Organism – D.U.D.O Production 2

Now that we have the method sorted out, we were able to put it into practice and have so far come out with a layout. This isn’t perhaps final, but is pretty close to what is our goal.

Here you can see it has recorded my IP address, and as follows, are the buttons for the user to select depending on which is most true. Once all neccessary buttons are selected, the user simply presses submit. The results are then added up and averaged against everyone elses votes, contributing to the overall mood.

Here are 3 images representing the faces of just 3 overall moods of a user.

Hot and Happy Face..

Cold and Tired Face..

Bored and Ill Face..

Organism – D.U.D.O Production 1

With our idea in mind and finalised, work has begun on D.U.D.O. We needed to work out a system of how to get the votes recorded and then used later on for the final outcome.

The votes are sent to a MYSQL database via PHP. Everytime someone submits their vote, javascript will write a cookie of the date and time the vote is sent. When someone tries to vote, the javascript checks to see if its been at least an hour since the last vote from the cookie. Then, D.U.D.O. uses a PHP file to parse an XML file from the MYSQL database. It then extracts the data to use in actionscript (flash) and walla!

Here’s a diagram to show this.

Organism – Finalise Idea

After some consideration, we decided that the web-based application would be more suited to an organism compared to the barometer idea, as the barometer would just be depicting real life and not an organism, where as the application would have user input and alter an overall picture.

The name for this application is D.U.D.O – Digital User Driven Organism. After some thought on how to get it widely available to people, we came to the conclusion that creating it inside a facebook application would be the best idea, as the majority of internet users have a facebook account and also makes networking a lot easier. People can invite their friends to install and use the application, thus hopefully bringing a wider spectrum of moods.

Organism – Meeting/Brainstorm

Andi and myself met in the babbage cafe to discuss ideas for our organism project.

Our previous idea was to have an animation of a body which is cosntantly under attack from different viruses. For each virus it kills, it upgrades its antibodies and gradually grows stronger. It’s purpose was to simulate the human body and how its immune system works.

Unfortunately as we got our group together later than preferred, this task seemed a little far fetched. So we had to come up with something easier.

We thought of 2 other possible ideas. 1 was a web-based application which recorded people’s mood in a number of steps. We decided that hunger, thirst, energy and temperature would be a good mix of attributes to determine someone’s mood. Once someone has submitted their mood, it will be recorded in a database, along with the user’s IP address.

The idea is to have a record of as many people as possible, to create an overall mood for everyone.

Each person’s mood will be labelled with an face regarding their mood. The overall mood of everyone will be depicted in a larger face displayed on the main page.

Our 2nd idea was based around a barometer. Basically animating the barometer’s face with the different weather types. Storm, Wet, Hot, and Cold. Somehow connecting this with a live weather feed from e.g. weather.bbc.co.uk

IDAT 204 – Part 1

Part 1 – Organism 25% Delivered by Chris Speed

organism n. 1. any living animal or plant including any bacterium or virus. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations
2. anything resembling a living creature in structure, behavior, etc —-, organ’ismal or,organ’ismic adj. organ’ismally adv.
‘The artificial purification of all milieus, atmospheres, and environments will supplant the failing internal immune systems. If these systems are breaking down it is because an irreversible tendency called progress pushes the human body and spirit into relinquishing its systems of defense and self-determination, only to replace them with technical artifacts. Divested of his defenses, man becomes eminently vulnerable to science. Divested of his phantasies, he becomes eminently vulnerable to psychology. Freed of his germs, he becomes eminently vulnerable to medicine.

It would not be too far-fetched to say that the extermination of mankind begins with the extermination of germs.’ [ Jean Baudrillard ]

‘We are becoming like cats, slyly parasitic, enjoying an indifferent domesticity. Nice and snug in the social, our historic passions have withdrawn into the glow of an artificial coziness, and our half-closed eyes now seek little other than the peaceful parade of television pictures. Perhaps our eyes are merely a blank film which is taken from us after our deaths to be developed elsewhere and screened as our life story in some infernal cinema or dispatched as microfilm into the sidereal void.’ [Jean Baudrillard ]

‘Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.’ [Bill Bulko]

Working in pairs generate “a living creature in structure, behavior, etc…”. The final organism should be a form of interactive media, able to work on any platform from mobile, desktop, internet, ipod etc. The intention is to make the organisms accessible on a web site so the shockwave movie should be embedded in its own web page. This will have a dramatic effect on the size of your organism, be realistic.
The rational behind this exercise?:

A: to generate a problem which is not technology driven, i.e. the idea drives the project. You should not start working on the computer until the ‘life forms’ spec is generated. You will then have to find ways of realising it within the limits of the technology.

B: to force you to consider a truly timebased, multidimensional, interactive problem. A life form needs to feed and be fed, sleep, move, multiply, expel waste etc. It will be sensitive to certain conditions and have a life expectancy. Do not use buttons, instead concentrate on a process of interactions. In defining a life form do not fall into the trap of using cartoon characters, question existing models, redefine and innovate! What is digital life?