Concept:
What I want to achieve through this installation is that I want to convey a feeling of synesthesia, that you can almost hear and see the taste of a drink. In fact, the whole idea of this piece came from one of my synesthesia experience. Due to COVID, I went back to my home country and stayed out of campus for a year and a half. And just when I had my first cup of DD Latte here, I felt the synesthetic deja vu. It was like a time travel back to pre-pandemic. Until then, I started to realize I almost forgot how much life was better back then. And I regret not cherishing those moments. So the drinks, each with a little flashback, is the museum of my under-appreciated memories.
Description:
The overall theme of this piece would be flashbacks triggered by the sense of drinking a particular type of drink. I have different containers with different types of drink set up. When I drink each one of them, animations of flashbacks related to that particular drink would pop up.
In term of the logic behind the interaction, I used the idea of an old TV. In the idle state, when there is no memory flashback, the TV would display noise. And when I grab a container, kinda start remembering something, the sound of noise would first be replaced by the ambience sound of a certain flashback. And when I drink the liquid inside that container, the memory flashback would display on the TV screen. And after one memory being played, the TV would go back to the idle state.
I made the human figure inside those animations in Maya. I also took some pictures or videos for the background. And I dragged everything in Premiere for some special effects and editing. Each clip I made the color scheme resemble to the main colors of their correspondent drink.
Interface:
This is the base of the whole interface, which would hold the liquid containers and hide the abomination of wires down below.
This is how it looks like after mounted the liquid containers.
Demonstration:
Artist Question:
My artist question is: is the whole interactive part self-explainatory? Is the relationship between each drink and flashback clear?
Update:
This is the final verson of my interactive touch project. There is no change on the input end, and I fixed some details on Max/ the animations/ the sound effects.
What has changed:
The old TV static screen dont go into freeze after 10 seconds now.
There is a new intermediate screen (playing along with the sound effect) between the static screen and the actual animation, just to enhance the feedback when I touch each container.
The running animation was remade.
All three animations got their colors and filters adjusted.
More sound effecets are added during the animations.
If I could offer an opinion, I only suggest switching the sounds used for the slurping as they sound very similar to the tv static, which can come off as a bit confusing for viewers.
Your piece is very engaging and has a very creative approach! Why did you choose a Tv in particular for your idle state? The interactive part does display a relationship between the drink and flashback because of the default idle state which then evolves to become a new “scene”/flashback.
The TV idea came accorss because I needed an idle state that fits the whole theme. The TV kinda fits the nostalgic retro feel so I choosed to use it.
I find the use of the TV very nostalgic. I do think that each drink and flashback is clear, mostly due to how the colors are exactly identical to each other. One opinion I have is possibly adding some animation on the TV, to indicate that the audio is playing when you touch the drink.
The whole interactive part is very self-explanatory. The execution of the idea was very visually unique and engaging.
This piece really stuck out as a unique one. The relationship is clear, and the delivery is very captivating. What was the inspiration behind the older TV set? (even if there’s no particular reason, I love the aesthetic, reminds me of Nam June Paik’s art).
For the TV idea, I came up with the three animations first but I felt the whole thing needed an idle state. As the animations all have a crude, retro kind of feeling I was thinking why not just put them on an old TV and use the noise as the idle state.
The interface is very mysterious to me since I do not understand how it works. I can see each drink as distinctive with each flashback, but their association is unclear to me. Why does each trigger its associated flashback? The project seems very mysterious and confusing to me.
This is actually a very good feedback on my end. The underappreciated truth here on my perspective was random everyday moments of mines that I should cherish more, and I used the media of liquid as a hint to sort of evoke each piece of memory. As the total meanings behind the piece were personal, the associations are all arbitrarily decided by myself. In fact, all three animations have some indirect associations with their drink counterparts (the water and aquarium, DD coffee with campus center, and vitamin water with running), but I just like the way they are not 100% straightforward.
The relationship between each drink and the flashback was quite clear to me. I love how the idle is TV static — it almost feels like with the synesthesia, your mind’s eye is blank until you touch the cup and taste the drink, when you are able to experience these sights and sounds.
That is exactly what I was aiming for, thank you : )
I loved this project, I thought it was really interesting and I did laugh at the price chopper animation. The relationships are quite clear. In my opinion, the swimming animation is the most abstract out of the three, as the other two are more explicit memories associated with those drinks. Let me know if that didn’t make sense :’)
Yeah that is totally correct : )
I think this project is really well put together with the graphite and the conductive tape acting as great conductors. I am commenting on those because I did not see them in the class demo. To answer your question, your project is self explanatory and does a good job making the relationships. What made you decide on what liquids to use for this project?
I just chose general, iconic drinks of each kind that I have some memories related to.