AKA Magic! (this project was done with two of my colleges Salma El-alfy and Yasmin Kandil)
Magic Stick
Joy is what people are always seeking. They search for things to make themselves happy and satisfied. The mood is what expresses these feelings of joy. Psychologically, motions, colors, and music or sounds are ways of expressing a mood. They could tell a lot about the person's mood when dealing with them. They could also alter a person's mood. Music is what we focused on or was our main aspect in our media installation project. By having a glow stick and to see what you are drawing in the air infront of you on a screen also hearing what you are drawing is a great challenge to try.
Joy is what people are always seeking. They search for things to make themselves happy and satisfied. The mood is what expresses these feelings of joy. Psychologically, motions, colors, and music or sounds are ways of expressing a mood. They could tell a lot about the person's mood when dealing with them. They could also alter a person's mood. Music is what we focused on or was our main aspect in our media installation project. By having a glow stick and to see what you are drawing in the air infront of you on a screen also hearing what you are drawing is a great challenge to try.
Conception
Music is a fundamental necessity in the world that we live in today. We all implement music in our everyday lives whether it's professionally or solely for entertainment purposes. Some people build careers on music as musicians, composers, singers, or teachers while the latter of us just need music to get through the day whether we're driving or at work or just need to relax. The need for music in our contemporary society affects us in a myriad of different ways--including the undeniable effect on our moods. So we decided to let the user draw his music in a new way depending on his mood.
For the interactive design project we came up with the concept of expressing your mood with colors, motions and sounds. Where the movement of glow-sticks in a dark room in-front of a screen is represented with visuals and sound. Our main aim was to create a fun atmosfere for the user that was both intuitive and social. We imagined the interaction to be not only with the screen but with the other users as well, and the dark room would make said interaction with strangers more comfortable and natural.
We came up with this idea because as artists we have first hand knowledge of how stress relieving painting can be thus our original idea was to use paintbrushes not glow sticks but as we proceeded with our concept we realized that the use of glowsticks would make it much more joyful and intuitive for everyone wether or not they enjoy painting in the literal sense. We then moved on to the sound factor, we enjoyed very much playing around with glowsticks in a dark room and watching the effects on a screen but we realized that users would need more stimulus then just the visual ones. We wanted the sound to be natural and to match our concept we needed the user to feel like they were orchastrating the sound, and we also needed to find instruments that would match the mood and the visuals. This was not accomplished easily by trying many diffrent instruments and settings and playing around with the glowstiks, which was fun to be honest, and with a lot of help we managed to accomplish what we hoped for.
For the interactive design project we came up with the concept of expressing your mood with colors, motions and sounds. Where the movement of glow-sticks in a dark room in-front of a screen is represented with visuals and sound. Our main aim was to create a fun atmosfere for the user that was both intuitive and social. We imagined the interaction to be not only with the screen but with the other users as well, and the dark room would make said interaction with strangers more comfortable and natural.
We came up with this idea because as artists we have first hand knowledge of how stress relieving painting can be thus our original idea was to use paintbrushes not glow sticks but as we proceeded with our concept we realized that the use of glowsticks would make it much more joyful and intuitive for everyone wether or not they enjoy painting in the literal sense. We then moved on to the sound factor, we enjoyed very much playing around with glowsticks in a dark room and watching the effects on a screen but we realized that users would need more stimulus then just the visual ones. We wanted the sound to be natural and to match our concept we needed the user to feel like they were orchastrating the sound, and we also needed to find instruments that would match the mood and the visuals. This was not accomplished easily by trying many diffrent instruments and settings and playing around with the glowstiks, which was fun to be honest, and with a lot of help we managed to accomplish what we hoped for.
Inspiration
Boa Labo Interactive Light Painting
© Youtube.com
-The programming:
We started with the MIDI instruments then we had a problem that only the piano and the drums were played. Then we found the "pgmount" object that manipulated the instruments and we decided to base the tracking solely on the amount of motion. We used a camera for tracking and the visual feedback was direct with a slight fade effect. For the sound we used area tracking and each area represented a note we used 3 MIDI instruments and we conditioned the pitch according to the amount of motion so that an increase of motion in each parameter increased one octave. At first we considered making precomposed sound files on garage band that could be selected for playback based on the tracking but we preferred to make it seem more free for and orchestrated by the user.
-The Circuit:
We needed to have different sound for each different glow stick so we started thinking if the color would be the thing that would make that change in the sound. When we found that its difficult for the camera to detect the color, we decided to do it with a mouse board. We bought a mouse, detached it from it's body, and started working on the inner board. We attached 2 wires to each of the left switch (SWL), Right switch (SWR), and the middle switch (SWM) and from each other end of the wires we attached a press button. So by that 3 different circuits were created.
- The Stand:
The board was put in a stand with 3 holes on the top where the glow sticks can be put in . When the user click on the glow stick it will click on the press button and so the circuit will be closed and that gives a 1 so the sound will work. And when pressing on the same glow stick again it will give a 0 so the sound will stop. And the same for the 3 buttons. Therefore, the user has the option of playing with one sound, two sounds, or three sounds.
-The Room:
Inorder for us to realize our installation and concept we had to built a dark room. So we did build a dark room with big black curtains. In one side we cut a square to fit the screen in, and it was back projection so the projection was behind the screen. A camera was put just underneath the screen to detect the motion.
We started with the MIDI instruments then we had a problem that only the piano and the drums were played. Then we found the "pgmount" object that manipulated the instruments and we decided to base the tracking solely on the amount of motion. We used a camera for tracking and the visual feedback was direct with a slight fade effect. For the sound we used area tracking and each area represented a note we used 3 MIDI instruments and we conditioned the pitch according to the amount of motion so that an increase of motion in each parameter increased one octave. At first we considered making precomposed sound files on garage band that could be selected for playback based on the tracking but we preferred to make it seem more free for and orchestrated by the user.
-The Circuit:
We needed to have different sound for each different glow stick so we started thinking if the color would be the thing that would make that change in the sound. When we found that its difficult for the camera to detect the color, we decided to do it with a mouse board. We bought a mouse, detached it from it's body, and started working on the inner board. We attached 2 wires to each of the left switch (SWL), Right switch (SWR), and the middle switch (SWM) and from each other end of the wires we attached a press button. So by that 3 different circuits were created.
- The Stand:
The board was put in a stand with 3 holes on the top where the glow sticks can be put in . When the user click on the glow stick it will click on the press button and so the circuit will be closed and that gives a 1 so the sound will work. And when pressing on the same glow stick again it will give a 0 so the sound will stop. And the same for the 3 buttons. Therefore, the user has the option of playing with one sound, two sounds, or three sounds.
-The Room:
Inorder for us to realize our installation and concept we had to built a dark room. So we did build a dark room with big black curtains. In one side we cut a square to fit the screen in, and it was back projection so the projection was behind the screen. A camera was put just underneath the screen to detect the motion.
Documenting the process
The circuit
The Stand
The Room
The programming
The Installation
The view of the camera which was put just underneath the screen to detect the motion.
The screen during the installation
