2010

Since being back from christmas and the new year I am in a slightly more positive state of mind with this project and university as a whole and have decided to follow my initial ideas of getting the bike to create a visual narrative on the back projected screen which will as i said before be set up in front of the bike in its stand.

Although it is relatively simplistic compared to the audio driven ideas Phil seemed keen on I am going to film from a car a number of roads all spiking off from an initial junction so that the piece becomes interactive in that the cyclist chooses their own pace and will then have a number of choices of different routes they can cycle along, obviously this will mean filming alot of different routes to be followed but i plan to get the camera out within the first week or two of term in January depending on how our other projects are coming along and spend a day getting all these different choices of route filmed.

This may seem – technologically at least – like a bit of a cop out compared to what i had previously discussed with Phil but at least this way i am not going to be stressing out using technology i just dont understand and can have a completed outcome that i will be happy with and i think could be enjoyable to use on the evening of the show.

Here is a short youtube video of the kind of thing i mean,here just achieved through a hemet cam-which is also an option -this is the kind of video that will be projected in front of you on the bike in the stand but you will be able to dictate how fast you go through your pedalling and also when you get to those junctions i you move the handlebars in the direction you want to go that will then trigger video to send you down that route

Idea ‘Development’

After discussing this idea with Phil and explaining i wanted a bicycle to power the piece Phil seemed to think my idea of the bike powering some pre filmed visuals and perhaps speeding them up when the cyclist speeds up or perhaps getting to junctions and the participant turning the handlebars in order to choose the route was a bit weak and suggested instead going the audio route and getting the heart to determine the BPM of a music beat and then perhaps the cyclist pace to determine how fast other audio layers would be running over the top of this bpm and thus create a music track through many different layers all determined through the cyclists pace.

I was initially very keen on this idea as i thouht it would be very interesting to try and achieve these kind of results and be able to make a music track through the use of just a bicycle,and of course some max/msp type programmes.

However towards the end of last term i lost my drive somewhat and realised i had basically jus got caught up in Phils idea as it sounded interesting at the time but held no real desire to try and create anything musically with this project as it is just simply not something im that interested in or wish to continue with in the future so i pretty much put this project on hold for a while until i could get my head round continuing with it and achieving what i wanted to with it.

Equipment needed

There are a few things that this project will obviously need in order to make it work.
The first is obviously a bike which i can provide as i am currently building up a new road bike for myself anyway and would be perfect for this project.

the second is a turbo trainer which i have also purchased through the bike shop i work in for this project, here is the model i have bought

I have also bought a heart rate monitor and ‘PC Pod’ kit which the participant can wear and this will actually relay real time statistics such as heart rate,speed,calories burned and distance travelled etc straight into a laptop whilst the bike is being ridden

and although im still not exactley sure of what it is i want the bike to achieve through this real time response at least i know now i have a few options i can draw from.

Orange Example

This advert from Orange highlighting Mark Beaumont’s record breaking round the world cycle trip is the sort of set up i would like to achieve and is what i was trying to describe with the back projected screens showing what the cycling is ‘outputting’ in the middle.

This is on a fairly grand scale as obviously orange have the money for these huge screens,warehouse space and powerfull projectors but i would like to achieve this on a smaller scale.

I am not sure how relative the videos and images are to the bicycle itself in the middle whether there is any real time interaction but i think instead are just a visual pleasing way to display the narrative that Mark is relaying about some of the adventures he got into whilst on his round the world trip

Here is the advert.

Initial Ideas

I wanted to make a performance video piece that involved the viewer and made them a part of the piece instead of just an observer.
I am a very keen cyclist and this struck me as an excellent way to make the piece interactive by making the piece around a bike and getting the participant to either power,influence or change the piece by cycling at different speeds,in different gears or by turning the handlebars and pressing the brakes etc in order to make the piece interactive.

For this i would need a bike set up on a turbo trainer and probably a projection screen in front of it being back projected showing the ‘viewer’ the changes he or she was making through the use of the bike.

This is sort of an example of what i mean:

Performance video – Brief

Bob Cotton:

“Your task is to produce a short performance combining video and audio to be shown as part of an evening extravaganza.”

“performance video”

definitions:

video of performance art
Performance Art grew out of various 20th Century avant garde activities – Cabaret Voltaire was perhaps the beginning of this form of artistic activity (Zurich 1916)…the Bauhaus foundation course in the 1920s encouraged experimentation in this area, artists in the 1920s and 1930s included performance in their work – Kurt Schwitters, Andre Breton and others are examples.

However the recent roots of performance art are in the 1950s and 1960s when Al Hansen, John Cage, Nam June Paik, David Tudor, George Brecht, Yoko Ono and other FLUXUS group members developed a form called the ‘Happening’ – interesting for digital media students is the fact that Happenings included elements of:

scripting

chance

multiple media

live performance

audience participation

location

many of the concerns of current digital art were being explored by this pre-digital group of artists.
definitions of Performance Art:

“A form of theatrical art featuring the activity of the artist and works presented in a variety of media.” – (Answers.com)

“Performance art has origins in Futurism and Dada, but became a major phenomenon in the 1960s and 1970s and can be seen as a branch of Conceptual art. …” (Tate)

Performance art is art in which the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work. …(Wiki)

video used in a performance – Video Art
Video Art also grew from the Sixties, when artists like Nam June Paik began exploring the newly available portable video camera systems introduced by Sony and others (Sony Portapak, 1967). During the late 1950s and 1960s artists also began to incorporate Television sets/monitors and other mass-consumer electronics in their work – look at Wolf Vostell and EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology) – the group that famously included Robert Rauschenberg and Billy Kluver. But other artists, including Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, Joan Jonas, Andy Warhol, and Fred Forest, are more synonymous with the form.

Video art can encompass both performance and installation – and more recently the use of projectors in different locations (like Moth TV).

A step-change in the public-awareness of multiscreen audio-visual art came with the fovcus of the Expo67 in Montreal, where artists from Europe, Canada and the US explored the idea of presenting complex messages and emotions through the programmed projection of multiple images (many using the then new Kodak Carousel slide projectors). At the same show, large-format projection systems (precursors to iMax) and interactive formats were presented.

The impact of Expo67 was felt briefly in the Movies – The Thomas Crown Affair (Norman Jewison, 1968) and Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970 – the film of the festival) both used multi-image (‘multiscreen’) techniques to create a more immersive effect.

In the 1970s Video-Walls (racks of TV monitors displaying single and multiple images) began to be used in video art as well as commercial video installations for events like product launches, Expos and the like.

“Video Art” definitions

Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. (It should not however be confused with television or experimental cinema). Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations. (Wikipedia)

Video installation is a contemporary art method that combines video technology with installation art. It is an art form that utilizes all aspects of its surrounding environment as a vehicle of affecting the audience. Its origins tracing back to the birth of video art in the 1970s, it has increased in popularity as the means of digital video production have become more readily accessible. Today, video installation is ubiquitous, visible in a range of environments–from galleries and museums to an expanded field that includes site-specific work in urban or industrial landscapes. Popular formats include monitor work, projection, and performance. The only requirements are electricity and darkness. (Wikipedia)

3. video used in/or of a stage performance — theatrical, musical,

The third interpretation of ‘performance video’ is that of video used in a live performance on stage – interesting examples of this include the famous Pink Floyd ‘The Wall’ (1979):

Inspiration

As stated below we are moving on to the ‘Future Cinema’ project which is quite an exciting challenge not just from a technological point of view but also from a creative one, as with this project it could be quite easy to get carried away with the ‘future’ element of it but as Liam explained to us the actual narrative of the piece is the place to start thinking from in order to get a finished product that actually engages the audience and then work out the technology to achieve it otherwise it could become simply an technological exercise which isn’t going to fulfill the brief or create an exciting finished product when we have our gallery space at the end of the year.

We were shown this Phillips advert as an example of the kind of possibilities now possible, there is also the making of, which is quite important as it still shows that no matter how much technology is available to you they have still planned this out in minute detail in quite a traditional filmic way and not really used that much technology considering how the final film looks.

and the making of….