Lost

As we all know, mirrors reflect a clear image. But the interactive work, “Lost” does the opposite – when people get closer to the mirror, the more blurry they can see themselves. The word, mirror is also used to describe self-reflection. But what can I do if I can’t see myself clearly?

Unlike other works, “Lost” is not related to the concept of “happiness”, it expressed my inner feelings. I always try to use the perspective of an outsider to see myself and the things happening around me as I think it is the way to see things clearly.  I thought I was able to pull out my personal emotions and always keep calm and rational. Although I will put myself in somebody shoes to understand something, I never do it to myself. Until the moment I was lost, I finally realised I was inside the mist and I could not find my way. The mirror, “Lost” expresses how I felt and the moment I confronted myself & also my emotions. I understand more about myself by looking through my emotions

 

The final show set up 2

“Lost” – Mirror

Today, I went to the wood workshop to use the CNC cutting machine to make the mirror frame. This is my first time to use the CNC machine and it is amazing. There is a software called Aspire to make the cutting procedure. It can also simulate the cutting process by the software to make sure everything is right.

The back clamp draft in Aspire

When the file is exported to the CNC machine, CNC can simulate the process in physical as well. If anything is not right on this stage, it is still possible to correct it. Unlike laser cut, it is great that we can also set the origin by manual easily so it won’t waste wood.

 

cutting cutting cutting

After the machine cut the frame, we tried to put it on the iMac. Although we made some room for the camera, we found that the camera angle is wider than our thought. We tried to make a larger hole and wider angle. The camera was still shown part of the wood in the bottom.

the angle to cut the wood for the camera hole in side-view at the beginning

Then, we found out the reason behind was the camera showing a rectangular image instead of the round image. We have to cut the camera hole as a rectangular shape. So we cut a small piece of wood to test and it worked really well!

So we cut another frame with the rectangular camera hole and start to do the back clamp. I really need to thank Ed for giving us inspirations on making the back clamp so me and George, the technician in the wood workshop are able to make the back clamp to hold the frame at last! Besides, when I attached the lamp holders on the frame, it is so stable that they can hold the frame and also the back clamp together.  Although we spent a whole day to make the frame when we see the outcome, everything is worth it and I am happy to the result! Thanks again the help of Ed and George!

the back side

Moreover, I laser cut some light caps for installing at the back of the light holder to prevent people touch it and get an electric shock.

---

“They told me to be happy” – smiling video

Apart from the mirror, I tested to play the smiling video, “They told me to be happy” on the big screen. It told a long time to load the video by using default player so I use the Raspberry Pi as the media player and it is much faster than the default player in the tv. It is easier than I thought to install the video player in Raspberry Pi and it works really good. I’m thinking if I need more Raspberry Pi for other screens …

 

---

Smiling Buddha

 

I received my book printed today as well! I am happy that the quality is good. The illustration is clear enough too! As I drew it by hand and scan it. I was worried about the result as the trial I printed by the school printer didn’t look good. So now I still have 2 works to be done. I will connect the wire to lamp holders and also the light bulb in order to make the mirror frame done on Monday. Besides, I will install the screens to the darkroom to see how it looks! 🙂

 

The final show set up 1

Smiling Video

I painted my space for putting the smiling video in black again (they were in grey-blue before) on Tuesday. Although I painted fabrics on the ceiling as black, I could still see the light from the edges of the fabrics. Therefore, I stitched the edge between fabric and fabric together to block the light yesterday. They are so hard to stitch as the fabric placed at the ceiling.

light from the edge of the fabric

And today I keep going to stitch the fabric (2 more to go). However, I find there is a gap that I can’t stitch the fabric together today. Therefore, I bought some black fabrics and put them on the edge to cover the light. I’m glad that they work well. At the same time, I finished rendering all the smiling videos (23:33 each and 3 in total). Tomorrow I will try to put the screen to the room to see how they look and how many screens do I to buy/find more.

Mirror – Lost

I decided the name of the mirror as Lost. I bought some lamp-holders yesterday so I have all the measurement now and I am able to draft the mirror frame! Thanks Ed guiding me to do the draft so I can have a clear idea on how to make the frame better. So tomorrow I will try to use the CNC machine to cut the frame. I feel excited about it but at the same time, I am a bit worried about it. As I know if I make any mistake in the draft, it will affect the whole result. But I will see tomorrow!

Some thought about the mirror

In the feedback of Symposium 2, Gabby said she thought my work was sort of not a part of the emotions. And then I answered her from sort of not a part of it becoming part of it. I think she said the change of me in these two years. At that time, I was thinking about the blur mirror and I realised that I did not write about my thought in the blur mirror.

As I wrote in the reflection of Symposium 2 (link) , “I always think I could see things more clearly by the perspective of an outsider so I can always be rational.” Sometimes I will put myself in somebody shoe to understand something but I won’t do the same to myself. This is the approach of how I see things. It affects my art practice as well but I was unconscious about that. I think that was the reason I looked like I was not part of the emotion at the beginning such as my works, “Happiness gas?” and “What makes them happy?”. I think the video, “What makes them happy?” is more significant as I asked different people what makes them happy but I didn’t ask myself what makes me happy.

I always tried to look at the things related to myself as an outsider. I thought I could pull out my personal feeling until I was lost. I tried to look at myself by an outsider perspective to help myself but I couldn’t see myself clearly. I realised I could not do it actually. I was inside the mist of lost as well. No matter how hard I tried, it was the same. I didn’t know what I want at that time and I realised I am not able or not able yet to see myself as an outsider. I understand myself more via this incident and I found that I had have confronted myself. So I let myself to face my inner feeling by visualising as “mirror”. I think this is the obvious turning point I let myself open my heart and become part of my works.

I was worried about the mirror that people may do the same if they know programming before in the group exercise in low residency. But now the process I’ve been to make the mirror makes things different. At least, it is an important and unique for me as it shows how I step out to confront my emotions and express them to the others.

Program test 3

After modifying the program, I try to run the program in iMac in studio and iMac pro respectively. They run much better and much faster than before. Even I run the program in the studio computer, it won’t crush and I can get a better image as well. However, it still a bit lag in the studio computer. So, I think I will go for the iMac pro.

Program test 2

In order to tackle the problem yesterday (resolution vs speed), I opened 2 open cv to solve the problem. One with lower resolution to speed up the time for detecting faces while another one with higher resolution for output and blur. So I can have a better and faster output.

Moreover, I set up a counter for the face detection before to buffer face detection (so it doesn’t need to be run for every frame) in hoping of reduce computing and make the program run faster. However, sometimes our distance towards the camera changed so fast which the buffer obstructed the analysis and also for applying the effect. It was another reason why it looked a rather significant delay when we change our distance closer to the camera in the last demo video. Therefore, I removed the counter to smoother the blur.

After these improvements, I am so happy that the program can even run in my laptop relatively smooth in my laptop now. I will run the patch to iMac pro/iMac again to see how the program looks like to run on a larger screen and more powerful computer after the bank holiday.

Program Test

Last time I tested my patch from Processing in my computer and IMac respectively. (Mirror can’t see myself: bigger screen 2 )To run the program in full-screen mode, I had to lower the display resolution and there was some delay for both situation. Because the program runs a real-time camera. The image needs to be updated frame by frame. Moreover, the algorithm for face detection is rather computationally intensive as the computer needs analysis if there is a face in every frame and also do the blur effect. It has to calculate pixel by pixel. So it causes lots of work for the computer. Therefore, if I lowered the display resolution, the pixel needed to be analysed in full-screen mode will be lesser than full resolution and I can run the program in full screen. But the program has to be smoother in full-screen mode, it is better to run the program in a more powerful computer.

So today, I go to digital media to test the program again on iMac Pro. However, it still lags. So, I modify the code again to see if it can run faster:

1.) I found that I was applying the blur effect to the whole program, no matter what size of the video is. Therefore, I changed it into applying on the image shown only.

2.) I lowered the output resolution as well to make the program run faster. As it is the key reason why it processed so slow. The program does run much faster. However, the image resolution will be sacrificed at the same time. It is quite significant when there is no face detected (i.e no blur effect).

Although the program runs faster than before, the resolution is sacrificed. I see some hope from the progress. I believe I can come up with some ways to make it run faster. What I need to do is strike a balance on the speed and the resolution. At the same time, I will look at how to speed up the time for blur effect and face detection. So, I will keep playing around with the code this weekend! 

 

Last tutorial :(

I can’t believe it was the last tutorial. Time flies 😦  I discussed with Jonathan about the recent process, what works I would like to show in the final show and the possible ways to show them.

I decided to show 3 works for the final show. They are smiling video, the blur mirror and the story, Smiling Buddha as I think they are inter-related to each other. Referring to the blog I typed in the group exercise in Low Residency, “After many questions, I realised that I am the connection between the story and the mirror. The story is expressing my perspective to the outside world, such as how some people do with their emotions or do not want to face their own truth while the mirror is expressing my inner feelings.“ (blog link: Day 9:  low residency 2019 ) For the smiling videos, it is related to our daily lives nowadays. Therefore, I decided to three of them and we discussed different possible ways to show them:

Smiling Video

At first, I would like to project the video on the wall each side in a room. I tried to play the video in a bigger screen before and I felt overwhelmed by my fake smiley face. So it may be nice if I can project the video and get a larger image to make the audience feel overwhelming as well. However, due to the limitation of the show space, the ceiling is too high to install the projector. Besides, the room we have for the final show is not big enough for doing the projection on each side of the wall. It is not possible to do it in the final space in this way.

And then we talked to use screens to display the videos in different method. I am so happy that we came up with a better and interesting solution to show the work. It is using different size of the screens or devices to show the videos on the wall. If it is possible, I can project the video as well at the back by using projection mapping I learnt in low residency. So the result will be looked like there are many windows popping up. I think it fits the theme of the work and it can look overwhelming as well. But the last decision where the screen should put exactly depends on the exhibition space and how many screens are available but I have much flexibility to adjust! 🙂

Mirror

For the mirror, I am thinking to make it like an actor mirror with some light bulbs as it is using for people to look at their faces. Besides, I have to decide what computer I can/ am going to use for this work. So I can have the size to make the frame for it. At the same time, I need to run the program on different computer to see which I can get a better result. Because the program demands a lot on the computer. It will crash or lag when I run the program in fullscreen mode in some computer such as my laptop. So I will try to use iMac pro tomorrow to see if it works.

Smiling Buddha

I showed Jonathan the process of it. I finished half of them and made it as a small booklet by printing at school to get a rough idea on how its look. However, I was not satisfied with the printed quality of the illustration weren’t great. Because I drew them in a book and scanned it to the computer to make a book. So we discussed if there is any method to make a clearer image. Maybe it’s because of the quality of the school printer or some setting in the scanner. Besides, I need to see where I can print a book in a square. And one of the most important thing I learnt is if I want to print a hand-drawn drawing, I should draw larger at least 2 times larger next time.

Moreover, I should think about the titles which can express myself and let the audience to think for the mirror and smiling video.

Can’t believe the final show is coming soon! I need to work harder to make everything done! ><

Mirror can’t see ourselves: bigger screen 2 & Face Time by Hyogeun Song

Today, I tried to change the displaying resolution and simplified the code to run the program again. If I’m using my own laptop, I have to set the display as the lowest to run smoothly in fullscreen mode. However, if I’m using an iMac, I just need to adjust the display resolution to 720p which is acceptable. I’m glad that the program can be run in fullscreen now! As the image will become blurry, the lower resolution will not affect the quality very much.

Meanwhile, I found an interesting work called Face Time by Hyogeun Song on the internet. Face Time is an interactive installation that the face inside the canvas will appear and follow the audience face movement. Although this work is more like in the experimental basis, I like the way the face comes out. It looks mysterious and looks like another part of the person wants to get out from the canvas but he/she can’t.

Face Time by Hyogeun Song

link of her work: https://sites.google.com/site/hyogeunsong/portfolio/face-time

The 5th Tutorial

Today, I had the tutorial with Jonathan. I showed my recent process:

The blur mirror

We discussed how to make it become a real “mirror”. We think it will be nice if I can make it like vanity mirror with some light bulbs for the backstage in the theatre as it is used for people to look at themselves clearly while the blurred mirror is doing the opposite. It will be interesting to combine this contrast. Besides, Jonathan showed the Venetian Mirror (2010) by Sam Baron exhibited in the V&A museum for the reference. When the audience walked in front of the mirror, the image in the mirror will overlap with the audience action slow like multi exposure in photography. So, in the next step, I will try to see how will the whole mirror look like if I run in a bigger screen and also with light bulbs.

Story about happiness

Recently, I am writing a story about there is a new temple opened by a host who hopes people can become happy in order to escape the pain and suffer in our world by worshipping the Laughing Buddha. There are a number of people believe that they will become happy if they go worshipping. So, more and more people go to the temple to worship and some of them even become addicted to it. In reality, we really have the Laughing Buddha but Laughing Buddha himself including his smiling face has nothing to do with helping people to be happy and there is no temple can help people to be happy as it actually it is kind of violated the core concept of Buddhism.

Laughing Buddha

I write this story in Chinese at the moment as it is full of traditional background. I’m thinking to translate it in English after I finished. About how to visualise, I have a thought to make it as an animation but I estimate I need at least few months to finish it and I don’t want to spend all the time I left to only do one work. Therefore, Jonathan suggests me a direction to find a way to tell the story in a shorter time like 20 second and another other metaphor can replace the idea of a temple in order to avoid cultural difference. 

VR attempt on Happy Cycle #5

After the 3week challenge I did in last semester, I am thinking to make the animation with a person walking in his/her cycle as a VR. Jonathan suggested I can use 360-degree video to do it and it will be taught in low residency. So look forward to it!