emotion visualization {Tranquil}

By jhclaura in Blog, Coding for Emotional Impact, Spring 2014 0 Comment

Before I start, let me document one thing first… I FORGOT the format of Processing. Proof as below.

Screen Shot 2014-02-07 at 7.41.33 PM

And also, I found a music video programming in Openframeworks. Pure Astonishing.

 

OK. Let’s begin.

{Tranquil}

For creating 3 studies of the emotion with ratios of space, rations of color, and ratios of time, I got Tranquil from Kate, and l first pictured the situation I’ll have this feeling in, and then tried to convey them through coding.

<em>Situation</em>: sparkling dust floating in dark, hair floating with wind, immerse in music in crowd environment, look into sky, unfocus eyesight, repeat pattern

Study 1: calm(look into sky, unfocus eyesight, repeat pattern)

Study 2: free from disturbance(immerse in music in crowd environment)

Study 3: free(sparkling dust floating in dark, hair floating with wind)

project_update {Mycofabrication}

By jhclaura in Blog, Fungus Among Us, Spring 2014 0 Comment

Inspired by Eric Klarenbeek’s MyceliumChair(image pool), that

  1. 3D prints base with straw & water paste for growing mycelium,
  2. 3D prints shell with bioplastics for molding mycelium.,

I’d love to explore different possibilities of mycelium molding. Is it possible to make delicate stuff with mycelium, other than solid square building bricks? Can it be molded into small parts that are able to be assembled?

mycofabrication

QUESTION TIME!

  • For plan A
    • if I chop mycelium into small pieces, is it still growable?
    • what’s the proportion between mycelium, straw powder, and water?
    • without tight pressing can it still be moldable?
  • For plan B
    • is it possible to connect pieces by joinery?
    • multiple molds –> time consuming?

As for the case study, me and Kate and Peigi decided to team up since we are all focus in the material/fabrication subject. Possible exports include Eric Klarenbeek and Ecovative. Still searching.

Gif-Overload {Giphy API}

By jhclaura in Blog, Fun, Mashups Web APIs, Spring 2014 0 Comment

Last semester, for my final project for Comm Lab: Web, I made an API meshup website LOST, using Youtube, TheCatAPI, Iheartquotes API.

past1

LOST_homepage

past2

LOST_”No, I’m not.” page

It’s interesting to see images animated in the stop-motion way, so I want to do more with GIFs first, and then later maybe develop into video with sound. For an assignment to build  single web page that displays (some of) the data you found with some basic css styling, I found an API from Giphy, a animated GIFs search website. On the Github of Giphy, the API is well documented and has following functions: search, GIF by id, translate, random, trending. And also, according to their Github,

The Giphy API implements a REST-like interface. Connections can be made with any HTTP enabled programming language. The Giphy API also implements CORS, allowing you to connect to Giphy from JavaScript / Web browsers on your own domain.

To warm up my API-skill for new semester, I use search function, and give 3 choices: Cat, Grilled Cheese, and Coding to display 25 related GIFs from Giphy API, and also a reset button to display pure background. Unfortunately the search function gives you fixed searching result. Might need to twig the offset parameter… Check it out!

Screen Shot 2014-02-05 at 8.33.47 PM

And here are the codes.

php file

<!DOCTYPE HTML>

<html> 
	<head>
		<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
		<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Reenie+Beanie' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>

		<title>Giffff</title>
	</head>
	<body>
	<!-- white words-->
	<h1>Gif-Overload!</h1>
	<!-- rainbow words -->
	<!-- <h1><span class="rainbow">Gif-Overload!</span></h1> -->
	<form align="center" method="post">
    	<div class="button">
        	<button type="submit" value="clear" name="choice"> Reset </button>
	    </div>
	</form>

	<form align="left" method="post">
    	<div class="button1">
        	<button type="submit" value="cat" name="choice"> Cat </button>
	    </div>
	</form>

	<form align="center" method="post">
    	<div class="button">
        	<button type="submit" value="grilled+cheese" name="choice"> Grilled Cheese </button>
	    </div>
	</form>	

	<form align="right" method="post">
    	<div class="button2">
        	<button type="submit" value="coding" name="choice"> Coding </button>
	    </div>
	</form>

	<p align="center">
		<?php

		$choice = $_POST['choice'];

		// mode: search
		$url = 'http://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/search?q='.$choice.'&api_key=dc6zaTOxFJmzC';

		// mode: translate
		//$url = 'http://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/translate?s='.$choice.'&api_key=dc6zaTOxFJmzC';

		// mode: random
		// $url = 'http://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/random?api_key=dc6zaTOxFJmzC&tag='.$choice.'';

		// Get the document at this url
		$response = file_get_contents($url); 
		// echo $response; //debug

		// Parse XML with SimpleXML in PHP http://www.php.net/manual/en/simplexml.examples-basic.php
		$pics = json_decode($response);
		//var_dump($pics); // take a look at this to see what data you get back

		if ($choice == 'clear') {
			echo '';
		} else {
			for ($i=0; $i<25; $i++) {
				// mode: search
				echo '<img src="'.$pics->data[$i]->images->fixed_height->url.'">';
			}
		}

		// mode: translate
		//echo '<img src="'.$pics->data->images->fixed_height->url.'">';

		// mode: random
		//echo '<img src="'.$pics->data->image_url.'">';

		?>
	</p	>
		
</body> 
</html>

css file

body{
	background-image: url('galaxy.png');
}

h1{
	text-align: center;
	font-family: 'Reenie Beanie', cursive;
	font-size: 50px;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: white;
}


.button1 {
	position: absolute;
	top: 140px;
	left: 20%;
}

.button2 {
	position: absolute;
	top: 140px;
	left: 80%;
}

Braninless Intelligence

By jhclaura in Blog, Fungus Among Us, Spring 2014 0 Comment

After reading 1/3 part of Mycelium Running, a fungi bible by Paul Stamets, I’m amazed by how efficiently and fast the mold responds toward its food. It must be one of the reasons that fungi are used to earth’s Clean-Up. In a maze of having oat in the exit, within only 8 hours, the brainless slime mold, Physarum polycephalum, first occupied the whole area and then found the shortest ways out, by natural appealing to food.

mold maze

I looked further into Physarum polycephalum, and found out a research, by Chris Reid of the University of Sydney, state that..

As polycephalum moves through a maze or crawls along the forest floor, it leaves behind a trail of translucent slime. …a foraging slime mold avoids sticky areas where it has already traveled. …is a kind of externalized spatial memory that reminds polycephalum to explore somewhere new.

Spatial memory function! This interests me a lot. There are already a lot of experiments about using slime mold to run the metropolitan traffic system, and found they amazingly similar. I want to do something like that, with same spirit. I want to fungus to guide my route!

My initial idea about fungus project is to make a helmet/hat out of mushrooms. Literally having mushrooms growing on my helmet/hat. Because what intrigues me the most about fungi at first, is its appearance and the emotion it makes me feel, I think it would be a good point to start with, its looks and psychological impact. But then I went just really confused… Is it even meaningful?

So, if I combine both appearance and behavior of fungi together as the theme for my project, will it be more meaningful and complete? Right now in my mind is…. I’ll wear that mushroom helmet/hat, and follow the route of slime mold.

Isn’t it super weird?

perform test & 5 patterns of emotion

By jhclaura in Blog, Coding for Emotional Impact 0 Comment

Group perform test w/ audiences!

And below are my 5 patterns of emotion.

The emotion accumulates through the weaving of three stories. At first, the emotion is unsure and blur. And gradually, the similarities of three stories appears, and the emotion goes higher and higher. In the end, huge amount of happiness burst out. The pattern of emotion reaches pick. And the result makes the sweetness linger into the end.

 

For music, similar to the 1st piece, emotion starts low and then goes high. What’s special about this is its “swinging” feature. By swing low makes the high even higher. And the competitive pattern create the anticipation from audience and creates more sense of involvement.

 

I see the pattern of the weaving from up to down. Not only the lines, the different materials and textures bring and add another layer to the pattern. It’s like the extra details on the high and low points. Besides the pattern of wave, different genera.

 

It’s an unusual pattern I’d love to challenge. Unlike the easy-following pattern, the abrupt fault shift the layers as whole, so although it’s easy to tell from looking at distance, it’s difficult to tell in close-up view. In the way to express, I’d imagine the “style” will change abruptly and unrelated at all. Altering without clues. And after that, gradually and gradually, viewers(or receivers, more broad) MIGHT realize the changing. Hopefully.

 

It’s a raw meat pattern. Less linear, more circular. It’s like a linear pattern without the end. Ending is always the beginning. Love the variation of width of layers. Difference of width, curves, and colors can add up producing a rich experience. Not good for real performance definitely.

Thoughts about Fungus(update)

By jhclaura in Blog, Fungus Among Us 0 Comment

doodle

This semester I’m taking class of “Fungus Among Us”, and I’ve found some aspects of fungus I’m particular interested about, and would love to develop project based on them:

Gift to Gross Out People

Every time I google “fungus”, I can always have some valuable “wtf” moments, and I think it’s an amazing power deserved to be explored. Is it because fungus usually comes along with rotten, dead stuff and thus build up the association? Are we scared of its decomposing ability because it makes us relate to our future death? I’m interested in how we can do this kind of power of horror.

Super Adaptive Behavior

Fungus grows and prospers anywhere it lands. I’d love to grow them on different materials and different locations, and see how different the fungus will be. After that, I plan to gather those fungi together and see how their information/consciousness network work. Will they merge into each other and become a new kind of fungus?

Peculiar Round Shape

Fungus usually has circular shape because it grows by spreading out in all directions from a central point, where the original spore germinates. It’s an interesting feature I’d love to try with computer vision. The different looks of Pileus and there different functions can be inspirations for interactive devices too.

 

So, for the possible future project, I would either

  1. try to grow fungus into terrifying one, as horrible as it can be, and see how the power of horrors can be apply to(psychology aspect), or
  2. grow same fungus in different environments and see how people’s affect them, and after that see what they will communicate with each other by meshing up, and it might somehow representing the meshing up behaviors of people’s(communication/network aspect)? Or
  3. explore more about the structure and function of different shape of Pileus and see how it can be applied to enhance the communication/interaction among people as a wearable device(pcomp project).

 

responds to Form And Fungus, Magic of Mushrooms, Paul Stamets’s TED talk

website philross

sources are-fungi-earths-natural-internet, what role do fungi play in food chain,