pressure project 1 – murmuration

idea/sparks/resources

This project is inspired by the idea of “murmuration”. It just happened that during the past week, the idea “murmuration” kept surfacing: i didn’t know this term referring to the “flocking of starling” until last week, when i was having a conversation with a teacher about the piece that i was working on last semester about “murmuring”; then i come across this term again while reading Emergent Strategy, which describes complex system. Since it is so present, i was like, maybe i am going to take it as the inspiration for this pressure project. I gathered some murmuration image from the internet, they are mesmerizing!

Meanwhile, i also remind myself to take them as inspiration without the ambition to representing/mimicking the visual so as to give more space for free play 🙂

processes

I start with trying to figure out the function of different actors, how to transition from scene to scene, and how to generate a loop. As i begin to have a better idea of the functions of the actors, i set some small intentions: i want some shapes that are tiny, not identical, and there are a lot of them, they are moving relationally/collectively, but also have some individual subtle differences in each of them.

after i got a thing that seems working, i began to duplicate the instances and add variation among them to make it appears a bit more randomized and complicated but still have recognizable patterns. 

after i got a simple system loop that is working, i began to refine the aesthetics to make it more satisfying: i would like some (what i would call as) “murmuring kinesthetic quality” (i was recalling the physical quality i engaged with in that murmuring dance piece), which is essentially maybe a stuttering-morphing-nudging quality? i did this by connecting a wave generator (random wave) to the hori/vert mode of the slit scan so that it keeps shifting between horizon/vertical modes; in one of the scene, i also adds in the freeze actor. To make the processes more interesting for the viewer, i decided to explore some interaction, i used the mouse watcher (affecting the position of the flocking particles), and the webcam (linked to the difference actor and cal brightness actor, and eventually linked to the freeze actor to trigger to “grab”).

after refining the aesthetics, i repeat the process of duplicating the re-fined instances again, to re-create the system loop. i repeat this process a couple of times as i added in other details (eg: the swirling actor, layering the background pictures etc.)

performance

reflection

I enjoyed everyone’s sharing in class, and that each person’s very different works reflect our own personal history and reveal something about ourselves. I am also reflecting on Alex’s comment of me being part of the performance while interacting with the screen. This also makes me think about it is interesting in itself how different people would react to a webcam interaction differently in their body language. As we go on, I would like to keep being aware of how to design interaction in a way that leaves space for partcipants to have some “mysterious” uncovering of the interaction while not confusing.

Regarding the 5 hours time experience, as i shared in class, if i were to do it again, i would like to intentionally set more pauses in-between so as to refresh my attention, instead of falling into the mechanical task-achieving state (this time i went for 3.5 h + 0.5 h + 1 h, the 3.5h part feels a lot and that my attentiveness/excitement is fading away after 2hish). Also, I think the time limits is a great resource to allow me to gauge what i could possibly do in certain amounts of time.