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How does that work ?
This isn’t the first question I really want people to ask. It is often the question I first ask

It drives many of us but how does one push form that to what does it mean ?

I guess every creator of interactive art must struggle with this issue. At least if someone is going after how does that work they are at least partially interested.

If it too difficult to work out will that push the viewer away in frustration. If its too easy you risk alienating the view as dismissing it as simplistic and not worth any deeper thought.

A work that has no aspect of how does that work, seems to have an easier path to what does it mean. It seems like a possible solution is to push more towards obscuring what is actually going on.

The title is the set up for this.

Currently in one of my anxiety troughs. I showed the e-media class my work and really am not sure what to make of the response. I liked how people responded to the work initially bet then it was the same old thing of trying to work it out rather than take it in.

People liked the visuals, but I’m not sure how far it went from there.

Does there need to be more than wow cool?

Clearly the answer is yes, I like the wow cool instant hit, but its not that sustaining.

This work has caused much deliberation and intertwines a large spectrum of ideas. The ideas are there for the viewer to find if they take the time look past the superficial.

A thought dawned on me, it is one thing to run my work and be there to tweak settings and restart if it all goes wrong but I’m not going to be there, a restart with default settings will be worse than it not working as it will look like its working but not realy do anything interesting.

A late night of some last minute code and I have an external file I can edit and tweak. After tweaking on setup day I will add the setting to that file then any restart will load those setting as default and all should be ok.

The popular consensus is that I should get my work in the pubic eye see how its viewed and go from there. Great in theory but where do I set this up ? I need dark, I need space and I need an audience.

Open day – it looks like I will get the chance to set up my work for open day. this is fantastic accept for the slight issue that I will be in Launceston on that day.

Although far from Ideal it will be a good chance to set things up and see if I get any feedback, Ryan has promised to baby sit the work as he is setting up in the same space and will let me know how it goes.

What was exciting all seems very difficult, to be assessed it might all be too hard who would be the owner of the idea, and even if it was a completely shared vision how might that be demonstrated.

Another issue with this is all my new ideas were quite different to my proposal for the semester. I still like those ideas and should resolve that work.

The idea now is to share  space, I like this idea as Ryans sounds will be an interesting backdrop for my work together we will be able to occupy quite a large space. I am positive that immersing the viewer/listener with vision and sound will be a much greater experience than the just viewing a work at the end of a room.

I had an interesting discussion with Ryan about the possibility of collaborating, it could be great I love the sound works he created and I think it could create some great interactivity and imagery to go along with it. I already have a swarm of ideas brewing, sound and light responding to people taking over a large space very exciting indeed.

I plan to visit as many screen / projection based instalments as possible over the next few weeks as well as remember back to others and what I found sucesfull or not about those works.

To date I have a soft spot for Stereoscopic by Billy Cowie at the Carnegie gallery it wasn’t necessarily the content but they way my position in the room had an effect on the art. Viewed from in front the imagery popped out as you would expect 3d to do, but when you walked around it was like you were part of the dance with the dancers. I have watched many 3D movies but always from a fixed location. Being able to play in the space gave the work a whole new dimension.

So it’s semester 2 3rd year e-media, the task is too turn my first semesters work in to an exhibition. I was excited with what I had achieved last semester an keen to make it something. Thoughts and ideas so far.

Format – Projection (as big as possible)
I wan’t the work to encompass the space not just be a screen on a wall.

How do I get others to interact with the work ?
I know what the work will do, I now how to play it to get interesting results, the trick is to get other people to play it and understand the subtleties. (yes play like an instrument but one that creates imagery).

Speed –  how fast should it run ?
My initial tests were at a pretty slow redraw speed, this was partially due to running on an old computer, but now I have everything running much faster, do I run at full speed or keep everything slow ?

Colours – what colours should I use ? should they change ? If so how and when ?

Texture – I’m happy with the texture I have but while everything is on the cards is there a better texture to use.

Placement of the Kinect in the space – I have so far pretty much just had it where I could test.

Props – do I have any if so what ?

So this is it the submission is complete (here)

Its hard to know what to add what to leave out.

I had a huge desire to give long explanations about what each work was about, but if it was presented in a gallery then I wouldn’t so I left those explanations to this space.
I did add a few lines to give a very brief context in parts that broke up the work into sections.

What format to present the work, to loop or not to loop, auto play or not ?
I decided if the work was all in a gallery space it would be part of a whole rather than discreet  separate items, the motion pieces would be moving constantly and this would be enhanced by static imagery of select moments garnered form the generative works.

With this in mind all the work was added to one long scrolling page are screen recordings would be playing and looping to give the sense of constant movement. the viewer can control their experience by scrolling the page to their area of interest, but there would always be the work work visible out of the corner of their eye.

Clearly not the same as walking through a space an interacting with the work, but these seemed the most appropriate choices for presenting the work in this format.

As next semesters work is largely about getting these ideas to work in an instilation I was reluctant to deliver these works in an actual space without the attention and planing I think it will require to be successful.

For similar reasons I have left out any screen recordings of my main depth based generative works. I’m very happy with the resultant imagery that can be created but am keen to spend more time on this system before presenting it fully.