Saturday, April 24, 2010

...presentation on my project - part II...

...then I moved on to describing what previous research I have found:

























Friday, April 23, 2010

...presentation on my project - part I ...


Today most of people from my class had presentations about their final projects: ideas behind, inspirations, users, plans, difficulties, literature... basically - everything! I was the first one to go at 9 a.m. :-) I'll describe here more details of my presentation:

Yes, I am going to work on a piece of equipment that was created more than ten years ago. I think it is good to have some reference point while working on my dissertation (taking into account the time constraints). Also, I felt it is a pity that a piece of equipment that could be in use is standing somewhere in the dusty corner of the workshop.
Here is the plan of my presentation:


I surprised a small all-morning-birds-audience with a short exercise borrowed from a choreographer Gideon Obarzanek - shaking parts of your body! two minutes of shaking and we all seemed to be more awake :-)

I moved to explaining what LiteFoot actually is:

LiteFoot is an interactive floor developed at University of Limerick as a result of collaboration between Interaction Design Centre, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (Mikael Fernstrom, Niall Griffith and Liam Bannon) and Irish World Music Centre. It was designed as a tool supporting dance research and training, as well as facilitating choreographic experimentation. It was designed according to requirements expressed by dance researchers and practitioners, in particular, with the user input from traditional Irish dancer Catherine Foley.


















Thursday, April 15, 2010

...diving in sound...

This week was also a time of demonstrating Final Year Projects by Undergraduate Students of Digital Media Design and Music, Media and Performance Technology. Due to our own duties, I couldn't see many projects. However, together with Sophia, we took an evening walk to PESS building at UL for a unique experience of Maeve Garvan's interactive Audio Aquatic Installation.

I think they started earlier then it was planned but we managed to come before the end. I have to say, it was a very nice piece of art. Both visual and audio experience were satisfying my personal aesthetic. It was only after the Performance, when I managed to get to the poster and read the concept behind. Therefore, while watching/listening I could concentrate purely on emotions evoked in me, not the technicalities. However, after having read description, I could also appreciate attempt to engage audience and incorporate them into creation of the piece by the use of infrared sensors. One pity - the access to the visual part of the piece was quite limited, due to the construction of diving tank in PESS building and only few windows :-(

It was one of those experiences that make time slow down. It calmed me down and left me with positive, reflective mood for the rest of the night. Thank you Maeve and congratulations!
Thanks Sophia, for taking me there!


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

...Lighthouse eleMENTAL...

Yesterday joined forces of Master Students in Music Technology and Interactive Media at UL presented their outdoor projection on Plassey House building at UL: Lighthouse eleMENTAL!

This was one of the assignments for Contemporary Art in the Public Realm module. A huge challenge for us as we did not have much experience in outdoor projections before. There was not much time for preparations because up till Easter we worked on IWAMD installations project. Also, the big projector we planned to use had to be repaired over Easter break. For the last week, all five groups worked very hard and managed to create five short video-animation clips which formed the content of projection. The general theme was 5 elements, agreed to be:

1. Earth

2. Wind

3. Fire

4. Water

5. Spirit/Heart

(check out other Lette's photos!)

Creative Process:
I was working within Earth-group: Louisa Donnelly, Alan Gleeson, Colette Keely and Peng Lu.
More than a month ago, we started from brainstorming and sketching ideas.

Meanwhile, the choice was made about the venue of our projection:

The white facade of Plassey House at UL. It seems to be an excellent location, as people can watch the show both from the Living Bridge and from the lawn in front of the building.
Our group decided to go along with the idea of the tree composed of bits of technology growing from the ground. All groups got a photo of Plassey's facade from Aladdin. It served as a template for creating graphics, animations and effects that would later match the shape of the building.
On Monday, we went out to test rough versions of clips, projector and MaxMSP patch (kindly provided by Oisin Lavery from Tricycle Interactive). We had to measure distance between projector and Plassey House, check settings etc. Results were promising, what motivated us to work even harder towards the final results :-)


Event:

On the night of the show we were really concentrated. One could feel some tension in our lab during last hours before projection. MusTech guys did not have much time to complete music and sound fx but they did a brilliant job! Finally, the time came...

and...
everything went fine! Apart from some technical problems with projector, just before the credits :-) A lot of our friends came - lecturers, families, colleagues etc. - we got a very positive feedback. It is always a rewarding experience!

What a relief!!! :-)

First, quickly put together videos available:
- thanks to Sophie -> here
- thanks to Lette -> here
(this one also contains credits sequence starting at 18:13)

More videos on the way!!! :-)