| exercise machine | home | videodoes@gmail.com | |||
updated version of this project |
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I am planning to set up about seven fluorescent light tubes mounted on stands across the Halifax harbour. Each tube's rotation / angle will be controlled by a stepper motor. Through the use of Max Msp and the Basic Stamp those seven tubes will move in different patterns. Along with those tubes goes a performance in which I attach seven potentiometers on to my joins. While I am walking around the city to engage others, those potentiometer will record my movement and change the rotation of the tubes. Through the contact to others my movements will be effected or even caused. After each encounter I will hand over a postcard which explains when and where the movements that just happened (and were recorded) will be replayed (displayed). I want to abstract human movement, the specific motions that we do with others. To move in unity, to move away, to move against each other. When we join in or break out of a common motion we become aware of what we did. The abstraction that happens through the linearly arranged tubes removes the movement from the action that it originated from. I hope that it will still be possible to get a feeling of what the movement could be. |
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| click for little shockwave animation | |||||
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| Here are the Basic Stamp 2 script and the Max patch that I am using so far to controll 4 unipolar stepper motors, through the serial port of my mac laptop. |
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| Etienne-Jules Marey (http://web.inter.nl.net/users/anima/chronoph/marey/index.htm) | |||||||||||||||||||
| notes: -production (is located beside oil factory) -walking as work (Taylorism, messuaring/analysing human walk, though reading of angles) -the piece's place in nature (waves, trees, wind) -it is placed faraway, in distance (on hill, across the harbour) |
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| Here are the first pictures of the motor, bike-chain and the bearing holding a 8 feet wooden beam. Tomorrow I will connect the motor to the my basic stamp and will control the rotation using Max MSP. |  |
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Quotes: "It may be said that, after all, man is not a robot, and therefore all this automatic gadgetry may be very little relevant to our understanding of postural and movement control. Nothing would be further from the truth. ... the coordination of limb movement and body posture is almost entirely unconscious and automatic, and however complex the sensory structures involved, the information issuing from them hardly ever reaches the higher centers of the brain, but gives rise to what the biologist calls reflex reactions." (Biologist Otto Lowenstein) "Man is not only a robot in his private reflexes but in his civilized behavior and in all his responses to the extensions of his body, which we call technology." (Marshall McLuhan) |
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| testing the lights I took an 8 foot fluorescent light and a car battery across the harbor and tested the strength and movement of the light. A friend rotated the light and I took pictures from the Halifax side. But The light was not focused enough. Maybe I should build covers that let the light only go in one direction. Also it seems, that an 8 foot light is not long enough to be noticed between all the other lights. You can certainly make out movements but everything is too small. I tried the same thing on citadel hill, here in Halifax, and took pictures just from the street towards the hill. The results were more pleasing. But having moving lights, at night on this hill creates certain other connotation that I still have to think about. This place is used for homosexual men as a meeting and pleasure point. I think for now I will focus on getting the electronic and mechanical parts working and will worry about the use of light at the end. |
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| the fluorescent light from across the harbor | the fluorescent light on the hill | ||||||||||||||||||
| the fluorescent light on the hill | |||||||||||||||||||
| Questions: Why do I think it is important for others to look at the abstracted human movements? Should I add an other element with the light tubes that helps stressing my point? Do I only want people to be more aware of their body's motion? (no, see Michael de Certeau and how the improvised walk shapes the meaning of space) What kind of movements would I hope for, when encountering people? How technical needs the potentiometer suit to be to cause engagement? |
??? - Marey's use of a single camera vs. Muybridge multiple cameras - What is the aesthetic impact, especially in a public context? - How does the motion structure react to or depend on the body's movement? -Do obvious connections of structural lines to a constructed and mechanized industrial environment overpower any reference to the body in motion? |
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| I am in Montreal for the summer using Peter Flemming's huge studio. I was able to set up all seven poles with the 8 foot fluorescent lights. One big problem has been for a while how to get power to the turning lights. I new slip ring connectors would be the solution. I spend a lot of time on my first DIY solution (link here) involving copper rings and spring metal 'fingers' which would create the rotatable connection to the power. In the last week now I redesigned the slip ring connectors by using normal ball bearings (link here). This works much better and seems to create a connection that is a lot more stable. The current can now flow uninterrupted. I am still not sure if I will use flex sensors or potentiometers to detect the movement of my joints. Potentiometers seem to give me a greater degree of rotation, about 300 degrees. The flex sensor I tested works fine between 0 and about 130 degrees. Bending it in the opposite way gave me only about 10 degrees of movement. So I will probably end up using the potentiometers. For now I am using a long cable that will connect the performer with the micro controller which in turn send the right signals to the stepper motors. I am looking into setting up a wireless communications between to wiring i/o boards but with one month left I rather concentrate on having a precise translation of my movements into the rotary motions of the lights. All the electronics are set up that includes the 10k Ohm potentiometers, the microcontroller (wiring i/o board), the Xylotex stepper motor driver and the Xylotex 1.9 Nm stepper motor. I already had a test run which showed that the microcontroller is fast enough to make all the movements simultaneously even when it has to read the input data from the potentiometers. |
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| I found that i my life i don't do much other things then work for my art and once in a while meet my emidet friends. I seem not to purse any hobbies or other leisure activities. I can't even say that I am reading for leisure. All the things I am doing are related to my work and I certainly enjoy most of them. In this performance I will try to combine my work with a leisure activity, physical excersice. To motivate myself more I am amlifying my bodies movements by having light tubes turn according those movements. I also hope to stop once in a while and talk with passersby about their leisure activities, how the are managing work and private life and friends. use the word hobby, dream of doing, to do something for yourself |
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| coming soon on july 6th I will perform the first time in berlin at the udk-berlin |
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