Returning Home

concept

(This sculpture is an ode to undo-ing.)

initial questions

What happens once we are put in a physical situation where the undo button is untouchable ?
What happens when you are faced with a physically unavoidable situation, while simultaneously faced with the fact that if the situation was digital, all that would be need is a simple ‘undo’ ?

researching these questions

Mind-mapping ‘home’

Learning how source control can work visually, explained here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37141406/making-a-history-panel-for-a-paint-program

precedences dealing with these issues

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 3.42.26 PM — physical home translated into a digital realm

using Git to control ‘versioning’ to a high degree

Gregor Calendar from Patrick Frey. Expressing ephemerality.

research and influences

Laurie Anderson, Home of the Brave (1986)

prototyping: what worked and what didn’t

Pocket projector sits on tray. Under tray is a drilled hole for the potentiometer knob. Originally tried using external battery pack with the Servo – that ran out quickly!

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 3.43.32 PM — choosing knitted and wool material, at Mood Fabrics

Continuous Servo + RPi (written in Python, limited control over code)
Step Motor + Arduino (stopped working once mapped to potentiometer)
Step Motor + RPi (too slow! even without the potentiometer)

what was learned

Motors work differently – Servos , DC Motors, Step Motors work with magnets and gears.
Current runs through a coil, with controls the polarity of the magnet, changing the direction of the gears.
Didn’t need Picamera or openCV to achieve the effect I needed.
Continuous servos, give control over speed, not position.
For analog inputs on RPi, you need an external ADC (MCP3008).

the final instantiation

The video serves as my final iteration of this concept.
It is a narrative of some recorded voices.
The moving parts work as you:
The ofSketch is projected onto knit.
Turn the potentiometer -> changes servo speed + scroll through ofSketch
The servo is attached to the knit -> the knit unravels, and is pulled around the nest. The nest grows in size.

BOM

RigidWrap plaster
felted wool
continuous servo
10ohm potentiometer
arduino
laptop
picco pocket projector
jersey knit
basswood panels
lots of tape + glue

final fritzing sketch

code attribution

https://github.com/jessherzog/viewport?files=1

OpenFrameworks

Moving images / Serial : Michael
Incorporating Perlin Noise : Andreas Muller https://github.com/andreasmuller/NoiseWorkshop/tree/master/PerlinLayeringFBM

Servo, Arduino + RPi

Servo.py Simon Monk http://razzpisampler.oreilly.com/ch05.html
Custom Stepper library : Igor Campos http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/CustomStepper
Matt Hawkins http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2012/07/stepper-motor-control-in-python/ / https://bitbucket.org/MattHawkinsUK/rpispy-misc/raw/master/python/stepper.py

future directions

Add decay to the images as they slowly disappear in OpenFrameworks.