Artist Impression - Video

Poster

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Statement

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Artist Statement

Eavesdropper is an interactive sound installation that has been adapted from human habits of spying and eavesdropping. Eavesdropping is the act of secretly listening to the private conversation of others without their consent, it is some people habit; they always wonder what is happening behind the walls or what are peoples talking about. All those conspiracies and plans behind their back, the arguing, the discussion, what channel they watching and et cetera. They always wanted know all of them.

Eavesdropper is an installation project consisting of a series of speakers setup behind a closed wall, a motion detection program with webcams and a drinking glass to interacting with the installation. During the exhibition user will engage the installation by browsing an empty wall with a glass giving an impression of trying to eavesdrop from other side of the wall , users eventually will hear recorded audio of anonymous peoples and places that have been recorded by eavesdropping method when hit certain hotspots.

This installation project intended to explore physical motion and non computer device as a way of interacting with sound. This project is also designed for the users to enjoy an exemplary experience as an eavesdropper by making the glass as extension of the sound world, not confined in a speaker or other sound hearing devices.

Technical Statement

Eavesdropper is a sound installation project consisting of a series of speakers setup behind a closed wall, A motion detection program Zone Trigger with webcams to capture user’s motion when they engage with the installation. Once webcam detected the motion it will automatically press a certain key on the keyboards. A coded flash program using ActionScripts 3.0 are running with ZoneTriger simultaneously. This flash program will respond to the keys. And it will help to play the sound, manage the playlist and controlling sound interval for the installation.

For this installation, I have used Zoom H2 Handy Recorder for recording and collecting sounds, by using eavesdropping and staging method. I also used Adobe Soundbooth for clean up, polishing and noise filtering for some recorded sounds.

Equipment , Budget and Software List

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This is my budget , equipment and software list for the project ,i made some minor changes on it , still pretty much the same like fyp 1 budget planning  .

Budget List
Quantity	Description	Unit Price	Total
3	Webcam	50	150
4	Plywood	50	200
1	Paint		25
1	Splitter Cabel		25
2	Speaker	70	140
1	Printing		30
1	Travel		70
1	Zoom H2 Rental		100
2	Glass	5	10
1	Etc		150
		Total :	900
Equipment List
Quantity	Items
1	PC / Laptop
2	Speaker
1	Keyboard
2	Power Extension
	Software List
	Adobe Soundbooth
	Adobe Photoshop
	Adobe After Effect
	Webcam Zone Trigger
	Audacity
	Adobe Flash
	Google Sketch Up

Action Script

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I  constructed short script with action scripts 3  for mp/wav player for my project . This will flash will be running on top of Webcam Zone Trigger , this flash will randomly pick an audio to play .. motion >zone trigger > keyboard > flash > sound
 

example :

//array
var my_sounds:Array = [Sound1, Sound2, Sound3]; 

//random number
var my_num:Number= Math.floor(Math.random()*3);

//And use it to pick a sound and instance that: 
var ChosenSound = my_sounds[my_num]();
var playing:Sound = new ChosenSound();


//play and stop function using keyboard , this keyboard button will response with motion detection by webcam zone trigger .

stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN,keyBoardPress);

function keyBoardPress(event:KeyboardEvent) {
    //Space bar press
    if (event.charCode == 32) {
        playing.play();
    }
   
    //Shift key press
    if (event.charCode == 16) {
    playing.stop(); 
    }

}

Software Test

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Zone Trigger


As planned , my project involve motion detection .. so i decided to do the detection on Zone Trigger . Webcam Zone Trigger is the multi-purpose motion detection software , The software simply alerts you when motion is detected within the camera`s view.

software screenshot

I Installed the software and the webcam in order to test the detection and to see hows it work ,trying to figure out if this software suit to be  use in my project.

testing webcam

I can bind any action the a Hot Spot, making this software a very versatile tool. Zone Trigger lets users decide what will happen when motion is detected in an unlimited number of "Hot Spots" located anywhere within the camera's range.

software experiment

This is simple and good software for motion detection . The only downside its only play WAV file , the delay option between interval of something mostly 30 second ,  and both sound source playing when 2 hot spot detect together .

software screenshot

I decided to go with the software, I planned instead of using the option "play the sound" this software will call "keyboard keys" when it running . A simple flash will running on top of this software respond to the keys ( A, B ,C , D ) , this flash will help switching random sound , sound interval , 2 sound wont play together , and start and stop scripting . This will help with the downside of the software .

Halfalogue ?

I stumble upon a good article in internet about eavesdropping it give me some insight for my content for my installation  ..



Wrote By Jonah Lehrer
Published on September 10, 2010  

A fascinating new paper in Psychological Science explores an apparent paradox of eavesdropping: It’s harder to not listen to a conversation when someone is talking on the phone (we only hear one side of the dialogue) than when two physically present people are talking to each other. Although the phone conversation contains much less information, we’re much more curious about what’s being said. Let’s call this “The Annoying Guy On The Train Effect.” He is the last man on earth we want to listen to, and yet he is impossible to ignore.
What explains “The Annoying Guy Effect”? The answer returns us to the nature of information processing, and the perverse way in which the brain allocates our attention. As I noted in this post on curiosity, we are especially drawn to gaps in information. (This is known as the “information gap” theory of curiosity, and was first described by George Loewenstein in the early 90s.) In this new study, the Cornell psychologists build on the “information gap” model. They demonstrated, for instance, that subjects listening to only one side of a conversation – what they call a “halfalogue” – showed decreased performance on a range of cognitive tasks that require undivided attention. In a second experiment, the researchers confirmed that it’s the “unpredictable nature” of the halfalogue that makes it so compelling. Because we don’t know what the conversation is about, or where it’s headed, we can’t help but eavesdrop. Our attention is sucked in by the uncertainty of the words.
This effect doesn’t just apply to obnoxious cell phone conversations. In Proust Was A Neuroscientist, I discuss how the same concept can also explain the allure of music:

Before a musical pattern can be desired by the brain, it must play hard to get. Music only excites us when it makes our auditory cortex struggle to uncover its order. If the music is too obvious, if its patterns are always present, it is annoyingly boring. (Just think of an alarm clock, which is a perfectly predictable pitch playing in perfect time. Not so nice.) This is why composers introduce the tonic note in the beginning of the song and then studiously avoid it until the end. The longer we are denied the pattern we expect, the greater the emotional release when the pattern returns, safe and sound.  Our auditory cortex rejoices. It has found the order it has been looking for.
To demonstrate this psychological principle, the musicologist Leonard Meyer, in his classic book Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956), analyzed the 5^th movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131.  Meyer wanted to show how music is defined by its flirtation with—but not submission to—our expectations of order. He dissected fifty measures of Beethoven’s masterpiece, showing how Beethoven begins with the clear statement of a rhythmic and harmonic pattern and then, in an intricate tonal dance, carefully avoids repeating it.  What Beethoven does instead is suggest variations of the pattern.  He is its evasive shadow. If E major is the tonic, Beethoven will play incomplete versions of the E major chord, always careful to avoid its straight expression. He wants to preserve an element of uncertainty in his music, making our brains beg for the one chord he refuses to give us. Beethoven saves that chord for the end.
According to Meyer, it is the suspenseful tension of music (arising out of our unfulfilled expectations) that is the source of the music’s feeling. While earlier theories of music focused on the way a noise can refer to the real world of images and experiences (its “connotative” meaning), Meyer argued that the emotions we find in music come from the unfolding events of the music itself.  This “embodied meaning” arises from the patterns the symphony invokes and then ignores, from the ambiguity it creates inside its own form. “For the human mind,” Meyer writes, “such states of doubt and confusion are abhorrent. When confronted with them, the mind attempts to resolve them into clarity and certainty.” And so we wait, expectantly, for the resolution of E major, for Beethoven’s established pattern to be completed. This nervous anticipation, says Meyer, “is the whole raison d’etre of the passage, for its purpose is precisely to delay the cadence in the tonic.” The uncertainty makes the feeling. Music is a form whose meaning depends upon its violation.

In other words, listening to Beethoven is the artistic form of the halfalogue – it is a sensory stimulus that draws us in precisely because of what it doesn’t tell us. The information is incomplete – we don’t know when, exactly, the tonic will return – and so we eagerly await its completion. Meyer would later apply this principle to all narratives. He pointed out, for instance, that the moment of most suspense in a movie is also the moment of peak unpredictability. We are riveted because we have no idea what will happen next.

Reference : http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/the-science-of-eavesdropping/

Audio Editing

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I now using  Adobe Soundbooth CS5 to edit my recorded track on this project , this software really can help noise filtering , clean up recordings, polish voice, customize music and sound effects, and do much more .

I think if you are already familiar with Adobe's other products, you will find it easy to navigate through all the menus and module windows because the movable panels have a similar behavior than those of the other Adobe products.

volume matching, non-destructive editing, and MP3 compression

With the ability to apply different modifications to the same track at the same time and put them side by side, i can compare which modifications work best on your audio track .

editing

Adobe Soundbooth allows users to export an audio track to a native ASND format, a format which can be easily integrated with other Adobe products like  Flash,  Premiere, and  After Effects..

editing software screenshot

Editing still in progress , some content are done . Still searching more ideal sound , speech or anything interesting that suit my project .

Digital Content

This is several recorded footage i been working on,its all raw and only been cut by open source software : Audacity 1.3 . I`ll get Adobe SoundBooth CS5 soon .


-  Recorded at bus stop beside of the road.




-  Recorded at playground near my house , a father with his son and daughter playing slider around .




- Recorded at Media Post Production class last semester , several student chatting while waiting for lecturer .




- My hungry cat.




-Recorded In Komuter to Sentul , 2 indian guy chatting.




- Recorded inside the kitchen .




- Water dripping into basin.




- KTM station .

Installation Diagram

Current installation diagram from top view . Click the image for larger view ..

Diagram

pre-impression diagram

Floor Plan

This is my current floor plan and space planning . Please click the image for larger view.

Top View

Front View

Side View

From Back

Gantt Chart

Click The Image For Larger View

Installation Flowchart

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Installation Flowchart

Finalize Proposal

Topic
Spying

Title
Eavesdropper


Background

Eavesdropping is the act of secretly listening to the private conversation of others without their consent, this is commonly thought to be unethical.
It has got many names or rather aspects: spying, eavesdropping, and so on...and it are considered negative most of the time. This feeling that you need to know everything that's going on or most things keeps making you carry out some weird actions sometimes.


“There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head”

-Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)



Problem Identification

Spying and eavesdropping is some people habit. They always wonder what is happening behind the walls, always wanted to hear the truth. All those conspiracies and plans behind their back, the arguing, the discussion, what channel they watching and etc. They always wanted know all of them and some
of us that doesn’t have that habits and never experience eavesdropping or spying will wonder what eavesdropper really hearing.


Aim and Objectives

• To explore physical motion and non computer device as a way of interacting with sound.

•  To making the glass as extension of the sound world, not confined in a speaker or other sound hearing device.
• To give user enjoy the exemplary experience as an eavesdropper

Ideation and Concept

Eavesdropper is a sound installation project consisting of a series of speaker setup behind a closed wall, a motion detection program with webcams and a drinking glass to interacting with the installation. During the exhibition user will engage the installation by browsing an empty wall with a glass giving an
impression of trying to eavesdrop from other side of the wall , users eventually will hear recorded audio of anonymous peoples and places that have been recorded by eavesdropping method when hit certain hotspots.



Review, Analysis and Precedent Studies

http://faizfyp.blogspot.com/2010/07/presedence-study.html
http://www.telart.org/text.htm
http://www.icinema.unsw.edu.au/projects/prj_eavesdrop.html

Click the images for larger view.