** EDIT ** Because I am not sure that I will be able to make the SMS part of this project work, I made the project work with an online form for the time being. It is now 100% functional and all it needs is a good design.
After reading about SMS walls, I was inspired to create a similar work, with slight changes that focus on the issues I have highlighted in my last post.
My work concentrates on how easy it is to send messages through technologies today, and how this can distort the message itself. For example, a little while ago I was writing to a friend telling him how sad I was that it wasn’t going well with my boyfriend. I ended up sending the sms to the wrong person, and it was my boyfriend who received it instead. I then thought about how these issues spark from technologies themselves, enabling us to communicate in new ways, giving us fake strength and a fake sense of secrecy.
So how can I emulate this into an interactive work? I decided to create a work where people, when passing across a wall, will have a text bubble attached to their shadow projected unto the wall. That text will be sent from another user through SMS technology, and will be anonymous secrets. In other words, a projector will be installed at one end of a room, when people pass in front of the projector their shadow will be projected on the white wall. Processing will detect where the shadow is with a webcam and color/motion detection. The information will be fed to the projector that will add a bubble on top of the shadow, with text written in it. The text will be retrieved from a XML file that is updated with text messages from other users.
I started the project with the motion detection. I’ve used Processing’s JMyron library before for another project, so, being comfortable with the code already, this was the best solution. I changed the code so that once it detects the movement and person, it fixes an average and a text bubble follows. I then programmed the text so that it would be taken from an XML document outside of the Processing file.
Good, so now that that part of the project was done I needed to work on the MySQL database. I created one on my server, made a page so that you can add to it with PHP, and that same page automatically updates the XML document that connects to Processing.
But how to make SMS technology connect to the database? Even if I was expecting this to be the hardest part of the project, I didn’t expect it to be that hard. I thought of many possibilities, none truly work the way I want, but they are still possibilities.
One of the solutions is that I could create a gmail account designated to the project. Then I can code an application that connects every XX seconds to the gmail account, takes all the new emails and adds them to my MySQL database and updates the XML document. This solution so far is the easiest to implement, but the issue is that I wanted people to SMS to a real physical phone number, not an email address. (To send an SMS to an email address, instead of writing 514-XXX-XXXX on your phone you send to XXXX@gmail.com. It works, but it’s not exactly what I want)
An other solution is that I PURCHASE an SMS gateway. These services are quite expensive, and what they do is give you a number that people can send an SMS to and then feed you back the HTTP code. Not only do I not like paying for a service for a project, but I hate to use a service instead of breaking my neck trying to find a solution that I can make myself.
Other than that, I could code a Python or Ruby application. Both offer the possibility of connecting to Bluetooth devices, and my phone is Bluetooth enabled. This was my first idea, but after running some tests, I found out that my crappy Koodo cellphone doesn’t enable you to access your inbox through Bluetooth. Urgh.