glitchperryartistry

[glitchperryartistry]

My Senior Thesis

My senior thesis has evolved, digressed, and altered, as I matured throughout my senior year. Here are some key phases my thesis has gone through:

Phase 1: Alternate Reality Game

Backstory: over the summer I had developed an application with the Particle Photon that enabled me to interface with a relay via a websocket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFKnBqmuAI While I didn’t understand how a lot of it worked behind the scenes, the fact that I was able to get that far, with some basic HTML, CSS, and Arduino knowhow, was exciting. I looked towards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFD8Xl1LSJQ&t=834s as inspiration, and sought out locations in Kansas City, with my friend, and by myself, as potential places to embed my circuits into the city, to create a Kansas City experience.

At the beginning of the year, I came in, guns a’blazin, knowing I wanted to create an alternate reality game. At the time, I was looking at beacons as a potential hardware to create my experience. My professor instructed I watch a documentary called “The Institute”, which was about a zany alternate reality game in San Fransisco. I learned the power of alternate reality games, as a genre, and about how the creator’s intent was to enchant the trivial. The highlight of the game, for me, was a lighthearted one. At a point in the game, a player was asked to go to a payphone, and wait for instructions from “the institute”. After receiving said instructions that would further the story, a performer, dressed up as Bigfoot, ran up next to the participant, and plopped down a boombox radiating a jaunty song. They then proceeded to dance together, in the middle of a public city-area, with the participant. 

Phase 2: AR/Storytelling/Motor explorations

An individual at my church brought up the idea of developing an augmented reality application. Another in the group-chat responded with a link leading towards ARjs using a-frames, a platform I had experience with developing online virtual reality experiences. Nevertheless, I had never heard of the boiler plate being used for augmented reality experiences, which is to say web based augmented reality wasn’t even on my radar whatsoever. So, for the sake of learning, I undertook the challenge. Within the next couple of days, I had created a rudimentary ar “experience”, (for lack of a better word) that used the platform my friend at church brought up. 

Around the same time, I had been watching/listening to clinical psychologist, and professor Jordan Peterson lecture about responsibility, and stories.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us979jCjHu8 Often, Peterson talks about stories, and how one views the world through a narrative lens, or about how stories distill truths about how one ought to properly act in the world. He has analyzed both “Pinocchio” and “Lion King”, while talking about the deep metaphors, and archetypes that run rampant through the narratives. Yet his analysis of “Pinocchio” really stuck out to me, as I was able to draw many ties between the marionette, and myself. 

I felt as if I too had been stuck on “pleasure island” for some time, and my conscious (that still small voice in one’s head) was able to show me the way out. Pinocchio’s relationship to his consciousness is literal, in the sense that a bug, Jiminey Cricket is his guide. Peterson asked rhetorically to his class “what bugs you”? Often, it is your consciousness. He also explained how expensive an animated film is to make, which he used to bolster the idea that nothing embedded within an animated movie is trivial: it has real thought in it. Additionally, in the south primarily, “Jiminey Cricket” is slang for “Jesus Christ”, which is to say that the still small voice in your head, is god. 

Where exactly does that voice come from? Why does it always seem to want what’s best for you? Why can we (and why do we) choose to ignore it? These questions bring up the idea of free will, which is something a puppet surely doesn’t have. This is just an example of many of the deep philosophical ponderances Peterson/Pinocchio bring to question. A particular mediation on the Pinocchio’s relationship to his consciousness (Jiminey Cricket) arises when Pinocchio is about to attempt to save his father from the belly of the whale. As Pinocchio is preparing to embark on his journey, his consciousness is warning him, and telling him how stupid, and foolish it is, to risk your life for the task at hand. Yet at the same time, his consciousness is helping him prepare for the journey, as it is almost necessary to embark on such an extreme journey, for one reason, or another. 

I related this idea to my own experience when I happened to descend into the underworld. While I wasn’t on pursuing any, say, answers, or mission-resolution, I was mostly just curious to see what would happen, if I "ate some forbidden fruit”. Perhaps it is embedded in one’s biology, these stories of archetype, but perhaps I was just being foolhardy. In some sense, I lost an eye, so to speak, in my descent into chaos, while in another, I gained one enhanced version (the ability to augment reality). Additionally, the fact that my inner conscious, or god, if you’ve been following the outlined ideas brought forth by reading the subtext within Pinocchio, would allow me such free-will, almost to a fault, is miraculous, and the bases for my augmented reality piece I made.

The 😱face represented my mindset after eating the “forbidden fruit”, and the title of the website “brick-insect” represented the abstracted, juxtaposed nature one’s consciousness must be in to be both support, and reject the descent into the unknown. The image marker utilized the word “Hiro” which plays into an obvious archetype, that is personalized (has more “I”), and is also the name of a character that made me cry. Finally, the idea of seeing things that aren’t really there (through augmented reality), ties into the idea of eating the forbidden fruit.  All in all, this piece taught me practically through code, and emotionally/spiritually through contemplation.

Around this time, I began reading about Carl Jung’s view on archetypes. A particularly fond notion pertaining towards the female latched onto me. To Jung, anything that enclosed could be distilled into that of the feminine (symbolic of the womb) which is found in bodies of water, caves, and the Earth itself. This idea is echoed in the Blue Fairy, or mother nature, as the sacred divine is what animates Pinocchio in the first, allowing him to come alive at all. Additionally I had been reading Yukio Mishima’s ideas on “Sun and Steel”, and how the physicality of things is all that mattered. He denounced words, and ideas, and any abstraction from reality. Mishima ultimately claimed all that matters was action. 

This notion of pure action led me to want to create something that interfaced, and moved in the physical world. I began development with motors, and looked into various methods of movement. I had used servo motors, dc motors, and  stepper motors in the past, but nothing substantial that could be controlled, and powerful enough to instantiate a change in the physical world. My solution I found was through AC stepper motors, in which I had a capacitor blow up in my face (I wish I had video [my friend said I had never looked more scientific in my excited state of failure/progress with my circuitry laid out before me]). AC stepper motors had the torque I was looking for, as well as the control/direction I desired. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvh6oHFjRQ0 My professor had a CNC machine kit too, which was fun to help prototype future interactions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA3K0Q1p_Zk

Around this time I decided I had learned enough about the drivers (A4988 modules [see above]) of the stepper motors, and decided to make my own CNC machine. I had saw a video online where a maker had deconstructed a couple of old cd drivers, and used the internal stepper motors, and the mounts they were housed within, to create such a machine, and I couldn’t resist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQkCWjL775w While I’ll admit, this was in part a completion for an animation assignment, my teacher encouraged tailoring the assignment towards each’s individual studio practice, so each went in tandem enough to explore this concept of creation. At the time, I was thinking about the fabrication process, and how machines manufacture, and serve as the hands. If the hands were removed from creation, then all that was left of the artist was the heart, which I ultimately found to be irreplaceable by machines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc8agtVp1zk 

Phase 3: Experience about Technological Progress?

One weekend, I was talking about my thesis with my mother. We were sitting on a bench within nature, and two rivers ran before us. I explained to her how technology was natural, and we extracted all the materials to get, say, computers and phones, from the Earth. We then transitioned to talking about technology, and how my generation was the first generation to grow up with it, and how much it changed everything. My mom then brought up the idea of the river to the left of us being the past, before technology, and a river on the right being the current state of things with technology in it’s sophisticated, yet primitive state. She pointed out how the two rivers met in the middle, and continued to flow together for as far as the eye could see.

This convergence of the past, present, and future spawned an idea that I adore. I want my work to bridge the gap between the mature, tried-and-true world, and the newer, avant-garde digital one (whatever that may be [if one can even call it a world]). This then transitioned into me thinking of a curated experience in which one comes to terms with the past, and realizes that they are the future. I outlined a floor plan, and structure for individuals to walk through my experience. Ultimately however, this idea was abandoned, out of being confined by the existing structure I’d have to house the experience within.

Phase 4: A Scaled-Up Structure 

Around this time, I was donated a 3D printer from a local maker space. 

To my surprise, it had the same modules that drove the stepper motors of my CNC machine. 

Although I was told that the machine ought to just be used for parts (the z-axis had been obliterated) I was able to connect my Arduino to the 3D printer, and utilize the same process I used on my CNC machine to fabricate a heart.. However, due to alignment issues, the first iteration yielded a scraggly heart half manufactured, that was representative of where my love stood at the time. It was a beautiful, serendipitous moment that Bob Ross might call a “happy accident”.

Nevertheless, as evident in the first post within this section, a natural progression of scale could be seen. I did not see why I could not create a 3D printer of epic proportions, as concrete 3D printers are a thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH-zpnoNLEU&t=129s The fabrication laboratory I work at has a “Wasp” (the company that created the the machine) 3D printer whom also makes (has made? I don’t think they’re available for the consumer market) concrete 3D printers.. I talked to my boss about them for a day, and we thought up how we might make a concrete 3D printer that was smooth, as a lot of concrete 3D printers create bulbous layer marks that are ugly (which is a subjective call [I don’t think the shape itself is inherently ugly]) by societies standards. 

At this point, I began asking myself “what if I could make any structure, and embed my experience within that?” and “what would that look like?” as well as  “how would my experience be distilled?” By asking these questions, I was able to think bigger, and grander. I thought about my, and potentially human-kind’s relationship to technology, and felt as if a giant wave best represented said relationship. So I thought about housing my experience within a wave structure, to embody my feeling. I found 

online, and considered 3D printing the structure, in the future. I also saw the  bottom half as a similar structure to the carousel of progress, which has such an optimistic outlook on technology, that you can’t help but fall in love with.

A peer asked me how my thesis was going, and I told them the idea I was dreaming. I used beacons as an example, and grew fond of the idea I presented to her. Pretty much, I wanted to use the computer we all carry in our pockets as a way to interact with the creative, technologic experience. I thought about a long hallway, and at the end, my AC motor aided by it’s screwlike shaft, as seen in my experiment videos. Once the user was within proximity, one could tilt their phone left, to make the motor spin left, or right for the opposite effect. 

I thought that would be cool to make, but I didn’t know how to. So, I felt as if I needed to understand more about hardware, as the software side of beacon-development was confusing. I wanted to build this piece of hardware on my own terms, as it seemed like a simple enough concept. So, I set out to research hardware, and I more or less integrated my explorations into a museum/experience/theme park that encapsulated my explorations I had discovered thus far. 

As this concept developed, I will admit, I lost sight on the art/gallery/experimental side of things that I had (originally [where my thesis stood, at the moment]) set out to make. I was also semi-upset that others didn’t believe in me, or see the connections that I was able to make regarding how my thesis was natural evolving. Sure, I was getting carried away with learning, and maybe a bit afraid to bite the biggest frog, but I felt as if something was fundamentally wrong with the place where beacons stood in tech-world, and didn’t think creating a piece of technology would satisfy everything I want to make. However, I digress, the movement between a phone’s gyroscope, and a physical object, would still be really cool.. Difficult as heck to make, with full understanding of what’s going on behind-the-scenes, or under-the-hood, but perhaps in the future I will be able to instantiate such an idea.

Phase 5: Why Reinvent the Wheel?

Next, I felt as if my theme park was too uni-dimensional, and wanted to branch out into other realms (as I am a multi-faceted being, with muses that lie outside of technology). Mainly, this realm was storytelling. I was daydreaming sections like mad, and jotting them down in my phone as they came to the surface from the unknown. However, the more I thought about my concepts, the more parallels I was beginning to draw between my theme park, and Disney World/Land. What would separate my theme park from the already famous one? Would critics, or, even myself, be able to understand a different take on my immersive worlds than Disney’s, or even Universals? It seemed as if the market was already saturated with what I wanted to create. 

But of course the internetland, and technology aspect was novel to my theme park, yet I could not separate, and part ways with stories. I prefer stories to technology, so creating something that’s not what I prefer just doesn’t make sense. Additionally, Wreck it Ralph 2 will be released in about a month, and I don’t see why Disney wouldn’t just create an internetland, so to speak. So if you can’t beat em, join em, right? I had been looking into SCAD’s “Themed Entertainment Design” program, and knew that I could probably “join em” that way. I have the technical know-how that many artists don’t, so I could create practical concept art, as well as the imagination to think outside-the-box. 

I have been to hell and back, and know the depths of my soul. I understand that the more responsibility one undertakes, the more meaning they will have in life. I know how precious, and temporal life really is, and I understand the power of group dynamics. I can help out in the fabrication phase (and actually see myself working at fabrication laboratory in Disney’s Imagineering department) yet I could help out the research and development department phase, and help create interactive objects for for que-lines, or in various interactive installations throughout their “worlds”. Additionally, I can help out during their phase of concept development, through my learning of “sketching user experiences” at KCAI, and through my “Themed Entertainment Design” knowledge base gleaned from SCAD (where I plan to attend post-graduation [what’s a cupcake without some icing?])

Phase 6: IOT/Alternate Reality Game

At this point, I see my thesis starting to come full circle. I know where I am going, and what I am worth. My head, heart, and hands are aligned, which I am thankful for. I was able to create https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Du5zMdfoM which I plan to scale up with a Particle Electron to allow myself the ability to unplug from wifi, and switch over to 2G, or 3G, allowing my device to be embedded virtually anywhere. My next step to continue exploring mechanics, and modify my motor into an automata like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz8TV7gkeT0&t=58s . I’d like to have an automata triggered by one’s phone, as a crescendo to my alternate reality game. My game’s main focus is to bridge the gap between the physical world, and digital world, in a mature, and focused way.