Carolina: I immediately thought it would be perfect for a museum. I have a background in museums. It would be interesting to have the individual stories of struggles. It might be interesting to have video interactive component so the pulling of the book is tied into a video piece you’ve created. One of the things I think is important when bringing tech into museums is whether or not it is a learning tool. Museum of the American Indian in DC might be a good partner.

Angelo: I think your goal is super interesting. You are not just talking about something, but are in the middle of this. Somehow this still seems clumsy, but not sure how to make it more fluid. I can see people struggling with this. Not sure how to make it more fluid. May want to explore radically different formats just to see how people react to it. Hypermediality – when you draw attention to the medium. Transparency is when you are sucked into the story, like watching a movie. Going to want to keep the transparency high. Not seeing the need for computation in the book. How do you think this will increase the storytelling? Theoretical level, you’re in a tricky zone. Statements are problematic from a cultural studies point of view. The only thing you say is that you’re not native hawaiian. We have the situation of immigrants from north africa – and after one generation they are belgian. Read cultural studies of identity.

Carolina: Congratulations. liked how you made a piece from a cultural standpoint. Refining that into a performance piece would be very interesting. Are you interested in a designed performance or do you want to take it to the street? Thinking of Nam Jun Paik, worked with television screens, worked with technology and performance art.

Angelo: There is potential in turning this into a performance, but right now it’s not there yet. Scenarios that tap into cultural hybrid state that is more interesting. It involves research that is not focused on technology. In-depth study of how you address immigration, dual backgrounds, etc. The video downplays the potential of the project – the love story is not helpful. Please us a good quality audio track. Apart from doing research on performance and issues – maybe you should look into cyberpunk. In which this dream is explored of using the body with electronics and the body becomes a vehicle for hybrid expression.

Carolina: Beautiful, congratulations. I wanted to see it larger in scale. …

Angelo: It’s very pretty and cute, but also the problem, that it is pretty and cute. If you want to make art that is deeply impacting people then you have a long way to go. One of the things you should research more – I would like you to research the architecture of NYC and form an opinion of that – shape, form, space – you need to grasp it much better. H ere I here don’t think you grasp it. It might be interesting to bring the real city into this. Little clips, abstracted video, real video – then things become more political – you are a foreigner, who projects the city into your own little world – it becomes interesting. You can work with people or your own experience of the city. Research mapping. Project and the computer knows what is in the space. Online videos of projecting on building and it looks like the building is collapsing. Had a student doing similar, and it raised the level of the work.

Carolina: Congratulations. I will say that I lost the connection. You talked about movement, light… and you talked about how people can affect… so do you want to incorporate the viewer? To have people interact with it? When people are encountering this piece either on the floor or wall? This takes them out of their space. Waking them up out of their everyday? And that is something later on that you want to incorporate? And the material now that you are using? So you in the end do you see it being out in a public space? Gallery space?

Angelo: I’m honestly not very convinced of this project yet. I think the research is interesting, but I don’t feel anything when I’m looking at this. to make it really strongly relevant, there are a few ways to move it forward. 1) Make it interactive. See how you can engage the viewer. 2) This fascination for materials. I just don’t sense it here. I’m not interested I don’t feel the message. Continue exploring, bring across your interest in materiality. 3) Very predictable. You see a certain way of moving, but then I get bored. On some level you need to go deeper.

Study more in depth. Your research, DADA, minimalism, that’s almost like recent western art history. choose one direction, and go deeper. there is a whole tradition of kinectic art, or optical art, since you are interested in shadows and light. Anish Kapoor – the way he works with physicality and materials it is spiritual.

Carolina: Like the title, communicates the idea, bridges the user that you want. Everything works in documentation – what kind of glitches did you run into? There are so many apps out there to support to do lists. I use gmail, and it would be awesome if it auto generated a task through gmail. Don’t know if you can do this, but what about a pull down screen? What about something that displays this back on the phone. I don’t know if this is something that you really see as a product, or did you really just want to build this? I like the cardboard display.

Angelo: I can’t add very much. clear presentation. liked that you listed why this was different than existing apps that was clear to me. The only thing I use when I use time management software is the visual overview. That is something you don’t get with the LCD. So can you add a time frame with an overview.

Carolina: Congratulations on your work. It was good to know who your references are. The idea of using thermal and measuring time, you see where things are missing in your work, but since this is a prototype – i like the idea of making it site specific, and maybe taking it to this place where the individual … using thermal… REFERENCE: Hans Haacke – he did the condensed cube and it was clear cube in a museum, based on temperature. more people had more condensation, vs. less, it had this type of behavior but with less technology. Where do you want to go with this?

Angelo: The system you are working with is a social/ecological system, in your presentation at it is still unclear to me, the social component – I don’t see people here – yet, the second one is a mix up or maybe could be more clear – with the farming workshop you mentioned you have an interest in growing or biology? meaning how do you define the environment, ? chemical or biological? this could be interesting and could add a dynamic later.

I don’t understand why this machine is so frantic? It is supers sensitive? I’ve used temp sensors and it the range is very stable? Why would you not call this data visualization? Isn’t it data viz?

Do you think someone who looks at your artwork, and the person knows it is about temperature, don’t you think there will be some disconnect? This seems to need to be resolved.

Is this about movement or body heat or both?

So that is the link between the social and mechanical and environment? Because you said it is not important that people know how it works, but they need to know something because a machine moving does not impart enough information.

Veronique: If you want to release it you can use processing or open frameworks. It’s up to you, but if you want to make it a commercial product, otherwise you are tied to microsoft. OpenFrameworks is C. I would set it up with wherever you set it up, just target and put yellow tape to demarcate the space. As they are pushing each other they will see the boundaries of the space. It would be part of the fun of the game. Sound effects are super important. whatever appears to have a noted reaction. If I have my eye on the opponent, to have an audio signal that level has changed.

Carlos: So have you heard of the open kinect group in NY? Went to one of the meetings, discovered there are group of people who meet every other month or so, writing a book on how to program with the Kinect. you should go to the next meet up and see what they’re doing.

Veronique: You could trick it the same way you calibrate the room – have people walk to the four corners and use that to define the space.

Carlos: Simple rules, but you could show a three second animation to get across the rules.

Veronique: You can fix that rather than a skeleton, you can use the circle on the top of their head and make that shrink or grow.

Carlos: impressive! Pretty good for a “do-what-you-want” project! Form factor looks better in the illustrations, but you may want to look at a couple of alternatives to arduino, smaller, but with the same programming environment – boarduino, or the lilypad, can shrink the footprint of the electronics. Did you do any testing with other people? What was your process like? I wanted to make it narrower, but the LED needs a heat sink, and if the LED was too close to the acrylic, it wouldn’t provide a spread of lighting.

Veronique: the size to me is perfect, but you should provide an AC/DC outlet, so you don’t drain the battery if you are home.

Carlos: But maybe you have a rechargable battery and a solar panel.

Veronique: stability seems to be an issue. I would buy something like this if the same components were the same blond wood – I know you want the lighting unit to stand out, but it’s an aesthetic choice.

Carlos: reminds me of the 7 segment LEDs, where you can make any number with it. Doesn’t give that much light. couple of tricks – what if the whole thing was light emitting? Sometimes when lighting in overhead lamps they put silver reflecting coating onto the side. where the lamp hits the ceiling, so it reflects even more. Otherwise the light gets absorbed by the wood, so you can put reflective materials internal to the unit. I’ve seen projects like this on kickstarter they raise a lot of money.

Veronique: I like the fact that you can take it with you.

Carlos: You could take it with you camping. Add a solar light.

Carlos: Very mobile cause what you are doing. Very interested in this topic due to personal reasons. Not entirely sure though what you are trying to achieve with the website. Sees the posters and there is a strong message, but are you trying to start a non-profit or build as service? So are you doing a lot of outreach – twitter account and facebook – outreach is necessary. There is a moment of truth you are dealing with, when that kid is in front of the vending machine, you want to affect that decision, so what do you think you can do to affect that choice – can you overlay information over the vending machine before the purchase? How do you make kids actually listen? Overcome peer pressure, or other environmental stress? One last point, I like the comparisons you are doing, but there might be a way to affect purchasing decisions. Don’t just stop with criticizing but give options.

Veronique: It’s a great topic, very necessary. Two parts to the issue – raise awareness, and then to provide alternatives. The stolen poster is part of the inbetween – on the website provide a document that lets them track what they eat – not public, but as a tool for kids. Most of us don’t remember what we eat from one day to the next, maybe take them home to their families – maybe print 50 of them and tell them to take them home to their families. It might be embarrassing. Contact the school district – ask why you can’t have an alternate to junk food?

Carlos: Great little project. Why did you decide on the phone when the projection was in the space? Or was there something in particular you were trying to say with the phone? Was there a script you could follow, or how did you cue people to interact wit the avatar?

Veronique: Question, first of all you speak very good English. One thing I did not understand was that do they speak to you, or to an avatar? What is the point then, to learn the language you would use, if you don’t speak English, or was it to learn certain facial cues? Or was it a performance project? You have a language of expression, nodding, rolling eyes, ecetera. Did you think about using question marks or icons? Or dig you choose to go with the face expression? You know that this phone is actually sold for iPhones now?

Carlos: Are you done with this research or will you keep working on it? When you first started showing the sketches I though the avatar was going to be the interrogator, but it’s the other way around. Have you thought about flipping that around?