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Man’s first network
My bad habit of not doing many blogs post is getting the best of me, so this post is long overdue.
We are in the middle of the first simester’s project which encompasses the whole semester. The basic idea is we have to identify a type of network and emulate it, simulate it or create something to represent it.
My team have chosen to work with the emotion network, or emotion contagion. When your in a group your unwillingly sharing your emotions with those around you. If your in an angry mood you might make those around you angry. Or the “energy” behind your angry might fuel another emotion. A the least your unknowingly sharing the energy behind an emotion. This is what we consider an emotions network.
Our plan is to build an installation that will make people aware of this network. Right now we are working out the specifics for the installation. Our idea right now is to have some sort of an RFID tag on the people who walk in to our installation, which will track their x y and z. They will so have some sort of input which will trigger changes in a simulation that will be reflecting their position and in a sense their network.
I’ve already made a simulation for emotional contage, hopefully I’ll be able to hook it up to the installation.
What happing in this is the nodes (colored circles) are moving around screen and interacting with each other when they get close to each other. When they do they get each others emotion (color). When they are in isolation however they move toward their original emotion (color).
What if NZ
Again it seems I screwed up my organization skills. The lastest project had us working on creating an alternative reality game. My group choose to work on the conspiracy/terror attack genre. We made a game which had the participant uncovering a bombing plot here in New Zealand. I cant go over specifics of the game because I was tasked with the planing the backstory and wasn’t involved in much of the planing of the game it self. Heres a summary of what I came up with:
In mid 2012, the new war on terror begins. After the USA left Iraq in 2011 and after Nato forces with drew from the middle east after the view victory in Libya, al Qaeda, although already allied with the haqqani network, start’s launching joint attacks with the haqqani against the US. These attacks are more frequent and are better coordinated than previous years. At the same time the Pakistani government appears to be more corrupt than it’s ever been and becomes more suspicious to the west. With that and the operations of the haqqani and al Qaeda networks based in Pakistan, the USA Government wants to enter Pakistan. However due to the economic crisis and public dislike for the wars, the USA asks for help from both the Australia and the New Zealand to enter the country, in the hopes it will be less costly than if they were to go in by them self’s.
In New Zealand however, after it is announced but before troops are actually deployed, a Haqqani operative by the name of Rashid Suahail, enters the country through a refugee program put in by the Government. He then finds employment at a chemical company named ChemCo. ChemCo had recently been promised Tax credits by the New Zealand government if they employed refugees from the Middle East. Rashid, with the resources from ChemCo, starts planning the bombing of the New Zealand. At the same time, Aaron Johnson starts looking into the background of the Rashid.
The first stepped I took was to look at the current state today. The haqqani network is real and the latest news from american news networks hint at the possibility that troops may be deployed into pakistan eventually. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5RqRdJ6iBI&feature=channel_video_title
I then looked into the weird world of conspiracies theory’s. Although most a laughable, some a scary an quite believable. In looking into these I had to suspend my self a bit. Basically the general trend is money, the scary theory’s talks about the connections between cooperations and governments and how money influences polices. So the key was money.
Although its mostly the cooperations effecting the governments, when I planned the backstory I made it the governments using the cooperations to setup the conditions that would breed a terrors attack.
I’m pleased with the final version of my narrative, but I am a bit disappointed that it wasn’t intergrated as much as it was.
The sad story of an unfinished CD Package
Over the last three weeks (which have gone over the holidays or “study break”) I’ve been working on the “you the designer” project. We were suppose to make an album cover or packaging for a hypothetical soundtrack of the sounds from the last aural terrains project with the design its self based off the sounds.
Just as a recap, for my Aural Terrains I gave a performance in which I simply played a competitive multiplayer game with my partner. However this game had all the weapons sounds replaced with musical notes. In effect it was suppose to show a musical tempo laid over the top over a military conflict. I’m not talking about music playing in the background of the next pearl harbor. I’m talking about the sounds of a bomb replaced by the base of a drum kit and and constant sound of the planes overhead replaced by the strings of an orchester. Also note that the sounds are not previously recorded, it was created with an video game live, so this tempo is dynamic, it has a interactive element.
Anyway, my package design was suposed to be resonate of the same themes, interactivity and conflict. although i had to change the idea of conflict to competition because the conflict between players in video games really boil down into competition. So the idea was to have a package that could get the user to interact with it in other ways than geting the cd out. This “interactivity” was to be themed around competition. Heres how it turned out:
Before I explain why it failed, I’ll explain the original design. It was suppose to be a little table hokey like contrition, where the cd was in the middle and the would be “goal post” on each side, which would be slots along the wall. There was suppose to be a wall around “table” that would suspend a slider on each side which could be used to block a marble luanced from the other side. Lastly, there was to be a hole in the center, where the CD is placed. This hole and the slots on the sides where to lead to a ramp inside the mini table the would carry a marble or small ball out to the side. As you can see, its unfinished.
I had some trouble with my organization skills over the holidays (evident with this being the only blog post) and my design was too complex to make properly in the time I had. Oh well, one more thing on my what to learn list.
Audio wrap up
THe following statement if part of the hand in for the audio project of semester 2.
In the final performance, the one where we changed the sounds of a game, I was responsible for the finding the right sounds (or notes) for each in game weapon. I also worked with Conor to find out how to change the weapon sounds, however he was the one who implemented the changes. I also was responsible for the organization of the group and keeping us on track and on task.
The group work before however, is a different story. I feel nature of the task discouraged actual group work as it required to much from each individual. For instance most of the time I spent was preparing my instrument. Our rehearsal was also hasty. So I fell im unable to identify a significant contribution I made to the group.
The same is also true for the group before that. Although I did have to quickly organize a routine for me and Trent, as it took a long time to get the toy hack working.
Finally the group before that, the first group work we did, I was unable to contribute because I had too organize a few things that week.
Performance = win
Well me, Edrian and Conner performed our piece and it really well. I felt however that it was rushed but after looking at the video below it seems that it was I that were rushed.
Lucky circuit bending, or is it a gift.
So I was able to get the toy hack working in time YAY. Not only that but our performance was great as well, as the video below shows. I didn’t expect to get this much good feed back. Me and Trent were worried that our performance wasn’t going to be up to scratch but we managed to pull it off. I guess its how we improvised.
But what I was glad about the most is the toy hack. I didn’t expect to get that much sound out of the audio chip. What I did specifically was remove a resister that linked the speaker to the brain of the computer chip that sent the data (sound file) to the speaker, and hooked a variable resistor in place of the old resistor. Through changing the resistance I was able to speed it up or slow it down slightly, resulting in a change of pitch. However the sound was weak compared to the others sounds I were hearing from across the room. So i fiddled away to make something unique.
I don’t how I discovered it but when I had a faulty connection after the sound had started, the sound that you can hear in the video below was produced. Basically when I started the sound and then unhooked the variable resistor the signal is than “paused” and will try anything possible to jump between the severed connection. I can then use my finger control how fast the signal is received by pushing down on two conductive ends.
I have no idea how this actually works but my guess is that unlike actual computers, instead of sending the frequency of a spilt second of that sound every split second, it sends the entire signal at once and relies on the resistor to slow it down so that the speaker will play it at normal speed. When I unhook the variable resistor and put my finger in place it uses my finger to complete the circuit but my finger has tremendous resistance so the signal is received tremendously slowly. What I’ve just described is a long shot and probably incorrect, but as of right now thats the only way I can explain it.
Audio post - Played 0 times
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]This is a recording of the sound from my toy hack. However it was before I new how to reproduce the sound properly so it might sound different than my performance. Aslo soz for the background chatter, it was a very busy day.
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