modified seedSpark v1.1

I modified the seedSpark code for the birthday party of 2 friends. Guests sent me photos which I used for the floating objects. The colours were picked from the invite.

Happy mistakes #2

Reworking an old piece so I can have things in framebuffers and use newer libraries. Not what I wanted exactly yet but some interesing artifacts.

layeredConnections - this is what it looked like for me

The test of the remote WJ-S software system on 19 March 2013. Here is my desktop. You can see the mixer, the playlist and the skype video call and text chat.  The stream was also available but for the set I was worried about bandwith lags so I switched it off.

Anne was the human interface coordinating the starts and stops of sets. Software by James coordinated the tech side of the experience. I had no software glitches.

I experienced the narrowness of the bandwidth pipe intensely, the mediated blocky-ness, sound distortion, pops squeaks, the nervous feeling that if I am disconnected then the event is there, but connection only in my imagination, the interpolation by my one interpretation to skip over the technology burrs. At the same time the feeling of amazement that people from different physical locations can control pixels and speakers in a space in Paris.

Frame from Sakrowski's set.

Thanks to Anne and James. Thanks to Fletcher for music.

layeredConnections - testing the new version of the WJ-S mixer

Preparing a playlist for the test session this weekend on the new version of the WJ-S mixer with Anne and James. How does it work? There are computers at the venue connected to screens and also connected to the internet. I make up a play list of url's. I log into the computer at the venue and control which url is displayed on the multiple screens remotely.  

 The bits I am putting together I call layeredConnections and it is based on the following ideas:

•  This phrase 

networks of susceptible activity, opaque zones of nonknowledge

 which I am pulling out of context from Matthew Fuller's book Evil Media.

 Also some ideas that have surfaced and coalesced.

• sometimes software logic felts together. 
• sometimes entropy knits/knots physical wires together. 
• sometimes meanings and intentions layer and weave into new meanings.
• sometimes sound frequencies mat together in a thick layer of interference. 
• sometimes lines hatch and cross creating the illusion of another dimension.

seedSpark screengrab video

Screen grab video of what seedSpark looks like now. I love frame buffers.
seedSparkPrototype from Maia Gr on Vimeo.

seedSpark basics

First test image for seedSpark. Lots more to do, the seeds need to spin and draw their path to a framebuffer and then it also needs some masking. Also it needs some or other force change when there is interaction.

And now adding some shaders addons to use the image the kinect as alpha mask.

Happy mistakes

I am trying to update old projects to run on the latest version of openframeworks on a 64bit machine not a 32bit one using newer versions of the OpenNI libraries. Things are not working as expected. There is also a weird flickering that happens when I make the software not redraw the background (ofSetBackgroundAuto(false);) Luckily I found a fix. Switch the double buffering off in main.cpp by calling window.setDoubleBuffering(false);

Other weirdness though in interface instead it doesn't see me anymore :( . But it does make this Esher-like image when it thinks it should see me.

Workbook springpad

I love my workbook but more and more I collect Web references and produce digital artifacts. I have tried different link collection mechanisms and tablet notepads but I never use any of them for a length of time. This weekend I played with springpad. Even though I don't draw in it, it is the most useful for all the other features. The board view where I can rearranged notes, links, images and to do lists in a free form way is my favourite feature. Of course access across my devices and in the browser also helps. We'll see how long it lasts. It has to coexist with the workbook though.

openframeworks on Nexus7 and Galaxy Nexus

This is just an openframeworks polygon example. But it is running on both my Nexus 7 and my Galaxy Nexus. This means I have the dev environment all setup to build something and it's alive. There are some camera issues on the Nexus 7, but enough toys for exploration nevertheless. This installation process worked mostly augmented by this thread on the openframeworks forum. Using the development branch of openframeworks on github.

So, hmmm, decisions, decisions will it be processing or openframeworks for this project, or maybe one of each.

Running processing example on nexus 7

Messing with processing again. Running the particles example on the Nexus 7 android tablet. Couldn't be easier, startup processing and open a sketch. Press the android button and run the sketch. It builds the apk and transfers it to the device. Of course it helps to have the Android SDK installed and working and I had to point processing to the SDK. This screenshot is of the Daniel Schiffman Particles example that was included with processing.

Report on Free Particle

Webjay performance coordinated by Anne Roquigny at the Wits Art Museum using the wj-s system. The other artists who performed as well were Mohammed Nagdee, Murray Turpin, Joao Orecchia, Farrell Lewis, Zen Marie. More info on the Wits blog. Video clip of the master session of my set.

Exhibition installation with the students of Wits Digital Art Department at the Sci-Bono science center. Group discussion hosted by Tegan Bristow on joburg.radio. The topic was "Role of art and technology and its cross-development".

Workshop titled "XBox Kinect for Artists " co-presented with Tegan Bristow.

Getting ready for Free Particle

Does the pc fit into the suitcase? Getting ready for Free Particle. From the website "Free Particle is a digital art exhibition and reflection supporting practice and technical learning around Digital Practice in South Africa.   It is a artist in residence exchange and collaboration between the Ososphere Festival in Strasbourg and the Division of Digital Arts at Wits University."

pining for pointclouds - almost there again

soon, very soon. Setting up kinect environment again. ubuntu 64bit this time and openframeworks version 0071 with ofxKinect addon. Just the example but one version of the drivers and projects ok.

video documentation - nullPointerException

Here are the video clips to document the show. Music provided by mobygratis.com.

nullPointerException Exhibition at PJ Olivier

The crazy days of installation and setup, opening and examiners have passed. Here are some photos. The show runs till 25 November and is open on weekdays from 9:00 - 16:00.

tests and installation

As an initial preparation I went through each of the pieces and tried to think which parameters would be different in the gallery space. Since I wasn't sure which pc's I could use and they all vary in speed and the screen resolution wasn't completely clear either, the number of particles in each piece needed to be variable. More particles = fuller screen but slower response. I made these parameters variable so I could read them from a file. This means I can tune the installation in the space without doing a recompile.

To get final measurements of the screen sizes and for general sanity I did a pre-install test run.

As part of the installation process I made 6 identical usb disks which will auto boot into ubuntu and have all the kinect drivers installed and have the pieces on each disk. This will make the installation easier because I can borrow PCs from people and just pop the disk in and run up the work.

Prepare packing lists and order wood for the screens. Visit the gallery space again and measure and marked where everything has to go. Pack and early Saturday morning started the installation.

Lessons learnt: You can never have enough extension cables. USB cabling is difficult if you want the pc hidden and the sensor in an optimal position; need powered hubs and active USB extension. Bring food.

Website ready for exhibition

Circular references possible. I made an invite and also a matching website.

memory leaks begone

With the help of Valgrind and some judicious code commenting not unlike a binary search I have tracked down the memory leaks in my code. Why is this important? If my code leaks memory it will crash eventually and installations in a gallery shouldn't crash.

The first graph shows the memory foot print over night taken at 60 second intervals. The spikes happen when the software detects someone there. The second graph shows a more complicated piece that detects users and hand movements. This is a preliminary test but it is looking promising. In this case the spikes are people detected and hand movements. It releases the memory again if it forgets about a user but this only happens after a while.

Here is the bash script I used to record the memory samples: It takes 2 parameters the sleep interval and the process id.


#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -lt 2 ]
then
  echo
  echo "This script needs at least 2 command-line arguments: sleep interval and process id."
  exit 1
fi  
while true; do
   #echo "infinite loops [ hit CTRL+C to stop]"
   ps --no-heading -o rss $2 
   sleep $1
done

I created the graphs by feeding the script results into gnuplot.

init variables before use - wip

adjusting the colours, riffing off the BSoD

null pointer exception - work in progress

null pointer exception from Maia Gr on Vimeo.

ideas and intentions are converted into code
code runs on machines
people interact the code and the machines

code runs too quickly to see
code hides
code can be understood for a short while by some people and then they forget and have to reread it

the kinect can only see me sometimes
I can move too quickly for the kinect to see
I can hide behind the door

documentation of 4 software pieces coded in openframeworks and using the kinect with OpenNI and PrimeSense drivers on ubuntu 10.04