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YES, I KNOW IT'S BLURRY. IT'S ON PURPOSE. NO, I'M NOT JUST SAYING THAT TO COVER UP A MISTAKE. |
I'll explain the photo in a second, but first, let me go over something:
The truth is, this is a new project, and pretty much nobody knows about it.
It's not that I don't want to update if nobody is going to read it, it's that it's not very easy without community support. This.... art project.... experiment.... is young, and still being defined, but the sure part is that it's not truly been done before this way.
it's--*waggles hands*--different. (<-----------------referencing Fantastic Mr. Fox)
let's look at the definition of experimental art:
"An imprecise term applied to art that is concerned with exploring new ideas and/or technology. It is sometimes used virtually synonymously with ‘avant-garde', but ‘experimental’ usually suggests a more explicit desire to extend the boundaries of the art in terms of materials or techniques, whereas ‘avant-garde’ can include novel ideas expressed through traditional means.*"
I underlined the most important part of that quote. let me state it again in an absurdly annoying emphasized manner...
"...[an artistic endeavor created with an] explicit desire to extend the boundaries of the art in terms of materials or techniques*..."this experiment is about taking the boundaries of my art not only beyond the 'fine arts' forms (what I have limited myself to until now has been strictly what I can do with my hands) but into the hands of the community. Scientists preform experiments to learn about something that nobody knows about. photography is only recently been something for me to dabble in (I'm building on it at the moment.) and you may not be into art, and only video games. Maybe, individually, a video of some hands playing a video game is dull, pointless, and just stupid.
in all honesty, I wouldn't be able to watch a full 20 minutes of just hands.
just.
hands.
But what if there was a video of every gamer's hands, accessible from a large database, complete with a short dossier of the player's age, play-style, what they are playing, and who they are.
you would essentially have all the info about a gamer that you can't grasp by knowing that person (unless your their Siamese twin) in the real world, gaming with them, or knowing them in the virtual one.
I don't expect to be able to grow that large, to gather that many hands. that's just too many. I'll try, and with the opportunity, I would catalog that many sets of 'data', especially if it brings in page views. I hope, however, to collect a large amount, of data. with a large amount of data, I can paint a picture of some of the gamers, we would see all these different people with different lives, playing different games.
the common denominator is that all of them are pressing buttons on a controller (or keyboard)
but with all that data, we will see how different each player is.
people who started on tetris, and have been around longer, will play differently from a caffeinated hyperactive adolescent getting tunnel vision from their medication.
just imagine, what if a pattern was discovered? then, using data collected, you could predict how a person plays by their life experiences, age, and abilities as a gamer.
maybe some of you aren't as geeky as me, so that's not as cool to you, but I trust at least some of you out there find that idea interesting.
well, consider this:
without community support, none of that will happen, and this will die. it will become just another wasted domain name, waiting to get buried like the rest of us... I'm not willing to accept that.
Understand-please: I hold no prejudice, and I don't care what you like, if your self-conscious, or about any other excuse you can think of. You're another piece of the puzzle, and your data is scientifically valuable, and artistically important. please. I beg you, share this with anyone you can, contact me if you can make your own video, and if I know you personally, and you can't shoot a video, I'll shoot it for you.
and if I don't know you personally (or if I do and you are bothered by me shooting the video) then: how can you SERIOUSLY not have any way to shoot a video? you have a phone, right? cameras are cheap, and I don't need anything fancy. the first two videos are shot with my Droid, for Pete's sake!
so please, share this with Digg, or dig it. like it on facebook, give it a thumbs up on stumbleupon, email it, tweet it, reddit it, share it everywhere. this is very much everyone's project, I'm just running the place.
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now, to tell you about what I've been doing to improve quality here:
on Wednesday evening, I picked up a new GE X5 Digital Camera to use. it's obviously designed for photos, but the video quality is just what I needed, and it was surprisingly cheap. they have it at Amazon for $139 and I got it for $120 at a local store. It takes great photos, and videos, and quality is ALMOST DSLR LEVEL! I feel really cheap advertising it like this, especially since GE isn't necessarially famous for cameras, but they obviously know what they are doing here (information from amazon.com):
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Product Features
- 14MP Digital Camera with 15x optical zoom and 5.7x digital zoom
- 2.7 Inch vibrant LCD with auto brightness
- 18MB internal memory with SD/SDHC card support up to 16GB
- Face detection, in camera red eye removal, image stabilization, smile detection, blink detection, and face auto-exposure
- Uses 4 AA batteries so you'll never be stranded waiting for your camera battery to charge
Technical Details
- Brand Name: General Electric
- Model: X5-BK
- Optical Sensor Resolution: 3 inches
- Optical Sensor Technology: CCD
- Optical zoom: 15 x
- Maximum Aperture Range: F/3.0-5.2
- Minimum focal length: 4.9 millimeters
- Maximum focal length: 73.5 millimeters
- Lens Type: Zoom lens
- Optical Sensor Size: 1/2.3"
- Included Flash Type: Pop-up flash
- Display Size: 2.7 inches
- Light Sensitivity: ISO 100, ISO 800, ISO 400, ISO 200, ISO 80, ISO auto, ISO 1600, ISO 3200
- Image types: JPEG
- Shooting Modes: Frame movie mode
- Exposure Control Type: Glass, Snow, Anti-blur, Landscape, Portrait mode, Leaf, Museum, Night portrait, Children, Fireworks, Panorama assist, Sports mode, Sunset, Indoor
- Width: 4 inches
- Depth: 2.7 inches
- Height: 2.9 inches
- Weight: 13.5 Ounces
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so this is what I'm using now, and I highly recommend you check it out at the links below.
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now I finally explain the photo...
When I first planned this project for long term exposure shots. unfortunately not only was it impossible for me to do one, but I was fairly sure not many other people would be able to either.
But then, we had this week, where I had nothing coming my way on this project. and it's pretty dumb to not give a stray visitor something to look at.
so I got this camera, and took four 30 second exposure shots while playing MAG. I then overlayed them and lined them up to match. the image above was the result. I can't tell you the exact settings, as I've changed them since then, and its 12:45 am, but if you care at all, you can probably guess.
this picture is just a hold-over until the next set of data is complete--.
hopefully I won't have to make many more.
I've also been thinking to do face-shots and taped interviews, and maybe compile this into a sort of documentary later on.
hopefully, though, I'll get some submissions and I won't have have to do those for a little bit.
anyway. references and amazon ads below. click on them to get me money. I have a total of $0.24 made in revenues, so it's a real money maker!
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<----The camera I currently use. surprisingly good. especially for the price, lots of settings abilities, pretty much DSLR quality for about $140 or less (bought my camera at a local Meijer for $120. I recommend getting an SD card if you don't have one and want this camera though, because it's got a total of 16MB of memory, thats 4 or 5 pics if your lucky)
References:
*IAN CHILVERS. "experimental art." A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art. 1999. Retrieved September 17, 2010 from Encyclopedia.com:http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O5-experimentalart.html
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