Finished trialling my light-responsive objects that I developed at the AA2A placement and the ISIS Arts mini-residency. My motivation was to make a work that encoded knowledge of natural systems, to create a gentle empathy in the viewer. Over time these devices have transformed themselves in my eyes into pets, or dependant creatures. Although simple, they are evocative, they have metaphorical attachment points for anthropomorphism.Some of the verbal reactions to the work are that they are “sweet”, “cute”, “life-like”. So as well as a model system to learn about interaction, they are also a site of inquiry into human relationships with machines.
Approximately thirty people came to the work during ‘Feeding Times” in tic space at the Fine Arts School of Newcastle University. This was part of Connecting Principle2008 event. As the theme was Dialogue, it was apt that this gave me the opportunity to discuss the work, its future directions and get feedback from an diverse audience.

The work is a series of light producing and responsive devices. By having more than one, a feedback loop comes into being (emerges?), where the movement of one causes changes in the local light environment that produces a movement in the other, ad infinitum……

In this first installation, the 3 arduino devices share power through a mains powered usb hub and it is apparent that there are fluctuations in the power supply. This could be removed by separate power supplies, but this would remove some of the glitchyness and perhaps the idiosyncrasies that make this work appealing.

video LightResponsiveDevice

call and response

code follows….

//import processing.video.*;

MovieMaker mm; //the moviemaker container
Capture myCapture; //your webcam, isight

void setup() {
size(320, 240);

myCapture = new Capture(this, width,height);
//myCapture.settings(); uncomment this if you want to select the video source
mm = new MovieMaker(this, width, height, “callandresponse2.mov”,30,MovieMaker.H263, MovieMaker.HIGH); // Save compressed, at 30 frames per second, h263, high quality

}

void captureEvent(Capture myCapture) {
myCapture.read();
}

void draw() {
image(myCapture,0,0);
// Add window’s pixels to movie
mm.addFrame();
}

void keyPressed() {
if (key == ‘ ‘) {
// Finish the movie if space bar is pressed
mm.finish();
// Quit running the sketch once the file is written
exit();
}
}

Image via Wikipedia

Along with coldclimate and his wiimote controlled rgb led , I am looking at ways of playing with RGB leds. Having found some damn cheap ones from rapid electronics, I am playing with the separate control of the mix of red, green and blue colors. It would be easy to get some blinkMs, and they are damn cool. I need to use three output pins for each led, and the PWM at that, blinkM’s use one pin , and that’s any one.

So what’s the point? Learning about what tricks can be used to control multiple LEDs , by using multiplexers etc. It’s a learning thing. Its just the start, obvously. To construct the things I want to make, I need to learn a fair bit about electronics. This is the fun bit.

I recently bought an asus eeepc subnotebooks( 4G ssd, 512ram, portable celeron) for a portable blogging computer. I never expected to install processing.org or arduino even though I use them on another computer. However, the people down at the eeepc wiki have posted a method of installing both(here) . I have installed arduino and processing(instructions ) on it. So now I have an ultraportable kit to play with arduino and processing! >> 2kg! Its not a fast system for processing, but adequate for trying out patchs, and fine for communicating with arduino.

Cool.

Now I am working with the kingbright chameleon rgb led modules(available at Maplin and Rapid ), getting arduino to handle the physical interface of controlling the 3 leds(on/off done) and processing.org the mix of colors from an onscreen interface(in the process).

To do this I have used the example code from fading and blink, and merged the different ideas.

I hae also been getting to know led modules, their orientation, the value of the resister needed for each. (ie the Blue operates at a higher voltage than the Red led, needing different resister values).

This is primarily because LEDs do not provide a resistance to current, if the voltage is above the operating voltage of the led, then the led will suck more and more current until it burns out. Thats the reason to put in the resister, it controls the current (usually 20milliamps up to a max of 50milliamps)(some links can be found at http://del.icio.us/sctv search for led.

Will post the code as it gets more mature, for now I am verry happy to have this nice little development package for arduino and processing.

New post for Arduino 0017  here –>  http://transitlab.org/2009/arduino-and-the-eeepc-ii