• CRT Monitor - This is an “older” style computer monitor. Although old in technology terms is circa 2003, a year in which the monitor I’m using (A phillips 107×4 CRT) won a design and innovation award. The monitor represents consumerism, and how we are prepared to discard things more frequently. It also cross relates to discarding the sense of Family which is referenced as one of the common values in each “Blue Zone”.
• The Mannequin - This is another cast-off from the retail sector, but in a different way. If something no longer conforms to being “beautiful” it is easily discarded. It also represents the figure and role of parents in bodily form.
• The Teddy Bear - The teddy bear represents the role of the child. Another consumer product, it is a classic that has been made in China out of the standard cheap materials. This one was sourced from the second hand store, and cost $2.00.
• The Teddy Bear with Screen - This is the product. It is a teddy that allows parents to keep an eye on what their children are doing while they play through wireless technology. The children in turn get to view an image of their parents on the screen. In the display the view is of many different people that make up an “everyman” picture. They are all races, creeds, colours, sexes, and ages. Indiscriminate from each other by nature of the high frames per second that each slide displays.

Together they make up a dialogue that seeks to speak to the Thesis Proposal.

So I took the mannequin down to the workshop, and started combining the model with the other parts.

The following shows the process:

As our culture becomes more and more focused on “keeping up with the Jones” there is a need for more family income. Items like an ipod become “percieved needs” as we’re presented with more and more material objects, and told by the media that we must have these things, subliminally through happy people from happy families sporting the items.

One of the most recent and controversial adverts (if only for the commentary on how far away the microsoft brand was from what the adverts displayed) is the following:

Appendices

A process

Chernoff face Tests

A few simple polygons show a gammit of emotion. The following are rendered .swf files programmed to cycle through polygons and display an active expression according to a Chernoff Face.

Sequencing Facials

The following tests were completed using a portrait image sequence displaying lighting composition for photography.

This led to sequencing portraits of different people to get an idea of the way that features blended together at different speeds and frame rates.

Then further to the portraits in a more Chernoff style of mixing up elements the natural progression seemed to tend towards a more mash-up style of image where the elements were visual.

Marcia’s Comments:
This investigation into Chumby-embodiment- and stuffed animal as interface reminded me of Mike Kelly’s work- his site ‘destroy all monstors’ http://www.mikekelley.com/ might give you some ideas- and references- also, the concept of synesthesia and multi-sensory joinings might lead you into interesting territory- a shame it didn’t work with wifi- that would make it mobile-

Doug’s comments:
Great turnaround. I would really like to have seen the face that is on your blog, inside of that little creature. Also – I found the face-interface to be a bit off. I had to click just to the left of the face to range through the emotions. I already gave you the Chernoff face link, but here it is again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernoff_face

The Mike Kelley information is really fascinating and from an infrastructure perspective is a heady pith of a precident that spans thickly into my hardware concepts. Mike Kelley is the sort of artist who obsesses with the everyday by tearing it  new asshole. And I mean that from an artistic rather than glib point of view. He states,

“I’m an avant-gardist. We’re living in the postmodern age, the death of the avant-garde. So all I can really do now is work with this dominant culture and flay it, rip it apart, reconfigure it, expose it.”

This image of Kelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ (1989) depicts his re-engineering of soft toys to form an altogether more inhuman yet human piece. it is completely reminiscent of the cutting room floor scene from the re-engineering of the soft toy prototype that gave its former life to serve as the gory fluff hole within which to insert a hacked piece of hardware.

The Chernoff Faces sync with the other software side of the project. Through the use of basic informative shapes arranged to emulate facial features, it is possible to convey a vast amount of information by engaging with everyday metaphors that are viscerally engrained into our psyche. These take the form of portraiture with features that come together to convey the anger, happiness, discomfort and entire range of facial emotions that the simple elements confer. The visualisation that the software conveys through the use of a few basic polygons speaks volumes.

Supporting Information links

Art21 - Mike Kelley

Wikipedia Mike Kelley

Chernoff Faces - with breakdown of Chernoff method

More Chernoff faces