news

A newspaper clipping from when Greys family get taken away

Poems

Here are a few poems written for Greys Journal by Frances Ratner;

Whose house this is I do not know
His home is in a tower though
He does not see me sitting here
To wait alone, nowhere to go
...

The sky still shines blue
But under a different sun
The light is harder here
Or maybe it only seems such
Because it falls, or once did
On a far lonelier countenance
...

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
It seems you are determined to know
You trace with a scalpel
Every line that does not flow
Till there’s nothing left of my children
In the name of Science.

...

Brown on brown

Light on dark

Day on night

Blur to one

Poses

Update 2

From here on now I will be animating the 100 different animations which make up the interactive experience. I also will be putting a journal of "Greys" life here in Earth so far so everyone can understand what he has been up to and why he seems to be so sad at the moment... I will be building the frame of his shack in 2 weeks time and the test interactive space will hopefully be up and running with the 4 sensors working in unison also within the next two weeks.

Family Photo

physical components

box

My awesome Box controls

character render

guy in room

bump render

A reliable way to measure short distances would be with the Sharp Infrared Range Finders. These Infrared sensors are inexpensive, relatively accurate and quite easy to use. In this overview, we will look at the Sharp GP2D12 & GP2D02 sensors.
The GP2D12 & GP2D02 can detect distances that are around 4″ to 30″ away from the sensor. The Infrared Range Finders calculate the sensor-object distance through the process of triangulation. Triangulation works by detecting the reflected Infrared beam angle, and by discovery of the angle – the distance can then be determined. In practice, the Infrared Range Finder emits a pulse of Infrared light, which is then reflected back by the target object or not. The Infrared Range Finder receiver allows the reflected infrared light to fall onto an enclosed linear CCD array. The CCD array then determines the angle, and computes a corresponding value which is sent to your microcontroller.

The Infrared Range Finders, GP2D12 & GP2D02, have a non-linear output. As the distance measured from the sensor may increase or decrease linearly, the output from the sensor may increase or decrease non-linearly. This occurs when the Infrared Range Finders are not capable of detecting very short distances – less than 4″ from the sensor. Check the datasheet of the Infrared Range Finder to determine the minimum and maximum distances supported.

Even though the GP2D12 & GP2D02 are similar in terms of functional use, these two sensors differ in the manner in which the sensed-distance is communicated to your microcontroller. The simplest of the two, the GP2D12, simply outputs the sensed-distance as an analog voltage, whereas the GP2D02 outputs the sensed-distance as a byte-value.

The GP2D12 & GP2D02 are easily hooked up to the Arduino, as seen below:

mapping

If I use the simple model there will be 17 different animations to animate and also have to animate possible transitional animations which would be 1-2 seconds long. With this model I can Keep adding levels and get a deeper history built up within the exhibition. This just means Ill have to make variations of the 8 neutral animation instances where I can focus on how his body pose and facial gestures changes as he is treated more cruelly or treated positively.

Inside

shack

This is the draft diagram of the installation and the mapping of the sensors. I will be adding a description later when im in the mood to write about it. sorry

new concepts

Rigging 01

High res render 01

i did a little bit of photo shopping to map out where the bump map for the wrinkles will go on the mesh

Conclusion of Research

I have found through my research that racism only exists through fear. It is the fear of the unknown; we need to be taken outside our comfort zones to understand that diversity is important for us to progress into the future. Racism manufactures itself through protecting oneself. Everyday racism displays the many forms in which we subliminally contribute towards a racist landscape.

Racism determines how we integrate with the diversity within a community. Everyday racism needs to be exploited and awareness of its impacts needs to be surfaced. Through design this topic can be presented as a piece of social awareness which employs history as a way of dealing with contemporary issues.

Fear of Difference

For example H.P. Lovecraft’s horror stories of aliens, mythical beasts, and demons. He demonstrates the scale of man within his society where the Fear of not understanding what something is, destroys the sense of security within his grounded life.




Through a study of Neill Blomkamps movie “District 9” we can see his impression of the social implications of racism in South Africa through a contemporary approach. The aliens are hard to understand and the citizens of South Africa feel they are taking over rights which belong to them. Throughout the movie there is a perception of misunderstandings.

body

Rat

Investigations into the arduino processor. Here I look at how sensors can control the way we partake in interactive design. The tests I have been working on involve 3d animation, where the audience affects the rat by interacting with his world (rat in a box).

Head shape

I just used the afternoon to block in the face of my character. probably got to spend another day on him and ill have the body all blocked out as well.

In the room

I will draw a diagram of the room soon.

First model

This was my first model, which was based on the District 9 guys. I scrapped this Idea as I wanted the character to be more human like.

alien Concepts

Here is the first inspiration photo for the concept of my character. From here I made the character more and more resemble the gray aliens, which we all are common with. I want the character to have the same emotional feeling as the effect we get when we first encounter Spielberg's E.T.

Character 02

Character 01

"If museum exhibitions at their best are media of public
communication that offer a transformative affective
experience, expanding or altering the visitors awareness
of, interest in the valuation of the aspects of
themselves and their world, based on visitors confidence
in the perceived authenticity of the objects on
display, it might be thought that ideas for such
exhibitions could originate only with museum professionals
who are experts in their respective fields."