Hello everyone. Its a new year and I have relocated my blog tooo…
http://www.christinamday.com/blog
Just change it if you have me in your blogroll and I hope everyone has a great new year 
Author Archive for christinaday
09
Jan
09
New Blog Location!
06
Dec
08
Arduino Website Hit-counter
For the final project in my New Media class, I assembled a little gadget that lights up whenever someone visits your website. The project uses 3 seperate scripts:
-A php script that is saved to the root directory of the website Im counting the hits on. This script just counts how many times this site is visited.
-A Python script that retrieves the counter information from the php script and delivers it to the Arduino board.
-And an Arduino sketch that I have uploaded to my Arduino board that turns a LED on each time the Python script tells it that the website has received a hit.
This is the Arduino board itself with the LED, that I sanded to diffuse the light, plugged into ground and pin 13, the pin that Arduino has conveniently connected a resistor to, so I dont have to.
Here is the guts of the housing. It used to be a cheap alarm clock from a novelty shop, but now its going to house my Arduino Board.
Final product!
12
Nov
08
Enameled Bowl Project
Leaf embellishments on bowl
I enrolled in an introductory Metalsmithing and Jewelry class this semester as an elective. This is one of the projects I feel is presentable. The assignment was to create an enameled copper bowl.
Raw copper just after I planished it
Letting the enamel dry (still in powder form) before firing in the kiln
finished bottom of the bowl with some nice organic details created by overfiring
Detail shot of the bottom of the bowl
Final product
The second project we did this year in Emedia was required to be interactive. I had been experimenting lately with Computer Vision using programs like Processing and Jmyron. For this project I dumbed it down to using Flash. The result is a simple motion-detection based interactive piece using a webcam, but it was definitely a learning experience for me because it was almost entirely actionscript (flash’s programming language) based, and I have had little to no experience with code as I am a very visual person. Overall, I consider this piece a building block for me to do more things with the motion detection program.
Since this blog is in need of attention, Im going to be dumping all my recent projects on here to day so I can catch up, so bear with me.
The first project assigned this year in Max’s Emedia class was a pretty basic ‘get-to-know-flash’ project where we made an animated narrative involving, like most of our projects, the concept of ‘interface’. I chose to do a simple animation about the different roles we play in our lives, and how to each person we encounter, we play a different role.
In his article ‘Computer Vision for Artists’, Golan Levin, a pioneer in the computer vision community, attempts to make computer vision, which in the past has been reserved solely for programmers and funded research teams, available to even the a novice artist seeking artistic application of this technology. Levin, after presenting a series of examples of pieces and installations involving computer vision technology, goes on to cover some basic methods for implementing computer vision.
It is encouraging that such technology is becoming more readily available to the public, even outside of the art community. Similar to the way the personal computer was once only a massive, expensive machine for only scientists and/or the very wealthy, and slowly this technology becomes more available, till even students can program applications for their own personal computers, as well as servers and databases. Levin’s attitude is very progressive and contributes to the availability and evolution of art and technology.
‘What is New Media‘, is a discussion over defining new media art, and what distinguishes it as being ‘new’. Manovich argues that the majority of the elements in new media art are not new at all, but are redefined elements found in cinema and photography, as well as other forms of media from the 19th and 20th centuries. Examples such as multimedia, which is very general and dates back to Medieval times, as well as the ability to use sampling, another element associated with new media, and which has been introduced in the early 19th century through film. However, it is the advantages of new media, such as the ability to replicate data infinity without degradation that make new media stand apart.
Manovich settles on the redefinition of ‘interactivity’ as the defining characteristic of New Media Art, and how the interface has expanded beyond the purely informational, and now approaches a psychological level. This allows users to merge seamlessly with the media on a psychological level, ever closing the gap between man and machine.
I agree with the author, that while the elements that comprise New Media Art are not new, the use of these elements is. This is common with lots of new technology. Cell phones for example; one could argue that they are not a new idea because communication has been around since prehistoric times. What cell phones are is the most recent step in an evolutionary process. In fact, you could say that the evolutionary process is no longer linear, but has branched off into thousands of technologies and possibilities. Cell phones are just one aspect of communication technology, alongside the internet, email, instant messaging, and the rising popularity of internet communities. Now theres a community called Twitter that connects the cell phone community with the instant messaging and forum communities, where a user can make one update either on their phone, on a forum or on instant messenger and all users ‘following’ that user, recieve that update on their own phones, instant messengers, forums etc. Developments like this, paired with the rising integration of wireless internet bring society closer to becoming an idealized global meeting place.
Hansen, in his book New Philosophy for New Media, discusses the nature of New Media Art and responds to its critics who argue that there is nothing ‘new’ about it. For example, Art Historians argue that it is an extension of Modernism, a movement. Film critics, however, argue that it is merely another form of expressing cinema. Hansen states that neither are entirely true. The key difference in New Media Art is the interaction of the body, whether that be in an altered physical environment, or a fully immersive, interactive world (such as 3-D gaming). The body must now both react and interact to the medium. The image becomes a guide to the experience, rather than the focal point.
I was reading this exerpt while watching a show about the Big Bang theory on the History channel. It gave me some ideas for a potential project this semester. Id like to toy with using IR LEDs as place detection, much like the Nintendo Wii controlers. These controlers also use accelerometers to measure the force used by the player. Taking these elements, and rearranging them to where the viewer can somehow be ’sensed’ by the installation might create some very interesting opportunities for interactive media. What I envisioned at the time was a projected image of our galaxy, or a similar, iconic representation of the universe, and the user being able to expand, contract, and generally manipulate the image from afar using IR LEDs as a control device, much like one uses the Wii-mote to interact with the Nintendo system. The viewer could experience an allusion to ‘playing god’ with the image at hand.
30
Aug
07
2-D gaming project in the works
The Fall semester has begun, and so has development for this semester’s gaming project. This semester, the focus is on 2-D games, rather than 3-D, which is the focus in Spring. My partner, Riley Cordova, and I have started brainstorming, and thus far were wanting to create your good, old fashioned brain eating zombie bang-bang shoot’em up, but with a wild west/steampunk twist. Characters in a post-apocolyptic world fight off zombies (the products of a mad scientist) with turn of the century technology. So a cool vehicle could be an antique car modified into a small tank with a turret on top, for example. A good rule of thumb for envisioning steampunk, is finding a method of creating technology that performs the same tasks as modern technology (robots, tanks, ATVs, machine guns, planes) using only the technology and materials available form the turn of the century era.
Wikipedia has a good article on Steampunk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk
Well thats what we have so far, and were going to be fleshing it out over the duration of the semester, till we have a completed product before Christmas.
Heres a sketch I did, trying to get some ideas for a main character:
03
Jul
07
Terrible Television: conclusion
Finally getting around to uploading some screen shots and step-by-steps of the artwork from Terrible Television, the cell shaded FPS my team and I built this past semester.
Keep in mind, before you start comparing it to like, screenshots from Unreal Tournament 3 just remember that this was our team’s first 3-D game, created on an educational SAGE engine that was created by the Comp Sci prof whos head of the gamer’s programming class, and it was good enough for the bad dudes at Terminal Reality and Gearbox to give us second place in our yearly competition with the other teams from UNT. (First place was a group of realy boss seniors who had been doing this for awhile).
all modeling done in Maya 7.0 because thats the latest version they had on the school computers.
These are mainly screenshots of my main contributions to the game, mostly texturing and a few models.
Some buildings I textured.
The ‘Generator’
A crazy walk way area
Well that about wraps it up. Were starting on a new Half Life 2 mod now called ‘RAKET’. Its going to be a capture the flag style FPS featuring (tenativly) 2 teams with 4 playable classes each. The team is being led by Justin Pierce and were still looking for artists and programmers who are interested in a serious commitment.
Also, my friend Riley Cordova and i are starting a flash game in the fall. So far the only plans we have are for a steam-punk themed RPG. Ill update when we have more information.
