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Facing realties

Now that we have the paint applied to the trunk of the tree, the bow transported and placed in the studio space, and the 3D printing as we speak for the bone, it was time to meet with Ben and Pete for a check-in.

From the beginning, it was necessary to correct Bens expectations for the installations. At present, he was wanting us to explain how we could place one installation in a public space, and then collect a flyer to get involved in the hunt. Some obvious challenges would arise with the installations having to be waterproofed, constant 24/7 staff or security to guide people through the hunt and protect the installations from vandalism, and the manner of getting a flyer for the hunt and then collecting 3 pieces of the QR code from the 2 other installations, both requiring their own staff/security would be impractical. We chose to focus more on the showcase evening, and across AUT campuses at the largest for the installations, due to these challenges being unable to be met with the systems and user journeys we have currently. We remain confident that it will be a seamless and exciting journey for users to participate in the light hunt but have to admit that it will not be feasible in public spaces.

We are also not blind to the installations themselves. I am not going to say that Chris and I are the best installation artists or artists at all, and the execution of visual elements in the project are poor.

The tree, unfortunately, does not look like a tree. despite the effort put into the paper mâché and trying to texture the paint to look like an actual trunk are average at best. Ben was one to say that it turned out exactly as he was expecting, some branches and some paper mâché, and I cannot fault him on this observation.

The root issue (Pardon the pun) is that it is trying so hard to be a tree, but looks so much unlike one when you look at it. In other words, it can look like an artistic sculpture inspired by trees (see below) or it can look like a tree.

Unfortunately, our work falls somewhere in the middle and brings us back to the very infamous Uncanny Valley. Too unlike a sculpture, but also too unlike a tree sinks it down this valley to exactly where we would want it to crawl out of.

The bow also is brought down in a similar manner. Take the installation at face value, and it’s a piece of chicken wire in a bow shape with some rope lights running through it. That’s it.

Both Ben and Pete point out that the poor execution and design distract away from the project, and projects cause for the audience, and once again I can’t fault them on their analysis.

Both Chris and I knew to go into this project that building three large-scale installations was kinda crazy but figured it was our last semester to go all out and try and make a project more than just superficial. I feel we have achieved this, but with quantity over quality. The end product could have been better. If we had a group member or consulted with another person with a more design-focused background, rather than just Chris and I’s engineering and construction background I feel that we would have three more visually pleasing results, and less distraction away from the project due to the look of it.

Mori, M. (2012). Translated by MacDorman, K. F.; Kageki, Norri. “The uncanny valley”. IEEE Robotics and Automation. 19 (2): 98–100. doi:10.1109/MRA.2012.2192811

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jedbradleybct-deactivated202401

Building a Better Bow

After our discussion with Ben and Pete about the state of our projects, one of the easier exhibitions to look at improving was the Breast Cancer Foundation pink ribbon bow. We both took a step back and tried to see it from an outsider perspective that has just walked into the exhibition and has no idea of the type of project or its purpose. Of course, this will be most people on the night so makes sense to try and be in their shoes. Taking the installation at face value it looks like some chicken wire shaped into a bow with some pink rope lights running through it. Sure, most of the audience will get that it is associated with Breast Cancer and can read on and donate with the information board displayed beside it. But sitting as a wallflower on the side of the room as it is at the moment will be pretty dismal.

We wanted to bring the audience closer to the installation, and make it interactive. Something they can do with it, rather than just look at it. It also makes sense because with Breast Cancer Foundation NZ’s latest campaign emphasises that it can touch much more than just the victims. It propagates through the whole family, friends and community when someone they love is diagnosed.

We wanted to hear these stories, of despair, of hope, or just showing that people are aware and do care about such an important issue.

I thought back to an exhibition on women’s equality at the Auckland Museum. One particular installation got visitors to tie a ribbon to each issue that they thought was most important. Similarly, the installations to tie the ribbons to was fence wire and circular steel piping. It was simple and encourages audience participation. It is also an exhibition that appears to get better the more participation there is, which is what we would love for ours. The more audience engagement and involvement, the better.

This is where we got the idea to leave a message, your name or anything to attach to the bow. We chose not to include ‘instructions’ or ‘rules’ to go along with it, because we want the audience to write whatever is most important to them. The idea of ribbons also aligned well as the iconic pink ribbon for the Breast Cancer Foundation. We created small ‘gift tag’ sized cards, with some low opacity lines for text, or drawing on pink paper with the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ logo on the bottom. The border on the card is also hand drawn as it encourages audiences to write a personal message, or even draw a picture themselves, and not be confined to a generic response. A small holder of pencils and Pink ribbons identical to those used by the foundation are placed alongside for those who wrote messages to then go up to the bow and attach it anywhere themselves. The chicken wire material also makes it ideal for these to be attached anywhere, and the long tails of the bow also make it accessible at lower heights so children can get involved with their parents.

We are faithful that these additional elements make the installation more personal and one that gets greater as time passes and audiences engage with it further, both physically and online with donations.

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jedbradleybct-deactivated202401

Unitec stole Glow?

Recently I heard of a free public exhibition, off Instagram stories of course of a light installation, coincidentally named Glow presented by students of Unitec. This immediately sparked my interest as Chris and I are doing essentially the exact same task of university students creating these large-scale exhibitions.

We headed over to the Devonport reserve as the sun was falling, and were met with a bustling environment of friends, family, fellow students and a large majority of just the general public who came by and wanted to see the lights.

All the installations were impressive, large and could tell that many hours of work and many students were involved in the making of. The environment was also spectacular with major sponsor Vector providing shelter and showing off their new EV charging technologies, live DJ and food for sale from the students it made for an ‘electric’ atmosphere.

The light installations themselves were all massive. Each spread across the grass of the park, and all impressively waterproofed. Each took own its own theme or topic. One focused on domestic issues such as violence, drinking and gambling and made rooms encapsulating the environment of each. The rest audiences were able to walk through each one able to get up close. One focused on tyres heading into landfill and made a path and room completely out of used tyres. Another was influenced by Auckland’s volcanic cones and was red to simulate the lava flows.

One that caught my eye was one that focused on E-waste. Children's toy mobiles were crafted from bicycle wheels, and figurines hung and underlit to create shadows on the walls created from timber and shrink wrap. However, the figures were not the children's characters or superheroes one would normally expect to find, instead, they are human figures constructed from e-waste and dangling from the neck. Strangled from their own waste they are creating. It stood out to me because E-waste is something I have included in a number of previous film projects and I am aware of numerous studio projects that look into this subject also. It was enlightening to see how e-waste itself can be used metaphorically to represent the reality of it killing people around the globe, and how Unitec was able to craft it, and many other important subjects into a light installation.

I was also looking out for the behind the scenes of the projects. On each they all have a multitude of sponsors, commonly from the field, they are highlighting (e-waste installation sponsored by Abilities Group, responsible for E-waste processing and selling in Auckland’s North Shore). There was also far more than just two people involved in crafting each installation, and upon further research, Unitec seems to have a well-established program where installations such as these are common and put up each year. Although I would like our project to be as impressive and as big of a statement as these pieces, we have to be realistic and accept that Chris and I are just two people also doing other papers on a total budget of zero. Nonetheless, I will certainly take some of the best, and most effective aspects of these installations away with me and try to implement them within our own.

Twyman, L. (2018, October 12). Auckland suburb dazzles thanks to tertiary students. Retrieved October 25, 2018, from https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/auckland-suburb-dazzles-thanks-tertiary-students

Unitec. (2018, October 16). Students light up Devonport with GLOW@Artweek. Retrieved October 25, 2018, from https://www.unitec.ac.nz/about-us/students-light-up-devonport-with-glow-artweek

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jedbradleybct-deactivated202401

A Good Bone

Now that the 3D printing is completed for our third installation we used the same paper mâché technique that we used on our tree. Fortunately it was on a much smaller scale than the tree, and easier to apply and manage. Once a few layers of paper mâché were applied we made sure to create an outer layer of printer paper to create a smooth final layer to best mirror the finish of an actual bone. We also had the issue of the cable ties sticking out, so since we still planned to hang the installation we ensured this was on the unseen side facing the wall. We then applied several layers of beige paint. This also helped remove the remaining chicken wire pattern that was left in the paper mâché.

Once this dried it was a team effort wrapping the rope light around the bone. We chose to wrap the white, representing the bone tightly at even intervals around the structure. The red and blue on the other hand are representative of the arteries and veins around and through the bone. Since these are not uniform and twist and turn throughout the body, we added more unevenness to these and progressively looser down the bone structure.

The final stage was hanging the bone. This is our only installation that is situated on a wall. Our original ideas were to have poles extending out from the wall holding the bone by the centre, but after talks with Pete, we found it would be far easier to hang from the top down. We agreed with this idea as it meant we did not have to construct anything into the wall surface, which would destroy the uniform white face of it, and fewer structures needed attaching on the bone side. Instead, we simply affixed two beams at the top of the wall and suspended the bone with thin fishing wire. This also gives the illusion if levitation.

Once the bone was finally hung it was a matter of taming the numerous wires that extend from it. There are three different rope lights thus three different USB power supplies. Given the length of the cables we had to mount the transformer boxes on the wall, and then paint them white to make them less conspicuous. The other cables were concealed with electrical conduit that we have used in the past and add a sleek and professional look when compared to generic wire clips or duct tape. The transformer boxes are an element that I would not want on the wall at all in future, and during showcase will look into clipping the wires and extending them to be able to locate them out of sight.

Finally, we added the finishing touches of the information board with donation QR code in an easily accessible space to the right of the installation, to allow audiences to read about it, the charity, and scan to be taken to our website and the donation link. A shelf was also added to accommodate the hunt flyers and QR code pieces for #3.

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jedbradleybct-deactivated202401

Gone Hunting

Throughout this studio project, we wanted to both link all three physical installations to each other, while also maintaining the studio themes of game and play. Through researching one idea that came to fruition was the scavenger hunt, now named ‘The Great Glow Light Hunt.’ The idea originated through looking into The Big Hoot. This was a series of large owl sculptures that were placed throughout Auckland city, each donated and then painted by an established artist. They lined city streets, shared spaces and public squares. At first glance, they may look very arbitrary, but upon reading the information plaques at the base of each one you could find that it was all in support of the Child Cancer Foundation, and “Custom painted owl sculptures will capture people’s imaginations at key locations around the city. Owls are icons of storytelling – well known to represent wisdom, migration, diversity, learning and intelligence – and each sculpture will share a unique and meaningful story from the New Zealand community.”

We also discovered that via The Big Hoot app it encouraged Aucklanders to explore areas of the city they may have never visited before, and gave users rewards along the way, mostly thanks to the multiple businesses that sponsored the event.

Both Chris and I thought the idea of including a similar ‘hunt’ activity would drive audience engagement in the event, encourage them to visit all three installations, and for each to be more interactive. It also would leave audiences with a sense of reward or satisfaction at the conclusion of their hunt being rewarded.

As discussed in a previous blog post it was rather difficult to create a reward when there are no commercial sponsors and only charities involved. But, we looked back to the Big Hoot itself and identified that much of the donation, was the artwork themselves by NZ and international artists on the owls. Understanding that art donations were also of significance, we reached out to talented graphic designer Austin Lonie, and he created the three illustrations.

We also needed to craft the user experience for the hunt. We initially theorised that users could get part of a codeword to unlock a password protected page on our website, but after discussions with Pete, we concluded that audiences would rather collect a physical element, rather than recording a static or digital one.

With this in mind, we went ahead with paper flyers and pieces of QR code sticker placed at each of the 3 installations to collect.

Since QR codes are used throughout our installations we thought it was best to also involve these for the hunt, collecting a piece of each one from the three installations, and piecing them together once all are gathered to allow users to scan them and access the ‘reward’ page of the website.

One of the unknowns that we needed to test was the tolerances of a QR code cut into several pieces. We tested this and found that it was very low. A misaligned or gaps left between pieces would result in the code not scanning, and the user not being rewarded. We worked around this by enclosing the QR code in a rounded rectangle red line, that serves as a guide for audiences to align the stickers correctly. They are also numbered both on the stickers and flyers to ensure correct placement.

In terms of execution we have a central starting point at the tree where Chris and I will be located most of the night, with an information plaque about the hunt and sticker one, however, flyers will be placed on all exhibitions and will be free for audiences to begin hunting for the others at any stage.

We feel that the light hunt creates a sense of unity between what are three quite different installations, and encourage audiences to visit each and every one, learning more about the charities, their missions and ways to donate.

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Culture Wrap Up

To finish off the culture games I used the feedback given from my play tests to make iterations to the final projects. I found the classrooms that had tested the games seemed to have adapted them themselves and written guidelines to help play them in the future. Blind Pirate needed an additional instruction sheet for the teacher which outlined the requirements of the game and other specifics such as time and group size, all which can vary on a case to case basis. Hush sort of hit a dead end with its requirement to be updated every time. I didn't really think the replay value through in much detail however I highlighted an area for further development in the final write up.

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Play test 2 - Hush

Hush was sort of a working name for the sound game I made for Whangaparoa College. I sent Nicky the link to the video and she organised for the class to play it yesterday. I just got an email back from her today saying how things went.

For starters the game is too short and kids were left wanting to play another round or two. It wasn’t long enough to take up a slot of time or be significany engaging. Although they found it fun and challenging I might have to extend the experience into a longer video to make it more of a challenge and be worthy of a classroom activity.

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Playtest 1

So I heard back from Nicky at Whangaparoa College to tell me that they managed to play Blind Pirates today in class. She informed me of how it all ran smoothly and some of the kids really enjoyed playing it. She allocated two of the class captains to organise teams and objects to play with. I left specific objects off the instructions to ensure it could be played within a wide range of scenarios. Some of the key points I got out of the feedback were:

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Classroom Games

In order to recieve my feedback in time for submission I had to create a rule set for the games to be played. For the first game, which focused on exploring the world through touch I went with a theme of Pirates and named the game accordingly. The rules are brief and open in order for kids to explore different ways it can be played. The second game, which focused on audio ques, I made into a 5 minute video uploaded to YouTube, this allows our teacher to access the video and simply play it to the class.

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Sensory Deprivation

To force a sensory deprivation on those playing allows users to experience play (and to a greater extent every day tasks) as if they were someone who suffered form similar disabilities. To create my pair of culture games I will look at depriving the visual stimuli in children during simple games and review responses. I imagine kids will find it challenging at first yet slowly get better and better at the tasks as they learn to overcome the handicaps presented.

Since my last post I reached out to a teacher at Whangaparaoa College about the project and pitched the possibility of her class partaking in the pair of games in order to playtest them. Fortunately the teacher was willing to get involved in the project and we discussed the games in further detail via email.

In order for it to be both easy to play and fun, I needed to revise the rules and essentially the mechanics of the games to cater for the ages of the kids in the classroom. This meant, simpler tasks, simpler outcomes and a visually appealing set of rules/guidelines laid out in its most basic format.

What will the new games be?

Game one, to impair sight and to enforce the use of audio ques to determine to world around them.

Kids will watch a video that plays 10 different sound effects. The kids will have to write down what they hear from the video. The sound effects will range from easy to hard in terms of understanding. The harder the audio clip, the broader range of results from the kids will be obtained. However, them being forced to make connections between the sound and the real world will hopefully help both listening skill and allow them to perceive the world without vision.

Game two, Impair sight to enforce the use of kinesthetic learning to determine different everyday objects.

Kids will have 10 seconds to look at a tray of 10 everyday objects. Then they will be blindfolded and have the objects shuffled. They then have to use their sense of touch to see if they can correctly identify the 10 objects. This will establish both a connection between visual and touch senses for the kids and help them realize the reliance of visual stimulation when understanding the world around them.

Having worked closely with the teacher at Whangaparoa College to develop these two games, I will now spend some time in Photoshop creating the rules and collection of resources for them to use when playing, such as blindfolds. Game 1 will also require me to develop an audio clip video so I’ll get onto that also.

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Culture Games

Looking back at the games developed for the culture assignment I can see how rushed and not thought out many of the aspects were. Firstly, the rules were brief and bared no real ability to put the players in an imaginary framework. Secondly, they possessed no real target audience. Our designated subgroup was persons with disabilities but that was more about who the game was trying to empathize with. To adapt and develop this game further I believe the most important thing to do is frame it for a particular audience and in this case the most suited would be kids.

It’s a lot harder to get teenagers and adults to put their pride aside and participate in essentially playground games therefore instead of trying to fake results with adults “pretending” to enjoy and give feedback on a game, I could reach out to a handful of teachers I know to have them play-test the games (or game) for me. I would then be a non factor in how they are played, meaning my rules would have to be flawless. Also, the response to the game would also be authentic as I too would not be present. With a bit of careful wording I could also try and request some written feedback from the kids on what they thought.

Before I reach out to any schools I will develop a refined set of rules for one or both of the culture games, depending on how much of a burden I can bare to be for the classroom. Use some artistic development to produce a professional looking set of rules, and have them reviewed and critiqued by some of my peers.

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Culture .

After a handful of attempts at improving my aesthetics paper, I hit a road block in what actually more of a messy compilation of YouTube tutorials and examples rather than a project I would be happy to submit. I began to get fairly sick of Unity quickly and gave up. I wasn't going to produce a piece of work that was A. worth 100% and B. up to my own standards. This has made me think more towards the Culture aspect of the year, where we developed games for a particular subgroup of people.

Chris and I looked at persons with disabilities as a subgroup and developed games that inhibited sensory involvement to frame the idea of “walking in someone else’s shoes” We play tested our games between some friends and they were fun but fell short of anything spectacular or captivating. If I chose to do culture as a polish/refinement there are some goals I want to achieve along the way.

Well written, professionally designed rules to be understood by kids.

Real world play testing without my own input.

Feedback from play-testers in which I can produce a formal conclusion from.

I believe ticking all three of these would both be sufficient for a summative assessment as I cover all three key competencies areas of this paper. These of course being, the Mechanics (with our board game), Aesthetics (digital game), and the Target Audience (with our designated subgroup games)

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Building The Bone

Spent last night joining the two bone ends together ready for today. They’re not hollow like the technician said which is actually a good thing. The inner support material is helping support the wood and provide a nice medium to glue to.

Bringing it in to uni was a challenge. Not exactly for me, as I got dad to bring it in (outsourcing).

The chicken wire frame sliced my hands open and was a bitch to work with however it shaped nicely and I’m happy with the way it looks. The only issue is the cable tie ends sticking out but I’m hopeful that it isn’t as noticeable.

I haven’t paper mached for years and I think I’ve still got it. Trying to blend the ends up with the shaft is proving to be harder than expected. I’ll leave it to dry over the weekend and give it another coat Monday.

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Kauri

The finishing touches are being put on the Kauri tree in the middle of studio. Its taking shape and the texture that the paint adds to the trunk really help to add depth to the 2D trunk. The lights on the branches should look pretty awesome in the dark space and we hope to avoid it looking too much like a Christmas decoration. The red EL light up the trunk is symbolic of a trees vein and something to tie all three projects together.

Had we opted for a different approach, perhaps a semi 2D version of this would have worked better. Creating a half tree but building it onto a wall would allow us to create a more intricate shape and not require the tree to be self supporting. We could have spent a lot more time on texturing and detailing the trunk in order to make it look more lifelike and resonate more effectively with people.

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jedbradleybct-deactivated202401

Going Digital

Although the physical installations are taking up the majority of our time and energy designing and building them, they are only half of our project. The goal for each one is for audiences to be attracted to the display boards alongside the installations, find out the issues and organisations behind them and finally drive them to the website to donate. For this we need an element website for audiences to land on, and encourage them to hit the donate button.

Both Chris and I considered building our own website in HTML, but the cons outweighed the cons easily. Although the website would be 100% our own and would not be outsourcing to a website building platform, Chris and I would have to learn many HTML coding skills we do not know, find a hosting server and buy a domain, would run into issues of page sizing since near 100% of our audience will be using mobile devices with different screen sizes/scales and at the end of the day not be as elegant as one on a website builder unless we mastered HTML in a matter of a couple weeks. So with that decision made we went with Squarespace. Its minimalistic themes and clean layouts aid in focusing attention on charities and their message, rather than the website itself.

I used a template that starts on a very simple homepage with each of the three charities, when each clicked takes them to their mission and about what they do for those in need, and lastly has a large donate button that will take audiences directly to they charities donate page.

The QR codes that will be printed on the info boards beside each installation will take audiences to each respective webpage. We will need to take some glamour/hero shots of each closer to when they are completed to add to the site, and add the text that each charity provides for the info boards/their webpage.

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To accompany the project, Jed has produced a website that frames each project and their respective charity all under one umbrella. Its going to help people gain access to the charities involved and gain an insight into the project as a whole. As said above, each installation will have a QR code printed on an information board which will direct the viewer to that charities page where they can learn more about the project and find ways to help support the charity.

As neither of us are particularly versed in HTML it was a good idea for us to opt into a pre-made template on Square-space to simplify the process and help produce a refined result fast and ready for submission.

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Pulp Issues

I mentioned prior the issues surrounding clip collections, failing to maintain continuity between streamers and the overall quality of what I have envisioned as “authentically collected”. I spent a couple hours last night speaking with a few streamers (that I didn't know - important distinction) to try and gauge their willingness to participate in said project. Then began working with them in collection clips and shorts from their streams and seeing the results.

Verdict is in and the results are clear; there is no way I can proceed without having the streamers understand, to a certain extent, the project they are involved in.

From the small amount of footage I was able to pull from the streams, ALL of it was of high quality, and incredibly usable. They turned their music off, spoke clearly and consist, read the discreetly prior to speaking to make sure they had it down, and proceeded to entertain their stream simultaneously.

It wasn't what I had initially planned for. I intended the responses from streamers to be their genuine reactions and for the compilations to be an abstract response to something passing by in their daily stream. For one, it doesn't mean that I cant still use clips obtained organically (as I like to put it), but it helps having a collection of clips that nail the overall story and message I am trying to convey. Its at this point I understand that simultaneously asking random people to produce a genuine, unadulterated response to something abstract, while also expecting a certain result, will not always produce what I am looking for, which is a Machinema style montage of Pulp Fiction.

Since trying out different ways of pulling clips, I have now been able to accumulate quite an entertaining selection of Pulp Fiction scenes and I am enjoying he way they flow. Different accents and voice changers are making the diverse nature of the project shine through and ensuring I select different games across the board is helping keep the messy nature of the product alive.

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The Bow - NZ Breast Cancer

Last Monday Jed and I linked up to complete a few final touches to the Pink Bow for the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation. The bow is made from chicken wire folded to make the shape of their iconic bow, then bolted to a stand Jed had made earlier. The 50m of electroluminescent lights had to be weaved into the mesh and cable tied to hold. This took us well over an hour with the wires getting tangled and caught on everything. Half way through we also needed more cable ties so of course another cheeky Bunnings trip was in order.

Once it was all put together we moved it into studio and got some feedback from some friends, some of which has shifted the project in a slightly different direction. Some had said that it basically looked like shit and provided nothing except a messy bend of chicken wire and pink lights. I can see that, however the project is designed to be viewed in the dark on open studio so we will have to run a test with the lights properly in the dark. The second piece of advice was that the 50m wasn’t enough to populated the frame enough and it looks too bare. Jed and I knew that ordering more of the pink EL lights was going to take us beyond deadlines and this was not really an option. Instead Jed decided to make it more of an interactive mural piece where guests on the evening could contribute by adding notes and words to the piece to allow it to grow and evolve throughout the evening.

We passed the idea by a few people including our collaborators at the foundation and the general census was it is a good idea, and we should follow up on it. Jed printed out hundreds of these small tags and cut up pink ribbon in order for them to be tied to the piece. These will hopefully be displayed next to the installation and throughout the course of the night we can see the bow grow and begin to be covered in these small tags.

Its fairly similar to the Christmas trees at the mall where people would writes notes for loved ones and attach them to the Christmas tree and slowly leading up to Christmas the whole tree is decorated with meaningful notes collaboratively made by everyone who participated.

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