Yahoo! Anwers to your insecurities from Claudine Lamothe on Vimeo.

My project deals with how insecurities that are masked in the real world can be brought to life in the anonymous world or the internet. More specifically, I worked with the narrative of teenage girls who may appear in real-life as self-confident about their sexuality, but that really are scared and clueless on the inside.

It fascinated me to browse questions and answers on Yahoo! Answers. Therefore, I centered my project around this portal specifically. Using thermochromatic dye as a medium, I painted strips on panties, much like sensor bars, and with thread a similar color as the dye in it’s initial state, I embroidered individual questions. When worn, the dye reacts to the body’s temperature and changes color to baby blue, and the dark fuchsia thread creates a contrast with the new color, making the question now apparent.

Issues
Countless problems arose with this project. Firstly, the dye is quite old, which is why I got it for free. After running tests for weeks, I concluded that it could still be used, but for some reason it would never dry, even after intense drying and curing processes. Initially, I wanted to dye the entire panties in fuchsia, but the no-drying issue made it impossible, and I had to quickly change my tactic to only a strip of dye on each panties. Beforehand, I also tried silkscreening words unto the panties that are usually found on teenagers’ underwear, like “SEXY” or “CHERRY”, but, because of the texture of the dye, the letters were always bleeding unto the fabric and it looked sloppy. So I went back to making strips, although, even after 3 days of drying with heaters and fans, the whole thing never truly dried, and much of the color was lost.

Also, because of the age of the dye, it’s sensibility to heat and reaction time were greatly affected. I wanted people in class to be able to hold the panties in their hands and see the message appear, but it works far better if you put the panties under your armpit for a few seconds… which is quite weird and unrelated to the project.

Finally, the part that broke my heart the most about this project is that I couldn’t use it in the embroidery machine. The panties’ fabric was too stretchy, and because of their odd shape it was impossible to stretch the fabric well enough to put in the machine. Having faith in my embroidery skills, I decided to do everything hand made. This did not turn very well because the dye was still wet (which made the operation harder) and very stretchy, even through a hoop. Therefore, the embroidery is of very very poor quality.

Panties from Claudine Lamothe on Vimeo.

So here’s a simple example of the panties under high temperature. The fabric is still drenched after 3 days of drying so it doesn’t look very good yet. This goes to show that cheap cotton is not the best canvas for thermochromatic dye. Also, because the cotton absorbs a lot, making one pantie takes an immense quantity of dye, which I have limited quantities of. This means that I will not be able to make 5 of 6 pieces, but more like 2 or 3.

I’ve also tested to see how I can implement digital medias into the project. I’ve made tests with conductive thread, but I’m perplexed about the NEED to use this technology. It’s one thing to put sensors everywhere, it might look cool, but why are they used? I feel like I can embed in this project digital typography in a different way. One that will have a direct relationship with the project. One of the options I have been exploring is of using an industrial embroidery machine. I could take digital text and reproduce it on the fabric with fuchsia thread. When the panties will be worn, the thread will remain the same color, and the fabric will turn baby blue. This, to me, would be a much better approach to this project as the intimate qualities of embroidery would enhance the properties of project.

Sketches are coming soon.

For this project, I wanted to approach technologies and communications in a different manner than previously explored. At the beginning of this semester, I was already set on the idea of using thermochromic dye as a medium, and wanted to implement that material into my project. This made coming up with a concept quite difficult, since usually I come up with the concept and themes first, then come up with the technology needed. This experience, and restriction in material, was quite refreshing, though, because it made me think about all kinds of interactions, messages and presentations.

My project consists of multiple pieces of underwear, all the same color, on a table. People are encouraged to touch the pieces and play around with them, and they will notice things appearing when they touch the fabric. Ideally, the project would be presented in pictures. When the underwear is worn by models, the dye changes color to make the true message appear.

On the more conceptual side, my inspiration is taken from the Yahoo! Answers website. This site appeals to a wide variety of people who can anonymously ask the world questions of every sort. Therefore, it attracts many teenagers who are troubled with their sexuality. The messages that appear on the underwear to be questions from some of these individuals. Here are some examples of the questions asked on the site.

Thermochromic underwear has been around for quite some time now. Contrary to the pieces out there, my project investigates lack of communication, insecurity and misinformation at a young age. It also takes a look at the impact of the internet on youth; instead of asking the questions to people you trust, you are asking a large number of people for their opinion.

**UPDATE**
I have been testing the dye on paper with different ways to make the message appear/disappear. The technique I wanted to use was to use a fabric paint a similar color as the original dye, and to silkscreen on the underwear the messages. This might be hard because of the difficulties in making a paint color the exact same shade as the dye. So I am testing other possibilities but none are satisfactory.

I was also looking at the possibility of embroidering the message unto the underwear with thread the same color as the dye. The issue with this is that from close the thread will create a texture that will make it legible even if it is the same color as the dye.

Here’s the documentation site!
And here’s an example of the piece in action

My server space provider is evil.

Godaddy doesn’t support POP or IMAP (fetching email information) functions. I tried. I tried so hard to make it work. But, alas, I will have to find a new solution for the SMS part of my project.

For now, I have made a little documentation page for the project. I even made a super duper maquette (image accompanying this post) of what my work should look like.

The maquette was actually a great deal of help. It’s sad that we never have to make any in any of our work even if we do make installations. I made a box with cardboard and glued white paper on the inside to make the room, and put a little cutout bonhomme in the foreground to cast the shadow in the background. It was a lot of fun, and it really represents how the project will work (finding shadow, casting text bubble, people entering their own text via cellphone technology and seeing it appear unto other’s shadows…)

The project is still in it’s prototype phase. This week I will be working on the aesthetic side of the piece, as well as trying to made the SMS functions work. This part of the project is really important to me as it is the core of my project. I have a couple of alternatives in mind. One of them is to use the Twitter API, but the problem with this alternative is that not everyone has a Twitter account connected to their cellphone. I don’t want people to have to register to Twitter and then to configure their phone with the service to use the piece.

Anyways, enough talking for me, here’s the site for Shadows Lie.

** 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.

The idea of displaying SMS messages on a wall has been done many times in the past, but very rarely has it been done in a very pleasant graphical way. The SMS Memory Wall by Troika is one of those installations that uses this concept but executes it in a good way, opposed to other examples like Wireless Toronto or the Hailer Wall.

SMS walls are usually used at events as interactive pieces and offer the possibility for anyone (even people not present at the event) to share their thoughts. The community dictates how the piece will unfold, and that can have many facettes. What interests me about these pieces is the possibility for individuals to create a “story” that can be viewed by people at the event. For example, if someone writes the beginning of a phrase, someone could pick up from that and add to a communal text. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any work that takes advantage of that possibility, finding only works that enable users to write freely their feelings and thoughts without boundaries. But this isn’t so bad, just like websites like Facebook or Twitter, the SMS walls give users the ability to share with others whatever they want, be it ego-centric thoughts or other forms of messages to others.

It is also very appealing that everyone with a cellphone, i.e. 85% of households in Canada, can interact with the piece. No longer do you need to be computer literate, and no longer do you need to be in front of a computer screen to interact with programming based works (Facebook or Twitter), you can do it by simply using a technology that most of us are comfortable using.

What made the SMS Memory Wall by Troika so interesting to me was that it uses all these interesting functions that SMS walls enable, but also project it in a graphically pleasing way. The text used strong typographical contrast, like negative/positive background, change of direction and size contrasts, which makes the design much more interesting than the one used for similar pieces. It also has a good amount of white space so the text is readable, and the font used is reminiscent of stencils, which fits with the brick background.

The piece also created boundaries for the participants to the piece, asking them to only write “their memories of their favourite live concert”. By doing so, they integrated the wall to the event, and kept with the theme. This can also enable deeper text, that connects people together, more than messages like “hello!”. Of course, people can “break” the theme and go for something else, but that is part of the beauty of interactive pieces; the community breaks or makes the work.

My only issue I can find with the SMS Memory Wall is that it didn’t push the concept further than it’s predecessors. Visually, it was a feat, but conceptually, it offered very little to make it stand out from other similar work.

The next work I analyzed is the opposite than the previous one. Visually, it isn’t very appealing (for a reason), but, conceptually, it is a very strong piece. 33 Questions per Minute is a piece that generates from sentence fragments different questions like “What is life?”, “Who am I?” and “Where do we come from, and where do we go?”. A user from a terminal can also input his own questions, taking further the interaction for the piece. People can therefore ask questions to others within the exhibit, and if no one does so, the computer will generate its own set of strings.

Like previously mentioned, this piece is very strong conceptually. The audience is destabilized and overwhelmed by the amount of questions asked within a minute, and cannot go from one little screen to the next, as well as think, fast enough to answer all of them. Also, the audience doesn’t know whether the question was asked by the computer or a human, which adds ambiguity to the piece.

The questions generated by computer are inspired by a long line of automatic poetry. The questions are randomly generated, and so they will make no sense most of the time (for example: “Will you bleed in an orderly fashion?”, “Is the creator always being born?” and “Do I snip the marriage bed without rhyme or reason?”). Sometimes, though, the computer generates valid questions like “Who bribes the artist?” or “Why did computers become so self-congratulatory?”.

Design wise, the piece uses very basic concepts. The LCD screen displays are simple but effective means to communicate the message, especially since this completely hides any trace of whether or not the question was asked by a human or a machine. It would have been nice to see a less striped approach to this project, but it’s simplicity is charming and makes a strong statement.

[ please refer to the previous post for more information about the project ]

Miss You [LQ] from Claudine Lamothe on Vimeo.

[ A HQ FILE WILL BE ADDED SOON ]

OVERVIEW
This piece, Miss You, is about my own experience going though a long-distance relationship. All the words used were taken from emails exchanged between me and my boyfriend while he was in Mexico and I was in Montreal through the course of the summer.

SIGNIFICATIONS
The text begins in English and fades through the video to French and Spanish. This causes stress between the two parties, as they cannot understand each other. It is as if they aren’t talking to each other anymore (my boyfriend doesn’t understand French very much, and I understand little to no Spanish), but are only talking to themselves. The video starts with sweet words exchanged, and end with words expressing loneliness, anger and fright.

The video in the background expresses how communication goes back and forth, in and out of focus and are still very vague.

TECHNICALITIES [ SCREENSHOTS TO BE UPLOADED SOON ]
The video was made with my longboard (a long skateboard), an empty room in my apartment, tons of cardboard, lamps, and aluminum foil. I made “filters” for each lamp so that they would reflect differently on the wall. I mounted the video camera and tripod unto my longboard, turned off the lights and played around with the skateboard and lamps. I edited all the footage in Final Cut Pro and made it in-sync with the music. Very few transition filters were used (fade in/out – dip to color) and the only real alteration made to the footage, aside from cutting sequences, was that I desaturated everything so it would be completely black and white.

The text was made with Mr. Softie and then exported to Final Cut Pro. First I made each animation in Mr. Softie and saved everything as PDFs. Mostly, I played with random effects and noted what they did and how I could use them. I then imported the folders containing each animation screenshot into Final Cut Pro, created a new sequence, and placed the PDFs unto the timeline. Afterward I had to change the duration of each PDF files to 00:00:01 second each to make a seamless animation. When this was all completed I moved the individual sequences containing the word unto the main timeline with the music and video. The effects used were in hopes to demonstrate fright and anger. The Font used is Times because I felt it represented the idea of letters well.

COMMENTS
I am satisfied with the effects with the lamps and camera, but much less with the text. I love Mr. Softie but my inexperience with Final Cut Pro made the whole process of importing text very strenuous and long. Therefore I wasn’t able to put as much effort and time into the finished product as I had hoped to. If I had to redo it all, I would make the text animations more seamless and more significant to the words they represent. I also wish I could have played around with the text more to make it more dimensional.

CREDITS
Thanks to my boyfriend who helped me with the Spanish parts of the video. The song used is Miss You from Trentmoller.

Miss You [LQ] from Claudine Lamothe on Vimeo.

This is a video of my progress so far with the assignment.

Following the given theme of language, I decided to create a motion typography work that demonstrate distance with words and language. The idea for this project came to me this summer, while my boyfriend was in Mexico. We would exchange emails and talk on the phone frequently, but even with all our effort to make the separation less painful, progressively the gap between the two of us became wider and wider. Looking again at the letters exchanged during that period of time made me realize how words like “I love you” and “I miss you” became so repeated that they seem to convey desperation, anger or sorrow, instead of sweetness and longing. Even more surprising was the fact that progressively, me and my boyfriend would write more in the language native of where we were: making the physical/geographical separation even more apparent. The first messages were all in English (the language we speak when together) and slowly it shifted to full sentences in French or Spanish. My boyfriend doesn’t understand French very well, and I understand little to nothing of Spanish. So instead of being addressed to the other, every message seemed to be addressed to ourselves.

For this project, I am using sentences and words taken from these emails exchange last summer. The video, that will be used as a background for the typography, was made with series of lights inside a darkroom, a camera flash, and with a video camera on a rolling skateboard. I used different “filters” over lamps that I hand-made with cardboard and aluminum foil.

I edited with Final Cut Pro. The only computer generated effect used, aside from one or two transitions, was desaturating the footage.