Crit 02 : Idea Development

ive been looking for a video Mr Ky showed us about an installation, where it captures people's faces then switch face parts with other people but I can't seem to find it :S that is a possible way of showing how difference races/colors can mix right? taking pictures of our body parts then switching it around with others and the pieces fits. it does projects the message of "We are like pieces of aaaaa hugeee 99999999-piece puzzle. Everyone fits. Everyone completes one another" zzz haha. cant find a good reference but kinda like this :



okay for example that setup can be different blocks/displays placed in a formation. every block display a different person's body part. every block is different person. they varies. maybe i can put additional blocks where it displays our surrounding, our everyday life environment. train station maybe. busy streets. or everyone's getaway, a perfect holiday. beaches. okay maybe some might prefer to spend their holidays in front of their pc doing wtv they like doing and calling it a perfect getaway. anyway, all the videos playing on the blocks will finally come to an end and become parts of a huge video as a whole. u know maybe a picture of Malaysia's flag, one malaysia logo or something. okay lame. but you get the point right? meaning everyone fits into the puzzle. we all play a role in this world. no discrimination, no hate. justttt loveee bebeeehhh zzzzzzzzz

of course the video is actual one whole video from the start. only composed to make it look like its made of different displays. this technique was done really well at the installation in Petrosains during the intro and outro part. and this is projection mapping, well not a very high level one. but still something really new to me. im terrible at video editing.

conteng conteng!



i think the iPod idea is really a no no now. cus the idea was the create an app where people who uses the app can share their opinion, videos, images on racism/1Malaysia through Bluetooth or Internet. but when I think about it, its nothing more than a sharing tool. Which is lame.

The message and topic is still on 'Racism'. So it's either :
(i) Making an installation where people hold their 'message' on "What is racism?", "1Malaysia is...", or "The Change We Need". When they move in front of the webcam, motion detection will start recording for maybe 10 seconds. Auto-composition will be made on the other screen. Maybe 3 webcams ( refer to lousy sketches ), 1 harddisk with massive space for recording, projection for display, and a computer of course.

(ii) The idea mentioned above. Blocks. Maybe I could make it capture images/videos of people standing in front of the installation without them being aware of it by placing a webcam behind the display like the one done in this video. And this one.

(iii) The old-proposed idea. The buzz-mood-ish thing.

Im gonna look more into creating (i) and (ii).

Crit 02 : Reaching Out

i stumbled a few installation i found, the last post started to look too long to put everything in it.

Listening Post by Mark Hansem and Ben Rubin

actually this one ive found during my New Media class research. its done back in 2001 where it collects text pieces from all over the cyberspace. here's the official description made on the installation :

Listening Post is an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens.
Listening Post cycles through a series of six movements, each a different arrangement of visual, aural, and musical elements, each with it's own data processing logic.
Dissociating the communication from its conventional on-screen presence, Listening Post is a visual and sonic response to the content, magnitude, and immediacy of virtual communication.

More info: http://www.earstudio.com/projects/listeningpost.html

this is where the original idea i proposed came from. also from buzz-mood. trying to collect what everyone thinks, feels, wants and creating a unity from that. but seeing how there's really no limitation or parameters on what a person can write/input, it's hard to keep the app in control as it may need administration/observation all the time. filtering what's right and what's not. and that sucks.



We Are The Citizen

okay honestly this one doesn't look so great. it uses AR to project words that are unity-related and community-related. yea the idea is brilliant. just that it doesn't look interesting i dont think it attracted that many people. and the whole point here is to reach out to the community. still it's a good reference as it also plays with words. which i think might need a little bit more visual in it.

A visual allegory for existence in Singapore, this installation thematically revolves around air conditioning, a physical condition noted for it's importance in Singapore's great economic development through the conditioning of ambient temperature. 'We the citizens' is about us, Singaporeans and endeavors to confront the audience with issues of our comfort and meanings of unity under the comfort of government. "We the citizens" utilises Mixed Reality Technology

Crit 02 : "Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated”

my idea of creating unity among races in Malaysia was to create an installation that would show people that they have similarities despite our differences. but with my original proposed method, Mr Ky made a comment that it might result in a backfire; the installation might display more differences rather than reaching its true goal. and i agree with him completely here.

so i looked around a bit for stuffs that are mainly labeled unity or change, community, stuffs like that.

before anything, here's a song called Be The Change by Kat Edmonson. Not really my kinda song but the feedback is good. i guess how they made people write on boxes cutout about the change they're looking for worked well. kinda reminds me of our 'Why MMU?' ( copycat! plagiarism! zzz ) video a couple years back for Media Production class haha.



might be pretty cool if i could make an installation where people write what they think about racism and stand in front of the camera for like maybe 10 seconds. then the app will keep sorting the videos out in random order and make like a montage with random songs about unity and change playing in the background. maybe put like 3 cameras or 4. then every time a user uses the installation, it will pick a camera randomly so that we can get a different point of view for each person. maybe project a different background too. just might take this idea into consideration.

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i found this app for the iPod, called Be the Change: Daily Challenge and Acts of Change Calendar by HearPlanet. it's a nice app where everyday it challenges you to do something. it's really up to you whether you gonna take the challenge or not. that's the whole message is about, Be The Change. here's a few screenies :




it doesnt implement any out of this world feature. but it does have a nice-simple design which almost all of iOS apps use so everyone can get comfortable in a minute. although this app doesnt directly aims towards racism or unity, the approach is applicable and inspiring. its doing pretty well in reaching a mass number of people.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
—Steve Jobs, 2003

and this app definitely works, thanks to its design and approach. its proof that i dont have to go and try to impress people with an installation full of visual, or visual audio processing projection, or an app on the iPad and stuffs. i probably should just stick to the idea above. its simple. and kinda original i guess. okay not really. whatever

read more about Be The Change app here. responses it's getting are good

brief description :

“Every day you’ll receive a new inspirational message from one of the world’s most respected thinkers and communicators. With each message comes a Daily Challenge to go along with the day’s theme. Not only that, but you can log your Acts of Change so you can track your positive actions, and share them with friends and family on Facebook and through email.”

Crit 02 : Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Well further look into the iOS SDK proved that Apple are made of greedy bastards very good with marketing strategies. Turns out you can only get the iOS SDK to develop apps on IPods by using, thats right Mac. it's Mac only. meaning you cant develop iOS apps on Windows. unfortunately, Ive been a Windows since forever and I have no idea where I can get my hands on a Mac ( or the money to buy one ). For developers who wants their apps to be available to others, they need to register to Apple and sign up for $99 i think. Well I guess thats pretty fair since you are getting an audience through their product. But still, for people who wants to develop apps solely for the purpose of education? Apps can only be used on jailbroken Apple devices unless you pay them and put it up for download on the AppStore.

Not many people are very capable in Objective C and it's the core language to create iOS apps. And yea not everyone owns a Mac.


So there a few ways to write apps in Windows :

Method 5 - Toolchains:
There are several toolchains available (like winChain) that actually lets you write and build iPhone applications on windows.

Method 4 - Use other Languages instead of Objective-C

(i) Code in Java: For Java developers, there is a workaround: XMLVM.

(ii)Code in C/C++ - DragonFireSDK:

Say no to Objective C, say no to forced-Mac and yes to C/C++, Windows. This founds the base for DragonFireSDK that uses Microsoft Visual C++ to develop, test iPhone apps.

Apps, Games created with DragonFireSDK can be completely written and debugged in Windows and are also fully compliant for distribution and sales at the Apple iPhone App Store.

Method 3. Hackintosh: This is one of the effective ways of doing it: Install Mac on PC and then run the Native iPhone SDK.

Method 2: Cross compilation of Adobe apps: You can write your apps in Flash Actionscript 2, ActionScript 3 or Adobe AIR, Flex and then cross compile it to ARM binary that is executable on iPhone. This can be done installing Project Sprouts for which sample Flex applications source is available here.

Here is a video on how this is done:

Method 1. Flash CS 5: This is in fact the most effective and easiest way to make it to App store doing all the “legal stuff”.

Flash CS 5 introduces new Feature that let’s you develop iPhone native applications just like you develop Adobe AIR apps. Recently, Adobe announced support for Multitouch, Accelerometer, GPS support in Flash 10.1 for phones. CS5 adds new APIs that lets developers leverage these modern Phone features and hence develop application not just for iPhone but for all Phones that support Flash.

taken from here. click to read further detail

Final note :
Although the article was posted on December 2009, the last method; using Flash CS5 seems very promising since I have used Flash CS5 a few times. Will look more into this

Crit 02 : Change in Platform

I've been thinking about the approach on reaching out to the audience. No great ideas worth mentioning so far. I kinda agree with Mr Khong when he said my initial approach was a little old school or outdated.

Lately I've been playing around with the Ipad. It's pretty cool I have to say. But other then a larger display, its pretty much the same thing as an Iphone 3G. Still fun though. Especially with the kids. My nieces and nephews enjoy drawing and popping bubbles all the time on that thing. It seemed like a viable platform for my project. So I did research on Ipad apps.

I'm still not quite sure how the final product is gonna be. But for now, I will be experimenting with Ipod apps. Since I started studying in MMU, every applications I programmed was on Flash. Nothing else. So I thought I just might challenge myself and try to create an Ipod application.

Of course, to test code an app and actually test it out, I need the real thing to play with. So I sold my psp ( T~T ) to buy an Ipod Touch. Just got it yesterday so still pretty new to it. Got a few apps and a lot of apps really shows amazing stuffs you can do with the Ipod when connected to a PC. You pretty much have total control over it. Okay that's a lie. But it is still pretty cool. For me at least. Tested a few sharing applications, like AirSharing PRO. Worked well. Might look on how it works and coded which surely will be useful.

The applications are mostly coded in C. Obviously everyone knows Ipod doesn't support Flash. Which sucks cause I can't play Facebook games on it xD still seeing how a massive amount of awesome applications are available for the Ipod, I bet you can do all kind of things with C. The most common program used to code an Ipod app is X-Code.

Here's a short tutorial for noobs like me :

Design Research Proposal

Went for my SRI consultation today. Mr Khong read my fyp proposal and told me I should change the tablet input part to speech recognition. Personally, I think it's a hard task to make an application that can capture speech and convert it to text accurately. And i think Mr Ky agrees on this. But I will look into it for a bit

My proposed research title was 'Capability of new media to function as a medium to deliver a message to audience'. I thought if I study about the tools and technology it could really help in making an effective installation.

Mr Khong decided it was best if I do a research on the effects of racism in Malaysia and its implications. His reasoning was that if I am planning to unite races among Malaysian, I need to know the races in Malaysia first and what causes racism. Not just the majority ( Malay, Indian, Chinese ) I must include races that are minor in numbers in my research because they are still part of the races in this country. They are what makes Malaysia a multinational country. He suggested I should proceed with defining racism afterwards, then continue with interviews concerning racism effects and what are certain people/groups efforts in voicing out their stand against racism.

Final note, he suggested to do a research entitled "Studying the effects of racism and its implications in a multinational country such as Malaysia" and proposal submission is next week.