ARTWORK( Interactive art) Gratitude (Projection, Interactive)

Gratitude

Net art

Digital display, online webserver, responsive interface, javascript/php

Consumerist society thrives on our dissatisfaction. Shifting us away from values of community, spirituality and integrity, and toward competition, materialism and disconnection.

But a sense of gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation each day, positively molds and shapes our entire life. Helping us be content, shifting our focus to appreciating what we have. Wether its friends, family, the objects we have, our financial circumstance, lifestyle or most importantly that we are alive today.

To interact with this artwork, visit www.artworkprocess.net/thankful/index.php

To view the artwork visit www.artworkprocess.net/thankful/galleryInterface.php

Tristan Griffin 2015

(note: the above web address will be using a different database file for the June 7^th installation )

For project 2 the outline was to produce a Net Artwork, this could be anything that uses the internet as the artistic medium.

My arts practice focuses on the relationship of religion, contemporary society and the human condition. With this in mind my intention with the Net artwork is to provide a medium for viewers to express and contemplate the transcendental effect of a sense of gratitude on an individual in contemporary society.

To realise the Net artwork I used my web host server (www.thankfulday.com) to host the database that the user input would be stored.The net artwork consists of two major portions the user interface (responsive design layout) and the gallery interface. This project has been designed to run within the Crome web browser with support for Opera for the gallery Interface and the user interface has been designed to run on most devices ie laptop, desktop, tablet and mobile (some incompatabilities may exist due to the nature of technological advancement). The gallery interface is intended to be viewed projected ( at 4m+ x 2m+) fullscreen ( by pressing F11 on the crome browser, PC version). The device running the Net art gallery interface should be a laptop that has video output capabilities. The output is run through the projector onto a large blank wall as seen in figure 1.

Figure 1

Display of work: The Net artwork is intended to be site specific, to be installed at c3 kingscliff on 7^th June 2015, and additionally suitable for an art gallery or dedicated space. For assessment purposes the gallery interface ( www.thankfulday.org/galleryInterface.php zoom out to the desired text size) should be viewed side by side with the user input. The ideal installation is to project the gallery interface in a darkened space, with comfortable seating facing the artwork and projecting at a size of 7m x 2.5m with surround sound audio.

To interact with the artwork: users go to www.thankfulday.org this will bring the to a webpage that prompts the user for input with the phrase “I am thankful for”. Once data has been input into the field located in the center of the screen, press “submit”. The data is then sent to the web server, where that data is accessed by the gallery interface and the visual text is updated.

How are you doing it ?

This Net-Artwork is intended to be a gallery installation.

Technical execution:

Two components:

1. Gallery Installation, either projected or on screen which displays the data collected by a

website in a graphical way.

2. An input webpage where viewers are able to input the data ie www.thankfulday.org

Both webpages will be written in a .php file using html/java/css and stored online/server.

visuals:

1. Gallery Installation: the image of a sunrising over the ocean made out of text, the text being

the data input from the input website. The image of a sunrising is animated, as users input

data, that data is added to the text on screen and the next frame of the is loaded. The idea is

to have the sunrise from just peaking over the horrizon to fully risen. NB. Audio of the

gentle waves is playing.The Gallery Installation resets the data once a day, to support the

concept of the importance of gratitude each day. When text is added it will initially appear in

"glowing bold italic" font, then fade to regular font, the size of the font will depend on the

keywords used, ie family, friends, coffee etc. Also note that while the sunrising animation is

updated by the data input the water is always animated.

2. Input webpage: the interface will have "I am thankful for" text and an input field, with a

blurred text background.

Assets :

video/timelaps: of sunrise and ocean

audio: gentle waves on beach

technical: 2 webpages, gallery installation(.php) and input webpage( .php)

Rationale and research

Gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation is a feeling or attitude in acknowledgment of a

benefit that one has received or will receive. The experience of gratitude has historically been a

focus of several world religions, and has been considered extensively by moral philosophers such as

Lee Clement over the past 2000 years.

Being thankful each day helps you be content and appreciate what you have. Wether its

friends/family the objects you have, your financial circumstance and lifestyle and most importantly

that you are alive.

Aesthetics: Why a sunrise ?

This choice of aesthetic is making references to academic art , the sublime and romantic landscape

paintings, the sunrise also aludes to the ephemeral quality of the digital medium itself. This imagery

and sound also creates the atmosphere for a contemplative space.

The use of digital input: making reference to social media in that the viewers experience is

interaction with the artwork as well as voyeristic in that they are seeing a potentially intimate part of

a total stranger and that it is all recorded ephemerally.

Importants of Gratitude ? Gratitude has been said to mold and shape the entire Christian life.Martin

Luther referred to gratitude as "The basic Christian attitude" and today it is still referred to as "the

heart of the gospel."

In 2005 I had a neurological illness which resulted in multiple organ failure and nerve damage in

my legs ( i couldnt walk properly ) and hands. Being told that your life is shortened considerably

shifted my perspective on what is important considerable and each sunrise was given greater

importance. The sun will rise with or without me. Since then I have lost almost 50kg in weight,

remarried and have 3 wonderful children, and have become apart of a supportive community in

kingscliff. But most importantly I am here to share my time.

The benefits of being grateful:

1.It helps you to be in the present by noticing what you do have and stopping to acknowledge it.

This can be the company of a person, having food, or even being able to see.

2.Being grateful has the power to change your mood almost instantly from negative to positive.

Good feelings and positive energy arise when you start acknowledging what you are grateful for.

3.It generates good vibrations. Quantum physics applied to positive thinking state that the vibrations

of your thoughts affect and modify the reality around you.

It is said that the first seventeen seconds of any thought are the most powerful, and they create

enough energy to start attracting what you are thinking of into your life.

Studies have shown that people who regularly practice feeling thankful have a leg up when it comes

to their health. Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of California at Davis, has

been a leading researcher in this growing field, termed “positive psychology.” His research has

found that those who adopt an “attitude of gratitude” as a permanent state of mind experience many

health benefits. ( healthline.com )

(I try to keep in mind that my role as an artist is to propose questions to the view not answers)

The concepts of transcendental gratitude relate to the concepts applied to colorfield painting in that the artists were trying to explore a state of being. For example Rothko was exploring "tragedy, ecstasy and doom." which are "basic human emotions," (Mark Rothko). To further reference colorfield painting this artworks scale is important, with the heroic scale of colorfield paintings ( as in Barnett Newmans painting , Vir Heroicis Sublimis) and the intention for viewing it upclose ( less than 2m away ). The repetition of the animation and monotonous audio are intended to enhance the comtemplative explerience and make reference to the sublime.

Production of the art assets

Art asset list

user interface background image

ocean/ sunrise animated .gif

sound of waves and tongues

Creation of the User Interface background image:

The text behind the user interface was hand written (illustration 1), then photographed using a Digital SLR camera. Using the cameras maximum zoom the photo was taken so that the focus point is on the text “thankful” putting the rest of the text in each line out of focus (illustration 2). Underlying conceptual reasoning is the focus on being thankful, while still important the content of what you are thankful for is secondary as it is very individual and perceived differently.

Illustration 1

Illustration 2

When viewed as part of the interface the image is responsive which can be seen below in the mobile interface (illustration 3) and the desktop interface (illustration 4)

Illustration 3

Illustration 4

Gallery interface : text and images

The gallery interface consists of two parts; the animated background image and the text.

Animated background image(sunrise):

The first stage was to capture a sunrise, in this case the 'sunrise' was made using a Digital SLR camera at the Kingscliff rock wall. Rational: The rock wall is a significant place for me as I often go there for prayer/meditation and to watch the sunrise. The 'sunrise' was then uploaded to a computer, a short loop was cut with Adobe premier then imported into Adobe Image Ready for editing with a wave loop( Due to issues using adobe cs2 I ended up having to create the looping gif with http://gifmaker.me/ )

Text:

As part of the development of the text portion of this artwork I ended up creating a page where people can upload an image and convert it to text. I called it textify. Essentially it is creating a transparency IN the text and setting the internal background of the text to be a background-image.

To see the development example www.artworkprocess.net/textify/index.php

Default of text in the gallery interface:

Thank you God for giving me another day, another chance to become a better individual, another chance to give and experience love. Thank you God for giving me health, for the food you provide, for the awareness you have awaken in me...Thank you for the energy that feeds my soul, the sun that warms our bodies and the air that fills our lungs... Because of you I believe in the good without the bad and the ugly, because of you I am learning to love and accept myself, because of you I believe in believing. My source, stay connected to me today and always, for I need you in order to fullfil my spiritual tasks...God, show me how to love myself, to be able to love others. Help me become the type of person that I would like to befriend, help me forgive myself and forgive others... God, make me a channel of your energy and help me understand. I thank you God for giving me another day, another unused opportunity to do it right. Keep us all close to you and listen to our prayers. Amen.

Screen shot of Gallery Interface

Creation of Sound files:

There are two sound files used in the game. One is the sound of waves rolling in the other is very softly spoken “tongues”.

'Glossolalia, often understood among Protestant Christians as speaking in tongues, is the fluid vocalizing of speech-like syllables that lack any readily comprehended meaning, in some cases as part of religious practice. Some consider it as a part of a sacred language. It is a common practice amongst Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. ' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia )

The ticking clock is to represent the Ecclesiastical concerns with life, that no matter how hard you try you cannot escape time and that it is all pointless. You just need to look around and you see people running out of time, rushing around, often at the cost of others safety ( traffic in the tweed region is a classic example ). To get this sound I took the back off one of my desk clocks and held my phones microphone next to the gearing. I also used my phone for the Tongues recording.

The recording of the waves and tongues was made on an Andriod phone. The looping waves sound is to create depth of the sublime experience. There was a lot of background static in the audio recordings which I tried to minimise using Audacity software through the noise canceling filter. The android phone the file format is .3GPP which needs to be converted for use on the windows platform. The website http://media.io provided a free online service for converting the file into .mp3 and .OGG which can then be imported into Audacity.

Changes made to the audio files:

• Waves sound is faded in and out to create a 1 minute loop
• Waves speed decreased by 40% and tone decreased by 30%
• Waves recorded in Left and Right channels
• Prayer voice is recorded in Left and Right channels
• both prayer voice and waves loop have had noise canceling audio filter run on them
• both prayer voice and waves, Left and Right are saved in .mp3 and .OOG file type for browser compatibility.

The code

The code for the user interface and gallery interface has been written in php, javascript, jquery, ajax, PDO, sqlite and html. Initially I was using ajax to read a database file directly from the server without a handler BUT my ISP decided that this was a security issue and blocked access on 31^st may. I am now accessing the database using PDO (php data object) language calls which are secure. Another issue with the original method was that it would occasionally time out and stop sending/recieving data. Developing an application which is server side takes a lot longer than developing offline as you have to constantly update via applications such as filezilla OR use the build in 'code editor' of the ISP.

Illustration 5: Issue with old method of updating the text from the server

How the code works

Below is the 'File structure' of the entire artwork.

screen shot of Cpanel ( thankfulday.org )

Flow of data

index.php- user accesses → index.php

index.php sets screen type for input ( responsive layout )

they are asked for input

input is sent to → data_get.php

data_get.php - data_get.php alters the input and sends it to → data.db for storage

data_get.php then loads an interface thanking user for input → END

meanwhile galleryInterface.php has been running a loop which is checking data.db

galleryInterface.php - javascript loop calls ajax updater

ajax updater calls → update.php

update.php - PDO calls sqlite database → data.db

returns the data from data.db to → galleryInterface.php as a $string

galleryInterface.php – string is added to the default string and compared to the previous string

if the string is different then the difference of the two stings is sent to 'newText' string

random numbers are then generated which are used to position the 'newText' string and

jquery. The new string from data.db is then added to the body of text for the galleryInterface image and it is refreshed using an ajax call.

Gallery Interface ONLOADING

galleryInterface.php php header sets access control for database

javascript loop is started (setTimeout(function(){loopLoader()},2000);)

- javascript loop calls ajax updater

ajax updater calls → update.php

update.php - PDO calls sqlite database → data.db

returns the data from data.db to → galleryInterface.php as a $string

galleryInterface.php – string is added to the default string and compared to the previous string

if the string is different then the difference of the two stings is sent to 'newText' string

random numbers are then generated which are used to position the 'newText' string and

jquery. The new string from data.db is then added to the body of text for the galleryInterface image and it is refreshed using an ajax call.

<body> - onload starts playing the audio loops after the head

css style sheet is loaded in-document

Problems, considerations and changes made

considerations: I considered adding human forms to the sunrise/text to further alude to 'a sense of gratitude creating the “sunrise” within ourselves' , I chose not to pursue this as it moved too far away from the colorfield and sublime experiement I was exploring in this net artwork.

problems/changes made: on the 31^st may my ISP decided to block the access type I was using for updating the Net Artworks interface, this required a complete rewrite of the code, both structural flow and language which was very stressful due to other assessments being due this week. The change was from straight javascript to php file writing to intergrating the sqlite database which I developed for the c3 kingscliff church website. Which requires the use of ajax, pdo, sqlite, javascript and jquery.

One significant change that I made was in the storing of the input data. Originally I had intended for the data to be reset each new day, which this is appropriate for a gallery installation or publicly accessable installation, for a site specific installtion ( as this version has been designed for display at C3 kingscliff on the 7^th june ) I chose to not delete the data, but instead retain it as an archived event. For the purpose of a gallery installation a javascript call ( ie 'var day = new Date().getDate(); if( day > oldday) { <php? Cleardata() ?> }') would be made to the server and compared to the stored data on the database (ie to compensate for the galleryInterface.php not being accessed overnight) to see if it is a new day, each new day the database would be reset.

Also my old version of adobe cs2 was unable to create a looping Gif, and to open/create a gif with this version meant passing the files between Image ready and photoshop then to an online editor.

Conclusion

As I normally use the human figure in my works creating a work which is essentially a landscape 'painting' and primarily text was definitely out of my comfort zone. The purpose of this net artwork was to explore the use of the internet to create a 'gallery installation' artwork that was a 2D projection (as most galleries support this type of artwork ) that plays with scale , interactivity and spaciality. The focus being on an interactive element so that it supported the concept I was exploring.

Areas of research to consider for the future:

how do you sell a digital artwork ? Do you sell the rights, if its an online based artwork? sell the entire installation?

how do you sign a digital artwork ? How do you confirm its authenticity ?

I guess really these questions were answered by Walter Bengamin when he wrote about the loss of the aura of authenticity in photography but I would like to see if that is relevant for the digital era, especially as the fine arts, from my observation, still clings to that concept of the aura.

As a result of interactive media and new media classes I feel that my programming knowledge and traditional fine art techniques are competent enough to be able to focus primarily on conceptual development. My intention over the july holiday break of 2015 is to brainstorm/draw/experiment with the potential of new media art within my own arts practice and how that intergrates into current fine arts fields. Ie printmaking, painting, drawing, sculpture and traditional digital ( internet based ). As before mentioned in project 1 I will focus on conceptuality with materiality, form, process and technique being secondary and justified. Experiments/research will include performative, sculptural, ephemeral, interactive, globally accessible, self running, adaptive, voyeuristic, experiential/emersive artworks.