Ideas #2 and #3

Idea #2::

Unnatural Deselection
In this project, I want to map out (using database processing) the deaths in Iraq as they compare to the births in Iraq. Aesthetically, it would be a map with the dots (temporary) representing each point where someone died since the war started and then different dots (temporary) for each birth. Eventually, I would like to add in the ability to mouse over each dot to find out information regarding the length and weight of the newborns, as well as finding out the location and way in which each person died.

The main driving concept behind the piece is how the war may actually be causing the population in Iraq to decrease over time. This is in contrast to the world as a whole, which is steadily increasing in human population. A cruel form of population control...sickening.

Idea #3::

Restart
This idea is a little more doable in the timeframe. I want to create a version of the Super Mario World game for the SNES. My version of the game consists of one level. It is similar to the actual starting level of the game. Mario is able to move left and right and jump. As he moves to the right, a block will a appear that he can hit to get a coin. Well as he continues, he sees another one, and another, so on and so forth. The trick is, the whole level will repeat without the player first knowing. The other part that will repeat is my own version of a Nintendo style music track. It will be fairly short, but the idea is for it to be catchy and addicting, while at the same time being prominent as it becomes repetitive. The game will look like the real game, however there will be a difference in the clock. I want to subtly increase the speed at which the clock ticks, and have it tick up. This will instill the idea that a large amount of time is passing in a short span, much like how one can quickly waste hours on a video game.

The emotions of video game addiction as well as nostalgia for a classic game and a catchy tune add up to a repetitive yet addictive game.

Think_01

So, Lyuba and I have done much thinking... including the following things that we are not doing but generate interesting ideas:
- cryptic- ish notes: grocery store- food supply, horse history, cement and gloves in a wood box to fix last proj. (katerie's idea), places and infusion of outside world, salt, bartram's illustrations- why put in prairie, why put in grocery store?, putting horses into prairie and taking animals out of prairie, deer meat on cars, road kill travel (not going there at all), what is left of the prairie, disease, bio- infusion/relocation/pathoisis, breathing fog: compare prairie to physical body wind- breath, water- blood, carriers, paved commuting paths promote death split ecosystem pollution trash contamination animal migration (humans) in Prairie wind and water aid in commute of physical elements life feed spread seeds two diff transportation routes with different purposes-equillibrium? choking mechanism trash infiltrate prairie dictates existence doesn't affect much laws on natural reserves.

Whew... Ok so moving on to what Lyuba and I find quite interesting and slightly ironic about Gainesville. 13th Street to Williston to Hawthone to some other road to 75: Prairie. 23rd street and Maine: Ex- Superfund contamination site. The elements in these two places are the same, yet serve completely different functions. In the Prairie wind and water serve as transportation agents that aid in life forces: feeding, spreading seeds, watering, growth. In the ex- superfund area wind and water are terrorizing agents, spreading contamination into Florida's groundwater (in 10-15 years) and onto surrounding land areas. This contamination (on land) has had a direct impact on the health of the surrounding population. While water contamination may not harm many individuals... no one really knows what will happen when it actually reaches the aquifer when it comes to animal/ plant populations in Gainesville. The fact that these two areas are so close and are similar yet different in their consumption in the elements leads us to our concept that man seems to mess up everything it can get it's hands on. With this introduction of road systems and horses into the prairie... man messed up because it knew no better. With the cabot-koppers site... man messed up once again (thanks geology). Yes, I know this is pessimistic, but whatever it is true. While Lyuba and I have not finalized ideas of how to portray our idea... this is our concept, this irony... all within this little place we call gainesville.

projjjjjeeeeectttttttt

alright, so i'm pretty much finished with my writings and i looked over it briefly and found some connections within the writings. i focused mainly on the stress that centered around my life. the main reason why i did a sort of stream of consciousness on stress was to try to find some kind of connections between each day. i have to look over it extensively and i want to eventually maybe pull out certain words or phrases that i repeat over and over again. the medium that i want to use would probably be a sort of vellum where you would be able to see through my writings........or some other ideas thrown out to me by katerie would be to do a sort of pulling out pulling out certain sayings from a sort of thing like Operation or having a sort of coat with sounds recorded in them, if you press a certain part of your body you'll hear a certain saying, maybe referencing certain ache's in my body? i'm not sure, but so yea i'm getting there.

Nike would be proud

So here goes with my new idea. It is a combination of wearable art and audio. I propose to create a shoe (or pair) that allows the wearer to alter their identity through the use of digital audio.

The shoe(s) will have speakers sewn into it along with an audio component and a switch. I would like to use some sort of pressure switch where when the person wearing the shoe(s) takes a step, audio will come out, playing a file the whole way through. The audio I intend to use is a digital walking sound from a video game. The sound will have 8-bit quality, so the sound will be poignant and distinct. As the user takes a step, the step audio will play, and this will repeat with each step taken.

Well that is a summary of it. I don't know how feasible it is within our time frame, so I am still thinking of an alternative.

Here it is

so this is what i found at HOBBY LOBBY, the LEDs are attached to actual wires..

making LED stuff

my mom says: a store in Jacksonville has batteries that are made for sewing into cloth.. I think she said it's called "hobby lobby"(??) yes, they have a website, 40% off coupon for this week: http://www.hobbylobby.com/site3/weekly/weekly.cfm
looks like this is their catalog maybe (http://www.craftsetc.com/) but I couldn't find what she was talking about.. I'm going to possibly check it out this weekend- they probably have something else i need.

how to make "LED chaser" without remote or programmer -instead uses oscillator
http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/chaser.htm
this diagram is kinda confusing, the next one is better- I think I have a ton of resistors and possibly an oscillator and all this crap in a bag somewhere..

this ones a little crazier, makes lights flash to music:
http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/organ.htm
I'm not sure if this could be done on a shirt, but maybe the switches could be mounted on an attached "belt" or something? and definitely do away with that A/C plug hahaha this is a high voltage version so parts would have to be swapped / adjusted
3. This circuit is

NOT isolated from the 115 Volt line. If it is used with the case opened or not installed in a case, you could recieve a bad shock or be killed!!

this circuit produces an "exploding atom" effect using 98 LEDs
http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/atom.htm

small, simple, and awesome- light / dark detector:
http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/lightdrk.htm

Trails

Smoke Test

more on my new project

so this is what i'm going to do. i'm going to keep a journal of which i will write down my stream of consciousness, i won't care about grammer i wont care is i misspell anything. i am i doing is writing down what i am thinking about at that moment. maybe instead of just writing down a journal of everything that is happening.....to centralize it a little, write down things that stressed me out that day and just keep writing. i think i'm going to write on vellum just in case i want to use my writings for my end product. i'm still not sure on what my final piece will look like. eventually once i get everything together i'll figure out whether i want this to be a flash piece, an installation, a sound piece (depending on if i record this stuff, i think it may be a bit incoherent)........but i think i like my writing more than my voice............plus it makes me a bit insecure if i were to just voice my thoughts, maybe i'll do this in a later project if i want to continue down this path.


things to think about: think about the meaning and why i want to do this.....how it may affect other people, make others think.

Brainstorming on Payne's Prairie

interactive electronic book/painting
----------------------
kind of like those childrens books that have push-buttons with sounds except more MASSIVE, an ORGANIC type of book that is more sculptural, resembling a book and acting as one, have buttons link to video projection controls (remote inside?)
-get SKIN


fiberoptic scale model prairie diorama
----------------------
light-up currents of death/life


general stuff
----------------------
-still focus on day at the prairie and findings/mappings of this
-document something site specific in a book, while the actual thing is in the prairie
-video/photo evidence of on-site "ritual"
-time lapse photo and video?
-smoke/fire as part of wind, smoke art, indian dancing, patterns, telling story with the wind about death on the prairie
-research smoke particles sticking together, blacklight reflection?
-layered projections, after effects editing



video ideas
----------------------
-compression codec, pixels change ratio areas top/botton, firls scene looks like pixelated ghost made of next scene with the shape of the first scene displaced from second scene by pixelation
-masks with video bursting from them (see example left)

final proposal

so, because i haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately, i think i want to do a project on the lack of sleep and what happens to the body when fatigue falls in and the impacts of caffine on the body. i'm not quite sure where i would go with that. maybe something to do with mapping out my thoughts each day by writing it down randomly on a piece of paper. this paper would be semi transparent, so you would be able to see the writing through each of the paper. or maybe i could do something where i just keep writing subconsciously on one page. and then later go through the pages to see which words continually show up each day. =/ in this piece maybe there will be an audio thing of me reading out my thoughts while you see the text showing up. then when another text (slightly opaque) show up there will be an overlapping audio of me talking (which would be another reading of a subconsciousness) i'm not really sure about the interface yet, and well not really worried about that, i'm sure i'll get that figured out. right now i'm more concerned about my concept and what i want to do. i'm kind of stuck on memories and words.....it seems like a trend in the pieces that i've been creating so far. all i know now is that i want to have a written journal of some sort that is just a stream of consciousness writing and then in the end there will be an observation of reoccurring thoughts...... or maybe instead of a stream of consciousness, maybe just a sort of mind mapping of my day or maybe something even more vague, like a bunch of words that express how i feel that day.

Exoskeleton

http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2005/04/hal_3.html

-exoskeleton to help list heavy object or scale mountains.

Tech pros and cons by Lyuba

The prevalent issue on the minds of Americans concerned with whether or not technology may be going TOO FAR is =privacy=. The realm of wearables dealing with personal safety, including locator collars for children or biofeedback suits that monitor things like perspiration and heartbeat come with pros and cons. This type of information can be used to save lives; an elerly person unable to call for medical care after an accident, or maybe even unable to determine that he or she is in danger due to high blood pressure or some other factor easily read by the new medi-shirt technology may only be grateful for this infringement of privacy. The shirt is monitoring their every habit, how each choice affects them physically, sending this data to data processors who may be doctors or secretaries, who may send their information to insurance companies or advertisers, but perhaps also police who can track their location by GPS when they accidentally go missing that year.

JReq - 5 sentences about reading

In the required reading, several pros and cons about wearable technology were presented. One advantage to such technology would be increased security, like the possibility of an electronic tracker to locate missing children. Another advantage would benefit the consumer by having electonic devices (phones, mp3 players, etc) actually become infused with the attire itself. But some disadvantages are also present, one of which being a lack of privacy as a result of increased security. Another disadvantage would be the challenging distribution of such electronic wardrobe to the general public, since this technology is still in the prototype stage of development.

Pros/Cons of Wearable art

Pros- The pros of wearable art are that new technologies are coming about to help out people in combat-- with a wearable sensor that tells how injured they are or camouflage properties. These technologies can maybe save many lives. With wearable art, one is also able to express themselves better (with body sensing technology, it's basically an evolution of clothing with respect to personal identity).

Cons- One of the cons of wearable art are that there may be a loss of privacy with the technology. People may be able to track other people and there may be issues when the technology gets in the wrong hands. Also, wearable technology is a little bit hard to wear because of the lack of flexible textiles.

Article talk points

The first, and most obvious positive of wearable technology is its ability to provide life saving information about the wearer in different situations. The article talks about multiple areas of research for that use, from the military to hospitals. In all cases, the goal is to provide information to those who can operate or treat the injured in a more intimate and thorough way through the additional information.

Wearable technology has dual purposes, one more fashionable and the other more practical. While in each case, the necessity of the technology can be argued, the practical at least offers some added bonuses such as the ones I listed above.

The downside comes as an result of most modern technology, a loss of privacy. Wearable technology, like most other modern technology, has the prospect of being hooked up to the internet or a network. This connectivity can be beneficial to the wearer from a practical means, but it also means sacrificing a certain privacy as the technology in question is actually worn on the body. If the technology can read body functions, measurements, and other private information, it can also make that information available to the public, even unknowingly.

The author goes on, though, to explain that while privacy is an issue, the closeness in proximity of the technology to the body should not be a deterrent from experimentation. Wearable technology has a place, but to find the right balance, you must first experiment outside of what would normally be seen as a comfort zone.

good and bad of wearable technology

Wearable technology can be used in various ways, both positively and negatively. One specific positive aspect of this technology is when it is used in the medical field to track the heart rate of people or alheimer (sp?) children. It has been used by the military to detect the amount of force a projectile impact may have on an individual. Individuals have created a fabric that is made of wires which can be washed as well as certain chips that can endure the washing machine cycles. I'm not quite sure where the negative aspects of this technology can lead to besides something happening where the our clothes would become a sort of tracking device by the government, which would impede on our privacy and such, but maybe that's just my cold speaking. The article also mentions that technology such as mp3 players can be placed inside clothing, such as scarfs to provide a sort of headphone like effect. This can include microphones as well for spokes personnel.

Wearable Technology, And Stuff

The good thing about wearable technology is that is can be functioal and actually aid us in our daily lives. Especially in the medicinal field, wearbale technology can be used to regulate/moitor various functios or parts of our body to make sure we are working properly. Theres also some neat ideas coming from integratig ipods and things of that nature in sport clothig like snow boarder jackets. Other benefits come i terms of military enhacemets, concering things like state of the art camouflage suits that render the user practically invisible.

The major negetive of wearbale technology comes from a loss of privacy. When you are wearing somethig that monitors and records various information, one has to, or should anyways, be concious of who exactly has access to this private information.

Wearable Art Pros and Cons

Wearable technology has a few pros and cons:

For the cons, first of all, it's very expensive and still in development. It may be available to the public in the coming years, but right now it's just too expensive. Since computers are clunky, you need to have some sort of textile that can conduct electricity, and also have a power source. This may make some wearable things a bit uncomfortable to wear. There is also the fact that we will be more rough with wearable computers since they will be on us. There have been shirts with electronic thread that is now washable, which is good, but that will be a constant issue to overcome. These things can break easily.

The pros are they wearable shirts, jackets, purses, etc. can help us in our daily lives. There are arm bands that montior our bodies and can help with the elderly or sick to notify if something is wrong. There are shirts that help doctors monitor sleep better and cheaper than hooking people up to a bunch of equiptment. There are also bands that can be used for people to diet easier. It monitors how many calories you burn in a day, so you know how much you need to eat to lose weight. There are even handbags that can sense when you are leaving home without your wallet, and let you know so you don't forget it.

I guess the biggest pro is that wearable technology helps monitor our bodies for things like blood pressure or breathing patterns, so that people who are sick can have a faster notification if something is wrong, so they can get the treatment they need. The biggest con is that they can be uncomfortable to wear and they are VERY expensive at this point.

Final Project Meanderings

The project I showed in class one day,
Photosynth, by Microsoft Labs could be applied, in concept to something I
was thinking about. Memories, in the brain, are not connected in a linear
fashion, rather they are connected associatively. In the Photosynth
program, photographs are linked together in a more factual manner by
linking common shapes. However, my concept would be dealing more with how
memories are connected and mapped through the brain by the linking of
similar occurrences. It would be time-based in that each memory in the
brain is like a little movie clip. Each clip would have links through
places, actions, or sequences. The relative linking between memories is
complex in that the associations are not just one aspect or another. This
idea links in a lot of ways to things we were talking about in Jack's
class dealing with non-linear narratives. I could focus on one method of
linkage, but the brain doesn't work that way, so I don't know if I want to
limit myself to that aspect of memories. I really don't want to talk too
technically about it yet because I want my concept to come first. However
I thought about layering videos, in flash, in such a way that you dive
through them as you link through memories, mapping out the linkage between
them, as crazy or unusual as the links may be.


Working off of this idea, I thought about how personal identity is defined not by physical appearance, mannerisms, or things of that nature. True identity comes from within, and those physical appearances, and even one's way of acting is just a manifestation of that inner identity. As such, digging through personal memories is a way to get to the true core of a person's being. With that in mind, I would like to explore how going through memories helps a person re-discover that personal center, and in a more real sense, have that core be something tangible (even in a virtual world). To explain a little more, as you explore the project, and you dig deeper into the being of a person, you get to an actual core, so if you were to step back through your paces through the mind and look at that path along with the surrounding memories, you would see a progression towards an inevitable center. In that way, no matter the path, you would eventually come to that realization of your true being.

I hope to explore in more depth the ideas of Zen and mediation, and how those practices help people find their true center of being. Life is a path, a journey, but your being is a solid object that moves along that path. Your memories are a guide. So while your life can be seen a linear, your true being is more like a sphere.

Wild Final Project Ideas

Hey, Im not sure yet where I definitively want to go with my final project. I have two ideas that im currently working with. One is doing another mapping project, but mapping something that is not based on physical location. Kind of like Kim's mapping of facial features or Brandons mapping of memories. I want to focus on something not commonly associated with the idea of mapping.

My other idea is doing something that kind of works in the same area of what im working on in Jacks class. So I would be doing something with the RTS bus system. Right now something that jumps out at me is conversation on the bus. Like just the things people talk about while on the bus. A lot of times its awkward conversation , and theres usually a chatty person who likes to talk, often creating a painful 1 way conversation experience. Sometimes its the bus driver that likes to talk. So i guess it would be working with sound too, sound recordings of this conversation.

Anyways thats where im at right now

proj. proposal non-revised

We began this project knowing little about weather patterns and even less about Payne’s Prairie. We hypothesized that as we traveled around the prairie the wind would change directions and we would be able to map the prairie through the points at which these readings were taken, translating this information to a physical environment where viewers would orient themselves and move about the installation according to our wind markers. After we traveled around the prairie and indicated the wind direction at various points, we noticed that the wind never changed its southwest direction. With our failed hypothesis at our backs, we digressed from our original plan and became more interested in the life and death that we encountered on the prairie.

We read books about the prairie, observed it at different times of the day, and trudged through some dangerous and possibly forbidden areas to gain better insight into the nature of the prairie and what it is to be alive or dead there. We noticed that night and day on the prairie references its daily cycle of life and death. In the morning, when the Alachua sink emits its foggy breath, the prairie gasps for air. The sun rises over the horizon and a new day is getting started. In the middle of the day, one can see the prairie wasting away in the daylight. The death becomes a force to reckon with as the terrain becomes brittle and visible dangers are everywhere. The night, in contrast with the deadly day, is full of life. The wind stirs abstract patterns through the swampy grasses and leaves, creating an isolating chill and a loud quietness. It is at night that a visitor to the prairie can see and feel the live elements all around them.

We hope to bring all these ideas, including our observations and research, as well as our inspirations from the beginning, wind and Native American presence on the prairie, together in our final project. The installation you see today is only one portion, which may be represented as a chapter or page in our final product. We propose to make a book out of our experiences and encounters in the prairie over a one-day period. We will head out to the prairie before sunrise and not leave until after the sun has gone down. The book will document our experiences on the prairie and include the things that we have learned thus far on our quest to understand the nature of the prairie.

Marie: Proposal for final project

For my final project, I would like to map out the logic or lack of logic of my dreams. Though I may not have control over what I dream, it seems that my dreams follow some pattern of their own. This pattern usually stems from what is happening within my life. If I'm stressed out about something at work or school, I usually have a dream about getting lost, wandering aimlessly, or searching for something that never seems to come. However, most of the time my dreams seem random and very strange. If I'm looking forward to something, I might dream it's actually happening. I have never been able to control what I dream about, however. As a child, I would sometimes concentrate on a topic as I go to bed to see if I would dream about it. It never worked, though. And since I am not able to choose what I dream about, I would at least like to discover what it is that drives my dreams.

I chose this topic because lately I have been remembering my dreams a lot more, and I have been trying to figure out why I'm dreaming these things, and why now I'm remembering them so well. Normally, a person will forget dreams almost immediately after they wake up. Lately for me, I can remember them for a couple minutes up until the entire day. There are even some dreams so weird and vivid that I remembered them throughout my childhood and into adulthood.

For my own research, I would like to both tape myself as I'm dreaming because I've been known to talk in my sleep from time to time. I also want to record my movements in bed by leaving paper by my side, and fall asleep with a marker in my hand. I have fallen alseep before with highlighters in my hand before, and I made interesting markings. As soon as I wake up, I will journal what I remember from my dreams. From there, I will compare the topics of my dreams to my daily schedule to see if there is any correlation between the two.

Along with my own research, I will also be researching what others have to say about dream interpretation:
http://www.dreammoods.com/
http://www.dreams.ca/
http://www.sleeps.com/
http://www.psywww.com/books/interp/toc.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream
http://www.freakydreams.com/freaky.htm - This website asks you to enter in the story of your latest dream, and it picks out key words and tells you what they mean on their own. This does not seem very useful for dream interpretation concidering it takes the individual words out of context.

Paynes Prairie Research: The Other Side

So far I've read over half of the Lars Andersen Paynes Prairie book. I have discovered many fascinating things about this land that we live on. For example, the false saber toothed cat was found there (I saw the bones at the Nat'l history museum-- check it out if you haven't been). I learned that the sinkholes in Paynes prairie were created by the acid rain seeping into the limestone under the prairie and causing it to sink... one of the only reasons florida is above water now is because of this prehistoric limestone accumulation- along with other global processes. So the big dip, the Alachua sink, was caused by this. The sink is a natural drain for the prairie and keeps it from being a lake. It does flood, however, when stuff gets trapped in it or it is a wet year. Apparently I-75 at paynes prairie used to be on the shoreline for Florida!

Cool story beginning: "One day about twelve thousand years ago, the wind carried a strange new scent to the animals gathered at the Alachua sink. All eyes were focused on the nearby woods, where the smell originated... Man had come to the Prairie". The book goes into detail about the Timucua tribe, the Potano, that lived in the prairie. They were nomadic until they reached the prairie. They had an abundance of chert (the thing in the Turlington courtyard) to make weapons with and their source of food was the deer. Cool rituals: tattooing, tobacco, vomiting. Then, European epidemics began to wipe them out as they moved close to missionaries because they offered goods that the indians grew to need. La Chua- (what we saw where the alligators were) a.k.a. the sinkhole means "Jug" in the potano language... Then it was changed to other words and now we have Alachua. Oconees came to the prairie near the potano and the leaders name was Cowkeeper... so yeah cows were in the prairie a lot. They gained the name seminoles. But then the indians and the escaped slaves in north florida got the name... blah blah blah fastforeward through time and the indians in the prairie put up a pretty good fight against Europeans despite rival tribes and betrayal. They eventually had to move though and the prairie got taken over by the white people. I got bored and stopped reading at the white people, but if you ask me I might be able to tell you all about some indians.
I did not enjoy reading about cows being dipped in chemical vats. Apparently Paynes Prairie used to be a cattle farm. In the early 1900s Jack Camp built up a drainage system to use the land of the prairie by draining the lake that was there at the time. I-75 kills animals and they did, in fact, take descriptions from William Bartram's explorations of the area in account when they were making the preserve. They released 10 bison and were excited about it but then they got a disease from the cows in the prairie and

"THE DISEASE IS NOT ALWAYS FATAL TO BISON BUT CAUSES PROBLEMS WITH REPRODUCTION AND IS HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS TO MANY OTHER SPECIES. SO, ONE BY ONE, AS THE ANIMALS BECAME INFECTED, THEY HAD TO BE SLAUGHTERED."

<-- Ok what the heck?! So what kind of weird system is this? Are we going to be giving some armadillos flu shots next year? (yeah I know armadillos can't get the flu, but that's not the point).
Then they put horses and hawthorne bike trail. "With a new selection of plant and animal species, the ecosystems around and on Paynes Prairie will be unique, different not only from all other ecosystems of the world, but from those in its own past as well."

Update

sorry i am not there- i am very sick today suddenly as of this morning- did some work on wind socks- tried velcro-ing but looks ugly, need to sew up that part instead (can see black velcro through the fabric) i def have 1 ipod and my mp3 thing if i can find the transfer cord, ill get the files tomorrow morning off the computer so we still need ONE hopefully not 2, HELP!

Air Guitar Shirt

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/a-shirt-that-rocks-your-socks-off/2006/11/13/1163266483990.html

"EVERY Saturday night try-hard rocker will just have to have one.

Giving loud clothes a new meaning, CSIRO scientists have invented a shirt that will make the air guitar as obsolete as the horse and cart. The wearer simply strums through the motions to beat out the music.

The wearable instrument shirt, or WIS, was conceived by Richard Helmer, a chemical engineer and part-time musician with his band, madhouse."

Link to Laser-activated water audio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ9LQHazTRg

This link shows a video of "a water surface as a music controller featuring five lasers". The lasers read the water's surface and emit a sound when the water's surface is disturbed.

Wearable Art Links

I was just searching around for some good wearable art sites, here are some things that are going around:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/digital-jewelry.htm
"How Digital Jewelry Will Work"
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/08/07/000807opwireless.html
"Wireless wearable digital jewelry and more "
http://www.boingboing.net/2003/09/26/digital_jewelry.html
"Digital jewelry"
http://www.howstuffworks.com/computer-clothing.htm
"How Smart Clothes Work"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5662530
"S. Korea Developing Digital Clothes that Sing"
Marie

Prairie research

read the architecture masters project book "vapor, light, and fog on the prairie" by timothy james williams, some very interesting insights here although sometimetimes statements about nature of prairie seem to lack scientific backing? interesting info on alachua sink being where the fog originates, lots of map sketches, could use these as inspiration, good satelite shot of prairie, other stuff..

raises interesting point, the prairie as we see it now is not really a "natural" place- it is a result of park rangers trying to keep it looking like it did when the english settlers arrived (through systemaatic burns and flooding) after it had been used as grazing land and delivery route and farmed by native americans and all various other interactions with humans - the prairie has scars from all of this: trenches, places where water was redirected with dams, culverts (large corrugated steel pipes all over the place), the prairie only gets 3o percent of the water it needs to remain a savanna as scientist-poet bartram saw and described it in 1774 when the settlers arrived.. so the park rangers are trying to keep it "natural" through unnatural means.. burning the forest in the northeast corner systematically to keep the mounds savanna-like where bartram entered the prairie.. would it be more natural to let the prairie overgrow with trees and dry out and whatnot? the park rangers even imported a family of bison onto the lard and keep a few wild horses and other animals there because bartram saw them there.. this is all very strange.

one of the more valuable things from this book- a list of references:
*poetics of space - bachelard
*travels - william bartram
*uncommon ground - william cronon (talks about noble savage as new idea, people were thought to be as part of nature before that, the idea of humans being separate from pure untouched nature developed later in the civilized old world, not in new world wilderness, only after the pure wilderness was conquered and the natives evicted, only then could the europeans could call this nature pure and untouched, glorified in its opposition to mans' involvement)
*climate near the ground -rudolph geiger
some more architecture related stuff..

REQ/ Notes for furthur project.

Lyuba: look in iTunes on the fac310 comp. there's a file named WindWavs. I extracted them from the video and manipulated the sound a little in Audacity. I tested it out on the pipes... the audacity files are 1windf1, 2wind_1_2, and 3windf1.

WE NEED SOME ipods or mp3 players if anyone would let us borrow it for crit weds.

Also: Our notes from Saturday:
Get camera next weekend trip
check out projector
map library
geology man

For this trip we will need: protective gear... esp. Anti- Gator suits, sketchbooks, bikes, bug/sunscreen for the bugs, camera, vid camera...

overlays/transparency
map sources
detailed documentations/drawings of what's there
sinkhole- deepest/ source of life/ wind protection
tobacco/ash- ritual
smoke patterns
photo documentation
natural processes
ritual
fog
the day in Paines Prairie- AM: Fog how the prairie breathes= rebirth, AFTERNOON: golden dried stuff, horizon, death, head you can see, P.M.: Life- our experiences guided by indian stories of the cycle of life and death... apply a narrative to our stuff as a structural guideline.

some talk about tossing out variables and keeping some... testing out constant variables... iterative process.

Prairie project revised

supplementary documentation = projects all in one, possibly in chapters?
"BOOK"
-arranged in form of narrative of a journey where the traveler doesn't know what will happen but through experiences and patterns comes to a conclusion of greater world implications in the end, this could be a combination of our experiences, and interviews with people who have lived on the land, possibly in payne's prairie itself, their relation to timucuans of the prairie, traveling through and living with the prairie
-maps of the area will be adjusted/collaged/changed, new images made with photos of objects and video projections, refrencing sketchbook or travel book, about paine's prairie and ritual, the natural processes of a land that's a living being, with the death/rebirth/ritual ideas we had going originally
-focus area: alachua sink in NE part of the prairie, this area floods and droughts alternately, heat and humidity rise from the basin creating special wind currents, each morning there is a thick layer of fog here, we want to film a pan scene of the prairie with cat tails in foreground through this fog (we have a shot at 11 am or so now that we need to remake due to shakiness)
WHAT WE NEED: protective anti-gator suits, mountain bikes, photo / video gear, maps from map library

Wind reader

Wind direction is reported by the direction from which it originates. For example, a northerly wind blows from the north to the south.

* Anemometer (measures wind speed, either directly, e.g. with rotating cups, or indirectly, e.g. via pressure differences or the propagation speed of ultrasound signals)
* Rawinsonde (GPS-based wind measurement is performed by the probe)
* Weather balloon (passive measurement, balloon position is tracked from the ground visually or via radar; wind profile is computed from drift rate and the theoretical speed of ascent)
* Weather vane (used to indicate wind direction)
* Windsock (primarily used to indicate wind direction, may also be used to estimate wind speed by its angle)

Synoptic winds occupy the lower boundary of what is considered to be "forecastable" wind. Winds at the next lowest level of magnitude typically arise and fade over time periods too short and over geographic regions too narrow to predict with any long-range accuracy. These mesoscale winds include such phenomena as the cold wind outflow from thunderstorms. This wind frequently advances ahead of more intense thunderstorms and may be sufficiently energetic to generate local weather of its own.

Microscale winds take place over very short durations of time - seconds to minutes - and spatially over only tens to hundreds of metres. The turbulence following the passage of an active front is composed of microscale winds, and it is microscale wind which produces convective events such as dust devils. Though small in scope, microscale winds can play a major role in human affairs.

Interesting Data from FAWN

For Alachua County

Date/Time mph- Wind Speed (10m) degree- Wind Direction (10m)

11/04/2006 00:00 6 35
11/04/2006 12:15 5 40
11/04/2006 12:30 6 38
11/04/2006 12:45 6 41
11/04/2006 1:00 6 42
11/04/2006 1:15 6 32
11/04/2006 1:30 6 34
11/04/2006 1:45 7 35
11/04/2006 2:00 6 36
11/04/2006 2:15 6 33
11/04/2006 2:30 6 37
11/04/2006 2:45 6 33
11/04/2006 3:00 6 35
11/04/2006 3:15 6 40
11/04/2006 3:30 5 43
11/04/2006 3:45 5 38
11/04/2006 4:00 4 34
11/04/2006 4:15 4 35
11/04/2006 4:30 4 36
11/04/2006 4:45 4 31
11/04/2006 5:00 4 35
11/04/2006 5:15 5 31
11/04/2006 5:30 4 35
11/04/2006 5:45 4 36
11/04/2006 6:00 4 39
11/04/2006 6:15 4 42
11/04/2006 6:30 4 39
11/04/2006 6:45 3 37
11/04/2006 7:00 4 44
11/04/2006 7:15 4 37
11/04/2006 7:30 4 32
11/04/2006 7:45 4 31
11/04/2006 8:00 4 38
11/04/2006 8:15 5 37
11/04/2006 8:30 6 15
11/04/2006 8:45 7 31
11/04/2006 9:00 7 37
11/04/2006 9:15 8 43
11/04/2006 9:30 7 42
11/04/2006 9:45 8 52
11/04/2006 10:00 8 50
11/04/2006 10:15 9 59
11/04/2006 10:30 11 61
11/04/2006 10:45 12 63
11/04/2006 11:00 12 64
11/04/2006 11:15 12 53
11/04/2006 11:30 12 56
11/04/2006 11:45 13 67
11/04/2006 12:00 14 77
11/04/2006 12:15 12 66
11/04/2006 12:30 12 73
11/04/2006 12:45 11 58
11/04/2006 1:00 13 71
11/04/2006 1:15 11 68
11/04/2006 1:30 16 64
11/04/2006 1:45 10 54
11/04/2006 2:00 13 59
11/04/2006 2:15 13 65
11/04/2006 2:30 13 62
11/04/2006 2:45 14 67
11/04/2006 3:00 14 63
11/04/2006 3:15 15 61
11/04/2006 3:30 15 75
11/04/2006 3:45 12 72
11/04/2006 4:00 13 70
11/04/2006 4:15 11 66
11/04/2006 4:30 11 64
11/04/2006 4:45 12 64
11/04/2006 5:00 11 49
11/04/2006 5:15 12 59
11/04/2006 5:30 9 52
11/04/2006 5:45 8 54
11/04/2006 6:00 9 48
11/04/2006 6:15 8 44
11/04/2006 6:30 8 44
11/04/2006 6:45 8 48
11/04/2006 7:00 8 47
11/04/2006 7:15 7 44
11/04/2006 7:30 7 40
11/04/2006 7:45 7 39
11/04/2006 8:00 7 41
11/04/2006 8:15 6 40
11/04/2006 8:30 6 40
11/04/2006 8:45 5 45
11/04/2006 9:00 5 42
11/04/2006 9:15 5 49
11/04/2006 9:30 4 42
11/04/2006 9:45 5 42
11/04/2006 10:00 4 35
11/04/2006 10:15 4 32
11/04/2006 10:30 4 28
11/04/2006 10:45 4 24
11/04/2006 11:00 4 25
11/04/2006 11:15 5 26
11/04/2006 11:30 4 30
11/04/2006 11:45 4 24
11/05/2006 00:00 4 25
11/05/2006 12:15 4 27
11/05/2006 12:30 5 29
11/05/2006 12:45 5 25
11/05/2006 1:00 5 30
11/05/2006 1:15 5 34
11/05/2006 1:30 5 35
11/05/2006 1:45 3 32
11/05/2006 2:00 4 32
11/05/2006 2:15 4 33
11/05/2006 2:30 4 32
11/05/2006 2:45 4 29
11/05/2006 3:00 4 31
11/05/2006 3:15 4 32
11/05/2006 3:30 3 39
11/05/2006 3:45 4 42
11/05/2006 4:00 4 35
11/05/2006 4:15 4 41
11/05/2006 4:30 5 40
11/05/2006 4:45 4 36
11/05/2006 5:00 4 37
11/05/2006 5:15 4 39
11/05/2006 5:30 5 37
11/05/2006 5:45 5 38
11/05/2006 6:00 5 43
11/05/2006 6:15 5 38
11/05/2006 6:30 6 41
11/05/2006 6:45 5 41
11/05/2006 7:00 5 40
11/05/2006 7:15 4 40
11/05/2006 7:30 4 35
11/05/2006 7:45 4 38
11/05/2006 8:00 6 45
11/05/2006 8:15 7 43
11/05/2006 8:30 6 43
11/05/2006 8:45 8 52
11/05/2006 9:00 8 52
11/05/2006 9:15 9 54
11/05/2006 9:30 10 48
11/05/2006 9:45 8 44
11/05/2006 10:00 8 58
11/05/2006 10:15 10 44
11/05/2006 10:30 9 53
11/05/2006 10:45 10 65
11/05/2006 11:00 10 55
11/05/2006 11:15 9 45
11/05/2006 11:30 6 56
11/05/2006 11:45 11 67
11/05/2006 12:00 10 46
11/05/2006 12:15 11 75
11/05/2006 12:30 11 46
11/05/2006 12:45 13 64
11/05/2006 1:00 11 66
11/05/2006 1:15 11 64
11/05/2006 1:30 11 62
11/05/2006 1:45 10 67
11/05/2006 2:00 8 50
11/05/2006 2:15 8 36
11/05/2006 2:30 8 51
11/05/2006 2:45 9 50
11/05/2006 3:00 6 43
11/05/2006 3:15 5 33
11/05/2006 3:30 7 46
11/05/2006 3:45 8 54
11/05/2006 4:00 7 46
11/05/2006 4:15 8 45
11/05/2006 4:30 9 46
11/05/2006 4:45 9 43
11/05/2006 5:00 9 50
11/05/2006 5:15 9 45
11/05/2006 5:30 8 45
11/05/2006 5:45 7 43
11/05/2006 6:00 7 52
11/05/2006 6:15 6 49
11/05/2006 6:30 7 45
11/05/2006 6:45 7 45
11/05/2006 7:00 7 48
11/05/2006 7:15 7 45
11/05/2006 7:30 8 50
11/05/2006 7:45 7 51
11/05/2006 8:00 8 46
11/05/2006 8:15 7 45
11/05/2006 8:30 7 46
11/05/2006 8:45 7 45
11/05/2006 9:00 7 49
11/05/2006 9:15 8 53
11/05/2006 9:30 6 53
11/05/2006 9:45 6 52
11/05/2006 10:00 6 51
11/05/2006 10:15 6 53
11/05/2006 10:30 6 49
11/05/2006 10:45 5 48
11/05/2006 11:00 5 52
11/05/2006 11:15 7 54
11/05/2006 11:30 8 58
11/05/2006 11:45 6 51
11/06/2006 00:00 5 53
11/06/2006 12:15 6 58
11/06/2006 12:30 6 51
11/06/2006 12:45 5 46
11/06/2006 1:00 6 53
11/06/2006 1:15 6 49
11/06/2006 1:30 5 45
11/06/2006 1:45 5 40
11/06/2006 2:00 4 51
11/06/2006 2:15 5 53
11/06/2006 2:30 5 46
11/06/2006 2:45 4 45
11/06/2006 3:00 4 44
11/06/2006 3:15 4 51
11/06/2006 3:30 3 47
11/06/2006 3:45 3 53
11/06/2006 4:00 2 45
11/06/2006 4:15 3 47
11/06/2006 4:30 3 42
11/06/2006 4:45 3 47
11/06/2006 5:00 2 33
11/06/2006 5:15 3 37
11/06/2006 5:30 3 57
11/06/2006 5:45 3 51
11/06/2006 6:00 4 53
11/06/2006 6:15 4 49
11/06/2006 6:30 5 52
11/06/2006 6:45 4 49
11/06/2006 7:00 4 38
11/06/2006 7:15 3 41
11/06/2006 7:30 3 38
11/06/2006 7:45 3 40
11/06/2006 8:00 4 38
11/06/2006 8:15 6 58
11/06/2006 8:30 5 55
11/06/2006 8:45 6 63
11/06/2006 9:00 6 70
11/06/2006 9:15 7 81
11/06/2006 9:30 6 83
11/06/2006 9:45 9 71
11/06/2006 10:00 9 88
11/06/2006 10:15 11 87
11/06/2006 10:30 13 89
11/06/2006 10:45 15 98
11/06/2006 11:00 15 98
11/06/2006 11:15 15 106
11/06/2006 11:30 16 99
11/06/2006 11:45 13 102
11/06/2006 12:00 14 111
11/06/2006 12:15 12 107
11/06/2006 12:30 14 100
11/06/2006 12:45 13 108
11/06/2006 1:00 14 107
11/06/2006 1:15 14 89
11/06/2006 1:30 13 88
11/06/2006 1:45 13 82
11/06/2006 2:00 13 91
11/06/2006 2:15 13 91
11/06/2006 2:30 13 103
11/06/2006 2:45 14 89
11/06/2006 3:00 14 99
11/06/2006 3:15 15 94
11/06/2006 3:30 12 99
11/06/2006 3:45 13 89
11/06/2006 4:00 12 89
11/06/2006 4:15 12 90
11/06/2006 4:30 11 92
11/06/2006 4:45 9 95
11/06/2006 5:00 8 91
11/06/2006 5:15 8 92
11/06/2006 5:30 7 86
11/06/2006 5:45 6 85
11/06/2006 6:00 6 84
11/06/2006 6:15 6 90
11/06/2006 6:30 5 84
11/06/2006 6:45 5 79
11/06/2006 7:00 4 95
11/06/2006 7:15 4 87
11/06/2006 7:30 4 82
11/06/2006 7:45 5 89
11/06/2006 8:00 5 86
11/06/2006 8:15 4 86
11/06/2006 8:30 4 86
11/06/2006 8:45 5 89
11/06/2006 9:00 5 88
11/06/2006 9:15 4 80
11/06/2006 9:30 3 91
11/06/2006 9:45 4 92
11/06/2006 10:00 4 80
11/06/2006 10:15 5 80
11/06/2006 10:30 4 78
11/06/2006 10:45 5 81
11/06/2006 11:00 5 76
11/06/2006 11:15 5 85
11/06/2006 11:30 4 87
11/06/2006 11:45 4 85
11/07/2006 00:00 5 77
11/07/2006 12:15 3 91
11/07/2006 12:30 3 106
11/07/2006 12:45 4 104
11/07/2006 1:00 3 84
11/07/2006 1:15 3 66
11/07/2006 1:30 4 77
11/07/2006 1:45 5 78
11/07/2006 2:00 5 76
11/07/2006 2:15 6 77
11/07/2006 2:30 5 101
11/07/2006 2:45 4 92
11/07/2006 3:00 1 80
11/07/2006 3:15 1 63
11/07/2006 3:30 1 102
11/07/2006 3:45 2 86
11/07/2006 4:00 2 128
11/07/2006 4:15 4 114
11/07/2006 4:30 4 99
11/07/2006 4:45 2 112
11/07/2006 5:00 2 67
11/07/2006 5:15 2 78
11/07/2006 5:30 2 82
11/07/2006 5:45 1 35
11/07/2006 6:00 1 73
11/07/2006 6:15 3 98
11/07/2006 6:30 3 117
11/07/2006 6:45 4 80
11/07/2006 7:00 1 125
11/07/2006 7:15 1 305
11/07/2006 7:30 2 349
11/07/2006 7:45 4 335
11/07/2006 8:00 1 21
11/07/2006 8:15 1 13
11/07/2006 8:30 1 344
11/07/2006 8:45 1 35
11/07/2006 9:00 1 67
11/07/2006 9:15 1 109
11/07/2006 9:30 1 172
11/07/2006 9:45 1 200
11/07/2006 10:00 1 149
11/07/2006 10:15 3 237
11/07/2006 10:30 4 209
11/07/2006 10:45 4 212
11/07/2006 11:00 5 195
11/07/2006 11:15 20 274
11/07/2006 11:30 19 210
11/07/2006 11:45 12 231
11/07/2006 12:00 7 169
11/07/2006 12:15 5 160
11/07/2006 12:30 6 187
11/07/2006 12:45 6 206
11/07/2006 1:00 7 207
11/07/2006 1:15 9 191
11/07/2006 1:30 8 195
11/07/2006 1:45 8 181
11/07/2006 2:00 6 195
11/07/2006 2:15 6 222
11/07/2006 2:30 6 215
11/07/2006 2:45 7 204
11/07/2006 3:00 10 176
11/07/2006 3:15 9 170
11/07/2006 3:30 6 177
11/07/2006 3:45 5 170
11/07/2006 4:00 3 171
11/07/2006 4:15 7 119
11/07/2006 4:30 10 117
11/07/2006 4:45 4 149
11/07/2006 5:00 3 170
11/07/2006 5:15 3 244
11/07/2006 5:30 3 312
11/07/2006 5:45 2 128
11/07/2006 6:00 1 60
11/07/2006 6:15 1 198
11/07/2006 6:30 1 219
11/07/2006 6:45 2 270
11/07/2006 7:00 2 329
11/07/2006 7:15 2 307
11/07/2006 7:30 3 282
11/07/2006 7:45 2 286
11/07/2006 8:00 1 273
11/07/2006 8:15 0 0
11/07/2006 8:30 0 0
11/07/2006 8:45 2 276
11/07/2006 9:00 3 279
11/07/2006 9:15 3 276
11/07/2006 9:30 7 292
11/07/2006 9:45 6 294
11/07/2006 10:00 5 280
11/07/2006 10:15 5 276
11/07/2006 10:30 4 278
11/07/2006 10:45 4 268
11/07/2006 11:00 5 271
11/07/2006 11:15 3 254
11/07/2006 11:30 4 253
11/07/2006 11:45 4 253
11/08/2006 00:00 5 251

*from http://fawn.ifas.ufl.edu/scripts/reportrequest.asp

Editing prairie footage

editing video tonight was a little problematic on the fac310 computer, although it eventually came out ok save for the wasted time, but so far we have determined and cropped the shots we will be using and adjusted their speed
-more adjustments need to be made with speed
-adjusting bad clip or getting new clip of grass from 13th st lookout
-rearranging the clips into appropriate order, 2 diff orders for 2 walls?
-adding filter?
-export 1 floor clip (will probably be done for final project)
-export 1 ceiling clip (involves eagle, will probably happen for this project)
-export 1-3 wall clips (rearranged versions of 1)
-edit sound separately

addon

another one i know.........but here's the sketchout of what i sort of want to do.i'm still unsure which path i should move towards. doug was helpful when it came to helping me conceptualize my project even more. i knew that i wanted to create a map of the face and have the viewer associate with features of the face that would determine what characteristics a person would have. instead of doing this, since others have done this already, i was thinking of moving towards a critique of the stereotypes that people have amongst certain features a person has. ie: slanted eyes = asian = smart. doug suggested that i may want to do a backwards approach to my piece instead of creating the long map of different features a person may choose. ie: on the left side of the piece would be words that the viewer could click on to create whatever type of person they wish to create. so some words would be "mean eyes" "cheap nose" "wise eyes" "lustful lips". so you would click on these words and see the image associated to the words on the right along with the words (like if you clicked on "mean eyes" to the right would be a set of eyes that seem mean and then to the right of that you would see the word "mean" next to the image. so which i am still trying to reinforce that idea, i want to also bring in the idea that you are creating an identity through this approach. so there would also be a print out option where you could save the image on a template as a jpeg and then there would be instructions on it where you could make a mask out of that image. anyways so i'm having difficulty in which concept to work with. doug helped me think about other concepts to work with. like maybe creating a play on words like the beautiful eyes, nose, and lips would create a face that is plain, or if you clicked on the words, mean eyes, nose, and lips, you would end up with a kid's face and not a mean face. so you would get the opposite of what you expect, which challenges the viewer to look within themselves and question the stereotypes that they themselves have. orrrrr i could work of the idea of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and the word links would randomly choose something other than the image i consider as beautiful, which says " who are you to choose what beautiful is and is not?" i dunno i need help! i have my pictures, i just need a solid concept to work on and finish this project up.

2 proj instead of 1

Ideas from Mon.

Payne's prairie

I think Farrell posted a very good summary of this weekend below so I must only say that biking some of the trails that take you into the heart of the prairie was a great experience this Sunday! -the weather was fine in the morning, the scenery was beautiful, we filmed a lot of different animals (TONS of gators) and MORE- I only wished I could've stayed longer and wondered why it took working on project to get me to come out there in the first place after so long (too busy to bike much nowadays).
***Anyway, I propose instead of class some day, we take a bike ride- it could be mapping related, the GPS things may work well for this, as much as I hate to say it (I didn't like the ones we had). The Hawthorne trail (theres a map of it in my last post) is mostly flat beginner style bike trail and there is a lot to see in the first few mile stretch although it goes 16 miles to the town Hawthorne. On top of experiencing this thing that probably everyone who passes through Gainesville should try, possibly this could give the class a chance to work on something interesting as a group since there are not many of us, as Kim and I were discussing earlier.

blahs

i found this interesting site that will help me evolve my project. i know i need to move forward with this project if i plan on finishing it by tuesday night. anyways lyuba mentioned in a comment that it'd be interesting if i worked off of something other than expressive qualities of the face, instead i should identify what features of that someone may have which creates the type of person you are. ie: if you have this kind of nose and this kind of mouth you are this kind of person. which would be identified at the end. i will be using the same kind of map that i drew up. i need to take pictures of people. maybe tomorrow i'll stop people and take profile portraits of them.......i think i'm on a roll............but if this doesn't work out i'm going back to the idea of focusing on the expressive qualities of the face and mapping that out.

http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/physiognomy/physiognomy.jsp

"These facial features are unlikely to convey messages about characteristics that change rapidly or often, such as a transient emotions, because they cannot capture such rapid changes in their time scale of change. However, the possibility remains that repeated transient experiences, such as an often elicited emotion, might cumulate an effect on such slowly changing features."

Mapping electrical outlets/machines

Continuing to map/illustrate the locations of wall sockets in my house as well as the appliances/equipment using them.

I'll be attempting to map all the electrical outlets in the interior of my house and catalog what appliances/devices are plugged into them.

Middle of the road

Well I saw Katerie's comment, and I seemed to have found this photo grad student who deals directly with the concepts I am discussing in my project.

http://randomversion.com/gradphotoseminar/leanne_hemingwaysiebels.htm

Getting her contact info, or for that matter, meeting her, is going to be a challenge with that there project being due on Wednesday. hehe.

Anyways, she sounds interesting enough, with her ideas, but I dont know how much I can apply to this project in that short period of time. I got my idea fairly set, so I'm just running with it.

Right now I am working on getting the technical side up and running, so that when I get my videos recorded it will just be a matter of plugging it them into the flash file. I couldn't record my videos this weekend because I had to take my car into the shop on Friday. Long story, grinding steering, not good. Anyways, I should get it back tomorrow, and I will go to the mall and record the videos at that point.

I located the article with the information (as general as it is) regarding the experiment I mentioned in my earlier post. I am basing my story off of that experiment. It will remain fairly open-ended (the story that is) because of the nature of the game functionality. So the story's progress is open to the clicks, but the associations between the video clips are going to be linked. Not all the videos will be taped at the mall, but some of the most major ones will be.

So ya, that's where I am at. TADA!!! lol

remember, remember the 5th of November.

Images of PipeS

Today we took our bikes out to the prairie and hit some trails before the weather got really bad. We ended up getting about 3- 4 more spot readings. The wind is still going to the Southwest. The map above shows the locations where we went. Hawthorne has proven to be a difficult area to navigate through so we haven't gotten readings there. We'll have to pay if we want to go to the tower, but does anyone know of a cut to get away from that?



This was the layout we planned for our markers. The lovely people in the woodshop helped us out and gave us a few ideas.



The pvc pipes work UNBELIEVABLY well in projecting sound. We won't need amps at all.




In the woodshop we cut up our wood and drilled holes in the wood and the pvc pipe. We got everything standing and looking really good. Lyuba took the canvas home to sew it together after we cut out the patterns. The rings we got for the frame work really well (we may use posterboard to hold the frame shape). We got some more footage today which I am going to capture tonight.

Bike trails through the area of interest

Hawthorne trail:
Payne's prairie preserve trail, looks like there's no way in other than through the park gates:
-just got word that some nice looking wood is being thrown away in a dumpster nearby

Payne's Progress.

We got out to Payne's Prairie earlier today to get some footage and to start our journey. We started to notice some really odd things happening as we spent time in each place. For instance, there was always an element of death before we entered into the prairie (we collected materials to represent this). We noticed, while filming, that wind seemed to affect the living things more than those that were dead... Well, maybe it affected both things equally, but the dead things moved with more heaviness in the breeze. It was a great breezy day today with the wind moving to the south west. If lyuba and I are to continue on this project for a final (I STILL do not know if this is ok), I found a barometer/compass at american scientific that both of us are interested in using (for wind speed purposes- which are going to correspond to the sound manipulation we are going to do). We found some great brochures (see lyuba's pictures) that told us that Native American's used to live on the prairie and that there were even wars there! Tomorrow we are going to check out the observation towers and trails on the lower left portion of our map. I have been thinking about how time is an interesting factor in this mapping experience because its not like we are measuring the same wind gusts from every direction, we are just measuring what we feel in each location. It is an interesting way to document our experiences.

Surveying the prairie

how cute is that ^
didn't post yesterday because we took a break Friday and had no new material other than we got the supplies, hopefully they'll fit together
today
-we drove clockwise around our route starting from the corner of 13th / Williston today, got a chance to check out 3 sites in detail before the sun went down, will be posting scanned maps later tonight
-finding strange artifacts around the sites, we will prob use them as placemarkers or scene setters, so to speak
-got some good footage of trees/grass in the wind
-many of the places are difficult to access from the road, so we will return with bikes tomorrow when we try to hit more of the access sites (much of the prairie was blocked by private farmland from the road "scenic highway" that cuts a southward road between hawthorne and 13th again) ---brown dotted line indicates bike trails.. better readings will come from this?

And on the 7th Day, he kept doing work, no time for rest

Hey guys, Ive just been working out some more concrete aspects of my project, such as what i want the globe to look like. I know I want it to be wrapped in the area of the campus. Im wrapping it with a google earth image of the campus and of a diagram view, though i think i like it looking more like land than a diagram. Ive also been scouting out/recording sounds of campus that i think would fit, one really nice one is that fountain next to FAB, the water gives a nice repetitious sound. Also the grates near little hall express, i dunno what you call it, but you can walk in the grass and hear/see water rushing by through the grate. Its pretty cool looking. Anyways thats what ive been doing, as far as story goes, Ive only worked out some details, but i mainly just want it to be engaging. Because thats like the leash that brings the user in and guides them along.

Required update

I know we have to post an update today, but I really have to be honest and say I dont have much. I have been mulling over a lot of psychology reports and articles trying to find a good narrative to accompany my idea with the Lights Out game mechanics.

One story/experiment did stand out though...for now. The experiment went as follows: Parents were told to tell their children that they had previously (weeks before) lost them at the mall for a period of time. The kid, naturally, did not completely believe this at first. However, over a short period of time, they not only came to believe it to be true, but they were able to elaborate upon the circumstances and create a rather complex story of the surroundings and happenings on that day...that never happened. It is kind of like an implanted memory (my girlfriend would tell me it is some complex psychology term) or a persuaded memory. The idea of the memory is implanted, in this case through someone with influence, and the recipient then over time begins to believe it actually happened.

Now the part that gets me about the whole experiment is how they (the children) can so easily elaborate on the situation. It is one thing to believe it happened, but to expand upon it is completely different. I, personally, can see the expansion happening as a result of re-contextualizing other memories. Or, at the very least, taking memories or ideas of situations that may relate to situation presented (at least associatively) and then applying that to the situation. In that way, they are constructing new memories based on previous ones that actually do exist. In my mind at least, that seems plausible.

It is in that way that I want to show the way that one memory (false to begin with) can be expanded upon by associations with other memories that actual did happen but are not directly related to the false implant. Over time (through multiple clicks), the user would see connections between the memories and the memories themselves would manifest into more complex renditions of the false memory (even though all such iterations didn't exist either). This compiling of data/memories is really the heart of the project, especially in the context I have just described.

I still think I may use video (especially edited in terms of quality, lowering it).

So what do you guys think? I think I am getting there, but I am worried about the deadline.
heh, when are we not worried about deadlines. sigh, if only we had more time given how much effort it seems each of us are putting into our ideas. I think we could all produce better products (especially with our feedback between eachother) with more time. This never really changes, but I see it really happening with this project.

*shrug* just saying.

mapping faces

i found this quote inspiring

“Images of faces hold little ability to communicate the totality of a personality. The essence of a personality is not something that is stored in a static two dimentional array of dots, grains, or pixels. Rather, what is stored are subtle cues which signify base personality traits, such as a curl of a lip, squint of an eye, or pursing of the lips. These can work in series or combinations to suggest complexity of description, but ultimately, amount only to a caricature."

i may work with facial expressions and the choice of what they feel like expressing........or maybe i'll stick to the idea of mapping out the path of the choices the viewer makes on what they want.......face-wise. below is a scan of what i was thinking of doing if i went towards the idea of mapping your face. this would focus on identity, but maybe i should focus on face expresions and a way to convey your identity while still having a similar layout as what i have sketched out on the bottom.

Thank you for your ideas: Project Cont.

Hey guys, thanks for all of your comments. They were pretty helpful in developing my idea a bit further.

Now I'm actually going to try to find most, if not all recorded Genocides and talk about all of them. In Google Earth, I would like to locate the areas they were at, and destroy the way the place looks - completely wipe it off the map per say. I'm still interested in making up a story to go along with this, but now it will be about genocide in general and not just the Armenian Genocide or the Holocaust. I want to make the viewer really think about WHY a group of people would try to kill off a race, and then try to deny it ever happened or that it was a big deal at all.

Your thoughts on this will be most appreciated.

face or identity mapping?

heys, so i'm having difficulty with my project when it comes to who the memories are of and whom my audience would be. i'm not sure if i want to map memories of my life.........maybe i want to make it personal..............maybe not? i don't think i want to do this, but it may work in relating to everyone's dysfunctional family. or maybe how everything thinks that their family is dysfunctional when it's really normal and the dysfunctional families may really be the families in which everything is so perfect and dandy? anyways i found this really cool picture online. i was thinking what about working with the idea that people continually want to change their identity. so maybe i would work with something involving mapping the face and giving the user the choice of which features they would like to have in order to create a new face. then maybe having a map of different characteristics that they could choose from. so in essence it would be like a supermarkert to create the new you of some sorts...........i just have to think of how i would map this out.........i just wanted to put this idea down before i forget.

For Lyuba

I ran into a small problem at the store... let me know how you feel about the "N", i got only one just in case u didn't like it (but thats the best they had... i think it will look fine with the sock in place). I emailed michael also about our situation and told him you'd be in b/w 11 and 1 tomorrow to talk to the lab guy-- hopefully he'll give us a second chance, if not just blame it on me. I just found out I wont be out of town all day tomorrow-- I'll be back by like 5:30.

Project Update: Deaf To the World

Hey amigos, I read all the comments, thanks they were helpful, and I think ill take a little bit from all of them. I really liked the idea of making a small area wrap around the globe. So here is my modified idea.

Everyday when i come to class, or walk around, i notice that almost everyone is listening to an ipod, or mp3 player. So many people. Im even guilty of this. But whats interesting is that we use artificial sounds that in affect block out the natural sounds of the area. So when someone is walking to class, they dont hear the sounds of the place, they hear a rock song or something. So im thinking about working with google earth again, but transforming the globe to just a small area, perhaps the main UF campus. And mapping locations through the sounds of the area. The user will sit down and wear a headphones, go through the different locations on google earth. The info box will be leading them around with a fictional story about a fictional place where people have become deaf to the world. A link will be in each info box after the story, that the user will click and be transported to a podcast maybe, that will play the sounds of that area., or just different sounds linked online of that area. So they will hear the natural sounds blocked by this culture and read the story.

The main idea will be that the user after experiencing this, and exploring the story of this fake world, will have that moment where they make the link and see the similarity to our own artificially deafened culture. That every day people walk around campus with music playing in their ears and dont hear the sounds that define the area just as much as the visuals. They may not hear that car honk or that stray bit of conversation that defines it. Its almost like walking around with a blindfold. Im working with campus because thats what i see everyday, and its like its own kind of world anyways. And thats where everyone walks around and wear their little headphones.

something cool

http://artinoddplaces.org/2006/

it has to do with mapping.......

It's Lights Out

"...both false memories and genuine recovered memories may exist. Ineed,
they may be two sides of the same coin: if it is possible to falsely
remember a traumatic event that did not occur, it must also be possible to
falsely remember that a traumatic event did not occur when it did."

Maybe I can take this more literally, in that there are two sides to a coin.
I'm going to kind of write this in a stream, so here goes:
First thing that came to mind was the game of Go.









Go is a Japanese board game with white and black pebbles. The game works,
in a lot of ways, like the old game of Lights Out. I think that is what it
was called. It was an electronic game where as you turned off one light,
it turned on the surrounding ones, and visa versa.















The whole idea behind that is like a map, and if I can apply the content
of memories to that, it can create a very interesting intersection of
memories.

Apparently there are Lights Out fan clubs. http://www.mit.edu/~kbarr/lo/
Ok, so I just played a little bit of a flash version of Lights Out to
remind myself of the play style. This is getting really interesting in my
head. Even at a 5x5 grid, the possibilities as you move throughout turning
on and off certain memories would link them first by logical links, but
quickly move away from that.

Wait, I'm getting away from the idea. This idea is moving more and more
towards the project I did for Jack's class. I think I want to go down that
route though. I want to use the Lights Out mechanism as a means to show
the linking of memories. The memories I first have active would be
separate, but from the first click, the ones that turn on are linked to
that initial memory. However, as you click on the next memory, you will no
doubt overlap with another memory chain, thus creating a story or link
through the turning on and off of the memories.

I think the memories should be videos, though I am not sure about audio.
If you add audio though, it could get muddled, so I may leave that out. As
for it being video, getting different locations and any true meaning out
of them might be hard in such a short time. I guess I am just weighing the
postives and negatives about it.

As for the coding of the actual game, I may be able to get away with doing
so if I can borrow the code from a site or something like that. I dont
mind doing so because I would prefer to spend my time focusing on the
content and not how to make it work.
WOOOOOT. I think I just found a lot of my code:
http://lightforce.freestuff.gr/lightsout.php
well maybe at least, it may be commplicated.

Anyways, I need a good story now. That is going to be my real focus over
the next day or so.