"Good Morning, the sun is shining, the tank is clean...THE TANK IS CLEAN!"

Okay,

So today is the day we execute our project! HOORAY! GOODNESS I AM NERVOUS!

That is all!

Directives

Hey Leslie!
Did you know that the following phrase was the first message ever sent through a phone?
“Hey Mr. Watson come here I want to see you.”
Please pass this message along to Lamine via text, his number is 202-556-0227. THANKS!

Hey Lamine!
Please check your cell phone for a text message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Eren via her email address erensong@gmail.com
THANKS!

Hey Eren!
Please check your gmail for a message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Daniella Napolitano on her Facebook
THANKS!

Hey Daniella!
Please check your Facebook for a message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Habib on his Twitter at Habibkawan
THANKS!


Hey Habib!
Please check your Twitter for a message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Amanda via text message, her number is 917-369-0876.
THANKS!

Hey Amanda!
Please check your cell phone for a text message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Bryan via his email address bi3097a@american.edu
THANKS!

Hey Bryan!
Please check your AU email for a message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Katie O’Keefe on her Facebook
THANKS!

Hey Katie!
Please check your Facebook for a message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Mike on his Twitter at mzhangh1208
THANKS!

Hey Mike!
Please check your Twitter for a message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Brando via text message, his number is 301-639-2478.
THANKS!

Hey Brando!
Please check your cell phone for a text message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Daniel via his email address dl8692a@american.edu

Hey Daniel!
Please check your email for a message. When you receive the message please pass the message on to Leslie on her Twitter at wassermanL
THANKS!

FACEBOOK QUESTION?
If you aren’t FB friends with the person that you are directed to send a message to then when you go to friend them click the option of sending a message with the friend request.

Hiatus: And Back to the Show

Hello anyone!

We have returned to the wonderful confines of Room 210 of the Katzen Arts Center here at American University to continue work on our project exploring digital communications. Today is a fairly crummy day, as it has been raining almost non stop for two days in the Nation's Capital. The silver lining to the storm clouds is that we have plenty to work on inside! 

On the list of things to do today:

~ Produce more contrasting images for the pre-recorded screens in our project.

~ Create the actual directives for the project

~ Brainstorm ideas and themes for a musical background of the project

That is about it for today...

I'll update later on our progress

Daniel,

D+A Collective

Contrast

One part of our installation will consist of two screens displaying images accompanied with a contrasting definition in a successive fashion. Here are some examples:

Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.

First Voice

Alexander Graham Bell's notebook entry of 10 March 1876 describes his successful experiment with the telephone. Speaking through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room, Bell utters these famous first words, "Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you."

read more:
http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/telephone.htm

Last Time: November 2nd

Just to keep everyone posted,

In the past couple of classes we have solidified our ideas on a few things.
First of all we looked into venues for our project. The two candidates that we had in mind to play host to our project were Katzen 210, the Multimedia Studio, or the Blackbox Theater in Katzan. After weighing the pros and cons of each locale, we settled on the Blackbox Theater as we will be able to pull off more of our ideas in that space.

Also we have been making progress in the visual and technical catagories of our project, but to keep a level of surprise to our piece we are not willing to divulge what exactly we have accomplished.

Stay tuned for more posts.

~D+A

Projections

We will have 3 projections displayed on the center wall and left and right walls of the black box studio. 

The center projection will be a live feed of the current action in the room, which will facilitate the depiction of an infinity screen.

The two side projections will display text and images both still and moving that correlate with communication technology.

Eren's propsal

First of all, I like the idea that using all of different ways of communication like twitter, mail, text message, etc. One thing that I am concerned about this idea is that how it would be presented in the visual way. I am thinking that making a map, like DC area map or Campus map, by only with the text which be delivered by all of the communication among our friends. For example, when some one who send a text to me while she in the Katzen art center room 210, then the text will pops up on the screen with the location. Since all of the friends are in different place so maybe it can make a "text map".

I am not sure whether I can bring a new idea or not, I just suggest it. As what professor said in assignment description, the video should not until the audience engages physically with the work is the work fully completed and activated. So I want to focus on the way to make this video more attractive to people to participate.

The new idea that I came up with is inspired by the chese game, "human tetris game". Since chese game is kind of complicated, I think, so it can be more simple to make video. The rule is simple: people can only use their foot to make 4 different shapes of blocks ( I think you can imagine) then play whatever they want. I think it would be interesting, if we can make transparent plate, just put the camera under the plate and film the upside, through the plate then when people play the tetris game on the plate, we can shot only the bottom of the shoes. With this only foot video will present on the wall through the projector and people can realize that which row can be erased. This will be one video installation. The second video installation will be the actual computer tetris game. (It is too complicate to explain!! I will post a picture of my imagine later.) This idea can bring audience participation as a primary function of the work and also it will be fun!

Leslie's Proposal Concept

For our project I would love to create a communication experience using varied forms of media. I think it would be so cool to facilitate an interaction between the audience using different modes of communication like texting, twittering, facebook, email, bbm, etc. That is my main goal for the concept. That we create an interaction either not commonly experienced or not normally recognized as an art form.

We could literally play a game of telephone with the audience, passing along a message from one person to the next with each person having previously been given a directive of communication. For example, 'bbm the message to mike' 'twitter the message to katie' etc.

While this goes on we can possibly have a live feed of the originator of the information, which we will have be the finish line for the telephone game as well. And the other projection can be a video montage with multiple pictures of different modes of communication. Much like Lamine's project earlier in the semester.

That is the gist of my ideas but I really like the idea of facilitating an interaction with media and communication, however we can spin it.

The Beginning: Multimedia Endgames

The artist collective Danger and Awesomeness, stylized as "D + A", was created on Monday, October 26th, 2009. Comprised of four members in an American University Multimedia Art class, as a group we will venture into our collective notions on how to incorporate what we have learned into an overarching final project.

We drafted three general ideas that we could potentially run with. The first was a fairly simple one proposed by Lamine. We would create a cube of screens that would have live feeds of opposing the opposing screens. In our sketches Lamine's idea is designated as "A." This camera on projection of a live feed would lead to something we started calling an "infinity screen" as the live feed of a screen showing a live feed will continue on into infinity, much like when you put a mirror infront of another mirror.


The second idea was that of Leslie's virtual chess set. In this project two interactors would play chess via an online gaming site which would then be projected upon the ground in front of them. In our sketches the virtual chess game is designated as "B." Also some combination of the "infinity screen" and chess game was proposed as plan "AB."

Finally we stumbled upon plan "C." In this first draft of thinking, this project would focus on communications in our digital world. Including as many of the digital media that we could that deal with communications, we wanted to create a chain, a la whisper-down-the-lane, to get a message from one person to another. Having settled on this as the best idea, our group continued to create proposals and brainstorm more ideas to make our project more comprohensive.

Continue to follow us in our upcoming posts and read our finished and final proposal.