Megan S - Audio and Object

I decided to use the one aspect of my life that has influenced so much of my personality - the fact that I never felt like I had a place to call home. While growing up, I moved every other year to a new town, school, even country sometimes. This lack of stability and consistency has formed a lot of my personality. My readiness to travel, my detachment to people, my inability to relate to others are (what I believe) to be a result of not having a single place to live. For me, home is about a feeling. Home is a place you can feel safe and comfortable with people who love you and when the surroundings change, the feeling changes or never actually solidifies. Home helps create who you are and for me, not having a home has created the person I am.
I choose to modify a dollhouse for my object. I wanted to keep the outside exactly the same. So looking from the outside, it looks like the picture perfect type of home that every little girl had. One the inside, I spray painted it white. It is completely empty of any colour showing how this idea of home being a safe, comfortable place doesn't actually exist.
I was thinking about what types of 'home' audio I could use. I choose audio from setting a table, people talking, and kids laughing. This would give the atmosphere of a cozy home with people and happiness. I also needed the other part to this, the 'non-home' sounds which was a bit harder. Every time I try to describe how not having a consistent home has affected me, the word air kept popping up. I feel aloof and an airy detachment. From this I decided to use audio of artic air to blow the sounds of home out and then have it come back. It represents the tug-of-war if me trying to find a place to call home and feel comfortable but never fully being there and staying.
This project turned out exactly how I wanted it to. I never thought of doing this any other way even if I did have more money. However, I think it might be cool to have a full size house pure white on the inside and have the audio as an invisible surround sound as the audience walks through.

Jessica R's Audio and Object Self Portrait

I chose to do the rubix cube to represent many different personas, and roles in society. Each colour depicts a side that’s both unique and could also be associated to other sides as well. The mixing of the audio track is an amalgamation of different cultures and events, which is something I’m very interested in, it’s the idea of exploring differences and individuality. I think the cube is the perfect object to showcase this idea because you can easily twist it and it turns/becomes a complete chaos, it reflects on our surroundings and especially with artists and their works. i feel like we are individual beings with complex desires and emotions, a cube with 6 different sides in a variety of colours can really reflect this idea. I chose this along with its audios to represent chaos as well as unity.

Audio Track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o81zMyZUWKk

Sherilyn Fernandes Audio self portrait

For my object i used my sewing binder, which has all my works and plans from the past years. The front of the binder is covered with different types of fabrics,buttons and other stuff you can find in a sewing kit. The purpose is to show how sewing has been a big part in my life. My mom sews, she use to make all my clothing when i was a child and now she has passed it one to me, in side the binder shows my progress throughout the years.






My sound is the sound of a sewing machine

Clapping Gestures

Pseudo Code (Same as above)

- Assemble team of 6 people

- sit in a circle

- each person thinks of an uncommon gesture

- each person declares their gesture

- decide who is going first

GAMEPLAY

- In unison clap your hands together twice on your knees

- clap your hands together twice

>loop (kneesx2, handsx2, kneesx2, handsx2)

- starting player choose a beat to begin on

- starting player performs their gesture while the group is clapping on their knees

- and chooses someone else's gesture to perform while the group is clapping their hands

- If your gesture is playing during the hand clapping

>loop (your gesture, other gesture)

- Else: keep clapping until your gesture is played second by someone

- If a beat is missed the game resets and the person who messed up begins.

Jessica Witt's Object and Audio Self Portrait

For my object aspect of my self portrait, I decided to do something that included a collage. This is something I do on a regular basis, cutting out pictures and words from magazines. However, I do not always find that the images in fashion magazines for example, are very real. I wanted to pick an image to put along with all of the fashion photos I chose, to make it have more of an "imperfect" look about it. I chose one of my favourite images that is several trees, with the leaves forming a face in the sky. I find this picture to be extremely beautiful, especially considering nature is all about imperfections in its beauty. So among all these movie stars and models, there is this one photo that makes it somewhat flawed.

For my audio portion, I decided to re-learn a song I used to play on the piano, "Comptine D'un Autre Ete". This song was always my favourite, but to make it include imperfections, I had to play with it a little on a sound mixing website. I created what sounded like mistakes, but they actually just add to the beauty of the song. I think imperfections is what makes someone or something beautiful and interesting, which is the reason I chose this theme for my self portrait.

Click here for my audio

Konstantino K's Paper & Motors REDONE

Seeing as the first iteration of my "Chaos Box" was left incomplete due to technical difficulties (namely, the single fan I had did not have the power to blow the confetti all throughout the box), I took it upon myself to follow up with the assignment and create a more finished product. If you'd like to see my original work, please click here.

The main fixes and updates for this iteration, of which I'll now refer to as "Chaos Box v2," are as follows:

• A sturdy enclosed box: The original wasn't fastened together as the fan wasn't working successfully. I wanted to be able to get back in there to fix the issues later. Version 2 is reinforced with cardboard on the four main walls.
• No more alphabet metaphor: I found that the "alphabet tiles" in version 1 were not successful, as the mass of confetti made the letters generally illegible. In this version, I chose to focus on the chaos of the confetti and the way paper can interact with the wind. It's always fascinating watching papers fly around in a dust tornado, right?
• Lighter confetti: The original confetti was created with cut out strips of construction paper. Version 2 uses coloured tissue paper used for gift wrapping. The result is a much thinner, lighter material that is far more likely to be picked up by air currents.
• Upgraded fan x2: The last version of the box used a 6V DC motor with a custom fan blade I had assembled out of a few pieces of bristol board and some rubber bands. The new fans are solid fans used in computers (these are often used to cool down a CPU or graphics card). Furthermore, I've used two fans now, one placed on either side of the box, to create better circulation inside the box. This allows the confetti to blow around infinitely, while the original version simply pushed all the confetti it could reach to the opposite side of the box.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the modifications. The end result is quite literally a chaotic box, where you can easily lose yourself for several minutes staring at the different colours mix with each other frantically.

In a further iteration, I would like to include two more motors on the remaining walls, as well as to boost the voltage going to each fan independently. This would allow all four fans to spin much quicker and create more wind power through the entire box, ultimately covering a much broader space and making the confetti blow around even more chaotically.

Jessica R's Paper & Motor

I created Charlie Chaplin using cardboard paper and black&white paint for detailing his appearance. By attaching both ends of the elastic to the center of the motor and the rotater, it allows it to control the movement of the arm. Another piece of elastic could be attached to the rotater and Charlie's hand, it creates the movement of his arm moving up and down, it is his famous Chaplin signature gesture.

Jonathan Seguin's Audio Portrait

Press play to hear my composition.

The titlescreen music was made in FLStudio using a step sequencer and some 8-bit VSTs.

For this project I aimed to represent myself by encapsulating myself within "the machine". When I looked around for a conceptual object to represent myself with, I realized that I had very few possessions. I do not have toys, I do not have trinkets, there are no physical novelties that I covet. Thinking about this further I realized most of the activity in my life revolves around digital technology and gaming. The "meta"; the non-physical; the digital, is what I value most.


The visuals pay homage to Metroid. I remixed the original Metroid title screen to include a pixelized portrait of myself, and changed the title to the nickname I have held for years and years: "Johnny". This helped to represent myself as a character, within the confines of a game, abstracted from my physical reality.


The game Metroid is an experience of solitude. Because of all the time spent absorbed in games and technologies, I have come to enjoy my "quiet time".

Lastly I decided to put the two elements together on my Nintendo DS. The Nintendo DS is a portable gaming system, which is significant in the fact that it allows me to take my virtual experiences with me. I tend to always be carrying some sort of digital device with me, because without them I just wouldn't be me.

Tristan Gallant - Audio Protrait

Tristan Gallant - Sound and Object Self Portrait by tristangallant

For a good portion of my life I never really had any option to choose what I wanted to do with basically anything, so when I was thinking of what to do with this project I went with a Pandora's Box kind of thing, except in this case it's my box and my sound is playing inside it.

Re-Make: Tristan's Paper & Motor Project

After having nothing working in time for the original due date, over the break I decided to start from scratch. SO I grabbed some gears, hocked it up to an arduino and made this OM NOM NOM Monster!

Betty Cheong- Audio Potrait

Audio Potrait- Blue Cat

By:Sin Yi Betty Cheong

The audio sound is a combination of things that I like or enjoy. For example at the beginning the "thud thud" sounds is the basketball that i enjoy playing on nice weather. Also any songs from the audio potrait are my favourite songs and the language I prefert to listen to, called "Nonna nomu Yeppo"a Korean song and "Yuuki 100%" a Japanese song. Also another important part was the meowing because that is a kitten is what i decided to create for my object. In one day I at least interact with a maxium of five cats per day, therefore cats is a significant part of my life. My audio may sound gloomy however the repetion of gongs with fireworks were meant to represent my cultural background. In general, I tried to place sounds of my culture, interests and activies all together.

For my object, I decided to create a cat, because I interact with them alot however the reason why used the colour blue was because that is my favourite colour. I tried to add headphones around the cat to represent my like in music, nonetheless the cat was too weak to support the headphones. At the front of the cat hanging from the mouth, is a piece of paper with a chinese word. I wanted to show chinese caligraphy to present my culture, because it is a very important part of me. Lastly at the back hanging from the tail, are some interest that isn't really obvious,for example, my favoutie idol group Ya-Ya-yah. In general I tried to create an object on my cat for every sound that I used in my audio part of the project.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/87958490fb9284b4/

RE-UPLOAD Winnie K's Paper and Motor: Paper Train VERSION 2!!!

Here is the new and improved Paper Train :) Maybe I should add more improvements? A controller perhaps?

Here is a video of the train: Paper Train Version 2

Linda Lou's Audio & Object Self Portrait

My object imitates a computer. I like anime and most Japanese-related things. The audio is from the anime/manga Pandora Hearts. When I find something interesting from some anime (or whatever) song, I tend to search for the score and play it for fun. I rewrote the original score, recorded myself playing and added Vocaloid (Gumi and Miku) on vocals. The vocaloids are singing the original melody/harmony. This was my first time rewriting something. The original score can be found here.

Jenny R's Object and Audio Self Portrait

Audio:

For my Object and Audio self portrait, I decided to look at myself through the eyes of a New Media Student. I thought of all of the sounds I would hear and observed the sounds I heard while working on projects and assignments throughout the course. I collected and recorded these sounds and created a collage of sounds (which you can hear above) which I thought best represent me as a New media student.

My object was not that successful. I was too closed to the idea of New media that I didn't include myself or my uniqueness in my object. I was focused on including all the tools I've used in New Media, forgetting about the creative aspect of the object. I put all of these tools into one container to represent me as one whole person.

If I had a longer time to work on this assignment or possibly a bigger budget for an installation, I would definitely include more of me in the object. Perhaps having the tools (in the container) in different positions hovering over the container, along with a few pieces of work that was created with these tools. Then I would paint the container with cultural colours or even with something that reflected more of me in New Media. I do plan on working more on this object for the future.

Connors Eilersen's Audio and Object Self Portrait

For my project, I created a program in processing that interacted with user input for a wired gaming mouse. The mouse, the Steel Series Ikari Laser, was the stand in object, and the audio was a series of prerecorded audio loops relating to the gamer aspect of my personality. The sound that was played was not dependent on mouse direction, but rather mouse speed. When the mouse was moving slow, a sharp, deep breath could be heard, to represent someone concentrating. When it was moving to fast, a loud explosion was emitted. However, if kept at a constant, medium speed then a the rhythmic sound of a bass guitar would be emitted, representing the rhythm-like motions I go through while gaming. Additionally, sounds could be made be clicking, each relating to the function of that button in a particular game. If left click was pressed, then a gun sound was emitted, and if right click was pressed, then the sound of a zergling attacking would be heard.

Jenny T's Object & Audio Self Portrait

People say that a person’s room says a lot about a person; therefore, I chose to use my room to represent me. When you come in my room, the first thing you would notice (besides the mess) probably would be my pictures/polaroids that are on my walls. And these pictures are of my close friends, family and people who are important to me. I think a person’s room is a really personal space. The fact that someone’s picture is up on the wall means that I really appreciate them and any memories that we’ve created. Besides the pictures, there is a little envelope underneath the chalkboard, because I love to send “old-fashioned” mail to my friends, and also there is a DVD box set of the TV show “Friends” on the shelf underneath the TV. Not only is it one of my favourite shows, but it also relates well with the theme.

Click images to view bigger


Originally, I had planned to create an entire model of my room but that idea was scrapped because of timing issues. I created most of the items out of thin cardboard, and printed a lot of pictures out from the computer. My bed frame was created from a small box, and popsicle sticks & straws that were painted silver. My bed material was made from scrap foam and actual cutouts from my bed sheets. I sewed the pillows and stuffed them with cotton. The wall is cardboard painted white, and the floor is a wooden floorboard that I found online and just printed out. My chalkboard is made from cardboard and popsicle sticks and the clothes on the floor was sewn from scrap material. Other stuff was just made from cardboard and/or paper.




For my audio, I recorded myself reading a letter that I wrote to my friend before graduation. I kind of changed some of the contents for this assignment because nobody would really understand some of the inside jokes that I mentioned, but most of the letter was legit.


Actual card

Curtis Poad's Audio Self Portrait

Sound Portrait by Curtis Poad

With the majority of my time spent in front of a screen whether it be a laptop, TV, or phone, I decided that using a miniature TV would best represent this. The TV also represents my interest in different kinds of media like videogames, films and TV shows. The object was originally a pencil holder. I modified it by spray painting the TV black and cutting out the screen portion of the TV. I then put speakers inside connected to an mp3 player. Finally, I made a lid for the top complete with fake antenna.

I feel the audio does a better job at representing me however. I sampled many different sounds that relate to hobbies and interests I have. Plus I love all kinds of electronic music and have always had an interest in music production. Some of these sampled sounds include a skateboard riding on the pavement, a golf club htting a ball, a snowmobile riding by, some video game sounds and more. The rest of the audio is generated through various synths and automated effects used in FL Studio.

Lauren Bonsell - Audio/Object

With my heart and soul belonging on the ice to the sport I've dedicated an ever-growing 15 years to, it's no surprise that it was the inspiration for a project that requires to create a representation of yourself. My stand-in avatar was a wolf sculpted out purely hockey tapes (clear and stick).

I chose to create a wolf because I wanted it to be a representation of me, and I wanted to be the furthest from literal as possible. Another huge part of who I am are animals. As a kid, if I wasn't going to make it to the big leagues for hockey I was going to be a vet. I feel a wolf is a creature that represents my personality due to the similarity in qualities such as: working with a team (packs), being very family orientated, loyalty, leadership, and playfulness.

Without making a chaotic object, I wanted to portray the rest of who I am through my audio. Of course hockey was a huge part of it, to help relate to the object (not everyone can identify the use of clear tape). It included the sounds of things I encounter on a regular basis, or sounds that I adore hearing.

Sounds in the piece:

• kids playing ball hockey
• myself stickhandling
• Hockey Night In Canada (original) theme song
• small waterfall (turtle tank)
• wolf howling
• myself using clear tape (putting on and taking off my hockey gear) 
• heartbeats (anticipation of a game)
• commentary of an NHL broadcasted game
• walking through snow
• a cat purring
•  Pokemon theme music 

 ***   click for Audio   ***


 If I could change anything about my project I would have presented my object in its own environment. Perhaps placed the tape wolf on a miniature ice rink and made her a jersey (with my name on the back).

Kathryn's Audio Self Portrait

For my audio self portrait I decided to modify the book "The Secret Garden" to best represent myself as an object. I chose this mainly because despite my absolute reliance on technology, I positively refuse to make the change from book to Kindle or eReader. I love everything about my overflowing bookshelf and the indescribable feeling of opening a book for the first time and letting yourself fall into a fantasy. I find that I will always have a strong connection to books and I love not only the stories inside them, but the importance of memories of people who they have belonged to. The Secret Garden was not only my favourite story as a child, but it is also an object that is tied to the memories of my childhood and all the things I used to imagine while reading stories like these. Today, I still hold onto some of my childhood imaginations and it often comes out (if ever so slightly) in most of my work.

For the modification of my object, I decided to directly use the books pages in order to create a scene (note: I specifically bought a new book so I didn't have ruin my own!). I ripped out random pages and traced stenciled trees onto them so I could cut them out. I then used the excess to create the bench and the leaves/flowers. Furthermore, the three illustrations (Mary, the crow and the squirrels) are original illustrations and also cut out straight from the book's pages. At first I was heading more in the direction of using other paper to create my scene (like coloured construction paper), but I'm extremely happy that I didn't. I'm really happy with how the trees and objects are actual passages from the book and I find that coincidentally words like "magic, clouds, child" can be seen amongst them as if relating to my childhood imagination. At the beginning I found it extremely hard to ruin something that I have such a strong opinion about and since I bought the book used, I thought of the person who had previously owned it and if it meant anything special to them. But in the name of art and the purpose of having something creative for this project, I cut it up anyway.

For my sound portion, I automatically wanted to create something soft with a kind of fantasy sound for it. I took a pulsing crescendo and decrescendo from Garageband and basically applied improvised musical typing (in the sound of a piano) until I created something that I thought went well with it. I looped it and then recorded one other piano accompaniment (also musical typing) on top of what I already created. Overall, I'm very happy with this project and I feel as if imagination is a key part of who I am. I often daydream and find myself getting lost in books and I think my sound works well with what I wanted to accomplish.

If I were to do anything to improve this project, I would definitely try and incorporate soft lighting into the book or unnoticeably in front of it so the trees are able to cast shadows on the wall. I find the trees extremely captivating and even additionally while presenting it, I was surprised to see how well the wind from the vents made the branches move. In a gallery setting I would aim at take advantage of these things and even hope to have dim lighting to create a more captivating experience.

Click HERE to listen to my sound file.

Christine Szapiel- Audio/Object

My audio/object installation consisted of my cork/ dry erase board. This item describes me as I constantly have a notepad or sticky notes with me to keep track of all I need to do. Having said this, my life is an organized mess. I arranged the notes on the cork board into school, recent adventures with friends and several outings I've gone on in the last little while. The pictures are significant as I always have a camera on me to capture anything exciting or interesting that I come across and simply to keep memories. The quotes on the dry erase board as significant because I constantly look up new forms of inspiration to look at life in a different light, to take on whatever challenges life throws my way. The random points of what I have to do signify my life being kept in order as I always keep track of what I have to do.

I decided to present my object on top of a desk to show that I can usually be found at my desk, working on a number of assignments. The object is placed higher than the spinning motor to show it's significance in the work as it is what truly describes me. The idea of the different levels of important issues in my life came from my mind constantly spinning with countless ideas or thoughts (original intent was to have a head sticking out of the hole with the thoughts spinning around it or simply all the layers spinning at different points in time). The use of the stained wood came from my father having always worked with wood all my life; I wanted to work on the table with him to signify him having a significant influence on my life but also adding to the chaos within it- hence the spinning of the circles.

I used my mp3 player as the audio output to show that coding is not one of my strengths or likenesses as well as my love for music. This also displays that I am a fairly simple girl, easy-going but also rely on little technology to run my life.

My audio soundtrack consists of a constant rush of water to signify the calmness in my personality. The water seems very soothing to me as I am able to reflect on my day and simply take a moment to relax. Following this calm sound, I ended it with abrupt sounds of a car horn to show my mind snapping back to reality when in the middle of a daze and realize how many things I have to do.

Hope you all enjoyed it.

Nancy J's Audio project

Description:

I recorded some birds chirping outside (with a camcorder), and also created a 'rain stick' sound by using a cardboard tube filled with mustard seeds.  I recorded two sound clips of my own voice.  That wasn't so easy as I don't like 'hearing' myself.  I layered all of the clips using garage band. 


My audio and object represents the connection I have to nature.  I appreciate nature and acknowledge that our existence as humans depends on what nature provides to us.  We breathe the air, we live on the earth and grow food on our earth; we are warmed by the sun and fires and we need water to live.  These elements are essential to our existence and this project is a meant to be a meditative acknowledgment.  I included a candle, water, rocks to represent these elements. 

Jessica Porretta's Audio & Object Self Portrait

OBJECT:

I used a pointe shoe to represent my 15 years dance background. Even though ballet is the style of dance that I dislike the most, I know that most people associate dance with ballet, so thats why I chose a pointe shoe. The pointe shoe is attached to a stick, which is then attached to a motor - inside the box. When the motor is plugged in, the pointe shoe spins allowing it to have a 'piroette' look. Even though I do not dance anymore, it will always be a big part of my life, and this is why I used the pointe shoe to represent myself.

The audio I used is a poem that was found a few years ago (which i cannot find to cite it), and I think represents the life of a dancer perfectly. It discusses the things a dancer does in the change room, and all the long nights that we have to stay at the dance studio, when other teenagers would be out partying on a Friday night. The background music is my boyfriend playing the guitar to a song "I Hope You Dance". I think this song goes perfectly with the poem, as the actual lyrics of the song compliment the poem itself. Dance takes a LOT of dedication, and that dedication is not for everyone. You really have to love it to enjoy it, when doing it so much like i did.

I took my classmates advice to put the pointe shoe on a vertical angle, as it makes it seem like the dancer is doing a pirouette on one foot.

http://www.youtube.com/user/xojessykah#p/a/u/0/pBZAszbSrBA

Amanda Wood's Audio and Object Self Portrait

Lilian C's Audio and Object Self Portrait

For my Project I decided to show my personality and things that I like. For my objects, it is a tamagotchi with a lot of stuff on it. Tamagotchi is my favorite toy in the world, I bring it to school everyday.
Inside the tamagotchi there is a pokemon called Togepi, it is a pokemon that needs a lot of caring from people. I think I am sort of similar to it because I am still relying on my parents a lot...
The stuff on the tamagotchi are all the stuff that can represent myself. Firstly, I painted the tamagotchi into rainbow color because that is my favorite color, I love colourful things because they makes me feel happy@w@
There is a pink sakura on the top left of the tamagotchi, which shows my LOVE to Japan!! I am not Japanese but my lifestyle, my hobbies, tv shows I watch, music I listen to... are all about Japan.

And the little objects(they are made out of clay) are just all the stuff that either looks like me or
some representations of what I love. e.g. ear rings = love of Japanese fashion....


For my audio, I added some tamagotchi sound effects and a meow meow song. When tamagotchi laugh or happy, they will have that sound. I want to use that sound to show myself is a happy person. And I sang along with the meow meow song, the melody of the meow meow song can represents my (sometimes over) optimistic personalityXD and also show my love of cats!!

Here is my audio
Lilian-audio selfportrait.wav

Olivia's Audio and Object Self Portrait

For this project, I was thinking about what was personal to me that I could then portray in object/audio form, and came to the conclusion that one of the most personal moments in a day occurs when I'm trying to fall asleep. At the end of a chaotic and busy day, I like having that personal moment with just me, to think quietly and reflect upon the day's events(instead of sleep). This thought process has become a kind of daily ritual for me, and I tend to get a lot of my creative inspiration this way, and although a wandering mind tends to be problematic when put together with the idea of sleep, it's just how I always was ever since I was little- a night owl :)

My object represents my mind, and therefore all of the clutter inside are my thoughts and ideas. I incorporated some sheet music and paintbrushes representing the creative outcome that sleeplessness can bring. On some of the paper pieces, I wrote lyrics from the song "Sleeping Sickness" by City and Colour which really inspired me for this project (being about insomnia).










As for the audio, I usually find the easiest/most meaningful way to express myself is through music, and it can probably tell others how I feel way more effectively than my words ever will... So I wrote a short piece about my mind's journey before the final minutes of falling asleep. I hope it sounds more clear than in class! I made it start of slow and trailing, and eventually it leads into a busier section, and then calms down again when thoughts stop rushing through my head (eventually..). I also mixed in a bit of a Radiohead song to simulate chaos near the middle. Sorry for the bad quality.