PHYSICAL PROTOTYPING
view presentation (html)
download presentation (PDF)
In his presentation, David showed some examples of installations and works.
He made a distinction between computer controlled vs. standalone projects and argued that many times it is easier to control installations from computers, while devices are better to implement as standalone. In PP1 you are meant to create standalone pieces, but the examples we will see are not always standalone.
Projects are always having two stories behind them:
- The idea they want to transmit, aimed context of use, possibilities of deployment etc.
- The way it was made, the problems the designers faced while making it, how long it took to get the parts, how the interaction was crafted etc.
"Involuntary Dance Machine"
The first of the projects David introduced was the "Involuntary Dance Machine". The idea behind the project starts from an essay exploring the possibilities of inflicting virtual pain over a synthetic skin that should be implemented on real-dolls. This idea transformed into being able of controlling the human body, taking away the ability of performing pre-programmed actions and instead wanting to control the movements of a dancer. The "Involuntary Dance Machine" was conecieved in May 2005 and was the 1st Arduino-made project at Malmö Högskola. A computer running Director equalized sound in real time, and divided the sound into 4 different bands. It will decide if the signal is over a threshold on each band to discriminate if it should send electroshocks to either one arm, one leg, or combinations of those. The IDM is then deciding while taking the sound from whatever music file, which limb will be high jacked at every instant of time. The issue was that there was a risk for the dancer to lose control on both legs at once, and therefore they had to hang him/her from the ceiling, what transformed the project into kind of a torture machine(!).
The project was presented publicly several times:
- At K3, as the result to the PP1 course (called PC1 at the time), where they had to fake the control due to a last minute problem. That time a "joystick" was made, allowing a person to send electroshocks to the dancer.
- At Form and Design Center, at the external end of the year show, where about 300 people attended the performance.
- At Goteborg's Science Fair 2005, where we presented a video, the suit, and the shock-boxes. There was also a performance some days later.
- At a special event for the Swedish Association for People with Mental Disabilities, who where very interested in the way the machine allowed people to see the connection between action and response.
- At the Design Research conference held in London during the summer 2006.
The project provoked mixed reactions among people when it was displayed (as well as it did with the audience at the Rag-Tag seminar). TV and radio reported on the project, and they got emails from people willing to buy the suit as a rehabilitation tool.
But, David pointed out, attaching electronics to the body, both for sensing and stimulation is NOT easy. Furthermore, it is dangerous if you don't know how to make it in a safe way.
- There is a movie in youtube.com (search for "involuntary dance machine")- There are pictures in flickr.com (search for "involuntary dance machine")
"Lorca Insects"
"Lorca Insects" was commissioned by the Lorca Foundation who last year launched a big event in the small summer house the Garcia Lorca family has in Granada, Spain. Among other pieces, the foundation commissioned an art work by the video artists David Bestue and Marc Vives from Barcelona.The artists suggested the creation of a theatre of robotic insects that should be performing a 15 minutes long play underneath the poet's bed. The play was based in Lorca's "Bodas de sangre". The realization of this piece brought together an international team of designers, artists and craftsmen. A model maker would construct the theatre, a puppetry master would build the insects, an engineer made the control circuits, a musician composed the music, the artists made the script and a software artist built an interface to move the whole piece.
About the technology and setup:
On the technology side, the circuits were designed and built in Korea. The software was conceived in Barcelona and allowed the artists to try different scripts on the fly. It was programmed with MAX/MSP. The firmware for the electronics was written in Malmö. The puppets were made in Barcelona and everything was shipped to Granada where the model maker and the hardware engineer spent three days adjusting everything to fit underneath the poet's bed. During the process, they found out that the bed was considered a national treasure, which means that it had to be handled in a very special way (of course nobody had told them before). Of course the installation was 1cm too high, which meant they had to look for a metal workshop where to construct a structure that would lift the bed some more - avoiding modifying the installation.
It took 2 days for them to test the whole performance (which means they listened to the 15-min theatre piece over 60 times!!).
The play will run on demand, every time the guide presses a button hidden behind the bed, and it will be running for 10 months. In the end the team had to compromise and promise to go there and fix it if it happens to fail.
So far the cleaning lady managed to unplug the power once, when plugging the vacuum cleaner and the installation was stopped during 3 days... besides, everything goes great!
"Wood waves"
"Wood waves" is a project commissioned by the IT University Copenhagen which David and his students are currently working on. The aim of the project is to make a set of wooden tiles that can represent sounds by bending the wood in almost un-natural ways.
The tiles have to be independent, so that people could add as many as they wanted to their own place.
The current status of the project is that:
- they are able of controlling the boards from an interface made in Puredata
- they have found a combination of microphone + Arduino that can run one board, so that each board can be equipped with individual intelligence.
The installation is planned to work in the following way: a person talks/makes noise in front of an array of these tiles, and they react accordingly getting bent. The installation will be about 6 meters long and 2,5 meters high and will be located at ITU's hall in Copenhagen. It will also be exhibited at gallery spaces around the world, therefore the importance of making it mobile, easy to replace in case it breaks, etc. All the parts used can be found in Sweden, which has been an important principle in case there is a need to replace parts.
ARDUINO
David also did a workshop on Arduino, a physical computing platform based on a simple I/O board and a development environment that implements the Processing/Wiring language. The presentations and tutorials are available for download (PDF/ZIP):
01: Input/Output02: Analog/Digital
03: Serious Serial
04: Sound and Image + code/datasheets
05: Complex Sensors + code/datasheets
06: Moving it + code/datasheets
