“Captured” is a temporary installation realised in May 2011 by Nils Völker and graphic designer Sven Völker at MADE Space in Berlin. The installation is comprised of four hanging walls with 304 framed graphic pages and a field of 252 inflatable silver cushions. Both artworks related to the theme of light and air and interact with each other in a twelve minute performance that also includes sound.

Sven Völkers graphic work were his so called “books on walls” and narrated the installations four chapters of the intangible, the volume, the border and the ephemeral. Nils Völkers custom made inflatable air bags were programed by the artist to create sequences according to the chapters. He also controlled the existing multi-colour light system to intensify the dramaturgy and to create a close relationship between all elements.

The setup consists of 252 modules, inflating cushions made from space blankets, that cover about 130 square meter on the floor. Inside each module there are eight cpu cooling fans inflating and deflating each bag in variable speeds. All together there are 2016 fans moving about 60 cubic meters of air. The whole set is controlled by a single Arduino board with shift registers attached to it to receive a total of 504 output pins. In this way every single bag could be controlled fully independently.

In a addition, the exhibition space includes a pre-installed lighting system. It consists of 255 large lamps of which each is equipped with both a fluorescent lamp and rgb-leds. During the performance it was controlled by a program Nils wrote in Processing which was able to access each lamp individually. The Processing program did also take care of the sound playback and the timing for the Arduino programs.

For more information see project pages:
nilsvoelker.com
svenvoelker.com
made-blog.com

Previously:
Variations on PI [Processing, Objects] – LED machine used to …
One Hundred and Eight [Processing] – interactive Installation made …

PSS Studie by Daniel Franke attempts to question how we perceive images. The project is interested in sensory experience and how our distorted perception somewhat alters / duplicates the world we see. The moving image in the form of a “simulation” is the initial point – digital data generated by an animated movie are transformed back to the real world illustrated by a pointer moving through space.

Eight nylon – cords link to a mutual point that can only hold the position in space because of their interdependent movement. A loop occurs – a movement is simulated in a digitally reconstructed physical space and the resulting information of the position is transformed back to the physical space. The Outcome is form of spatial image, a kinetic plane which expands in three dimensions. As a Consequence the perception is changing, the moving image cannot only be seen from one fixed viewing angle or rather one unique viewer position. The observer is autonomous, moving around the sculpture and is thus controlling his/her own point of view of the spatial film. Consequently restrictions of the medium are scrutinised similar to that what the expanded cinema movement questioned. With that in mind the work follows the idea of the work “Spatial Soundsculpture”, but in contrast to the older work the Screen has completely vanished. The Interface that lead to the digital medium in form of a window is only visible by the edges of the mapped coordinate system.

Components: D-2011. acryl glas cube, acryl glas spools, PC, Screen, Servo Motors, Microcontroller, Processing Application, 130 cm x 60 cm x 30 cm.

Project Page

Previously:
Augmented Perspective [C++] – Transparent concrete cube sculpture …
Not in Death [Scripts] – Custom AE scripts for ‘We are the World …

Introduction

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to sign and publish a Processing/Android sketch to the Android Market.
Note that the signing process should be automated and accessible from the PDE quite soon.
You can follow this specific issue here and get an alert when the bug is fixed.

> Pre-requisites (installation steps are covered here):
- Processing 1.5 installed
- Android SDK

> Pre-requisites for Windows users
- Java SE (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads)
- Ant (http://ant.apache.org/manual/install.html)

Step One- Create and export your sketch

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to first read Jer Thorp’s introduction to Mobile development using Processing for how to setup your environment and run your first sketch.

Another page worth visiting is the Processing for Android Wiki

That being said, you can use this sketch as a starting point and modify it to fit your needs.

[sourcecode language="java"]
float radius = 50.0;
float X, Y;
float nX, nY;
int delay = 16;

void setup() {
size(screenWidth, screenHeight);
orientation(PORTRAIT);
background(255);
X = screenWidth / 2;
Y = screenHeight /3;
nX = X;
nY = Y;
}

void draw() {
radius = radius + sin( frameCount / 4 );
X+=(nX-X)/delay;
Y+=(nY-Y)/delay;
stroke(0, 50);
noFill();
ellipse( X, Y, radius, radius );
}

public boolean surfaceTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
int numPointers = event.getPointerCount();
if (numPointers == 2) {
background(255);
}
else if (numPointers == 1) {
int pointerId = event.getPointerId(0);
nX = event.getX(0);
nY = event.getY(0);
}
return super.surfaceTouchEvent(event);
}

[/sourcecode]

Start Processing, switch to the Android mode, copy the sketch above and save it.

To export your sketck to an Android Project, from the PDE menu, choose File > Export Android Project
This will create a new Project folder named “android” at the root level of your sketch.

Step Two – Create a key to sign your app

You’ll need a private key to sign your app that you can interactively create using the following command where
“myAndroidKey” is the name you choose for your key and “myAndroidKeyAlias” the alias for this key.

[sourcecode language="bash"]
keytool -genkey -v -keystore myKey.keystore -alias myKeyAlias -keyalg RSA -validity 10000
[/sourcecode]

After answering a couple of questions, you should end up with a .keystore file.
Make sure you remember the key name and alias as well as the password you choose.
The password will be mandatory if you want to later be able to update your app once published.
This key might be used to sign other apps, so you can copy it somewhere and use it when needed without having to generate a new one each time.

Step Three – Configure your project for signing

Important: each time you export your sketch to an Android Project, if the project already exists, il will be renamed into “android-timestampsomething” and a new “android” project will replace it. This means that every modifications that you will do below will be lost, unless you copy the modified files to the new Android project or somehow automate this process.

First copy the .keystore file you generated at step two to the root level of your android folder.

To automate the signing and alignment of the app when building for release (you’ll just be asked for the keystore password), you have to modify the build.properties file and add the following lines (replace the values accordingly):

[sourcecode language="text"]
key.store=myKey.keystore
key.alias=myKeyAlias
[/sourcecode]

Save these changes.

Step Four – Modify the AndroidManifest.xml

Open the AndroidManifest.xml file and set the value of the android:debuggable attribute to false:

[sourcecode language="xml"]
<application android:label="AndroidSketch"
android:icon="@drawable/icon"
android:debuggable="false">
[/sourcecode]

If required, you can change your app’s version by modifying the manifest element attributes.
The values are set by default to the following:
android:versionName=”1.1″ android:versionCode=”1″
If you ever update your app, you’ll have to increment the versionName (1.2 or 2.0) and increment the versionCode (2).
Save these changes.

Step Five- Customize your app icon

Processing provides a default icon in 3 different sizes for your app
You can of course replace them with some others of your choice.
They are located in the following folders:

[sourcecode language="text"]
android/res/drawable/icon.png (48×48 pixels)
android/res/drawable-hdpi/icon.png (72×72 pixels)
android/res/drawable/icon.png (36×36 pixels)
[/sourcecode]

Step Six- Build and sign your app for release

Now, go to the “android” project root and run the following command:

[sourcecode language="bash"]
ant release
[/sourcecode]

Then, enter the password when asked for it.
Make sure you get this message in the end.

[sourcecode language="bash"]BUILD SUCCESSFUL[/sourcecode]

You now have a signed and aligned app in the android/bin folder (ie: myApp-release.apk), ready to be published to the Android Market

Step Seven – Upload your app to the Android Market

The most painful step (for your wallet) of this tutorial: if not already, you’ll have to sign up for an Android Developer account for $25.

Once completed, you can directly publish your app. You’ll need to provide screenshots, a high resolution application icon and some other information to be published along with your application.

You’re done.

I hope to hear from you very soon with some great Android apps that we can review here.

photo by David Cuartielles