SPACE: WORKING OUT LONG & LAT AMONGST OTHER THINGS
Posted March 13, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I was having trouble working out which way longitude and latitude ran across a map so I decided to create a little jpg to help illustrate it:
Using this I can hopefully work out the action-script I need for the flash application to control the binaural sounds.
I’ve also had a think about the locations for the recordings and have come up with:
- Mutley Plain
- Drake Circus Junction (old roundabout)
- Bottom of Armada Way (opposite the civic center)
These, I feel, will give a good variety of noise that should be distinguishable when you listen to it back through the jitter software. Talking about the application, I’ve started to piece it together now and should hopefully have a working prototype by next week, fingers crossed.
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Comments (0)NARRATIVE: IDEA
Posted February 26, 2008 at 11:58 pm
After today’s meeting I’m fixed on my idea now. My starting point is the book of Hundred Thousand Billion Poems by Raymond Queneau, a set of 10 sonnets. Each line of the sonnet is cut which allows you to select which line you want from each of the other 9 poems. This was originally written in French and has since been translated into English by many different people. I’ve found a few on the internet:
- http://www.bevrowe.info/Poems/QueneauRandom_v4.html
- http://www.uncontrol.com/deploy/content/EXPERIMENTS/massin/
Using this as a source for the poems I will create a GPS version of the book. I’ll create this using mediascape and map out the hot-spots around Plymouth. On screen you will be able to see a map and possible narrative routes, these taking you through hot-spots that will trigger off different lines of each poem.
I hope to record these using binaural microphones so it feels like someone is in front of you speaking a line. I’m in the process of building my own set at the moment so I should hopefully have some photos of the setup and maybe a few recordings soon.
PROJECT: MORE IDEAS
Posted December 9, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Been thinking more about how my project will shape up today. As I want to use this ghosting over video I also thought it would be cool to have a heads up display to show the intended path and route the previous rider took along the course. This could also show the ghost as well so that the current rider can see how far back or in front they are. Just a thought really.
I’ve also been thinking about the use of colour as well to represent these routes and the time. To recap I want to show the differing time lapses at of different sections on a course as people are bound to do bits faster or slower than others. So why not use colour? If your faster it could be blue, slower it could be yellow. These in themself can build up contouring time lines to produce some sort of artefact.
Right, I need some rest.
PROJECT: GPS WOES AND SOLUTIONS
Posted December 8, 2007 at 8:16 pm
At the end of my last meeting Chris kindly lent me a GPS receiver for me to have a play about with. Unfortunately it didn’t come with a usb cable so I was stuck with trying to get data off of it using its in built bluetooth. Another unfortunate thing is the fact that the manufacturer hasn’t had the foresight to write any good software or documentation for using it with bluetooth (typical). I guess it doesn’t help that they have discontinued the device as well.
So, I need to find another solution. Here’s a few things I’ve found or thought about;
- HP iPAQs - I borrowed 1 to take to Mscape Fest and I seem to remember some other software being on them which I believe will log GPS data. If there isn’t them I’m sure I can find some.
- I’ve been doing some searches and there’s 1 GPS data logger that keeps coming up time and time again, which is the GlobalStat DG100, link here. It seems to be a very value for money logger but that’s all it does.
- I’ve also found some do it yourself GPS receivers and logger; thomaspfeifer.net, jay-t.de, as well as plenty other on hack a day.
- You can also buy a logger that some one else has made that seems to be very good. Link here. This isn’t available again until the 15th Dec however and its a tad expensive.
I also managed to find a wiki from Openstreetmap.org that has reviewed many GPS devices which should come in handy when deciding where to go next. Link here.
Reading these reviews 1 of the devices seem to be a safe bet: the Scytex NaviGPS. Its water proof, lightweight, compact and great for cyclists. Its a good price too, so that’s another option if everything else fails.
SPACE: THE BIG IDEA
Posted December 5, 2007 at 11:04 pm
So after being to the Mscape festival and being enlightened to the joys of Mediascapes I have come up with an idea based on my research and previous ideas. Firstly here’s a sketch I did at the festival:
What this little sketch explains is the basic idea surrounding how it will work. What I want to do is take advantage of what some people call “GPS Jitter”. If you don’t know what this is allow me to explain. GPS Jitter occurs on a GPS system when you are in a stationary position in any given area. What happens on the mscapes is your position will circle and jump around causing this “Jitter”. So, I want to create hotspots very close to each other and experiment with sounds and light so you could stand on the boundary of a hot spot and have hot spots jump around. This could change to a different sound, layer multiple sounds and maybe even have a wearable led array or something similar change colour.
This could be a representation of the space through GPS Jitter, sound and light that could be a personal and shared experience. Could even go as far as saying its performative too. It will change the way you feel about the space and how everyone else around you feels about the space.
Whilst at Mscape Fest I attended a workshop titled “Audio Design for Mediascape” run by Duncan Speakman. He let us hear an example of a binaural sound recording, which basically records the sound from the perspective of your ears (the microphones are actually in your ears). This was kind of strange as you didn’t really know if people in the room were talking as you could hear it all around you and it really lifted you out of the environment. For this reason I am keen to experiment with these types of recordings for the project to give dis-locative audio.
SPACE: A FEW ARTISTS TO CONSIDER
Posted November 29, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I’ve been looking at the work of Alvin Lucier; a composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception, James Turrell; an artist primarily concerned with light and space and Christo; environmental installation artist. Here’s what I’ve found:
By Alvin Lucier: Music for Piano with One or More Snare Drums (1990). Description from his website:
“A pianist plays a series of notated pitches in chronological order, repeating them freely in overlapping patterns. As she does so, the tones sympathetically resonate snare drums positioned throughout the space. The drums respond in various ways depending on the pitch of the piano tones, the resonant regions of the drums and their geographical locations in space. This work was written for Hildegard Kleeb and was first performed by her on March 21, 1992, at the Galerie Sous-Sol, Geneva, Switzerland.”
This installation really deals with playing with acoustic properties of sound to produce other sounds from other sources within a space. An interesting, dis-jointed and un-typical way to produce sound relative to a particular space.
By James Turrell: Alta Pink (1968). This is a cross corner projection installation that plays with perception, depth and dimension. I really like the way he has played with a simple shape to create an illusion of an object that seems to have mass and weight. To me hes managed to represent the space of an object in another space and at the same time changed the way you might feel towards the space. Here’s a photo:
By Christo: Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin (1971-95). This is fairly self explanatory, where Christo along with Jeanne Claude wrapped the Reichstag with 100,000 square meters of thick woven polypropylene fabric with an aluminum surface. Both Christo and Jeanne Claude say that there is no deeper meaning to their work other than to make the world a “more beautiful place” or to create a new way of seeing a familiar landscape. To me this is creating a new perspective of the space through concealment, space of representation maybe? Here’s a photo:
So just by looking at these artists I can start to pool the different ideas. I would like to create a project that changes the way you feel and view a familiar space using light, not projected but by a different means and using sound. The sound and light will be affected depending on where you stand in relation to the space.
PROJECT: SECOND MEETING
Posted November 27, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Had my project second meeting with Chris yesterday and its more clear to me what I might be doing for my project. First we went through my project triangle and narrowed down the projects that were closest to mine. When we were doing this he asked me to think about why they are interesting. They were:
- Fix my Street
- Chicago Crime
- Mobile Landscape
- Travel Time Maps
- Flickr Places
Each interested me in different ways but a few key theories arose from the discussion. Fix my Street focuses solely on reclaiming responsibility of the street in terms of a social context and Chris told me about a guy called Martin Heidegger who talks about a sense of space, dwellings and how we can’t really relate to the natural earth anymore. Chicago Crime is more of a geo cached database of crimes, so its more to do with caching of the data and time. Mobile Landscape is a strange one but abstracts a function of a device that everyone uses everyday: a mobile phone to create a representation of space. Travel Time Maps was again creating a representation of space through time but what interested me most was the different contours that were created by different time zones. Flickr places featured maps but it wasn’t the main focus, instead social remains dominant over space.
From this we started talking about GPSX data and maybe comparing a set route, completed by different people. From that data you should be able to get the time it took at different stages of the route. You could therefore then compare each route with another and then represent some how the different in time. At some points it might be faster and some it might be slower. Chris was thinking in terms of video so you could have the video slowing down at that point when you were walking the route, similar to how ghost mode works in Mario Kart. This would then create a time experience. On to something here…
So, my task for the next 2 weeks is to have a play around getting a GPS receiver to work so I can record a set route, then maybe get someone else to run it or I could do the route on my bike for example. I’ll then take the GPSX data and represent the data some how, comparing each using an animated graph maybe or something to show the differences at each point. I can then start to translate this into something more substantial as I swap it over to my preferred context, on my bike.
SPACE: GPS, SOUND, LIGHT AND TIME
Posted November 23, 2007 at 2:42 pm
For space yesterday I had a meeting with Chris Speed to discuss where I could take my ideas of emotion mapping next. The idea is to come up with an idea before the end of the term to present. This presentation is to include the ideas surrounding what I intend to do, so contextualising it all, some drawings or schematics demonstrating how it will work as well (if we have time) a prototype.
I found this meeting really useful as it has given me a good area of research to inform the project. What I took away from it involves using parameters from GPS, such as sync time or another aspect that is easy to hack out, to produce some sort of emotion changing device using sound or even coloured light to do so. The idea at the moment is one where some one would walk around with a device strapped up to a GPS receiver or device and depending on where they go and how fast they move about this will change the sound frequency or colour, giving a spacial artefact or sound mash up. Ok, sounds mad, but its clear in my head at the moment.
I was also thinking about how you always find holes in GPS signal. What I mean by this is when you go out of sync with the satellites and your sat nav stops giving you directions for example. I think it would be interesting to maybe play around with this as well as I’m pretty sure you get the same effect if you walk into buildings or under structures. Worth playing with.
So for the time being I’ll be looking at a few peoples work:
- Christo
- James Turrell
- Alvin Lucier
PROJECT: FIRST MEETING
Posted November 13, 2007 at 11:15 pm
So I had my first project meeting with Chris yesterday and I think it went rather well. What Chris aims to do first is outline where my project lies in a critical context. To do this he uses a triangle to map out the 3 main areas that surround the project and he asks us to go away and research similar work that is already out there, placing it within the triangle. This way I can relate my own work to that of others.
All this was done on a white board (picture below) I’ve redone it in photoshop just to make it clear:
Here’s the white board sketches:
So my task now is to find some related projects. Chris has already suggested milkproject.net, Feral Trade, Urban Tapestry and a project involving the London Opera house, GPS and headphones - geocaching stuff. I’ll then need to locate them within my triangle. I’ll update it once I’ve done it.
SPACE: DOCUMENTING SPACE
Posted November 7, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Following on from my precedent study I now have to come up with a way of documenting an unknown space (all will be revealed tomorrow) relating back my study. I have a few ideas of what I could do:
- Christian Nold describes how his project is very much performative so I could look for performance in the space. Maybe note down where CCTV cameras or other authoritive objects are and see how people act in the space these inhabit.
- Nolds bio-mapping project to me deals with psycho-geography, so I could document how people are feeling. I could do this by taking photos of people’s faces in particular locations and judge how they are feeling or I could survey how people are feeling about particular aspects of the space by asking them to rate their mood. This could also combine the two.
On reflection I think I will go with the latter and maybe try and combine the two. Therefore I need to devise a form and will need a camera to record peoples facial expressions. I think the way this could work is photograph them then ask how they are feeling. I think this could make an interesting map of mood.
