A Few Prototypes

This week I focused on getting information about the monastery at Palpung and trying to develop the quicktime vr idea. I spent many hours at the Latse Library and spoke with several key members of the library staff who helped me to develop my project idea. At the library, I was able to get a few images of the monastery but only exterior views. However, after researching a few books on Tibetan architecture I was interested in reading about the surrounding buildings including the Dege Sutra-Printing Academy. The academy is a fully functional print shop! Anyway, based on this research I have a different concept for the direction of my project which is to have a game that will require participants to venture to the surrounding regions of the monastery in order to solve the mystery of what has happened to the art. More on that later.
QUICKTIME VR
It took me a little bit longer than I anticipated to understand what goes into creating a quicktime vr movie. I tried to prototype a friend's room to understand how the qtvr functions.
The steps to make the vr are really quite simple:
1. take photos (this involves taking pics with a tripod)
2. stitch photos
3. import into cubic converter
4. export

Notes:
step number 1: really should be done with a wide angle lens- otherwise you will need to take something around 80 photos for the panorama as I did and still did not get an entire picture.

step number 2: i did the stitching in adobe photoshop cs3. There is an auto align and auto blend function there, however they are quirky and do not always work.

I am still trying to get my stitching to work correctly. I have done two major efforts:


The second set is from the Rubin Museum of Art's 2nd Floor permanent collection exhibition What is Himalayan Art? I spent all day Saturday photographing the images with a tripod and 360 head. Unfortunately I did not have a fisheye lens so things are still coming out funky. Because of this, I just did a drawing identifying where the images should go in relationship to the final placement on the cube.

After the realization that I am basically constructing a cube, I went back to my first prototype and started to divide it into sections as in walls. This is as far as I got so far:

It's not perfect, however I learned a few valuable lessons here, mainly that auto align doesn't work with multilayered panoramas so I had to hand stitch again. But, I think that I made some good progress at least in terms of understanding what needs to be done. The real question here though is whether I should continue this effort. I don't have any images of the monastery. I only have the images of the art. I would need to create everything or somehow get the people at the monastery to give me some help which doesnt look like a good prospect. not giving up- just questioning. Im glad to have this understanding of qtvr.

VIDEO GAME
So this idea was a bit of a new idea for me. I am definitely still working out the kinks. But the basic concept is to create a game that asks the viewer to look at art by examining the absence of the art.

Look and Feel Prototype: some potential characters. (The yak would not be standing like this but I wanted him to pose for the group photo).
Role Prototype





So this is clearly storyboard A. I need to develop this idea more but I was getting so excited by the prospect of the game that I got overwhelmed. Anyway, I had this other thought that the game could be done in Flash and then integrated into a website that would raise awareness about provenance issues and war- related art. It could be a forum of sorts, or a community. The goal would not be to restitute the art, there are tons of other websites and organizations that are devoted to that cause, but maybe to allow people to understand the importance of these kinds of acts of political violence.

Detail of the Map of our new Area

Alternate Interaction- T-shirts

The T-shirt project was successful in that it created triangulation and people were very much into the concept for the project. That said, I feel that it is a bit of a no- brainer. You sit there with a smile and post a sign that says "FREE SHIRTS" at an already political locale, you surely will get a response. I think that the project needs to be pushed further. I am not sure if it a. can be, b. should be and c. needs to be.

More Prototypes- More Testing- More Fun

Today was an overall success.
We first tried the webcam again, and decided that it wasn't working, so we moved over to the line and placed some new prototypes on the ground. People were reluctant and only used their feet. With the introduction of some of the more graphic letters cut out of red foam core, people seemed to want to approach the letters, but still held back and at most touched them with their feet.

When we moved over to the other side of the park, we tried 4 locations:

1. On the side of the fountain near benches and some protesters.
2. Near a sculpture.
3. In the empty fountain.
4. On the walkway exiting the park. (in this location we actually put the letters up on a clothesline).

Locations 1 and 3 were very successful, particularly amongst younger children. The sculpture (number 2) was too ambiguous of an area. It was not a walkway, it was not a rest spot.
The clothesline (number 4) also was an ambiguous area, and I think that the set up did not lend itself to interaction.

Follow up:

The letters: we cute out the whole alphabet in mostly black letters and tried some alternate RED prototypes. I think that since a large constituency is children, we should play to that and choose bright colors to attract them even more. They need more than one letter to spell out messages. This, in retrospect, should have been an obvious thing, but well it wasn't. For the next iteration I think that we should try more letters, more colors, some numbers and glyphs. Additionally, because people moved the letters a lot with their feet, I think that creating a magnet board as a base- to localize the interaction would help.

Prototype testing

On Wednesday we went to the park (Zach, Brendan and I) and brought along some new and improved versions of prototypes for letters to use with the webcam. We went at 7:30pm and stayed for a few hours. We knew that this was going to be difficult because we had to locate the webcam which took a good half hour or so to do. That involved dancing around the park while one of us looked on the shake shack website and directed us. I will say that prior to the hunt, I was approached by several shake shack patrons asking me if I was selling something. Anyway, we finally located the camera, and to my disappointment the letters could not be seen if they were placed on the ground. The only way that the letters were visible were if they were held up high above our heads. Additionally, the glow in dark prototypes: spray paint, glowsticks, wire with glowsticks were all unsuccessful despite our enlarging of the letters themselves.(I had tripled the size of the prototypes and made them with stark foam core). The only text that worked in terms of being visible was the black letters that were cut out of foam core. They were approximately 2 feet tall. Another major obstacle that we faced was the weather. It was intensely windy and the letters and board of foam core that I brought along as a test continuously blew away- almost to the point of destroying the prototypes. I think that if we continue with this project that we have a few things to consider:

1. creating a wall- if we create a wall to place the letters onto- it will need to be MASSIVE and heavy so that it does not blow away.

2. materials- everything that we create from now on needs to be much sturdier- no paper materials. The park is essentially a wind trap because it slopes down just enough to capture the wind -pretty much within the vicinity of the shake shack. I would investigate the magnet idea as a possibility and need to figure out wall materials.

Other thoughts: I am not sure that we should continue with this concept. I think that the wall might cause some trouble in terms of the park police, the lines and crowds around the park are getting smaller because of the cold weather and in general people were a lot less approachable because of the frigid weather conditions. I am feeling discouraged with the project. Need to continue brainstorming.

Prototypes- Wall

Lite Brites!
Magnetic Paint
LED lights
Feelings of nostalgia
Playing with light
Playing in the dark
Playing with eachother

Prototypes- Wall

The idea is to come up with "ice breakers"

Prototypes- Web cam Letters

This is a "Look and Feel" Prototype:

I want to get a good sense that the letters will be seen by a variety of people so I experimented with size, color and texture.

Public Space Prototype: Musical Mash Up

The goal here again is to combine two worlds- like a mashup. To allow people to mix (either visually or musically) their item of choice... sorta like a two player game that results in either a story, a sound, an object. (abstract i know)

PERSON TO PERSON

Public Space Prototype: Take Back The Park

Here the idea would be to let people in on the idea that they are being watched and allow them to interact with the imagery. I imagine that this could be done with a projection of the web feed onto the floor and then adding to it.

PERSON TO PERSON
PERSON TO GROUP

Public Space Prototype: The Space Between

I came up with this idea after thinking about what Zach had said about people standing, walking away and then another group coming over and filling in the space. Also- I keep thinking about the great divide between the two "social" groups in the park. The idea is for people to stand still. We would then capture their image and it would be silhoutted in a color. Someone else could then come and do the same thing but it would add to the form. The concept is that by adding to the form, as a group people would be creating something and filling the space between... metaphorically and physically. No idea how to do it. Research needed.

PERSON TO PERSON
PERSON TO GROUP

Public Space Prototype: The Wall

Concept: Working on the divide- the digital divide and/or physical division of social groups- those that can afford to go to the Shake Shack and those that don't really understand the phenomenon. Kind of the opposite of the idea of the Berlin Wall- instead of separating two groups we could create a wall that would draw both of the groups towards eachother based on pure inquisitiveness. The wall itself could take many forms- maybe there could be messages that are passed through it. Maybe it could be made out boxes.... Maybe the wall can have a projection on it that allows people to make stories on it with flash or something. (something more drag and drop) i have no real concrete idea. This prototype shows the kind of interaction that I hope will happen when people are faced with a wall that will require some sort of activity.

PERSON TO PERSON
PERSON TO GROUP