To develop our project for the gallery, Thomas finalised the visuals, Julia finalised the brain model and I worked with sound. We then began setting up our brain.

The set up itself took a couple of days to do as Julia was finalising the brain whilst I helped Thomas and Lauren set up the Mac Mini to open up the quartz composer file. After this was done, we set up the brain on the plinth (Julia had to build a stand to put the brain on). This was applied successfully and Julia started setting up the wiring inside the plinth.

The lights were kindly donated by Thomas (as you can see they're a lot stronger than the original!). The sound was originally set up with two speakers in front of the brain, however after some advice from Richard we decided to move them behind the brain, which gave for an interesting result.

After everything was set up we decided to test the brain to make sure everything worked. A couple of the sensors weren't working, so Julia had to lift up the plinth and re-wire it. Fortunately it worked fine after this.

Overall I'm really happy with how the project turned out and I feel the set up for the gallery has progressed hugely since we showed our work before Christmas.

I attended Rob's 24 hour our live stream originally in the evening when Rob first started. I then came along with Julia for the 2-4am shift to make sure everything was okay (Congrats to Rob for raising money for a great cause and doing the whole 24 hours without falling asleep!)

Rob in a beautiful maid outfit at 2am

I've decided to upload my digital PDF, documenting each part of the project, in detail.

Maps and Journeys

Maps & Journeys Project Proposal

Gallery Plan

We are now at the point where we are putting all the elements together. I have recently been working closely with Julia to get the brain model sorted. Here are some image's I've collected together, documenting the progression of the brain model particularly.

                                                      Drying clay brain (Top and Bottom)

Vacuum forming the brain

                                        Wiring up the brain/connecting the base to the brain

Testing the lighting/functioning of the brain model on the plinth

Due to picking the sound unit as part of the Professional Toolkit unit, I decided to work solely on the sound, as Julia, who also did the sound unit, is working hard on the model of the brain. I was instructed by Thomas' to sync the sound files Julia had previously recorded on the second shoot to the footage. This was a relatively quick process, however not all the sounds exactly matched up. 

Project Timeline

Re-Shoot

After this was completed, I exported the footage and sound together and sent the file to Thomas. After discussing it with the group, I decided that a re-shoot for additional sounds needed to be done. So, I went with Julia and walked the same journeys again however I simply followed Walt's footsteps closely with the microphone as I felt this would be great to add to the piece, as there wasn't really any dog sounding footsteps. An important scene to re-record was when Walt steps on the stones, as I felt this could be a sound that could be picked out and exaggerated. 

I then went back to the Premiere project and listened to what I'd recorded that could be added to the piece. Sadly, there was a lot of wind hitting the microphone, which was to be expected however it over-powered some sounds, so sadly a lot of the sound couldn't be used. The re-recording of the stone-stepping however was successful, sounding a lot better than the original recording. After this, I exported the video and sound and send Thomas the final version. 

Adobe Audition

I then went into Adobe Audition, which I have a strong knowledge of from our Reflection's project last year. To get the sound files into Audition easily, I simply right clicked on each individual sound I wanted and clicked 'Edit Clip in Adobe Audition'. This took me into Audition with all the sound files I needed. I simply highlighted the specific sound I want and exported it as a single clip.  

After this, I sent each individual sound file to Thomas, who will then go and import the sound and video into Quartz composer and work with separating the sounds and video and bringing them together. 

Sadly for the second shoot I couldn't be there, as it took place Friday afternoon when our group film was shooting pick-up shots. I was however informed that the shoot would be taking place. Friday evening I received via email by Thomas the raw footage and some images of the locations that filming took place in. I really liked the footage that Thomas, Lauren and Julia had taken. It is again POV and a clearer, simpler narrative than the previous. What's also nice is the aesthetics of the clips, as the previous shoot was in Lauren and Thomas' house (Bedroom and Kitchen) and the Kitchen being quite messy made for distractions within the simplistic narrative whereas the new footage is aesthetically pleasing.

After the footage had been recorded, I decided to work with the sound, as I did the previous sound project for our Professional Toolkit unit. My job is to match the sounds kindly recorded by Julia, to the footage, so I have to match sound for the walking scenes, dog sniffing, pebble walking, car driving past and dog panting at the end. Thomas will be working on the programming of the piece, as he has a strong knowledge in the software we're going to use. Julia has a more hands-on role, working with the brain model and building what is needed in the gallery for our piece. Lauren's job is to edit the footage that will be displayed on the screen and to make sure it loops correctly.

Lastly, here are some great pictures that Thomas took to give an idea of the locations and story of the footage:

We went into the meeting with Rosie today with example footage from the test we did of the POV of someone waking up, making a cup of tea, laying down relaxing and then going back up to bed. Even though the footage that came out quite well, Rosie felt it had too much of a student vibe to it, and suggested filming a different kind of aesthetics. With this in mind we went off and had a think individually about what we could do.

Brain Model Attempt:

Using the website we'd used previously for inspiration, me and Julia decided to give it a go in making the clay model of the brain. Using my iPad to show the model of the brain that had previously been made, I decided to film a short time-lapse of the process. The process however was not successful as Julia and I found it too hard to model out how it should look. This meant that we had to contact Chloe, who was previously interested in giving it a go for us. Im happy we gave it a go, but obviously it got the better of us, however I trust Chloe can do a great job of modelling the brain for us.
 

Today I met with Lauren and Tom to do some indoor test shots for the footage that will be displayed on the screen. We decided to use a DSLR for our test shoot, using Lauren's wide angle lens, to catch every bit of detail at each location.

 As we had an idea of it being a simplistic scenario, we decided to do a mixture of POV shots of someone waking up, putting on their jumper, picking up their tablet, walking downstairs, going into their kitchen, making a cup of tea, sitting on their sofa playing and game, heading back up to bed and falling asleep once again. The scenario itself was an easy concept, however getting a professional looking POV shot without a helmet rig (Shown right) was difficult. This meant Thomas had to film it from Lauren's perspective, so that both hands could be in shot to make it look more realistic and move around accurately, making sure she didn't hit into anything and kept a constant pace.

I feel that the shoot went really well and some really good shots were produced from it. What is difficult to get around is any shaky-ness from the camera, as that is just natural from the movement of the camera by Thomas. If we decided to re-shoot we may want to consider a helmet rig or some sort of tripod to allow the movement to be a bit more fluent.

Lauren and Thomas reviewing the footage

Our second meeting with Rosie allowed us to discuss our idea of the visuals further, as last time the idea was still floating around, with major tweaks needed. I believe our group had made a lot of progress since the previous tutorial with Rosie. After discussing our ideas with Rosie, which is that we decided as a group to go back to the original idea, keeping it simple yet effective. 

The basic outline of our idea is a interactive brain that allows an individual or group of people to get involved in touching any of the four main parts of the brain, singularly or all together which will display a simplistic visual piece on the screen and play audio clips. Each part will be quite abstract and simple, not making much sense singularly, however when formed together will allow the user to see the bigger picture. Rosie advised us to go off individually, think of an idea for the visuals and film them using a DSLR. Testing is CRUCIAL. 

Material wise we will need a brain model to work with, made from polystyrene or clay, to allow us to make a mould of it from plastic. This will be made using the Vacuum forming machinery at the university. We also need to discuss the space we want to use in more detail with Rosie, however we know we definitely want it to be in the gallery space rather than a classroom, which came up as an idea when discussing spacing with Rosie. 

Currently our project has progressed a lot since I last discussed it on this blog. Since the pitch with Rosie, we've decided as a group to go back to the original idea of touching a part of the brain which triggers something (A visual element or sound element) and so forth. Here is where our project is currently: 

After research, mostly on Julia's part, we've decided to have a model brain (Made from vacuum forming a mould of a brain, allowing us to have a transparent brain that we can tweak i.e. add light up elements and so forth. We've decided to look at the 4 main parts of the brain that we can visually and sound wise represent on the screen: 

'Frontal lobes - planning and thinking. Monitoring higher order thinking, directing problem solving and regulating the excesses of the emotional system. Self will area, personality. Most of our memory.

Temporal lobes - above the ears. Deals with sound, music, face and object recognition and some parts of long term memory. Also house the speech centres although this is usually on the left side only.

Occipital lobes - exclusively for visual processing.

Parietal lobes - spatial orientation , calculation and certain types of recognition.' 

From several group meeting we've had, we've decided visually we are going to create something quite simplistic and easy to understand. The screen will show a simple situation, such as a man walking down a road past people and cars or perhaps having a conversation, which can easily be broken down into individual parts, 4 main parts of the brain to be more precise. The other lobes, for example the 'Temporal Lobe' will active inaudible speech. 

When only certain parts are touched by the user, and not synced together (all 4 parts touched at the same time) it will only show that element, for example if you only touch the Temporal Lobe, it will only play sound, whereas if you press all 4 elements together it will play sound and visuals in its whole form. 

The whole piece allows the viewer to get involved by interacting with the model of the brain, touching one of four parts and seeing the progression of the piece as they touch more than one element at a time. This allows a multitude of people such as a group of four, two people or even one person on their own to hold down parts of the brain to eventually see the whole, complete piece. 

The representation of the piece is to show that the parts of the brain work together as a whole to form a functioning visual/audible atmosphere for the person, but when separated, the parts of the brain struggle to form something that's whole. 

Visual Research: 

http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Brain-an-external-hard-drive-and-light-sculptu/

For visual research, Julia via our group's regular Skype meetings found a great website were someone made a model brain with LED's lighting it up inside it. This piece was done more as a DIY Sculptural experiment to see if he could make it. The designer, Quentin Thurtle, described it as such: 

"I was asked to make a 1Tb external hard drive in the form of a floor-standing, animated-brain sculpture. When not being accessed, it has a simple red-light pulse. When the hard drive is being accessed, it has a range of light display effects.' 

I like the way that Quentin displayed the piece on a plastic pillar, which makes the piece look professional and visually interesting. Our piece however will be more specific in the LED lights, rather than just using christmas lights that constantly flash. 

Due to Thomas knowing students that do Architecture at the university, and being at a university with talented art student and some amazing facilities such as the workshops I was inducted into recently for our Studio Shoot project, I feel confident in coming together and making a physical brain model that looks visually interesting and works the way I want it to. 

An accurate drawing done by Thomas

The Idea:

The original idea was to do with the different functions of the brain, supported by different visuals and sound, in relation to that part of the brain via a model brain and USB sticks. I found the project to be quite a difficult one to achieve on my own. After Kathleen's feedback, I was approached by Lauren, due to the similarities within our ideas and the idea of merging our ideas came about. I was then approached by Julia because she was fascinated at the science/theory side of the Brain and lastly Thomas, who offered his technical skills and creativity to the project. 

The idea itself has changed since the start quite a lot, however I am happy with the transition. The first idea we had as a group consisted of an interactive piece that had different parts of the brain that could be triggered off my touching the part on a physical model of a brain. This idea has since developed into something quite interesting. 

The idea is to create an interactive installation piece consisting of sensors such as a microphone or a Kinect camera, a screen and a model brain where a heat map of the brain's activities will be projected on to. People will approach the installation, and their movements/sounds will trigger responses on the screen, reflecting on how our brain interprets signals. If a person ones uses one of the senses, such as speaking or only movement, a simplistic shape will appear on the screen to reflect a calm reaction, and the heat map will activate for that sense's area. If the user decides to use both senses, the shapes will react differently and will create a slightly bigger reaction, and the heat map will reflect both senses being used. This invites the user to be playful and learn how to interact with the installation.

What will happen if too many signals are received by the sensors, the screen will suddenly become quite visually disorientating, and might shut down momentarily. This refers to the effects of Sensory Overload, which is a condition that "occurs when one or more of the body's senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment". The artwork on the screen at this point may try to be disruptive to the viewer's normal expectations of the viewing experience, trying to make him/her feel uncomfortable and disoriented, an emotion that people with sensory overload experience. 

My Role:

My role within the project, as director, is to strive for the best end result, giving direction to my group and making the end product what I originally intended it to be about. I will work closely with Thomas in particular, because visually a lot of the work will be done on programs such as Quartz Composer, something i'm not familiar with. I will be working closely with Julia to make sure that are research is all correct and accurate, and working closely with Lauren to make sure the style of the piece is correct to what I want to achieve on the screen. 


Research:

Research wise we have looked at several websites looking deeply into Sensory overload, in particular the visual experience someone has when they are suffering from a sensory overload. We also looked at a visual piece as a source of inspiration. This piece 'Biomimiesis: Hyphae' has an interesting use of style, something we may aspire to. Some of our research has been done during our several group meetings, in person and on Skype. 

Learning agreement: 

For the project, I was approached by Julia, who was interested in my idea because of the scientific side of the project, and how we can explore that in a visually interesting way. I was also approached by Lauren, who's idea to do with Anxiety could fit in with my idea of the brain and memory. In addition to Julia and Lauren, Thomas approached me and offered his technical skills to the project, so that we could get a visually pleasing piece.

The rough outline of our idea is this:

. A visual piece looking at the brain and what part triggers different things i.e. emotions, freedom, passion etc which will be displayed through an interesting use of visual elements, possibly projected onto a screen/ 2 screens.

. The idea is to have a physical model of the brain, which will have microphone sensors (In development by Thomas) so that when you touch a part of the brain or talk into it, it will play a certain clip, related to that particular part of the brain.

Research

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Structure1.html

When looking into the human brain, I came across an interesting website that put the parts of the brain into different categories: 

'.Frontal Lobe- associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving

Parietal Lobe- associated with movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli

Occipital Lobe- associated with visual processing

Temporal Lobe- associated with perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech'

I found this interesting as these definitions allow for an interesting array of visual elements and looking at this definition will help me think more about what I want to be shown on the screen. 

http://thediagonal.com/tag/brain/

I find looking at creative, artistic pieces of the brain inspiring. I liked this piece as it talks about how we have one side of the brain that's scientific and logistical, which is the technical side of our piece, and one side is the passionate, creative, free side which can be connected to the artistic, visual side of our project.

As a group, we looked at a visual piece called ''Biomimesis: Hyphae' by a Polish artist called Szymon Kaliski. This piece was visual interesting and this could be something to look into when we do our piece. 

As a group, Thomas showed us an interesting program called 'Quartz Composer' that allowed the user to manipulate a camera or a space and change what you see on the screen, for example he changed the screen so that there were multiple versions of ourselves. The program itself Thomas seems to have a good grasp on, so we may be using the program in the future for our project.

Presentations:

Lucy- Interesting piece, good use of sound and video to tell a story. Interesting use of Geo-Tagging, something I havent looked at so much myself

Charlie- Good narrative that was supported by an interesting use of photographs. Could've made it seem more post-apocalyptic, through the imagery.

Tom- Professional-looking piece with good use of visuals (Shots of rubbish) and a strong message behind it.

Lauren- Photography with cartoon incorporated within it. Could've had more Psychogeographical elements. The drawing inspired the photography and created a story about each location.

Katherine- A journey from home to uni, focusing on details through the use of photography. There was a nice style to the images (very close up, shallow focus)

Leanna- Photography piece of the journey of a road that she's travelled down for a long time, focusing on details that she's never seen before.

Ulyssys- Interesting use of stop frame animation of his journey from a train station to his house. I found the sound an interesting addition to the imagery.

Shahid- Interesting use of light writing and imagery of people and places. Interesting use of simple, rough notes of how he was feeling at the time.

Joel- Use of photography and road names/signs to tell a story.

Sahir- Interesting visual piece, through the use of panoramic pictures. Sound could've been added to support the imagery.

Chloe- Great visual piece that was several video pieces cut up.

My Final Piece reactions:

Leah felt the concept was simple, yet effective and people liked the concept and layout of the piece.

After originally planning on going on a walk in a J direction and forming a narrative around it, I decided to change my idea and went out on the street and recorded a variation of walking shots of my footsteps, blended with a mixture of pictures of road names/signs that I came across that I found interesting/helpful on my journey in the 'J' shape. I let the road signs lead me in the direction that I wanted to go, which was a J shape. There isn't so much of a narrative to the story, but a message through the imagery, suggesting that text, like road names, can guide us on different journey's, however it can also restrict us going a certain path that we may have been destined to go on. I also played on the idea of chance, allowing my intuitions and the use of road names and house names, to lead me on my journey.

Shots of the important locations:

Here is the final Piece. Generally I am happy with the video and picture element, as the video's of the footsteps overlapping suggests a never-ending motion of my journey, which is complimented by the imagery of the road signs.

Today we had our tutorial with Rosie to talk about our ideas. When listening to feedback, Rosie pointed out that I need to do more research on the brain, looking at it from a Neuro-scientific point of view.

When talking to Rosie, I thought of an interesting idea where there would be a physical model of a brain, with USB's coming out of it, which represent the different parts of the brain and their job. I want to make/work with a student at the uni studying Art and Design, to make a physical model of the brain, with text written on it to represent what each part does.

These are the notes I made from Rosie's lecture.

'Cultural Geography and Mapping'- Yuwei Lin

. Maps are 'Political statements'- tools to demonstrate power and boundaries

. 'Geograph.org.uk'

. Maps can capture memories and emotions, representing these through paintings etc. Where you've been thats makes you feel certain emotions

. Geocaching- 'High-tech treasure hunt'- tracking an item across different locations

. Maps can be 'Social' and 'Interactive'- Group of people mapping locations (Amateur vs professional)

. 'Openstreetmap.org'- more detailed mapping, created and edited by 'Open street mappers'

. Mapping objects or subjects- Identity, the self.

. CCTV- looking at locations and looking at the self

. Humanitarian mapping- Countries that have lost accurate mapping (natural disasters)

GPS, Telepresence and Internet in Art

. Surveillance- knowing where someone is on the earth

Ian Mott- 

Sound Mapping 1998- Talking about the technology

How music connect people to a certain place- using radio signals and microphones to pick up sound

Technology progressing improving mapping- changing in size to handheld (mobile phones)

Rabeca

Archive of instrument playing (the rubeca) and where its played across the world

'Chinese Whispers' 

. A booth telling stories to the public- phone playing pre-recorded messages

. Internet being used for people to come together and share stories

Masaki Fujihata- 

Voice of Aliveness

. Collection of voices/shouts, 'Meta monument' built of collective memory

. Bike riding a specific path and GPS/Camera work is recorded and transformed into a certain shape

Teri Bueb- 

Trace

. Environmental sound piece through headphones.

. Using sound to visualise and map the location

.Recordings of memorials- Death, Loss and transformation.

. Can be stories, music, compositions.

Drift

. Wandering the coastline, discovering interactive sound through movement.

Telepresence and Streaming

Paul Sermon- 

. Using interactive video and green screen technology.

Telegarden

. Using the internet and a garden, that brings people together and allows people to grow plants

Aram Bartholl

Coding- turning code into art

After the lesson with Leah, I went and done some more research into Psychogeography because I found Psychogeography quite difficult to understand. Through the DFSA Facebook page, I came across this website: http://www.mookychick.co.uk/health/spirituality/psychogeography.php, which helped me understand the term. The page simplified the meaning and gave some interesting examples. It made me think more about the project and how I could approach it. 

I decided I want to use one of my initials, J, and record the route using video and sound. I may use some photography, but the piece will mostly be phone quality recordings to make the piece seem more natural than staged. Im thinking of making the story fictitious.

Idea 1

When brainstorming, I looked at the brief and firstly came up with an idea to do with Memory, and how the brain maps ideas and certain emotions and so forth. I used an artistic look on the map of the brain to base my ideas on.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580416,00.html

Illustration by Leigh Wells

My idea is to create a piece that incorporates visual pieces and sound pieces to represent each section of the brain. For example emotion may be a collection of faces or colours to represent how someone may feel. Im yet to develop the idea further to make the piece a collaborative piece where everything adds up. 

Idea 2

My second idea was looking into Psychogeography and my idea is to create a journey for myself and a few individuals and get them to note their experiences/thoughts/feelings on a map/notepad. I will then film the journey I go on and overlay the messages/thoughts of the people I got to go on this journey. The problem with this idea is thinking of how I can make it interactive. This is similar to the idea that Mona Hatoum had where she overlaid the text of a letter, which added a feeling of emotion to the piece. I may decide to print off the messages and stick them around the screen in which ill show the piece. 

TO BE CONTINUED

Gabriel Orozco

During this lesson with Rosie, we were briefed about the project and tasks we must do. 

Summary of the brief:

The unit, Maps and Journeys requires us to explore the metaphor of ‘journeys’ and to investigate narrative and non-linear ideas. We should look at the concept of ‘journey’, and how it can be interpreted, for example thoughts, memory and psychogeography. We are allowed to work as a group or on our own, which is something I will need to think about, as others may have similar ideas to what I have and we may be able to merge our ideas. 

Key dates and Assessment:

. Possibility of a field trip to London on the 16th or 17th of October. 

. Project approval will be on the 23rd of October. 

. Final Assessment will be on the 11th/12th of December. 

We were then screened a variation of films, which may give inspiration for our project. 

London Orbital (2002, Iain Sinclair) 

When watching this film, I enjoyed the hallucinogenic, dream like feel to it, through the use of 

blurred visuals and music. For me, the film really emphasised the boredom and dullness of M25

through the slow camera work and radio broadcast that somewhat haunted the piece throughout. This

made the film almost uncomfortable to watch at points. Through the use of CCTV and handheld 

camera work, the viewer is made to get a feeling that we are always being watched, which relates to 

the modern day because of the over use of CCTV and how we cant go anywhere without being 

watched. 

Measures of Distance (1988, Mona Hatoum) 

This film for me felt like a reflection of a woman's loneliness, being stuck in a country away from her

parents, because of war. The letter being placed over the film for me made the film feel more

personal and made the piece a very interestingly visual piece. The use of images of her mother adds 

to the personal feel to the piece. The piece talks very strongly about the war, and how it has effected 

her mother. I felt that the film gives an audience emotional response because of the nature of the film 

and the visuals that support it. 

The Frame (2005, Chris Welsby) 

Seven Days (1974) 

At Sea (2003) 

I was fascinated by Chris Welsby's work because of the camerawork and early use of stop-frame 

animation. I liked the fact that he built his own rigs to effectively get the shot he wanted. Chris 

Welsby worked with nature on most of his short films. For example, in his piece 'Windmill II', he 

took the camera, placed it on a tripod and filmed a windmill blowing naturally in the breeze. I 

Found the results quite interesting and the flashing lights from the windmill made the film somewhat 

hypnotic and artistic. 

Installation Art

Rosie showed us some Installation art and these are some of the pieces I found really interesting.

The Creators Project (Chris Milk, 2012)

Chris Milk, teaming up with the team from 'The Creators Project' and Creative Director Ben 
Tricklebank, have produced an interactive installation piece that allows anyone to become different 
things. For example one screen allowed the person to grow wings, whilst another screen involves 
lots of small birds flying around the screen, depending on your movement. Some of the technology 
was quite simplistic, for example the use of Microsoft's 'Kinect' camera's. The piece itself is 
somewhat spiritual, through the progression of life (Birth, death and regeneration). 

Blind Light (Anthony Gormley, 2007) 

I found this art installation piece quite interesting because of the visual work put into the piece. The piece is somewhat Ghost-like, through the use of 'fluorescent light, toughened low-iron glass, ultrasonic humidifiers, aluminium, water'. When researching into the piece, I found out that it was an expression of "vertigo and disorientation - and also a bit of euphoria". I feel that this piece certainly achieves this.