IDAT 101: the aftermath of the intervention

Following on from the presentation and the premiere of the intervention, I've noticed that the amount of views had increased from 50 on the first day to a 3-figured 136 views, which meant that my intervention was successful. Many reasons can be put down to the usage of memes and tags, and also the critique of Justin Bieber, in which the intervention is partially aimed towards. However, a point about the North Korean clip was raised during the presentation, but for definite, they wouldn't know of the clip (or the 4chan meme), but if all the hype about Bieber touring North Korea were to be true, and if something unfortunate were to happen to him before the tour, the reaction would pretty much correlate with the intervention, in a similar way to the loss of their Dear Leader, and also of that of Michael Jackson worldwide.

The biggest lesson learned from the intervention is that if you do know the formula, then your intervention would be very successful and could even go viral itself.

IDAT 101: My intervention

For my intervention, I have decided to juxtapose a video of Justin Bieber playing a character on CSI who gets shot dead with a video of the public mourning of Kim Il-Sung in North Korea, in reference to a 4chan campaign to vote for Justin to perform in North Korea, with fake subtitles added to change the subject to it being Justin Bieber's death rather than the Dear Leader's. The reason why I've decided to do this as an intervention is because I wanted to address the rivalries between fans and critics, the latter of which had made him subject to a vote in favour of a tour in North Korea, and also because an episode of CSI, where he gets shot dead, and the recent events on YouTube relating to a 4chan campaign last year inspired me to construct such an intervention.

The intervention is a satire of several memes, which include the aforementioned ones, but also incorporating an idea that has been used for the Downfall meme, where fake subtitles are added to make something in a foreign language sound like it was about something different to the actual, original topic. This time, the fake subtitles are used to give an illusion that Justin Bieber was going to perform in North Korea, but since his demise in the intervention, the whole public are extremely melancholic about his loss, and even mentioned the great effort that has been put to get him to North Korea, including building monuments, mass-purchasing tickets and even donning t-shirts. The intervention also covers the issue about rivalries between 'beliebers' (loyal fans of Justin Bieber, particularly hardcore ones) and Justin's critics, in which this intervention is designed to target. Often, the criticism is criticised by 'beliebers', who often use the excuse of jealousy to defend him, whilst critics would fight back and even take extreme measures to shock them, like for example, YouTube was hacked with messages against him, and even a fake banner informing of his 'death'. The intervention is designed to provide entertainment and irony, whilst at the same time shocks the most naïve of 'beliebers', until the most educated ones realise that it is just a spoof. The so-called reaction, depending on what angle it is taken depends on these aforementioned factors, whether or not it will be just a humourous response or an excuse to pontificate defences, which would be most likely be seen in hardcore fans, especially younger ones.

See here for the intervention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LtVa0MR2g0

IDAT 101: Juxtaposition as an intervention

What I noticed about existing art interventions were the fact that most of them relied on juxtaposing the environment, the context, or an actual action of an intervention with existing installations, real-life objects, public property, or anything that exists, like for instance, Pirates of the Amazon used the idea of incorporating a plug-in that displayed relevant links to torrents to a very popular online store.

One idea that I had for an intervention is a 'what-if' scenario that uses two clips juxtaposed to create a faux news report, which I did, by taking a clip of Justin Bieber getting shot whilst he played a character in an episode of CSI and placing it next to an edited clip of a North Korean news report about the entire country mourning the loss of the Dear Leader. I then added fake subtitles to the clip so then it was about Justin Bieber getting killed and the country mourning his loss, in reference to a 4chan campaign to rig votes for the next country that Justin Bieber is to perform in, and imagining if it were true, and if he (well, it will never happen in reality) was ever to be shot dead, the hysteria would have struck to almost the same extent when the King of Pop died, and that of Kim Il-Sung.

IDAT 101: Our online identity crisis: the inescapable truth

Last week's lecture in IDAT101 raised many points about digital identities. How do we protect ourselves in an increasing invasive surveillance society? How do we know about our traces of our identities online? And how do we even escape from it all? One documentary pretty much answers these often-asked questions, and that documentary was Erasing David. Erasing David is about the award-winning movie director David Bond's attempt to escape the eagle eyes of both the government and private companies. He does what is called a Subject Access Request under the Freedom of Information Act to find out more about the amount of data that is being held about him, then a private firm is hired to hunt him down, and he has to escape from them by ditching pretty much every trace of him as possible. This comes to show how almost impossible it is to escape from surveillance of the digital world, and how important it is to ensure that we preserve our online dignities until something is done to legislate against this increasingly-invasive digital world. Failure to preserve our online dignities does have a knock-on effect about our lives, and sometimes even negative repercussions, like for instance, an employer judged a potential applicant based on her Facebook profile (including pictures of partying, implying that the person in question is a party animal), and as a result, she failed to get the job (as far as I know, the profile was even public, and even if it were to be made private, internet spiders would have already cached the pre-private profile). Another case was about a teacher that failed to get into another country as a result of his unusual (but topical to his area of teaching) purchases on Amazon, which I was shocked to hear that even with that, it still has a huge effect on the online identity of that person, but nonetheless, if it was understood (and not misjudged), then maybe Customs and Immigration would have understood about it, and he'd be on his way to the luggage carousel.

Back to work: things to come

It's been quite a while since I've done an update, but rest assured, I had been busy working on the essay for IDAT108 and the phonics game for SOFT131 (both of which are now complete and are being submitted as of the date of publishing), in addition to starting off the IDAT107 animatic. Christmas has been very good, and although I do miss those homemade chili con carnes and quality Indian takeaways (although I'm pretty sure that somewhere in Plymouth could fill in the gap), I'm glad to be back to uni for many things which will be interesting, and talking of which, there are a lot of things to come, including, but not limited to:

• Bumper video for IDAT107 after the animatic
• Life-sized board game project for IDAT106, crossover with Year 2s
• Beginning work on 3D
• Practicals in IDAT108
• Custom Flash game for IDAT102 (the racing game was just a taster)
• ...and much more

Also, I will start sailing soon, every Wednesday (since there is now a huge gap between SOFT131 on Tuesdays and IDAT107 on Thursdays) and some Saturdays. Looks like 2011 is set to be very eventful and interesting at the same time.

IDAT 101: Reflection and Evaluation of Installation

In my opinion, this term's project was an excellent example showing my example of planning and exploring many areas that I have never been introduced to before, even before university. This has also helped me prepare for when in case I do eventually do produce an actual installation, and possibly even when it comes to the placement year. The challenges this has brought to me and also my team-mates tested how we can (in theory) produce an amazing, immersive and fun installation in such small space (and the fact that the space can get even smaller at peak times, particularly on Fridays and weekends), whilst at the same time we can capitalise on the popularity of technology and the clubbing culture.

The idea of using sequencers, ambient lighting and addressable sensors (which in turn developed from the idea of using Processing and cameras to randomly generate content on a screen) in the installation caught my imagination the most, and that was when we then decided to incorporate these ideas into the project, and also do more research on these areas.

The success of our installation depends on many factors, most of which will involve complying with:

• The requirements of the client, 
• The demographic of the general public that is expected to interact with the installation, 
• And also the, limitations of space, technology and mostly important, safety.

For instance, the requirements of safety have been met by ganging cables with the correct tape and junction boxes, and by ballasting loose equipment onto the floor so then it will become difficult to knock them out of alignment, which would have otherwise compromised our installation. On the other hand, the requirements of the client and the demographic has been met by planning out our installation and using technologies that will mesmerise our audience, and also we decided to capitalise on the idea that the audience can create the music that they want to dance to, as well as allowing the rest of the audience to participate at the same time by dancing with the music, which in turn creates a computer-generated image behind the DJ booth and influences the lighting. Space requirements were also met, by planning the equipment around the given environment, and also bearing in mind the limited dimensions of certain nightclubs.

However, I also felt that there could be room for improvement, especially in terms of team work. After a while thinking about what our installation should be based on, and our environmental and contextual studies, we then went our separate ways to work on individual parts of the project, and then afterwards, we did not have many meet-ups apart from in regular Thursday sessions. We could have been a bit more pro-active in terms of group work and also we could have looked further into working examples. I also felt that a bit more research prior to the project could have been done, but when we went off to do the blogging, I then did more research about the technologies that are to be used inside the installation, mostly focusing on a particular core technology that was researched as part of an assignment for IDAT106. And if it were possible, in resources and time, we could have practically put the installation idea into actual practice.

But nonetheless, I think that our project has been successful, and with the help of team-mates, our ideas have come full circle and were fully thought out very well from the start. Also, we have met all the requirements that our installation demanded, which is an added bonus considering that had we not met them, our installation would not have been fit for purpose, and last-minute adjustments would have been required, which would in turn delay our installation, as well as perceived anticipation by both the client and the audience. The final result turned out very well, and in the future, I could even incorporate these ideas into something that could even equal a huge profit, both to myself and the hypothetical company. Overall, I have enjoyed working on the project and putting all those ideas into the final result, which then resulted in something very interesting and at the same time, captivating to the audience, the client and the developer.

IDAT 101: Alouette, déployer la piste de danse (Deployment of the dance floor project and worst-case scenarios)

When deploying the equipment for the installation, there has to be consideration as to what the environment contains, and how the equipment is to be installed. Because in our instance, our environment is going to be very busy, especially at the peak times (typically around 22:00-02:00), which is why the equipment has to be placed in a way that will not compromise the connections of our sensors, and power cables. Also, the equipment must last at least 5 hours because in case of failures, the installation has to then be rectified, which can cause problems, especially when the equipment is in mid-usage.

In the diagram below, the floor sensors are placed underneath the dance floor using tripods with the cables being fed to a small trap door that leads to the laptop computer and controllers. The example dance floor is also placed carefully near to the emergency exit, in case of emergencies:

The plan of action for the dance floor is as follows:

• Perform research on the environment, context, requirements (according to needs, demands and instinct based on specification from the client, the customer and other needs in terms of environment that the installation is to be placed at, and health-and-safety matters that can arise owing to wires, placement of sensors, cameras and other miscellaneous equipment required for the installation) and possible outcome.
• Obtain the necessary cables and main equipment.
• Plan out setup, where the equipment is to be placed and the times in which the installation session is to start.
• Code/set up Processing (for the cameras and LCD display behind DJ booth and Arduino (for floor sensors), then set up and test controllers for sound and video.
• Set up Ableton Live and MIDI for sequencers, program in samples.
• Pre-assemble floor sensors and then store, ready for transportation
• Have at least 3 days notice before performance to test setup and at least a month before performance to iron out bugs and other faults.
• Before departure to venue, ensure equipment is secure and packed in a way that the equipment will not get damaged en-route.
• Ideally, arrive before the club even opens (with direction from management) and do pre-run tests to ensure that last-minute problems are ironed-out and eliminated.

However, there can be other issues in addition to the aforementioned generic failure. These are also listed as follows:

• Software bugs and sudden errors in operating system can result in non-operation of equipment.
• Missing essential cables and/or tape to cover cables to prevent hazards.
• Samples can be corrupted, resulting in sound problems or unusual anomalies in samples.
• Sensors can be influenced wrongly by many environmental factors, such as a magnetic field interference, spilt drinks (which can also cause damage to equipment if not placed properly) and being near toilets with turbojet hand dryers.
• Settings in the sequencers and the software can be forgotten, thus requiring a manual setup, which can delay the intended start time.
• And also, transportation factors, including traffic, security of equipment and accidents.

IDAT 101: Contextual and Environmental study

To study what we will be expecting in the installation, we branched off to various nightclubs and sizeable bars in and around the city of Plymouth to check out the size, dimensions, suitability and also to measure what sort of audience we are going to target our installation at. Presuming that the sort of crowd will be young (at least of legal drinking age and above, but particularly also, students), we then had an idea about what we will be dealing with in terms of popularity, as well as what sort of requirements we will have to meet.

Because many young people, especially students, will be into latest, immersive and intriguing technologies, our dance floor installation will be without a doubt suitable for the audience. The space in which we are to place the installation at will be very crowded, but nonetheless it will also suit our specification very well, because not only is our installation designed to be fun and immersive, it is also designed to be influenced by the crowd, so basically, it makes them the 'DJ' because the installation is controlled by the crowd themselves, especially when it comes to making beats, basslines, rhythm and sound with special visual effects thrown in at the same time. At the same time, we took various photos (albeit on a low-quality built-in phone camera, but still captures the idea as many will probably have benign phone cameras, although many are anyways switching to better models and some even bring proper compact digital cameras with them) whilst I did a sound sample in a bar to highlight how busy our environment will be (link will be at the bottom).

However, the nightclub environment isn't without space issues. Because the environment will obviously be busy, placement of equipment and wiring will have to be carefully thought out before any implementation can occur, as well as researching the venue. But this should not really be the issue, especially in a large-scale nightclub, because this is what we are targeting this installation at, but we also have to address health-and-safety concerns at the same time, as per law and instinct.

In this example of a generic nightclub, this floor plan gives an impression of how our installation will be laid out in this environment. Although it really depends on how the nightclub dance floor is laid out, and also the size of the room as well, this is a typical representation of a generic nightclub environment that will accommodate all the needs and requirements of the specification. In this floor plan, the motion detectors are placed underneath the floor, with the addressable sensors and cameras placed strategically in order to provide a better triangulation of the dance floor in order to optimise the ambient lighting and randomly-generated images, which builds up the atmosphere of the environment, in addition to inputs generated by the sequencers, which are used by the general public to create his/her/their own music to dance to.

Link to group research: https://tulip.plymouth.ac.uk/Module/IDAT101/Wiki/FunkyTown.aspx

Link to sound recording: http://bit.ly/idat101recording 

IDAT 101: Specification and requirements for our nightclub installation

For our installation, the specification and requirements for our installation is as follows:


Specification:

• KAOSS PAD and/or a Tenori-on sequencer
• Ambient lighting technology with DMX512 control
• Weight sensors for lighting/effects, to be placed under floor if environment permits, otherwise substitute addressable sensors, strategically placed by each side of the installation, or mount on ceiling rack
• Addressable sensors to supplement weight sensors
• A laptop computer (preferably a MacBook Pro, although a Windows laptop can also be used) with suitable software
• Sound interface/mixer to link laptop to speaker system/sequencers
• Suitable wiring for equipment
• An ideal nightclub environment, rightly sized to accommodate large amounts of people in case the installation becomes very popular

Requirements:

Mounting/protection of equipment:

• Mount cameras and projector on lighting equipment railings and/or ceiling
• Embed floor sensors underneath dance floor if possible, otherwise anchor them on the floor and place them in inconspicuous locations
• Place KAOSS Pad, Tenori-on and/or iPad on mounts by DJ booth, laptop to face away from public in order to ensure that the software is not interrupted during installation
• Also, place lighting control equipment towards the laptop, away from the public interfaces
• Cable protection
• Rubber cable tidying strips to be used for cables used in floor sensors
• Cable tidies for equipment leading to central interfaces controlled by laptop and/or lighting interfaces

Contingency plan in case of faults/problem/emergencies:

•  Toolkit to repair equipment
• Duct tape, soldering iron and solder
• Spare cables
• Redundant equipment (multiples of the same equipment)
• Spare ambient lighting floor tiles
• Spare bulbs/LEDS
• Another laptop in case of software fault
•  Fire extinguisher
•  Check presence of CO2 fire extinguisher in premises, failing that, provide one with equipment
•  Location of emergency exits
•  Check nearest location of emergency exit
• Check for obstructions

Transportation:

• If taking own car/van, check route for traffic delays/roadworks/accidents
• If taking public transport, check timetables and live information for delays/strikes

Source of specification and requirements: from own document and group postings on the internal IDAT101 Wiki

IDAT 101: DAT installations and the Scouting motto (preparedness for installations)

In today's lecture, in terms of being prepared for setting up and tearing down installations, I discovered that the good old motto that is well known throughout the whole of the Scouting movement also applies to Digital Art and Technology installations, especially in terms of using the right tape for the installation, because you don't want to end up using too much wrong tape on the walls, because in a public place, you don't want to end up damaging someone else's property! At least if we had to do our IDAT101 installations for real, at least we can learn a thing or two from the motto: Be Prepared!

PS: Even Simon revealed that he was a Scout, and agreed with me as it was incorporated in some form into the slides.

IDAT 106: Addressable Technologies (crossover with IDAT101 for the research part of the blogging)

For my assignment, I chose to look into addressable technologies. Addressable technologies, depending on one's definition, is a technology that sends information to the receiving end (such as a computer or another central monitoring system. Although there are many uses for addressable technologies, the most prominent use of addressable technologies in a practical application are fire alarms, in which most buildings of the University have. In my application for IDAT101, the installation will make good use of it for influencing the ambient lighting and possibly a video screen behind the DJ booth.

Link to research: http://bit.ly/idat106research

IDAT 101: Blog review day

Today, in IDAT, we look into each others blogs. So far, a particular blog (which of course I won't name as he'll probably start putting something on soonish, in fact he is now doing it as we speak!) hasn't got anything on, not even a single thing (despite that he put a disclaimer as a build up to his blog, then it disappointingly resulted in an empty space)! Oh well, c'est la vie!

IDAT 101: Looking into technology for our strategy

In addition to our chosen space (in a club environment), I've looked into more technologies for our strategy, which will boost the scenario a bit more. These technologies include:


The Tenori-on: http://tenori-on.yamaha-europe.com/uk
Korg KAOSS PAD: http://www.korg.co.uk/products/dance_dj/kp3/dj_kp3.asp
DMX512 (the industry standard for lighting in stages and discotheques): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMX512
And ambient lighting, in which we are still exploring.


There's more to come, so stay tuned!

IDAT 101, IDAT 108 & SOFT 131: Interesting stuff and a snake

Yesterday's and todays lectures brought many interesting things to my mind; more stuff about spaces and a cube that recognises your voice and adjusts accordingly (imagine saying 'antidisestablishmentarianism' into the cube?). Then there was more about the history of photo and video (even in history, someone can prove that high-quality images equivalent to what we can get now was actually possible back in the day) and then more about JavaScript and guess what? A snake came along to the lecture, and at first I didn't see the link about what we were learning until it was explored: literature about keeping snakes is in Fahrenheit because it came from our friends the other side of the pond, so therefore, a converter must be created in order to then change the units to Celsius, which we, like the most of the world, use.

IDAT 101, IDAT 102, IDAT 107, IDAT 108, SOFT 131, IDAT 106 and sailing

Last week, we was busy at work on many things ready for more stuff to come: IDAT 102 saw us looking more into CSS, IDAT 101 saw us starting to think about public spaces (our group's example was again the nightclub scenario), IDAT 108's lecture turned into a quiz about computer history and the seminar saw another debate; this time it was about our favourite social network, Facebook (all of us, like myself, were pretty much pro, so an anti-argument was very difficult), whilst IDAT 106 was different in the other weeks that the Y2s weren't there, so instead we looked more into the use of Processing and a prosumer HDV camera until the fire alarm saw us evacuating the Babbage building (our domain for most of the time) and disrupting the session for more than 20 minutes, until we finally returned. IDAT 107 was cancelled last week, but we will be doing more with Adobe Illustrator in the coming weeks until we move onto the next bit. SOFT 131's tutorial started last week to a hot room in the Smeaton Building when we then started to explore the world of NetBeans and PHP on Windows Server 2003 workstations, courtesy of Lord Sugar's Viglen (like most of the Windows PCs in the University are). This weekend, I went sailing in Roadford Lake with the Sailing and Powerboat Club (Sailpower) and it was such a good experience, until the tent got damp! That's all folks, more will be coming soon!

IDAT 101, IDAT 108, SOFT 131 and IDAT 106: the 411 on everything!

As the week progresses on, I have some more news for you:

IDAT 101 saw us learn more about the industry and about the usage of spaces for projects (in our case, interactive disco in the form of a sequencer pad in a club environment), whilst IDAT 108 saw us learn more about what a computer was before the ones we know today existed (it was in fact a person, believe it or not!). SOFT 131 featured more about HTML, holidays in Kenya and India and more to come in this module.

Finally, in IDAT 106, we got to play on the Wiimotes, in which thanks in part to Nintendo's uncanny (considering that they like proprietary stuff very much) decision to use Bluetooth for connectivity, we can do anything with them, even control digital art projects!

That's all folks!

IDAT 101: Street Knitter Strikes!

Apparently, in the city of Plymouth, there is someone that knits (or crochets) on street furniture in various locations across the city. So far, Wilkinsons @ the Armada Centre and the Bretonside Bus Station has been hit with beautiful, elaborate, knittings. If it strikes again, there will be more news coming soon. Stay tuned!