Cleaned Jars

After Washing, removing stickers, and removing paint from lids, here are my new, clean specimen jars...  My finger tips hurt from all the sanding and scouring.

Cleaned, empty jars.

Major Theme: "Capturing the Now"

Chris asked us to come up with a phrase/one-liner to describe the work.

Process/thoughts regarding the theme:

• Collecting and throwing away
• What is important and what we collect
• Important collections
• Collections of today are the rubbish of tomorrow
• Collections of now are the rubbish of tomorrow
• Collect today, throw tomorrow
• Interests of today
• Interests of the now
• Collected interests of today
• Captured interests of the now
• Collections of today
• Collections of now
• Capturing the Now

Finally, I decided on "Capturing the Now"

Swipe Code?

• JQuery Swipe
• jQuery Reel Plugin 

iPod Classic 360 degree view

iPod Classic 360 degree view

This is kinda the style I'd like for the website pictures.
Obviously not as detailed, but you get the idea.

Potential items to be placed in jars...

Roll of film

Mobile Phone - thanks to 3 Mobile @ANU

Mini Photographic Keepsakes

iPod Remote plus Headphones

Original iPod Shuffle

SD and USB storage

iPod 3G accessories

Additonal Jar Collection

Jars of various shapes and sizes yet all maintaining a basic clean shape.

Now, to empty, clean and strip the paint from the lids...

Oh, and a special thanks to David for helping with the selections.

[AJ] Australian Journey's Work Proposal - Jarred Objects

Aims/subject of the proposal

• What is the nature of the work you are proposing?

The work will be a set of nine 360 degree photographed objects, each held in glass jars suspended in liquid.  These jars will have fake specimen tags adding to their "authenticity".  These photographs will be presented as spinning objects within a browser.

• What is the subject matter of the work?

Drawing on the 360 degree views of items presented in the Australian Journey's Shoebox and my fascination with the jarred mud and sea creatures done on the Antarctic mission, and just generally with scientists historically taking specimens, this work will make comment on modern life now as the jarred items will include electronic and common household objects.

• How many works do you intend to produce for this project?

There will be one web page presented with these nine objects shown in a standard 3x3 grid, possibly spinning based on the mouse-over event.  Optionally, it would be fun if such spinning could be accelerated depending on user interaction, ie. fast or slow mouse-over.

Research/working process

• What's the historical or conceptual basis for your ideas?

History shows that we take specimens of existing objects for later study.  Within the Australian Journey's exhibit, you not only see evidence of this with the jarred objects, but with the entire "jarred" set of cases, holding, coins, dresses, wool, instruments, etc.

• How will you go about developing these ideas, and what visual material and other research will be involved?

 As a commentary on modern life, as if these items were found and jarred in the future, the objects will have a technological focus, highlighting the irony of placing electronic things in liquid.  Themes include communication, entertainment, technology,   Such items include:

1. a mobile phone (Nokia 8210)
2. an original iTalk iPod attachment
3. an XBox wireless headset
4. a post-it note with a shopping list written on it.
5. iPod headphones
6. a Micro-SD or SD card.
7. Concept of LCD TV printed onto Acetate or Tracing Paper to have an opaque object.
8. -
9. -

* Q. I'm looking for feedback and other ideas in regard to what items could be included. 

Methods and materials

• What methods and materials do you intend to use?

Cleaned Jars
Objects suspended using Gelatin.
Software options:

1. Using Nuke, model the jar and use 3D projection to build a 3D view of the object and use a camera to circle the object.
2. Using the photos themselves, present as a sequential image animation.

Background, etc.  Should be well-lit, all encompasing white background.

* Q. Is the 3D projection idea overkill?

* Q. How would such a bright environment be achieved?

• What new skills do you need to develop?

1. 3D Projection, ties in with my Digital Compositing complimentary.
2. Advance roll-over effect withing the browser... possibly using JQuery, as learned in first year.

Timeframe

• Give an outline and plan of your work in relation to the time available.

Week 3 - Have objects within jars, photographed with labels, etc.
Week 4 - Test 3D projection concept with photos and/or
Week 5 - Webpage setup and layout complete.
Week 6 - Mouse-over functionality introduced.
Week 7 - Review.

* Q. Does this seem reasonable?

Visual Materials

• Provide drawings, diagrams, related visual and research material which may be useful in developing your proposal.

Within the article, Making of Australian Journey's (8 October 2008), senior curator Martha Sear, stated:

"... amazing scientific material gathered on the voyage including – I think this is our favourite named object in the gallery - assorted sea gunk. It is stuff that was trawled up from the bottom of the ocean by the expedition and put in a jar. We have the jar, and you can see the little shrimps and strange creatures that were found under the sea."

Jar containing mud and sea residue.

Test Jar Image #1

Test Jar Image #2

Deadlines

• You should prepare a full-length detailed draft for discussion by the end of week one of semester, and the final version for approval by the end of week 2.

Using Gelatin for Moulds and Prosthetics

Using Gelatin for Moulds and Prosthetics

This is an interesting method for creating moulds and prosthetics using Gelatin.

The only downside here is that it comes out quite brown and I'd prefer something more see-through.

Questioning Map Concept and Proposal

As much as looking into Ptolomy's Map was interesting...

I placed the map onto a plane and changed parts of it to correspond to the terrain. 

1. Whilst the map looked kinda good at such a close camera angle... it clearly would need to be worked over, either to remove the words or clear them up... I think there is too much work here.
2. My ideas for the camera wandering around, seeing the drop to the sea, seeing the fire pop up as they reach the equator, and get blown back by the winds... are very basic and to be pulled off nicely, I'd need to be able to draw better and better represent my pop-up book concept without it looking cheap and nasty... I want something clean and polished.
3. I want to know more about the legends back then, ala, too hot at equator... this is proving very difficult to research.
4. My other thought of a Southern version of the map, as if Australians had explored a small amount and thought New Guinea was larger, as was New Zealand, with a similar heat concept at the equator again needed better fleshing out and better drawing skills.  I think if this concept was undertaken by a group it might have a better chance of success.

It's a pity, 'cos I was enjoying the idea of using the Ptolomy map.  I was going to write up the proposal anyway but I've decided against it now.

Ptolemaeic land area coverage overlay

In an effort to identify anomalies and get a clearer picture of the area covered by Ptolemy's map I've tried to outline the bounds of the known map at the time...

Area covered as shown on Google Maps:

Identical area as shown on Google Earth:

Topographic Map of the world.

Topographic Map of the World released by NASA and Japan

This map shows the topography of the world... this may be useful when mapping the 2D Ptolomy map on a 3D plane.

And

Some of this, particularly at the start is perfect for what I'm going through though I'd like to keep to the single map and have the other elements be tightly controlled by the underlying map system.

3D animated transition

This is more the style I'd be after with my map animation. Although I'm obviously not intending of launching into a video sequence.

Animated Map : From Gurun Kedah To Ipoh Perak

The part I like here is the title sequence, it shows a very darkened background, this might be a way of highlighting that we don't really know what's past certain points, eg. edge of china and parts of africa in the ptolomy map. I liked the clarity of the rest of the video but would have liked to have the names of places be standing up 3D letters that projected a shadow onto the surface... I wonder whether you can have a light system that only impacts the text elements... Can you have text elements?

Map Animation Reel 2009

The cloud effects when flying over these 2D maps give an interesting effect, I think I should include such elements when I do my map. The zoom in feature at the end was also very nice.

Royalty FREE: Folding Globe animation as seen in ZEITGEIST 2

Tricky map folding into sphere.

Commonwealth Bank "Determined to be different" TVC

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Official HD Trailer

It'd be awesome to be able to work on a movie such as this.  Can't wait till November.

[AJ] Initial Concept/Plan

Using the Ptolomy map, I'll create a 3D landscape based on the terrain indicated in the map.  Then I'd take a tour of the landscape on a micro level.  As the camera passes a landmark, it should pop up like a pop-up book.  As you approach the equator, it turns to flames and you cant pass... maybe you can see through the flames the abominations.

I was thinking about presenting a similar map from our perspective, NZ coast goes on to end of map, as does New Guinea.

Due to the pop-up nature, I think Maya will be the best medium for creating such a map fly-thru.

[AJ] Ptolemaeic Map

I was particularly drawn by the early map created by Ptolemy within the Four World Maps collection...

Typus orbis descriptione Ptolemaei (description @ NMA)

The Ptolemaeic map as seen in the exhibit.

 

For additional information on Ptolemy himself see here... Ptolemy Biography

[AJ] Australian Journey's Exhibition @ NMA

NMA - Australian Journey's Exhibit

We visited the Australian Journey’s exhibit on Friday.

The exhibits that stood out were:

1. Maps. The simplicity and unique nature of the diagrams.  Also the story about the equator being too hot to cross and that religion said that beasts found past the equator would be an abomination.  I like the words, looks like latin.  Could the map be animated or manipulated in some way?  Could I make an Australian/Southern map with similar aspects.  NMA Four World Maps Collection

2. Jars of mud and sea creatures.  I could make my own jars… I’m thinking clear liquid with a leaf, a flower, a blade of grass… photographed and represented in a 3D perspective, using some kind of 3D Model plus projection.

3. Musical Instruments - Make a website where you can play those instruments.  Alternatively, try to research heavily the olive-oil tin that was used by the guy for his instrument.  Looking up its history instead.

Blog Resurrection

So, in an effort to more accurately capture our "Visual Diaries" for Digital Media, we are now going to keep an electronic blog rather than draw inside paper-based diaries.

In my opinion, this is awesome... a huge step forward.  At the same time, I'm not sure in what form this will take when it comes to handing my "process diary" in at assessment time.

We had it suggested that we use the Tumblr blog system to keep track of our diary but after a couple days of using it, I worked out pretty quickly that the system is far from desirable when it comes to the ability to customise the look and feel and to be able to clearly tag, categorise or label posts depending on a topic, especially when the blog will likely contain multiple subject matters.  Thus, I deleted the Tumblr account and reopened my Blogger account, initially expanding on the existing blog.  I'm really happy with it so far and from what I can tell, the system does everything, and more, than what Tumblr does.

Sorry Tumblr.  Blogger Rules!