ZERational Project B

I initially wanted to do the youtube recreation video for project B. I had convinced myself that a stop motion animation was the way to go.

After getting to class about two weeks ago, still without a decent concept, i was convinced that if i couldn't come up with anything reasonably interesting or practical maybe i should be looking at doing something slightly easier technique wise or maybe even one of the other project topics.

In retrospect, im glad i got this wake up call. I decided to ditch the idea of the video and move onto a different topic and work through a range of fresh concepts. I decided to do the data representation. i din't want to use basic data forms, i wanted t work on something more original and perhaps that i had not tried before.
I have a look throught the information on the class' delicious page and found myself looking at Martin Wattenburg's shape of song on smashing magazine.

The basic idea of Martin Wattenburg's data representation was to find similarities througout a piece of music and then graphically track them. For instance:

Jupiter Symphony / Mozart:

Four Seasons / Autumn / Vivaldi:

I really liked the idea of a. learning to read sheet music in order to do this process and b. the idea that music could be converted into graphical form.
The main issues with this process being, how i would represent a piece of music in a form dissimilar to the above and what piece of music to use.

After trawling the internet for music, i was faced with the decision to either use a piece of relatively obscure music picked up from a copyright free websource or reference a famous well known piece.
Ii found the site musonline.com, This site has various recordings of well-known classical pieces that are not under copyright. I choose moonlight sonata by Beethoven. This piece whilst beautiful also uses heavy repition in order to increase the power of the song, thus perfect for what i was looking for.

I found it difficult coming up with a concept to represent the linkage between notes in the piece of music, so i went on a bit of a tangent and came up with the idea of representing the particular note throughout the piece in different colours.

I set up a cubed template in illustrator and used each individual note from the song as a coloured square in the cube.

I came up with this:

I was still not happy with this form as it was relatively unoriginal, plain and unimaginative. I continued to think about ways that i could represent this new information in a concept that not only was exciting but truely represented the piece of music.

Again, on a further tangent, i thoughtabout kaelidoscopes. Not only would it be a great way to represent the data , but it would suit the magnitude and the style of the song graphically.
I built myself a kaelidoscope, and set up the contents to represent the ratios of the different notes in the block representaion. i used a camera to capture the vision and with quicktime managed to convert the still motion shots into a set of active gifs that are a part of the graphical solution.

I really felt as though the solution accurately suggests the volume of the song, its repetition and the period of the style. However this was a little bit out there and perhaps the idea behind it was a little weak? Regardless i decided to see what else i could come up with. 

During another unit during the semester (motion) we discussed real time animations. I was amazed by some on the stuff that people are doing, not only coders but graphic designers working with basic code. I thought this might be a strong option for a concept if i could make graphics behave in a certain way under the influence of music. 

i searched the net for inspiration and finally came across a technique called sound spectrum display. At http://gotoandlearn.com/play?id=62 i found a basic tutorial on this technique. The ideas is that the code (flash) reads in the varying byte rates for a piece of music and displays this graphically in a number of ways.

The result of this tutorial was a basic wave form. Not quite what i was looking for. 

I search wider of the net looking for ways to advance my design and i came across a piece of unfinished code for a forum (http://www.gotoandlearnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=22746) that i was able to take some elements from to experiment with.

After playing around for a fairly long time i was able to combine elements from a number of sources on the internet into an original solution that mapped the highs and lows of the musical piece in a simple yet, crisp and classy way.

i really enjoyed this project. Not only was a under pressure in the end to come up with some effective concepts but there was so much scope to all of these pieces.

In the end i developed a number of solutions for the problem, that were all quite effective in their own way. I learnt a lot about flash, basic coding and photography as a result of the various techniques i experimented with. In summary i think that i not only developed an excellent solution to the project, i also demonstrated an ability to think outside the square in response to a brief, which i am really happy with. 

I wouldn't change anything that i did during the project, apart from maybe starting a little earlier with stronger concepts.

My site can be viewed at davidisastarr.com/music.html

regards

Musical side of said data

Given the resources available online for data representations i do wonder why i choose to a. Anallise a piece music (which i didn't know how to do) b. break it into repetitious parts and c. try to make something beautiful from something so structured and monsterous.

Oh well it has been a learning curve, and i am still a long way away from having the graphic finished, however, i recently stumbled upon something quite random that might just spice it up a bit.... but we will wait and see.

regards yall

The idea of what is real is real, how does this relate to the new web?

Ok so this one is a bit late... oh well cant win them all.

From what i gather web 2.0 is the equivalent to Microsoft releasing a new version of windows if windows didn't belong to anyone and computers all worked the same. Web 2.0 is a new way of looking at the web as a whole. In the past we used to see the internet as a medium in which top plonk documents up for general access. This is not the case anymore as a result of the new ideas brought in by web 2.0. The idea is that this new concept changes and improves the way in which things are classified and they way in which information is valued. 

example 1.

In the old classification process cars were seen as machinery and machinery was therefore linked to the classification of a car. Now through new more intuitive classification systems, a car is obviously still seen as a machine but a machine is not necessarily seen as a car, as it can be other things as well. There is a new parent/child formation that is helping to make sense of the web in a way that has not been seen before.

example 2.

The new concepts behind web 2.0 revolve around the power of the users. The idea is called "group of whatever', and the basic idea is that for example two peoples opinions/knowledge is more accurate that a single persons. So that web based applications such as wikipedia, value the knowledge of a huge group of people in discerning what is accurate and what is not. 

These new guidelines for the internet are leading us as users into a new age of better ordered, easier to maintain web based application which we can trust through input.

How creative... for war stuff

Multiplicity

Multiplicity is one of those things that if done well can look really really cool. Multiplicity can be used for a number of different things, computer games, assisting with CGI for large scenes and in basic motion graphic works. 

Multiplicity has been around for ages in computer games, as there was less emphasis on getting i right due to the concept behind them. Of late full length motion pictures have begun to use multiplicity appropriately and well. The lord of the Rings trilogy is one of the best examples of this, in regards to the fighting scenes. At around the 3.58 mark there is scene where huge armies are charging each other, this is a perfect example of multiplicity.

In more static objects multiplicity can still be seen, more in reference to a group mentality. The photographs taken by Peter Funch of NY streets [link] are a collage of various photos taken at different periods over several weeks arranged in such a way that they look like they were taken at the same time with a set theme. 

there are a variety of ways in which to use the idea of multiplicity, but in my mind none do it better than these two astounding examples

regards

Street art, seriouly cool stuff

All different all cool. i was just 'surfing' this arvo, i found myself continually coming across cool stuff like this on other peoples blogs, so it thought i would share. Hope you all enjoy....... regards