In my submitted design primer, I realized how the focus of my topic was not clear. In my momentum to create mindful consumption around food wastage, my idea initially was to create behavioral change by making users think of the future.
Eventually, instead of focusing on HOW this imaginative future may make users waste less food, I went overboard into creating a narrative into future foods instead. This may not make users waste less food but instead wonder about the future of our foods.
In the above the diagram that I made on my miroboard, I weighed out the pros and cons between the two topics "future foods" and "extinction of food". I decided against tackling the future foods topic as future foods like lab-grown chicken are still in "R&D" (research and development) phase where such products have not been introduced to consumers yet. Hence, I sticked to focusing on the "extinction of food."
LED TABLE EXPERIMENT
I also evaluated the prototypes proposed in my design primer. I realized how my first two ideas were not connected to my third either in the topic.
My problem statement and literature review borrowed concepts of wasteful eating and behaviors of generation Z that led to food wastage. Hence the purpose of the LED table changing to green color in the presence of future food was not relevant to solving and targetting the main problem and did not address my insights in my dissertation.
I also tried re-visiting my LED table experiment, to program it to be responsive to my weight sensor in hopes of using this simple idea and visual of a red light as a negative signal of wasting food leftovers when leftover weight of the food is detected on the weight sensor. During the time of design primer submission, the table worked on the accordance of a switch and not input in direct connection to the weight sensor. I have been meaning for the connection from the LED light to the sensor to work since week 8 but to no avail... : ) Arduino tutorials on weight responsive LED was limited to only 1 video on Youtube.
I was told by Andreas that for the code to perform, two Arduinos were needed as the arduino could only afford to detect the weight of the sensor. Nevertheless, I was sure that it could work without an arduino with perhaps some finetuning of the code as I have seen many sound responsive and ultrasonic motion responsive LEDS but why not a weight sensor?
Despite referencing other types of sensor responsive LED tutorials, the LED light refused to respond in accordance to the weight...Although it did work once, the colour did not change back to its original colour after the weight detection. It might have been a technical error where I didn't manage to close the if statment loop? OH well,,,having worked on the simple function for this project, I decided it was not efficient and did not meet the insight of educating Gen Zs about how our food comes to our plates. The LED function limits this speculative and visual nature of displaying where our food comes from.
INTERACTIVE 3D OBJECTS IN TOUCHDESIGNER
TouchDesigner was highly accurate in depicting the weight that was applied to the sensor. The printed readings could be adjusted to print readings with less of delay unlike seen here, the reaction time of the visuals to the weight is still seen.
INTERACTIVE FLAT IMAGES IN TOUCHDESIGNER
Instead of the sphere, I wanted to upload a flat PNG image layer into TD. It was much harder than it seemed to upload a flat imported image into TD as it could only be enabled through various operators within TouchDesigner according to the referenced YouTube tutorial. Being an software that is highly compatible with 3D rendering, I learnt that displaying my own flat PNG images could only be activated through setting up a camera composition within a 3D space.
UNDERSTANDING VARIOUS OPERATORS
In most tutorials, I was confused about what certain operators meant but in recreating the effects in the tutorial, I was able to understand the basics of navigating the software. I was somewhat familiar with the software as a beginner as I had a brief introduction to TouchDesigner in the first semester during one of the "MAKESHIFT" space workshop held where I learnt how to create audio reactive graphics on TD. The documentation for it can be found in the Catalogue of Making, under the "VJ workshop" section.
RESOLUTION SIZE
However, after uploading the elements to TD, I noticed that the clarity of the resolution was limited to only 1280px by 720px. The usual screen size was 1920px by 1080px. After which, I discovered that the free version of TD was only limited to this smaller than screen sizing. The other paid versions of TD were extremely costly ranging up to $300USD. Fortunately, I was able to find a pirated version of the software online! This version was the professional version which allowed the 1920px by 1080px sizing and other capabilities such as rendering.
LAYERING ISSUES
It was difficult to control the layers within the main "camera render" panel where all the PNG layers are simultaneously layered over one another. There was no quick fix to adjusting this problem as controlling the range of values between the x-axis made this worse and creating a weird "rim" between the borders of the PNG layers. Hence, I only gained the insight that creating new PNG layers on TD typically formed above the previous PNG layers.
IMPORTING 3D MODELS
Also, making use of TouchDesigner's capabilities, I tried uploading a low-poly 3D model (tomato model seen here) into the canvas alongside my illustration to see if it could co-exist along with my flat PNG illustrations of the elements in the narrative. I was able to make the tomato react according to the weight sensor as well. But TD become notably slow in loading and navigating around once the model was imported. Hence, I decided against exploring it further as it heavily slowed down my process in my workflow.
Nevertheless, these initial explorations into TouchDesigner was fruitful in understanding the potential of exploring sensor data reactivity in accordance with different visual layers and effects in TouchDesigner.
COHORT SEMINAR
Matin's research on creating spaces for relaxation within hospitals was very unique and yet a interesting problem that he was trying to tackle. It was important that the current relaxation points of hospitals could be further improved on, having been there a couple of times for my dislocated hand, I did feel miserable every time I visited the hospital, hence I could understand the importance of such a problem.
Matin also used this term "positive distractions" in elaborating the served purpose of his artefacts.It was speculative in nature and hence using this term also clearly defined its purpose in context to the problem. Exploring the use of plants moving slowly with the wind's motion was a great and subtle way to integrate relaxation as breezes of wind may be hard to come by within a hospital space itself. Hence, I'm curious about how he would develop this artefact further.
