Debuting: Intellipods!
So, I’d rather use this time not to dive deep into what living art is, because one could make a case for and infinite number of applications and examples of what living art is. Besides, we are still grappling with that definition and somehow I feel we, by the end of the semester, will not have settled on anything. It is with relief then that I am temporarily sidelining this topic, saving it for my final thoughts on the class and on living, or generative, art.
Our assignment for last week was to create a finite state machine. For those of you not in the know, let me explain and exemplify precisely what a finite state machine is. Almost everything. More clearly, it’s “a model of behavior composed of a finite number of states, transitions between those states, and actions,” so states Wikipedia. Basically, if you can graph or chart something out in which every possible state and actions leading into those states is accounted for, it’s a finite state machine. Ice, an ATM machine, a door even, I am sure you get the picture.
It was apparent from the get go that I’d be stuck in a seemingly limitless ocean of possibilities. I swam in that ocean for a few days before spotting three islands named Shahar Zaks, Adib Dada, and Tamar Ziv.
Together, since we were four, we decided to conceive of four separate machines that all interacted with each other on distinct levels, each having its own personality, much as we each have our own personality…well, except for Adib.
So our initial idea was to indeed have four separate machines that would make noise or shine light or move around. When we started to sketch things out, it quickly became apparent that we would probably build these “things” and assign them personality afterward. Thus, each of these guys, christened “Intellipods” by yours truly, were equipped with a super bright LED. In hindsight, once we established this, we should have realized that we were not building any pods with noticeable and discrete personalities, but I think we consciously worked around this by assigning each a different number of photo-sensors with which to interact.
We were grilled on that aspect at our presentation, rightfully so. Not only would varying reactions and actions make the project more entertaining and dynamic, but the personality would make it ours.
Even with four people, it took us around seven hours to finish the project, from start to finish. So needless to say, we worked efficiently but probably not enough to individualize our pods to the extent Todd, our teacher, and our classmates would have liked (as evidenced by our critique!).
Materially, we used cardboard and shaping foam to create the exterior. The foam proved beneficial in that we were essentially prototyping as we went along, and foam affords us convenience and ease. The corrugation of the cardboard made for a perfect LED housing. Thanks to Tamar’s nimble fingers, the wiring was an essential breeze. Funny story: I sat down to write out our code in neat and organized fashion, spending ample time on declaring all of our variables, and by the time I finished that seemingly hefty portion, Shahar looked up and said he was finished with the code…the entire code. What a goon. So I had him send it to me so I could learn how to write code quickly and efficiently.
