On Wedndesday, December 14th, Fishbon Event Lab strike teams witnessed the unfolding of three Interactive Audio Visual Worlds. In Wes' inverted sphere world, jellyfish-like structures propelled themselves through the murky underwater landscape and reacted to commands from a modified game controller. When you got close to the creatures, they emitted eerie sounds and displayed unique behaviors. Lance's project combined musical tones with Lissajous figures and polar plots for spectacular visual and audial displays. Dan's ping pong ball interface created amazing sonic effects in a 3-D texture mapped world. After exploring AV world space, operatives experimented with a particularly bizarre combination of corn starch and water (simple ingredients, strange effects), The resulting "Goop" changed from semi-solid to dripping mess in seconds. Definitely a "try this at home" experiment orchestrated by Nathan and Erin. To cap off an evening of madness, agents played "chicken" with gravity and an expandable plastic sphere. Fortunately there were no casualties.
Monday, December 19, 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Heartbeats and Baby Goats
On Wednesday, December 7, Fishbon Event Lab agents were roused from their usual madness by a surprise Baby Goat Visitation. David brought five two day old kids and a bottle of milk. Normally tough minded denizens found them impossible to resist as feeding, petting and holding ensued. Later in the evening, Alan attached a Heart Monitor to Erin, Elizabeth (alone and together) and Ralph. Then, using the actuator technology that Randy demoed a couple of weeks ago, an actuator was placed under different chairs to test the transmitted heartbeat vibration. The chairs pulsed, even when Erin and Elizabeth created a two person circuit. When a mirrored speaker was added, reflected light danced around the room like a living disco ball.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Fire Cave, FutureJazz and Pure Light
On Corinna's birthday, Wednesday, November 30, 2005, undercover Fishbon Event Lab operatives left their posts to celebrate, play and bask in the glow of pure light. The evening began with a Fire Cave Experience that combined a backprojected kaleidoscopic fire jet image synced to music with silhouetted dancers. The two together created the illusion of realtime live dance in a mysterious etherial fire world. Next, Jeffrey demonstrated an LED Spot and Controller that made it possible to cycle pure light in any sequence of colors. When it shone on color graphics, magical moods could be altered on the fly. For the final moment of music and video madness, three members of UCSB's Media Arts and Technology Lab showed instruments and video projections that can only be described as FutureJazz. Four X-Y accelerometers were embedded in ping-pong balls attached to springs that acted as a kind of three dimensional keyboard. Sounds were selected by a musician with laptop interface and complimentary video projected in real time on a backlit screen. The effect was mesmerizing.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Scary Combinations: Harleys, Home Chemistry and Scorpions
On Wednesday, November 16, undercover Fishbon Event Lab agents test drove Randy's amazing Stationary Harley. The actuator platform reproduces the vibration of an actual Harley Davidson hog in motion. Then when operatives mounted the beast it actually felt like the bike was in motion...Magic Mountain remote. The actuators and electronics that runs them doesn't just work with bikes either. Randy installed it under an upholstered chair and you could feel music and sounds for a total living room voyeur experience. Later in the evening Michelle unveiled a past Christmas Home Chemistry Set she'd kept squirreled away in her closet since she was 10. What started out as semi-serious experiments quickly degenerated into the "what if we poured some of this copper oxide on it?" school of advanced chemistry. Fortunately, the manufacturer anticipated undisciplined research and no explosions resulted. Finally, Ben demonstrated his demonic Radio-Controlled Scorpion that rolled out into the street, sprouted wings, spun furiously and then curled up into a ball...the future of personal electronic pet ownership.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
