Physical Computing: Assignment 2 Proposal
October 27, 2020
Assignment 2
Concept
I’ve always been plagued by imposter syndrome, and its definitely stepping up since joining an incredible program full of amazing artists. I’ve always wanted to see the world the way that some of my peers or artistic inspirations do.
This semester I have been exposed to a lot of Machine Learning techniques and have been playing around with the idea of “seeing through an artists eyes.” I tried to create a VR style-transfer on the world around you, but technology (as I can create it) is not able to do that at a reliable speed or quality. So I thought, what would be a more “analog” way to do it.
Obviously I didn’t think of anything analog, but I took it back and decided to make a portal to someone else’s point of view, a TV.
For Assignment 2 I am going to make a style TV!
Drawing:
Playtest
Experience
By default, the TV will have static as its background. The piece will use an ultrasonic distance sensor to detect when someone is nearby and then switch to whatever “channel” is on.
My goal is for a user to not get confused about what this piece is. I want it to look a little like an old-timey TV so it should be intuitive. Using a rotary switch, the user can switch between 3 “channels” which will run 3 different videos. Near that dial, there will be 4 buttons. 3 of them will reference an ML model, and 1 will remove the style from the video.
It’s less an immersive experience than it is a transportive one in which we can explore whats possible or see through another artist’s eyes.
Which of these is better/more understandable/
What concept is better for an experience? There are 2 ways to do this - process video live and dynamically or pre-process the videos in Runway. Runway will make everything smoother and faster, but the live is Prepare a list of questions you want to answer with this test: are the controls immediately understandable to someone who’s never used the thing before? Can they successfully operate the interface? Can they learn the physical actions necessary and internalize them, so that they can concentrate on what the device does, rather than her own actions?
Written by Philip Cadoux, current ITP student and Creative Technologist. Follow me on Instagram