snstncntnrs is an open video project in the form of files that include a set of cuts described in a EDL and Final Cut Pro XML file. These cuts can be applied to any video using video editing applications. Translation: Paige Treebridge has created a Final Cut timeline - complete with a variety of cuts and effects - but without the video content. 

Participants / Users can import snstncntnrs - as an XML or EDL file - into any compatible program and add video to the empty, stylized timeline. The experimental and &ldquo;open&rdquo; nature of the project lies with the user, who creates a unique personalized video based on how they work within the constraints of the snstncntnrs timeline.

snstncntnrs EDL

snstncntnrs

Interrogation is a network of projects that includes seizure-edited video and live re-enactment of that video. The work is shown as video, live theater reproducing that video and video of live theater reproducing the initial video. Interrogation is currently being folded into Dog Days, a larger-scale theatrical production.

Still from Interrogation Video

Interrogation

BendyBots are a series of twenty animatronic creatures. The project is an imaginative daydream about what future mergers of technology and nature could produce. The robots were inspired by oceanic plant life. 

Each robot was on a Flexinol mechanism. I chose to echo the feel of an ocean by incorporating glowing blue electroluminescent wires into the center of the robots&rsquo; worm-like bodies. 

The robots sit on a white rectangular shelf, constantly swaying from right to left, as though an unseen current was moving them. I designed small mechanics for each BendyBot. 

The mechanisms are constructed to have one static resistance arm and two active arms that could pull independently of each other, while still being on one removable unit. 

The project is designed to be easily accessible to have the mechanisms replaced, while still being light enough to affordably ship across the country. 

The entire project was created from easily accessible materials. The housing was carefully constructed from white foamcore. Each BendyBot is comprised of two halves, the publicly visible &ldquo;bots&rdquo; and the internal mechanisms driving the &ldquo;bots&rdquo;. 

The publicly visible part was created from strips of clear plastic and then folded, accordion style, for the body with three pieces of fishing line run up along the edges. A single piece of electroluminescent wire runs up the center of the body. 

The internal mechanisms were created out of a small piece of Plexiglas and foamcore for the arms with metal screws and Flexinol wire. Instead of using noisy micro servos motors, I found a silent heat-activated wire to be a better choice. Muscle wire (aka - Nitinol / Flexinol wire) is a metal material which uses the heat of an electrical impulse to contract the metal. Nitinol belongs to a class of materials called Shaped Memory Alloys (SMA). SMA&rsquo;s have interesting mechanical properties (Nitinol, 2007). 

SMA metals have been a popular material in bio-mechanical design and engineering. Nitinol&rsquo;s physical function resembles biological muscle; when activated it contracts. To activate Nitinol it is heated above its transition temperature (typically 70C). An electric current may be passed through the wire to heat it electrically. As the material cools it can be stretched back it its original length (Nitinol, 2007). 

The most problematic part of making these mechanisms was trying to get the flexinol wire to stay connected between the fishing line and the electrically charged screws. 

Since the flexinol wire is thin and cannot be soldered to metal connectors because of low heat tolerance, it was very difficult finding a solution. That solution was using hot glue to attach the muscle wire to small solid core wire pieces and finally soldering current carrying wire to those small connector wires. In my application of the muscle wire, the wire takes on a spring like behavior. 

A Wiring micro-controller board sends out electrical impulses. These impulses are sent in one second intervals. The electrical impulse sent out is limited to 2 volts; however, my flexinol wires needed 4.5 volts to contract. I created a supplementary electronic component board. 

This extra board had 40 reed relays on it and each reed relay acted as a switch. The wiring board&rsquo;s 2 volts would trigger the reed relays to open and allow 4.5 volts to activate the muscle wires which started the mechanisms. 

Since only one arm would be active, the other arm would be resting and the static resistance arm would become counter-springs. When the flexinol wire started to cool the other straight arms would slowly pull the active arm upright or back to an at rest position. Simple programming code controlled all of the robots&rsquo; movements. 

Programming code was created in collaboration with, EVL Phd candidate, Ratko Jagodic.

Close-Up of BendyBot Segment

BendyBots

Passing &ldquo;Place for Games&rdquo; visualizes the world famous Kizhi site as high-resolution 3D environment. The goal of this project is to create a virtual prototype of the current state of Kizhi wooden architecture. Kizhi museum preserves a concentration of masterpieces of the Russian heritage and protected by World Heritage List of UNESCO. The visualization reconstructs the original architecture of Kizhi island based on the detailed photographs, architectural and geometric measurements, textural data and video surveys taken during the visit of Kizhi as well as geometric analysis of the surviving structure. The project is being developed using the latest concepts in real-time graphics, including complex illumination with dynamic-irradiance environment mapping, shadow mapping, and complex materials with normal and gloss mapping. 

Word &ldquo;kizhi&rdquo; is translated from Karelian as &ldquo;a place for games.&rdquo; In ancient times people gathered here and performed their religious rituals. Kizhi is located on an island in Lake Onega in northern Karelia in Russia. The Kizhi ensemble consists of the 1714 Church of the Transfiguration, the 1764 Church of the Intercession and the Belfry, an octagonal bell tower that was restored in 1874. A remote location, travel distance, limited building access due to restoration efforts make the Kizhi site difficult to visit. The visualization recreates virtual environment of the ensemble and the island landscape, animated historical evolution in the interactive high-resolution application controlled by the user. 

The 3D architectural models restore the original state of the churches with geometrical precision and symmetrical balance. They are based on the architectural plans and high resolution and photographic and video data. The original symmetry of the churches was lost due to numerous restorations and environmental conditions. 

The development approach is based on the latest techniques in real-time computer graphics techniques, including per-pixel illumination and shadow generation. Normal and gloss mapping are used for a richer, more detailed surface representation to visualize the details of the deteriorating wood with possible historic accuracy and photorealistic rendering. These techniques allow realistic re-creation of the material properties of the structures under different lightening effects with higher resolution and accuracy.

Passing Place for Games

Passing Place for Games

Chiasmus is EVLer Stephen Cady&rsquo;s MFA thesis research project; it is a responsive and dynamically reflective, two-sided volumetric projection surface that embodies phenomenological issues such as the formation and reception of images, observer and machine perception and the dynamics of the screen as a space of image reception. It consists of a square grid of 64 individually motorized cube elements engineered to move linearly. Each cube is controlled by custom software that analyzes video imagery for luminance values and sends these values to the motor control mechanisms to coordinate the individual movements. The resolution of the sculptural screen from the individual movements allows its volume to dynamically alter, providing novel and unique perspectives of its mobile form to an observer. 

Chiasmus stems from the artist&rsquo;s interest in programming and building physical computing applications, and the idea of the translatable nature of digital data that would allow for the generation of physical movement. Working primarily with visual media, Chiasmus investigates the formation of imagery and its aesthetic reception and perception. A main inspiration for this work are the stage designs and World Expo installations of Josef Svoboda and the expanded cinema environments of Peter Weibel, Jeffrey Shaw, and Stan VanDerBeek. Of primary interest is the dynamics of light interacting with the different depths and surface materials, and the transformation of the projected image. 

Chiasmus incorporates the projection of video imagery onto a three-dimensional surface that is also dynamically mobile and kinetically responsive to the projected light source. The result is a dialogic exchange between the moving surface and the projected imagery, that forms a generative process and produces an evolving and ultimately unpredictable outcome.

Art - 2007

snstncntnrs

Interrogation

BendyBots

Passing Place for Games

Chiasmus

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