PAFA installation Group
Georgia Guthrie
I decided to just use The Hacktory's group and make a thread, seemed
silly to make a new group when this one wasn't being used much.
This is a recap of the meeting we had last night brainstorming ideas
to build for the installation with PA Academy of Fine Arts on March 8.
Our next meeting is going to be Monday Nov 28th at Hive76 at 8 pm.
We settled on creating spaces that do the following:
1 - a few settings with pencils/paper and battery-operated leds that
mimic candle light, to recreate the conditions the artist, Henry
Ossawa Tanner worked in during his career
2 - an interactive space where lighting is controlled by the number of
people or sensing of cellphone lights. We talked about including
several "easter eggs" of hidden actions, similar to video games, that
can be unlocked by participants
Questions for PAFA/Monica (I'll email these to her today):
- Would it be possible for us to control the lighting in one room for
the purposes of these installations?
- If it's not possible for us to control the lighting, can we build a
structure in the gallery that would block light?
- If we need to build a structure, how much time will we have to build
it?
Questions for the group:
How many lumens/candelas would assimilate the conditions of a Parisian
attic in 1890?
What other interactive projects involve technology that can do what
we're talking about - what can we use/copy for our purposes?
Stephanie Alarcon
Georgia Guthrie
See whoever can make it tonight then...
Georgia
Back at Hive or somewhere else? I'm coming from Malvern tonight, so anywhere in the city will be roughly equal in difficulty.
--
The Hacktory
A project of Nonprofit Technology Resources
1524 Brandywine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130
www.thehacktory.org
www.ntrweb.org
PJ Santoro
Hey folks,
I'm not making it in tonight. I missed work today because I got sick over the weekend and I'm still not feeling so hot. Please keep me informed as to what happens tonight and ping me if I can be of some help. Sorry I can't be there.
sent by telephone
Georgia Guthrie
Georgia Guthrie
I wanted to post the videos I showed last night for inspiration. After
our first meeting we discussed doing something with light, to
complement the work of the artist, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and we liked
the idea of giving people something to interact with, perhaps with
light from their individual cell phones.
Here are some interactive projects involving cell phones:
Processing + Mobile Touch Screen App:
http://vimeo.com/7848393
A collection of several interactive project videos:
http://vimeo.com/channels/mobileinteractive
Cell phone disco wall at the Franklin Institute:
http://vimeo.com/3986160
Interactive Light Installation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-T74im_r8g
And here's a paper about an interactive "Urban Carpet" - I didn't get
a chance to read it yet though
http://udp.academia.edu/carolinaBriones/Papers/812517/LED-s_Urban_Carpet_A_portable_Interactive_Installation_for_Urban_Environments
We planned our next meeting to be Monday Dec 12, 8 pm at Hive76
Here's our to dos:
Brian - find a model train kit with rf controlled flickering light and
assemble and bring
Tim - figure out how interactive light strips (Steph's video) would
work, and gather materials if possible
Georgia - infographic draft about lumens/candles/incandescent, start
playing with processing sensing motion and outputting in light
Sean/PJ - work on using kinect/camera to respond to mouse motion with
HTML5
thanks!
Georgia
On Nov 28, 5:59 pm, Georgia Guthrie <geor...@thehacktory.org> wrote:
> Ok hope you feel better PJ!
> Sean, will you be there to let us in?
>
> Georgia
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 5:56 PM, PJ Santoro <paint...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hey folks,
>
> > I'm not making it in tonight. I missed work today because I got sick over
> > the weekend and I'm still not feeling so hot. Please keep me informed as to
> > what happens tonight and ping me if I can be of some help. Sorry I can't be
> > there.
>
> > sent by telephone
> > On Nov 28, 2011 2:59 PM, "Sean McBeth" <sean.mcb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Okay, sounds good, see you then.
>
> >> On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Georgia Guthrie <geor...@thehacktory.org
> >> > wrote:
>
> >>> I'm planning to be at Hive at 8 pm.
> >>> See whoever can make it tonight then...
> >>> Georgia
>
Georgia
This is the installation Steph showed us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hes8NheJgw
http://www.jimmychion.com/index.php?/project/light-chimes/
Another one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rNZpYck5dw
Another one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQHUWF8ofMc&feature=related
On Nov 29, 8:25 am, Georgia Guthrie <geor...@thehacktory.org> wrote:
> Hi there,
> I wanted to post the videos I showed last night for inspiration. After
> our first meeting we discussed doing something with light, to
> complement the work of the artist, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and we liked
> the idea of giving people something to interact with, perhaps with
> light from their individual cell phones.
>
> Here are some interactive projects involving cell phones:
> Processing + Mobile Touch Screen App:http://vimeo.com/7848393
>
> A collection of several interactive project videos:http://vimeo.com/channels/mobileinteractive
>
> Cell phone disco wall at the Franklin Institute:http://vimeo.com/3986160
>
> Interactive Light Installation:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-T74im_r8g
>
> And here's a paper about an interactive "Urban Carpet" - I didn't get
> a chance to read it yet thoughhttp://udp.academia.edu/carolinaBriones/Papers/812517/LED-s_Urban_Car...
Brian
find several articles about it. So I tried an experiment in my
basement. I took a video but can't figure out how to post it. I took a
radio tuned to an AM talk station and put a red LED across the phono
leads. I got a very tiny flicker. I have and old electronics learning
kit that had a transformer on it and I put the phone leads on the
primary and the LED on the secondary. It gave a much brighter and
almost useful flicker. This was with no more power than what comes out
of the headphone jack. I'm not sure the voltage of the LED or the
specs on the transformer but it looks like with the right combination
it should work just fine.
On Nov 29, 10:18 am, Georgia <georgiaguth...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A few more awesome videos:
> This is the installation Steph showed us:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hes8NheJgwhttp://www.jimmychion.com/index.php?/project/light-chimes/
> > > Philadelphia, PA 19130www.thehacktory.orgwww.ntrweb.org- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Timothy Bieniosek
I'd like to draw up a diagram showing the many ideas we have for interactivity and visualization, and how they could interconnect. It would be nice if it were editable by the entire group.
I suppose I could just email around a jpeg... or ASCII art :)
Tim
Stephanie Alarcon
for projects like this. Here's the example of the Philly Rooftop Farm
(still trying get, erm, off the ground as it were...)
http://www.coactivate.org/projects/philadelphiarooftopfarm/summary
It has a build-in wiki, blog, mailing list, task manager, and more.
That said, emailing a jpg would probably be fine. :-)
Stephanie Alarcon
Daniel Rozin's wooden mirror:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=s6rhvhCiZtc
Unrelated, but sometime soon we have to do an event that uses
non-Newtonian fluid (cornstarch and water)! This screams kid-friendly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zoTKXXNQIU&feature=fvwrel
Georgia
our wiki for The Hacktory, which might be a better option for this
group. Can people still make it tomorrow? Will someone be able to let
us in at Hive?
thanks,
Georgia
PJ Santoro
I'll be there tomorrow, for sure.
sent by telephone
steph....@gmail.com
PJ Santoro
Steph, I'm already at the space setting up for the mcu night, if you did want to head over early.
--PJ
Timothy Bieniosek
you all the exposure to my germs.
For my homework I made up some prototype circuits for "light chimes"...
I tested out the following methods:
- reed switch
- piezo vibration sensor
- IR reflectance sensor
- LED-as-sensor
Of these, the reed switch wins on cost and simplicity, which is probably
the reason why the artist in the video went that route.
We'd be looking at ~$1/strand or less in electronic components.
There's an open question of how to position the magnets in relation to
the reed switches. I'm guessing from the making-of video, those dowels
they're hammering through the board are steel rods with a permanent
magnet at the end, and they put the reed switches near the top of the
light string.
However, I was imagining small magnets affixed above or below the reed
switch on the string in an alternating fashion, so that as they swing
one would trigger the next. (Could be a metaphor for interaction between
people in society? Oops, there I go getting conceptual again...) We
would want to make a small prototype to see how this actually works in
practice.
Then there's the question of how to enclose the dangling LED in a
touch-friendly way. I can't tell from the video whether the "chimes" are
a flat band of translucent material, or some sort of translucent cone or
rod? Where would we obtain something like that in bulk?
Of the other method, the piezo sensor gave a very natural flicker, but
the sensors are around $1.60 each in lots of 100, and the circuit
requires an additional pair of transistors. IR was costlier still and
required more components.
The idea that LEDs can be sensors as well as emitters has great appeal
in that it is still a novel concept, and it would be the cheapest route.
However, I'm not sure an Arduino can handle the work of scanning a 8x8
sensor matrix while drawing to it at the same time and have it look
natural. I'm going to continue researching this.
Sorry I can't make it tonight. Let me know if you have any questions!
Tim
PJ Santoro
It works pretty well, and we may be able to play around with it as an input to something larger. I'd like to move on to detecting cell phone signals next, but as Steph mentioned last night, cell phones in an idle state don't produce much of a signal. I have found a handful of interesting articles to look into, though. I can send links if anyone else feels like digging through them and playing around as well.
In terms of a motion-detection-based Theremin, Sean and I threw this together two months ago while I was working on my clown painting: http://youtu.be/VjbScdvj42M
It's pretty rough around the edges, but it can certainly be cleaned up for production use. It uses a webcam, openFrameworks, and an Arduino.
As for the "light chimes," what about using a small spring-based switch a la Jack's LazerDice? http://www.lazerdice.com/
--PJ
Stephanie Alarcon
yet or not)
Brian, Tim and PJ, thanks so much for your detailed responses! Here's a
summary of Monday's meeting (PJ, Georgia, Steph) AND we're proposing a
workday in hackathon format (i.e., whatever we want to do) on Saturday,
January 21, about 10-4. Does that date work for everyone?
The plan for the PAFA event on March 8 is to do some combination of the
following:
1) Light up bulbs with weird sources of energy
2) Control light or sound with gestures or numbers of people
3) Let people draw under different light conditions that mimic the
introduction of artificial light
4) Light chimes if it's fun and if we have time
We may end up cutting one or more projects, but at this point we have
enough info to start testing. We need parts and work time, which is
where a hack day comes in. A loose plan for the day:
1) 1) Light up bulbs with weird sources of energy
This is based on the model train campfire idea, where we think it's
possible to light a tiny bulb with the signal from a radio. Tim tried
this by connecting the phono leads of a radio tuned to an AM station to
a transformer and led and was able to make this work.
On the topic of making invisible things visible, PJ made a simple EMF
detector here: http://youtu.be/4B1CAKQwlyw based on this project:
http://www.aaronalai.com/emf-detector. In the quest to build a cell
phone signal detector (http://mix-engineering.com/), my friend Sophi
found a kind of crackpot device called the Cell Sensor. She says that
it beeps like crazy if you wave it around a room, but it's a slightly
interesting toy for $25 bucks.
Todo: Try the light bulb thing and any other interesting signal
detection toys, pick one and decide how to make it pretty and fun.
Parts: LEDs, transformers, radio, wire and resistors, Arduino, maybe a
Cell Sensor.
2) Control light or sound with gestures or numbers of people
This is where the theremin idea comes in. Sean and PJ made a thing
(with Open Frameworks, I assume) which detects a blog on a webcam and
plays a square (?) wave it different pitches depending on where the blog
is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjbScdvj42M&feature=youtu.be Sean
also made a very simple synth in html5. Georgia is possibly interested
in trying this in Processing.
Todo: Try these ideas in Open Framework and Processing, pick one and
make it pretty and fun.
Parts: computer and webcam.
3) Let people draw under different light conditions that mimic the
introduction of artificial light
This is easy. We just need some LED candles and lamps of appropriate
strength and verification from Monica that we can make a dark space.
Todo: Give it a try in a dark space. Figure out which LED candles
would realistically mimic candlelight.
Parts: LED candles, dark fabric maybe?
4) Light chimes
Tim did some reading and experimenting and found that turning lights on
and off with reed switches would be the most cost effective and is
pretty easy. PJ suggested trying spring switches, like in Jack's Lazer
Dice. http://www.lazerdice.com/
Todo: try it a couple of ways, maybe starting from Tim's experiments,
or just build from his work. Figure out what the casing for the LEDs
would be. We know from the giant pin art board that though that sounds
like a small hurdle, if we can't solve it early it may turn into a big
pain in the butt.
Parts: LEDs, magnets, switches, some metal rods or dowels, some paper
or fabric.
Sound good as a start? I'll need help putting together a more detailed
shopping list. PJ, can you get dibs on Hive for that Saturday?
Thanks everybody!!
Steph
Georgia Guthrie
I just added the hackathon date and info to our website. We're still
on for this, right? Sean and PJ, are you promoting it to Hive people?
I can post it on the free calendars and stuff for Philly events.
Also, were we planning to meet again before the hack day, like next
Monday?
-Georgia
On Dec 14 2011, 8:28 pm, Stephanie Alarcon <steph.alar...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Timothy Bieniosek
It occurred to me that making the chime end of the light chimes could be an application for 3D printing... but I have zero experience there.
Other ideas: tiny bottles or jars, like spice containers?
I'm in for the hack day.
Let's decide soon if we're meeting Monday the 9th, or the 16th?
Tim
PJ Santoro
--PJ
Timothy Bieniosek
I have a circuit to fade out the LEDs that I'm happy with. It's simple and the effect is pleasing to the eye. So that's one positive development.
Georgia
I don't think anyone met, your message was a good prompt for me to
check if people will meet Monday evening. I'm game even though it's a
holiday, I should be able to bring some of the things I meant to bring
last time, like a graphic about lumens, and maybe some parts.
So, does Monday the 16th at 8 work for people?
On Jan 10, 2:09 pm, Timothy Bieniosek <bienio...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Progress update: from early prototypes I've learned magnet tape isn't strong enough to trigger reed switch, so I'm experimenting now with rare earth magnets of various sizes. The reed switches' sensitivity also varies depending how their oriented vs the magnetic polarity... it's a very hands-on design problem.
>
> I have a circuit to fade out the LEDs that I'm happy with. It's simple and the effect is pleasing to the eye. So that's one positive development.
>
> Did anyone meet yesterday?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I'm writing up a blog post for this right now and I've added it to our events calendar. As for meeting before the hackathon, I'll be here at Hive76 this coming Monday for my microcontroller workshop if y'all are interested in stopping over.
>
> > For my own amusement I have an order of reed switches and LEDs on its way from sparkfun to make a small prototype. Hopefully they'll be here by Monday.
>
> > It occurred to me that making the chime end of the light chimes could be an application for 3D printing... but I have zero experience there.
> > Other ideas: tiny bottles or jars, like spice containers?
>
> > I'm in for the hack day.
> > Let's decide soon if we're meeting Monday the 9th, or the 16th?
>
> > Tim
>
Stephanie Alarcon
Awesome workday today! We made a lot of progress on working prototypes.
Our next steps are to look at the physical space, and narrow down our
projects to (hopefully) one, for which we can pool our energy. We're
meeting at PAFA to see the space on Monday at 4 I believe, though I
don't yet have the exact location.
We're also going to meet on Monday night at 7 at Hive76 (915 Spring
Garden, Ste 519) to finalize our project choice, parts list, project
plan, etc. From there we'll schedule workdays and expectations so we
stay on track for a great exhibit on March 8th.
I'll post the PAFA meeting point as soon as I have it, and if you have
any questions, feel free to give me a call at (215) 266-7875.
Steph
Georgia
118 N. Broad St. – which is the Historic building at PAFA. We will
have the front desk call Monica and let us know when we arrive. She
will then escort us to the new building, which is closed now to
install the Tanner exhibit.
-Georgia
On Jan 22, 12:45 am, Stephanie Alarcon <steph.alar...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Georgia Guthrie
Here's the homepage for the video that uses tubes and squiggly lights:
http://delusion.yuluo.de/
Here's a video of the projection on Dilworth Plaza a few years ago,
they made it work on a very unusual surface:
http://vimeo.com/16044795
And here's a bunch of the links Katherine sent me with info on kits,
parts, etc:
Electronix Express will fab up custom kits. I think this is who ITP
used to use
- http://www.elexp.com/kit.htm
Adafruit now offers an experimenters kit for the Arduino. ITP now uses
them
- https://www.adafruit.com/products/170
Sparkfun have a bunch too. They might be good for specific projects.
Their "snap" kit might be good for kids.
- http://www.sparkfun.com/categories/157?page=1
For wearables, this blog has a comparison chart for kits. Handy.
- http://softcircuitsaturdays.com/2010/03/06/soft-circuit-kits-round-up/
Makershed has a bunch of kits. The LED merit badge might be of
interest. Papertronics. LED starter kit.
- http://www.makershed.com/All_Kits_s/20.htm
And I just saw the kick-ass list of resources on the Arduino
Playground. Tidy!
- http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/Resources
See you all next Monday!
Stephanie Alarcon
I'm really starting to like this Loie Fuller person, who is thought to
have inspired Henry Tanner's painting Salome. In the painting Salome is
dressed in a sheer draping fabric and is lit from below. Fuller had a
routine in Paris where she danced in huge flowing silk fabric and played
with colored lights from below.
But there was more to her. Wikipedia says:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loie_Fuller
Fuller's pioneering work attracted the attention, respect, and
friendship of many French artists and scientists, including Jules
Ch�ret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Fran�ois-Raoul Larche, Henri-Pierre
Roch�, Auguste Rodin, Franz von Stuck, Maurice Denis, Thomas Theodor
Heine, Koloman Moser, St�phane Mallarm�, and Marie Curie. Fuller held
many patents related to stage lighting including chemical compounds for
creating color gel and the use of chemical salts for luminescent
lighting and garments (stage costumes US Patent 518347). Fuller was also
a member of the French Astronomical Society.
This makes me lean even more toward playing with the Salome theme for a
projection. This is a science and inventing tie-in to Tanner that we
didn't even know about. Well, if Wikipedia is accurate. :-)
Matt, join the list and play with us!!
Steph