Until we meet again!

The Summerschool has come to an end. It's been two week of intense flow experience, taking in every moment as it comes. I hope everyone had a good time and will look back with pleasure to these days.

Let's keep in touch and meet up sometime in our professional and personal lives. On Facebook a group has been made, called Istanbul Summer School 2008, where you can find all sorts of pictures from these last two weeks.

Check it out here:
http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=23088677190

See you in the dream,
Jan

Paper Prototype

A further elaboration on the concept...

After feedback from our teachers we were instructed to make our work more interactive. After brainstorming a lot of ideas were put out and a stronger concept has solidified.

A user enters a gate with a viewscreen where he or she can enter some demographic information (but not too personal) about themselves. When this information is added the gate opens to let the user enter a ‘personal experience room’ (one of five that surround the main exhibition room). The users’ information is the key to his/her experience that adds to the global visualisation of a sort of multibrain that’s interconnected with all the different other users.

In the personal room the user is seated in a chair where he/she is put into a suggestive state by the use of white noise and darkness. At a certain point the chair, which is part of a galvanic skin response system that measures the users’ stress levels, will tell the system that the user is in the right ‘mood’. The user will then get bombarded with stimuli in the form of audio and videoclips for about 20 seconds, which the system records and will present back to him/her later. The stimuli are generated and compiled from a realtime, current and actual information database that consists of information taken from websources (newssites, rss feeds, popular blog/podcasts, etc.), but related to the demographic information the user has put into the system. This means that if you’re from Austria the information comes from Austrian newssites and general Austrian websources that your demographic would be interested in.

After the video there’s a moment of silence, after which a graphical representation of the users’ stress levels are projected from the middle of the screen. This then symmetrically flows out of the screen onto the wall on both sides of the videoscreen and runs along the walls of the circular room to the opposite side of the video screen. This will run about as long as the videoclip lasted. While this stress graphic is running, it slowly abstracts and morphes into a more shapeful visualisation. This is accompanied by the echoing sound of the video without any visuals, just as an enhancement. This visualisation flows into a one way mirror on the opposite side of the video screen and into the 3D spatial model at which point the model will change into the shape of the corresponding colour (the coloured room corresponds to the colour of the shape) The user then has the possiblity to manipulate the visualisation.

The one way mirror opens up to the central exhibition room where a conglomerate of all the visualisations of the users are put together as a combination of abstracted shapes, a sort of multibrain. The user can look out, but the people in the exhibition room cannot look in. This mirror is a multitouch screen and he/she can manipulate their own forms and shapes in the central exhibition, that came out his stress levels by pulling and squeezing the shape. Shapes that the user deems unimportant can be made smaller. The user can hear and see the parts of the visualisation that relate to the experience he had while watching the video when he touches a part of the shape, this is shown as a beamed in a little square on the window. The user can then pull the shapes and make some of his reactions smaller or greater to suit his or her emotional values, so the representation isn’t just a reaction of his psychological reflexes. However the user isn’t able to remove items completely, just to transform the shape, because an experience cannot be undone only changed in the way the user (wishes to) remembers it.

The manipulations of the user affect the spatial model in realtime. So if the user makes a certain shape smaller, the corresponding part of his/her shape in the spatial model will also become smaller. People visiting the exhibition room will see when the users manipulate their shapes because the places of the shapes that are touched by the users in the personal rooms will start to glow for as long as the interaction takes place.

Users can interact with each other and connect their lines to each other. The way this is done is by jointly moving parts of their shapes to one and other. But user A can only see what part of his/her shape corresponds with what frame in their own movie-sequence. User A can’t see what part of user B’s shape corresponds to what clip in user B’s sequence. Unless user A touches the part of user B’s shape to ask user B to show what that piece of shape means (what image in the sequence corresponds to that part of user B’s shape). User B can then acknowledge user A by touching that part of user B’s shape to give user A a glimpse of that part of user B’s sequence.

If both users are happy with the clips shown they can connect to each other by both grabbing that part of their own shape they want to connect and bringing them together. When they meet, both users will be able to see each other’s specific clips that correspond to those parts of their shapes in full. When their grabbing gestures meet each other fully they link up. Of course either one can always disconnect the link by grabbing it and pulling their own part of the shape out of the joined shape-parts.

When two users link parts of their shape to each other new information is created and therefore new meaning. Child shapes, smaller shaped lines, spread out from the linkpoint. These are the visualisation of the new information and meaning that has been created. The visitors in the main exhibition room won’t be able to see what information is contained within a main individual shape but can see the new information that is created by the linkage of shapes in the child lines and shapes that come out of them.

The connections stay only for as long as both users remain in their respective personal rooms. The shapes of the different active users revolve slightly for as long as they remain active. A shape will become inactive when a user leaves his/her room, become less luminant and stop revolving. When a shape stops revolving the connections that it has to another user’s shape will stretch out and eventually break, releasing the child shapes into a free state where they will live on for a time but eventually dissipate.

When a different user uses one of the personal experience rooms after someone else has just finished, the shape will straighten out, losing all connections, freeing it’s children, and form into a new shape according to the new users psychological reactions and further rational/emotional manipulations.

Questions:

- What is the relation to the global digital village?

- Why should the user be able to change shapes of their visualisations? We could present the user with a set of pictures too, and make them put appropriate values to those pictures? The stimuli bombardment doesn’t seem too nescesarry in this way. (The user can't manipulate his stuff only blow it up to take a better look and stuff / can't put anymore thought into this because of time constraints)

- How can the audience in the exhibition room interact with the main exhibition to see the child shape information visualisations? (see it in the personal experience rooms so they know what's going on)

- How are the child visualisations of new information put together? One pasted over the other? Morphed according to a chaotic pattern? (fade in/out)

An elaboration on the concept

After feedback from our teachers we were instructed to make our work more interactive. After brainstorming a lot of ideas were put out and a stronger concept has solidified.

A user enters a gate with a viewscreen where he or she can enter some demographic information (but not too personal) about themselves. When this information is added the gate opens to let the user enter a ‘personal experience room’ (one of five that is surrounded by the main exhibition room). Your information is the key to your experience that adds to the global visualisation of a multibrain that’s interconnected with all the different other users.

In the personal room you’re seated in a chair where you’re put into a suggestive state by the use of white noise and darkness. At a certain point the chair, which is part of a galvanic skin response system that measures your stress levels, will tell the system that you (or the user or the subject) are in the right ‘mood’. You will then get bombarded with stimuli in the form of audio and videoclips for about 20 seconds, which the system records and will present back to you later. The stimuli are generated and compiled from a realtime, current and actual information database that consists of information taken from websources (newssites, rss feeds, popular blog/podcasts), but related to the demographic information you’ve put into the system. This means that if you’re from Austria the information comes from Austrian newssites and general Austrian websources that your demographic would be interested in.

After the video, there is a moment of silence after which a graphical representation of your stress levels is projected from the middle of the screen and this symmetrically flows out of on the wall next to the videoscreen and runs along the wall of the circular room to the opposite side of the video screen. This will run about as long as the videoclip lasted. While this stress graphic is running it slowly abstracts and morphes into a more shapeful visualisation. This is accompanied by the echoing sound of the video but not the visual part, just as an enhancement. This visualisation flows into a one way mirror on the opposite side of the video screen where it becomes a 3D static spatial model. The user then has the possiblity to manipulate the visualisation.

The one way mirror opens up to the central exhibition room where a conglomerate of all the visualisations of the users are put together as a multibrain or a universe of experiences. The user can look out but the people in the exhibition room cannot look in. This mirror is a multitouch screen and he/she can manipulate the forms and shapes that came out his stress levels by pulling and squeezing the shape. Shapes that the user deems unimportant can be made smaller. The user can hear and see the parts of the visualisation that relate to the experience he had while watching the video. The user can pull the shapes and make some of his reactions smaller or greater to suit his or her emotional values, so the representation isn’t just a reaction of his physological reactions. The user isn’t able to remove items completely, just to transform the shape, because the an experience cannot be undone only changed in the way the user remembers it.

The manipulations of the user affect the multibrain in realtime. So if the user makes a certain shape smaller, the corresponding part of his/her shape in the multibrain will also become smaller. People visiting the exhibition room will see when the users manipulate their shapes because the places the shapes that are touched by the users in the personal rooms will start to glow for as long as the touch takes place.

So far so good... :)

Impressions after a long day of sightseeing

Surrounded by ancient walls, Topkapi palace was the first destination of what was supposed to be a pretty full and inspiring day of sightseeing. Seperated from the group Rajeev and I walked the grounds leisurely, taking pictures along the way and filling up on Topkapi’s cultural heritage. There was life there and I could imagine the sufi’s and priests of old walking the grounds and formulating their philosophies. I wasn’t bothered by the fact that the palace had become merely a tourist attraction, big business, more so I saw it as way to transpond it’s cultural heritage to the visiting audience. The tourism fell away between the backdrop of the accumulated centuries and I was able to see past the current façade.

Calligraphy was abundant and meaningful in the presented setting. But it seemed it wasn’t relevant anymore to the project we were doing since we were so far along. Remembering the first excursion to the museum, where examples of Ottoman calligraphy were shown to us, suddenly felt very hollow. That first museum had failed to impress me, except for seeing Ottoman Callighrapy, it was completely lacking in context, and as a kickoff to the project the Topkapi palace would have been a much better choice. A pity, but nonetheless I was very impressed by the palace and it’s grounds.

The Blue Mosque followed in our itinerary. Once again one of the most legendary places in Istanbul was visited by our group. Shying away from a group mentality and deciding to relate to anything that came my way on a more personal level I entered the Mosque with a clear mind. I was already prejudiced in a way by the stories of grandeur and deep meaning that the mosque should convey and was looking forward to be overwhelmed. But entering the mosque I didn’t feel anything particulary meaningful. Going on my first impressions I wasn’t phazed by the pomposity of the place and I realized after a while that I found the experience entirely bland. Relating to my own cultural background and the churches and cathedrals I’ve visited (about which I have mixed feelings) I expected to be humbled or awed in a way. But my impressions were purely that the mosque was a construction of grandeur and a display of wealth. The art looked to be almost mass produced and the multitude of cables and hanging candles obstructed the view of the many domed ceilings and artistical imagery. The strong symmetry and esthetic subtracted from any meaning it should convey instead of adding to it. This time I was affected somewhat by the heavy touristic presence but I didn’t want to leave the mosque with the impressions dealt to me at that time so I sat down to stare up at the ceiling and try to really see the architecture and let it work in on me for a while. Glimpses of meaning followed but nothing lasting.

The other mosques were smaller, compacter, somehow more intimate. After a wild goose chase through the city, crossing bazaars and scouting for the group we found the Bayazit mosque. I was a little hyped up, stressed out because of weird communication and winding a way through a city on a hunters instinct. Reaching the mosque I felt like going through the proper ceremony to undo myself of that bagage and centering myself in an ideal context. I washed my face, hands and feet ceremoniously before entering the Bayezit mosque and I felt clearer. Sitting in the mosque, watching some people pray and go about there way I realized that there was a loose and unforced flow to it al. The mosque was much a part of their lives without the oppression I formerly associated with organized religion. As a way to bring different social layers from a community together and act as a catalyst in daily life I could see it working.

The Süleymaniye Mosque had a beautiful graveyard. The beauty was awe inspiring. Having spent a good time at several different graveyards during a previous project I had a lot of reference but I wasn’t prepared for the simplicity and esthetic of that place. In the context of our project I couldn’t relate anything to what we were doing.. there was just a sense needing to have a certain serenity as an opposing force to the chaotic sensory bombardment we were going to unleash on our user, but that became more clear throughout the day and didn’t really come out of anything in particular.

We waited for the group at the graveyard for a long time before calling Corné and getting directions to the New Mosque. On a renewed instinct we winded through a small ghetto where shops were closed, trash was spread all over the place and children played on empty streets. There was a slightly eerie feeling in our accumulated group but the Istanbul city centre isn’t that big or confusing so I was able to guide them to the sea and the New Mosque with it’s hordes of birds. The clouds of birds gave a strong sense of life, the surrounding bazaar amplified that, but perhaps another would see that the other way around. The group had finished their quick sightseeing tour of the place and we met them in front. Hastily I went on inside. Joined by Lode we witnessed people rushing into the mosque as prayer started. People from all different social classed proceded to stand in line next to each other and began their proces of bodily prayer, guided by chanting that had sadness and promise of the beauty of life in it. This was a somewhat humbling experience. I realized the intimate and personal nature of their actions as opposed to my own cultural heritage and I had some insight in the behaviour of some of my muslim friends back home.

These were just my impressions and they most likely won't count for the entire group. In the end there’s a lot of things I can say and philosophize about, but I’ll leave that for the sufi’s and focus the current project.

impresssions & inspiration

Concept Presentation

Welcome, we are Group B.

What to want to achieve with our concept, after taking in all the lectures, is linking virtual reality and the real reality with the cultural background of our accelerating fast food society. So we want to make some kind of fast food calligraphy that has more meaning than a meal at mcdonalds. But its also something that the user has to personally experience on an almost spiritual level, but set in a western cultural context as a meaningful environment. We also want to connect the different users together and combine the different expierences in single spatial calligraphy sculpture.

We do that by first lullling the user into a suggestive state by sensory deprivation in a ‘personal experience room’ around the central exhibition. We can feel when they’re in the right mood because our system measures galvanic skin respons through the chair they’re sitting in. When the time is right the system bombards them with stimuli in the form of cut up and randomized news headlines, rss feeds, pictures, audio and video clips. This is all collected in real time from sources all over the world. Reminiscent of the global digital village.

The bodies’response is collected by the system and using some kind of algorithm is converted into a type of modern/abstract calligraphy that is then projected on the walls in our personal room, so that the user can see this mind/body calligraphy. To take this all a step further the personal calligraphic information is fed through the system again and combined with the other users’ personal mind/body calligraphies. This is converted into another form of calligraphy that is holographically projected as a sculpture in the middle of the exhibition room.