I thought I would add a few photo’s from the final exhibition into this blog…

Possibly soundtracks came in unlikely places such as remixes by Nine Inch Nails and tracks by Squarepusher, but seeing as I was originally so inspired by the work of Chris Cunningham, it seemed fitting to go with a soundtrack by Aphex Twin.

The track is called Gwely Mernans and is an ambient and lossely structured piece of music. The tinkering piano and the looming presence of the notes parallels the drifting shots of my video perfectly, and the slight crackling also replicates the interference that the video displays.

watch?v=wMgi8SfrOo4 – You should be able to hear the track here…

I have also begun to set up my exhibition space and perform final tests ready for the viewing. I selected an area in the Creativity Zone on campus that was fairly enclosed, from here I began to rig curtains to the ceiling (using an elaborate and highly sophisticated network of hooks and cable ties!!) in order to create a narrow space.  The decision to stage the show on campus in this particular space lends itself well to my project’s concept.  The stark white background evokes a clinical feel, which in turn parallels the medical aspects of obsessive compulsive behaviour.  The curtains also act as a barrier that encloses the space, making it a more intimidating space to be in and when coupled with the elevating sound level, acts as a trigger for anxiety.

I took these photos during the set-up of my piece.

Below is a photo showing the lighting concept of my piece. I chose to light just the narrow space between the curtains in order to create a more immersive experience…

I have also finished wiring the mats with the bell wire that I purchased (with a little help from a tutor and three different soldering irons…). The wire attachments are now long enough to reach from the mats to the I-PAK, which I wired myself.

Should this not work, I did order an I-PAK-VE from the States. I was unsure if it would be delieverd in time or not, but I chose to order it anyway as a contingency plan in case the Arduino (that required more programming, and thus more scope for problems… in my mind, at least…) failed to work.

Whether the I-PAK-VE shows up in time is yet to be seen, fingers crossed…

The I-Pak-VE will act in much the same manner as the Arduino, but with less need for programming. It acts as an interface between the Max Patch and the pressure mats, and is essentially a switch, or a key on a keyboard.

This is a photo of the I=PAK, is bares a great deal of similarities to an Arduino…

I also received my pressure mats in the mail and tested them using a volt meter. They also required extra wiring (Bell wire was used) to allow them to be placed a distance from the laptop and I-PAK.

Upon investigation, I realised that this would not be possible, as MAX/MSP needs to track a certain point in the space, such as a colour, rather than movement itself, and because no one can predict the colours that people will be wearing when they view the piece, I realised that I was going to have to re-evaluate my approach…

Option one:

I heard of a project that another student had done involving pressure mats. I had viewed the piece myself. This means would replicate what I wanted to achieve with my Max program, only with three pressure mats on the floor that essentially acted as switches, much like those on a keyboard.

The pressure mat used in conjunction with the MAX software would create a reaction via the interfacing platform of an Arduino board. Initially, I wanted to steer clear of Arduino and processing, but this is an option that I may have to explore further…

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

EDIT: MAX/MSP

This post should have gone on before the sound entry, but I did not have time to enter it, so, in the interest of continuity, I am adding it here instead…

Below are some screen grabs of the the development of the MAX program.  I linked it into the pressure mats that I bought from Maplin and wired them to the I-PAK, which proved infinitely more simple because it required no programming, unlike the Arduino board.  The I-PAK allowed the pressure mats to operate like keys on the keyboard, which the MAX patch then received signals from.  The MAX patch was designed to alter the volume of the soundtrack when a certain key was pushed on the keyboard of the computer, and the I-PAK acted by making the MAX patch think that a key had been pressed, when actually it was a pressure mat…

The second screen grab shows the completed MAX patch with a dummy piece of footage in it.  Once I had made my final tweaks to the video, I replaced the dummy footage with the fully exported video and began testing it with the pressure mats.

Therefore I began to look into the prospect of using another method to track the movement of the viewer. After deliberation with my tutor, we settled on the idea of pressure mats. An easy way for the software to track where the viewer actually was in the space. This would of course mean that each mat would trigger a volume on the soundtrack, which would result in the sound stepping up and down as the viewer walked towards it, but this isn’t too much of a problem.

So, I have bee trawling the MAX forums and checking out the equipment that I might need to produce this effect…. this is not yet the definite way I will progress with this idea, but I am open to options.

Local electronics store Maplins stocks an inexpensive pressure mat that could be sufficient…

I would use three of four of these mats together to produce the desired effect. This would prove to be a much more efficient way to achieve what I want as it would not discriminate against factors like a web cam would have to…

The pressure mat would need to link to another piece of equipment called an I-PAC. Which you can view here…

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipacve.html

This would then feed into the MAX software that uses the equipment to alter the sound.

In theory…

Testing is needed. Stat.

After purchasing my canon camera, I also invested in a Manfrotto tripod with a video head. The video head allowed me to create some of the panning shots I utilised in my video (such as the opening shot of the sink) but I soon came to realise that equally (if not more so) good shots could be achieved with the use of stills shots and editing in Final Cut Pro. What I wanted to ideally achieve, were fluid shots that permitted me to track my camera around objects, rather than on a straight trajectory, but this was not possible (which is why I chose to approach these shots with a hand held method.

Macro also brought another host of problems, the magnifying of the image caused camera shake to increase greatly so my edit may need me to slow down some of the shots and use them in slow motion in order to reduce the appearance of camera shake. This is an idea I will test out.

Zan is a lesser known musician/video artist who creates multimedia performances, much like those of Chris Cunningham.. Only Zan’s work retains a less outright and flashy aesthetic. Instead, it inhabits a more demure, and subtle style.

I found Zan on Facebook and added him, it wasn’t long before we started up a dialogue regarding his work and i was able to interrogate him. He shoots his work on a Canon 5D Mark II, a camera that I had been interested in around that time, only the expense drove me to purchasing the less expensive, but in most respects, equally good Canon 7D.

Zan’s work maintains a sinister aesthetic, even his choice of musical accompaniment often parallels the industrial machinery noises I made reference to using earlier on in this blog. A couple of videos in particular were most interesting to me… you can see these below….

The second video is of the most interest to me due to it;s editing style. I find it very attractive and i think the jerky editing and disequilibrium of the piece mirrors my subject matter well. Even the sound is along the lines of what I am wanting to achieve with my piece…

These images were taken some time ago using the Canon EOS 7D, they were experiments into depth of field and macro photography.

The piece has also been quietly developing in a practical manner.

I made the decision some time ago to shoot my piece on a DSLR. This was a stylistic choice as I love the way the DSLR footage looks and also the ease of not having to lug an enormous camera around.

Original camera tests with a Z1 simply did not achieve an atmospheric enough effect. The Z1 simply wasn’t suited to the project as it’s size also made it difficult to get into position to film from odd angles, such as underneath taps and so on… The DSLR proved a more viable choice and the narrow depth of field allowed for some great creative shots.

I started by shooting what I might want to film using stills, to see how it would look… this was like the next logical step from the vague story board that I created during the last portion of the project. I am still finding that creating a comprehensive story board is not easy as the choices of shots I want keep changing…

So, the research for this piece has been a lenghty process. A mass of online research has come together with research take from library books to form an understanding of my chosen subject; obsessive compulsive behaviour. I trawled internet forums and monitored people’s entries and also conducted my own face to face interviews with sufferers in an attempt to learn more about people individual experiences of their condition and I found that while symptoms vary in form and strain, many of the symptoms can be attributed to similar anxiety triggering reasons.

Most subjects felt that their needing to make compulsive actions was related to some kind of Karmic force, the understanding that not submitting to a compulsion would result in a negative reaction in their day. A particularly interesting interviewee for this was Cali, she felt that not touching door handles or taps in a certain way would result in something bad happening to someone she cared about… the interesting thing was that her concerns did not lie with her own wellbeing, but with those around her. Another interesting factor for Cali, was her distinctly negative perceptions of her own condition. She felt that by submitting to her compulsions, she would be able to maintain a status quo, and ward off bad events. Cali’s need to touch things had nothing to do with wanting to create a positive aspect, but to ward off a bad one. This distinctly negative feeling could probably be attributed to other defects in Cali’s personality or condition, as I found in my subjects that other conditions such as Bi-polar disorder were often also present.

Richey was an entirely different case to Cali, but whose symptoms were largely the same. For Richey, touching objects was necessary, but the desired effect was not to ward off bad karma or induce good fortune or maintain a balance in any way, but to instead, cure an “itch” that he felt he had if he did not act on his compulsions…

Richey’s itch was the idea that he could simply not concentrate on anything if he had not indulged his compulsions. I spoke at length of needing to touch lamp posts and finding that he would need to re-trace his steps to touch a lamp post if he had managed to not do as he passed it. Even if he was ten minutes away (and increasing in anxiety) he felt the need to back track quite a distance to cure his “itch”. Cali spoke of the same thing regarding paving stones on the street. Stepping on certain paving stones was very important, and not stepping on them would result in her having to return to them to touch them at a later date.

Calli’s compulsions were very much about balance. For instance, she spoke to stepping on a twig and having to mirror the sensation of the twig under her foot on the other foot in order to maintain the balance.

Richey’s compulsions went as part of a wider framework of mental conditions including depression and eating disorders. He is now heavily medicated and manages to contain his compulsions, but he does find that certain stresses in his life will cause him to clean chronically in a compulsive manner in an attempt to cleanse the bad from the situation, much like Cali’s needs to right the wrongs… Richey needed to keep things tidy, but did not have a fear of germs. For him, order was a way of combating the chaos in his mind.

Third participant, Marianne was a more standard sufferer of OCD. She had a fear of germs and admitted to washing her hand as much as 50 times a day. We met in a coffee shop, and had to sit at a table with dirty cutlery on it (typical Cafe Nero…), to my interest, she kept her hands buried in her pockets, and as far aways from the dirty crockery as possible.  She also had a neurotic tendency to never allow her feet to touch carpet.

Jessa was the fourth participant in my research.  Her OCD erupted at the age of 32 after she had had a breakdown.  Unlike the pther interviewees, Jessa was an obsessional sufferer, as opposed to a compulsive one.  She found it very hard to go unfamiliar places, and often opted for staying in doors, she was largely reliant on her mother to assist her in her day to day tasks.  Jessa suffered from intrusive thoughts, a common obsessional trait in OCD sufferers.  She would be afraid that something violent would happen to her, and would then convince herself that this would happen, resulting in panic attacks. She obsessively had to know where the exits to a room were at all times, should she need to escape for any reason.

Research into the wonders of OCD have revealed some very interesting results. My interviewees have varying forms of the condition. Some of which are more pronounced than others…