==== 17 July: leon the historian ==== * Halogi - Halloy: "Little forest" first mentioned in 850ad, but existing since the times of the celts (BC) * roman foundations found around the place, including a roman oven with goddess diana burried in the ashes * one of the first registered wars was the '1 cow war that lasted 12 years' * for centuries the castle was the summer residence of the prince of Liege * Omalius * the geologist and his discovery of the 'cretatious' stratum ( the period between the last large dinosaurs and the beginning of flowering plants) * the local broadminded scientist being religious, but also a supporter of the beginning theories of evolution * as a polititian reformed the school system and included girls education up to 12 years * as a doctor, he founded preventive medicine in the region (vaccination against pox) * as a scholar set up a massive library in the castle * died as an old savant (92 yrs old) in brussels studying local geological strata (can his age be attributed to drinking excellent local beer?) * after he died and his daughter married, her children fought over the division of the property and over 2 centuries brought the castle to a near ruin. some of these descendents were named 'socialist barons' for their policies in the 1920ies when the regions was politically progressive left. * the appearance of the train-line caused a massive move of the local people from Halloy to Braibant * in the 2nd WW, Margareta from Ieper (born of a secret love between a Flemish woman and a Brittish officer during the 1st WW), working for the Belgian secret service (resistance) was parachuted and dropped over a grass field close to the chateau to seek a noble man who turned out to be prince Charles of Belgium, with whom she spent several weeks having romantic walks in the forest * local gastronomy: * carbonades flamandes (???) * patate (from hungary!!?) Leon's presentation was interesting to discover a certain (true/false) history that has changed the group's perception of the site ==== 17-20 July: Movies that we watched in the off hours: ==== * Cypher * Resurrection of the little match girl * (Flip's martial arts parody) * St John's Wort ==== 17 july: the drifts (psychogeographic walks) ==== * looking for absurd stuff * contrast nature/human built structures (based on control) * light and darkness * schrijvertjes (surfing community of bugs on water) - interesting patterns of movement * bridge over the water * spiky plant * ferns growing out of a wall * tar smeared over plants to stop them growing through the road * iron wire through the branches * mushrooms as a dwarf village * contrast between dead and alive, idillic landscape with cows + barbed wire * a shadow play of branches on a canoe * experiences of near death (a dying fish in the pond) * human built objects embedded in nature * riven-line environment * electrical lines * moist wall inside tunnels * plants growing from a cracked wall * a sole branch as a separate entity floating in space * strange plant movements * "scanning" the environment in a limited way, looking at them as close-up surfaces, without figurative reference points * mediaeval feel of neglected garden furniture * overgrown paths * trees joined up with iron cables, with ivy drying up in contact with them * pointless bridges over dried up creek * strange formations of stones around the place * spider-webs with properties of a glass surface * waiting in vain for the dwarves around mushrooms * natural corridors made out of trees * organic shapes with rigid geometric structures (leaves) * branches growing on/in the water * long paths, corridors and tunnels through the forest * geometric patterns in fallen branches, forming beams with an abstract and complex structure * strange sized holes in the ground * vampire nails in beam structure of the barbecue place * flies everywhere (on cows, horses, people, plants and dead things (mouse, mushrooms) * waiting for the inhabitants living in human scale dwarf houses * can beer cans be contemporary mobile homes for dwarves? * dallas everywhere! * undulating lines through a wheat field, with mushrooms as landing platforms for dwarves or aliens * exercises in being a tripod * death everywhere (dead field mouse with green flies grazing on it) * miniature gothic church brown by trees * cows behind fences * ancient and massive chestnut trees * discovery of the dwarves wearing stars * forest ends in fences * private property warnings * a seductive dance of leaf-shadows and a neighbouring tree-trunk * a tree that dreams of being a fence * DD (designer dwarf) mushroom houses * fences * bridge leading to a fence * abstract signs in a forgotten language * plants growing through cracks of human built environments * 'prince charles frog' ==== 17 July: participant's presentations ==== Pablo, Eric, Sara, Tom, Flip and Marta have talked about their expectations and wishes for the workshop, have shown previous work and described their working processes ==== 18 july: things to take into consideration in the design: ==== * borders and fences * frontiers and limits * human control of nature (and vice versa) * flies, insects, mushrooms and death * green is the colour of death? * green flies and surfing mosquitoes * are things dead or alive depends on the scale * structure of spider webs resembling nests/miniature houses * mushrooms can be seen as drawf dwellings or holes for insects * geometric patterns as abstractions of the environment: * grassy fields * a branch hanging in the air * structures of trees, branches and leaves: * casting shadows on the world around them * encapsulating a path to form an infinite, intricate tunnel * a straight, noisy, infinite train-line * insects (ticks, flies, water-walkers) * different viewpoints on the world: snails, insect swarms, growing plant * entanglement of: * natural and artificial * grown and built * human and non-human structures * straight and curved lines (based on their perception and intention) ==== 18 july: workshop leader presentations ==== Julian: http://www.selectparks.net/ ; http://www.escapefromwoomera.org/ ; http://fijuu.com/ Maja, Nik, Lina: http://fo.am ; http://fo.am/tgarden/ ; http://fo.am/txoom ; http://fo.am/groworld ; http://fo.am/p~lot ; http://fo.am/illumine ==== 19-20 july: blender ==== see: http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Tutorials.243.0.html for in depth tutorials ==== 21 july: audacity, gimp, nebula ==== see: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ see: http://mmmaybe.gimp.org/tutorials/ for in depth tutorials see: [[Nebula Notes]] for quick overview of the relevant part of nebula for the MR media worlds workshop ==== 22 july concept development ===== * what is the emotional temperature of the world? * what is the scale of the world? - can you see its limits? * no photorealistic modelling * using movement, behaviour of objects and light from the physical world to animate transparent shapes and surfaces * morphing between realistic/non realistic * garden as a minefield of truths * coming with an expectation, gathering information bits based on that expectation * a gallery of images that one can choose from * limiting the experience of the physical space * finding out what is interesting to experience in the virtual world * a world with constantly changing positions (as leon showed us, history is a relative phenomenon * travelling through the space as travelling through the archives of historical information. the path becomes the re-interpretation of different elements that are constantly rearranging themselves * an alive archive in which everyone passing through the chateau (both physical and virtual should place a new media element in the world, generating a large amount of paths through the 'truths' * movement as a journey through different strata (metaphor for history); the movement needs the space to be manipulated (requires a large amount of energy) * an archive (database) of memories in different media come to life in animated bitmaps * every stratum is one person's experience, a three dimensional cube surrounded by other strata (needs an immersive projection system with at least 2 faces * a dense space, filled with particles, moving from empty to full * simplicity: a claustrofobic world made up from a swarm of particles * when you stand still, the world shrinks and sticks to your skin (like a swarm of fireflies) * when you move and increase the energy in the system, the world becomes sparser, lighter and more comfortable * discovering things, being drawn to details, in an otherwise not too exciting surrounding. elements of wonder inside normalised reality * the discovered objects are passages, new realities that you can discover through interaction * light inside a tunnel can suck you into another space * feeling of surprise and enchantment, seduced by the richness of the world underneath, behind... * creating a fantastic world within the everyday reality, in a constant morph between reality and fiction * a tunnel: environment in which i'm limited, i can only see inaccessible realities that are not immediately evident, a tunnel is constructed from the density of the forest that i can't go through * feeling the navigation of insects under the floor - recognising the action only through its effects on the environment * inviting, inaccessible realities * the tunnel is created by different creatures passing through it. if the movement stops, the tunnel closes. the forest is continuously trying to take back its posession of the tunnel * tunnel: an eco-system of invisible beings * emotion: frustration, imagination * finding your own scale in different dimensions, a cozy situation in an otherwise threatening environment * coherence of infinite tunnels through a diversity of media * no physical boundaries (walls) * limits are changing atmosphere: border, connection * walls as particle systems, movables, changing direction, becoming ceilings, floors, walls again * changes remain until the next intervention * the world is a representation of the site and history of the chateau seen through personal experiences of the group; translated into a virtual topology; reorganised reality, a dynamic trace ==== 21 july: final consensus (full blown concept) ==== * a dense, infinite tunnel built out of tiny elements (particles). every particle of the tunnel is alive * when the player scales the particles s/he can discover: * bits of historical sediment * flying insects * visual and sonic seeds * fully grown flora * when the train passes in the physical world (should be detected by its sound), the world is temporarily washed away: * the player looses control over the interaction with the world, the colours and objects disappear * the space vibrates and its physical properties temporarily change * the player can be teleported to another region of the tunnel * increasing the energy in the system allows the player tokeep the environment from taking posession of the tunnel, as well as to move through different spaces and emotional temperatures * the world responds differently depending on the amount of time spent in it. It moves from being unfriendly to friendly, or from interested to ignoring. the world is a forgetful place, so that after some time, it will treat a familiar player as a novice again ==== 21 july: sensor systems and interaction with accelerometers ==== introduction to accelerometers, cerfs, [[OSC]] and OZ (foam's sensor data transmission and analysis system (in max)) real and pseudo sensors possible to use in the design: * raw data (x,y or xyz) * smoothed data/bias * average over time * leaky accumulator * peak detection * zero crossing * delta/threshold * energy levels (x,y,z) * correlation ==== 21 july: reality check: possible interactive output in fijuuu: ==== * mixing between forms * manipulating textures * changing the size of a form * non-linear scaling * rotating forms * growing forms * appearing and disappearing * minimalising light position and light colour * moving forms * concluded with an introduction to tlc scripting in nebula ==== 21-24 july: final compromise (minimal visualisation of the world) ==== * in fijuuu: a cave (one thick part of the tunnel) with: * 1 interactive object in it (swarm of fireflies) * 3 animated objects (historic sediment, visual seed, branch) * rich texture visualising the idea of the tunnel being constructed out of media particles * interaction consists of: (1) looking around the cave by rotating around 2 different axis of the accelerometer and (2) shattering the swarm of fireflies by using the 'leaky accumulator' (accumulating data across 3 axis with a small 'leakage') * in blender: a richer visualisation of the tunnel, with lots more textured objects, moving lights and camera + an intro sequence of a dynamic map of the region of halloy * in max: a passing train detector, to be treated as a sensor in fijuuu * in after effects: compositing of the blender tunnel with a swarm of butterflies * in the physical world: a semi-transparent screen placed in front of a tunnel, creating an illusion of depth, projection on different surfaces to create an additional texture (walls, stairs, grass, trees, corners, people...) ==== 22 july ==== * production of assets in blender and gimp and runtime scripts in nebula ==== 23 july ==== * programming the interaction * alternative visualisation in blender, max and after effects * feasibility check and evaluation of the process ==== 24 july ==== * finishing touches * physical displays * public experiment * blow-ball tournament ==== 25 july ==== * closing brunch and departures --- some [[workshop notes]] from an [[xmedk workshop]]