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The Final Hoorah

Showcase 2017, The final one and one last time to show off my work and impress. This year has been hectic and much so this semester pulling on many different threads to get this together, but it is here and after all the different setbacks and blunders it is working as I envisioned, because of a lot of help from the experts. This I hope will not be the last of my projects as I have enjoyed my time here at AUT in Creative Tech even if it has been a bit frustrating at times trying to get my point across and create my own course out of it. Here’s to the end but also the start of something new, something unknown and something fun.

Cheers to All the guys and girls in BCT and good luck out there

Looking good coming into the final bit. It was working perfectly last Thursday when I was in, but over the weekend the fibre optic had fallen off the wall and so I had to rebuild and change the design to something more secure today. It is 9/10ths working and how I want it but there a still a few changes that I would make to make it secure and professional but I ran out of time and needed more materials and the lessons that I learnt today. But overall this is still partially what I had envisioned in my mind of what I wanted people to see and experience. It might give some hope.

Last week's updates

It's coming into the final weeks and it's why there have been less updates on here and more carrying out of the plans, building testing, fixing and hauling all the heavy parts into studio. This week I will slowly day by day be bringing up more parts to be put together in the studio space to help create the final artifact. This means utilizing my time to test and play wit and slowly tweak my final design to get it just right. My work flow pipeline has helped with this immensely as even with setbacks and unexpected changes and outcomes I am still able to get in ahead of time to set up early. There will be a couple tweaks and changes last minute as there always is to the design and layout with feedback from the people in studio to help. Now I have to start reflecting and thinking about getting my posters finished and printed in time and how I'm going to display them. This is in the lead up to the open night to display my artifact and my vision of what we will be as creative technologists of our hope for the world.

Let’s hope

Expansion

Though a little research and looking at the state of the world delving into the Idea of self and group. With my use of mirrors in the exhibition to help expand the idea of a persons self. The idea of a persons self has come under fire in recent years with people flocking to group identities and losing a sense of self. Using these mirrors in this exhibition in this way to isolate a person from their groups and include them into the exhibition, getting them to think about themselves and their place in the future. That is part of the essential idea in the project.

This project has expanded to where I didn't think it could possibly go when it was conceived. It has expanded and changed developing deeper meaning behind the project to myself and to hopefully to others experiencing this exhibition.

some of the pieces I have found are Jesssica G Fritze, Grant A Blashki, Susie Burke, John Wiseman. (2008). Hope Despair and transformation. International Journal of mental health Systems, 2(13), 1-10. Retrieved from https://ijmhs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-4458-2-13 This is an article referencing the possible impacts of climate change on peoples mental health. With climate change comes more natural disasters inducing larger amounts of stress in whole communities impacting the social, economic, environmental and mental health of peoples lives. I found this while looking at how the environment effects peoples well being which is usually in a positive way but as seen, on a large scale it can have effects on the community for good or bad. I have also found Taylor, S.E., Brown, J.D. (1988). Illusion and Well- Being. Psychological Bulletin, 103(2), page 193-210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.103.2.193 While researching Hope. This article was investigating the delusions that we tell ourselves, our own false hope. False hope was something that I was interested in as I was trying to inspire hope in people with this project but it may have been only a false fleeting hope that wouldn’t benefit the people involved. Whereas this article brings p some unique points about the false hopes that we tell ourselves everyday to make it through the day feeling positive. Just because they are false does not meant that they are inherently bad or will have negative effects on the person and possibly quite the contrary. False hope bringing optimism and motivation to the person letting them push past previous bad experiences and move forward making progress. With the isolation and self awareness that this project brings to people who interact with it, this can be quite a danger to my desired outcome as looking at ones self and evaluating it can lead in many different ways individual to each person. This is why i am like many other artists utilizing the very important part of music and integrating it into my exhibition to give a sense of feeling to the project, to give it an air when you approach and interact with it.

This project is a part of space image and sound, I have tried to incorporate all of this into one project to really represent hope, hope in ones self, hope in the future, belief in ones abilities and ones power, hope in the world in which you are a part of as an individual able to make choices and effect others.

Understanding

This week there has been a lot of progress, not quite physical but in understanding the how and why, the growth of the project and it's purpose. Until now I have been using a small bit of research mostly gained from my previous project on happiness, anecdotal evidence and information gathered but nothing formally researched and reviewed. The latest critique session showed the flaw that I had not formally cited research on the multiple topics that I was approaching.

I have since then during that week found multiple articles regarding the effect of green spaces and plants on the mental health of individuals and society at large which does put into question how many plants I want to include in the final artifact. The other research trying to define and explain hope but also looking at the world view of it and the world's effects on hope with something as large and dooming as climate change on the individuals mental health and the mental health of the communities. Understanding has also come with my attempts at programming a remote control. As I was at a loss on how to continue I had to consult an expert and through that saw much deeper into how the message is send transcribed and translated. After this meeting with an expert on how I would continue with this and make it work as I need it to I have had to change my approach and write some of my own code from scratch and utilize the new knowledge. This is just the first instance of information s I will be finding more to properly understand what I am delving into.

I still have to implement this new found information but it is a step to developing my idea further and it becoming something new, exciting and overall, hopeful

Thinking

I have realized that over the past couple of weeks i have been solely focusing on making progress on the project, just making sure to get things done and dusted catching up on where i was falling behind. During this time I did neglect to properly reflect and review on what I was doing, if this is what my project was made for and if it was still fulfilling the original goals that I set out to do. Thinking of this now has led to a few small developments in what I will be doing and probably more changes though the next weeks.

Overall the end goal is still the same, I want to still instill hope in people for the future, for their future and doing this through an instillation using Space Image and Sound is a big undertaking. Instilling hope as hope even false hope is a very powerful motivator, and sometimes its needed to give people purpose towards a near unobtainable goal that needs that little bit of push. I am still trying to create my great interactive walls but i have been thinking of how to implement the interactivity into it. Using the ultrasonic sensors i have to give to experiment with it and people interacting with it to change the colours the brightness and possibly the sound of it. The colours relating to colour theory loosely as it has a little based in fact but is quite heavily based on peoples personal preferences and experiences but as many people grow up in the same area and culture they can end up being very similar. There is a lot of colloquial evidence around colour theory and I will be using this a little to create pleasing safe colours that offer security while reflecting what the piece is representing.

With the sound I actually dont have much previous experience at all but it could be a possible part of the project to either create a reaction or an ambient sound. I have worked with sound very simply in my first year in a simple Java program to play music depending on the buttons pressed. While the other project was in a group to create a very calming environment, which I can use as a semi base for this project as its a similar environment it I will be building on this as much as possible.

With these small additions I hope that it will add that level of detail to improve this project immensely.

Week 7 update

Now is the time for action. Finally all my parts have come together. I have the parts for my proximity sensor, I have the code and wires, I have the fiber optics and the walls partially built, I have the plants that are growing wonderfully up. Now is the point at which planning is coming to fruition and needs action. That is the plan for any days outside of university and work is to just make as much progress as possible forward on the putting together of these giant puzzle pieces.

Planning

Planning for this project has gone surprisingly well with my lessons from last semester. Last semester I took part in planning for creativity paper giving me a good overview and rundown of ways to plan in groups and to get creative projects done on time with minimal disruptions. I had these deals in mind when planning this creative project, as I always plan for the possible worst case senerio of time lines and things going bad. This has obviously helped immensely with the disaster of my tiles detaching and smashing and's I have had time to source new tiles and put them on with minimal panic and staying on track. Contengencies with my planning has helped because of the overall plan which includes 2 weeks of hidden time incase of set backs pivots or other problems that arise. Over these years I have tried many types of planning and working and I think I have found a good balance of work and sanity. If I work tok hard on and project I just get bogged down on an idea and can't move like in bug fixing in code. While if I take regular breaks or at least switch up what I am working on then my brain functions better and I can focus better on the problems at hand. This has come after a few years of figuring out my own methods of planning and working to be at my most effective.

Although working in a shop environment is very different from the working on solo or group creative projects and so it could be that I don't use many of these skills but that depends on my job out of university.

Well Shit

That is all I have had to say this week. As I spent a very long day last week perfecting the placement of my mirrors on the wall and gluing them in place. They looked glorious and it was perfect. But after a few days leaving to to cure we stood them up and arranged them out of the way to continue curing as we orgonised the next part. But as of the night of the day after we found half the tiles smashed on the floor my main middle wall was near bare and the ground covered in shattered glass. This lead to the well shit moment and has lead to the next few days trying to source new mirror tiles as half survived and so I need to find the same or similar ones. This unluckyness has lead to a big setback and a large increase in cost as the old tiles were recycled now I have to purchase new ones which is why we have contengencies. This one being the saving of money to spend on this project and the fact that I always give myself extra time in case of disasters but this has to be the biggest one yet. I have already purchased new tiles which I will be picking up soon which I will quickly put on and get back to it. Shit happens we just have to continue and deal with it.

Light Vine

I have finally come up with a viable name, but I am still on the fence about it until something better comes along.The term Light Vine brings up images of what my project could be but leaves an air of mystery and intrigue for the person to investigate and come experience the exhibition for themselves. With my walls built and ready the next step is to start on attaching the mirrors to them in a safe and secure manner. With tiles this can be difficult as a single crack can ruin the whole tile, because of this I will be using “no more nails” as a mastic adhesive which I have had experience with before and know how to use which is what I should be using as I need to be careful with these limited resources. While I am slowly gathering resources and help with this manual part of the project I have been researching radio frequency transmitters for Arduino and have found other people who have done similar projects to mine regarding this. I just need to order the right parts to intercept the transmissions and replace them for my own adapted to my ultrasonic sensors. With this I will be able to recycle my last project as i had a similar set up with a Arduino nano powering and regulating LED lighting, which i will salvage and use for this project where its similar but slowly experimenting with different tools. I have already explained why I am using fiber optics instead of LEDs due to the heat and the plant part of the project but it also facilitates my curiosity to experiments with similar but new ways of creating quite similar things but all on a different scale. Time to get working.

In Comparison

My choice of projects throughout BCT has in no other words been quite strange. I have experimented with projection mapping, my own happiness, the uncanny valley, artificial intelligence and even worked on projects for an outside company and now I am doing a purely art piece.

I have never considered myself an artist, this thought is what has lead to many of these strange projects. It was just my curiosity getting the better of me and experimenting with different technologies theories and practices to see what I can push myself to do. But inadvertently that is what an artist does my overall art piece being my BCT degree and myself instead of a masterpiece it’s a constant work in progress that is always changing.

With my previous projects I have always been very straightforward, get to the goal, be rational and businesslike as that is what I have experience in and what I was comfortable with. The projection mapping I was working in a group towards a goal I wasn’t thinking why or about the effects it was a goal, in my first year. My own happiness project lead me a little deeper into my own rabbit hole that was a great deal of intersection but I still treated it as a scientific report only touching the surface. Working with a group to investigate the uncanny valley and build something with it was a step in the right direction blurring the lines between thinking research and artifact. The investigation into artificial intelligence art was a quirky side path as it showed me that outside people outside companies where looking onto these areas and encouraging it to take place explore and expansively my most recent project was both a success and a failure in terms of BCT. In terms of exploration and art with technology it had none of that but I think that it involved the true potential of a Creative Technologist in the business field which is the middle man, the leader, the project manager, the neutral party to talk to everyone and make sure the ball keeps rolling. During this project that is exactly what I did I negotiated with engineers and talked with CEO’s to get this project off the ground. In the end it was turned down for other reasons but I think that it was a great success with my own professional development proving that this is needed and valued skills.

My current project, the light vine (working title) is the complete opposite of my last project. There is no business incentive, no reports or evidence to back it up no one else to report to. This is a self driven experimentation of my own artistic ability. I wanted to experiment, to explore and see if I can when I have believed for years that I can’t. To see if I could create something worth experiencing for the sake of experiencing it. To see if I could create worthy art.

Why?

Why, why, why? Why am I building this weird project you may ask? Welll it is for numerous reasons the main incentive being the current state of the world and it’s view of the future.

What really spurred this is that as of late with the world view of the future everyone seems to unanimously agree that the outlook is bleak and bad. With this project I wanted to challah that view to a degree by giving people who interact with it some hope.

With the current age of world instant communication and news it has lead the media into a frenzy of click bait and sombre news as that is what gets the viewers attached. To me that is a detrimental effect on people’s world view as they become bias to the negatives and start viewing the future in that way to as if it cannot change for the better. This is why I started this project and what my ultimate goal is.

Then comes the why of all my materials and the reason why I’m not just giving out money or preaching. This relates back to my previous years projects namely the one based on happiness, my happiness to be exact but this knowledge can be extrapolated. During that practice I extracted alot of useful knowledge about how the human brain processes happiness and the multiple types of happiness. Giving out money or preaching might bring happiness or a sense of hope but it would be short lived and shallow, to be lasting and have an effect it needs to come from within yourself.

With this in mind and my research into other experienced space image and sound designers and artist came the idea of using mirrors. Many artists utilize mirrors in a way to expand and deeper their space while also reflecting on the attendee. With our space limited to only a small amount within the Colab space using mirrors to expand my space to give it depth and intrigue involving the participant in this exhibition. Getting the person involved relates back to the happiness as they will see themselves as a part of the exhibition as a part of the world that is hopeful and making the world better.

With this I needed to bring a sense of hope and calmness to any person to interact with the exhibition and so I needed to design it that way. A wall of mirrors was definitely the wrong way. After some design experimenting with painted models trying out different sizes,shapes and combinations I concluded on a simplistic three hinged wall design. This is based on a side tailors wardrobe design where if angled correctly you can see yourself and your sides all at once, seeing all of you actually in the exhibition including you in its calm serenity and bright hope.

In order to create this vision of hope for the future I am relying on something that most people use everyday but most will not see with her own eyes and I am using it in a different way but still for the same purpose, to give a message. For this purpose I’ll be experimenting with fiber optic cabling as the light source for my project. Fiber optics which is majorly used in undersea data transfer cables for the internet can also be used for lighting if designed right. In previous project I have used the availability and utility of LED’S but to give a proper clean futuristic appearance and feel for this project I’ll be using fiber optic cabling to guide the way. This also allows me to utilize the lighting in different ways bending it having the light evenly glow out from all sides and creating no heat from it. which leads onto the next part. I will be using a live plant or plants in this exhibition. A major reason why I’m using plants is that with views of the future usually comes with a grey dead dystopian pile of rubble. Plants on the other hand are proof of life of growth, perceverance and possibility especially mine because of their hardiness surviving me. So with this fiber optic vine I wanted to integrate and grow around it an actual vine. Representing the possibilities of growth together technology and biology working together with the natural order to move forward. These plants will be integral to inspiring hope. Plants have been known to decrease stress levels and purify the air, although I will not be using the vest for this purpose the Japanese peace lily I will be using a vine so that it can grow and be a peice that evolves over time. But why aim to bring hope? Hope is a very powerful thing even false hope. Hope let’s us aim for something that we can’t yet see how to achieve but we can still work towards, hope is a great motivator, a pusher of innovation drive and genius. Hope is the force that changes and all I want to do is budge someone’s world view. Why an exhibition? An exhibition because art can have a profound impact on the world and can be made my anyone with a purpose and some motivation. Art has changed the world many times it has woken people up with Banksy it has entranced people with Rembrandt and it has taught people with Piccaso and Frieda it us unlimited. So I wanted to have my own cracked at it, money and material motovations are short term I wanted to try something different.

Oh Bugger

We are now halfway through this project, week 6 of 12 and I suddenly realised thinking about how I have been working, that I haven't been documenting recording and blogging about my process. The past three weeks have been very busy with it all soon coming together. Over this time I ordered and orgonised fibre optic cable to come from China, powerful lights fit for purpose to come from America and sourcing building materials and finding already built ones where I can. This has cost a far amount but it's what is needed to get quality parts. This week was the week at all my parts arrived at once and I immediately started building and putting them together starting to realise my vision for this project. The wood will be cut put together sanded amd painted to be the base to hold this project up. The lights are just that but I am experimenting with Kim's help to splice it and get an arduino into it in order to have some fun with interactivity with the observer, which I am still planning. The fibre optics are just that lights to play with and explore form and shadow as with them will be my plants. I have been to many different garden centers seeking advice to what plants will suit my needs for this project. I settled on two different plants to give each a chance of survival and to see which will be better suited to my purpose. The arduino using skills I have and expanding on them I will break into my lights and hijack them in order to control them with ultrasonic sensors to monitor the proximity of people letting people interact and see a changing work. The end artifact will be something different something new to me and others. There will be three walls the center larger than the sides arranged to partially encircle the person involving them. These three walls will be covered in large mirror tiles and have the fibre optic layed up the wall in an abstract attempt mimicking plants while a real plant grows up and around the fibres, lights shining through the leaves and flowers. These lights changing and reacting to people who approach it. This will be my artifact something to look into something to be curious about and find something in. Using people's personal Space, their own Imagery and possibly some Sound in the future.

Studio Catch-up

As is the usual I have missed the first few weeks of posting on here due to being so busy catching up on classes and trying to get ahead and sorted.

For my studio plan the base idea that is spawned from is that whenever someone looks to the future recently with all that people are doing it is always a bleak view. This idea is to change that, to bring across a different bright message to the people whom interact with it. To do this i needed to involve the person to get them personally involved with their view of the future and how they could make it brighter.

With this in mind and thinking of the future whats making it bleak and uninviting was that we are destroying the planet and each other with technology. Therefore i wanted to use these ideas to create a positive view of the future. To do this while utilizing Space, Image and Sound I have decided to play with mirrors as many other artists in this degree have used it to expand their space and involve the person in an interactive exhibition. To give an idea of the future I will be utilizing Fiber Optic cable to create a soft bright changing light for the exhibition which I will model on climbing vines and willow tree branches so to create the effect of a bioluminescence ivy effect. To make this effect more real I will grow an actual ivy plant up my exhibition and wrap it around the Fiber optics in order to illustrate the way that technology and nature can interact and be harmonious together. This is all set up on a 900mm wide 1800mm high wall with 600mm by 1800mm high side walls to create the effect of an enveloping exhibition that draws you in.

This is the basis of my project, it has evolved over the past few weeks already changing size shape adding and subtracting and it will continue to evolve but it will always be a message of hope. Hope in the future, hope in yourself hope in humanity and life to improve and get better.

#ctec

The Last Minutes These last minutes have been hetic especially when the studio is in disarray and no one knows who's is who's or who to ask to get walls and tables. Getting my project was a mission and a bit of a sacrifice. The mission was finding a table and altering my setup as I was only able to get a table and laptop no wall or projector. With my table claimed and set up with my documents which is the main part of my project but there is no room for my side model of the Magnus. So that model needs to be scrapped and rebuilt as a smaller model. At least my circuitry can be adapted to fit the new model as Stefan has been an immense help this whole way with it. As is the tradition of colab things are always left to the last minute.

Calm before the Storm

Tomorrow I have to give my presentation. The culmination of all my work on this project will come together at 4pm tomorrow when I meet with the CEO of temperzone. At this moment I am quite calm as this is the part that matters, there are grades and such to come after but for the fate of the project this moment is what matters.

I have polished and polished my animation my reports and my presentation to all offer a crisp concise and deeper look into the possibilities of The Magnus project.

I have done all I can for this project pouring hours into reports and research developing ideas on how to do it where to go what resources to use that could make the Magnus a success in the New Zealand market and possibly internationally.

Lets see what he thinks.

#Creative Technologies

The Finale

It is coming.

At this point is when most people panic myself included but it’s good to get it all out earlier rather than on the day. The reason that we panic that that all the different parts of the project are coming together to its conclusion and you need to make sure all the parts are fitting together.

This is the point at which I’m at. I am constantly jumping between the many different aspects of the project to get the last finishing touches on them but none of them are fully finished and ready for showing. There are still meetings to attend and important aspects to discuss, models to build, code to write, wires to solder and a large instillation to set up all in the next few weeks. There is time its just slowly running away from us.

The model has been planned and the parts are ordered but are yet to come, but with it being planned and test built it should not take too long to put it together.

My statements are getting there but need to be presented on a poster which I am yet to develop which will be a part of the instillation to explain the working behind The Magnus and where it has come from to where it is going.

I have other exams such as International Business Management to study for which will take some time as it encompasses a very large topic.

There is also the Creative workflows report to build documenting how I made this project and what has happened over the semester.

There will always be more to pop up I know it but I just have to go for it and create the best Magnus I can.

Here’s Hoping.

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