Final Project: Week 1

For my final project, I would like to continue to explore the comparison of type as content and as form. Specifically I want to show how words can be deconstructed into individual characters, reconstructed as new words, and then can be shaped into completely new and unrecognizable forms. The basic idea is as follows:

The project needs: one touch-screen monitor (as large as we can obtain), one microphone, and one computer.

The touch screen monitor will be mounted on a white wall at approximate eye level. In front of the monitor and to the right will be a pedestal/stand where the microphone will sit.

When someone speaks in or near the microphone, the words will be captured and displayed in a random position on the screen. On the touch screen, the viewer can then drag and arrange letters of the words they or others have spoken. After displayed, the words will have an (as yet undetermined) time frame where they can still be draggable. They will slowly fade to light gray. When they reach their lightest level, they will be undraggable.

The now immovable letters will form a background collage of letters that will begin to lose all content upon repeated overlap, then becoming simply shape. New words upon appearing above the background will be black and thus distinguishable from the background. I plan to allow the letters to be movable for a considerable amount of time so that people can manipulate (visually) both words they have just spoken and words that others have recently spoken. The fade to light gray of old words and letters will allow new words to be visible. I imagine that the program can be reset if the gray also becomes too muddled itself.

In addition to this manipulation of spoken word, I also want to show the general alterations that language undergoes. Spoken word is recorded and altered as it becomes written type. But once it undergoes this change, it can then experience a new change as it becomes line, shape, and eventual abstraction.

I created a new Flash sketch that built upon the memory wall sketch and incorporated some of the elements discussed above. The keyboard acts a input device activating letters hidden about the screen. The viewer can then move these characters around creating words or shapes. In the current sketch, I have not yet incorporated the fade to gray and inactivity. The letters are also in separate locations where as in the final installation, I want words to appear complete to start. The deconstruction of words into individual letters will be an act of the viewer on the touch screen.

Here is the current form of this final project sketch.

Sketch 3: Week 2

My general ideas for the memory wall involved a recorded path that type could form across a surface. For the new version of the memory wall, I wanted to include the input and recording (memory) of typed words.

I had planned to use a similar form as the earlier version. Rather than the rollover activation, though, I wanted keys pressed to trigger the corresponding letters in the movie clip in random locations on the screen. I had difficulties involving randomness and depth and could only affect one clip at a time. This prompted me to focus on an individual letter (and helped by simplifying the process for the sketch).

Involving aspects of the animated text example from the last class and my previous week's version of this sketch, I used the input text to trigger changes in the buttons. This allowed me to create new multiple copies of the same movie clip (or letter) that could become superimposed upon one another. I added a slight increase in the x position with each newly created clip, thus producing a left-to-right path with the overlap.

By using a single larger image, I was able to explore more of the aesthetics of the created path. It caused me to look at the screen (or wall) as a blank canvas and encouraged me to include a button that would clear the screen. This way, a user could restart and create a new composition. The variety of possible compositions (and differences between them) particularly interests me.

For the future, I would like to more fully integrate the idea of path. The large letters when clustered only form a slight horizontal progression. I would like to see inputted text to travel along a line determined by the content typed. Continuing from this specific week's sketch, I would like to explore variations in overlap and degrees of clustering also based on the content of what is typed.

Here is the current form of the memory wall.

Sketch 3: Week 1

For the memory wall, I continued using and developing ideas I had regarding type from last week. Specifically, I thought about a more direct effect the user could have on the interactive environment. I liked the ideas of how user movement can leave its mark on the interaction--so I wanted to create a way for the user to trace their path with type. With a repeated movie clip and rollover behaviors, I created a letter path tool that cycled through the alphabet. I liked especially the different results that each interaction can bring. For this project, in the coming weeks, I am thinking about how to incorporate memory and would like to explore other forms of user interaction, including possible input and display of content (in typed word form).

Here is the current form of the memory wall.

Sketch 2: Week 2

In the second week of the antiportrait sketch, I continued with the idea of incorporating text into the interactivity that I had mentioned in my last post.

The most obvious place to begin was to involve the keyboard. A similar mouse interaction (with some changes) reveals the character to which each facial element can change. When the viewer presses the key corresponding to that character, the facial element will change. I was able to do this by creating movie clips of each element's changes and adding behaviors that move along each timeline and respond to keyboard input.

I also added blank frames into each facial element's movie clip. I wanted it to be possible that all the facial elements and characters could be removed so that the viewer could then reassemble the face.

To add randomness and surprise in the keyboard interaction and corresponding change or reassembly, I added multiple response cues to each element so that various characters could trigger each element. I also changed these input keys as the elements change. An interesting feature of Flash that further complicated this response was that if multiple behaviors are expecting a single key input, only one behavior will act upon that specific key input.

A challenge I discovered while working on this exercise was deciding how much instruction should be given to the viewer. Too much instruction can take away from the surprise of an interaction and can interfere with the design, but too little can cause a viewer to miss out on possible interaction. Without instructions, I thought the viewer might not know that the keyboard was an input device. To minimize interference, I tried to keep the instructions very simple and turned them into a text box that then becomes an element of the design.

Working on this exercise showed to me again the possibilities and extreme importance of organization within Flash. I had to reorganize the buttons and movie clips at various points so that there would be consistency throughout the project. Without this consistency, the project became muddled and harder to understand, and consequently, edits became more difficult to implement.

I also got an introduction to some possibilities of text use in Flash. In future experiments, I would like to explore these options further. I had started to introduce responsive instructions that could reflect intelligence, but I realized that word and content based interaction, resembling intelligence, can become extremely complex and if not done properly and thoroughly, will not work successfully. Regardless of whether I explore that form of artificial intelligence further, I would like to explore the introduction of memory. I want the interaction to remember, for example, which keys are pressed so that it can evolve depending upon how the viewer responds.

Here is the current form of the antiportrait.

Sketch 2: Week 1

In the antiportrait sketch, I started with the idea of using type as a portrait.

I worked from a simple photo of my face and altered it to match type stylistically. I first grayscaled the image and increased the contrast so that the image would match type in color. In Photoshop, I eliminated much detail so that each element of the face (eyes, nose, etc.) appeared simple in form yet still represented a part of the face, acting as a symbol (similar to the way that letters act as symbols).

I then experimented with interchanging the facial elements with various type characters, seeing which characters were similar in shape to the facial elements. I wanted the interchange of these characters to simplify the facial elements further, abstracting them, and transforming them into something different--type.

For the interactivity, I turned each facial element into a button that would reveal a matching character during rollover. I also wanted to include the entire transformation of the face into characters--so clicking on the face will cause the entire face to transform.

I'm not quite sure yet how the sketch will change for week two, but I may use some of these ideas: adding more type into the interactivity, involving the keyboard (accessing characters by pressing keys), giving the viewer the capability of assembling the characters and face.

Here is the current form of the antiportrait.

Sketch 1: Week 3

Initially, I had many ideas for directions I could go with adding interactivity to the map movement from last week. And as I would like to explore maps with some later exercises/projects, I imagine using some of these ideas in the future. Specific ideas include further navigation of the maps by the viewer, change of scale between maps, the ability to move and exchange various fills or other content within the map, and the inclusion of sound.

Since I didn't know the interactive capabilities when I designed the map, I decided to keep the interactivity straight forward and in line with my motion design of the map. Some more complicated attempts at interactivity failed with this particular design. But the interactivity I did use seemed to fit well with the motion from Week 2. Rather than my pre-determined stops after each travel/fluctuation of the map, the viewer can decide when to move on by clicking on the compass.

An unexpected side effect of these buttons was their persistence in the field. Though I initially tried to figure out how to disable them, I like their presence now. They act as hidden jumps to new parts of the map. And I would like to explore this idea further in the future by incorporating invisible paths to new locations within maps.

Sketch 1: Week 2

I first removed the sea monster and ship so that my main focus would be centered on the land forms.

I planned the movement so that it could represent physical travel as well as possible geological change over time. These changes include three locations I've traveled through and photographed, with distinct land forms and land fills. The first location, a group of islands, contains grassland from eastern South Dakota. The second location is a land mass which fills the entire frame--with no water--contains the Badlands from western South Dakota. The third image represents a coastline containing beach fill Hyannis, Massachusetts. Each fill and shape though is meant to be abstracted through my cropping and consequently more generally representational of various types of land.

I had difficulties with the bitmap fill; it would change position within the land forms whenever I exported. But it seems to work now after adjusting the fill positions multiple times within the file (making these changes within the symbol edit windows).