[OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice
Professor Roger B. Dannenberg • Fall 2018 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice
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For my final project, I want to make some form of a simple, but well-crafted audio sequencer— a tool where someone can compose simple music and have it played back to them. I want to utilize animations per moment of ‘collision’ for each part— in order to connect both the visual and auditory. So in some ways, this is like an audio-visualizer, but in this case, people will get to produce their own simple compositions!
For my final project for this class, I would like to make an interactive game that involved both the mouse, camera, and a patterned background of some sort. The patterns will lie across the white space of the screen on the background. The patterns will be composed of different shapes with different shapes and different colors. The task is to “pop” or click on the right colors or the shapes in order to win. when the person on the camera moves, the patterns will move according to the silhouette of the person in the camera. When the user finishes the game, the screen will transition into a different screen and will inform the user whether they have won or lost the game.
This is a project called Sand Dollar by a programming company called Complexification. This project was created through a constructed radical pattern through a technique called sand stroke painting. The radical form is controlled under a delicate craft of tree-like structure that is slowly turned clockwise around the origin. Hundred of radical patterns are created through programming creating a form with its own unique shape.
This installation is called 1984X1984 by an electronic artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. When a person stands in front of the screen, it mimics the silhouette of the object by shifting the patterns on the screen. This is one art piece from his series, Shadow Box in which it is built upon a computerized tracking system. The background pattern is pulled out from random addresses photographed by Google Street View. The piece is moved by any object interacting in front of the screen.
These two projects have a very similar characteristic. They are both generated through programming with a basis of patterns that fill up the visual composition. These projects can potentially inspire my final project because there are many ways to play around with patterns. I plan to create my final project with a pattern of some sort that has the ability to interact with another factor. I personally enjoy interactive art because the second element that reacts to the base of the art becomes part of the artwork.
For this project, Dani Delgado (from Section E) wanted to collaborate and create something that synthesizes user interaction, sound, and generative visuals. Our plan is to start by displaying a still image (we are thinking a graphic cube) which changes a little bit when the user presses certain keys. The whole interaction would work as so: Each key has an assigned sound and “cube distortion” to it. So, when the user presses a key, a note will play and the visual will change slightly, so that when the user plays a full “song” the visual would have morphed a lot. A possible idea we had was with lower pitches the visual could retain the change that the lower pitch enacted, while with a higher pitch, the visual would go back to its original state before the key was enacted.
For this project, we (Elena Deng and Dani Delgado) wanted to collaborate and create something that synthesizes user interaction, sound, and generative visuals in order to create an interesting digital experience. Our plan is to start by displaying a still image (we are thinking of it being a graphic cube but are currently entertaining other possibilities) which changes a little bit when the user presses certain keys. The whole interaction would work as so: Each key has an assigned sound and “cube distortion” to it. So, when the user presses a key, a note will play and the visual will change slightly, so that when the user plays a full “song” the visual would have morphed a lot. A possible idea we had was with lower pitches the visual could retain the change that the lower pitch enacted, while with a higher pitch, the visual would go back to its original state before the key was enacted.
With my proposed collaborator, Rachel Lee from Section E, we decided to create an interactive game. There will be a spaceship trying to collect cheerios to go an adventure in the cereal world. The objective of the game is to collect the cereal floating around outer space to fuel the spaceship; the more cereals one collects, more points the person gets. In the beginning of the game, there will be a start button and an instruction explaining the point of the game (“Go save the cereal world by collecting the cereal rocks! Press ‘start’ to start the game”). Possibly, there will be “dangerous” cereals that float around, and if the spaceship touches them, it may cause the game to be over. There will be a one minute timer on the upper right corner of the page to time the game. In the background, there will be cereal boxes to show that the spaceship is in a cereal world setting.
For my final project, I plan on creating an interactive game with my proposed collaborator, Jenna Kim, from Section E. In the game, the main protagonist will be a rocket navigating its way through cereal planet, and its objective is to collect cereal for fuel so that it can continue its journey in outer space. It will potentially be timed e.g. around a minute long, so that after a given duration, the game will end or draw to some sort of conclusion. Alternatively, there might be toxic substances floating around that if encountered, will cause the game to end. This project will draw upon older skills and exercises we previously completed, such as the Generative Landscape project, self defined functions and arrays. This will allow me to brush up on techniques that I want to gain a better understanding for, such as removing elements from an array.
For our project (collaborating with my partner), we are planning to make an interactive digital story for young children.Therefore, I looked into educational related digital projects. One project that I looked over is “Puppet Parade, made by design I/O. It is an interactive installation allowing children to use their body to move large puppets that are projected on the wall. Another project is “The Uber Game- Financial Times”, which is an online game made by the Financial Times. It is a form of journal that is also a game built from interviews. I admired “Puppet Parade” because i love the idea of children’s’ telling their own story depending on what kind of movement they do. “The Uber Game- Financial Times” is also admirable because it was made in a fun way to tell a story (interviews/ journal) through interaction game. They are created in two different ways, but they are very similar because they only tell a “story” through interaction; they’re not just in a form of writing or reading. I would love to do a project similar to these to make reading or delivering a message in more communicative way.
In my research for generative and computational artists, I came across a visual artist/programmer/designer that I really admire — Marcin Ignac. A lot of his projects deal with data visualization and generative art in visually engaging ways, many times involving the manipulation of interesting 3D spaces in aesthetic qualities. In particular, I find “Continuous Transition”, “Instancae”, and “Noise Particles”, projects the most visually stimulating, with “Instancae” being the most visually engaging. “Instancae” is a branch of a bigger project “Flora”, and it is interesting because it is a generative plant project that involves several different “plant” forms to generate output, and focuses on translating natural elements (biomimicry) onto a computational platform. I also really admire his “Continuous Translation” project because it dives into an interesting break down of undulation, that I would want to further explore in my final project. Although several of his projects do allow for interaction, “Continuous Translation” is more so an already finalized project; I would want to explore more so how the user can input data in order to manipulate the wave.
For my final project, I would like to explore more in depth interactions developed around the concepts of gravity, springs, undulation through particle systems. To do this, I believe I will go about creating these interactive experiences through objects, or possibly turtles, depending on how I want to construct the interaction through a particle system, or a more self constructed system. Ideally, I want to create a flat plane of sort that undulates at a given frequency and amplitude, which can then be manipulated through a user’s mouse input and/or keyboard input. The most desirable outcome would be to have the plane react to mouse interaction, however, depending on how fluid the plane is, I predict that it might be not interactive and/or can only be manipulated through three forms, which will be then created through a series of clicking 3 or so keys.
I am currently between two layout ideas: having my flat plane be of a face on view, or placing it it some sort of perspective.
