Reading Response 10

This article was an interview with Tom Igoe and his views on physical computing and his students' works. There is a strong emphasis between technology and design in all of the works that he talks about. He believes that there is an importance of artists collaborating with people other than artists in order to add strength to their own work. A lot of the works mentioned were complex yet simple in the interaction and design.

I thought it was amusing that some of the works he thought were great examples of physical computing were commercialized products. It does make sense though because it has an optimal amount of people understanding and interacting with technology. In such a case, the Nintendo Wii is one of the best examples of this in the present day with the technology simulating real life actions on the screen. Also, considering how much more the simple piece of technology can do, many have hacked the remote for other purposes like simulating actual fishing in World of Warcraft.

As interesting as all of this is, I know that I don't have the physical capabilities to do a lot of this on my own.

Video + Processing

Okay. After toiling with video for a week...I've determined that I dislike video and processing. That does not mean I dislike webcams and processing...yet. I'm just EXTREMELY frustrated that I can't come up with ANYTHING creative with video and processing that hasn't been done by my classmates or the examples in class. Then, when I do come up with something barely creative, it's either shot down by my inadequacy of code or my deadbeat 6 year old desktop here. >_<

So for now, I raise a white flag and be satisfied with whatever I came up with the webcam assignment. -_- I'm sorry Professor Carlsen.

reading response 9

The interview of Ken Rinaldo was about his works which involved a combination of art and science. He programmed his sculptures to interact with the artists as well as the animals and plants living within it. He talked about his ideas behind each work and how the audience reacted to it.

I thought the whole interview was inspiring as I was thinking about my own final project in this class. As much as I'd like to work with machinery, I don't know enough about it or have the capabilities to manipulate it to my will. Although at this point, I'm thinking of the game controllers that I currently have at my disposal for this.

Reading Response 8

The reading was about how computers interpret the information given through a camera and what could be done with it. It then gave examples of the different techniques that could be used to detect motion and the code for it.

I liked how simple the techniques sounded in theory, although I'm not quite sure in practice. Since there's only one lab on campus with cameras, I'm a little hesitant on working with video. But, from my past experience with playing with the libraries in processing, it would be fun to get something to work with it.