Meddling at the intersection of art and technology
Hi everybody. If you’re attending GDC this week please join Adam Bezark, Lex Rhodes, and me for our Game Narrative Summit talk, Storytelling Siblings: The Kindred Connection between Games and Theme Parks. We start at 14:40 PDT on Tuesday July 20th and we’ll be in the chat for live Q&A. Hope to see you there!
Friends! As some of you know I’ve been collaborating with Cynthia Minet on her new installation that will soon be opening at the International Museum of Art and Science in McAllen, Texas. If you’re in Los Angeles this Sunday, March 4th from 2p – 5p you can get a sneak peak of the work at Cynthia’s studio here at the Brewery.
I worked with Cynthia on the lighting/audio system design and programming. Each sculpture has about 49 RGB LEDs in it controlled with a Trinket microcontroller. The audio is triggered by motion and powered from a Trinket Pro. If you have questions, you’ll have to come to the studio 🙂
There is more info on the open studio at the Facebook event page. We hope to see you there.
#cynthiaminetart #migrations #ledart #ledsculpture
It’s been quiet in my creative world…but not uneventful. Over the last couple of months I’ve had the pleasure of working with Cynthia Minet on her upcoming installation, “Migrations.” Cynthia is an accomplished artist and her creations are constructed from post-consumer plastics and LED lighting. Migrations depicts six Roseate Spoonbills in varying stages of flight. With this sculpture Cynthia hoped to push the lighting a little further than she had in previous work.
There were two goals.
After some initial conversation a third goal popped up. If we’re going to be programming these LEDs could we also add some motion activated audio to immerse the viewer in the world of the spoonbill?
After some testing we settled on the P9813 LED pixels. The plastic casing around the actual LED helps diffuse the light. The fact that the strands run at 5v was an added bonus.
To program the lights and the motion based audio I knew we were going to use something in the Arduino family. The spoonbills do not have a ton of room inside of them so we opted for a Trinket to run the lighting and a Trinket Pro to run the audio system. Ideally everything would run off of one board but that just wasn’t feasible here. This also cut down on the cost for each sculpture.
The next few posts will get into the details of the wiring, programming, testing, and installation of the lighting and audio systems.
If you’re around this weekend (Oct 21 and 22) you can see the sculpture in its current state at the Brewery Art Walk. Art Walk runs from 11a-6p both days.  #breweryartwalk
It’s been a busy spring for Augmented Reality and the last week really topped it off. The 8th annual Augmented World Expo was 3 days of vendors, developers and enthusiastic end-users coming together to talk about, demo and try on the latest AR gear. If there is to be one thing I came away with from the expo it’s that we haven’t yet agreed what to call this thing. Augmented, Mixed or eXtended Reality. Each was used almost interchangeably. It won’t matter what we call if but it sure would help the messaging if we stuck to a naming convention.
We all want the same thing. We want a device (or set of devices) that we can look through which will overlay information and interactive elements onto the real world. This information will be easy to access and quickly available. Creating objects and information for AR will be simple, requiring little to no programming. The hardware will be priced in the same range as a smart phone and weigh less. It will be personalized to us and allow access to our virtual assistant of choice.
This coming year is going to feel a bit like 2016 did for VR. We’re on the cusp of some interesting hardware hitting the market at attainable prices. The big, big players are making moves…Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook are all in varying stages of their AR strategies.
Google announced Google Lens at I/O in May and, assuming it works as well as it demoed, looks to be a key piece of their AR strategy. It plays to their strengths in machine learning and information management. Their continued development of Tango will make AR creation and experiences more accessible. I’d like to see Tango built into the Pixel 2 (hint, hint Google) and any other devices they make from here on out. With a likely hardware announcement in the fall, what more will come this year? Time will tell…
Microsoft released its Windows Creators Update for Windows 10. This update includes tools for the creation of Mixed Reality content. Microsoft is trying to make it as easy as possible to build content for AR (and VR) with tools provided in the OS. An interesting side note, Lorraine Bardeen (General Manager, Windows and HoloLens Experiences) used the term mixed reality exclusively in her talk at AWE. Microsoft has since announced hardware from partners Dell and Asus. We’ll see what else turns up this year…time will tell…
Facebook made it clear that AR is a priority at F8. They promise to provide a platform to create AR experiences with relative ease. It’s still unclear what exactly Facebook’s AR Studio will mean for all of us. Time will tell…
Apple announced, just yesterday, their ARKit at WWDC as a platform for bringing solid AR content to iOS. We’ll see what’s truly possible and hopefully see some hints for what’s to come as developers get their hands on it. Time will tell…
Magic Leap…(this space intentionally left blank)
The hardware is clunky, uncomfortable, and heavy. The experiences are neat but less than amazing. It’s ok, it’s early days. There are definite use cases for AR as it exists right now. Head mounted displays are great for industrial design, construction and manufacturing. Environments where having information available while keeping your hands free. The hardware is rugged and includes safety features necessary for those sectors.
Entertainment companies can start thinking about AR for project planning and previz. AR and VR are great ways to show a client what your project is really going to look like. ODG (Osterhaut Design Group) has a pair of glasses coming this fall for under the $1000 mark. This will make head mounted AR hardware accessible to small and medium design studios.
For everyone else, my hope is that we can break through the “3D graphics in our world” demos and applications and really start exploring what AR is and what it can be. Let’s settle on Extended Reality as the common term. Our reality should be extended in all possible ways. Not just looking through our phones at cute animations. We posses a ton of data about the world around us and this data should be accessible to everyone in a variety of forms. Whether we hold the phone up to look through the camera, use a head mounted display or wear smart clothing that tug at us when we’re near areas of interest. Existing displays in public spaces should detect our presence and provide information that’s important to us (and yes, there will probably be ads too).
We’re at the beginning of whatever this becomes. With the right mix of vision, open standards and acceptance we can enhance our everyday lives, be more productive and spend less time looking down at a glowing rectangle. We must be patient and work through the hype cycles and the low points to get to the good stuff. I’m looking forward to it…
Friends, family and totla strangers. Thanks so much for coming to thespring Brewery Artwalk. Hopefully you experienced some art that spoke to you…or at the very least whispered in your general direction. I appreciate everyone that comes by to support all of us here at the Brewery. Hopefully we’ll see you again in the fall. Dates will be announced shortly. If you didn’t get a chance to visit I’ll have my newer stuff up on art.vaughnhannon.com soon. Thanks again.
#breweryartwalk #vaughnhannonart
There have been many, many trips to Burning Man and many, many plans to create something or other to display in the middle of the desert. As it goes time disappears and distractions mount. Participating in our theme camp was the primary focus for a long time. This year, at the last minute, I managed to pull together a little art project that would sit as a monument to my current obsession with the game of Go (igo, wei qi or baduk depending on your country of origin). The game originated in China some thousands of years ago and was nurtured and modernized by Japan. This structure was to be a nod to the Chinese and Japanese style of architecture without attempting to mimic any one structure specifically.
The plans had been rolling around in my head. I wanted to minimize the use of any screws or nails and make it as transportable as possible. I mocked up a little model in 3D and then set to figuring out the details…some of which didn’t emerge until actual construction.
Here it is, mostly finished. I did add four hanging pieces of fabric in the entryways to add contrast and motion.
There is more to do and I plan on finishing some of the details I had planned but did not have time to complete. I’ll also modify the structure a bit so it can live out on the open playa next year should I be accepted and placed by the Artery of Black Rock City.
Feel free to check our more photos in the PaGoda Album.
I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my friend Jeff for assistance in the planning and producing of this project…thank you sir. And, of course, Becky for the encouragement and support in the sometimes crazy things I try to do. Thanks dear.
#pagoda #burningman #go #igo #weiqi #baduk
While the future of flying cars we were promised is still a way off (if not postponed indefinitely) all manner of counter-rotational flying devices are readily available in all manner of sizes and we’re finding all manner of uses for them. The common nomenclature for these machines is drones. That label comes with so much baggage I hesitate to use it all. The military uses drones, big, deadly drones…we the people use UAVs, quad…hex…octorotors, flying machines. Thanks to the rapid miniaturization of various sensors and microprocessors due to the impossibly fast growth of the smartphone market these versatile flying contraptions are readily available and relatively easy to operate.
As a cheap, stable, easy to fly platform UAVs quickly found themselves carrying cameras to places that are traditionally difficult and much more expensive to get to. This has been a tremendous asset to the agriculture, construction, energy and transportation industries (to name a few). Film and TV also made quick use of the flying camera but can the UAV get out from behind the camera and become the subject?
Just recently a group of artists, technicians and engineers set a world record for flying 100 automated multirotors with the addition of sequenced LEDs set to a live orchestra.
Having been part of a project to use UAVs in a live show last year I can assure you this was no small feat. I would have preferred this video held on some shots of the machines longer but the gist is there. These things can mesmerize and delight us. They can be a show but we can also push them further. The inherent agility built into these machines isn’t being pushed hard enough. The variety in shape, size and function needs to be incorporated into a choreographed, character driven show. Given the right parameters you can coerce quite a bit of character out of these battery powered bits of metal, carbon fiber and plastic. I encourage you to take a look at Raffaello D’Andrea’s latest TED Talk (and compare it to his talk from 2 years ago).
I believe D’Andrea and the team at Verity (and undoubtedly others) are pushing the edges of what these things can be and what they can do. Yes, it’s a new toy but it’s a new toy with much unfulfilled potential.
Those don’t look safe. At first glance a machine with 4 (at least) rapidly spinning blades flying freely around you seems like a terrible idea. It’s bad enough if you injure yourself but put these things in front of a paying audience and you’ll make more than a few lawyers nervous (or twitchy with anticipation). There is, of course, risk in everything. If you did indeed watch the above TED Talk and the one from 2 years ago you’ll notice a big difference. There’s no safety net this time. Confidence in the technology has grown with the technology itself as it inevitably does. With the right systems in place the risk of an accident has been greatly reduced.
There is a delicate dance that has to be done to expand the use of these machines in a live entertainment venue. Legal and safety concerns are still large hurdles in most places but they are not insurmountable. The real challenge is to do something interesting with all of this airborne gadgetry. To use these machines to enrapture an audience and hopefully get them to forget that they’re looking at a machine at all. All of the tools are available and waiting for us to pick them up to craft an experience that will be worth experiencing. But of course, that’s always the biggest challenge.
This article relates a bit to my VR post from last week:
After our latest US consumer research in October 2015, we wanted to find out if the trends we were seeing in the survey data held for a larger, more international pool. In December, we surveyed over 1,000 respondents throughout the United Kingdom about their awareness of virtual reality, interest in purchasing headsets and trying applications, and their concerns.
Greenlight VR Report: Consumers Are Surprisingly Unaware of Virtual Reality
This past Saturday, the 16th, I attended the Los Angeles VR and Immersive Technologies Meetup here at the Brewery. The Creative Technology Center hosted Roy Taylor from AMD and Phillipe Lewicki from HTML Fusion. Both presentations were interesting but I’m not going to get into the specifics of each one here. As I sat and listened to some of the points made I had a few thoughts about the state of virtual reality rolling around in my head.
There’s been tremendous progress in the VR world these last few years and no one denies that. Unfortunately the progress has led to great excitement and great excitement of any technology leads to over inflated expectations. Gamers, Hollywood, educators and almost everyone else are trying to figure out where the big thing for VR is going to come from and how to be a part of it. Content creators are eager for this new platform to take off and deliver on the promises being made. My fear is that the big thing is a ways down the road and the returns on any investment in VR are not going to be all that impressive for a while. If VR doesn’t deliver, enthusiasm will wane and the big investors will look elsewhere for the next new toy that promises the next big thing.
I hope we can all slow down a little bit. Take a breath. Focus on some really interesting and very niche applications for VR. The general public isn’t ready to strap a viewer on their head for more than 5 minutes and they certainly aren’t ready to invest in one for their home. We have a long way to go in teaching the not-so-early adopters what this is, how it works and why they might want it. During one of the talks it was mentioned that Google’s Cardboard is too simple and not enough of an interactive VR experience to move us forward. The truth is Cardboard has significantly lowered the barriers to entry. Nearly anyone can cheaply (assuming they already own a smart phone) and easily have a VR experience. Cardboard is teaching the general populous what this experience is and getting us used to holding a viewer up to our face to peer into a different world (however slight those differences may be). Cardboard is absolutely limited in the experience it can provide but I believe it is an invaluable tool in making VR comfortable and “acceptable” to a great many people.
Until the more sophisticated hardware proliferates there’s a limited audience for any content. By focusing more narrowly we can create some really interesting experiences that will help lay the foundation and develop a few basic rules for this new experience. If we want VR to stick this time (and we do) there needs to be a ton of experimentation so we can get to a place where truly great and unique content can be created. We are in that experimental phase and if we try to rush through it VR will be littered with re-purposed movies and reformatted video games offering nothing truly unique or inspiring. The money to develop content or hardware will dry up and we’ll wait another decade for the next daring entrepreneur to resurrect a world of technology that has limped along.