Automated Flame

I started working on two projects in a simmilar vein for my final piece and one came to fruition and I’ve decided to leave one until I have more info and am confident I can do it safely and better. This is that piece.

Isolation Vlog

I made a short video about moving away from london and leaving behind my course and how my home has changed. It might be a bit sentimental.

Extra-Curricular Work Update #3 - Library Completion

Since my last update we have completed the install of the Library Project in its final position, as a result of this, the Hospital Project has taken a back seat. It is now unknown when the Hospital Project will be installed due to the onset of the coronavirus. The completion of the Library Project has involved overcoming a few quite technical, unexpected problems; and design revisions on the look of final parts. I will therefore go through component by component to some extent and discuss the relevant problems that have been overcome.

First is the Board which goes behind the doorbells. This has evolved from being labels that are laser cut individually to a single laser cut piece that goes between the doorbells and the wooden surround of the installation. The design was made and iterated on in Adobe Illustrator before being engraved. The first engravings were made in cheaper wood rather than expending £30 per sheet acrylic.

Wooden surround for doorbells

Wooden surround for doorbells

This was the same process I followed when prototyping and cutting the plaque which explains the project which is also mounted to the wall beside the installation. This plaque uses a different version of the acrylic that is black underneath with a reflective metallic texture foil on the surface. This material, unlike the red covered acrylic, displayed strange artifacts when it was engraved, with ghosts of the letters appearing to the sides of the engraved letters. After several tests it was realised that the laser of the laser cutter did not switch completely off when not engraving the letters as we would have expected. This caused it to make slight engravings where it changed direction as those were the places where the laser was moving slowest so it had more time to affect the material. We also discovered that the laser still slightly engraves the material during the focusing and positioning the start point of the laser which was also disturbing. We eventually solved the problem by having the machine engrave a line either side of the piece that would be cut, increasing the time taken but ensuring that the artifacts occurred outside of the boundaries of the cut plaque.

Strange markings on delicate multi layer acrylic.

Strange markings on delicate multi layer acrylic.

Concurrently, the surround for the installation was also being constructed in-situ in a room behind the wall that would be the final location for the installation. We had two excellent carpenters who constructed most of the wall in a few short days. I volunteered to paint the thing one night, staying up into the small hours, applying several coats in between trips to get food and hang out with a friend of mine in New Cross.

The final stages then were to attach all of the individual objects that had been created along the way, and to lock the whole thing into position, this job was also done by the carpenters.  What remains then was to playtest the installation.

The finished installation

The finished installation

Extra-Curricular Work Update #2

Since my last update I have started working on another project for Random Quark alongside that which will be installed in Goldsmiths Library. This new project will be installed in a Geriatric Ward to provide a taste of nature to people confined indoors. As it stands this installation will consist of :

-          A clock with a handle which can be turned to change the time in the virtual world.

-          A watering can which can be turned to water virtual plants.

-          Birdseed boxes which can be turned to pour birdseed out and attract birds.

These various items will likely all be accomplished with rotary encoders of one sort or another.

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The first item I have finished is the clock assembly. This has been through a few iterations and I have used hardware which will allow us to keep options open in the future. I have laser engraved a light and dark side to the clock circle to distinguish each side as day and night. The rotation of the handle will be measured using a continuously rotating servo for a few reasons. First is that if we want to have the time change naturally, we can rotate the handle to keep time with the rest of the program. Using the servo also has the happy coincidental advantage that it has some resistance to it and as a result can support the weight of the handle at any angle. A standard rotary encoder on the other hand will offer as little resistance as possible, leading to a very limp handle. On the Arduino firmware side, I translated the PWM signals from the encoder within the servo into values between 0 and 360 that matched up with the angle of the handle on the clock face so that the main unity software can easily use the position of the handle.

The other two items I am still working on. The first, the watering can has proven difficult to make work in a useful way. The first prototype I built with a large watering can required the can to be supported in two places, with an axle running all the way through the can. This was problematic in the end as the screen needs to be in front of the watering can for the effect to work. I also used a very low-resolution rotary encoder so the movement of the watering can on the screen was very jerky. The next version uses a much smaller watering can and the huge weight reduction has allowed me to support it from only one side. The depth might continue to be an issue however as the linkage between the rotary encoder and the axle is still a deep 3D printed part.

Lastly the birdseed boxes, these are built and mounted to the backing piece of wood using embedded bearings. This is a technique I have witnessed on Wintergatan’s fantastic series on YouTube about building a complex music machine with thousands of moving parts. The technique worked fantastically well and has allowed me to keep the depth to a minimum so far on this piece. The boxes themselves also had a bolt embedded in them in a similar fashion in order to lock the axle in them with more than the friction of a tightly fastened bolt.

Meanwhile in the library project…

I have started building more final versions of assemblies which will be more robust and work in the final machine. My proudest is probably the tap assembly which thanks to a new 3D printed axle part is much more robust than the previous solution and uses a captive screw in the 3D print so that the handle cannot move independently of the 3D print part.

I have also started working on the labels for the final installation. We have some very interesting material that I will be using that is multi-layer. It is acrylic with a thin layer of a different acrylic on top almost like a foil. The thin layer is a different colour and can be etched away by the laser cutter leaving the colour underneath. I have been running into problems with the residue from the etching moving over the rest of the work and contaminating it with a substance which is hard to remove without damaging the thin top layer, or getting the top colour contaminating the etched parts. I expect to have to do much tape work in future to stop this residue causing such a problem.

Extra-Curricular Work Update #1

Over the past couple of months, I have been working on external projects alongside my work on my final project. These projects are a fantastic way for me to expand and improve skills which I have learned on the course as well providing me with income! I have been working primarily on solving physical computing problems here, building modules that will compose part of a larger integrated system. This will be the first of a series of posts about my work on the project.

The system will have 7 parts.

-          Hairdryer to blow letters around

-          Hoover to suck letters up

-          Pump to make letters bigger

-          Fire extinguisher to cover letters with foam

-          Tap to fill the screen with water and drown the letters

-          Hammer to hit the box and shake the letters

-          Control panel with buttons to select an emotion

Each one of these parts presents unique challenges.

Disassembled Hoover

Disassembled Hoover

The Hoover is the simplest of the parts, it is simply a switch and a small light to indicate if it is on or off. I have erased the label from the switch, so it is no longer clear if the switch is on or off. This makes it possible for the hoover to be disabled after a short time in the software without the switch being set in the wrong position. This was a simple job as the switch was simple to rewire. I replaced the 240V light that came with the hoover with an LED in the same position so it could be powered by the Arduino that will control the whole arrangement.

Hairdryer Filler Part Evolution

Hairdryer Filler Part Evolution

The Hairdryer is also very simple. I started out by wiring up all the switches that were present on the device and removing the motor and heating elements. We experimented using this with the software and decided that the extra switches were not necessary and that we could get by with a single button which was momentary. I was then tasked to fill the holes left by the extra switches which I accomplished using 3d printed parts which were then sanded with progressively finer files and sandpapers until the desired finish was achieved.


The Pump was the first analogue part in the project, requiring levels of input based on the hardness of the push on the pump. This is being achieved using a microphone connected to the Arduino. I tested a few microphones that were available and found one which had an amplitude output which varied a reasonable amount when the pump was pushed. The microphone was mounted against the nozzle of the bicycle pump in order to eliminate external sound from triggering the reaction.

Hall Sensor Hooked up to Fire Extinguisher Handle

Hall Sensor Hooked up to Fire Extinguisher Handle

The Fire extinguisher is an interesting problem. It needs to produce a value that changes with how much pressure is put on the handle of the extinguisher. I started by hooking up actual pressure sensors to it by placing the sensor between the handle and the spring-loaded valve part. This worked in a mediocre fashion, but I was very concerned with the longevity of those parts, given the requirement that this machine be in place for 2 years. I therefore started experimenting with other sensors and while examining the mechanism inside the fire extinguisher I realised that pressing the valve created a linear motion inside so I decided I would try to measure this. The small nature of this movement ruled out options such as ultrasonic sensors or other standard distance measuring devices. At this point I came across a hall sensor in a box of sensors I had lying around. This solid-state sensor detects a magnetic field around itself. I realised that moving a magnet closer to and further away from the sensor produced a reasonable variance in readings. I therefore prototyped a mechanism, replacing various internal parts of the fire extinguisher with 3D printed alternatives. This allowed me to hold the hall sensor near a magnet attached to the end of a rod which was pushed down by the handle of the extinguisher. It also allowed the cables from the sensor to be passed through the valve itself and out through the nozzle of the extinguisher so the structure and the visual of the extinguisher was not compromised. This worked satisfactorily although I had reservations around the longevity of the wires that passed through the valve and were therefore rubbed together each time the valve was activated.

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The Tap sensor was a simple rotary encoder, an inexpensive one as it was not necessary to have much resolution on a single turn. I started with a 3D printed handle attached through a heavy bearing to the rotary encoder. This worked well but the aim was for the handle to be that of a fire hose. A couple of weeks later the handle arrived and I set about working out how to connect it to the rotary encoder. The problem was one of hole shape and the need for the rotary encoder to be mounted on the opposite side of a wall to the handle itself. I 3D printed a part which combined with a modified bolt which could fit through the square hole on the handle. The modified bolt then had a nut tightened over it to hold the whole assembly in place atop the 3D printed part. This was then attached to the same bearing and encoder assembly as the previous version.

The control panel of buttons will be assembled straight upon the final installation so for the time being I simply made a piece of perfboard with 10 buttons on it, each individually connected to the Arduino.

Finally, the Hammer assembly, the most complicated part in the system. This system had already been started by Eevi and I was to help. The current system uses a high-resolution rotary encoder for positioning and a belt to drive a round piece of acrylic that is attached to the bottom of the hammer assembly. This assembly has a notch cut down its length via which it is attached to the back plate. Therefore, as the handle rotates the hammer moves in a motion whereby it lifts for some of the turn and for the rest strikes down. We were having problems with the flexibility of the back plate made of acrylic and one of the axles which was flexible so as not to put too much pressure on the rotary encoder. As well as this we were having problems with how much force was required to move the hammer through the lift portion of the motion.

To solve both these issues we enlarged both of the gears and mounted them much closer to the backing material.

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I also created a custom circuit board to manage the nest of cables that needed to all connect to the same arduino. Each Cat5 plug is labeled with the part that should be plugged into it.

Nam June Paik at the Tate

I visited the Tate Modern exhibition, showing work from across Paik’s artistic career. I have always been a big fan of Paik for his use of electronic analogue video equipment in his works. Paik often hacks these technologies, exploiting the ways in which they work to create new and interesting effects. This misuse I find most interesting in clips [2] and [8] in the above video in which Paik has intentionally misaligned the three signals that make up a component video signal.

This signal protocol uses three separate cables to transmit the Luma component (the overall lightness of the whole image), the Luma-Blue component (the luma signal with the Blue component subtracted) and the Luma-Red component (the luma component with the Red component subtracted). From these three signals the complete signals for Red, Green and Blue can be derived while still retaining backwards compatibility with older monochrome equipment. Paik misaligns these signals in different ways, sometimes using multiple cameras to produce each signal separately, sometimes modifying the display itself.

Elsewhere Paik uses various modes of visual display in his work, regularly using multi-channel video to juxtapose different clips against one another. In his ‘Sistine Chapel’ piece [9], Paik uses a multitude of projectors to cover all walls and the ceiling of the space, completely encompassing the viewer in the visuals. The projector itself in this piece also becomes a sculptural object in this work, with the support structure for this many projectors taking up most of the room. Interestingly, the ubiquity of the projections covering the walls of the room means that any view of the projector structure is in context of the room, it is supplying its own context. I also noticed that plenty of the projectors were newer models, likely from Tate’s equipment store that would not have been released at the time of the piece’s inception or necessarily at the time of Paik’s death in 2006. Perhaps an interesting example of artworks (especially technical) being fluid and continually maintained and updated.

I like the way that Paik plays with the real and the electronic realms using cameras and displays to in real time make copies of objects in the electronic realm. This live feedback is something I have been interested in in the past and it is something I hope to start working with again soon. I have a project on the back burner at the moment that uses a motorised fader to enable control of analogue video equipment from a digital environment and allows management of this equipment to be controlled and replayed faster than it could be manipulated manually.

A visit to 'In Real Life'

I recently visited the Olafur Eliasson exhibit at the Tate Modern, ‘In Real Life’. I visited following my watching of an episode of ‘Abstract’ on Netflix featuring Eliasson’s work, not to mention countless Instagram stories. I was excited to experience the scale of his pieces and some of the physical techniques he uses to make his work.

[1] I started with ‘Beauty’, A mist of water lit with a single light fixture creating a rainbow in the falling particles. I am intrigued by the simple use of light but also how people are interacting with the piece. Viewers move around, trying to find the best spot from which to view the piece, or get the best photo. I enjoy this innate, almost symbiosis between the art and the viewer. While I am sure the angles have been calculated to assure a good experience no matter the position, the fluid motion of the water presents a challenge to people trying to stay in a good spot. When I look into the mist, I see something akin to flames; I guess the fluid dynamics aren’t dissimilar.

[2] Just around the corner from beauty was ‘Your Blind Passenger’, a tunnel of fog that was noticeably narrower than I had expected. This was my third time in an atmosphere like this; I experienced Anthony Gormley’s ‘Blind Light’ in 2007 at the Hayward Gallery and Ann Veronica Janssens ‘yellowbluepink’ at the Wellcome Collection in 2015. Out of these, Eliasson’s work was the most underwhelming. Beginning with his signature yellow sodium vapour light, the space does indeed appear unbounded. Moving through the tunnel, not much changes until at approximately the half way point the colour changes almost abruptly to a grey. Observing people here I found the biggest effect it had on people was apprehension. Everybody trudged, it only took a small movement left or right to reveal a wall, and after walking into one and finding it to be damp it was not an experience that tempted repetition. I suppose this is the purest form of the monochromatic yellow light Eliasson uses, but for me I find it far more interesting when it is used in a polychromatic world to reduce the visible colour space, making the experience more personal.

My memories from the other “Fog” pieces I have experienced are as follows:

‘Blind Light’ made me breathless, perhaps as it was my first experience of such a phenomenon, perhaps because the fog was much thicker than the other two. I remember holding hands with someone inside but not being able to see them. The glass walls of the cube which contained the fog allowed those inside to see out but only if they pressed themselves right up against it. This piece also differed as it was equally viewable from the outside. Silhouetted bodies appear to merge and divide, their uniqueness obscured by the dense fog.

‘yellowbluepink’ was a fun experience as I experienced it with a group from my art class at school. I remember feeling free to roam in the space, If I recall the walls sloped away in a way that made them unthreatening were you to approach them. The colours in the space were also incredibly varied and unnaturally vivid.

[3] I enjoyed the simplicity of ‘Your Uncertain Shadow’ it was easily legible to the audience and the scale of the piece allowed for interaction with/from a crowd of people at any one time. It really inspired me to make a work that can take input in this way. I have a strange idea for a wall that remembers. Eliasson’s wall here is instantaneous. The presence of the audience is immediately reflected on the wall but there is nothing left once they are gone. I imagine a similar wall, which remembers those which stood beside it.

[4] The last piece I want to mention here is ‘Big Bang Fountain’, a water fountain which is frozen in time by a strobing light. This piece is interesting physically but does not lend itself to audience participation the way other pieces of Eliasson’s do. It also does not lend itself to documentation; photographs do not represent the fleeting nature of the visibility of the water, and video systems break down when trying to render strobes that are not synchronised with the shutter of the camera. I increasingly think that some level of documentability is useful if not crucial for art to be successful in the online world.

I am beginning to think of an early idea of a work which is a wall which in some way records the motions and actions of those beside it. Not necessarily in a way quite as explicit as video, perhaps a photoluminescent paint and a powerful lamp to expose silhouettes onto the wall which build up and fade as people move around. This effect might also be created using a camera and projector, and this would open up more options but that might even be too convoluted. I am also aware that whatever I make should really have some digital component so it might be necessary to take this route in order to satisfy that criteria.

Reflecting on Earlier Projects

When beginning a new major project, especially one that is self-guided, I like to start by first going over some recent projects and evaluating them in light of months of hindsight and continued thought. My most recent work ‘Misplaced Trust’ I thought was successful in a number of ways. I think it succeeded in being lightly provocative. The technical aspects all worked to my satisfaction and at the show it was plenty popular and I had some interesting discussions about it. People liked the printed receipts that the machine produced and people engaged with them after leaving the piece, comparing them with one-another.

The receipt printed by the mock voting machine .

The receipt printed by the mock voting machine .

It is an odd order of events however as I feel like the message I wanted to carry with the piece has only solidified since the show finished. If I could go back, I think I would title the piece ‘Echochamber’ as I think this is what the piece succeeded in demonstrating above all. By giving people a printout of their place on the political spectrum, it surfaced that plenty of groups who engaged with the piece had similar positions. In effect the piece took the digital echo chambers that form when people are pushed by social networks towards other people with similar views, and exposed them in real life.

If I were to remake the piece there is plenty I could strip back on, perhaps even the aesthetic of the voting booth as the container for the piece.

Another fault I have with the piece is the necessity for those engaging with the piece to read and understand articles and graphic elements on a screen. This is so far the only time I have used a screen in a work as a means of direct interaction with the piece. It has been interesting to learn the limitations of a piece of technology like this, much in the same way that I have been hesitant to revisit VR work after my first attempt at it. In hindsight the touch screen to me almost feels like a cop-out, although nothing springs to mind which could replace them in this scenario.

It is similar to my recoiling from VR because of the pre-conceptions people have about putting on a headset and separating themselves from the real world. I will think much more in future about the visible (consumer?) technology in my work.

In general I want to move in the direction of the work I made in first year ‘Workplace Anxiety’ which brought physical machines into the social setting of a workplace to represent ‘machines’, specifically AI and machine learning algorithms replacing people we previously thought irreplaceable by computers. Where this piece shone I thought was it’s accessibility. Anybody could approach the playfully talking machines and have them turn in their direction and glare; and get the same feeling of being cast out. I hope in my next project I can evoke a similar level of feeling with something equally simple seeming if, potentially more monumental in scale.