A write up of my experience installing and displaying Wayang Kinect in the ITP Spring 2011 show is forthcoming… stay tuned!
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Antonius Wiriadjaja combines techniques from creative writing, cognitive science, and guerrilla theatre to tell stories in new media.
He is currently pursuing a master's degree at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).
A write up of my experience installing and displaying Wayang Kinect in the ITP Spring 2011 show is forthcoming… stay tuned!
This year, I have been learning as much as I can about the Javanese court arts, including music, dance and live theatre. Part of what interests me is how stories like the Ramayana and Mahabharata can be passed on for generations without the need of archival technology. Furthermore, different cultures at different times utilize different methods of storytelling in order to transmit them to the next generation.
The Wayang Kinect project is an exploration of storytelling ancient texts in new mediums. Using a Microsoft Kinect as a sensor, users are able to interact with and manipulate a digital puppet on a projected screen.
The web applet, which controls the puppets using the position of the mouse, can be found here. Full description, videos and code are after the jump.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been fooling around with the Microsoft Kinect. I spent a large chunk of my time installing all the software needed to use Sensebloom’s OSCeleton library by following Tohm Judson’s tutorial. Once everything was installed, I was frustrated the Processing examples provided by Sensebloom was giving me errors. Fortunately, I found out I wasn’t the only one. After renaming a few functions I got it to work perfectly (the fixed code is down below).
After some time, I got the example to work with Toxiclibs and was able to attach a puppet frame to a user’s hand after calibration. Video and the code after the jump.
Nature of Code Assignment: Create a flow field that changes over time.
I took Dan Shiffman’s flow field code and added a time function to change the perlin noise values over time.
The applet is found here.
Video of the applet in debug mode and the code found below.
This year I got to check out SXSW in Austin, TX for the entire festival. I mostly worked during the interactive portion, so most of the fun was had at day shows with friends. I discussed the interactive and film events at the art:21 blog, but didn’t cover nearly everything. I also didn’t finish processing the photos until today, to my friends’ dismay.
I redesigned the website for my gamelan orchestra, New York City’s Gamelan Kusuma Laras and just got the OK to officially launch it at kusumalaras.org
It’s proudly powered by Wordpress and Thematic, but we felt it was more important to point out the orchestra is a non-profit organization and not distract with too many links.
Midterm Assignment: Build off of the concepts we’ve covered this first half of the semester, however you should feel free to think non-traditionally, i.e. your midterm need not simply be a Processing sketch. Please include both visual and text documentation of your project, i.e. you might include a short paragraph description, links to relevant projects, video documentation, screenshots, or online applet, etc. The midterm need not be a finished project, it is useful to use this time to build out a single component of a larger idea.
The great monkey god Hanoman: http://code.antoni.us/noc/wayang_hanoman/
The great codemonkey god ShiffHanoman: http://code.antoni.us/noc/wayang_shiffhanoman/
Ed: The applets weren’t working, so I am posting an earlier draft with only the puppet’s frame: http://code.antoni.us/noc/wayangframe/ Ed 2: Fixed 3/14
Assignment: Model a specific visual effect using a particle system — fire, smoke, explosion, waterfall, etc.
I wanted to pay tribute and homage to TLC’s Waterfalls 1994 music video, but I’ve been so focused on my stop-motion animation that I couldn’t spend time on this week’s Nature of Code assignment.
The end product isn’t at all what I was planning. Wrapping my head around inheritance and polymorphism is tougher than I expected. I guess I’ll stick to the rivers and the lakes that I’m used to.
Hanacaraka Stop Motion First Draft
I’m about halfway done with the first Methods of Motion Assignment: A stop-motion animation in the style of Lotte Reiniger’s Silhouette films.
Assignment: Create a system of multiple bobs and spring connections. How would you have a Bob connected to a Bob with no fixed anchor?
I created an interactive wire puppet out of spring objects, inspired by Alexander Calder’s Aztec Josephine Baker (1929), which the Calder Foundation recently requested to withdraw from the Smithsonian as an act of protest against censorship. Code and video after the jump.
Assignment 2: Create pockets of air resistance / friction in a Processing sketch.
I updated a game I made this summer for Matt Parker’s class to include principles of friction.
Hana Caraka Storyboard and Script
Methods of Motion Assignment 1: Stop-Motion Frame by Frame Animation
Hana Caraka
Synopsis: The Javanese alphabet, also known as the Hanacaraka, is a holoalphabetic poem which translates to:
Hana caraka There (were) two messengers
data sawala (They) had animosity (among each other)
padha jayanya (They were) equally powerful (in fight)
maga bathanga Here are the corpses.
I plan to depict the Javanese script and the Latin alphabet as the two messengers in conflict. Throughout the animation, the story will be written out on screen in both Javanese and Western script. The first stanza of letters will transform into two silhouette puppets from their appropriate font: a Javanese shadow puppet (Wayang Kulit) and an 18th century European Silhouette portrait. The setting is also created in this manner. For instance, the Javanese letters may turn into palm trees and the Roman letters may turn into a tea cup. Most of the animation will be done in the style of Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette stop-motion films. But the climactic fight scene will be shot in the style of a Wayang Kulit battle, by attaching rods to move the puppets and their limbs in real-time.
This semester I’m taking Daniel Shiffman’s Nature of Code, a course on translating mathematical properties of our physical world into a digital world.
Our first assignment is to find an example of real-world “natural” motion and develop a set of rules for simulating that behavior. Avoid using randomness, or at least consider the use of random carefully and justify it. Consider the challenge of usual minimal visual design, i.e. only grayscale primitive shapes.
I spent much of Sunday morning staring out the window and watching icicles form outside my window. I tried to replicate the experience in processing here, sped up for a more fulfilling sensation. Shiffman pointed out that this is not a science course, and that sometimes we have to alter and fake the rules of nature to make it more aesthetically pleasing in the digital realm. I avoided researching too deeply the formulae that governs the formation of icicles in the physical world, and instead experimented until I thought the screen best reflected my experience looking out the window.
The ice at the top of the screen and the snowbanks at the bottom were generated using Perlin Noise. I did rely on random() several times - creating between 4-7 icicles, establishing their initial height, and setting the melting rate.
Video and code after the jump.
The Beauty Secrets of Millionaire Matches
I’ve had close encounters with reality show stars before, but never quite like this. Two people I know and speak to on a regular basis were on The Millionaire Matchmaker, a show I’ve never seen since I don’t own a TV and try my best to avoid the time-suck of Hulu.
I will be joining Art21’s Open Enrollment column, blogging about my graduate school experience over the next semester and possibly beyond.
Open Enrollment chronicles the experience of graduate school via the perspective of current students. As MA and MFA degrees become ever more the norm for the professional training of artists, educators, and administrators alike, Open Enrollment functions as a time-sensitive journal, offering readers a birds-eye-view of the challenges, rewards, puzzles, and ontological questioning that a graduate education engenders.
Each semester, a selective and diverse group of students from accredited graduate programs, as well as students studying at non-traditional institutions (temporary schools, artist’s educational projects, intensive residency programs, etc.), will take up residence on the blog.
I’m pretty thrilled to be selected, and can’t wait to chronicle the daily conversations overheard in the Tisch stairwell about broken hearts, lost roles and dead cats.
based on the hasaportfolio theme by matt mcinerney
