[flv:https://mediamill.cla.umn.edu/mediamill/download.php?file=2896.flv http://christopherbaker.net/media/projects/2006/UrbanEcho/images/6October06/projectionOnWoman.jpg 640 480]
The audio and video were recorded live at the event on 6 October, 2006.
We have started promoting Urban Echo … here’s our poster. Here’s the project page.
Urban Echo (6 Sept, 2006) (Quicktime Video: 0.6 mb)
Here’s a bit of video from the first showing of Urban Echo (the working title). Urban Echo is a large-scale publicly accessible video project that is projected onto large urban façades. For this showing, I was able to present it on the side of the beautiful Barker Center for Dance. Passersby (and those located elsewhere) are able to send text messages that appear on the screen in chronological order. Presently, I am not asking the public to respond to any particular question, but rather allowing them to have their say uncensored. One can imagine the unsavory bits that appeared later in the night as college students in cars drove by. But, despite its unresolved nature (in my mind at least) it received a very positive response. I plan to show it again several times during the next few weeks. Here’s a brief video from the opening and mini-promo-card. By the way — this piece is part of a series of artistic experiments leading up to our 2006 Artsmosis piece. Keep an eye out for that …
[Part 1] For the last several days, I have struggled to get SMSLib for Java up and running. I finally realized that my copy of RxTx was out of date, which explained my inability to establish a bluetooth serial connection with my phone. I grabbed the new universal RxTx library and now it is working. Unfortunately, the SMSServer example that comes with SMSLib did not play nicely with MySql out of the box. The documentation was a bit outdated and I had to do some serious database interface hacking/redsign to get it running.
But, I finally got the whole system running. My phone is communicating with SMSLib, which communocates with a MySql database, which is easily accessible in Processing (or Max/MSP/Jitter or any other software for that matter). The system allows addresable message routing and is sophisticated enough to flash message instructions back to participants in need of help. Now that all the hardware and basic framework is coded and running smoothly, I have to finish coding the “pretty” side of things, which has been in the works for quite some time. Hopefully this will all be working nicely for the Freshworks Show coming up in a couple weeks.
As a side note, we are planning to use this technology, along with others as the primary interface for our ArtsMosis 2006 project.
Here are a few ideas that Laura and I talked about last night. Each of the cases is made out of glass or some other clear material and is partially full of earth. Text and other graphics would activate the upper portion of the glass cases — perhaps at times emerging from the earth.
Here are some initial 3D renderings for our Urban Echo. They are rough and will be cleaned as needed later. Part of the purpose of this exercise was to learn Google Sketchup and Google Earth. Both are now freely available for Mac and Windows. These tools are extremely useful tools for planning and rendering projects. Sketchup is also useful for designing small parts and pieces for machines such as our new laser cutter.
The geometry of the Barker Dance center proved difficult to model with no prior experience. I was able to apply the basic textures by fitting some images I captured several days ago. Unfortunately, I did not have images of the entire dance center and art buildings.
We were informed that our grant proposal for ArtsMosis 2006 was accepted and funded. Now we just need to pull a team together to make it happen.
I am currently researching the benefits/problems with our original projection idea — particular the resusability of the structures and the long term disadvantages of projectors.
You are currently browsing the archives for the ArtsMosis 2006 category.
