Student Area

OodBird-LookingOutwards03

I must admit what compelled me most about this project was the visuals, both in the way it was documented and in the way in the sculpture itself. The lighting reminds of old movies with very harsh and artificial lighting and also desaturates all the colors making everything almost like a black and white film. I do not know what this would look like in person but in the documentation it looks very beautiful and compelling.

I think the construction of the piece is also interesting. The way the light reflects off the bottles makes them look like glass and gives them a sort of superficial or artificial elegance. Like they are being disguised as glass.

I appreciate the functionality of this piece as a sort of giant clock. Its subtle way of showing the passage of time really makes one think about our own lives.

lampsauce-soli-sketches

Idea 1: A note-taking or brainstorming interface for n-ary trees. Using visualization tools like D3.js, data and, more importantly, thoughts can be nicely organized into a word tree which resembles a JSON. I think that using the Soli sensor's swipe to navigate such a tree and p5.speech to record thoughts and ideas makes for a unique brainstorming interface. If the interface shows promise, the idea can be expanded by connecting directly to a MongoDB, which also stores data as a JSON.

 

Idea 2: This idea involves some kind of 3d creative toy using Three.js. In order to make the limited gestures meaningful, a sequence of gestures can be used to orient, transform, and place a cube into a world. I think of my ideas this one is the least elegant interface, because consecutive swipes feels like a lot of work for a simple transformation. Anyway, to control a given type of transformation on the cube, the user can swipe into a given control plane and swipe to make the transformations.

 

Idea 3: This idea builds off of the previous idea of creating an environment. In this case, Golan pointed me to Everest Pipkin's game tileset. I quickly made this sketch which allows users to place trees in the 'world.' For the Soli interaction, the user can swipe to edit the 'cursor' position, and speak certain commands to add certain tiles. This is a fun way to create quick compositions that look really nice (all due to the quality of the hand-drawn tiles). Because there are 281 tiles total and each has a relatively concise name, there is a broad range of creative possibilities. Another benefit of using the tiles is that they are isometric and aligned, which makes it very easy to mock up code like this.
In my experience with the Soli sensor, while tap is a promising gesture, I have not gotten it to work. Hence, most of my ideas only rely on swipe gestures and maybe voice recognition as well.

tale-CriticalInterface

10. The interface uses metaphors that create illusions: I am free, I can go back, I have unlimited memory, I am anonymous, I am popular, I am creative, it’s free, it’s neutral, it is simple, it is universal. Beware of illusions!

Did you know that the first photographic camera, the first washing machine, the first transistor radio, the first Mac and the first windows had the same slogan? “YOU JUST CLICK, WE DO THE REST”

Imagine your desktop is a kitchen, a garden, a hospital, a computer. Now, imagine it using no metaphor

This tenet and the propositions talks about the critical role our imagination plays in the interface. I found the second quote, which is one of the propositions listed under this tenet, particularly interesting because it means that many of the new technologies/tools were introduced/advertised in such way that the advertisement exploits people’s imaginations and thus makes its item more interesting and valuable. I think people’s ability to imagine is boundless — the more you gain knowledge, the more you could imagine based on all the information your brain has collected.

I remember reading about what distinguishes human from other species, of which the main takeaway was that human has the ability to imagine and believe in fiction, while other species don’t. For example, we enjoy dramas, movies, musical, play, literature, etc. in our everyday life, and these are all possible because humans have the ability to pretend and collectively believe in something that’s not there. All the characters and events in the fiction don’t exist or didn’t happen anywhere around the world (usually), yet everyone still enjoys knowing that everything is made up.

Similarly, the concept of money and currency totally relies on the ability to imagine, as what we call money is either a piece of paper/metal or some number presented on the computer system.

marimonda – soli-sketches

I am still not completely sure of these ideas but they’re directions I’m sort of thinking about.

  1. Weird Landscape Generator

In this one I want to make a generative virtual world that can be traveled around with using gestures,  below I  have sort of an image of what the map would look like. I am interested in also using textures from images but I am still thinking about how I would do this, if I should use ML or perhaps an easier way to get weird generative landscapes (I could always just draw elements?).

2. Conversation agent?

Basically you are having a coffee date with certain people (in a sort of speed dating setting) but its really surreal conversations, ideally in a place that seems like could be a recorded zoom session because that’s the most uncomfortable digital space we are all used to. Swiping gestures could be used back and forth to change a person. It would be fun to work with generative backgrounds/people so that each person is unique. Choices would be things the user would have to say, so that the user can simply eat their dinner/coffee without getting their dirty hands on their phone.

3. Bad voice to text diary:

You use swiping/tapping gestures to reset and go back and forth in the pages. Many words are replaced to make what is being written somewhat nonsensical.

Certain keywords could aid in formatting? “bold” allows words to get bolded, as does “italics” and maybe certain words like “bigger”/”smaller” could change the font size. It would also be fun to experiment with posting these diary entries in social media with IFTTT.

4. Tweet navigator that shows/reflects specific trends/sets of keywords that are chosen from a list (using swipe or tap) to create poetry (it could also be generative, where the user swipes through different generative phrases to find tweets with them). This could also incorporate elements from 3. with speech to text.

tale-LookingOutwards03

I found this kinetic light bulb sculpture presented by Build UP LLC (a kinetic art distributor company in UAE) very interesting. Although the idea of color-changing light bulbs moving up and down is not as mind-blowing these days as to the past, I find the concept of generating certain shapes or motions through the moving light bulbs interesting.

So far any installations that used a set of light bulbs attached to a string from the ceiling that I’ve seen either remained static or just moved up and down, creating an impression of shining particles. However, what they have done instead is arranging the light bulbs such that it looks like it’s part of the interior design and/or is moving in a satisfying mathematical motion.

These are some screenshots from the video:

 

thumbpin-soli-sketches

  1. Soundscape about longing

Upload sounds of everyday life, friends’ voices, favorite songs, etc. to the app and create a soundscape by moving/dancing around the phone and using reach, swipe, tap interactions. Music begins when soli senses your presence.

2. Song/composition

Same idea, but you do not upload any sounds and soli interactions produce different melodies/harmonies.

3. Soft phone

Phone is covered in a soft material and emulates a stuffed animal/pillow. “Petting” the stuffed animal translates into the tap and swipe interactions, which the phone will respond to with glowing colors or sound.

4. Productivity

App lets you set the phone to “productivity”/”responsibility” mode. When you reach for the phone while it is in productivity mode you’ll get a notification (e.g. an email via IFTTT) saying to get back to work. If you reach for your phone when you should be asleep, your phone will also yell at you. Group suggestion: include some consequences by automatically generating a tweet when you’re off task