From the last blog I thought of using the kalimba instrument as my reference. I decided to use metal as the material which will make sonic vibration in some way it will get a longer vibration of the sound. I got a metal oil can from my work which will serve as the base, then I'll have the metal rods in the 3D labs which is the vibrating sound that will make of it.
I cut a hole in the metal oil can in order to put the metal rods inside but I decided not to go with that process since it wouldn't make much sound when it's plucked.
I just went to making the metal rod on top of the oil can just like the kalimba. I cut different size of metal rods in order to have different sounds when it's plucked. I also thought of cutting a hole on the face of the can near the bottom and tie the metal rods with some rope that goes to the holes and at the end it's tied up to a stone or any object that's heavy. It would be a complicated instrument but I would check first if it's going to work out for me and to think if it's rather important to have it or not.
It comes to the final exercise where we get to do our own sound instrument. They told us to make an instrument that have the sonic vibration when it's played. I had this idea from last year that I didn't manage to do. I was thinking of the kalimba instrument where the wooden sticks get plucked in order to make a sound. The sticks have different sizes and each one of it makes different sounds as well.
I just knew that this one will make a sonic vibration by plucking it. In terms of experimentation, I think other materials like metal, plastic would be a good startup. I also try to think of other ways to make this kind of instrument into non-musical.
I remember how I did this from last year but this time I might do it in different way. I decided to use other ways of connecting loud sounds with soft sounds which will be a composition that is different from the past exercises. I tried using sounds that I made by doing childish things like scratching wood from trees, clanking the bottle in the fence, splashing water in the fountain etc. My approach is to explore sounds that I don't usually hear and to experiment on sounds that's out of the context. By means is to get unique sounds which will be an extra ordinaire piece of art.
After getting all the sounds, I decided to make my composition into a sound that goes into a deep and meaningful at the end of the track. What I mean is, people should decide whatever they think should be the next sound that they should hear. It's more like a guessing out of of the air.
During outside, exploring in albert park, in queen street and other places that I would be interested on going, I was very fascinated on making sounds out of many things like smashing the wood with a stone, scraping the metal fence with a bottle etc. These sounds aren't too much to be compromise, and not usual to be heard by many people, that's why this is some things that are force to be reckoned. Every sound is like a piece of image that has structure, texture, harmony and other properties on image that has to give. There were similar pieces of sounds that has similar properties and I got interested on it which I thought of a theme which would be the opposite of what I've done for the art collage. Instead of having a chaotic and noisy sounds, I would prefer the peaceful and harmonious one and it's that's what I want to hear as well in terms of my personal taste. Example of these sounds: Running water, Medium Frequency, Some Clanking, Footsteps, Birds, Swaying of Leaves, Airconditioner and many more.
In other terms of exploring things, I also thought about modifying the sounds during the edit to minimize the sound audacity/volume in some ways where it would mix up with the other sound that would have some flexible structure in between.
At this point we were about to do our sound collage which talks about putting all kinds of random sounds together in order to have a piece of art that is quite unique to people who doesn't usually hear it. One way of doing this will be likely the same process as what we did for the art collage. Thinking about having a theme for the sound collage wouldn't be too hard for me as well since I'm going to use the art collage as a reference. I would probably put all of my sounds that I would be interested, and anything that has sonic vibration. I like to explore more stuff about things that collides which makes a new kind of sound that is out of the context. I will look more on the outside environment and see stuff which kind of like what we did for sound walk.
After quite a while of patiently cutting a lot of black and red images, I put it all together by sticking it with glue. But it became crumpled and wet because of the stickiness of the glue but nevertheless it looks good somehow. The idea of putting it all together in one whole source is just surprising.
After I finish putting those stuff for the background, I started on putting the images that I cut and carefully arranged it in an order where it will look stunningly structured and themed. After quite some time on deciding for the position of the images, I glue it all together and came out as a political violent theme collage. But I call it chaotic collage. It serve us some information about how the world is covered by blood and darkness with all those aspects of black and white images and some cut outs that is rough.
When I was doing my art collage, I just searched for things that interest in my perception of an art. I just like themed that is dark, gritty and chaotic. I searched for black colours in the magazine that I have been looking on. Afterwards I cut the images that I got interested. During the search for images I thought of political issues and the conspiracy around the world. This triggers on the theme that I would make. Then I thought of having a black background for my collage with the red on the middle which symbolize the blood in the darkness in the whole entire collage.
I cut a lot of black colours from magazines and newspapers. I just cut it in any kind of shapes and arrange it in an order that would fill the entire paper. I experimented on putting it in a lot of order. A lot of time took on deciding about the position of the images that I'm going for.
A lot of newspaper and magazine was taken out in order to search for a lot of images. It was kind of easy to think of for the theme that I was going because there are similarities for the articles and pictures that's inside these printed newspapers/magazines.
As I went through the sound walk, The feeling of focusing to the sound is such an amazing experience. It reminds of how wonderful the world is and things shouldn't take for granted since it is something that we could use on in order to share it to the world.
Deciding the art collage is kind of tough because I always consider dealing with themed structures. I kind of think that collage is something that is abstract which you just put together all random stuff to make it an art. I also thought of collage as a way of expressing yourself by putting images on things that you'r interested and put it all together to make a whole new piece. One of the tutors told me that to make this collage a creative one is to surprise yourself. By means is to put your work that you wouldn't expect on. For example, when cutting images probably cut something that isn't always likely would go into your theme and it might make into something that is unusual to the viewer's eyes.
Put all those stuff into one image and structure it according to how you should arrange it accordingly in order to have a consistency and thematic inspiration on it's aspect elements. When deciding how the theme should go, I just search for pictures that interest on me, and put all those things together wether it will work out good or not.
Starting with this project, we were hand in a brief that's about sound and the details of the artistic side of it. To start off with this project the brief exercise is to make a three types of collage. We will have to make an art collage, digital collage, and a time-based collage which is base on a video. When I heard this project, it felt like this is going to be the same from last year when we did the Audio Foundation project. Last year was about combining sounds together and putting all of these sounds in a random combination but with some structures depending on the theme. Sound itself is something to be reckoned and people don't usually appreciate the sound that surround us. In this case, in my perception, the collage exercise is to have a good understanding of putting random stuff all together to make an art. To make this point, doing the art collage is a good learning experience in order to have a good understanding of what sound art is all about. It also helps to appreciate the sound art.
At the beginning of the first
project, when we’re told to make a game, as the concept would be
transformation, the challenge is quite good but not really much complicated to
think about it. I was placed with Will and Anders in our group and we started
talking back and forth with our ideas of transformation. I told them that we
should focus on the transformation rather than a game with a storyline or other
types of game play like a shooting game, RPG game, dancing game etc. It’s good
that they understand it easily on where we should go.
In the first week I told Will
that we just go on research on what’s the transformation is all about and come
up with the ideas base on the research he’s going to take. The finalization of
our ideas was finished by Tuesday second week when I met Anders as well. Anders
pitched to us the game that he felt on working. In those few days we got stuck
on putting ideas with unoriginal one and I felt that it wouldn’t do better if
we just remake something.
On Tuesday, I told them that we
should finalize it since the second week of the project is already starting. I
didn’t came by the last two days of the first week due to personal issues at
home, but I didn’t left my work behind on the weekends so I put all my sketches
and drawings in my diary and came up with the boxing game which I had
researched upon the internet.
When I pitch the game and the
controller that we’re going to make, they agree into it and tried it first
thing by coding it up in processing. The second week of the project would be
likely the production and further polishing of ideas. I haven’t got in touched
on working with the project for a long hours due to my working hours outside
the BCT. For the first two days I just talked over to them about what’s going
on with the project and the development of it. There were some ideas that I
felt left our and didn’t have my approval since I wasn’t there first thing in
the morning.
The tutors are the one that keeps
on changing their ideas of the game and I wasn’t there to tell them my opinion
about it. What I think is, from what the tutors have suggested, they will have
to go on doing it. But since I haven’t talked to them much of the ideas that
we’re working on, there were problems that we’re going back and forth with our
ideas. Since I’m the one started the concept, I know how the game should work.
This have me thinking that it is
important to be in every session in the morning so that there wouldn’t be any
fuzz on putting the ideas and making the group behind schedule.
I chose the artwork side of the
game since they told me that both of them aren’t much experience on working
with it especially with the software Photoshop. So on Wednesday second week, I
told them that I’m going to do it but it might not be that great. I suggested
to them that I’m going to do an original character since it’s a brand new game
that we’re going to make.
I told Anders that I’m going to
pass the images to him on Sunday. But due to our winter road trip over the
weekend, I wasn’t able to till Tuesday. I got stuck over my head about the
original character that I was about to make and the decision was really tough
because it should mean something to the player about why they’re punching that
particular opponent. Anders was also struggling with some of the coding which
put us behind schedule for the last week. So on Tuesday I crank up all the
things and started working on it.
I was thinking of making an
animation in processing but it would be really hard for us since the only way
of doing it when we have to use our own graphics is by using gifs. Anders
doesn’t know how to do it so I gave him some code examples on how to use gifs
in processing. Afterwards I started doing the artwork snippets and the gif
animation through out the last week. There were few times that I was asking
Anders if he could be able to do some of my ideas that came up but due to the
lack of time that we had, it wouldn’t be able to.
During the development of the
artwork, what I did is to use some several image and manipulate it Photoshop.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, as long as the images we’re manipulated by
yourself, it wouldn’t matter much on having it reference on the images that we
used.
In the end I managed to finish
all artwork and Anders had put it all together. I have gathered some of the
sounds that we’re going to use but Anders hadn’t got much time on putting it
since he got focused on doing the combo system.
The only thing I realize for this
project is that time management and being in the morning session is still lacking
on me. But I never make any project undone by the end of the day.
As
what is asked from the brief, we chose the concept of a boxing game where the
player has to punch the controller in order to defeat the opponent on screen.
We thought that this idea is fit enough to distribute all of the aspects of
transformation. That includes the player and the game play. We focus on the
player’s experience in order to interact with the game as much as possible. In
these experiences, the game goes on as the difficulty arise when the time
decrease down to zero.
The
game play is that the player should hit the controller which depends on where
the colour yellow hit panel is assigned. When the yellow hit panel appears,
they should punch it a lot in order to gain a lot of score. There’s also the
combo panels where there’s red hit panels assigned with numbers and you have to
punch it in chronological order for the player to gain rage meter.
The
rage meter is one of our best features of this game, where the player could use
it and punch anytime in any panels even without the colours. The rage can be
only used once it bar is full. It
gets harder when the round progresses.
Before
the start of the game we put a storyline so that player would know why they are
punching those opponents. In some cases this is a good way of changing the
story from one thing to another. They got more reason to punch harder as the
level progresses. The first stage looks like they have to fight the evil robot.
The second stage becomes the robot was destroyed and transforms into a flying
ship. Then the last stage would be the monster that is controlling the whole
thing and the main antagonists of the story.
So
in the end, transformation is not only made through physical aspects by
changing speed of the player by punching faster or harder, it also affects as
the player’s experience when the story goes onwards. In the further
development, we thought about changing the number of players as well. For
example, in second stage someone will have to keep on pressing the two buttons
while the other players will have to punch those buttons.
