Last day in the studio

We reached the end of the frame time allocated for studio research and development.

So far the project is on open source philosophy, see the entry of Ali, our hardware developer.

Marcus created not only a fantastic machine with codes and algorithm but a real platform to engage a discourse with us over man/machine technology relationship to generate beauty and dream. The struggle have been there, as usual, but the synergy between the trio remain fantastically creative.

The tryptic is an 18 months project, so the 3 parts are different but now linked together to make a full show. Let's see the result!

Thanks for all the visitors, don't hesitate to contact us or leave a message.

Photo Benschop

The imagimotion

Today was the test to run the show on two powerful computer and one beamer. The vga switch is the solution. Marcus is doing a great job compiling all the patches.

It was as the first time to link Isalien, Short Circuit and the new part; it felt good, although the new part is still a bit patchy. Meanwhile Emmanuel is finalizing our installation project, the imagimotion; it will be great for the public to play with a beautiful virtual curtain, just with the hands in the foyer.

'Imagine' installation test#1

test of Imagimotion

And software emerges into the physical world

The Hardware

The setup for the each dancer consists of two accelerometers and a button connected to an Arduino FIO with an Xbee module for wireless connection.

The Microcontrollers
Arduino FIO is chosen as microcontroller unit because of the size constraints of the setup and ready made socket for a lithium polymer battery and XBee connection.

The Accelerometers

After a little research, I decided to use ADXL 345 accelerometers because of the i2c support.
The wireless communication constraints of the setup made it impossible to use the SPI protocol for the arduino - accelerometer communication.
The breakout connection for two accelerometers was a bit tricky but after checking the datasheet the connections for assigning different accelerometer addresses.

The difference of two breakout boards is to assign the address of (0x53) the SDO needs to be connected to GND and for the address of (0x1D) the SDO needs to be connected to VCC.

The breakout board circuits can be downloaded for etching (0x1d) (0x53)

Once the connections are made coding is pretty straightforward,

1- Initiate i2c connection
2- Initialize the accelerometers
3- Request the readings from each accelerometer
4- Transmit the values read over XBee through serial connection

In depth information and the original source code on the arduino and adxl345 communication can be found on Live fast - Code Young blog

The source code can be downloaded here

One more week to go

We got finally the second set of wireless accelerometer and we connected them without problems, thanks to Ali. Now we are playing together with Isabelle on four device..

complexity, complexity here we arrive!

Emmanuel will develop the kinect project, the installation that will be in the foyer, on this wall. We are really excited about it, since this device developed by Microsoft has been hacked end of October, just a few day after its release, and is therefore a completely new toy for us, developers and artists.

Marcus is here measuring the angle of the circle by measuring the radius of the circle; an essential operation for video mapping.

One more week to go for two shows, the Dutch tour will be in May 2012!

Into the void

Argh... which patch line does what? And why are things moving when they shouldn't? It was working a moment ago, and now it seems to behave differently. Where is this erroneous data coming from? Somebody please make those dancers stop moving! In which sub-patcher did I rescale that data again? TODO: Remember to reset when turning off patcher #5. How can I store this in the studio without overwriting all theatre data?

Silly stats:
3335 max objects of which
148 are subpatchers connected with
3268 patchlines using
3 java externals desribed in
3742 lines of code

... and Isalien and Short Circuit haven't been included yet.

Got to tie up all the parts!

Here we are! Putting the dots together and look for the meaning of the whole...

Isabelle is sharing her time with an other production, she is labeled super-bionic-women!

Meanwhile we took out our old winter anti-depression light, yes we are working with video projection, hence dark studio.