Allistar’s Projects & Portfolio

So after a long frustrating, yet exciting semester we are almost ready for the show at the IAC Center. So where am I with this project? I’ve made many changes - still doing the Graffiti Wall display. I’ve played around with a few background images trying to decide which worked best with the very large screen. Initially I played with a forest scene gray-scale.

The feedback I received challenged the relationship between the forest and graffiti. My perception was that graffiti lives everywhere, but I agree the forest image was too much of a stretch. Also, I was playing around with breaking each image up into small pixels and non-distructive explode of the images with sound interaction. As always the images move across the screen and I wanted to give the the audience a change to control some of the images. There were many challenges with this because it seemed to be very taxing computationally on all three computers. The mpe library which was written for three networked computers with dual monitors each. It’s a bit slow and buggy, so we had to constantly dance with the code. Also, programming in Java was challenging not being too familiar with the form.

We had many rehearsals at the school and a few at IAC, each revealing challenges to over come. Our last round of tests became more frustrating for most. The machines seemed not to be performing as expected, even sometimes running alot slower than on our laptops. This was a bit disappointing considering they are MacPro’s laden with RAM. My Dual G5 at home, which is about two years old, seem to perform at the same capacity. But I anticipate there are other stuff going on behind the scenes…

Anyway, I have my images moving across all screens, and using randomSeed() in my code seem to stabilize the images. I am still concerned about the movement since they are not that smooth. I see this problem on other works for the show. But soon it will be show-time and we have to grace everyone with our stuff.

So here’s a small example of what will happen across the screen.

More Video from IAC:

Overall the feedback and applause was very gratifying. We did it and sure we are all proud of ourselves. And many thank to Daniel Shiffman who guided us through the rough waters of Big Screens. This was my very first experience designing content for such a large screen, accounting and navigating the MANY variables outside of programming to create something which hopefully will be engaging to the audience. I hope to have more creations for large screens.

My immediate future goals include, reformatting my Graffiti Wall content for the Waverly wall and also continue editing on the tagging video I shot when I was in Barcelona.

Will post more but for now where’s a link to the graffiti content:

Barcelona Graffiti & Its Social Effects

First I have to say designing (interesting) visuals and content for a 120 x 12 foot screen is a HUGE challenge. No pun…

Anyway, I have two ideas for the screen, definitely ambitious for my programing abilities.

The first IDEA involves a camera tracking system detecting a specific colour and it’s motion within a pre-determined range. On the screen will be several objects - [ cubes, balls ] with picture or video surfaces in the foreground with complementary visuals as the background.

The interaction, as the person moves the designated device (maybe a table tennis paddle with a lime green colour surface) they will move the objects on the screen, even pass [ throw ] it to another person on the other side of the screen who then catches it does what ever. There could be a coring system to feed the competitive soul. but it should be visually appealing and FUN! Maybe call it virtual Volleyball…

The idea is to get people to not only observe, but to play. Interact with each other thus encouraging further play. The time to display is short so immediate cause and effect is one way to go. Very ITP some would say and nothing new to us. But on a screen this large, tracking the movement of our hands can prove to foster interaction, a different way to use a screen this large.

Idea 2 is to have a a picture, let’s say the NYC Skyline, all distorted or blurred. But over a short time the image is rendered to a sharp, in-focus picture of the fore-mentioned Skyline. The render sequence is triggered by the noise level of the traffic on the West-side highway outside the IAC building. The noise level is translated into pixel focus sequences, which is randomly disbursed on the screen.

The code will have a randomness for where gets rendered in focus. There’s also a physical randomness by the cars over time. The noise variations help complete the Picture.

One can find a correlation between the physical movement in NYC and the completing of the image of this city overtime. The city is developing. A bit wordy I know but it’s getting late and it’s my blurred vision…

Note: Fellow classmates and I went one evening to the IAC building to have a sneak peak at this Massive video wall. And MASSIVE it was! Even from the street it was captivating if one took time to engage it’s presence. Like the drivers who momentarily stop at the light, or the NYSC members and the evening joggers and bikers on the path which lines the West-side Highway. Someone will always stop and look.