FUSSR
Working Title: FUSSR
Nien Lam and Jason Aston
A billiards style, turn based game, FUSSR uses Diffused Surface Illumination (DSI) technology to make touch table interaction responsive, attractive and fun. Pairing a tongue in cheek objective- breaking down walls- with Cold War aesthetics, this self contained game and installation aims to encourage social interactions with its multiplayer gameplay and curious aesthetic.
Having shown a mutual interest in the art and challenge of gaming, Nien and I knew that creating one would be familiar but very difficult, as much peripheral interaction needs to be developed concomitant with the game dynamics and main interaction. We were also cognizant of the purchasing, building, and calibrating elements of the project as they related to the time allotted for completion. Thus, we sacrificed our spring break to get it done.
We opted to build a non-traditional, 9 degree tapered table with a concrete/rock like facade. Here are our preliminary drawings and the frame.
The acrylic layers lay in a frame atop the table. Small harnesses and wooden racks were also built for the wonderfully clear internal projector- a ViewSonic short throw PJ558D, and a hacked PS3 eye camera.
After the framing was finished, our original plan was to source some concrete board for the paneling and skirting. Concrete board turned out to be too heavy for our purposes, so we went about using thin plywood with the intention to slather it with concrete or concrete like finish. We chose a type of splatter, speckled paint that mimicked stone.
My wrong assumption was that it was thick and would hide any salient flaws in construction (having to do with the tools available, of course), but this was not so. We will address this in the near future by rounding the edges, fine tuning the bezel, putting a solid surface layer of a more concrete styled substance, and external graffiti for authenticity.
Environmental Lights and Peau Productions were instrumental in working out the technical aspects of FUSSR. As said before, we used the DSI method of rear projection- involving a strip of infrared lights affixed to a slab of Endlighten acrylic. This acrylic layer has microscopic mirrors that reflect this light internally. Above this layer is a projection layer. And above this layer is a protective mar resistant layer, since the other two are so damn expensive.
Nien developed his own simple physics engine to drive the game, which consists of a ball, a slingshot, and little, colored walls that the player must destroy. This is an image of the earliest iteration without “skins.”
All of this sits atop real Berlin Wall graffiti.
We used a calibration program specifically meant for touch tables of this kind. It proved to be a big diversion. The colors!
Arguably at 75% finished, we have much more work to do on both the construction/finishing as well as the application. Otherwise, all other elements came together nicely. We intend to finish this for a proper showing at the Spring Show. Stay tuned.
Thesis Proposal
Thesis Statement
The world of alternate reality games (ARG’s) is still a new and unexplored area rife with potential; as such, the established characteristics of the game tend to be highly immersive and involved, using many forms of media and communication often to convey the real sense of alternate reality. I would like my exploration to focus more on the online experience of alternate reality gaming and blur fact from fiction by careful and clever private manipulation of public content from well known, established or pre-existing sources.
Personal Statement
During the first week of my Art and Games class, I re-realized my fondness for “choose your own adventure” games of yore. Actively participating in the evolution of a story using a medium rooted in traditional narrative (as in, an author writes a book and the passive reader reads it) is the precursor to much gaming as we know it. This combined with my toiling around with browser extensions during a summer internship had me thinking that forming this relationship would be worthwhile. Using the dynamic web and traditional narrative, I could create an alternate reality for users to enjoy.
Research
Most successful precedents tend to be highly elaborate and expensive marketing campaigns for movies, bands, and video games: The Beast was a marketing ARG for the movie A.I.; I love Bees was also a marketing ARG for the video game Halo 2. Both of these examples (and a few others) were lauded for high quality content, user base, and eventual award winning status as not only well executed advertising, but as games themselves. The list goes on to include The Lost Experience, Nine Inch Nail’s Year Zero, and Why So Serious for Batman.
Work Description
The format of my ARG will be the main distinction from typical ARG’s. By activating a browser extension, the user is allowing code to manipulate a page, subtly and surreptitiously. Moving away from creating dummy sites (usually a characteristic), I will focus on injecting pseudo content into actual websites that are or will be part of the narrative.
My goal is to create a compelling, suspenseful narrative (for thesis and timeline purposes, most likely episodic) entwined in a successful, clever, rigorous content and page manipulation, resulting in an enjoyable, online game and experience.
Big Screens
As Rube Goldberg showed us in his now notorious cartoons depicting complex devices performing the simplest of tasks in the most roundabout ways, precision, timing, and creativity are tantamount to making such a machine functional and enjoyable. Invoking a popular physics engine, Boom Shakalaka creates a real time world with real time physics that portrays obstacles faced in the real world.
Every Fall term, the inimitable Dan Shiffman instructs a class entitled “Big Screens.” This involves making, hopefully, site specific content built for a screen of elongated dimensions (say, for most of our purposes, 8160 px x 768 px) located inside the IAC building in the Meatpacking district, built as something of an interactive billboard for the Hudson Highway commuters.
Read more here.
Finally. But Not Yet. Prototypical final.
Operating somewhat in a funk for most of the former part of the semester, pairing up with Miriam for our midterm and final for Rest of You, a class on biometrics and more, proved to be just the conceptual jump start I needed to orient myself in work mode. Admittedly, the difficulty in grasping a satisfactory trajectory in a class such as this- what could I measure that would actually be intriguing? How can I frame it? Add more questions here- is daunting. A bit of fait accompli sets in as I realized the unoriginality of my every stab at recording bio senses. Enter Miriam.
Long an admirer of her courage and unorthodox ideas, Miriam treads heavily on social experiences and interactions. When we sat down to talk out our ideas, of which my paltry offerings indeed deserved their diminution, Miriam broached the topic of penises, arousal, and externalization of that arousal, though not necessarily in such a literal, imitable way. But, we decided that the easiest way forward was the imitable way, jocularly abstracting slightly the penis and the movement of the penis.
Our first prototype was ugly, clunky, and wired. Witnesses to this would surely concede its proto- prefix. Still satisfied, we took much time in exploring the next iteration of this project, struggling with questions of physicality, wearability, and context. Most of our explorations seemed to lead us away from the core of our inquiry, namely, what was it like for a woman to experience externalized and noticeable arousal. So we decided to keep that aspect of our exploration while adding another dimension. We nixed the galvanic skin response module we were previously using to track arousal levels, and instead tied the sensor to me, or rather, to my actual penis. The hope was that we would be able to capture normal, non-sexual erections and project that erection onto Miriam’s wearable apparatus. Removing sex and arousal from this current iteration was controversial, as the expectation of the penis is first and foremost sexual. By associating it with the haphazard, non sexual tendencies of daily erections, were we removing the necessary cause of our effect? Who cares. I just really wanted to don a penis harness.
Thus, we went about on two fronts: design and technology.
We sought to create a finely crafted penis for Miriam to wear. After a few primitive illustrations, we decided to go with a design akin to a plunger- a rod with a flexible escutcheon base to cover some of the inner electrical and mechanical components.
Sadly, we never made it that far, as time dictated we needed to get our technology in shape for testing. I was always partial to our rudimentary stick and servo anyhow.
Project Development Studio
Project Development Studio under the valuable tutelage of Danny Rozin
Dream:
As of right now, I am starting to realize the perils of fixating on realizing a dream. I have to sustain 8000 pixels on a very very long screen for 3 or 6 minutes, which, though objectively a short amount of time, yields a veritable agony of drawn out production. However, in the fantasy world where my dream exists, I would enact a continuous, complex Rube Goldberg machine/device that gradually becomes more fluid as each element is fired, and cleverly weaves in and out of the screen (fantasy) and the site (reality) perpetuated by audience participation.
Vision:
The audience would be located in a space in which all moments and areas of the screen are visible, as well as all physical machines are located prominently, but are not spotlit. Motion would go from the screen, stop at a point where it seems the focus has moved into the crowd (by means of, say, a ball that appears to roll out of sight/screen and then appears on site; at that point the spotlights would shine on whichever machine is ready for audience participation to help facilitate the event until it runs its course or its course is finally self sustaining.
Goal:
In such a short amount of time, I want to take a portion of many Rube Goldberg devices, the cascading domino, and visualize it on screen in a grand scale provided by 3d environment. Because the idea is fairly simple, much planning will go into the environment, domino path, and finessing the visual appeal, as well as building to scale models of foam dominoes that will activate per the sketch or be activated by the audience as a form of sketch continuity. For this I would use simple sensors (force or piezo) to fire when contact is made (usually with the floor) and a device to auto push a domino down onto the crowd. I have yet to solidify the aesthetic, as I vacillate between a highly rendered to a sparse one.
Plan:
Oct 6: Have visual comps to help aesthetically
Oct. 13: Have floor plan, screen motion plan mapped out; play with physics libraries
Oct 20: Programming, Building
Oct 27: Programming, Building
Nov 3: Programming, Building
Nov 8: Testing
Nov 15: Testing
Nov 22: Most components completely finished; Continue tweaking
Nov 29: Testing and Debug
Dec whatever: HOME FREE!
Thoughts on Illusion,…Nude Illusion!
Since I am a master of only one type of illusion, the illusion of nude, I intend to expound only on this branch of illusions, one that has been wrongly appropriated by a global figure skating conspiracy.
You may be thinking,”What gives? Nude Illusion is one of the simplest illusions, or tricks, around.” Let’s evaluate.
What is the objective of flesh tone clothing? It is often very difficult in today’s world to cling to moral propriety while wearing the latest fashions. In a cost effective manner, the advent of nude illusion tackled this issue head on. Men and women everywhere could appear in public confidently, wearing their favorite Versace garbs and not compromise their integrity. When done right, the result is an impressive blend that is both modest and meretricious.
Then came the 1988 Winter Olympics Figure Skating Championship, in which the ladies of figure skating succeeded in sullying the exquisite reputation and delicate balance nude illusionists had built and perfected over many tireless years. The excessively plunging necklines (Katarina Witt, I’m calling you out!) and bedazzled busts would make J-Lo shudder even,…and that’s baaaaaaad.
But, there are many who carry the torch of nude illusion today and staunch supporters are rallying to recapture the gold from figure skating and bring nude illusion back to its original equilibrium.
What I can do is apply my experienced formula to the greater whole at large, for does this not serve as an adequate anecdote and addendum to the assigned readings?
Dan Ariely, henceforth to be known as Dan, speaks primarily of man’s creative inability to reconcile mental shortcomings but design genius to adapt to physical ones. While I would say that nude illusion has successfully attempted to conjoin the two in harmony, Dan’s point on mental cognition and the institutions it serves is quite potent, though I think it could benefit from more expository evidence besides “what’s on paper.”
Some extra plumbing unearthed an article in which Dan applies his hypothesis to sub prime mortgages. While edifying, that particular episode in history is somewhat controversial for the illusion it created. The duplicity was in the design purposefully and remains a sparkling example of exploiting our natural mental ineptitude, much like the way figure skating co-opted the nude illusion aesthetic.
More to come on this.
Anamorphism in oF
I am enamored with optical illusions. Specifically, anamorphism has the tendency to captivate and arrest me for moments longer in duration than most others.
The idea behind anamorphism is conditional viewing and perspective. An image is distorted in all other modes besides the one intended. For my Pixel by Pixel class, essentially a class in C++ and openFrameworks, I decided to explore this a bit more.
I created a superficial image, in this case, the cutest thing on planet earth, with some type to vary the image consistency. The image I used was then calibrated for corrected viewing only from the spot I was sitting at. You’ll see that I move the camera, and the image immediately becomes distorted.
I used various methods in openFrameworks to achieve this. Luckily, this road had been paved for me so I didn’t need to do too much original coding. But rest assured, as I develop this to self calibrate and test it with more complex architectural structures, I’ll age a decade physically. This is both what excites and debilitates.
Hair in a Wall
I am truly obsessed with the time piece I presented for my midterm. What originally started out as a somatic time piece exemplifying chrono-biology has turned into comedy; just the way I like it.
I started out prototyping a hair growing out of a box. I blogged about it here. I soon found out that the feeding mechanism was faulty if imprecise. It seemed that the paltry output of a dc motor would not have enough torque to turn the strand of hair (a long piece of heat shrink).
So I tackled this midterm project by first building a new box, as the original intention was to refine and build on the last weekly project I did. I scavenged for parts in the junk bin and soon found what I needed from a thrown away printer. The wheels of the printer paper feeding mechanism had thick rubber bands on them. I thought this would make a great freewheel and motor wheel for my own feeding mechanism. I also wanted to include more interactivity. Perhaps some knobs to control speed or some other function of the hair growth. Half way through plotting and conceiving, I went to sleep one night with my mind racing over how I might “punch” this up. I decided that I did not need to embellish what I already had. The comedy is in its simplicity and any added control should be hidden from the visitor. It would be the only way to make it its own organic system- a stubborn, self sufficient system.
So I decided to scrap the box and have the “strand” of hair erupt from the wall. This involved a slight change of building plans, one that would prevent me from testing out the feeding mechanism, a major problem with the prior version and a lesson I should have tackled first.
Needless to say, all was well besides the feeding mechanism once again. The new hair material was great (some foam tubing purchased at Canal Rubber), the materials used were, on the whole, of better quality and execution than my last prototype, the project in general was more elegant than before. Comments were positive and somewhat prescriptive, suggesting the use of actual hair for a final iteration. I disagree with this suggestion, but will definitely take it into consideration. I think using real hair increases the uncanny quotient, but it does nothing for comedy. On the flip side, while a single “strand” is funny, it would be difficult to recognize as hair. The major downfall was again experienced by the failure of motor, a stronger stepper motor, to assume enough torque or how I adhered the wheel to the stepper axle. I will investigate this over the much needed week break I am currently basking in.
Everyone agreed and liked the comedic aspect of it, something I think saved my presentation from the harsh criticism I expected.
Precision, precision, precision. The keyword for my next iteration. I have already ordered a much more powerful stepper, and I am sure to accurately calculate what sort of wheel I might need to make this thing grow. I will also test the amount of space I need to allocate enough friction for the hair to grow while not stalling out the stepper motor. Wish me luck.
Material Flux Timepiece
In exploring the fluctuations in materials after the effects of water, fire, traffic, or time, I have come to admire the slow effacing of wood, marble, metal, candles, etc. This flux, or creep, is evident in the roads we drive on, the squeaky chairs we sit on, the sidewalk cracks we walk on, shiny plastic of our keyboard (that started out matte). In a city as old as New York, a cursory stroll through one of the boroughs yields countless examples of creep. One of my favorites to notice is the slow sloping of marble stairs. Imagine how much foot traffic has to rub these steps in order for it to just wear away, or someone is wearing some uncomfortable shoes.
This slow process is made most comical by the Pitch Clock, a slow and otherworldly lethargic material, bitumen. It takes about a decade for one drop to fall, and, since 1927, has only let 8 of them free. Do read more about it, utterly fascinating.
I teamed up with Yin Ho and Andrea Wolf to represent this phenomenon. We were immediately drawn to actualizing creep through the dripping of a colored liquid on soft wood. It seemed that for our time frame, one week, we could maximize our results with a gentle tweak of our resources. Building our contraption was a fairly straightforward task: a wooden box and shield, an IV drip, food color, and some balsa wood.
Yin proposed we use a light orange as the color, mixing in reds and yellows to achieve our color, which looked like morning urine. I wanted something dark and visible like a deep blue or blue green. I figured we would be able to locate striated, grained color better by having a darker hue. As you can see, the orange turned out magnificent.
After a few hours:
After four days:
As more liquid dropped, the colors began to separate in unexpected ways. The result was a beautiful illustration of time passage.
Antenna Design Workshop: Intervention
At the end of our winter break, I opted to participate in a workshop guided by the heads of the award winning interactive design agency Antenna, Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger. The workshop took place over several cold days in January and involved the creation of an “intervention.”
Interventions, to quote Antenna, “facilitate odd actions and temporary relations amongst. strangers. The presence of these objects in the particular context invites (inter)action and shifts the perception and experience of the various places.”
After a brief introduction into Antenna’s own fieldwork in the area, which includes some hilarious interventions viewable on their website, we broke up into teams. I formed a group with Ania Wagner, Hana Newman, and Michael Lewis. Since our intervention was site-specific user-focused, we thought to investigate our familiar terrain. By folding a coffee run into this, we happened upon this hub of commuter traffic:
This is the site of the Tony Rosenthal kinetic sculpture, The Alamo, occupying a central, quadrilateral space at the intersection of Astor Place and 4th Avenue. We thought to encroach upon this iconic space and create a center for more community involvement and interaction. Now, on to conceptualizing an intervention that fits the space and jibes with our own ideas of what an intervention should produce. Luckily, Hana thought about the workshop over winter break and came to the table with a myriad of ideas. One that caught our attention was a battery powering station that enlisted good, old-fashioned manpower to charge waning batteries. The site would include various alternatives to charging batteries, be them on the phone or on a laptop: stationary bikes, hand cranks, a buoyant floor that produces electricity from users’ jumps, and integrating electricity producing mechanisms into the Alamo, a sculpture that can rotate on its axis. Our preliminary sketches produced this:
Our initial thoughts on the chosen intervention were formulated primarily on its location. Astor place is heavily trafficked by students and young commuters alike. We identified a common problem in today’s wireless environment: battery power. We identified a solution: a charging station. We identified the means, which will undoubtedly detract some people but will empower many others: manpower. The benefits are threefold: health, community, and energy conservation. We envisioned these stations, placed prominently, as areas for casual users to just come by and cycle, crank, or jump for health. This being dense New York City, a place for community gathering, with children and pets alike, is always welcome. The byproduct of engagement at this intervention is the production of electricity, something we use a lot of and conventionally produce through non-renewable methods.
In hindsight, the grandiosity our project assumed should have been a red flag. It’s difficult to produce an effective and thorough presentation on something like this in a matter of a few days. Through some progress meetings with Masa and Sigi, we trimmed our idea to include only stationary bicycles.
