Showing posts with label Matt Beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matt Beach. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Project 1 Documentation Photos

My collaborator was not able to take documentation photographs with me until next semester so I asked another student for help. We also took video documentation of the action with sound playing but I have not had a chance to edit this in Final Cut Yet.



Final Project Process 1.8

I decided I would go back to Crystal River on Monday and spend half the day driving down 19 looking for kitsch at various places.

I will say I don't think I have ever seen so much love for manatees and mermaids and that was pretty incredible.

I started my search for kitsch at the Weekiwachee preserve thinking they may have a visitor center or something that may help with visual research but after walking down the path for about a mile I turned back and decided to go to Weekiwachee directly.




Apparently dinosaur themes are really big down in that area of Florida. I passed three or four giant dinosaur looking objects.


I had never been to Weekiwachee before and it was certainly an experience. It was like a really bad dream involving renaissance sculpture--Or what it might be like if the Renaissance had a spring cleaning.




It never ceases to amaze me how people attempt to merge winter holidays with the beach.


Here's a poster for the mermaid show.





Giant igloos made of milk jugs. Talk about an interesting use for recycling plastic in a public setting.


What snowmen and block letters have to do with mermaids I will never know.





I was actually drawn to these mermaid tails/fins as interesting fabric objects for embedding a pressure or bend sensor within. Thinking further about this character it could be interesting to create some kind of a beach kitsch shrine and really go all out with embodying this character of kitsch, imagined further as a merman and different functions are triggered by the waving of the mermaid tail interacting with the pressure sensor.






The throne was a little much but it does give ideas visually for a "kitsch shrine"












I stopped at several tourist shops and felt I was lucky to find this gem of technology and kitsch. I'm not exactly sure how the shirts work but somehow they absorb uv light from what appears to be this blacklight box and then turn to color. I'm not certain what applications this may have to art making but I thought it fit in nicely with doing research on kitsch and technology intersecting.


Final Project Process 1.7

As a means to further the project's conception Katerie suggested I travel down to Crystal River and do more visual research on beach kitsch and kitsch as a cultural phenomena in general. I had to drive to Orlando Thursday night and stopped at Crystal River on my way back to Gainesville Friday morning. The stars did not align in my favor though, apparently, because as soon as I arrived to Crystal River my phone magically died from having 2/3rd battery life and I did not have a charger. I ended up having to stop at a bunch of McDonalds to steal wifi and chart my way back to Gainesville before a meeting later that afternoon. I did snag one photo before I left:

Final Project Process 1.6




Here is a link to an excerpt from the performative action; I had issues getting it uploaded to YouTube because it keeps telling me the file is corrupt. I exported the first 30 seconds as an MP4 from After Effects: http://mbeach.me/sensors2.mp4

The performative action was ultimately realized as a switch but ideally a proximity sensor would have began the Wipeout song as I began to read from Greenberg's essay. It was my intent for the viewer to question whether what they were witnessing as far as this character embodiment of beach kitsch was actually kitsch, avant-garde, or somewhere in between. I also hoped this created space would open a conversation about kitsch versus the avant-garde and its relation to technology, having the piece use technology and kitsch as a vehicle for social engagement.

Very unfortunately, the concept was not executed the way  I would have liked and did not work. The obelisk proved to be an ill fit for the concept and there were too many references to it being a symbol of a phallus. Someone did suggest a lighthouse using LEDs and I thought this was an interesting concept. The work didn't function in the way I would have liked as far as opening a space and perhaps needs to be more performance-based. The idea of this kitsch character also needs to be pushed much farther and the link between the questioning of a work as kitsch or avant-garde needs to be more obvious rather than lying somewhere between a half-imagined work and what may be perceived as a joke entirely.

Final Project Process 1.5

I realize ultimately it would have made more sense to use a proximity sensor combined with the wave shield as furthering the concept of presence but I could not get the code to work in time for the final critique and maintained use of the pressure sensor. Using the pressure sensor and wave shield I uploaded the song Wipe Out by The Surfaris (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p13yZAjhU0M) because I have seen it used in a number of movies as a backdrop song and felt it fit in with the concept of discussing kitsch and technology through this performative beach character including Back to the Beach, Meet the Parents, Runaway Bride, and Wayne's World 2. Alongside this backdropped song I decided to do a reading of Clement Greenberg's Avant-Garde and Kitsch (http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html). I ended up using section II of his essay as my pedestal.



Final Project Process 1.4

I became drawn to this beach scene fabric because of growing up with the last name Beach. I am all too familiar with having kitsch objects and aesthetics around as my parents for whatever reason seem to enjoy decorating their house with as much tacky Beach related things as possible. There are signs relating to the "Beach bungalow" on both sides of the house, more block letter cut outs of Beach sitting in crevices on bookshelves on the inside, strange snowglobes with flamingos, really bad abstract paintings of the shore, it's as if a coastal Cracker Barrel lost a shipment of merchandise and it was shipped to my parent's house instead. In thinking about growing up with my last name and seeing how my family had interpreted it to allow for an...interesting decorating circumstances, I thought I was in a place to discuss critically the intersection of kitsch and technology. I wonder at what point does a project cross the line from conceptual to kitsch and what from kitsch is actually helpful in forming a project's concept.

I conceived the idea of creating a performative piece where in I would take on the role of embodying this "Beach kitsch" character with the obelisk of kitsch at the center as a landmark of identifying presence. I am enrolled in the Social Practice graduate seminar and we read an article earlier in the semester as a critical look at Marina Abramovic's The Artist Is Present. I wanted to explore some of the concepts in this criticality through the use of the obelisk as signifying the presence of kitsch.





Final Project Process 1.3

I decided the kind of fabric I would get would direct the overall conception of the project and for some reason I kept being drawn to these really cheesy, overdone prints. I thought about kitsch and its relation to technology. It seems as though technology and art can be a steep slope in trying to avoid creating a project that is in "poor taste". From this standpoint I started thinking about the conversations we have had in the initial conceptions of our projects, making sure they don't fall along these lines and remain conceptually strong. It caused me to wonder about where kitsch fits in with the everyday and the how conversations relating to kitsch and technology may be fruitful in understanding these relations. Thus I decided to go towards the route of kitsch and doing a kind of performative piece as a means to open up a place for this kind of conversation.

With that in mind I bought two yards of what I perceived to be a very kitsch fabric relating to the beach:


Final Project Process 1.2

I had to abandon my initial project concept because of timing. I was not able to get a piece of code working with a proximity sensor and a stepper motor in order to have the technology portion of my camera obscura working. I have decided to go in a very different direction, using the technology and sensor from the initial project and re-imagined into a new form.

I started thinking the first project's technology as far as a plush fabric object embedded with the pressure sensors and began considering alternative objects to make out of fabric normally made from other materials. From a sculptural standpoint, the obelisk came to mind as something normally much larger in scale and made from stone. Here is some of my visual research:









From here I thought about creating an obelisk from a fabric material and changing the scale to make a more personal object. I thought about the obelisk as being a signifier for a personal sign or landmark. With these ideas in mind I set out on a trip for fabric.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Flex Sensor Wave Shield Code

#include
#include
#include
#include "WaveUtil.h"
#include "WaveHC.h"


SdReader card;    // This object holds the information for the card
FatVolume vol;    // This holds the information for the partition on the card
FatReader root;   // This holds the information for the filesystem on the card
FatReader f;      // This holds the information for the file we're play

WaveHC wave;      // This is the only wave (audio) object, since we will only play one at a time

//*************THINGS DECLARED*************************

int flexSensorPin = 0;     // the FSR and 10K pulldown are connected to analogue port0
int flexSensor;     // the analog reading from the FSR resistor divider

//**********************************************************

// this handy function will return the number of bytes currently free in RAM, great for debugging!  
int freeRam(void)
{
  extern int  __bss_end;
  extern int  *__brkval;
  int free_memory;
  if((int)__brkval == 0) {
    free_memory = ((int)&free_memory) - ((int)&__bss_end);
  }
  else {
    free_memory = ((int)&free_memory) - ((int)__brkval);
  }
  return free_memory;
}

void sdErrorCheck(void)
{
  if (!card.errorCode()) return;
  putstring("\n\rSD I/O error: ");
  Serial.print(card.errorCode(), HEX);
  putstring(", ");
  Serial.println(card.errorData(), HEX);
  while(1);
}

  // set up serial port
  void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);           // set up Serial library at 9600 bps
  Serial.println("Wave test!");
 
  putstring("Free RAM: ");       // This can help with debugging, running out of RAM is bad
  Serial.println(freeRam());      // if this is under 150 bytes it may spell trouble!
 
  // Set the output pins for the DAC control. This pins are defined in the library
  pinMode(2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(4, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(5, OUTPUT);

  // pin13 LED
  pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
 
  if (!card.init()) {         //play with 8 MHz spi (default faster!)
    putstring_nl("Card init. failed!");  // Something went wrong, lets print out why
    sdErrorCheck();
    while(1);                            // then 'halt' - do nothing!
  }
 
  // enable optimize read - some cards may timeout. Disable if you're having problems
  card.partialBlockRead(true);

// Now we will look for a FAT partition!
  uint8_t part;
  for (part = 0; part < 5; part++) {     // we have up to 5 slots to look in
    if (vol.init(card, part))
      break;                             // we found one, lets bail
  }
  if (part == 5) {                       // if we ended up not finding one  :(
    putstring_nl("No valid FAT partition!");
    sdErrorCheck();      // Something went wrong, lets print out why
    while(1);                            // then 'halt' - do nothing!
  }
 
  // Lets tell the user about what we found
  putstring("Using partition ");
  Serial.print(part, DEC);
  putstring(", type is FAT");
  Serial.println(vol.fatType(),DEC);     // FAT16 or FAT32?
 
  // Try to open the root directory
  if (!root.openRoot(vol)) {
    putstring_nl("Can't open root dir!"); // Something went wrong,
    while(1);                             // then 'halt' - do nothing!
  }
 
  // Whew! We got past the tough parts.
  putstring_nl("Ready!");
}

//**********************************************************

void loop(void) {
  flexSensor = analogRead(flexSensorPin);

  Serial.print("Analog reading = ");
  Serial.print(flexSensor);     // the raw analog reading

  // We'll have a few threshholds, qualitatively determined
  if (flexSensor < 100) {
    Serial.println(" - No pressure");
  } else if (flexSensor < 50) {
    Serial.println(" - Light touch"), playcomplete("COOLKIDS.WAV");
  } else if (flexSensor < 100) {
    Serial.println(" - Light squeeze"), playcomplete("SOU.WAV");
  } else if (flexSensor < 200) {
    Serial.println(" - Medium squeeze"), playcomplete("TELLHER.WAV");
  } else {
    Serial.println(" - Big squeeze"), playcomplete("COOLKIDS.WAV");
  }
  delay(1000);
}

// Plays a full file from beginning to end with no pause.
void playcomplete(char *name) {
  // call our helper to find and play this name
  playfile(name);
  while (wave.isplaying) {
  // do nothing while its playing
  }
  // now its done playing
}

void playfile(char *name) {
  // see if the wave object is currently doing something
  if (wave.isplaying) {// already playing something, so stop it!
    wave.stop(); // stop it
  }
  // look in the root directory and open the file
  if (!f.open(root, name)) {
    putstring("Couldn't open file "); Serial.print(name); return;
  }
  // OK read the file and turn it into a wave object
  if (!wave.create(f)) {
    putstring_nl("Not a valid WAV"); return;
  }
 
  // ok time to play! start playback
  wave.play();
}

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Final Project Process 1.1

Initial Proposal and Notes