André De Pape

THESIS DOCUMENTATION

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Follow the think towards the thesis documentation


the link

Project Description

Friday, March 14, 2008

Humonolith is a connected sculpture. It embodies images and emotions extracted from the blogs of people around the world, immersing itself in sound and image, creating a new translation of the human being. Images and sentences incrementally move across a screen of a black monolith, giving a glimpse into the mood and feeling of individuals in the world. These "nodes" emphasize and evolve a growing soundscape, parsing emotions from the blog feeds into an environmental soundscape, encompassing a global consciousness via the net.

Public Presentation Strategy

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Humonolith

Audience experience:

Entering the room introduces the individual to a stark, black monolith, with a screen rapidly going through images and sentances, and sound which is crafted from the monolith.

Moving closer, the individual notices their proximity affecting the speed of the images and sentances, allowing them to read and associate. In addition to this they are able to take notice to the nuances of the sound and associate the sounds they are hearing with the images and the words.

As they get more invovled they get a more detailed account of the emotions and feelings that are being filtered in the monolith, and are able to get a truer understanding of the relationships.

Interaction Diagram

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Hardware Outline - Arduino Micro Controller
- Ultrasonic range finder
- MacMini
- Speakers
- Wood Monolith
- one 22inch monitor
- One DVI cable
- 1 electronic bread board
- Ableton Live
- Max MSP/Jitter
- Arduino Programing Language
- Processing


Programming Languages:
- Javascript
- C

Other Requirements

- I need to potentially anchor the monolith to the floor.
- Power, i need a simple plug from a wall
- I could really really use a mac mini
- I need a 7 foot radius around the piece


Site

Selection A:
The photo gallery on the 3rd floor.

Selection B:
The new media gallery on the third floor

Selection C:
soundstage.

Project Proposal -Final Draft

Monday, October 29, 2007

For my final year thesis project I will create domestic living objects that interact and connect online. Theses objects will be physical manifestations of the virtual lives we create online. They will accumulate and give awareness to information regarding our virtual selves and bring it into the lives of our physical selves through interactive networked means. in addition, certain objects will communicate our physical lives to our virtual ones, accumulating biometric data to be categorized on our online spaces.

I will create several objects, including a physical mailbox for acknowledging the users e-mail, a yet to be visualized object that will use an LCD screen and XML feeds to read off the messages from the user's friends, (possibly through twitter). I will have a chair that will react to any information on my own personal blog, illuminating as users visit the site, as well as reacting to any comments left on the site as well. The temperature, noise levels, and other biometric data will be transmitted online to the virtual personal space, connecting the two spaces together. Thesis ideas will change and evolve as the prototypes get developed.

I have some some preliminary research and i have a core set of tools and resources. arduino's will be used in conjunction with wireless connection(bluetooth or wifi) max/msp and processing will play a part.

Thesis Revisted

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Manifesting virtual websites in the physical has proven to be an idea that i've been unable to fully develop and flesh out. It no longer brings about inspriation, or excitement. I've had an idea that has been in the background for some time now, and i feel it is the right decision now to move my thesis into this familiar idea. I plan on creating interactive, information gathering furniture and a complete networked living area. Developing ideas of information gathering and deduction, as well as sensitive living devices that react and change to our presence and biometrics. Deeper proposal will be developed shortly.

Simplicity

Friday, October 12, 2007

Reading John Maeda's book "The Laws of Simplicity" I came to understand that while simplicity has always been a topic i reference and discuss with my work, it's really become clear that it's a major challenge in my life. In fact, it's become interesting that the renaissance of simplicity is directly juxtaposed to our increasingly complex life. I'd argue that it's not our love for simplicity that gave birth to the iPod or Google, but it's nature of wanting more in life that inherently requires it to be simple. I have no time for learning curves, long load times, convoluted answers; i need it fast, simple and easy. Instead of having a few moderately complex devices and tools, we now have many more simple, easy to use, multi-use devices. So it's a bit of a fallacy to think that as our tools and devices get simpler, life simplifies, but the end equation really ends up being quite paradoxical, simple = more.

links on simplicity

• John Maeda
  • blog
  • Laws of Simplicty
  • Simplicity Patterns: TED talks
• Zen Habits: Simple Productivity blog
• In Praise of Slow

Jermiah Palecek

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Google God by Jeremiah Palecek

Jeremiah discusses Google in terms of Theism

Google is the closest to an Omniscient (all-knowing) entity in existence. She indexes over 9.5 billion Web Pages, which is more than any other search engine on the web today. Not only is Google the closest to all-knowing, but She also sorts through this vast amount of data using Her patented PageRank method, making said data accessible for us mere mortals.

Palecek seems to approach his painting of a gmail login in a similar context where i think my scluptures will reside in. Palecek is a very big influence in the direction of this project.

he writes in his blog

So, the painting above is the way Gmail looks as of Tuesday, January 16. As it changes through the years (probably many years since google rarely changes their design), the painting will stay the same. I like that.

This is one of the main themes I touch on, the permanence of this art will be in direct contrast with the infinitely changeable nature of the internet.

visit Palacek at http://jeremiahpalecek.blogspot.com/

Update 1

Monday, October 08, 2007

I have been working on a project for nuit blanche called Midnight Shadows. It has taken up most my time this week, but i have been able to investigate some new ideas of construction, including a freestanding two sided website, one side with the website, the other side with the source code. Possibly even one website with google.com vs google in china. Most of the work ahead of me will be determining which websites to go with, as well as figuring out how to construct them and what type of aesthetic do i want for them. I will be meeting with contemporary artists, Daniel Borins and Jennifer Marman, they’re work falls into the same contextual environment as my project, straddling the line of sculpture and new media.

Project Idea Draft

Friday, October 05, 2007

4th year academic thesis in New Media. I will begin my work on an electronic sculptural piece, recreating websites in 3-dimensional physical space. These websites that i choose to print will all be focused around the idea of experiencing and investigating art and culture online. some examples of sites that i may investigate are - Art on Wikipedia - A search of Art on Google - A search of Art on Google image search - A physical recreation of a YouTube page I plan to build these, hanging on a gallery wall, or freestanding as a 3d structure. Roughly 8 feet tall. I hope to bring a focus on the arbitrary and filtered nature of art and culture on the web, and how it acts solely as a proxy to the real value of art. By printing out these pages and creating full sculptures, i move them into the realm where art physically resides and freeze them in time.