Project description
Dinner party provides an interpretation space where people meet and interact with Lewis Carroll's “Jabberwocky” inspired creatures hiding in the shadows.
At first glance, the single chair and place set for one seemingly provides a solitary dinner; rather it offers a communication between oneself and the imaginary creatures. Initially gathered under the shadow cast by the plate, disturbed creatures will nervously scatter, attempting to hide under any other shadow cast on the table, while a period of quiet will encourage the creatures to reveal themselves.
Team
Artist:
Hye Yeon Nam : Hye Yeon Nam (New York) is a media artist, designer, and Professor at New York Institute of Technology. She has been investigating ways to create a relationship between technology, media arts and design for many years. Contact: hyeonam@gmail.com / www.hynam.org
Collaborator Team:
Crystal Campbell : Teller of Tall Tales & occasional Banger of Nails
Martin Nadal: Programming
Blue Cheese: Sound Design
Ideas 2
In Search of the overtly Paradoxical, Silly, Witty, Whimsical or Otherwise Strange: What exactly do we want to say? and why?
Crystal is looking at texts and letters and rhyme and poetry; whats the role of narrative between the user and the installation … hmmm -so, at simplist it could be poetry that composed without proper rules about form, rhyme, rhythm, meter, like Fridge Magnet Poetry (Free Verse)- or Nonsense verse, like Dadaist writings - perhaps a rewritten Jabberwocky ?? - ..Lewis Carroll's litle nonsense creatures work perfectly with the “Ling Lings” behaviour traits:
Ling-Lings:
*Bandersnatch – A swift moving creature with snapping jaws, capable of extending its neck.
*Borogove – A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, “something like a live mop”. The initial syllable of borogove is pronounced as in borrow, rather than as in burrow.
*Jubjub – A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion.
*Rath – A sort of green pig.
*Toves – A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese. Pronounced so as to rhyme with groves. Note that “gyre and gimble,” i.e. rotate and bore, is in reference to the toves being partly corkscrew by Humpty Dumpty's definitions.
Behaviours:
*Galumphing - Perhaps a blend of “gallop” and “triumphant”. Used to describe a way of “trotting” down hill, while keeping one foot further back than the other. This enables the Galumpher to stop quickly.
*Gyre – To go round and round like a gyroscope. However, Carroll also wrote in Mischmasch that it meant to scratch like a dog.
Aside from the behaviour traits and text, there are a variety of sounds that could be captured by Blue Cheese:
*Burbled – Possibly a mixture of “bleat”, “murmur”, and “warble”. Burble is also pre-existing word, circa 1303, meaning to form bubbles as in boiling water.
*Chortled - Combination of chuckle and snort.
*Outgrabe (past tense; present tense outgribe) – Something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle.
*Uffish – A state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.
Carroll on Eating:
Carroll was known to have an obsessively negative association with eating which could have been drawn from his neurosis. Carroll wrote to Mrs. Mayhem, one of his child friend's mothers, “ 'Even when I have time, I always decline luncheons. I have no appetite for a meal at that time, and perhaps you will sympathize with my dislike for sitting to watch others eat and drink' ” (Cohen, 291). In another letter he wrote “ 'Please don't make any difference, for me, in your family bill of fare. Dinner parties have too many courses for me. Even our daily High Table is much more than I care for' ” (Cohen, 292). Once, Carroll took a young friend to dinner and said “ 'Please be careful, because she eats a great deal too much already' ” (Auerbach, 38). Carroll wrote to a child's mother “ ' My dinner is about 7. My child-guest usually helps me with it (having, in fact, two dinners a day)…I have nothing more but milk, water, and biscuits' ” (Cohen, 292). Carroll's nephew wrote “ 'the health appetites of his [Carroll's] young friends filled him with horror and even alarm' ” (Auerbach, 38).
Carroll's obsession with eating is reflected in his literature. Food is commonly accentuated, most of the time in a negative connotation, as in the Alice tales. The consequence of Alice eating and drinking is a change in her size. The Knave of Hearts is put on trial for allegedly stealing the Queen's tarts, with a proposed penalty of beheading. Also, The consequence of the Duchess cooking with too much pepper is everyone continually sneezing. Eating is also emphasized in other ways. Eating is associated with sin by the means that a garden, in which a serpent is present, represents the Garden of Eden. Alice, therefore represents Eve when she desires to eat the Queen's tarts while there, even though she knows its wrong. Also, most poems and songs in his writing revolve around the theme of predator and prey. Furthermore, the Chesire Cat's grin is the first part of him to appear and last part of him to disappear, therefore focusing on the mouth. Carroll's cartoon, “The Rectory Umbrella” displays a family eating a meal of extremely irrational proportions. In another of his illustrations, he exhibits a man eating a whole plum-pudding.
Hye Yeon: I like the idea. The story is matching for our creature Ling Lings well. The only concern is it might be a little difficult to know at first to people. But it will be beautiful and will be interesting. Worth to trying. Good job. :)
Ideas
LingLing's physiological part
She is super shy. She loves dark space. That is the reason why she is living in the shadow. She is living and playing in the shadow. When she plays in the shadow, sometimes we can see the part of her body. She is so naive that she doesn't know her part of body in outside of shadow when she plays. When she sleeps we can see a little waves from the shadow to outside like lingling is breathing. when user hits the plate, the sound makes lingling scared to escape. When I see the lingling outside of shadow, I can touch, hit, push or pull(.etc) her. When I touch her gently, I can have an friendly interaction with her. She might be around my hand joyfully. But when I move her quickly like hitting, push/pull her tight, she is scared to get away from my hand(or utensil).
The shape of Lingling
We can make simple oval shape first.
-Thing that we need to do on Tuesday
Make one oval shape to move from one shadow to another shadow.
Trigger: 1. keyboard 2. sound by hitting the plate
-Wednesday
Building table by 11A.M.
More interaction with Lingling
Design poster.(I heard it on Tuesday 5:00P.M.) I will start drawing and taking pictures now.. If great designer Crystal has time in the afternoon after building table, Please finish it more beautifully. If not, I will update it. The due is Thursday morning..
-Thursday
develop shape and movement of Lingling, might be with sound
-Friday
last time production and correcting error
We will see more later.
Schedule
-Monday
Martin: testing fork and shadow
Crystal: measure size, discuss with gustavo and Jeremi
Blue Cheese: working with sound
Hye Yeon: got fabric, help other people. update wiki. prepare brief presentation
4:00 meeting for interaction with zach and martin
start simple interaction with plate
-Tuesday
Crystal: Making table
testing animation and interaction
Blue Cheese: modify MAX patch (if animation is developed) integrate MAX patch with/into OFW (if possible, and sensible)
installation computer needs two firewires (one for IR camera, one for MOTU)
-Wednesday
goal: having the basic setup of hardware+software running by 2pm.
keep testing with real table, fabric, fork, plate and animation
-Thursday
-Friday
just too detailed SOUND plan from Blue Cheese July 7th
setup - will have a MOTU 828, a mixer and four speakers for installation (promised by some people)
- for now *a contact mic underneath a plate; audio signals trigger poly~ in max and plays back a series of reiteration w. preset tap time and intensity (dB) *could be integrated w. OFW movement path *has potential for spatialization.
*might also have background music and pre-recorded ambience to 1) define the atmosphere of the dinner party (music, size of people, loudness of conversation) 2) influence the way participants behave
problem 1) need to specify spk location to prevent feedback 2) contact mic too sensitive (might need a filter)
hope 1) integrate MAX into OFW (may not be possible because of pingo~ is an abstraction) 2) integrate speed/dB/spat w. animation and interaction
installation hardware 1) must have two firewires (one for IR camera, one for MOTU) 2) kueiju prefers a mac bc' the stupid max patch may not transfer well to a pc 3) location of four speakers (kj prefers two pairs of diff. speakers for diff. worlds)
would like to have from zack 1) how to work w. midi in OFW 2) code for ball following down w. percussive sound
for other projects, i would be happy to provide suggestions for sound (can provide re-composed tracks, patches)
Day 8
Sunday
One day off :) I hope you have a great time. I finish a simple animation in after effect. I got feedback from zach. We will adjust interaction after we test tracking with Martin on Monday.
What zach suggested
1. people's movement and stop
2. several shadows in between plate, fork and other objects
3. contact microphone trigger
Zach will have one day off on Tuesday. We will discuss more detailed schedule tomorrow.
Good night and wee you tomorrow at 11:00.
check out the animation in you tube.
” ”
I also bought plate and several forks and spoon. I could not find white fabric. I will figure it out later.
WEEK 2 TO DO LIST
END OF DAY SAT 1. “Dinner Party” senario set up and shot This will help briefing the programmers for tracking the fork/ and eventually the animation and the sound artist. It will also begin to address interaction problems and solutions. 2. IR camera set up and Martin to begin tracking
SUNDAY PM 1. Martin & Gustavo tracking fork / and feedback on interaction on table scenario 2. Hye yeon is going Shopping to buy: tablecloth 200 x 240, plates, fork, and a variety of plates and forks
3. …and?
MONDAY PM 1. Blue Cheese is playing with contact mikes under the plates etc and seeing what sounds she can capture 2. Crystal is under the table banging things around 3.
INTER/ACTION PLAN
So… 
DINNER PARTY: 2 sides of a table A and B each set with a plate and fork
1 user or 2 user senario
Up fork triggers start of “ling-lings” (animation) Down fork triggers ling-lings to go “home” to its source / reverse
After x amount of up and down movements, ling-lings get increasingly agitated : meaning extended roots and sub-roots and increased growth pace.
Ling-lings are ultimately attracted to the opposite table sides plate.
VISUAL: They are organically changing/growing
1 User Senario
User A picks up fork. Ling-lings begin.
User A puts down fork. Ling-lings reverses
Ling-lings are attracted to table side B plate.
2 User Senario
Users picks up fork. Ling-lings begin.
Users puts down fork. Ling-lings reverses.
Ling-lings are attracted to opposite table side plate. The faster the user puts the fork up and down the faster the spread of the ling-lings to the opposite side.
Opposite ling-lings meet each other; they greet, intertwine briefly, change colour at meeting point to a red/yellow organic mix, and move on.
Day 8
Start Programming; meeting with Martin (around 11:00)??
Finish mock up animation
Keep going table building..
Many thanks to Blue Cheese, Crystal and Martin! “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!”. Alice in “Through the Looking-Glass”
Day 7 Friday, July 4 
Test Projector+Animation;
Test camera
Party at 6:00!! great.
Day 6 Thursday, July 3 “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!”. Alice in “Through the Looking-Glass”
Blue Cheese's fork orchestra is working in Max/MSP. come try it out when you see her sitting next to a mic, a fork and a plate. considering to have the fork sound played in headphones. so it signifies the hidden world (in contrast to and could co-exist w.the background music played in the real world). also the processed sound in the headphone wouldn't be revealed in the ambience. also looking into possibility of incorporating that feature in OFW. so when installed, no extra efforts of babysitting max/msp need to be spent.
1:00→group meeting
Before group meeting
Crystal→geek-to-be→buy plexi glass
Hye Yeon→Animator→finish mock up animation, four different version
Blue Cheese→Sound Queen→is looking for and thinking about sound solutions on site from the couch (well, she was actually on the phone and getting massage from her heated vibration pad on the couch)
Booking computer(Mac, open frame works)
Day 5
Wednesday, July 2, 11:00
“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!”. Alice in “Through the Looking-Glass”
Tech meeting
Things we have to do.
Build table(ask Jeremy before 3:00), gif animation, build sound hardware..
Test projector
Reference
http://www.sonicacts.com/wordpress/
Day 4 “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!”. Alice in “Through the Looking-Glass” 
Tuesday, July 1, 1:30
Concept: Converstaions between people & typical gestures
QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED: -What are they? *little people escaping from the shadows *left overs of food *text's // snippits of conversations
- What about sound?
- What happens when people pick up the plate?
- Whats the reward gonna be?
Other ideas from Blue Cheese: sound like reverse sound of drinking water or shaking sound..
Reference
- Masaki Fujihata
http://www.ima.fa.geidai.ac.jp/~masaki/
- Kyoko Kunoh & Motoshi Chikamor
http://www.aec.at/en/archives/center_projekt_ausgabe.asp?iProjectID=10920
Day 3
Monday June 30, 5:30 Filming people's reacting about spoon and plates
Zach gave three possible way to develop this project
- perfomance
- pre recorded video
- interactive project
→ out group like interactive project. So we keep developing..
Day 2
Saturday June 28
“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!”. Alice in “Through the Looking-Glass”
Developing idea
Keeping text or image of food??
Suggestion from Zach: think as simple as possible. Imagine theater as a scene when they sit in the chair in front of table. What can be happening? don't make a specific rule to force people do. They don't get it and they think it is not working. They just leave without any impression.
Other ideas from Crystal: cutlery ritual: the beginning and ending ???
Day 1
Friday June 27
“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!”. Alice in “Through the Looking-Glass”
Introduce each other
Brainstorming
idea about text, Eating behaviors, food image
What does eating mean to you?
- Tea Youn: for survival, He is living alone for long time.
- Crystal: cook well to other people as well as herself
- Blue Cheese: having good taste of food for physical and psychological fulfillment
- Hye Yeon: She cooks for her family normally. Cooking=Sharing
Suggestion: one person vs. two people(four people), if relationship and interaction is important between people, we should use at least two plates.
-reference
- Martin Wattenberg, Apartment
http://turbulence.org/Works/apartment/
- table
http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefan/hc/projects/habitat/
-announcement
http://www.platform21.nl/page/3316/en
“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't exactly know what they are!”. Alice in “Through the Looking-Glass”
