Saturday, October 24, 2009

david's reflection

Reflections
Today at the private exhibit at Hyper Island for the selected jury and judges we presented what we have been up to the past few weeks. Before I go on to talk about the details of what could/should have been better, I would like to cast an eye on how the last 3 weeks have progressed.
Most of my time was working on presentations and assisting Emma in contacting sponsors and pitching the idea to them. What we could have done better? It think underestimating how difficult it would be to construct a prototype was our big "learning experience" (i.e. mistake).
As for the presentation today, I also felt it was flawed. We did not practice and there where moments when we were trying to take the parole from each other by force (something I hate). I felt really pushy when presenting because I asked Mariana to lower the volume of her movie, in order for me to speak whilst it played. These things should have been discussed earlier optimally. However, I felt that it overall went well, especially the reaction of the jury.
They expressed bona fide interest in our idea. Best of all, was when they had clapped and the presentation was over: Fredrik from Perfect Fools (one of the members of the jury) pulls out a card and directs it towards me, expressing his interest in our idea and offering to help us work with it!
Just as well, the 2nd external jury member gave us his contact details because he too, was interested!
Really excited for the exhibit tomorrow where we will get the chance to show the industry our concept. Will be totally different presenting to just a couple of people or one person at a time.

More updates later :) and check out the cool video of me dancing with the glove simulation .




Live Support Simulation from David Walegren on Vimeo.

Friday, October 23, 2009

the end of the beginning

What can I say; sometimes failing is not that bad!

After 3 weeks of hard work, it was 2 days ago when we saw that we were not going to make it for the exhibition, our prototype wasnt going to be ready. We realized we believed so much in our concept that we focused to much on the selling and design part and underestimated the tech part...and what was worst is to give it all to poor Sigur to deal with, bad choice and I understand his frustration!

It was in these last 2 days when only one thing was in our mind WE ARE GOING TO FAIL!!!We finally decided to sit down all together and talk about what happened and what went wrong, it was then where 4 people started really sharing what they felt and thought and it was beautiful to see how we could do it without hurting each others feelings. I believe this 2 hour meeting was the longest we had sat together and the first time we were really talking as a group and not as a defined role manager!

Good projects come from a team that really worked together within the entire project and fight with the same enthusiasm.

Ones we openly discussed what went wrong in our group, we finally got together and decided we HAD TO DO SOMETHING GOOD OUT OF THIS!!!We weren’t going to through away all our hard work and all the people that believed in us. It’s in these moments when its important to stand firm on your idea and not give up!!!We had a strong concept, good material and a lot of future plans like testing our prototype in the actual Globe Arena in Stockholm!

So we decided we were going to create a beautiful way of showing the jury what our idea was and how we are going to make it happen! We used all the resources around us: balloons from the kitchen, chasing down Christian our marketing director and lead singer from Fibes Oh Fibes, braking into hidden stages....putting everything we had to make it happen. And most importantly we did everything TOGETHER!

We had 1 night to pull this. We actually heard someone say FAKE IT, and we said hey yeah lets FAKE IT! lets visualize our idea, do a video with a performer dancing and we faking the lights to follow him. Well we were so luky to have our own truly ARTIST in our group DAVID!!! the man with no fear he just took the stage and performed an amazing live dancing for us and were djing the lights to follow him! Not an easy task believe me!

At the end WE HAD IT ALL! our team, a videocamara, an improvised stage, our light, our music and a lot of crazy dancing and a minized Globen arena!thats LIVE SUPPORT in its most core moment!

We went down to the exhibition center and displayed it on a table, as simple as that. We decided that we wanted to show the jury the whole parts of our process and not only a final outcome. We want them to be part of our ride, so we first had a video with our concept, then a display of the technology, and to finish our amazing video with David representing what our concept can be and will be in Globen Arena November 09!

It was our time 11.40, presenting to the jury, Mariana with all her passion toke the lead and started by telling them everything that had happen to us during this ride!!then we guided them through it all. This is one of those moments when you think its all over and life surprises you they jury really liked our idea but most surprisingly liked the angle we decided to present it, showing our learning outcomes and showing how we took over fairlure! It was incredible when we got Johansson from citat.se and Frederik Stutterheim from perfect fools personals card to talk further!!!It was quite a surreal moment but full happiness and satisfaction.


Well as we say this is not over jet, we are now off to continue this project outside hyper islands walls wait to see much much more!

I JUST WANT TO SAY A BIG THANK TO ALL THE TEAM FOR THIS EXPERIENCE AND ALL I HAVE LEARNED FROM EACH OF YOU!!

xxx

celebration #01



because is good to say yeahhhhh when things go well!!!
Even if we have had our party expectations very low, now is time to rock ;)

mariana

presentation done

So finally we can say we did it.
I'll talk now under my i message feeling:

Yesterday we had finally our first face to face "fight talking", we've put down all the shits that we had been collecting during the whole process and it really felt amazingly good to put it all out without fear of hurting feelings, after all we're grown up persons and we should be able to handle disagreements and different points of view.
I realised that our group process really failed because we didn't act like a united group fighting together for aiming one target . So we've chosen one single person to handle all the tech problems, witch actually was not a good choice to make. There we've failed and so one day preview to the exhibition day we had nothing really tech to show.
What I'm very proud of is that some persons in the group kept their positivness and aiming to achieve something, not giving the back to the situation, because after all we should be there for the good and for the bad moments!! I really strove to push this as far as we could, after all we've come all this way for something and not for quiting when the bar was too heavy. Some people don't feel the same way, so I just have to accept and don't force them to be like me.
At the end we manage to film David doing his amazing perform of Lady Gaga "Paparazzi" and he's such a stage monster he just rocked our concept perfectly in a 1min video showing the juri our concept being used by a performer artist on stage. So at the end we had 1st one computer showing the concept and thanking our sponsors, then we had a computer showing the tech parts and how we were thinking about conecting them, and at the end we had this big white globe made out of paper marche (very fine arts...) esurrounding the 3rd screen showing David's stage performance with the gloves controlling the lights.
So actually with so little we showed our strong concept and how we have aimes to really make it for real in november 2009 having Christian Olsson the Marketing manager from hyper island, that as well is a kick ass singer from Fibes Oh Fibes! to try our gloves in Globe Arena Stockholm.
Then we actually succed so well in our presentation that Henrik Johansson from citat.se and Frederik Stutterheim from perfect fools, showed us their apreciation and gave us their personal card telling us that they are very interested in using our gloves further in their projects, Henrik went further and asked us if we could provide him with our gloves for a performer that he'll have 19th of Novemeber... so of course we said: LET'S DO IT!!

So we pass to stage 2 of this project wich is the elements that don't feel like they belong here, or don't feel passionated enought to put more energy into this shall leave, just stays who wants, then 3 other persons showed us their interest in coming to join the LIVEsupport in order to make this glove dream cme true!!
This 3 new elements are Ireti Olowe, Erik Lindebratt and Lorenzo Calvani, 3 of the few persons that usually sleep at hyper, or actually don't sleep at all because they are crazly focus in achieving some good knowledge here, and they avoid sleep in order to have more time to work on their projects.

So in my point of view LIVEsupport has now everything and every person it needs to really become a true and alive project,

after all this is LIVE.



mariana full of happiness for this achievment LIVEsupport got!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

2 Days to go!!

We have only 48 hours left and we are still creating our prototype...mainly because we didnt receive the last pieces we ordered until yesterday...I think there will be no sleep if we want to make it....

Yesterday we had our process review with Sofia and it was really handy as we realized that even if we thought we had a great group we actually realized that we had lack of communication during the whole process....we should have more brainstormming and discussion sessions! And to practice more the check in and check out thing...

We were planning to work from Sigurs place today as it was so loudy over here at hyper island but we have discovered how nice and helpfull the guys from Kalskrona were so we are stiking around in case we need some extra advice from the tech wizard from Kalskrona!

Mariana is working with a final video for our blog and as she is also in charge to do the filming of the whole process of the exhibition she is jumping around all the time, Sigur is hands on the tech and david and I are chasing sponsors and making sure we have all the features ready for our installation!

Thats all for now folks!

emma

Will write a bit later

Sunday, October 18, 2009

peer review with micke anf group12


Friday 16th October 14:00
Second peer review with Micke and the group 23. theirs idea is very interesting and completly futuristic, we loved it! we both shared the feeling that everybody is so developed in their projects and trying out the technology and touching all details, and we are still stucked in finding the right stuff to performe what we want.... well let the hope & faith be with us...
the exhibition is in a week and we are still in such a baby point... anyway they, both Micke and the 12th group wondering if we would be able to make our project actually work by the 23... and we said:
we hope so!
at the first week we had two options:
Sigurd was warning the group about the technologic dificulties we could be facing in the future (very near future) and that we should have a plan B by the 14th October in case we wouldn't have all the needed tools....
well today is 18th and we're still waiting for material that will arrive tomorrow...
then David with all his passion and emotional power said:
Come on group let's believe!!let's have passion about our project and make it work! if we are already having a plan B it means we don't trust our project enought!!!
so at the end of this two reflexions we decided to go forward with our plan A and in case it doesn't work we shall embrace falling with all our power, and our head up.

So that's how we face our problem now, if it works we'll have the ticket to London ;) if it doesn't, we shall do the HYPER ISLAND's methodoly and not be afraid to fail, embracing it in its all grace.

So we made clear that we made this option consciously to what could it bring...

Anyway the group 12 and Micke really enjoyed our idea and gave us power to make it come true!
Now Emma is working like crazy taking all the rabbits of her hat in order to find sponsors to make this possible!!

it will work!
i'm sure ;)

finally we discovered the truth

So, after so much wondering about phidgets technology, we discovered in the second week thata ctually we wouldn't be using phidgets at all!!!
how crazy is that? yeah so all we're gone use is the accelerometre, Xbee wireless receiver and sender, usb connections, mac, and dmx to project the action from c++ into light!!!
and txaran, let the show start!

Friday, October 16, 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

new logo


every brand evolutes, in a week livetime project this is our evolution NOW

Friday, October 9, 2009

idea fitch

video presentation

day 4 presentation to sid lee

The moment to the presentation had come and George Giampuranis, Creative Director, and Petula Bouchard where there looking at our presentation in order to see our presentation skills and check out the duability of our ideia, as well is the whole concept was good and power.
What we took with us according to their comments is that:
1. instead of having a single dark room for one person at a time to perform, we could make like a litle cinema so there would be a person using the phidgeta and there would be place for a small audience to be part of the performance in the place of the watcher.
2.we should have done a intermedial part in our presentation regarding the transition between what the ideia is and how does it work. We should have had as well a little prototype demo in form of animation / illustartive image.
3.We should check out for different colors of light.
4.We should make sure we can have a multicam projection on bambuser.

The conclusion and the very positive point is that we were able to pass the message that we embraced simplicity, and out of something so simple we can acctually create a very interesting atmosphere as well as an experience, making this performance last afterwards the exhibition with a gallery website where people can see their performance.
We were very happy by the end of the day because finally the group is together and powerfull to make this work!

all the presentation to sid lee can be seen in bambuser:
http://bambuser.com/channel/Mariana+Moura+Santos/broadcast/284195

see you later alygator

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Day 2 & 3

We have now moved on from a conceptual/inspirational 2 first days to now start to get things going.

Highlights of these 2 days are,

We

  • Have dance in a dark room being broadcast live (some were more comfortable than others;)
  • Have a presentation
  • Have a press release
  • Have contacted possible sponsors
  • Have sketched our tech needs
  • And of course discovered that we were probably too optimistic in some details…

More tomorroww

Monday, October 5, 2009

Deliverable #01

Deliverable 1 - Project plan

What?

The concept is a LIVE performance.

There is a certain temporal quality to live performances that makes it so different than film and TV. More and more people are demanding of their technologies to deliver notions synonymous of instant feedback, realtime, and live. Technology is quickly adapting to these human needs with services such as Bambuser, for example. Imagine if we could come up with something that would help performance artist to make there performances more spontaneous and organic when broadcasting/performing in realtime...

The technology is already here - but is it used to its full potential?
Great tools do not build a great idea. The idea comes when someone use these tools!
(someone said something like that but I can’t remember who exactly said what actually )

The project is based on a live performance concept, where the enviroment acts towards the needs of the user, in this case the performative star - user.

It is to be created a cosy and emotionally powered zone where the user goes in. The room is dark and there’s no lights at all. The user will feel his body adpating into this enviroment. This place is just for one user at time, so he can feel relaxed, without people looking or djuging his actions.
Before the user gets inside, he shall chose the acessories he wants to use in his performance: gloves, pfeder scarf, hat, ball, skirt, umbrella,etc. Some of these tools would be monotorized automaticly to the computer that will connect to the lights.
One the user is inside the dark room, the dashboard outside the door will turn into red:
LIVE

Once inside, some dance music shall start and the user would be invited to interact with the surrounding together with the acessories he’s holding. His movements and his spots of pression will start a banch of reaction in the lights creating a answering atmosphere for his needs and actions.
All of this performance shall be record and reported live, and will be kept in our archieve in order to create a final reel about this experience.

MoSCow list basically a priority checklist

Must | Fashion garments with sensors | Convincing stage and instalation | Lightning and Color | Sound | Sponsors

Should | Broadcasting

Could | Posibility to have as a clip

Wont but could next time | Instead of 1 single performance, a Band experience


Responsabilities:

David- conceptualization of idea + resource of ways to achieve it
Emma-getting sponsors, studing the possibilities
Mariana- copywriter updating our blog, our ning page, etc everything related to but it ouside,
Sigurd-check out how the technology will work in our idea


Schedule:

5-9 October
Research, costs, needs and testing

12-16
Prototype
16th-final solution not able to be changed

19-23
montage and building up

23-24
PARTY and win going to London!!



Tecnological:
Phidgets details still unknown

#01

How can a personal tag enhance my experience?

Friday, October 2, 2009

BRAINSTORMINGpost-its

BRAIN STORMING #01
the post.its we so far came up with:

  1. hamster with a jacket that creates reactions in a house made with carton and K-line, simulating a real human house when it touches certain parts it creates reactions and the user can make the mouse move using a piece of cheese
  2. bird's wings when then move they have the phidgets att and will reproduce a sound of clapping hands
  3. installation with a story, narrative - input given by users they can change this story
  4. collaborative painting, the users using different control-phidgets can drop ink in a white paper, then it will become a collaborative painting
  5. barbie doll interacting with user, ex. when you touch her bubbie she will say take your hand out of there... in a cosy atmosphere, (ambient glamorous...like red-light district but funny)
  6. fashion + sound + performance - ex- mask touch and glow more spontaneous reactions
  7. Improve blind peoples day to day experiences, supermarket, household....with phidgets that recognise objects and informs the users.
  8. drama queen (LET'S GO TO LONDON)
  9. emotional, make the hairs (of your arm) stand up
  10. feeling the crowd, sweating, smelling, feeling emotions
  11. make the user feel special by starting the experience typing his name in the user log-in, at the end something can be said using ghost reader and saying the name of the user at the end
  12. how can their movements provoke stuff create something that really works useful for artists
  13. path dots to help blinders
  14. add fun - Lego = fun