Recombinant Media

Mondays 4 to 10:15 Hybrid Lab, Founders Hall Rm. 304

Assignments

Weekly Schedule: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Faculty

Todd Blair: Fabrication and Kinetics

Don Day: Electronics and Sensors

Barney Haynes: Media and Programming

Grade Breakdown

Attendance: Miss 3 classes lose 1 grade point, miss 4 you will not pass

Active participation in class labs, mini assignments, field trips (see below) and punctuality 10%

Timely Completion of Assignments: 65%:

FINAL: Timely Completion of Final Project for Presentation in an Exhibition Week 15 25%

NOTE: Missed or late assignments will result in the loss of associated percentage

Field Trips

Sources Field Trip 1: Saturday 1/31 Optional but strongly encouraged and fun

Sources Field Trip 2: Saturday 4/3 Optional but strongly encouraged and fun

Assignments Explanations

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Assignment 1: Random media driver

Construct a sound or video patch that has unpredictable playback patterns and is activated by a sensor. Media can be downloaded off the net or personally acquired. Advanced folks need to incorporate or eradicate the desk top and use both Jitter and MSP. Due 2/9

Assignment 2: Preliminary Proposal

Written preliminary scope of work explaining and illustrating your proposed project for the final show following guidelines provided. We will analyze the proposed projects for feasibility and set up individual meetings to discuss the proposals during Week 6. Due 2/9

Assignment 3: Book Report

Pick an artist working in the field of kinetic and electronic art, write a 1 to 2 page report to turn in (3 copies) and prepare an audio-visual presentation for the class. Due 3/1

Some Starting Points for the Report:

Steve Wilson's Massive Artist List and Book

Ken Rinaldo Links

From Wagner to Virtual Reality

Classical Kinetic Artists

  • Hero of Alexandria
  • Jacques de Vaucanson
  • Marcel Duchamp
  • Thomas Wilfred
  • Jean Tinguely
  • Nam June Paik
  • Len Lye
  • Pol Bury
  • Nicolas Schöffer
  • James Seawright
  • Otto Piene
  • Fletcher Benton
  • Billy Klüver
  • Robert Whitman
  • Charles Frazier

Classic Groups and Organizations

  • USCO
  • EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology)
  • ZERO
  • GRAV
  • PULSA
  • YLEM

Assignment 4: Final Proposal

Hand in completed proposal of your final project using the guidelines handout, followed up by a presentation of the proposal to the class and critique. Due 3/15

Assignment 5: Transformation Project-Sense to Media.

Connect Sensors to your media patch transforming physical phenomena into media control. Due 3/29

Assignment 6: Beta Project Presentation

Be prepared to present a beta or better version of your final project for presentation and critique by the class and a possible visiting art professional. Due 4/12

Presentation of completed project in a gallery setting. Saturday 5/1

Sources for Materials and Field Trip Locations

Software

Hardware

Retail

Pseudo-surplus, Local and Mail Order

Pseudo-surplus, Purely Mail Order

Retail, Purely Mail Order

Heavy Stuff

Week 1

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Monday 1/12

Introduction to the class

  • Delineation of the 3 areas of concentration / departure
  • Expectations: Assignments and show
  • Possible strategies and models
  • Collect contact information for students

Barney: Computers and the Hybrid Lab (RM. 304) 

Don: Power & Control and Electro Safety 

  • Hazards of the disposable flash camera powered by an innocent AA battery 
  • Sources of power - Sun, nuclear power plants (PG&E), chemicals, lemons and potatoes 
  • Too much energy getting loose Circuit Breakers, Fuses (flash bulb in socket) 
  • Toxics - Soldering, lead with the Romans, smoking the flux 
  • Heat a LITTLE too much energy getting loose liquid metal on the flesh makes for a nasty burn 
  • Tiny objects close to your eyes
  • Shock causes you to lose motor control
  • Current through your heart can kill you

Todd: Introduction to Fabricating Electromechanical devices 

  • Planing your design - design, prototype
  • Sourcing your materials - surplus, dumpster diving
  • Fabricating - tools, the lab and the metal shop

Reading: pages 9-27 in the "Getting Started.pdf" located in the Documents folder in the Max/MSP Application folder

Week 2

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Monday 1/19
Holiday


Week 3

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Monday 1/26

Barney: Max/MSP/jitter Session 1

  • Intro to Max /MSP and Jitter
  • Anatomy of Simple Patch: Objects, Message Boxes, Number Boxes, User Interfaces and Parameters
  • Jitter objects for movie playback and digitizing
  • MSP objects for audio playback and digitizing
  • Bangs, Metros, Toggles, Passing Messages
  • U.I. objects
  • Right to left order
  • Get Info
  • Cannibalizing Patches

Assignments: Max Tutorials 1-10


Second Half

Don: Electronic components, subassemblies and systems; their physical corporeal nature

  • Exercise: Connect a circuit and make it go or glow or growl or grow.
  • Power sources
  • Solar Cells
  • Chemical cells and batteries
  • Power supplies (from wall AC to stable DC)
  • AC (from the wall, or transformed to lower voltage)
  • Connection methods
  • Wire nuts
  • Wire wrap
  • Conductive Epoxy
  • Solder
  • Heat shrink tubing
  • Measurement
  • Analogies - electrons as lemmings
  • Multimeter (volts and ohms)
  • Oscilloscope (volts in time)

Reading: Introduction to Electronics in the Teleo Manual

Meet Saturday 1/31 for a field trip to surplus stores

Meet at the Hybrid Lab (classroom) Saturday morning at 10:00

Map to Triangle

Week 4

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Monday 2/2

Barney: Max/MSP/jitter Session 2

    Objects and programming techniques 

    • random, select, uzi and drunk
    • selects, basic conditionals
    • patching order
    • Number Generators
    • Transposition
    • Filters
    • Keyboard and Mouse control
    • Applying said techniques for random behavior in Jitter

    Assignment: Max Tutorials 14,15,17,18,19,20 and Jitter Tutorials 1-5


Second Half

Visiting Artists: MakingThings

  • In depth introduction to the Teleo Modules by the MakingThings folks.
  • Teleo Objects
  • Connecting the Inputs/Outputs
  • Connecting Switches and LED
  • Connecting Sensors to the Teleo

Week 5

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Monday 2/9

Assignment 1 Due - Random Media Driver

Barney: Max/MSP/jitter Session 3

  • Processing input data with conditionals
  • Math objects
  • Using range finders to enable events
  • Exercise: Connecting light sensors, processing said data

More References:
Introduction to Electronics in the Teleo Manual

Specifically:
Voltage Dividers

For Max Help in regards to the Teleo Modules:
MakingThings Max/MSP guide


Second Half

Assignment 2 Due: Hand in Informal Project Proposal

Don: Sensors, amplifiers and control elements  

  • Sensors
  • Their physical corporeal nature
  • Exercise: Connect a circuit and make it go or glow or growl or grow.

References: Teleo Manual Cookbook

Written / Illustrated description of final project

References: MakingThings Project Guide

Important information you will need to know in order to use or check out the modules!!!

(From the MakingThings User Guides)

Never connect the V+ connector to the 5V connector - this would put the whole power supply at V+ onto the board's electronics which are designed to run at 5V. Although this situation is guarded against - this may still destroy components on the board.

Never connect the V+ or the 5V supplies directly to the ground (GND) this would cause a short circuit either of the whole power supply or the board's local power supply.

While you're working with the board, it pays to monitor the temperature of the 5V regulator, the FET switches and the fuse. If any of them are too hot to touch - disconnect the Teleo Multi IO from the network and see what the fault might be.

Under extreme conditions, components can be so taxed that they can give off smoke with a very distinct "frying electronics" smell. Once a component does this, it is often destroyed, so this should be avoided if at all possible. If it does happen, unplug the Teleo Multi IO board and check your circuit. The location of the smoking component will give a clue about what's going wrong.

Week 6

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Monday 2/16

Individual Meetings

5:00 David
5:20 Nate
5:40 Elaine
6:00 Levi
6:20 Deniz
6:40 Nitasha
7:00 Kyle
7:20 Break
7:40 Elias
8:00 Chih
8:20 Omid
8:40 Jerome
9:00 Reed
9:20 Erik
9:40
10:00


Week 7

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Monday 2/23

Barney: Max/MSP/jitter Session 4

  • Video Tracking and Analysis
  • Jitter objects for digitizing
  • Using Firewire Camera
  • Teleo Video Tracking Module


Second Half

CHANGE!!!
Field Trip to the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium: Peter Selz Lecture,160 Kroeber Hall UC Berkeley Campus

INFO:The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium

Directions: http://ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/lecs/contact.html

Week 8

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Monday 3/1

Barney: Max/MSP/jitter Session 5

MSP: Sound generation and convulsive sampling techniques


Second Half

Assignment 3 Due - Report on Artist

Spring Break

Week 9

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Monday 3/15

MSP and Jitter: Synaesthesia / Sonification


Second Half

Assignment 4 Due: Hand in Formal Proposal

Week 10

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Monday 3/22

Class presentation of formal proposal and critique


Second Half

Barney: Max/MSP/jitter Session 6

Audio input and analysis

Week 11

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Monday 3/29

Barney: Max/MSP/jitter Session 7

Video Tracking and analysis (cont)

 


Second Half

Transformation Project-Sense to Media.

   

NOTE: Meet Friday 11/14 - Bonus Surplus Field Trip

Meet at the Hybrid Lab (classroom) Friday morning at 10am

Week 12

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Monday 4/5

Panic Lab


Don: Debugging Physical Systems 

  • Measurement -How to see the invisible properties of the components 
  • When do the components become something else - Synergy vs. Entropy 
  • Cartesian decomposition - Exercise: make the circuits from previous weeks actually work 

Week 13

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Monday 4/12

Assignment 5 Due:

Fully Functioning Presentation

 


 

Week 14

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Monday 4/19

Debugging and perfecting projects

 


Lab

Week 15

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Monday 4/26

Final Critique


Saturday May 1st

Final Show