Prettie and Aussim’s future co-workers

Since Prettie Reddy and Aussim Bhutt work at a call center I realized that they need more co-workers to make up an office full of call operators therefore I created a few more characters and asked some friends to draw what they might look like. Here’s what we came up with…

We used napkins and colorful markers to create the potential characters

Prettie Reddy (is a Dentist), Rick Shaw (cab driver), Para Salin (future political candidate), Ophelia Payne (Teacher based on SNL character called Debbie Downer), Doug Graves (works at a mortuary), Bud Wieser (Bartender), and Iona Stonehouse (Soccer Mom)

I got my inspiration from this site that has a ton more names with double meanings (http://www.bored.com/namehumor/)

As well as this Youtube video

Techno Textiles 2 by Marie O’Mahony

These are pictures I took when Marie O’Mahony presented her second book “Techno Textiles 2″ at Parsons.

Events & Exhibitions

Techno Textiles 2 – lecture by Marie O’Mahony

The advent of new and advanced technologies has had a dramatic impact on the world of textiles. Its influence can be seen in every area from fashion and product design to art and architecture. Highly engineered fibers and fabrics are allowing new structures to be produced with enhanced performance characteristics. New surface treatments are transforming the appearance, aesthetic and performance of fabrics. Digital advances are changing both the appearance and viewpoint of textiles, while new developments in electronics have opened up whole new areas of interactive art and design. The outcome is that we are seeing not only textile artists and designers reassessing fabric, but product designers, engineers and architects have come to regard the material in a new light.

Marie O’Mahony is an independent textile and technology consultant based in London. Her clients range from NIKE to Arts Council England to Zaha M Hadid and Hussein Chalayan. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including The Fabric of Fashion for the British Council and her books include TechnoTextiles, SportsTech and Cyborg – The Man Machine. Her most recent book titled TechnoTextiles 2 (coauthor) was published by Thames and Hudson last year. During August 2006 she is a visiting lecturer at UNSW COFA conducting workshops on ‘Camouflage’. Her visit to UNSW is supported by the Ove Arup Foundation.

Enquiries: Liz Williamson, School of Design Studies COFA, tel 9385 0610 or email Liz.Williamson@unsw.edu.au
Where: COFA Lecture Theatre EG02, Corner Greens Road (Gate 2) and Oxford Streets, Paddington NSW.
http://www.dhub.org/articles/742

Interview and Research 1

Comedians promoting in Times Square

Every night as I walk through Times Square, I run into a dozen different comedy writers, comedians, show producers as well as just comedy show promoters. Their voices are louder than the cab horns, their faces and clothes are brighter than the massive billboards and thier pitch to invite you to thier show is more alluring than the ads in the stores. I usually just walk right by them but one day I decided to stop and talk to every person who asked me to come to their comedy show.

The picture above is of five guys I ran into. They captured my attention and told me why they were out there, why they were trying to get people to come to thier shows and why they love comedy so much.

(details of the interview coming soon)

Major Studio | Final Project: Interactive Comedy piece

Brain Storming:

About the Character:

• Pakistani guy
• Outsourced Phone operator really bored at his job
• About to graduate college with a computer science degree
• His dream is to leave everything, move to Amrica and be a comedian.
• “I’m funniE”

Things I need to do to make him real:

• Make him a Naseeb/ facebook/ myspace/ profile
• Create a drivers license
• Create his desk space because thats what people can see over the web cam when interacting with him
• Maybe pic of friends in the background

Tools to make Assif work:

• Max/MSP (he reacts to sound and motion, but I wont be able to make him talk
• Flash (animate his entire interaction and make invisible buttons for Yes and No interaction)
• Flash along with VXML 2.0 ( animate the character in Flash or After Effects and since its to Vxml look into how to sync the two together)
• I could do the script in vxml with “if, else” statements with the answers being YES and NO so the interaction branches out depending on the audiences response.
• I can code the script in vxml and then use Skype to call the phone number vxml provides me with and that way the character and the audience and can have live interaction.
• The character will be projected on the big screen and the mic on my laptop will be used for the voice interaction
• Look into incoming sound like the audio waves when playing music it doesn’t react to the microphone
  How can I make it so it recognizes incoming sound as opposed to microphone sound?

Other names for the Character:

Assif Butt

Harpreet Sing, Call me “harry”

Junaid Bin Abdullah, Call me “Ju”

Preety Ready, Call me “Pretty” Everyone does!

Script MUST be FUNNY!

(I could use my voice and make .wav files or mp3 files and insert that into the vxml )

Halooo Kall me PLease
I’m sitt-ting here vating,
Kall me
Kall me
Do it, do it, do it
Just kall, kall me NOW,
Kall me
KALL me
kall ME

ring ring
Hallooo my name is Aassif butt every-vone kalls me Ass. But you kan kall me “Ass” or “If “so its easier fur you. We fix komputers, mobile teles and blah blah blah…
my english is nat so guud so i ask question u answere YES or NO, ok? OK!
so Do you live in Amrica?
YES
Oh I luuuv Amrica! I mean A ma rica.
I’m going to quit here you know and come to Amarica soon.
I want to be a comedian.
I’m very funny!
Ohh I can see my self standing on stage, making the world laugh.
Ass makes the world laugh!
Halloo are you still there?
YES
well you can talk to i mean

ideas:

1. Assif call me Ass (character who interacts with me) Max/MSP sound recognition, motion, voice recognition, possibly C++ mouse interaction
2. A doll that says “hug me” and then says “dont touch me”!
3. Character linked through webcam
4. use voice interpretation , what phone companies use to recognize voice. use skype as the reader and then use an api to make it work. Talk to Albert about this as well.

https://studio.tellme.com/ (what time warner uses)
http://cafe.bevocal.com/
http://www.generation5.org/content/2002/howsrworks.asp
http://www.palowireless.com/voicexml/devtools.asp
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=0DX&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=voice+recognition+that+phone+companies+use&spell=1
http://www.google.com/search?q=i+listen&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.w3.org/TR/voicexml21/