CuriousWorks spends a lot of time in high-schools doing workshops that are an eclectic mix of art, theatre and multimedia exercises. These workshops are constantly evolving and changing and many are influenced by websites and artists who inspire us. We thought we’d share some of the websites that are the shoulders we stand on and inspire our work. If there’s any great sites we’ve forgotten you can add them in the comments.

1. Make Zine Blog

Make Zine is a great website that has loads of DIY projects that are perfect for a high-school Design and Technology class. http://blog.makezine.com

2. Craft Zine Blog

Craft Zine is the Home Economics sibling to Make Zine. Instead of screwdrivers and soldering irons it’s projects that use hot-glue, sewing machines and felt. http://blog.craftzine.com

3. Instructables

A brilliant website for science classes, design and tech, just about any subject at school really. Instructables has DIY projects for literally any machine/invention/concoction you can think of. A great resource for high-school students to be engaged with and contribute to. http://www.instructables.com

4. Howtoons

Howtoons is a brilliant idea, a science and technology site made using comics. This website is aimed at upper primary and early secondary kids and does a great job of making science exciting and accessible. Their blog is updated regularly and finds science news that kids will actually be interested in. http://www.howtoons.com

5. Learning to Love You More

This is a website created by the artist Miranda July and it lists a number of art assignments for visitors to complete. You can then upload your assignments to share with everyone else on the site. I can’t think of another website/art project that better defines “community”. I think this would be great for Year 10 art class. http://learningtoloveyoumore.com

6. TED

Remember those boring science documentaries you had to watch at school? The TED conference takes a Large Hadron Collider and smashers boring science into obcsure sub-atomic particles. There are videos that cover a whole number of different subject categories across science and the humanities. Kids in high-school should be watching at least one of these videos each week. http://www.ted.com

7. Deviant Art

Despite the suspect name that will probably put a lot of teachers off, Deviant Art is a fantastic online community for high-school students to upload and share their own personal artworks with. As oppossed to Myspace and Bebo, Deviant Art is all about being creative and productive and sharing your work with your peers. Highly recommended. http://www.deviantart.com

8. NSW State Library Online Collection

The State Library has an online archive of some very old and fascinating documents. You can explore the journals and notes of Sir Joseph Banks, Matthew Flinders and Miles Franklin. Probably one for the older kids but really interesting when you start digging. http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about/collections/online.html

9. Fun Brain

Fun Brain is not your typical online video game website. All the games have some kind of educational bent and there is also a comics section as well. This site more suited to younger students, but I’ve spent many a time there myself. http://www.funbrain.com

10. Google Maps

Google Maps has a great new feature called “My Maps” which allows users to add and upload their own content to a map and share it with friends or the public. This is a great tool for field trips and school excursions. You could create an interactive worksheet by having a map that students use to upload their answers. http://maps.google.com

And two great how-tos from our very own Peter Cossey!

Overview

Kinect is a research and development lab for open source technologies to be used in community and contemporary arts.

Our first lab was held in April 2008 as in-residence artists at the Casula Powerhouse in Western Sydney. CuriousWorks’ Online Director, Peter Cossey, led the lab, with elements of the team each working on different projects. Also in attendance were Shakthidharan, Elias Nohra, Aimee Falzon, Hugo Bowne-Anderson and Mark Havryliv.

Some of the results of our research included the creation of: a touch screen interface that triggers images, sounds and movies in real-time; simple circuits that can be embedded into everyday clothing items and can trigger audio or visuals on the basis of your movement; a DIY portable speaker system for $30 – allowing people to turn their backpack or mailbox, for example, into a speaker; a soft drink bottle that can graffiti in light; and a Texta that can mix and post-produce audio and visuals with gestural movements (for example – you move your hand up, and the music you are playing gets louder; you move it down, and the music gets quieter).

Each day, the artists involved in the lab recorded an informal video diary, discussing the day’s activities. Here’s a sample (they are extremely informal):

Find more videos like this on All Around You

Find more videos like this on All Around You

View more of the video diary on All Around You.

All of these technologies will be shared in CuriousWorks’ All Around You labs and utilised in our own artistic projects. They will also be made available to the open-source community.

Since the first Kinect lab in April 2008, IR spray cans have been built and used by young people in Miller and Roebourne through the All Around You program; as well as being used by the general public at Underbelly Festival at CarriageWorks in Sydney and at Federation Square during the Melbourne Fringe Festival. The next Kinect lab will be held in 2010 at the CuriousWorks HQ in Surry Hills, Sydney. In 2008, Kinect is being funded and supported by many different organisations, including Australia Council for the Arts, Vodafone Foundation Australia, Arts NSW and Myer Foundation. Our key partner was Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.

Timeline

• March 2008 – Scoping Workshop, UNSW
• April 2008 – Lab: Casula Powerhouse, Western Sydney
• May 1 2008 – Showing: Casula Powerhouse
• May – Dec 2008: Liverpool All Around You Lab, Western
  Sydney
• July 13 & 14 2008 – Underbelly Arts Festival, Sydney
• July & August 2008 – Roebourne All Around You Lab,
  Western Australia
• September & October 2008 – Melbourne Fringe Festival,
  Federation Square, Melbourne

Project Outlines

IR Spray Can

The IR Spray Can is a visual arts project which seeks to re-imagine graffitti and aerosol art. This project uses recycled PET soft-drink containers to hold an Infra-Red LED circuit which acts as a virtual spray can. Combined with a custom computer drawing application and open-source Wii Remote software the IR Spray Can takes graffitti into a virtual space. Software controls the shape and consistency of the spray and light is transformed into virtual paint which is projected onto any surface via a data-projector. This project uses recycled materials and simple electronics to create the virtual spray can tool. The virtual spray can is cheap and simple to make.

Node Trigger

The Node Trigger is a live, multimedia triggering system designed to be interfaced with single click, handheld infra-red devices (rather than a keyboard and/or mouse). The interface operates through two screens: a trigger pad, made up of a variable number of small circles, or nodes; and an output window, on which all trigger multimedia appears or is heard through. The user can determine how many nodes are on the trigger pad and what relationship they have to each other. Each node can be assigned to a video or image file, as well as an audio file. The output screen is made up of 4 rows of 4 screens, so up to 16 nodes can be set to trigger 16 different pieces of multimedia at any one time. The Node Trigger has a special triggering system: when one node is activated, it sets off reverberations which, when they touch another node, activate that node’s as well. In this way, the user can design, live, an infinite number of node relationships that
organically trigger each other over time, and have this relationship mirrored in the way a set of 16 multimedia pieces are triggered and re-triggered. The entire system operates on single mouse clicks, so that an IR pointer device, such as a Texta case with a simple IR circuit inside and momentary switch on the side, could be used to play with the device without the need for a computer or keyboard. Effectively, with a generator, the Node Trigger could be projected onto any appropriate surface of the environment and interacted with through a small hand-held device, as if the node trigger pad was a touch screen surface.

Backpack DDR

Backpack DDR is a mobile triggering costume that translates a performer’s relationship with the ground into electronic messages on a computer. These messages can then be used to manipulate sound and computer based visualisations. At its most basic level the Backpack DDR system can trigger sounds when contact is made between the performer’s foot and the stage. This relationship can be made more dynamic by using software to analyse variables like the rhythm of the performers steps or the force of the foot hitting the stage. This opens the door for more than a simple triggering system, you could use the Backpack DDR to create a realtime simulated entity of the live performer which interacts with electronic and audio-visual elements of the performance.

Fly on the Wall

Fly on the Wall attempts to create computer interfaces from unexpected objects like soft-toys. The idea is to explore the possibilities of control systems which are not based around keyboards and mouses. This prototype uses a small hand-sewn plush-toy to control a video browser.

Sticky Speakers

Sticky Speakers are an experiment with localised, portable sound. A ’sound pad’ or simple speaker driver is matched up with an everyday, small battery-powered amplifier from Dick Smith. Plug this into an iPod or similar portable sound device and you have a very flexible, portable, localised sound solution. Distinct from PA systems which spread sound throughout any given space, sticky speakers could be put inside a backpack to provide sound as the wearer moves from place to place; inside an esky or handbag to increase in volume as the item is open; embedded into sculptures or paintings for cross-artform visual arts; or simply inside personalised cardboard boxes to create your own cheap speaker system. Whether in a performance or installation context (or both), this is a highly affordable solution for providing many points of localised sound on stage that are different to each other in space and time. The system is modular and may be complemented with other devices, such as Backpack DDR or IR Spray Can, to create a particular audiovisual or performance solution.

Lab

CuriousWorks was one of the first in-residence artists at the new Casula Powerhouse in Western Sydney. We spent 21 days living in an annex to the arts centre during April 2008, over which we developed a number of portable, accessible, affordable, open source technologies to be used in contemporary performance and community arts. We also documented each day in video and stills. The videos were two-minute interviews taken at the beginning and end of every day, many of which you can see on the map above.

We have a visual diary of the lab – here is Day 1, told in pictures:

Explore other days of the Kinect Lab through our Flickr photostream.

Showings and Exhibitions

Casula Powerhouse, April 2008
Underbelly Festival, July 2008

The residency at Casula ended with a formal, relaxed showing inside the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre to a group of interested multi-artform artists, arts workers, teachers, students and arts lovers, from both Eastern and Western Sydney. The presentation was repeated in a symposium context at CarriageWorks for the 2008 Underbelly Festival. This larger audience was mostly an independent arts practioners and arts lovers audience from inner-city and Eastern Sydney cirles. During the Underbelly lab, two new works were made. Hugo Bowne-Anderson developed techniques for particular sound frequencies to trigger visuals in particular ways; through voice alone one could move the position of a red square on a black matte; pass backwards or forwards through frames in a video; actually trigger a multimedia piece (say, when the voice hits a certain high pitch). The microphone receiving the audio signals was embedded in a toy duck, so visuals were affected by interacting, through sound, through a handheld soft toy – again, avoiding interfacing through a computer, keyboard and mouse. Aimee Falzon and Shakthidharan developed a cell-based animation made up of 16 squares called ‘Undergrwoth’. The work was made to be triggered and played with through the Node Trigger system. This technique was used again to develop the ‘Overflow’ work, commissioned by Federation Square for Melbourne Fringe Festival.

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Find more videos like this on All Around You

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Find more videos like this on All Around You

Liverpool All Around You Lab, May-December 2008
Roebourne All Around You Lab, July 2008
Melbourne Fringe Festival, October 2008

Students at Miller Technology High School in Western Sydney built personalised IR spray cans and Sticky Speaker Systems. The technologies were developed in this process beyond the Casula Lab stage. The IR spray cans were developed to trigger a range of visuals, including images drawn by the students in workshops. They were also developed to trigger sounds created by the students that accompanied the spraying of the visuals. The Sticky Speaker Systems consisted of small, personalised carboard boxes that had a portable sound player and amp inside them. Audience could pick these speakers up and carry them around, listening to audio landscapes developed by the students. Both projects were part of an
installation at the local PCYC in November 2008 and are slated to be part of a student exhibition at Casula Powerhouse in 2009.

Similarly, young people from Roebourne, Western Australia (West Pilbara region) built their own IR spray cans and Sticky Speaker Systems. Wiimotes and other production elements were left behind with teachers at Roebourne High School so that they could continue using the devices as they wished. At the end of our stay at Roebourne, a community gathering was held out the back of the local youth centre. These devices were used and showcased at the beginning of the night.

Finally, on the opening night of Melbourne Fringe Festival, passers-by at Federation Square were able to use an IR Spray Can we’d set up to spray their own digital designs in Melbourne’s city centre.

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Find more videos like this on All Around You

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This video is rather dry, but highly informative. It explains how to turn any surface of your environment into an interactive space.

In April this year we spent an intensely productive three weeks as in-residence artists at Casula Powerhouse. This was the setting for our first-ever Kinect lab. Kinect is a place for us to research and develop creative uses of everyday objects and technologies – and the following video explains how to do just that.

In particular it highlights the skills of our online director, Peter Cossey – who made the IR Texta and IR Can Spray that feature in the video.

If you’re keen to have a go at this, don’t hesitate to ask any questions on this post or even put up videos of your own IR Pen or Spray Can art!

Shout out to Johnny Lee for coming up with the brilliant wiimote whiteboard software.

Watch the video in full HD glory on Vimeo.