Hey Kids,
It has been a million years since my last post here. Back then I was finishing the last elements of my thesis, my final presentation to be exact.
I’m happy to say I graduated with big honours! Kickass! Awesome!

Since then, a lot of stuff has happened, but informing you about that is not the point of this post. I wanted to show you the last little thing I did with some mates and students from my (now old) school. Sometime ago I was part of a special workshop at Kunstencentrum België (Hasselt) about circuit-bending led by Jethro and Micha Volders.

We (Wout Standaert, Danny Leen, Tom Luyten, Peter Briers, Ruud Denivel, Olivier Berger and me) were given the task to develop some visuals for the The Vermin Twins show at the end of the workshop.

We used the little-scale tutorial on VGA hacking to generate super-glitchy super-realtime-visuals with an Arduino based on the live audio from the gig that was played in the evening.

It was great fun, a cool project and awesome people to work with. You can read more about it on Wout’s or Micha’s Blogs Also, check out the video Olivier made, it’s attached below.

Love,
Jim

It’s Done!
My thesis-document is printed, bound - and at this very moment, I’m on a train to Genk to hand it in. Wish me luck. Now the only thing left to tackle is my final presentation. I’ll get cracking on that soon enough, but not today. So what is my thesis about you ask?

According to my own writing it’s “an investigation of the boundaries and possibilities within the concept and experience of immersion, and the possibilities given by the introduction of a strong physical element within this very concept”. If you’re interested in that (and you are able to read dutch) then check it out.

Before I dissapear again to fix this presentation-thing, check out a little video I made of all the people that I “immersed” in my third prototype so far. It will give you some kind of idea of the end-result of my research.

Love,
Jim

Hey Kids,
After finishing the GPS Jacket v1 (aka Prototype 02) I started working on my final (slowly running out of time, aarg) Prototype 03. No catchy names here. That’s what it’ll be called. Prototype 03. I also finished that. And I got a good opportunity to test it out. I will show it in the new C-MD buidlings. The 24th and 25th of March next weekend. It will be part of the open house we do to attract new students to our school.

So more about that later. For now check out my new abstract (and new picture in it) while I try to get some words on paper for a reading version of my thesis. Slight brain-overload going on right now.

Love,
Jim

Glasgow Mega Snake was created at a workshop during the Victorian Circus V festival at the Brakke Grond in the Netherlands. Tom Luyten, Wout Standaert, Danny Leen and me cooperated on creating this thing.
It was a long time ago we made a project together, and I felt like it was long overdue. Since it was our first experiment into 3D interactive content, we worked our asses of - late into the night. The rest of the workshop was filled with mostly game designers.

We deliberately steered away from them and tried to create something different.
A game with no clear purpose, or objective.We focused on control, visuals and sound, and tried to make something we liked ourselves.

We used the Unity Game Engine to create Glasgow Mega Snake. We managed to go from no knowledge to finished “game” in two and a half days. We modeled our assets in SketchUp and 3DS Max, and interfaced a WiiMote with the engine for input. Sound Output was handeled by sending game data to Ableton Live.

In the video underneath I call it an art game, but I think it’s a bit of a silly term. It’s like you would call something “Art Music”. I guess it’s a sign the medium is growing towards maturity however. That’s good.
But enough words! Moving pictures below!

Love,
Jim

Update #1: Tom blogged about this too. Go check it out.

Update #2: Posts from one of my teachers and Wout about this too..

Allright. My blog can now be officially called “a vlog“. But that’s besides the point. Check out the video above. I’m sorry for the craptacular fake HD quality, but I hope that between all the silliness the big idea becomes clear.

Godspeed,
Jim

So, the GPS Jacket eh?
As I said in the previous post, this was the first project to get myself moving again. So what is this GPS jacket, and what the hell does it have to do with my muscle-controll-related thesis? First, maybe a hardware overview of the system would be in place. Click on the picture underneath here and mouse over “the notes” to find out what the different components do.

This little experiment was (among other things) inspired by Luarence Malstaf’s Compass. It’s a wearable instalation art piece that I checked out at the Brussels Perfomatik festival a while ago. It looks like a piece of equipment out of the cold war (one of the reasons I loved it). Besides looking cool, it guides you around a (virtual) space using sensors and by swinging its own weight around - with you in the center. It’s pretty cool.

But, back to my GPS Jacket. Maybe a better name in the light of my thesis would be “The Feedback Jacket”. The idea here was to build a really quick prototype to explore another possiblity of “physical feedback”. So I tought up the idea of a screen-and-soundless GPS system that would guide you around by vibrating little pads in the armpieces of your jacket. It could be usefull for firefighters for example, who don’t have the time liberty to look or listen at their GPS while out in the field. But I always saw it as a device that would prevent you from getting lost, while still giving you the ability to wander around in an unknown city for example. That’s why it has an easy off button too. Tomorrow I’ll try to finish this and “steer” my little brother around the garden.

And that’s that for today.
Love,
Jim

Update:
So - I didn’t make it to “videotaping-my-brother”-stage today. Too bad. I wired up my speakers wrong and I needed help for somebody to point that out to me - so there where some delays. Everything is ready for a first testing run however - but by then, there was no light left outside for a video. So I decided to just call it a day for today, and have some nice family-time. Tomorrow however, it’s ON!

Update #2:
Allright, before I drop into bed. I forgot to write this down in the previous post. I have been pondering about a good interface to enter destinations into this GPS system. I like the idea that it’s a more simple, less intrusive, more “wander-friendly” version of a GPS. So I came up with the idea that - whenever you reset it - it will point you in the direction of your home. Then, there’s just one other button besides “reset / on-of”. And that is “record current location”. So you get to a place - let’s say the hotel you’re staying in. Press the remember button and turn of the feedback system. Then you go out and get lost. Then you turn on the feedback again, and find the way back to your hotel. And that’s that. Goodnight.

Allright,
A Thesisupdate. What have I been up to? Less than I would have wanted to - but no biggie, not everything is lost. I did my “halftime-presentation”. It can be found on my server space, on the same spot as always. Be warned though, this things is not really “internet-ready”. Wait for it to load, then use arrow keys to navigate. Unfortunately, when my feedback came, it wasn’t what I expected. The main point the teachers sent in my direction that it was “too much about Crew”.

I struggeled with all this information. I was quite pissed, to be honest. I had the feeling teachers where commenting on the very core of my thesis proposition. A proposition I had been communicating to them for almost a complete schoolyear. But there was some truth in it to be honest. My muscle control experiments where not overly successful so far, and I was getting frustrated by all of this. How it would al fit in a theater piece by Crew was another question all together too. So I wrote down the “big idea” of how and why I wanted to pursue this whole muscle-control-in-a-piece-by-Crew plan in the first place. That piece of text is here.

And then I tried to re-orient my thesis. I had a talk with Liesbeth Huybrechts, one of my thesis mentors, and decided to look upon the whole thing from a “broader” angle. I choose to opt for a wider range of “physical actuation” devices. Crew is still very important in this, but I definately gave myself some more freedom to explore my subject matter with other prototypes, and from different angles. Then I focussed on writing my abstract (also in english) which can be found in the ususal places

So now I now have a new plan and more work then I can wrap my head around at the moment. So it’s time to get a move on. Tomorrow I’ll start a new experiment: the “GPS-Jacket”. And I hope to show my first steps off right here, tomorrow.
Until then.

Love,
Jim

Hey Kids!
So, how have you been, you ask? Well, unknown yet beloved reader - I’ve been better. I have just lost the favourite part of my life. Friends tell me that "sometimes things just end", and that you can’t do anything about that. Well, sometimes things just downright SUCK BALLS, and you wish they where different, but they are not. Stuff is as beautifull as it can be hard sometimes, and that’s true too. And it’s one of the hardest things I know.

I feel like I’m living in a bubble these days - and I am - this is one of the first days I actually came out of my room. It’s a bright sunny day, and I feel strangely disconnected from it all. Music keeps me sane these days. "The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place" by Explosions In The Sky and "As If to Nothing" by Craig Armstrong are playing right now on my iPod. Also, the first album by Burial. Can’t wait for the third one to come out. Not the most fitting music for one of the first sunny days of the year, but bright sunny days are not the kind of days that would fit my mood now anyway.

So - schoolwork then. The show must go on, right. That’s the only stuff i have to concentrate on now, so I better go make my thesis a succes. The last weeks - or months maybe - I was in a very non-productive mood. Partially because of this relationship-crap, but also because making this kind of thesis is very hard for me. I get crushed under the fear of fucking it all up, and I have a hard time dealing with it all - sometimes (or several times a day) I’m just convinced I will never make it - and that’s not the best mood to get work done. It’s a downward sprial sometimes.

But - I’ve been trying to get out of it. As long as i keep going i surely have to end up somewhere in the end. So the next post will be a big status update on my thesis ideas. Before i can get to that though - it seemed like a good plan to list all my other finished projects here. So brace yourselves for it - here they come.

Factory Instrument (Launch)

So - after building it an testing it, we had to go install this on location. It took us a while and the software written by some other group members wasn’t really up to the most stable level ever, but in the end it turned out good anyway. It was really nice, working on a real location, for real people and appearing in the newspaper with our project afterwards. This is one of my favourite projects I have done so far I think. The fact that Wout and me just picked out our craziest idea and started building it AND succeeded (at least as far as I’m concerned) made working in the darkness in an empty wet factory building until two o’ clock in the night all worth it. Also, we had Peter (my stepdad) to cover our back with his awesome "getting-it-done-and-not-despairing-skills". Yeah. It was good. The video is in Dutch, by the way, or at least some Limburgian variant of of it.
On with the show i say!

Noise Pong

Noise Pong is a project produced by Wout "Blobkat" Standaert and me. We continued on the "lets-try-something-that-seems-really-fun-and-get-it-done". Our teachers where all ok and supportive of our idea of a music game without a real purpose or aim. Noise Pong was inspired by awesome stuff like United Game Artists’ Rez and Toshio Iwai’s Electroplankton.
It is a tangible interface to make music with and it uses the reacTIVision framework, Processing (Visuals) and Ableton Live (Sound). What you see in the movie is actually what would be underneath the real table surface you are manipulating.
We plan to continue developing this thing if possible. And, if luck is on our side, we might get to do a performance with two of these tables at once.

Residual Self Image

DSC_0837
Sofie In Residual Self Image

One of two "Mirror Installations" I helped to develop in close succesion. This one captures the face of the person that is sitting in front of the mirror, and then projects it onto the next person who visits the installation.
This creates an eerie blend of two different faces, who eachother in the mirror.
This installation was created in a very short time for a workshop in "De Brakke Grond". This was another one of my more "real" projects, and it was a good experience.

Firefly

Photoshop Composition
Firefly Title Page

Firefly is a quick-and-dirty concept (not built - yet) for an interactive/immersive room.
It recreates a technologic version of the classic Will-O-The-Wisp stories of uncatchable lights that lure you deeper into the forest all the time.
It was meant to be able to be built easy, quick and cheap. And powered by Arduino. I hope to produce this one some day.

I Think I Broke Myself

This is the other "mirror" installation piece. It’s is an interactive / immersive installation for one room.
The installation resembles a mirror and gives a poetic expression to an idea about yourself in relationship to your self image: When you get to close to it - it shatters.
This was a group project and it was made possible by using just one camera, a projector, Arduino and a tool called Isadora. Video above was shot and edited by Roger. This is an important project for me - especially in relationship to my thesis - but we’ll get back to that later.

So far, for now,
All my love to all of you
(and you know who you are)

X
Jim

Hey Kids!
A Slice of what’s going on in my head.
It was a project for the myStory course.
There’s a paper for this thing too - in dutch.
I went for my gut feeling here.
It’s not done, but it’s in a state that I can leave it for now.
Help by Olmo.
Music by Burial.

Take Care,
XXX
Jim

Hey Guys,
This is a post mostly for school purposes - but if you’re interested in that - read along!

My Public Space Project in 6 Keywords.

In our last classes of Public Space, we got some theory and broad philosophy classes. Some important key concepts were touched upon. I’ll try to explain how i think my personal Project fits in these different contexts.

Knowledge Building, Alternative methods of Design Research
I used some of the design research methods that where proposed in class (Photo-research, drawing up mind-maps and the likes). But i think the most valuable research for me was the fact that I had to take the train from Antwerp Central Station to Hasselt Central twice a week. During the course I tried to transform these long trips into research as much as possible: always try to analyse how I, and other people behaved in both train stations. I even hung around in the two train stations just to stroll around for an hour and try to find out the particular unique traits of the place. Trying to absorb the atmosphere. You could say that this way of working is related to the notion of “Le Flaneur” as it was launched by Baudrillard.

So: most valuable metbod of research - living your subject matter. If I was an antropologist that would mean: go live in the jungle for 3 years. Thank god this course was not about Jungle tribes. No internet!

Open Source (Architecture)
The Open Source idea implemented on buildings. The ability to re-engineer the tools you work with (or in this case: the building or space you live in). Other important keyword here: learning trough transparency. You learn to work with something because you understand how it works - and you can change how it works.

If I place my work into this methaphor - there is one clear link: my projection-on-the-facade idea had one big aim: to make the building transparent, to radiate the “soul” of - or information contained within - the trainstation outward.

The (utopic) projection infrastructure can be seen as Open Source too: if it ever gets build it should be usable for other developers of any kind. Somebody else should also be able to display his “rendering” of the station neighbourhoud on the walls of the building. Or maybe it could be used as a giant VJ-Set Canvas. Party time.

Also Open Source: the tools (Processing) AND expertise (Processing Discourse Forum) used.

Identity Quesions
As said before - I like how my Slitscan displays people and trains in very different ways. Trains get drawn out clearly, people just get smashed together in little specks of image-information. Barely recognizable - ghosts. This, at least for me, is an accurate display of what happens at a train station: trains are important, people just pass - without leaving a trace.

Immersion
I actually try to reach the opposite of immersivity here. Instead of trying to convince the viewer of the “realness” of my image - i confront them with a transformed image of the space behind the building. I do this to make people think about that space. Maybe similar to theatre as seen by Bertold Brecht: the 4th wall has to be broken, to confront people with, and make them think about the subject matter of the piece. The “Verfremdungseffekt”

Participation
The big idea here is (as explained in earlier posts) to give the Hasselt Trainstation a unique, recognizable “face” - by projecting alternative view(s) of the trainstation onto the the facade of the building.
I wanted to create something that would turn the train station into “Our Trainstation” for the people of Hasselt. For somebody who passes everyday - it’s just another space. But for the regulars who learn themselves to read the image - it becomes a place with a recognizable face.
Also - if you find out how the slitscan (or another “visualization”) works - you could have some fun manipulating the system. Find where that camera is and stretch your face 70 feet wide on the facade of a building. I know I would.

Memory
This was one of my main fascinations with the train station: how time is very important, but keeps repeating itself in cycles and how lots of people move around, but leave no traces. The difference between the function of trains in the building and people. One of the first ideas was to work with some sort of paint - and see how traces would form over time. Like stairs that become smooth after millions of people have walked over them - and disappeared. Another idea involved a way to write digital grafitti on train carriage walls. All these ideas had a common ground: people and how they move and leave (or not leave) traces in the train station.
In the end - i think all of these memory-time-related ideas i had came together pretty nice in the slitscan. I think this imaging technique has a very interesting effect in a train station: to me it enlarges the way time works in this space.

And that’s that.

Jim Out.

Update:
I found this while studying for my public space exam. It was in the powerpoint transcripts of one of the lectures and fits in really close with the see-trough aspect of Facade.

Architecture is becoming simply a support for computer-generated images.
The virtual space created by these images replaces the physical space of architecture.
In other words, the image terminates the space. Architecture is reduced to a shelter for the image, not unlike a TV set, a billboard, a movie theater, turned inside out.
As ARCH+ put it in 1991: “The facade becomes a screen.”

Also interesting: The concept for Michael Jantzen’s Malibu Video BeachHouse