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.