the side street on the left, probably saving us both a good couple minutes of ambient honking.
Honking gives your car a voice, but it really doesn't communicate well when it is impossible to move further. All it says is I'm angry and I want to get out of this hell hole of carbon monoxide clouds.
Perhaps this is more broad of an observation, but if I can pick something out more specifically, it's hard. Do I complain about the length it takes the elevators to arrive on the first floor of the Tisch building? Or how my ID still doesn't work on the stairwell so I have to use the elevator to get onto the floor?
I'm not sure...
Maybe the technology is there, but people are not taught the right way to use them. The most advanced car on the market will still have the same issues as a '69 Camero when placed in the grids of NY during rush hour.
Maybe I'm answering my own question I had earlier this week. How can I create something new in Physical Computing? Maybe the question I should be asking is, how can this appear new to another person so they give it new perspective? Because to me, I see the same servos and wires I've surrounded myself with since young. Lighting something up, making something move, are all actions created from sensors feeding bits of information and a mini computer saying yes or no a few thousand times to speak to them, well, depending on how complex it really is. To put it broadly, I think people have a hard time integrating with technology. Why isn't it all more, human?
This took me back to a time when I was talking to a friend about traffic lights. In the suburbs where I grew up sometimes you'd be waiting at an intersection for minutes at the middle of the night. You'd be the only car, but it was just busy enough of a road that if a cop saw you run it, it'd be more trouble than it's worth. They said that some lights have light sensors to detect the cars headlamps at night when the traffic was sparse. We would try flickering the hi-beams on and off in attempt to agitate the sensor and give us the green light. I've also heard in other places that there were pressure sensors on the road to influence when the traffic signals change.
Like any city or town, there is a type of infrastructure, and in this modern day technology is integrated but in a very arbitrary way. And this would boil down more to politics and money. Which is sadly controlling a lot of creative advancements.
Is traffic a problem that cannot be fixed? I thought as my driver raced onto the oncoming lane and veered off the the side street on the left, probably saving us both a good couple minutes of ambient honking.
Honking gives your car a voice, but it really doesn't communicate well when it is impossible to move further. All it says is I'm angry and I want to get out of this hell hole of carbon monoxide clouds.
Perhaps this is more broad of an observation, but if I can pick something out more specifically, it's hard. Do I complain about the length it takes the elevators to arrive on the first floor of the Tisch building? Or how my ID still doesn't work on the stairwell so I have to use the elevator to get onto the floor?
I'm not sure...
Maybe the technology is there, but people are not taught the right way to use them. The most advanced car on the market will still have the same issues as a '69 Camero when placed in the grids of NY during rush hour.
Maybe I'm answering my own question I had earlier this week. How can I create something new in Physical Computing? Maybe the question I should be asking is, how can this appear new to another person so they give it new perspective? Because to me, I see the same servos and wires I've surrounded myself with since young. Lighting something up, making something move, are all actions created from sensors feeding bits of information and a mini computer saying yes or no a few thousand times to speak to them, well, depending on how complex it really is. To put it broadly, I think people have a hard time integrating with technology. Why isn't it all more, human?
9.25.2018
Coding is Better with Friends
It's dark and rainy, but spirits are high! After a weekend spent with an infected piercing drooling out puss and my newly renovated closet that looks like a Muji ad I feel refreshed and renewed (minus Saturday morning where I thought my lip would fall off my face).
I hung out at the floor Monday afternoon after work and decided to wait until my partner arrived to work on ICM. I watched a little of the movie "Black Panther" while picking at a microwaved bento box.
When Mary Ann arrived, she articulated how she was a little behind and how we shouldn't bother on her code. I was like, nonsense, that's more code than I have. Let's work on that! Her goal was to get the background to shift from these different sea greens and have seaweed wave in the foreground. I found it relaxing and we dove into figuring out how to make the color shift.
Using the knowledge we learned from IF statements I thought we could make a set to cover the color changing background:
We started to make variables for each background, and found that it might have been too much information for the variable, or we just using it the wrong way.
So back to her basic background colors, she wanted to cycle through 3 colors, so we backtracked just trying to make each background appear once.
I thought about the draw function, and how that is a loop. So if we can have something to count each time it loops, we will have something to use for our IF statement. I decided to use the good old X++ variable type. Each time draw was utilized, X would increase by one. And depending on the frame rate, we could control how often X increases by 1. I was reluctant to use something based on frame rate because that might hinder the code if it gets more vast. But then I was like I'm overthinking this, I'm not writing code for an OS.
So we adjusted the frame rate and wrote IF and Else statements. If x was between these values then it the background color is this, so on. Until we get to the end of the IF statement, we reset X back to the 1 so it starts the whole IF statement over again. SO WE GOT A LOOP.
The excitement was real when I threw my hands up after 2 hours of looking at complex functions and code to do what seemed a simple task.
The next step is how do we shift the colors subtly like a gradient. This seemed easier as we just had to give the background some variables that shift every time the Draw loop is initiated.
Once Mary Ann left for work, I found myself lost in a hole trying to get a very simplified goldfish to turn around once it reaches the edge of the frame.
I got it to turn around in many ways, all were quite entertaining but not my image of turn this 2d object around slowly along it's Y axis so it looks 3D.
After becoming brain dead from this 2D ellipse I decided to time the gradient changes to some nice deep breathes. If all else fails this will be a nice meditative color-shift with, perhaps, a sporadic fish of sorts.
Just kidding, I added more and I kept crashing my computer with my sound loop.
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