Final Project

Essay- Select one interactive designed environment and critically analyse how information is generated and disseminated in this instance. Use a selection of examples of practice and theory to help you achieve this.

Project- Space and Sense (Sensory Engagement and the Haptic)

Final Project Outcome:

Brief Essay Summary

Within my essay I focused on the way interactive spaces are far more engaging to audiences than traditional art. The research
I did while writing this essay led me to look at a lot of interactive environments, most of which used human emotion, movement or senses. The essay inspired me to look at using these inputs in my final outcome. The combination of emotion and an interactive environment is a really interesting starting point for this project.

Project Research & Sketches:

Space and Sense (Sensory Engagement and the Haptic)

These photos show my initial visual research into the theme. I wanted a heavy focus on human involvement and interaction with the project, therefore chose to look at the visualisation of a persons stress.
This is a very 'on trend' subject at the moment, with more attention being brought to how stress can affect our daily lives. Ideally, I will create a project that can integrate into a social setting, while making an impacting experience for the viewer/user.

Project Realisation:

Focus on: Heart Rate, Stress and looking at raising awareness
of stress.
Using senors to engage audience.
Touch pads/ring terminals etc

Arduino Hardware:

The Code:

Credit the Community:

Final Outcome

Input

Output

Condition

Conditions are measured via Arduino and Processing.

The output is changed by the individuals heart rate

As the individuals heart rate is measured the visualisation changes and grows

Inspiring Projects & Research Links:

OpenBurble- A collaborative project where people can control the movement and outcome of this large balloon sculpture.
http://www.haque.co.uk/openburble.php

Obra Sonora- An immersive audio experience, focusing on one space to modify. Panoramicly delivers big data via sound.
https://www.prote.in/en/feed/2014/10/obra-sonora

MONOLITT- A project using emotion from social media to create a large paint art piece
https://www.prote.in/en/feed/2014/09/monolitt

POSTEoma- The Diesel brands exhibition, the exhibit can be interacted with online and can grow and change due to human interaction.
https://www.prote.in/en/feed/2014/10/postroma

Research Stage: I looked in detail at a variety of existing design work. This research is what led me to decide to do a project that's input is led my human emotion. The collaborative environment created far outweighs simply creating something to put in front of a viewer/user and saying 'here this is my art, explore it.'
The mystery that can be created by contemporary space design is intriguing to a viewer and allows them to be involved in the space.

Within the Authorship and Interaction module, I feel I've learned the value of interaction, and how that can challenge the ideals of authorship.

This project uses the user/viewers pules/stress level to create the 'art', this effectively makes all visitors authors, and encourages the collaborative environment that I have been inspired by in my research.

POSTRoma

MONOLITT

Obra Sonora

Visualisation Stage:

The hardware is a fairly simple circuit. Two wires connect the ring terminals (where the user will place their fingertips) to the circuit, which consists of two 250K resistors and an assortment of wires.

The hardware is something I found particular difficult being that I'm fairly novice at using Arduino, therefore I used a combination of research into different instructuble projects to achieve this.
All are credited in the 'Credit the Community' section below.

These sources are all under the creative commons license and are free to use and manipulate as long as they are credited somewhere in the work. These 3 links show the projects that helped me to achieve my ideas.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-Galvanic-Skin-Response-Finger-Electrodes/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Stress-Detector/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Stress-Makes-Art-Galvanic-Skin-Response-and-Visual/#step1

The code for Arduino is relatively simple and I used a short piece found on Instructables unedited with I've inserted here.

void setup(){
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
int a=analogRead(0);
if (Serial.available() > 0)
{

byte inbyte=Serial.read();
if(inbyte=='a')
{
Serial.write(a);


}
}
}

The processing code was far
more difficult to understand
and edit. I used the base code
and edited inputs such as the speed of the
animation created by the skin response and
I edited some of the changes in direction.
Overall the code is now better suited to
my project. However, with more time I
feel I could have learned more customisation skills
which would have enabled me to really finalise areas of the code I'm still not happy with.

At this stage I've began looking at stress as the sensory engagement section of the project. The idea is to have an Arduino Uno wired to be able to measure pulse, a main indicator of stress, and then to generate this into a visualisation using processing. I've also started to look at colour and type to go alongside the project to create a clean overall finished look.

The title of the project, space and sense, led me to think about exhibition design.
This, coupled with my experience with essay research, makes me think I could attempt to create a visualisation of where this project could be used. Ideally I'd want to make a pop up exhibition where people can come and interact with the space. However due to time and money constraints, I'll be sticking to working with the hardware and creating a final outcome that demonstrates these intentions.

The name for this project stems from the visual exploration I've done. Stress, like ivy, can creep up on you, it's a venomous entity that is unwelcome but sometimes just becomes part of you. The unhealthy effects of stress become visualised as growing ivy, that is, if I can work out the coding.

The video featured here shows the processing environment working alongside some of my intentions for this project. The ideal situation would be to have 5/6 circuits wired up in a small gallery space, when visitors used their pulse to begin the experience the animation would speed up according to the heart rate/stress level measured. The animations would then project onto the walls as a visualisation of stress. The end result would be a room full of 'ivy'.

The prototype for the hardware & coding is what I focused on throughout this project.