Nick Inzucchi – Project 3 – Disconnected
[slideshare id=11808588&doc=slides-120229225632-phpapp02]
90% of my day is spent staring at screens. It’s been months since I’ve spent time outside, or even took a quiet moment to collect my thoughts. I designed Disconnected to explore this tension. I was interested both in how digital technology can distance one from nature, and in how these digital experiences eventually begin to blend into one’s reality. I wanted to create an experience that would make the viewer explicitly aware of this conflict.
The system works by sensing the user’s emotional stability and using this to dynamically deconstruct a placid, natural scene. The concept is that stress, anxiety, and general lack of calm will manifest themselves as digital interruptions in nature. As static and digital patterns obscure the scene, this directly reflects the mental instability produced by overuse of technology.
The background was shot from one of my favorite spots in Schenley Park. It’s a place I used to go to think, relax and meditate, back when there was time. This view represents a kind of pure connection to nature, something I feel I’ve lost.
The system uses biometric input (skin conductance and heart-rate variance) from a WildDivine IOM USB sensor. It abstracts these values to judge whether the user’s level of arousal is above or below normal, modifying the visualization in turn. Each time the system is used, it records all readings in an external XML file. This archive comes to represent the user’s ‘baseline’ arousal, allowing the system to judge whether on any particular use their state is above or below normal.
Based on this judgement, the system takes several steps. An ofxCameraFilter blurs the screen, modifies contrast and adds noise. A ofxDelaunay mesh constructed from randomly positioned points also fades into view. Each vertex uses perlin noise to randomly shift about the screen, and the intensity of this movement is also modified by biofeedback. I love that they came out looking like gnats over the lake. Lastly, the system crossfades between two soundscapes, one clean and the other heavily distorted, depending on the user’s state.
I’m feeling you on the lack of nature!+2Hiking field trip! Nick, this is such a thorough translation, the audio element is critical to the success of the piece. Have you been able to demonstrate the
effects in both directions, under the influence a.k.a introducing a psychotropic substance into the system, etc? Imagine visuallizing an acid trip for people who would never do it themselves.
Nice type and spacing/grid.
I think the distortion/abstraction is lovely… and I’m impressed that you’re able to collect bio data (heart/skin response) into the same program. The part I’m NOT convinced about is the feed BACK — the large backwards pointing arrow. Is it real? Or is it just there because you say it is? In short: does the graphic display actually have an EFFECT on you, which modulates your arousal/mood/whatever and leads to a change in the signals which you’re feeding to the display.
I would have liked to see more experimentation with different displays (different graphics, different “scenes”)…towards ones which produced stronger feedbacks — and some kind of assessment (even — a personal one) about which displays produced the strongest feedbacks. Otherwise, it seems like you had a fairly fixed/preconceived idea in mind about the display you wanted to use (THIS video of a lake..). It’s fine to make an interactive painting, but it’s another thing to claim that there’s a strong feedback effect set up as a result.
A small video inset/overlay on the final display, of you wearing the feedback device, might be helpful to communicate (to your online viewers) exactly what’s going on here.
OpenFrameworks can do better than 8fps on stuff like this, I’d have to look at your code to see why it doesn’t… hmm.
Great slides – they’re pretty, and do a great job showing your thought process throughout the project. It’s cool how the distortion is proportional to the heart rate in an interesting feedback loop – maybe you could have done more with this aspect of the project?
I like your thought process throughout the implementation.
** agree.
Great connection between the mental state of people and the work. However, is tat
interesting concept, a very fitting visual representation for the idea.
*Agreed
Impressive. Psychadelic. While watching the video, I actually felt as if I was at that spot in Schenley Park and my mind wanders. I really like your project.
Those sensors look pretty cool! What if you could put this on one of those augmented reality goggles that would distort your vision in real time. That would be (dangerous) but really neat. Man, you must have been getting really stressed out a lot to test this project.
I also miss nature -_- Doing nothing but staring at screens is a bummer.
^ me too :'(
Oooh. Could you make origami / papercraft with those triangular filers?
Stop skipping over your work / calling it boring!
What’s the connection, exactly? The filered reality makes you MORE clam?
Great point about building GUIs for parameter-heavy systems.
Did you try with any different video? I know you said the spot has personal significance for you, but it would be interesting to see what happens with different source material.
You mentioned that the soundscape also changes? Any details on how you did that?
I’m predisposed to like triangulations of images/video, so I think the visual results are great.
One trick that Quayola does, is that he shades the triangulations as if they were 3d surfaces. FWIW
I like the one where you showed 3 images with different patterns
you have documented your process well!
… so to use this you have to make the conscious choice to stop working and pvut on the sensors? (i’m not sure if I would actually do this if I was stressed out about work)
maybe if it senses that you are too stressed it instead distorts your entire computer screen forcing you to realize the issue and take a break?
also Im not quite sure the connection between stress level and the abstraction of this image.
i think the visual is pretty calming and its a good choice for a location .. i think it if i actually had to use it , id love to have this be somewhat ambient and that being tied to my stress level.
where did you get those sensors?!
How are you placing your verticies? (ah okay perlin cool). It seems that when you are distorting its actually just more of a blur, I think it would be more visually compelling if you varied the size of the triangles as well.+1
You can also change the state of the perlin function to accomplish this and put your verticies in motion. Just from my messing around with perlin noise flow fields you can get these really frantic stressed out knotty tentacles or really smooth calming walves depending on
what kind of numbers you give it.
Put this in a frame on your wall. That way you can continue working on your computer but have artwork that adapts to your state when you feel like glancing up.
A little unclear what kind of data you’re getting from the sensors and why that is useful or applicable to the use-case you present. +1
This is a bit nit-picky but at some points, even at the most distorted, you still are able to see the original underlay (specifically the edge around the pond, and some lines on the bridge,) so the act of distortion is subtely undercut — it seems more like there’s an image drawn on top instead of an actual distruption of your happy-place.
Winter is no excuse. :) yeah,
* Haha. It’s not even winter these days.
Cool idea, reflecting emotional state visually and aurally. I think just watching this may be stressing me out just a bit, although that may be the lack of sleep.
curious if you get more stressed out by the visuals/sound. how you gonna type with those things on?! gotta get some work done. Maybe it should be abstract and fragmented normally so it doesn’t distract you, and when stressed shows a clearer view…. OOh, liking the distorted bird sounds.
The overlay on top of the video seems like an afterthought… It seems like it might work better to pick points in the image and then distort the actual image in the same way some face distortion/morphing algorithms work…
http://www.amazon.com/Biofeedback-arts-Results-early-experiments/dp/B0007AJX60 if you’re interested in biofeedback/art … might be an interesting read
so how did you make yourself more stressed out throughout the video? i like the audio effects as well
Have you thought about re-play ability. As its current state it is very much about you and this peronal feeeling of memory. It mmight take discipline to keep using it
Great documentation. It’s very impressive how much went into this project. I think the distortion you created both the visual and the auditory have a wonderful aesthetic. I think your concept is great as well. I think another video might have worked better because the top is totally washed out and you lose the triangle mesh mostly. Also the slow frame rate is a bit unfortunate. Really great project.
i’m interpreting golan’s comments of trying different displays as… putting a buzzard on a leash on a winch and let it get closer to you as you’re less stressed out. Wear some glasses.