New Life

Lucas and I have decided to revisit this idea. The new location is www.hapticinstrument.blogspot.com

Also check out www.conceptualmedia.blogspot.com for fourth year thesis work.

Ken Robinson: Reforming Education

Paper Kettle: Codebending

End of Line

This concludes the Dim Ambition Project. Thank you all for reading. In the future you should refer to Conceptual Media

Final Mixes

Juice Box

Play-Doh

Watering Can

Silly String

Sand Pail

McDonald's Toy

Cap Gun

Rubber Ducky

Teddy Bear

See more at the Dim Ambition Soundcloud

Slide Show

Final Thoughts

Dim Ambition has allowed me to really dig into some aspects of Processing and Arduino that I had been previously unexplored. I am extremely happy with the final product, but I look forward to further expanding this project. There are so many possibilities within the code for this project, I look forward to experimenting with these technologies more in the future. I also plan on expanding some of the existing soundscapes, and any mixes I make shall be uploaded to our blogs. I look forward to hearing from my professors and peers, the response on April 2nd was quite positive. Thanks to Ryerson for lending us the RFID readers!

-Lucas Thurston

Final Thoughts

Crafting this piece has been one of the more rewarding projects I have worked on in my time at Ryerson. I am proud to continue my exploration into the nature of our most entrenched institutions, examining their flaws but also their beauty. This piece was cause for some very interesting discussion with my fellow students and my faculty from earlier years at Ryerson. I wait with anticipation to see what my current faculty thinks. I would like to thank Ryerson for contributing by allowing me to borrow the RFID readers and chips. I encourage anyone who is reading this blog to give this a try. Thank you very much for reading.


Yours Sincerely 


Mac Pepler

Documentary

Audience

 

I found this kind of interesting, as a Mac user, 90% of our blog's audience are Mac users.

A microcosm of the browser wars; still 90% Macintosh

Ableton File and Complete Media

This file contains the master Ableton file, complete with sync'ed midi notes and all of the samples used in the piece. In individual master mix files and as separate track elements. Note Ableton 8.1 is required to open the file, however the individual tracks are all saved as aiff files and can be imported into any audio editing program.




Download


Dim Ambition: Recreational Detainment is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.imagearts.ryerson.ca.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at dimambition.blogspot.com.

Arduino to Processing Documents

Server Program

Download PDE

Client B

Download PDE

Client C

Download PDE

Arduino Code

Download PDE

Wiring Diagram

Parallax RFID Reader Spec Sheet

This is the spec sheet on the RFID reader that we used. We will post the wiring diagram and our code later.

Play

Post Show Reflections and Musings

 The installation was very successful in the sense that people came and interacted with it. The piece seemed to have an overall appeal to the gallery patrons drawing many different people. Over the 4 hours we talked to at least 20 people about how the piece functioned and the theory behind its construction. It was amazing to hear all the different combinations of sounds produced by the audience. Richard Banel pointed out that there are 33 million combinations of object relations. That was a statistic that we had never considered before. Also many thanks to Steven Wright for capturing the amazing moments of Alex Ball and her children playing with the piece. We had never anticipated actual children having a chance to play with the piece. It raised some new and fascinating questions, given that the piece was primarily a reflection of late teens nostalgia for childhood, watching children interact with it allowed for a completely new experience, fundamentally removed from the initial conceptual framework.

Showtime

2422

The number of lines of code needed to run the installation.

Fabrication

Update: 1000 lines of code and counting

Juicebox

The sound of a "slurp" evolves into a pulsing orchestra as we pay homage to the Juicebox.

McDonalds Toy

Sampling a late ‘70's McDonald’s commercial, the piece cascades over you--the warm golden arches fill your ears.

Play Doh

Samples from a 90's Play Doh television advertisement extrude out of the "fun factory".

Rubber Duck

Some birds cry out; some birds sizzle.

Sand Pail

See the shimmering forest to your left and the flowing lake to your right--an image of Canada.

Silly String

Diving through sine waves layered with mortar percussion; it’s only fun until someone looses an eye!

Teddy Bear

The sounds of industry beat beneath a soft lullaby, telling you that nothing is ever what it seems.

Cap Gun

Wind chimes near the park you played in when you were seven. Aluminum cans falling off old fences in the wind.

Watering Can

The quiet monotony of dripping water: torture or bliss?

RFID and Ableton Testing 2

RFID and Ableton Testing

Materials List

Object List:


1 Stuffed Animal 


1 Sand Pail & Shovel 


1 Dollar Store Cap Gun


1 Play Doh 


1 Silly String 


1 Rubber Duck


1 Old MacDonald’s Toy 


1 Watering Can


1 Juice box


1 Ruler 








Materials List:


10 RFID tags
3 RFID readers
3  Arduinos
3 Mac Mini’s (MacBook Pro’s)
1 2 x 2 foot sheet of 1/4 inch ply wood
1 18 x 24 inch sheet of .220 inch thick acrylic
4 1 foot table legs
3 Super Bright LED’s available at creatron
3      USB cables




This post was over looked and as such has been retroactively placed in at this date and time.

Artist Statement: Dim Ambition

Dim Ambition comments on the constructed nature of our society through the use of nostalgic objects and familiar sounds; the piece also explores our relationship to the manufactured and structured elements of our cultural institutions. Inspired by The Giver of Names by David Rokeby, this piece attempts to contextualize our relationship with objects--in this case, through sound. The piece is inherently interactive, requiring the user to select objects from a pile to place upon a pedestal. Each object is equipped with an RFID tag; the user will then place the object on one of three sensor surfaces, creating different sounds. The objects were selected to reflect the artists’ personal views on nostalgia and childhood; however, the objects are also quintessentially “childhood” items. Each is ascribed a unique sonic signature constructed by referencing audio information often associated with these objects. However, the sounds have been distorted and warped by the artists; these alterations are intended to shift the response of the user from pure nostalgia to critical contemplation. Ultimately, play is the primary purpose of the piece--each object is one of childhood play--however, the user will then play with the objects in a new way. This merger of new and old experiences is intended to display the various ways in which we can be primed to learn (or even to deconstruct what one has learned) through objects of play. 

Project Change

After we finished the proposal for covalence we realized that it was too mechanically intensive and expensive to complete in the time allowed. Some discussing and a brainstorming session ensued, and it resulted in a new project that involves some of the same technology, but a very different concept.

Artist Bio: Lucas Thurston

Lucas Thurston has been experimenting with music since his early teens. Interested in film and programming, he applied to Ryerson. Over the past three years his passion for experimental music has merged with his programming abilities. Honing his skills in sound design, found-footage film, and feedback looping, his conceptual artworks merge visual and musical noise elements to explore existential questions of space and time, as well as humanity’s reliance upon technology.

Artist Bio: Mac Pepler

Mac Pepler began his artistic career at Ursula Franklin Academy, assisting in the production, direction, and editing of films. While attending, he also experimented heavily with dark room photography. After a year of attending Queen’s University in a Humanity’s programme, he realized that producing art-in all its various forms-was his vocation. In his past three years at Ryerson, he has become increasingly interested in conceptual installation, multimedia, and technological/transhuman artworks.

Artist Statement: Covalence

Covalence is a musical exploration of our relationship with interactive connectivity. The project has been constructed to allow universal access to experimental music, utilizing the framework of play and music to articulate freedom of expression. The piece is primarily based upon the concept of tangible manipulation and creation of space, facilitated through the misuse of  industrial technology--the omnipresent manufacturer of our technological future.

Facilitating all of the music generation is the tempo control unit. The unit is constructed via a form of tape loop, an established element of experimental music; it uses RFID tags on a conveyor belt to control and regulate the tempo of the sonic sequence. Each unique tag sends a signal to one of four receivers, or ‘instruments’, instructing each to play a note. During this process, the user can manipulate any of the objects of the piece, thus creating and defining an operating space in which the relative pitch of all four instruments will be defined. Moving either the pieces or your position of interaction will allow for a harmonious fluctuation of sound as the relative pitch is recalculated. Similarly, each piece will be equipped with a frequency shift and volume potentiometer, allowing for an additional level of interaction. 

Our relationship to the piece is also deeply based upon the music object’s inherent interaction with the environment in which it is placed, because the user defines the instrument’s operating space. The sonar sensors have a 4 foot range, as patrons in the gallery space will constantly be affecting the sound output. The accessibility of the interface used by Covalence allows for an immediately rewarding experience with experimental music, and shows a take on music far from the realm of the mainstream.

Prototyping

Welcome

As Lucas and I are now working together it seemed like a good idea to make a new blog to post our information


Dim Ambition: Recreational Detainment is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dimambition.blogspot.com.