PP3 – Aut ’17

 

Pen & Paper + (LEVEL 3 Pressure Project)

Context:

According to wikipedia, examples of Pen & Paper Games include ” Tic-tac-toeSprouts, and Dots and Boxes. Other games include: HangmanConnect 5M.A.S.H.BoggleBattleshipsPaper Soccer, and MLine.”

Assignment:

Choose a known (at least to you) pen & paper game*.

Combine it with another game. The second game can be another pen and pencil game, a card game, a dice game, or a interactive projection.

You have no more than 5 hours to complete this project. (Not including research.)

*Please feel free to keep things simple. Yet, here are some more adventurous examples:

  1. http://zenseeker.net/BoardGames/PaperPenGames.htm ,
  2. http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/GameSystems4.shtml,

Basic Limitations:

  1.  new game can have no more than 5 rules
  2.  a novice player must be able to play without your verbal or gestural intervention. (provide an instruction sheet with the rules.)

Basic Level 3 Achievements :

  1. Fun to play
  2. Game is delightfully repayable

Legendary Achievements:

  1. includes a plot driven narrative
  2. includes an interactive projection

 

 


Audio Urban Legend

Our second Pressure Project challenged us to tell a narrative using audio as the star of the show. This narrative could be in any form, and at the recommendation of telling an urban legend, I was inspired to make a sound score of a classic urban legend that I used to hear at ~literally~ every bonfire of my childhood.

The urban legend takes many forms, but it generally involves a couple driving out to a make-out point only to be interrupted by a serial killer with a hook hand. With this narrative in mind, I started to rummage through FreeSounds.org for the meat of my story, and once I had found them I layered the audio using GarageBand. By using a grab-bag of sounds from different user sources on the website, I felt as though I was embracing the piecemeal nature of urban legends to shift over time and space — how the same urban legend can have slightly different details depending on who tells it.

Working with the one-minute time constraint was the mos

t difficult part of this project, particularly because this specific urban legend sources it’s fear from the loneliness and uncanny duration of the girl’s wait in the car after her boo has excused himself for a pee break. The story thrives off of the building of tension, and this is hard to do in such a short amount of time. In an attempt to remedy this constraint, I experimented with volume and panning of the tracks as well as cross-fading to elude to the idea of time passing. With more than five hours, I think I could have done a better job of this.

Similarly, I think that I could have clarified the latter half of the score better as it left many people confused and left the story unresolved for some. I was referencing this version of the urban legend (told at the 47 second mark):

…but some versions of the story that others in the class had heard either didn’t end this way or ended slightly differently. The pros and cons of the fluidity of these urban legends…

Feel free to check out the audio narrative by clicking here and please comment with any suggestions you might have for me to improve upon this project!

 


Pressure Project #2: Alligators in the Sewers!

This audio exploration is designed to evoke sensation through sound in a whimsical way. Working from the myth of the alligators who live in the New York City subway system, I sketched out a one-minute narrative encounter that would be recognizable (especially to a city-dweller), a little creepy, and just a bit funny.

  1. A regular day on a busy New York City street
  2. The clatter of a manhole cover being opened
  3. Climbing down into the dark sewer
  4. Walking slowly through the dark through running water (and who knows what else)
  5. A sound in the distance . . . a pause
  6. The roar of an alligator!

Assembling these sounds was simply a matter of scouring YouTube, but mixing them proved to be a bit more challenging. I layered each track in GarageBand, paying special attention to the transition from the busy world above and the dark, industrial swamp below. I also worked to differentiate the sound of stepping down a ladder from the sound of walking through the tunnel. An overlay of swamp and sewer sounds created the atmosphere belowground, and a random water drop built the tension. It was important to stop the footsteps immediately after you hear the soft roar of the alligator in the distance, pause, and then bring in the loudest sequence of alligators roaring I could find.

The minute-long requirement was tricky to work with because of the relationship between time and tension. I think the project succeeds in general, but an extra minute or two could really ratchet up the sensations of moving from safety, to curiosity, to trepidation, to terror. Take a listen for yourself! I recommend turning off all the lights and lying on the floor.

 

 

 


Pressure Project 2 – Human Nature

I spent most of my project time trying to decide which level of perception would be the most beneficial for telling a story of strong cultural significance. I thought about using a fictional story but I wanted to make an impact on the experiencer without suspending their disbelief, which is why I chose to tell the story of human beings destroying the planet’s environments with trash, pollution, and greenhouse gasses. I found a song from my personal library that used a sample of Alan Watt’s talking about humans and our relationship to the environment:

“We need to experience ourselves in such a way that we could say that our real body is not just what’s inside the skin, but our whole, total external environment. Because if we don’t experience ourselves that way, we mistreat our environment. Beat it into submission. And if we do that, comes disaster. We exploit the world we live in. We don’t treat it with love and gentleness and respect…”

The beginning of the song opened up to a bright and natural sound, so I found a utopic scene to use as the first picture in order to give the viewer a taste of what could be. Then, I displayed a series of pictures showing vast fields of pollution and deforestation as well as a couple comics portraying how humans would appear objectively.

To reflect on my second pressure project I think it could have gone better in terms of the quality of the presentation but i think the message was communicated on a basic level. There were some issues with the picture resolution and song audio drowning out the voice of Alan Watts, but most of audience gave was able to understand the intentions of the audio given the visual context. If I could revise this project I would tie in some sort of dynamic/custom elements into the film/audio using Isadora to make the experience more immersive.

Here is a link to the video: https://osu.box.com/s/z7mvzbp36gixwu4ejw7unpl20oz26jqg1-ekxLnZoSewL3p7pVUrMEhQ

download

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Man and city rabbit and environmental destruction

Destroying-nature-is-destroying-life_4

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pollute-nuraheni

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Pressure Project 2: We Choose the Moon

In the second pressure project we were asked to create an experience documenting a significant cultural event or story using audio as our primary medium. The story I chose to tell was the story of the Apollo 11 moon landing and the events that led up to its occurrence from the perspective of the astronaut. This historical event is one of my favorites because it is an amazing story ofhuman ingenuity, drive, and creativity. Also when picking this event, I was thinking of the resources I had in hand. Knowing I would be presenting in the Motion Lab, picking a story about a lunar space journey made since because the experience would automatically become very experiential because the room is so dark. In addition to the audio, I added in several suggestive visuals to guide the journey and create a more immersive experience.

The system consisted of 4 scenes. The first scene was merely a trigger that activated the rest of the system when you would press the space bar. The second scene was merely a black scene with JFK’s famous “We Choose the Moon” speech. The third scene is where the visuals start to kick in. The scene opens to a very light “nebula” glsl shader, which misread, could also be interpreted as smoke from the rocket launch. In over top of the shader is another image of stars that is linked to a pulse generator that flickers on and off along with the sound of a beating heart. Overtop of the heart audio is sound of the launch (the test, the countdown, followed by the noise of the fuel being burned upon takeoff). During the entire audio sequence, the heartbeat sound and the star image flash gets steadily faster to dramatize the events. In the fourth scene, once everything from the previous scene has stopped and a nervous exhale of breath is played. An image of the moon starts fading in and growing bigger on the screen. We then hear Neil Armstrong say one of the most iconic quotes in the history of the human race. After that, the system cycles back to the beginning. Other than the first scene, the entire system is free of user input. The system only relies on enter scene triggers and trigger delays to coordinate the occurrence of events.

2017-10-03 (1) 2017-10-03 (2) 2017-10-03 (5) Capture Capture1

Reflecting back on my presentation I was very quick to notice all of its flaws. I felt had clunky my transitions between my audio and visuals and my audio and visuals never exactly matched up how I wanted them too. All of this was almost completely unnoticed by my classmates though. When I brought up the topic for discussion after I presented they said that it was hardly noticeable. Though I know that these flaws exist, my paranoia was maybe uncalled for.

Discussion also led to how to make this system an interactive one. Though my system was deliberately not, I found the ideas interesting and worthy of an introduction in the next iteration of this system if there was one. One of the ideas was to make it controllable though buttons. The user could decide when (or if) to launch, control the speed of the system, or the audio. It was also brought up that I might try to use a stethoscope to control the heartbeat audio of my system.

One last reflection on my system, is the use of silence. Because the experience was limited to 1 minute, I was pressured to put as much audio and visuals into that time period as I could so that the story would be legible. Benny brought up the point of space being devoid of sound. Speaking toward the fourth scene, where we move toward the moon, he suggested it might benefit from the dramatic silence, and I agree. The silence would throw the attention towards the image and highlight the gravity of the experience. If only there was more time!


Trump For An Afternoon Break

Pressure Project 2 had to be a minute of audio telling something that had cultural significance.

I had trump’s face projected on a pear, Persian cucumbers, and a bawl of Cheetos! In Iranian culture, pear and cucumbers signify dumbness. Carrots signify ignorance. On the carrots there was no projection: to add to the meaning of ignorance and also to cut audience’s expectation of seeing projections on all the fruits! The videos were from CNN reporting the signing of the first Travel Ban. The audio was cut and edited from Fox News, announcing the latest version of the Executive Order. This was to show the trajectory of these bans and the ongoingness of them. Next to the snacks, was a fruit knife that had a projection of protests in Columbus after the first ban. Metaphorically, saying that the people were “sharper”, meaning more powerful. The Fox News audio faded into the protestors singing “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Donald Trump had to go.” After the audio finished, the lights came up, and I invited the audience to cut some fruits and vegetables, and enjoy the snacks!

I liked the fact that it had a sense of dailyness to it. As we eat, these political actions and decisions are made, and we are just there, in our homes, eating some fruits and vegetables !

I also liked cutting the pear that Trump’s face was on. I felt that I was able to release some of my anger in a positive and healthy way!

Video of the piece/performance:

 

Video in class showing with feedback:

Materials:

First Travel Ban – CNN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuDZit1lOkU

Latest Travel Ban – Fox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC9g07DbpiQ

Columbus Protests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=resMbl0mxB8