Flaatch - flash turntable experiment
About 2 months ago I’ve been doing some research on flash audio manipulation and visualizations for Dropr (yup, there will be more visuals coming:) ) and I stumbled upon Kevin Luck’s tutorial. That reminded me of an idea I’ve had for ages - a flash turntable with proper scratching. So, here it is:
The tutorial made it really easy to create so I had it done in a couple of hours, I took it out of drawer and improved last nite tho - added an option to load any tune and two sliders to modify tempo & scratch strength. The code is pretty basic, when you rotate the vinyl its rotation speed equals playback speed of the tune. I dubbed the thing Flaatch, have fun!
SixthSense
I must say I like experiments by this guy. You can see a few of them in this video, but most importantly, the extremely augmented reality project called SixthSense by Pranav Mistry:
It has to be said, Pranav is full of great ideas. I don’t know if SixthSense in it’s current shape would be useful, I think it could work better if it was head mounted or even installed in glasses instead of using projection. Currently, it seems it would have to use some image stabilization system to balance chest movement while breathing and general body motion.
Much more on the project here: SixthSense website. Pranav said it’s going to be released as an open source project quite soon, I’ll definitely be checking the site for updates.
The missing AniWall update.
Quite a lot has happened over past few months and it’s been ages since I updated this blog.
Firstly, I finished the AniWall project and graduated, and this is what this post is mostly about.
Below you can see a video I made to present the project to juries of some contests (no response yet.. ), it broadly shows what it can do and how it worked on an exhibition back in May:
You can read more about the project on AniWall microsite. Generally, I was quite happy with the result of research and how it worked, it was not perfect though.Performance for art installation purposes and drawing was really good but when more precise gestures were required (for example for navigating a gallery) the system was quite easily distracted by other people standing behind the ‘user’. I managed to cut the background motion off significantly by crossing infrared light beams in the center of the screen, where user’s body should be located but it didn’t solve 100% of the issue.
Quite soon after I presented AniWall to the board of examiners I saw the Microsoft’s project Natal, my jaw dropped on the floor and I decided I’d better focus on other experiments for a while.. But hey, on the upside, setting up my thing costs only about 50 GBP (+ display device and a PC) and I’ve got a First Class Honours thanks to it : )
Below, couple of pics people have drawn using AniWall:
Loads of issues I had with AniWall could be solved if the thing below came into production. Bi-directional screen is still more of a concept than a real product, but boy, it can change the world (or at least the world of HCI):
Massive projection army on bikes
A good episode of the Make: zine (first half of the video) :
Ali Momeni and his fleet of mobile video projectors transform public spaces into massive sound and light shows.
When I Grow Up by Fever Ray
No comment, the mood of this video is just beautiful.