For the final project, I’m going to collaborate with classmate Jiaxin. We are going to create a media art interactive installation, using projection and Makey Makeys. Makey Makeys will be used as input devices, and the projection will project the content created by P5.js. For this media art installation, we are going to create a serious of music visualization animations responding to the input signals from Makey Makeys. The animations will change along with the melody when people interact with the input devices. At the beginning of this installation, there will be a basic melody for people to follow. When people try to use the Makey Makey, they can add new melodies to the existed music, also change the animations displaying on the projection screen.
Music can be fun
I’m planning to create interactive media art with projection for my final project. For this, I’ve researched some interactive media art with jiaxin, my collaborator for this project, to get some inspiration. One is ‘Music can be fun’. This is interactive website using music to create visual and interactivity. I really liked the way he created visual for music. He’s creative technologist from UK. He also creates other arts with music visualization. You can check he’s astonishing art works at his website down below.
The other project that I found for my project is this.
Sonia falcone is a female artist using various types of fabrication and media. Interesting thing about this installation art is that she used not just flat square screen to project the image. She used different small dimensions to make this visuals much more interesting. I got the idea of using projection from this work. It overwhelms people when the art becomes bigger scale. I love the feeling of overwhelmed by atmosphere art created. Right side of Video Installation-2010 Sonia Falcone’s website
As a kid, I always loved playing pixel mini games. These games included a winning and losing situations, where players would try to get the highest scores they can. I want to implement a similar game that takes place underwater. Taking on the classic “grow your fish” games, the fish character would attempt to eat smaller fish while avoiding the sharks.
Possible Pixel Sketch
The players would be able to interact by controlling where the position of the fish are. As the game continues on, the rate the shark characters come out would increase as well as the speed of how fast the fish and sharks swim, making the game more challenging.
For my final project, I’d like to propose a generative landscape at a more detailed and complex scale than our prior project. Specifically, there are a number of aspects that I’d like to implement into this animation.
One, I plan on using L-systems to generate some of the shapes implemented into the terrain. Perhaps most obviously plants, but also on a more abstract level, L-systems could be used to generate interesting backgrounds/horizons.
Two, I want this project to be distinct from our prior project in the sense that the program will generate a singular landscape that the “player” can roam around in. I like the idea of creating a space that is constant, since then there can be much more attention to detail by the audience. Also, with a scrolling generated landscape, there is no stillness… and I think stillness is a quality I enjoy in artwork, and look to implement in my own.
Three (though this is more of an optional aspect), I am considering making my landscape a sort of collage, or mixed media landscape. I mean this in the sense that I would create physical objects that I then take pictures of to implement into the animation. This idea was largely inspired by Samorost 3: an artistic video game, actually largely renown for its soundtrack.
A screenshot from Samorost 3, showing the main character interacting with some kind of anteaterA stylized turtle sitting on the edge of a comet that is actually a root system of some sort of massive tree.
I want to incorporate my architecture studio final presentation work with this class’s final project. My plan is to develop an interactive artwork that shows the kinetic energy within a site based on circulation around buildings. I am thinking of using the mouse like an attractor point that would cause a shift in movement to the static objects (maybe lines or circles), so the mouse would be the energy that trigger movements. Instead of just simply drawing lines to depict circulation, I wanted to show movement real time. Then when the mouse is not pressed to guide movement around the site, then the objects will slowly move back to original position. (My looking outwards 12 post has examples of the effect that I would like to explore and create for this final project) Below is a very simple drawing of the mouse going around the buildings.
In my search for precursor projects to our final project, I decided to research different apps. From my search, I found an app created by Toca Boca (https://tocaboca.com/about/) called Toca Life and Stack! created by Ketchapp. Because our project is going to be more of a cause and effect based project, I found that the apps that I found followed very closely to the goals that we initially wanted.
Below is an introductory video that gives you a feel of what kinds of products Toca Boca makes.
The apps that Toca Boca creates cater more to younger children and letting them interact with a virtual world while also simultaneously teaching them lessons in a more fun and dynamic way. The apps are simple enough for young children to use while also visually appealing.
The next app, Stack! helps as a precursor because in our final project, we wanted to implement a game where particles are being dropped from the top of the canvas onto a platform in the lower part of the canvas. This app encompasses exactly that as it has blocks that fall from the top of the screen onto a separate canvas. However, where the goal in this app is to stack the blocks as high as possible, the goal in our project’s game will be to gather different types of ingredients for a new recipe that the character makes.
My final project will mostly be focusing on animation, so my primary focus for this weeks looking outwards was aesthetic inspiration, as well as interesting ways of generating animations.
So, while doing research, my largest aesthetic inspiration came from the game Limbo, created by the video game studio Playdead in 2010.
A screenshot of Limbo gameplay.
Limbo is characterized by this sort of disturbing, nightmare-scape. I’d like to incorporate this same beautiful, nightmare mood into my own work.
I think what I admire most about Limbo is its capability to create something so disturbing, but so breathtakingly beautiful at the same time.
After that, I was trying to think of the animation from a coding sense. That’s when I stumbled upon L-systems, actually mentioned in another student’s looking outwards from a few weeks ago. After some initial research, the subject sounded super interesting, and I went looking for artists using L-systems in their animations.
William Chyr came up pretty fast when I googled L-systems, and his work seemed to adequately demonstrate to me the potential of L-systems in regards to visual aesthetic.
A program using L-systems to generate a plant-like image
The above image is probably the simplest of Chyr’s pieces, but also really concisely describes the visuals of L-systems. What interested me more than just his still images, though, were the animations that developed over time.
I think that seeing the program rapidly increase in complexity to form a full image is much more impactful or interesting. It captures the viewers wonder, as he or she watches a line begin to split and branch out without any idea of what the final shape will be.
Project Manifesto: “For our project, we are creating a two-part immersive experience that’s part-“choose your own adventure” and part-platform game. The premise brings back an earlier character Hamza created in the early days of the class, Carl, whose goal is to make a nice, home-cooked meal for his girlfriend Carla. But, it has to be perfect. In a choose-your-own-adventure game, you’ll have the option to check the fridge for ingredients, or travel to a new country to pick some more rare ingredients. There’ll also be information on these pages about these ingredients. We’ll create these pages on Illustrator and use a series of key presses to activate each ones. (see diagram below).
Players will “cook” the meal through a platform game where they use a plate to catch the ingredients to make the “perfect” meal (see below). Once the stack reaches a certain height, the game ends with an image of the final meal in its finest presentation.
Two pieces of software that are precursors to my project are Google Keep (keep.google.com) and Todoist (en.todoist.com). Google Keep is an awesome program for recording thoughts, but it is not great for organizing, integrating with a calendar, or holding documents. Additionally the interface as a mosaic of “keeps” can be difficult to quickly review. My interface takes a stronger active design voice by following strict guidelines. Todoist is an app centered around productivity. While this is a good approach, the app is still disconnected from a person’s files and internet resources. One dream I would like to include in this project is the ability to pull up bookmarked websites. Although these are not art projects, they are heavily designed computer programs that have the potential to increase the efficiency of working/paper writing. I enjoy this category of product because I am interested in knowledge generation, organization, and research.
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