Final Project Planning- Entry 2

This week we are putting together the physical apparatus for our project. We were conflicted with whether or not the panel was going to split in the center and clear on two sides or whether or not the entire panel would slide to the left or the right. As time constraints always seen to get in the way, we decided to have the panel slide to the left side and clear in that manner. We always seem to get so caught up in aesthetics, but realistically as an artist, I would rather represent myself through what I know and what I can excel at, rather than try to fit into the parameters of a type of artist that i just can't mimic or feel comfortable mimicking. So the commentary around our piece, we feel, will support it and the lack of intricate physical computing surrounding the project will not effect us as artists. We are attempting to comment on the ever persistent limitations behind the digital image. The idea of an image always eventually pixilating into something undecipherable and therefore the amount of control a user has over the imagery is always limited. Evidently technology always maintains some sense of control.

So, we need to make our frame, and the most important aspect of our project, our pixels. When we initially discussed the project we thought about using plastic. But for us, the sound that the piece made, when the pixels cleared was very important. We were more attractive to the sound that wood made compared to plastic or beads or some other type of material. Also we wanted to maintain the cube motif that we seem to always come back to. 200 cubes will, hang from our panel, each stained with a different shade of brown on the four sides that flip. The difficult part about this is that to have a cube sit still, allowing a user to flip to each side and having it sit without returning to one side only, is that the hole we drill, has to be directly in the center. This will be a very sensative process.

Now, another concern we had was in relation to exactly how we were going to suspend the panel, without havnig to attatch it to the gallery wall. We decided to inset the motor into a white box, that would incase any physical parts included in the peice as well as a number of sand bags in the bottom to secure the entire panel into the ground. Two arms would support the panel on the left and right side and rotate from the centr of the piece.

"Primitive" - artist's statment

“Primitive”
Investigating data visualization
Taylor Zorzi

The compulsion to separate yourself from everyday life seems to be a pursuit that most humans share. As an escapist society, we seem to turn towards cinema with a thirst for sexuality and violence. Thus distilling ourselves, if only for a moment, to our most primitive desires. The question isn't “how do I show violence?” but rather “how do I show the spectator his position vis-à-vis violence and its representation?”(Michael Haneke). Inspired by such artist’s work as Haneke’s Funny Games and Nicholas Di Genova’s Children of Poseidon I created a piece with intentions of directly reveling the demand in place for excessive sexuality and violence in cinema created by the viewers lust for these particular themes. Hanke’s Funny Games, an important film in cinematic history because it shows that as an audience we have been accustomed to cinema with very dark undertones and in doing this we have been desensitized to the nature of the acts. Haneke writes with the intent to place feelings of guilt onto the viewer for being attracted to this type of movie. He believes that we foolishly fail to recall the fact that these acts are not only taking place within the limitations of the cinema screen. Nicholas Di Genova’s Children of Poseidon are a group of creatures generated in post apocalyptic time. His creatures have changed roles and taken on new identities and in turn new body parts to survive in a new world. I needed to find the best way to organize and visualize data in such a way that the quantity and intensity of the particular themes in cinema I was intending to investigate are clear, and Genova’s detailed intricate hybridizations, assisted in directing the aesthetics in visualization for this assignment. I created a visual representation of eight actor’s careers. A legend along the side of each print allows the viewer to decipher the tone and direction of each actor’s career based on hybrid visualization. There are specific categories and a scale system to visualize the frequency and intensity of each string of data that I am representing. To emphasis the primal enthusiasm that manifests itself in the viewer when watching violent and sexual cinema I created a hybrid similar to the centaur, as a representation of a human with animalistic characteristics.


As a site for data collection I chose to compile facts from IMDB, or the Internet Movie Database. As IMDB allows for specific keyword searches applicable to acting careers rather than information only specific to a single movie it was possible to search for keywords related specifically to violence and sexuality over the duration of that specific actor’s portfolio. After accumulating a large amount of data proceeding sifting through the plethora of information that IMDB provides for the avid film viewer, I narrowed down the data. I chose eight actors, four females; Holly Hunter, Jodi Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis and four males; Viggo Mortensen, Dennis Hopper, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sylvester Stallone, that according to IMDB acted in the greatest number of films that had the greatest number of violent and sexual keywords in their description. Those keywords, being eight out of the thousands of possible keywords on IMDB that I chose based on the fact that they were the most predominant in those eight actors’ careers; gore, murder, blood, death, female nudity, violence, vulgarity and sex. To visualize these actors’ careers as ones that contained a large amount of sexual and violent content I attributed the descriptive keywords to an animal, demonstrating the savage, unrefined characteristics of an actor invoking such behavior.


As an artist who typically works with installations, performance or video as platforms for creation, I initially wanted to investigate something quite new and create digital imagery generated using the programming language, processing. Processing would have been able to filter data from IMDB, do all of the data collection and fabricate the hybrid all on it’s own with a few clicks of a mouse from the viewer. Yet to do the program using processing, writing the code to analyze the data from IMDB did not only prove to be difficult, but realistically it allowed for far too much of a chance aspect. I wanted control of the visualization and putting this control into the hands of the viewer didn’t allow for the specific aesthetic or even commentary that I wanted to surround the piece take place. Allowing the viewer to have some sense of control once again let the viewer integrate themselves into this world of sexuality and violence instead of segregating the work from the viewer and really introducing the piece to them from an outside point of view. With this said, the medium changed. I decided to create eight individual prints, using stencils and spray paint, giving me, as the artist freedom to arrange the hybrid, as I truly wanted it to appear to the viewer.

PROTOTYPE- Data Visualizations

Since the proposal, things have changed. Not with the data set or the direction of the piece but in regards to the visualization, quite a few changes have been made.

To do the program using processing analyzing the data from imdb was proving not only to be difficult, but realistically was allowing far too much of a chance aspect. The visualization was starting to become more and more appealing to me and I really like the direction of the project and with the limited knowledge I have in processing, it would have been hard to create a piece in the time that is left that I was truly happy with. Really, I wanted to have control of the data set and the visualization rather than let processing do the work for me. With this said I have decided to make eight individual prints. The layout of each print would be identical in the center a visual hybrid of animal and man, the actor and whatever animals would be representative of violent of sexual keywords that were attributed to their acting career. For example the keyword murder would be visually represented with a part of an octopus's body. The color of that body part would be determined by the number of movies in that actors career that contained murder as a descriptive keyword. I will now visualize the piece as a stenciled print. I will be able to control body parts, colors and layout this way. A long the right side of each print would be a legend.



Statement-A visual representation of each actors career, with a legend that allows you to decipher the tone and direction of their career based on a hybrid visualization. With a specific categorization and scale system for the frequency or intensity of each sting of data.

Violent and Sexual Searchable Keywords

GORE
MURDER
BLOOD
DEATH
FEMALE-NUDITY
VIOLENCE
VULGARITY
SEX

Animals to show Primal Characteristics

OCTOPUS
SHARK
TIGER
EAGLE
CROCODILE
SCORPION
CENTIPEDE
SNAKE

The only problem being, how do I make direct connections between the keyword and the assigned animal? Why does an octopus represent murder and so on?

Actors predominately in Sexual/Violent Cinema
Viggo Mortensen
Dennis Hopper
Samuel L Jackson
Sylvester Stallone
Holly Hunter
Jodi Foster
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jamie Lee Curtis

Intensity Based on color scale




EXAMPLE-->
Jamie Lee Curtis- Keywords

Murder-13

1.Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) [Actress]
2.Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981) (TV) [Actress]
3.Escape from New York (1981) [Actress]
4.Roadgames (1981) [Actress]
5.Terror Train (1980) [Actress]
6.Prom Night (1980) [Actress]
7.The Fog (1980) [Actress]
8.Halloween (1978) [Actress]
9.Columbo: Try and Catch Me (1977) (TV) [Actress]
10.Columbo: The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case (1977) (TV) [Actress]
11.Murder at the World Series (1977) (TV) [dialogue coach]
12."Quincy M.E." [Actress]
13.Columbo: Forgotten Lady (1975) (TV) [Actress]

Death-10

1.The Tailor of Panama (2001) [Actress]
2.Virus (1999) [Actress]
3.Fierce Creatures (1997) [Actress]
4.My Girl 2 (1994) [Actress]
5.My Girl (1991) [Actress]
6.Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981) (TV) [Actress]
7.Halloween II (1981) [Actress]
8.Roadgames (1981) [Actress]
9.Terror Train (1980) [Actress]
10.Halloween (1978) [Actress]


Female-Nudity-7

1.Halloween: Resurrection (2002) [Actress]
2.The Tailor of Panama (2001) [Actress]
3.Un homme amoureux (1987) [Actress]
4.Perfect (1985) [Actress]
5.Halloween II (1981) [Actress]
6.Prom Night (1980) [Actress]
7.Halloween (1978) [Actress]

Gore-3

1.Virus (1999) [Actress]
2.Halloween II (1981) [Actress]
3.Terror Train (1980) [Actress]

Violence-5

1.The Tailor of Panama (2001) [Actress]
2.True Lies (1994) [Actress]
3.Halloween II (1981) [Actress]
... aka Halloween II: The Nightmare Isn't Over! (USA: video box title)
4.Prom Night (1980) [Actress]
5.Halloween (1978) [Actress]


Vulgarity-1

1.Trading Places (1983) [Actress]

Blood-5

1.The Tailor of Panama (2001) [Actress]
2.Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) [Actress]
3.Halloween II (1981) [Actress]
4.Terror Train (1980) [Actress]
5.Prom Night (1980) [Actress]

Sex-6

1.The Tailor of Panama (2001) [Actress]
2.A Fish Called Wanda (1988) [Actress]
3.Un homme amoureux (1987) [Actress]
4.Halloween II (1981) [Actress]
5.Prom Night (1980) [Actress]
6.Halloween (1978) [Actress]

FINAL PROJECT PLANNING-ENTRY 1

To start, the small model( to the right) was created for the first assignment of the communication with hybrid environments production section. The assignment was to make a small interactive piece over one week of the course that lead the way in aesthetic and interactive properties for the piece that you would be creating for the final assignment. This model is what I came up with. I was interested in questioning how I could somehow generate interactivity and user independence juxtaposed and ultimately taken over by a tactile control senses that the piece itself would warrant. So now I have a lot of investigating to do. Rebbecca and I have decided to work together once again, as water and wire went over so well. We did not have one creative difference while working on the piece. So we have our first meeting on Tuesday with Steve and I will blog again after that, as I am sure a lot more ideas with be brought to the surface regarding solving technical problems and programming issues, so on and so forth. I obviously have a lot of ideas about aesthetic properties. I was inspired by minimalist sculpture such as Donald Judd's work(untitled) a reoccurring piece that has been created in a multitude of materials from plexi glass to wood to stainless steel and copper.Another inspiration for me is Dan Flavin's work.
The cube is something that has always interested me, simplicity, symmetry and balance included. The cube represents something that has been stripped of any metaphorical relations, it is a neutral object . It always seems to rear it's head as a visual starting point for myself in most of my work. So For this piece I wanted to continue with the tradition of using the geometric shape as a starting point. I first initially thought about creating a drawing space that covered each side of a cube( obviously excluding the bottom). A drawing surface similar to the etch-sketch or abacus. The user would be able to manipulate the surface by moving small beads across a string and create images in each side of the box to create their own piece. Then upon leaving the room the whole piece would wipe clean, all beads would move to one side and the drawing would be evidently erased. The perceived control would no longer be in the hands of the user.

Tree- on perceiving web spaces

Tree is a program that visualizes an algorithm within a HTML page, specified by the user, and then simulates real space, by constructing a number of digital trees placed in an artificial forest within the sketch. Tree accesses source data of a web page through it's URL and transforms the syntax into a tree structure. If I understood the applet correctly, a tree is a representation of a page that is linked off of the original URL that you request to be visualized, then the HTML code that is linked to each of these pages is detected and displayed as a tree like algorithm in the trunk and branches.

I really appreciate the translation between a representation of a navigational space that we are used to seeing online in a web page to something we see every day as a navigational experience, a forest. HTML as a scripting language, has no real depth or space perception when you decipher it, but it bears the ability to take on a new form when examined on the web. I really like the concept, I like the aesthetics and visualization conception, yet I find that it is a little difficult to really understand how the applet is working because of the complexity and scale of the sketch. There is a lot of data being analyzed in a small area, and because of the way that the trees end up overlapping one another so that the visualization looks quite realistic it is hard to determine what really is going into each algorithm. There are small labels at each branch showing what text was visualized but it is very hard to read. If the piece had not been presumably created to be slightly personal, as the search engine allows each user to type in their own URL the detail would probably be overlooked and each little tag would not really be read. But I would assume, as I did, the user would want to know what was being visualized as it came directly from source code that they wrote themselves. Other than that small problem I think the piece is very successful.

I was initially really attracted to the piece because of the interesting aesthetics it is a very attractive sketch. After looking at the amount of data visualisations that we have been in the last few weeks, I feel for myself a piece of this nature is successful when it works on it's own as an image, separate from the data, something visually appealing that attracts the user, not because of the data set but solely because of the graphics. Then when the user is able to interpret the piece as well in terms of the figures that it is representing, then is goes beyond whet the user was expecting.

you can try out the applet here:
http://www.texone.org/tree/tree.php?id=applet

PROPOSAL- data visualization assignment

The compulsion to seperate youself from everyday life seems to be a pursuit that most humans share. As an escapist society, we seem to turn towards cinema with a thirst for sexuality and violence. Thus distilling ourselves, if only for a moment, to our most primitive desires. I plan to organize and visualize data in such a way that the quantity and intensity of these particular themes in cinema is clear within in a specific grouping of actors that I will select. To emphasis the primal enthusiasm that manifests itself in the viewer I intend to create a hybrid similar to the centaur, as a representation of a human with animalistic characteristics.

Compiling Data from IMDB, or the internet movie database, processing will filter information based on 1 input, that being "lead actor". As IMDB allows for specific keyword searches applicable to acting careers rather than information only specific to a single movie it would be possible to search for keywords related specifically to violence and sexuality over the duration of that specific actors portfolio. There would be a plethora of keywords broken down out of those two categories, and each of those specific keywords would be related to a specific animal swatch. The intensity of the world, or the amount of times a specific word would appear for that actor would directly effect the color of the swatch. The images would be pre edited and would be something that would be limited to certain words, so the amount of combinations available would be restrained. The final images would obviously be a misshapen and contorted hybrid, as the positioning in the sketch would be controlled, yet the swatches would not always be perfectly aligned due to size and shape constraints. But I don't necessarily see to much fault in this as it could be favorable to the outcome of the final piece.

Experience Analysis- Stop Motion in the Weston Center

Upon entering the Weston Family Innovation Center at the Ontario Science Center, initially I was quite overwhelmed with the plethora of interactive stations. I was excited to have the opportunity to explore and reflect on each individual station and choose a particular experience that I found interesting enough to analyze and document. Although I found the center fun and interesting, the majority of the experiences had quite a playful juvenile, manner to them. Not that any thing was necessarily at fault because of this, the center is very family oriented but I found that initially I was disappointed with the lack of description for why certain activities were implemented in the way that they were as I was having difficulties making connections between the content and the actual interfaces that were selected. As I made my way through the experiences, I was able to uncover how successful a liar I was, how well I could fabricate my own shoe, what type of chemistry I had with a virtual character and how well I could create a soundtrack that was appropriate to my personal life. After spending about two hours or so in the center Leif, Daniella and I came across an experience where the user has the opportunity to create their own stop motion animation sequence. Each station was comprised of a working space, where the user was expected to create their experience, this acted as the stage for the short animation. There were containers filled with trinkets and gadgets and miniatures that were expected to be utilized as props for the animation. There was a spotlight to change or enhance lighting effects. There was a camera that was there to record the action. There was a spinning wheel, which restricted the content for the animation. There was also a touch LCD screen which controlled camera settings and allowed the user to view the frames as they were being captured. Now as I found that there was a lack of description among some of the other stations this station in opposition had no problem setting out certain individual controlled and guided stations for the experience yet there still failed to be a set out pattern in which you were supposed to go about using the station. If the artist really intended for the users to implement a specific approach to create this piece, for example using the supplied props and spinning the wheel, there needed to be some sort of restriction applied where one section would not engage until the section prior to the event was finished, or simply some sort of written instruction needed to be implemented. But because this was not there, the piece became much more open and personalized for the user, intended or not.











Initially the piece did not really interest me, mainly based on the problems that I mentioned above. There were these controlled stations that made the piece seem too structured, but as you really took the time to extend concepts and manipulate the functions of the station it became quite interesting and amusing. The interesting thing about the station was that it had been set up so that the user could maneuver the spotlight and camera into different positions to alter the style and shots of your film. As this was possible, we decided to eliminate the stage all together and alter the working space to the floor of the Weston center. As a cognitive experience, the sensory reflective elements are seen in the fact that if I jumped through each frame and caught a single moment in time where I was suspended in the air I could virtually create the illusion of flight. Certain behavioural patterns would take place when I decide to place myself in different positions in accordance to where the camera was. If I placed something on the stage, my behaviour would be very isolated from the action in the film as my movements would only be significant to the arrangement of elements. If I moved back and had the entire room be the stage my behavioural patterns would be directly translated in the outcome of the film. The visceral level being the most primitive feelings that we would have had would be in relation to the fact that I can see that there are props to be used, but I think that is too simple so In turn I decided to use the human body. There is an LCD screen in where I see the feedback which I can touch to control my mistakes and edit, this I found good as If i was unhappy with the feedback I could go back and change the process of how I got to that point. Now we became the subjects and we were active in the input and creation of the piece, but also active in that we were the subject matter and we were required to move to create something. There was no real passive position that was taking on by any one that decided to take part in the creation of the film, as even the onlookers were helping pose us and suggesting what should take place in the film. As the three of us were no longer in control of the physical mechanical aspects of the project we needed someone to do that for us, so the initial need to conform that was expected no longer took place. In our final movie, 203 photographs later, we were able to create the illusion of flight as we jumped through each frame of the film. The relationship of the body to the piece differs in the way that you choose to carry out the steps in making a film. If you choose to use the props, your body is externalized from the film, as in each frame captured the action is static. Yet if you decide to create the film in the manner that we did the body is the dominant focus, and movement from the user and the body is completely necessary in carrying out the experience successfully.

RealSnailMail

How slow is too slow? That seems to be the question that Vicky Isley & Paul Smith, members of the boredomresearch team have proposed to answer by means of eight Helix Aspersa snails and eight RFID disc tags attached to each of the snail's shells. In a world where we seem to no longer have to wait for anything, we assume that things happen before our eyes at the click of a mouse. We no longer value the process and the journey that any message we send via email really takes. The snail, seen as such a contradictory method to sending email, really seem to shares some common characteristic of the networked path that we participate in everyday when sending messages over the internet. The only difference is snail mail, in a very literal sense slows down the process, really letting users see the somewhat questionable and uncertain properties that email really can have. After an email seems to whiz from the users computer to realsnailmail.net the process quickly and abruptly slows down as the email is entered into a queue and then assigned to one of the real snails awaiting it’s newest journey in the tank among others. The snail must be in a hot spot where the RFID (radio frequency identification) chip is waiting to be given control over the email. Once the email is assigned to a snail it “slips way into the technological wasteland” as Isley and Smith put it, a representation of the internet or in this case simply a snail tank. The snail must then reach a drop off point at the other end of the tank for the message to be delivered to it’s original recipient. It now carries with it, the details of it’s carrier and it’s long journey from one end of the tank to the other which seems to be taking any where from around 2.5 days to 6 days depending on which snail mail agent your mail is assigned to.

The work initially grabbed by attention via the candid snail mail visuals. I thought that the image of a snail transmitting some sort of data on it’s back was so cleaver in itself just a photographic image really was apiece on it’s own. Then in reading further I realized that really there were a lot of similarities between this project and the networking and communication tools that we had been looking at in class in the past few weeks. Everyone looks for an immediate response, and as we have been finding at times there seems to be some loss in translation and things slow down. This problem always seems to be a technical glitch in the code somewhere or a misinterpreted variable that causes immediate frustration for the user. But what if the sedation of some of this material results in better understanding of the process. As well the use of this snail mail technique puts much more of a personal spin on sending a message as it becomes linked and coupled with something organic, and it brings your message back to a somewhat imperfect system, which is more human then sending you email and just expected that it would get there some day, some time. This allows the sender and the recipient to see really what goes on in the process.

http://www.boredomresearch.net/rsm/index.html