Thursday, April 30, 2009

Project subject/theme/title,

The title and theme of my project is kinetic responsive art. This is the term I am using to describe the subject of my piece. The genre that I am using to describe my subject incorporates old interactive/kinetic art principles with new technologies that are used within contemporary responsive, Interactive and algorithmic art forms.

I have used this term kinetic responsive art because it draws upon two main principles from these genres. Kinetic art depends on motion for its affect or for the process to work and responsive art produces a response from an environment or input.

Project conceptual description,

The concept behind my final piece is to create juxtaposition between the old principles and ascetics of kinetic art and the new technologies that appear to be governing contemporary responsive and interactive art.

I feel like I have achieved this by creating something that astatically looks low tech and very robust and crude in its appearance, but actually is technically complex.

Contextual information to situate my project,

The context in which this project is situated in is responsive art. This is because it generates a response to various inputs from the user and the environment that it is situated within. It also has ties within kinetic art because of the physical interactivity that is required and generative art because of the algorithms used to determine which sounds and visualizations are played.

Technical description,

For this project I have used three main technologies. These include MAX MSP, Reactivision and Flash actionscript 2.0. Reactivision is a piece of symbol tracking software which was then incorporated into MAX MSP to determine the x and y positioning of the symbols and also determine the individual number id of the symbols them selves. MAX MSP then sends this information in flash where the collision detection, visualization and audio out is generated by using actionscript 2.0.

Project placement

This project was produced as an installation piece for an art gallery or room of some type and is intended to be used, viewed and interacted with by the general public and the environment that it is situated within.

Overview of production process,

The three main pieces of software that I have used in the production of my piece are:
• MAX MSP
• Reactivision
• Adobe Flash (with action script 2.0)
I have also used some open sauce code which was take from the internet. The code that I have used is as follows:
• Actionscript code to get values into flash was taken from http://www.nullmedium.de/dev/flashserver/
• I also used a downloaded MAX MSP file that was taken from
• http://reactivision.sourceforge.net/

For the physical piece itself so the box and the mechanical side, I have used bits and pieces picked up from car boot sales, coat hangers and random nuts and bolts. This was done on purpose to have a low-tech look and feel to the project.

Evaluation,

This project I feel although has suffered from a few technical difficulties/set backs has still proved to be a successful and interesting development. I feel that the old a run down look provides an excellent contrast to the technical processes involved with the audio and visual out puts of the piece and the algorithms used behind the scene.

The main emphasis on this project was to take principles from what can be considered old methods of interactivity or non digital based inputs and have them create an output threw a digital/algorithmic process. This I feel I have obtained although the actual functionality of the piece is not as polished as I would have preferred it to be.

Improvements I would make upon this project and where it would have been heading if I had more time to develop my idea further would have been. Building in some temperature sensors onto the handle to get a reading from them user and also another temperature sensor in the room somewhere and maybe a light sensor so that I would have more inputs from the surroundings to create a more environmentally responsive piece.