The Tech Virtual Test Zone Art, Film, & Music Overview

The Tech Virtual Test Zone

Featuring Art, Film & Music

The Tech Virtual Test Zone is an exhibition space sharing the prototypes created in the virtual-to-real Virtual Museum Workshop process. In June, the Test Zone will launch with a focus on art, film, and music exhibits, but the same graphics and conceptual design could be applied in future exhibitions of virtual-to-real exhibits in progress.

Main Messages

The main messages of the Test Zone are:

  • The Test Zone showcases the world’s first hands-on interactive exhibits conceptualized and developed in the virtual world of Second Life® by an international community of content experts, designers, and educators.
  • The Test Zone exhibits are prototypes. Visitor feedback will be integrated into the final versions of these exhibits.
  • Tools from Silicon Valley (Second Life) enable a new level of virtual, creative collaboration in which exhibit development can happen all over the world.
  • The prototype exhibits in the Test Zone reflect The Tech’s commitment to engaging visitor experiences that illuminate core educational fundamentals.

In the context of the June exhibition, there are additional main messages related to art, film, and music:

  • There are experts in art, film, music, and technology all over the world. Through Second Life, we are able to bring these experts together to create exhibits that reflect their vision and talents.
  • Digital technology has transformed the way that artists produce, modify, and distribute art, music, and film.

Exhibit Criteria

Tech Virtual participants were instructed that all exhibits must be interactive, educational, and engaging for mixed audiences. In addition to these requirements, exhibits in The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop were evaluated on five specific criteria for inclusion in the Test Zone: Art, Film, & Music exhibition. These are:

  1. Feasible to build in real life with reasonable budget and schedule
  2. Product of the Web and Second Life design community process
  3. Connection to art, film, & music theme
  4. Connection to core educational concepts and California Curriculum Standards
  5. Connection to Spirit of Silicon Valley

The matrix used to evaluate the exhibits is attached as an appendix to this document.

Exhibits

There are seven exhibits in the exhibition and two visitor talkback stations. All of these exhibits were selected for their ability to fulfill the five exhibit criteria above. The following pages provide an overview of each exhibit.

Exhibit List

Wikisonic......

Musical Chairs......

MIDI......

Polar Projections......

Mashup Masterpiece......

Tilty Table......

Connecting Point......

Wikisonic (Wall of Musical Buttons)

Conceptualized by Jon Brouchoud, an architect and responsive environment designer in Madison, WI.

This exhibit demonstrates the fundamentals of harmonics and chord structure by allowing visitors to experiment with note intervals in familiar musical melodies.

Goals

  • Visitors will learn the basics of harmony and dissonance.
  • Visitors will learn how altering notes and note relationships impacts musical composition.
  • Visitors will work together to harmonize and reinvent familiar tunes.

Design

The Wikisonic is an instrument composed of 16 columns of notes (single octaves) made of large buttons on a 4x8 wall surface. Each column contains the 8 primary notes as buttons (no sharps or flats). Each button can be activated (illuminated) or deactivated with a press. Each column is a modular light box unit. The light boxes blink in succession to demonstrate to visitors which column is currently “in play.” When a column is in play, all illuminated buttons on that column play their sound together. The light box blinking is continuously looping, but sound is only activated when visitors are nearby (by motion sensor).

Interaction

Visitors can “load in” familiar melodies at a kiosk to the left of the exhibit. These melodies then illuminate the correct buttons in the columns corresponding to that melody. Visitors can then activate and deactivate any notes they choose to hear the harmonic additions and dissonance introduced, and can thus experiment with the relationships among notes.

Musical Chairs (Musical Seats)

Conceptualized by Leanne Garvie, philosophy phD student and artist in Toronto, Canada.

This exhibit demonstrates how individual instruments are coordinated to create complex musical compositions. It is a physical analog to the way that digital music is created using Garage Band and related Silicon Valley technologies.

Goals

  • Visitors will learn how separate audio tracks can be synchronized to create digital music compositions.
  • Visitors will enjoy creating music in an active, physical way.
  • Visitors will work collaboratively to create interesting musical compositions.
  • Visitors will learn about different styles of music and the kinds of instrumentation and composition used in each.

Design

Musical Chairs is a large curved bench comprising five seats (major instruments) and six armrests (minor instruments). The exhibit will be built into the Life Tech Theater with the bench oriented so that visitors face the flat wall, on which there will be a screen displaying the current musical genre and active instrumentation. At the entrance, there will be a music stand and conductor’s podium at which visitors can select a musical genre to load into the chairs. The genres are: classical, jazz, bluegrass, dance, and hip-hop.

Interaction

Visitors can “load in” one of five musical genres at the conductor’s station. When a genre is selected, a background track begins playing on the room speakers. When a visitor sits on an instrument seat, that “major instrument” is added into the active musical composition and is synchronized into the sound and the on-screen visual. When a visitor strikes an armrest, he or she activates a “minor instrument” that is added as a single sound effect to the music. Each genre loops so visitors can iterate on an individual genre, coordinating instruments in new ways, as long as they like.

Be a VJ

Conceptualized by Nick Chen, musician and teacher of digital music at Blue Bear Music School in San Francisco, CA.

This exhibit showcases a representative variety of MIDI controllers, each mapped to a unique and innovative set of audio and video outputs.

Goals

  • Visitors will learn how MIDI represents and transmits audio/video data.
  • Visitors will learn how MIDI can be used with a diverse set of input controllers.
  • Visitors will experiment with distorting audio and video feeds as they compose multi-media performances.

Design

Be a VJ is a kiosk with three input controllers and two output screens. The controllers represent three different kinds of MIDI signals: press and hold (keyboard), press and release (drum pads), and signal distortion (joystick). The upper screen shows the composite video output and the lower screen shows the virtual VJ control panel (the software program Reason). The video output of each sound is related to the notes and properties of the audio content, linking the visuals to the musical content conceptually.

Interaction

Visitors can interact with one or more of the input controllers at a time. When two controllers are active, the corresponding audio and video signals are overlaid to create composite sound and visuals. When visitors manipulate the joystick, they augment the tone of the sound and their own live video image visually.

Panoramic Photos

Conceptualized by Richard Milewski, photographer in San Jose, CA (and Tech Museum member!).

This exhibit demonstrates how to create panoramic and polar projection photos.

Goals

  • Visitors will learn what a panoramic image is and how it is created.
  • Visitors will learn how a panoramic image can be mathematically transformed into a polar projection.
  • Visitors will enjoy taking their own photographs in the bustle of the bridge.
  • Visitors will take their polar projections home with them via Tech Tag.

Design

Panoramic Photos is a kiosk on the bridge containing six cameras facing outward with three screen mounted in a triangle facing outward overhead. There is a circle of footprints on the carpet indicating where visitors should stand to be included in the panoramic photographs. Every 60 seconds, the cameras take synchronized photographs of the visitors. These photographs are then stitched into panoramic and polar images real-time on the overhead screens. The screens display a countdown so visitors are aware of when their picture is about to be taken.

Interaction

Visitors can have their photo taken by standing around the kiosk at the correct time (each 60 seconds). Visitors can watch the panoramic photo being created and watch the transformation into a polar projection. Visitors can save both the panoramic and polar images to their Tech Tags (multiple visitors can save the same image, as in the Earthquake table).

Mashup Masterpiece

Conceptualized by Marie Crandell, an accountant and Second Life artists in Plymouth, England.

This exhibit lets visitors enter the mind of an artist by observing the artistic process and adding their own creative modifications.

Goals

  • Visitors will observe the process of creating a complicated composition, learning how artists sketch, color, and add stroke to paintings.
  • Visitors will learn about the use of layers in digital art compositions and the concept of “mash-ups” in digital collaborative art.
  • Visitors will feel like artists making aesthetic decisions at different stages of development.
  • Visitors will enjoy creating their own image inspired by a professional work.

Design

The Mashup Masterpiece is an easel with both physical controls (a spinner to move through video, painting tools and colors to select) and a digital touchscreen on which visitors can view and augment the art shown. There are three professional pieces of art representing different genres (graffiti, oils, acrylic) so visitors can experience the processes of each. There are two of these easels in the exhibition.

Interaction

Visitors can “load in” one of the professional pieces of art on the easel. Using the spinner, visitors can move quickly through the video to watch the painting in progress frame by frame or in broad timescale. At any point, visitors can stop the video to add their own elements to the piece of art via the touchscreen. Visitors can save their completed image to their Tech Tag.

Tilty Table

Conceptualized by Jason Nelson, digital artist and professor of digital poetics in Gold Coast, Australia.

This exhibit lets visitors explore the artist’s interpretation of “the shifting landscape of Silicon Valley” with an intuitive mechanical interface.

Goals

  • Visitors will experience an art piece offering eight different digital meditations on innovations of Silicon Valley.
  • Visitors will learn about eight innovators in personal computing.
  • Visitors will enjoy interacting with the tilty table.

Design

The Tilty Table is a table with circular surface and a grab bar around it. It can tilt 30 degrees from lowest to highest point at any location around the table. There is a projector mounted on the ceiling facing down at the table which runs a cycling animated art piece reflecting the innovations of eight leaders in personal computing: Douglas Englebart (mouse), Warnock and Geshke (Adobe), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Donna Dubinsky (Palm), Christopher Sholes (keyboard), John von Neumann (computer architecture, Hyatt, Holt, and Hoff (CPU), Tim Berners-Lee (World Wide Web). Each of these innovators’ work is expressed in a 20 second interactive piece in the context of the total loop.

Interaction

Visitors can hold the grab bar at any spot to raise and lower the table. The motion of the table changes the surface animation, making the art piece interactive and somewhat visitor-directed.

Connecting Point

Conceptualized by Alan Hook and Pete Wardle, creative technologists at the University of Salford in Manchester, England.

This exhibit lets visitors explore the intersection between real and virtual space via a human-avatar streaming video portal.

Goals

  • Visitors will learn how technology can bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds by using both performance and filmic techniques.
  • Visitors will learn how video streaming is used for communication between people at remote locations.
  • Visitors will explore the limitations of physical expression in both the real and virtual world.

Design

Connecting Point has two “sides” represented by adjacent angled walls: the avatar stations, where visitors can control the physical motion of avatars, and the human station, where visitors can be filmed live reacting to and playing with the avatars. The avatar stations are two computer kiosks facing a projection of the live video feed. The human station is a camera and performance space facing a projection of the Second Life feed. The humans can see the avatars and vice versa.

Interaction

At the avatar stations, visitors can control the movements of avatars to initiate simple physical games to be played with the visitors at the human station (hokey pokey, heads shoulders knees and toes, etc). When there are no visitors at the avatar stations, the avatars will go through a default animation to initiate play with visitors in the human station.

Prepared by: Simon- 1 -11/12/18

The Tech Virtual Test Zone Art, Film, & Music Overview

Exhibit Judging Criteria Detail
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
Feasible / Exhibit has elements that are physically impossible in a RL exhibit / Exhibit has elements that are beyond the current technological capabilities of most RL museums, but may be realized in the future. / Exhibit is realizable in RL but may lack innovation, or may already exist in RL / Exhibit translates well to RL. Creation in RL is not cost prohibitive. / Exhibit is innovative yet translatable to RL. Creation in RL is not cost prohibitive but inspires RL engineers to stretch creatively.
Process / Exhibit has no connection the process, or skeleton presence only in SL or on website / Exhibit is listed both places but exists as a skeleton site on the web or as a very rough work in progress in SL / Exhibit is listed in both places. Project description on website is adequate. Exhibit build is at least at mock-up level. / Exhibit is listed both places. Some use of project page and wiki. Exhibit is semi-complete, may not be completely scripted. / Exhibit has solid presence in both SL and on website. Project makes use of wiki and or other team tools. SL build is mostly built and scripted.
Art, Film, Music / No relation to theme of role of technology in art, film or music / Exhibit is about technology or art but shows no sense of the two together. / Exhibit relates to technology and/or art, but the connection between the two is forced. / Exhibit shows more evidence of the theme, but may not be readily apparent. / Theme is clearly evident in exhibit. Big idea speaks to the core theme.
Core Educational Content / Exhibit shows little to no educational focus or big idea. / Exhibit shows some educational focus, but goals are unclear. Exhibit seems to be primarily about the what and not the why / Exhibit shows educational focus, but goals are not readily apparent. Goals may appear to be secondary to design. / Educational goals are obvious in planning, but may not be fully realized. Big idea may not be completely apparent. / Exhibit shows well thought out educational goals and objectives. Big Idea is readily apparent. Evidence of educational theory in development
Silicon Valley / Idea has no relation to Silicon Valley and does not reflect technological innovation. / Exhibit has the spirit of innovation and technological thinking. / Exhibit is tenuously based on or related to technologies perfected in Silicon Valley. / Exhibit has participants from Silicon Valley companies, and or strong relationship to local technology. / Strong tie to local company, via content or platform. Shows understanding of technology and applications to RL while being innovative and fun. Thinks big, plans big.

Prepared by: Simon11/12/18