Exquisite Corpse Videos

Images of Top Shot installed at Swindon Dance

Top Shot preview @ Swindon Dance

Yesterday saw the official preview of Top Shot at Swindon Dance. The
software all ran fine, as expected with the new tweek of random scene
returns, making a big difference (thanks Pete for the code). The set
up takes very little time as both mark and I, know what needs doing.
This gave us a chance to play with dressing the space. We were both
veery happy with the outcome of rigging drapes and lighting them with
a wash of red. It gave the work a more emersive experience tto the
viewer.
A few promotors came to see the work and all showed an interest in
booking it. Hopefully a few shows in the not too distant future.

UKDL Seminar 2-07-09

I went to the UK Displays & Lighting seminar on 3D technologies and projection displays at DMU. There was a wide variety of speakers from both academia and industry. I was particularly inspired by the work that InfoLab21's Alan Dix Presented:

Project Firefly, an application which has been described as 'fairy lights with a technological upgrade', is the brainchild of InfoLab21'sProf. Alan Dix and Dr. Joe Finney. Each individual light contains a miniature computer, making them individually controllable. As a result, patterns and effects are much easier to create and can be far more intricate and dynamic than those currently available.

For more information have a look at their website: http://www.infolab21.lancs.ac.uk/

Final thoughts on Glastonbury.

Final thoughts on Glastonbury.

Well after taking about a week to recover from the whole experience, I have had chance to reflect on the whole experience. Overall, I felt that the project has been a fantastic process for me and feel privileged to be a part of it all.

Technical Issues.

My apologies to start off with a negative, but two problems did cause me an amount of disappointment. Firstly, the camera mounted on top of the screen. It was rigged without consultation of any of the artists that may have wished to use it. When asking if the camera could be moved, the answer was an uncompromising ‘NO’. The result of this was the framing of the live feed was near impossible to get for one of the pieces that I wanted to run. The other issue with the camera was that, it gave a very dirty signal. As a result, 2 of the pieces of work I wished to show, could not be run as they required a clean, locked off video signal. All of the team both the other artists/developers and technical, tried everything available to try and resolve the issue of the dirty feed, but to little success. In hindsight it would have been useful that the camera was fully tested before being rigged.

My second problem was that of scheduling for testing and running applications live. Both during the scheduled time of set up and final showing of my work, equipment was being rigged and de-rigged on the supporting truss of the screen. This was causing the truss to wobble the camera, thus giving me a very unusable feed from the camera. In both instances I had to wait for some time to test and run the application. We all should have picked up the implications of additional rigging within the production meeting and scheduled time appropriately.

Framing things as art

My own intention of the work I produce is that, it is, framed as art. In the context of showing work to a Glastonbury audience, I felt that any artistic intent was not carried forwards and that the audience viewed the work as a ‘fun’ experience. I’m absolutely fine with this and the lesson learnt (or reiterated) is that, whenever you place work into the public realm, the viewer’s interpretation will not necessarily be that of the artist/developer. The experience belongs to the viewer and the artist becomes the ‘architect’ of that experience.

Other observations revolved about the nature of content of the works and their relationship to the viewer. Not being able to get my other 2 applications running, I find it difficult to guess whether abstracted interaction works in that presentation context, without the support of tele-presence. But is the use of tele-presence enough to get people engaged with the work above a level of ‘ooh wow, it’s me on the screen’. Which could be argued that it is akin to a shop window display of video cameras connected to TVs on your local high street. I’d like to know other people’s opinions on this.

New avenues of exploration.

I found it fascinating seeing other peoples working methods, intentions and techniques. It certainly has opened my eyes to looking at other ways of achieving technical solutions for my own work. Aquil, showed me his work in which he uses Quartz Composer (a nodal based programming environment) to create rich graphical environments. I have a new project already in mind to try and create something using Quartz Composer and the access to open GL that it has. Brendan gave me various pointers and links towards motion tracking and detection within Action Script 3 and how their classes could be implemented. Tarim, well what can I say, his knowledge on all things networked was inspiring. Tarim has invited me to have a look at the Pervasive Media Lab whenever I’m in Bristol. I’m certainly going to take him up on that offer at some point in the future. I liked Joe’s approach, to paraphrase ‘things are just ambiently there’. I also aim to catch up with Paul and Charlotte and have a look at what they’re doing at the University of Salford, whenever I’m next in the North West.

Testing period.

My recommendation for next year would be that there is an application ‘testing day’ at one of the existing Big Screen sites. All of the artists and developers could meet prior to the melee of the festival and see what everyone is presenting. It would also give everyone the chance to chat through and test the technical infrastructure and set up schedule. I think it would be important that a technical representative from the company that provides the hire kit be in attendance on the testing day, along with the production manager and commissioner/ director/ programmer.

My only other suggestion is that the area directly in front of the screen is illuminated, so that the interactive applications could run through the night and reach a quite different audience.

Thank you.

Finally I’d like to say a huge thank you to all involved. I enjoyed it, had fun, learnt from it, and made some new friends. It has shown me new directions and given me new ideas.

Roll Credits….

IDLE goes public

Idle Assessment – Hall & Sweeney.

Hall & Sweeney present ‘Idle Assessment’, on the glass screen at Broadway Nottingham throughout August. The work questions who we can trust to give us judgement that is of both value and worth. Humorously, Hall and Sweeney represent themselves as talent show panel members passing randomized arbitrary judgement, without subjectivity or objectivity, upon the immediate surroundings and it’s inhabitants.

Idle Assessment is taken from a larger body of work titled ‘IDLE’ that looks at the effortless ways in which technology has allowed people to class themselves as ‘a creative’.

Thomas Hall & Thomas Sweeney are both artists who use technology as tools for creating art works. Both Hall and Sweeney are East Midlands based.

Top Shot Promo Video

Saturday @ Glastonbury.

Well after hearing several rumors on the Thursday evening, I awoke on the Friday morning to the news that the world was now a slightly safer place. It seemed appropriate that the first showing of Exquisite Corpse was on the Friday. The piece went down very well with everyone and queues started to build to be involved with the work. Louise and Richard worked really well with the audience by getting them to participate. Once a few people had a go, they crowd needed little FOH intervention except to get them off.
We ran the piece this morning, it has been difficult getting the crowd engaged as the people by the screen are waiting for the rugby game which is being transmitted live. Another lesson there, some people have an agenda for one thing and one thing only. Maybe if they did get out of their entrenched enclaves, they might loose their beer bellies.

Exquisite Corpse

Viewers engaging with Exquisite Corpse

Exquisite Corpse

First proper showing

Greetings from sunny Glastonbury!

It chucked it down last night and it's still raining this morning.
Going to be showing my work Exqusite Corpse today at 1 till 2,
saturday 5 till 6 and Sunday 4 till 5. If you are at the festival
come and have a look/go. It's on the Village Screen at the meeting
point. More pics and responses to follow....

Phew (things are starting to work)!

Yesterday I had no end of trouble getting a live feed from the camera on top of the screen. There was a real issue with interference, which for some unknown reason was shifting the right hand side of the frame about 20 pixels towards the centre. It left me quite baffled as to what the resolve might be. The consequence of this is that I might not be able to run 2 applications as I need to get a screen grab from a 'clean feed'. The technicians are working very hard to try and resolve the issue and will be bringing a magic electronic box of electronic tricks later on.
On a positive, the piece that I though would not work at Glastonbury, Exquisite Corpse, has worked really well and has become a bit of a crowd pleaser. I'm very happy. And to put the icing on the cake for today, the crew are playing ACDC and Led Zep.
LETS ROCK

Exquisite corpse

Test of 'If there is nothing'.

The control room

Day 1 of development...

In good glastonbury style things are running a little late, but it's
all in the spirit of things. This pic is of some of the other
developers/ artists : L to R Brendan, Aquil & Tarim. I'm about to try
my app mass pong on the screen. More later.

I'm here at Glastonbury

The sun is shining and the screen is going up. The pa system is BIG!
Mmmmm, my atonal plinky plonky sounds will be interesting through it.

Off to glastonbury

Toilet roll, bin bags, tent, air bed, quilt, snacks, ciggies, anti
bacterial wipes, bottle of rum and a ho ho ho. All packed and ready
for the festival. I've got a couple of preconceptions of how it might
be.
1. Full of middle class trustafari (young white people with dreadlocks
whose daddy has set up a trust fund for them so they never need to
work), stating they live an alternative life but are more capitalist
than your average working person.
2. Full of the london media set, concerned about who is or isn't
wearing this seasons Jimmy Choo wellies.
I hope there is adequate sanitation facilities!

Sent from my iPhone

A few pics of the banksy show

Banksy

I'm in Bristol, all packed and ready for Glastonbury, so thought I'd
check out the banksy show at the city museum. It's 9.30 and allready
there's a massive que to get in. More to follow later...

Sent from my iPhone

Screen Grabs from Top Shot!

Preview
20th & 21st July @ Swindon Dance
Come along if you're in the area!

Top Shot Ready to go! (well almost)...

After spending the latter part of the week at the Renner's Farm, Mark and myself finished putting the final tweaks and testing for Top Shot. Thanks to Sally and George for letting us use the farm and a big thanks to all that came to Rutland for testing the work. We received some invaluable feedback from everyone, which informed how the interaction and responsiveness of the work developed. I feel it was so important to get people to test the work before it goes public. When I program the interaction, I can only presume how another person would negotiate the piece, by testing it, it showed me how others may interact.
We are going to preview the work at Swindon Dance on the 20th and 21st of July. Please come along if you're in the area. I'm pleased with the work, Busby Berkeley would be proud.

More top shot images

Top shot test

Update of projects.

Well I've been hard at work in rural Rutland. The Renners at Normanton Farm have kindly let me use one of their barns to do the final testing of Top Shot. I'ts looking great and looks to be ready for Swindon Dance next month. (I'll post some images later).

If your going to Glastonbury, I'll be at Williams Green. There's going to be one massive LED screen, and I'l be there! If you're about come and see what I've been up to.
http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/areas/williams-green/

Surely some one would use a spell check when using display technology in public?

Haptic device

In the fused media lab of DMU trying out a variety of haptic and VR
devices. This phantom pen arm suggests it could be used to create
sculptural form with a more inuitive feel. I think it's got a bit of a
way to go yet!

Glastonbury meeting

I met up with Louise from the BBC and Brendan (one of the other
artists/developers) for the Big Screen project at Glastonbury. It's
been 15 years since I last went to the festival. Brendan is doing some
interesting work based around viens using proccesing.
Must remember:
Loo roll
Bin liners
Wellies

Sent from my iPhone

Test of phone sending to blog.

I need more sleep and I haven't even started!

What's it all about?

This blog is to act as a diary entry and write up for all the projects that I'm working on over the summer. Projects include:
Developing interactive content for the BBC big screen at the Glastonbury Festival.
Testing Top Shot at Sally and George's Farm.
Previewing Top Shot at Swindon Dance.
Creating Time-Slice shots.
And a fair few bits more!
Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions.
Thanks
Tom