Design Board Process

The design of our design board has had to evolve throughout the project. We started by producing mood boards which would represent elements of our project such as direction, possible technology, related work, etc. Below is the first of such mood boards:

Below is a revised mood board. The colour scheme is more similar to what was used in the final design board, and the purpose of the imagery is somewhat more evident. We also greatly reduced the text content, as the final design board would need to communicate primarily through its design, and we wanted to reflect this. The content such as imagery and background was handled by Shane, and the colors/text by me. We tried to categorize the various elements of our project in order to visualize them in a simple, understandable manner.

Below is a picture of the design board in progress. The layout and design is much more simplistic/minimalist, as we wanted the purpose of the project to be obvious to the reader by providing basic images whose meaning is immediately apparent, and not obscured by unnecessary details.

Below is the finished design board. Shane and I worked closely to populate and structure this final board. We continued to use minimalistic and straightforward imagery, but we chose to also include some text. We wanted the important text to be striking, such as the tagline "Motion, Mood, Participation". We did this by utilizing size, colour, and placement on the page. We opted for a dark background with a subtle image, as we felt it pronounced the orange colours better, and gave more contrast to the imagery.

Presentation

Public Displays

Once we had an outline of what we wanted to do for our new direction i started to look into different types of public displays. How they work, what is effective and not affective to try and gain a better understanding of what we will need to do if we were to implement one of our own.

One of the biggest issues with modern cities is that people don't seem to interact anymore. whenever people are walking around a city or using public transport it always seems to be a matter of keeping your head down and yourself to yourself. Even eye contact is now a taboo, that awkward look away people do when you make contact with them in the street. One of the main causes of this seems to be the explosion of smart phones and other such devices that fit in your pocket and give you a good excuse to not have to even look at someone you might meet in the street. Despite the fact that this causes people in cities to become detached from one another the digital age is here to stay so the issue is not going to go away any time soon. People don't want to interact with each other so how do we get people to interact with a display, and even further interact with a display with someone else.

I looked at interactive displays that people had done before:


1)


This billboard appeared in Dublin for Honda, where customers could “start” the car by texting to an SMS shortcode and could also download information by Bluetooth. The campaign was created by GT Media and JC Decaux using technology provided by Púca.


2)



Nike demonstrates that even in philanthropy, it stands for athletes. In an interactive billboard (by BBDO) publicizing a charity 10k run in Argentina, the athletics powerhouse invites passers-by to have a run on a treadmill that logs a communal kilometer count. For each kilometer run, Nike donates a set amount to UNICEF, urging that Training for the 10k doesn't only help you. For each kilometer run, you will be helping UNICEF.


3)


As pedestrians walk past the wall, infrared sensors will lock on to the person closest to the wall, who will then be able to control a projected slider button at the bottom of the wall. As the selected pedestrian continues walking and moves the slider along, the wall will start displaying colorful animation and playing music, effects that will grow or recede at the pace that the person advances or retreats.

The main thing that stands out from looking at different types of public display is that they need to 1, draw the attention of people from a distance, having something that people wont notice will never work as they will have no insentive to you it if they barely notice it. The second thing is that they all use different technologies and have different functions to that of the standerd devices that people have now grown acousmted to, the most successful types f displays now show people somthng that have not seen before. To make the display effective we should have the users know before they use tit that this is going to be a unique and new experience.


During my research a came across some good information about how to properly get people in approach and interact with a display. The information provide will be very useful for future development.


Public displays need to grab the attention of passers-by, motivate passers-by to interact with them, and deal with the issues of interaction in the public. In contrast to many other computing technologies, interaction with public displays does not start with the interaction itself. Instead,
the audience is initially simply passing by, without any intention for interaction.



 People pass through different phases, where a threshold must be overcome for people to pass from one phase to the next. For each pair of phases, a conversion rate can be calculated of how many people are observed to pass from one phase to the next, and different displays can be compared by these rates. In the first phase, people are merely passing by. In the second phase, they are looking at the display, or reacting to it, e.g. by smiling or turning their head. Subtle interaction is only available when users can interact with the display through gestures or movement, and occurs, e.g., when
they wave a hand to see what effect this causes on the display. Direct interaction occurs when users engage with a display in more depth, often positioning themselves in the center in front of it. People may engage with a display multiple times, either when multiple displays are available or if they walk away and come back after a break. Finally, people can take follow-up actions, like taking a photo of themselves or others in front of the display.

The full study can be found here:
http://wdirect.pervasiveadvertising.org/pdf/MM10MuellerReqDesignSpace.pdf

Using Technology to Incite Social Interaction and Affect Mood

Through our technical exploration and interest in public collaboration via music and visuals, we have become more interested in the social aspect of our project;  using technology to instigate social interaction, influence mood, and allow us to study the effects under the conditions of different social spaces.

Full Body Gestures

The basic concept for this would be to place an interface in public spaces, such as pedestrian streets, bus stops, even bathrooms; and use techonology which recognises gestures to create music and visuals based on these gestures.

Hand Gesture Examples

Various gestures would launch different audio samples, such as a drum beat, or bass line, along with visuals which  would play as long as a gesture is held.  The more participants involved, the more music would play, and more visuals created.  For example, one participant may launch drum samples with blue visuals; while the other launches bass samples with yellow visuals.

Through participation, social interaction is instigated, with more participants adding to the whole piece.

To solidify this social interaction, the piece would aim to affect the participants' mood , using specific colours,in a positive manner, and create an association of positive mood, with interaction in public space.  Colour and its affectation of human mood, productivity and social interactivity have been studied in depth, and has been proven to have a large effect on us, with colours such as red making us more likely to be more aggressive, or certain shades of green increasing productivity.

Colour chart and emotions associated with them.

The actual installation itself would use motion tracking technology via the use of readily available hardware such as a standard webcam, (or microsoft kinect, which would allow for a wider variety of gesture tracking). Motion tracking software such as Motion Studio, and Max for Ableton which would allow us to convert gestures into MIDI controls which would in turn launch visuals and audio based on these gestures.

 Visuals displayed via screens or projections, with most of the 'work' being done by the software.  This means that the installation would not require large amount of space and could be placed in a multitude of locations.

Sense of Community / Location

It seems the bigger the city, the less likely people are to engage with their surroundings and other people around them. This is something I'm sure most people are aware of, but the question is why. This is what many cities and sociologists are trying to figure out, and subsequently reduce. Thankfully we don't experience this phenomenon to a huge extent growing up in Ireland, but in major cities across the world there exists a complete lack of community. As a result of this people are reluctant to connect and cooperate with one another, and this can have a knock on effect in many areas such a crime or racism. A lack of communication with one another results in a lack of understanding and empathy as people can become indifferent to others around them. This is why it is massively important to try create a greater group mentality, rather than thinking indifferently as individuals. 

Projects like the one we are proposing could help promote engagement with others, and in turn a sense of community and association. It could not only have an impact on the mood and attitude of an individual, but have a domino effect on many in an area. This makes the project very interesting from the point of view of mass psychology and sociological behavior.

While developing the prototype and finalising the idea/prototype is the ultimate priority at the moment, it is also crutial we select the correct place for the artifact shall we decide to display it in a public place. 

It would be pointless to develop a great idea designed for people to interact with, and have no on interact with it. Recently I've been reading about how people interact in public spaces and cities, and how people's surroundings can influence their behaviour, and as a result how they affect their surroundings. I've also been observing different public places in Cork City, seeing were would be an appropriate location to set up.

The area need to be away from busy streets and the hustle and bustle of large groups, as people will take no notice, however it also can't in an area so quiet no one will notice it.
Ideally it would be in an area where people are relaxed enough to engage with something like this, while also having the time to spontaneously interact.
That's why an ideal location would be a park or park entrance. This is where people go in a time of leisure to relax, and usually see a lot of footfall, especially in the city centre.

From what observed around the city, areas like Bishop Lucy Park, Fitzgeralds Park, and the benches near the memorial on the South Mall are ideal prospects. This is not only due to the amount of people which pass through them on a daily basis, but because of the relaxed and friendly atmosphere they naturally posses. They are full of people socialising and engaging with one another, and would therefore suit perfectly for the kind of setting to carry out our project.

People relaxing in Bishop Lucy Park

Linked below are a number of interesting articles I've read on The effect of Location on interaction, fostering interaction in cities and how to create public spaces to encourage people to interact. 

Good places for interaction

Fostering Interaction in Cities

Creating public spaces which encourage people to interact

Below is a basic representation of the goal of creating a project like this. The effect it may have on the community, the data that could be collected from it, and the artistic benefits in terms of people coming together and creating music and imagery. 

Visual Display

I began to look into different types of visual displays that we could use in the project. Because the music will be one of the main features of the project i began of looking into ways of triggering visuals with music and that will interact with it.

MAX 7

In the process of looking for ways to make live visuals that will run to music i found Max 7.
Max is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. During its 20-year history, it has been used by composers, performers, software designers, researchers, and artists to create recordings, performances, and installations.

The Max program is modular. Most routines exist as shared libraries. An application programming interface (API) allows third-party development of new routines. Thus, Max has a large user base of programmers unaffiliated with Cycling '74 who enhance the software with commercial and non-commercial extensions to the program. Because of its extensible design and graphical user interface (GUI), which represents the program structure and the user interface as presented to the user simultaneously, Max has been described as the lingua franca for developing interactive music performance software.

Max 7 will let you create your own visuals and plug ins for any compatible DAWs. These could be used in tandem with clips launched for Ableton live and also with the gesture capturing technology. 

                                  Audio-Visual Feedback System by Max/MSP

Features:

• Full support for MIDI devices and modern audio hardware.
• Limitless audio options including basic DSP building blocks, VST, Audio Units, and Max for Live devices.
• Flexible support for multi-channel audio.
• Realtime input from webcams, digitizers, and built-in hardware.
• Serial and HID support for a wide variety of electronic prototyping boards and controllers.
• Interactive OpenGL graphics and GLSL shaders, including realtime shadows.
• Support for multiple displays and tools for live projection.
• Efficient realtime HD playback and hardware-accelerated image processing.
• Transcoding and interaction between audio, video, graphics, and control data.

Max for Live

After researching what Max 7 was capable of and how we could use it i came across Max for Live. Max for live is version of Max 7 that is specifically  made for programming within Ableton. The advantage of this is that they are plenty of programs already made for Max for Live that can be downloaded.

Max for Live comes with a great collection of instruments, effects, and tools. And there’s even more available from the dedicated community of artists and builders who share their Max for Live creations.

Every Max for Live device is ready to use in your own music, but can also be edited and customized to suit your specific needs. And because Max for Live is part of Ableton Suite, it’s perfectly integrated into the familiar Live workflow.

Max for Live lets you build your own devices for use in Live. Create custom synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, audio effects, and much more. Max for Live also allows you to build devices that modify Live itself, including the properties of tracks, clips, and native Live devices.

Every Max for Live device includes an Edit button, allowing you to look at (or modify) how the device was made. And Max for Live comes with a collection of Live’s native interface elements, so you can build devices that look and feel just like Live.

Max 7 introduces a number of new features that make patching easier and more powerful. And all of them are available in Max for Live.

In Max 7, the interface has been redesigned, allowing for easier patching. Audio quality has been improved with a 64-bit audio engine and improved filter design tools. Additional features include enhanced OpenGL support, including a new physics engine and support for Gen, an add-on that compiles patches into code for improved performance.

On maxforlive.com users contribute to an online library of free Max for Live Devices that you can use for no charge by sharing .amxd files or links (known as "references" on maxforlive.com) to download or purchase them elsewhere.

Using Text Data to Manipulate Images & Sound (pt. 2)

Following on from my previous experiment, my next idea was to use similar text-data to manipulate sound, as this would tie into our data-controlled MIDI concept.

What I created was a page which used the same functionality as the last one (creating coloured images which change depending on data), but accompanied by sound. Three 'notes' will appear onscreen at any one time. These notes are randomly selected from a range of numbers in a separate text document. Each of these numbers correlates to a sound file in another folder; the higher the number, the higher the sound. The sounds I used are royalty-free recordings of piano keys. These three notes will play at once when the page is loaded, forming a sort of chord, though due to the random nature of the note selection process this chord is usually rather discordant.

This project can be found here: http://dindins.web44.net/data%20stuff/test2.php

Initially the site would automatically refresh every few seconds so that the sounds would randomise continuously, but I removed this feature because I felt it was unnecessary and annoying. The page can be refreshed manually for the same result and a new 'chord' each time.

Below is a screenshot of the site in action:

As you can see, as with the previous test, the values extracted from the text file correlate to colour, as well as sound. The higher the number in the note's div tag, the more saturated/brighter the green. 

The next image will briefly explain how this was all achieved. The first section of code seen uses the same concatination approach as last time to style the colours of the div elements according to their note value. The second section shows how the audio files were launched. I used html5's audio tag functionality to add the sounds to the page. A similar method is used to the styling, where a random number is taken from the previously declared array, and related to a sound file with the same number in its filename.

This test suffers from the same 'undefined' issue that I experienced in the last one, but was otherwise quite successful. This test bridges the gap somewhat between our concepts of data gathering data and using music as an output or feature, as it utilises both of these ideas.