Author: Ariana Alvarez

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Final Project Reflection “Distorted” – Ariana Alvarez

“DISTORTED” – Made by Ariana Alvarez – Professor Rodolfo Cossovich

The path into finding my idea and truly developing the concept was an extensive one with various ups and downs. I defined interaction as the process in which an agent interacts with another through an action-response process, however with a purpose beyond “looking good”. For this reason, initially my research was more assistive technology oriented, as I wanted to create an object, or develop a game similar to a “hackable” and the xbox adaptive controller which redefined technology and interaction in games. Nevertheless, later on, after attending the Machine Learning workshop and conducting more research I found projects such as ‘Soul Mate’, which changed my inclination. ‘Soul Mate’ is an old radio developed by Vytas Jankausas, which uses text synthesis to read potential romantic partners on Tinder for agents that interact with it, therefore it is a new way of “finding a partner” in a rather non-traditional and outdated presentation. Another project from the same artists was ‘Breaking Views’, a television that displays Instagram stories from feed and collects how many times they are viewed from the agent who’s using it. Both these projects are part of a bigger collection called Domestic Media, in which the artist wanted to critique how new technologies change the way we live and socialize, and to do this he used old technologies in a social media spectrum.

Somestic Media #3 Somestic Media #4

Another project that I encountered which redefined my idea was the Project Implicit “Implicit Differentiation Test” developed by Harvard University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington. This project aims to measure the strength of associations between concepts and evaluations of people tip races (eg. white people, good), with the final goal of exploring hidden bias within the users, and that way taking one step in understanding the roots of stereotypes and prejudice in society. 

After analyzing both project ideas that seemed quite diverged, I decided to address a problem that was more close to me and my personal identity, which is race. Using Vytas Jankauskas ‘old technology’ concept, I decided to redefine my project  by creating a vintage camera that showed how despite racism being an ‘outdated’ idea, it was still present in people’s minds and kept on “implicitly” defining us through labels even within college application processes.

CONCEPTION AND DESIGN:

Regarding conception and design, I had very clear since the moment I decided to address “identity” as part of my project, that I wanted to immerse users into a photographic experience. Therefore, the idea of putting them in a “photo booth” type of atmosphere was what initially sparked in my mind. I used this approach after observing how the excessive amount of photography’s and selfies that are being taken daily are what really influence people’s image of their self.

Related image

However, as I was choosing the materials to work with, I realized that it wasn’t going to be as easy to manipulate and would end up being too big for people to really grasp onto the purpose. Therefore, I decided to make this idea into a smaller, easier to laser cut version of a vintage camera, which contained and webcam, Arduino and breadboard inside. 

Image result for vintage camera

The interactive experience was planned to be as follows:

  1. User approaches screen and common application question of “Choose the race you identify the most with” appears
  2. User takes a possible “ID” picture with the camera 
  3. Picture is “processed” based on race consideration
  4. Image reveals redrawn with racial labels and slurs
  5. Follow up-experience to immerse user into the problem (Videos of news and testimonies)
  6. Final message about the goal of the project

FABRICATION AND PRODUCTION:

The most significant steps in the production process was first and foremost figuring out how to create the effects I wanted to in processing, and how to manipulate pixels that same way as well. My initial idea regarded changing a persons skin tone with an inverse filter. However, as I felt the message wasn’t being delivered as strongly as it could be, I decided to change my idea to a rather more descriptive, specific, one.  Therefore, I redefined the idea of pixel manipulating the image that a person took into a more conceptual one. By this I mean that, whenever a person would take a picture of themselves on the webcam inside the camera, then their image would be redrawn with labels and slurs regarding their race. This translated into processing meant using the same idea of drawing ellipses with the original image’s color, but instead of ellipses or shapes, it is words. 

Before the user testing I used to only have one racial slur for each race/ethnicity, however after the user testing I added more labels for each image as people told me that it would be more impactful to see different points of view. Another aspect that changed in the production after user testing, was the user experience, as I also included real-life testimonies of experiences and news of college and racial labels in people’s daily lives. Both of these adaptations were included so that my project goal of making people more aware of racial labelling in college was actually addressed. The experiences for each of the races finalized as following:

Native American

Asian

African American

Hispanic

Whites

Processing Code:

https://gist.github.com/arianaalvarezv/42d333e9eec30b2b7acff6d187745ca0

Arduino Code:

https://gist.github.com/arianaalvarezv/a6de259cce73b1f837e6d7d0975787c3

CONCLUSIONS:

The main goal of this project was to create awareness among a general audience about how the outdated idea of racism still exists today in many aspects of our life such as racial labelling in college applications. I further wanted to show how these different stereotypes are distorting our identities by putting us into certain groups that we may not even distinguish ourselves at. Therefore, the project was also meant to serve as a critique against the college application system for basing admissions on race as well. My project aligns with my idea of interaction as it indeed involves an action-response relationship between user, screen and camera. The user inputs a response and picture, and in return processing responds with different outputs in redrawing the image and videos. However, even though it does not completely align with my definition of interaction as it does not serve the purpose of helping someone else, it still has a purpose beyond being a “pretty camera”. It has the purpose of educating people, or at least easing the “racial labels” conversation, as nowadays it is a very hard topic to talk about without offending anyone else. 

Based on the final presentation and the IMA show, I was very happy to see the positive audience’s response to my project. It was very interesting to see how they initially were hesitant to interact with it as they thought it was merely a “cute camera”, but later on when it redrew their face with very strong labels, their face changed completely and understood somewhat the message I wanted to convey. I received much positive feedback and comments for further improvement. 

 

If I had more time, I would improve the scope of the project, maybe make it on a bigger screen, or have more options for multiracial users. As well as I would have probably included more statistics on the consequences of these racial labels after college in places like the workforce and family income. From my setbacks I have learned the importance of developing a strong concept before initiating a project, and ensuring it is something that you are passionate in working for and researching about. As well as the importance of immersing users into an environment that is familiar with them as well, that way they can understand your goal better without having too many doubts. Whereas from my accomplishments I can take away the different ways in which technology and interactivity can be used to prove a point, and how the scope of projects that can be done and created is beyond what is learned in class, and the more curious and playful you get with code, the more things you discover you can do that will help your project. 

This project was of great importance to me, as it is an experience that I have faced before personally. There have been instances in which my identity has been distorted based on the racial labels regarding my race. For this reason, I wanted to bring it up upon the public eye, not only for awareness, but also for action. I believe that the reason why everybody should “care” about this topic, is because they need to acknowledge what’s going on first, in order to address the issue. Everyone thinks that “racism” is outdated as “everyone knows it’s bad”, however, has it truly disappeared? Is it truly nonexistent? It is not. Are we still labeled based on stereotypes? Yes we are. However as long as we don’t let what others think of us distort our identity, then we are taking one step for action against racial inaction. 

REFERENCES:

https://vjnks.com/works/5/somestic-media

https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/test-yourself-for-hidden-bias

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/iatdetails.html

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Assistive Technology Final Project Report – Ariana Alvarez

a. Describe your partner

My partner is a very happy, and energetic woman. She has worked before in assistive technology workshops, therefore she already knows the dynamic regarding us trying to make a product that will help her overcome her difficulties. She is very eager to collaborate with the questions we ask her, and expresses her concerns freely. Every week she has been very participative in attempting to improve the prototypes we bring in for her to try on. She is very eager about the progress we have made with her umbrella holder, and her enthusiasm inspires my other partner and me to make the best of her experience. I am very excited to see her using this product in her daily life to improve commodities while going out in the street. As well as very eager to receive her feedback once she uses it under rainy weather conditions, that way we can improve it even further to make her user experience more satisfactory.

b. What are their desires/challenges/difficulties?

Since my partner uses a wheelchair, her main difficulty is carrying an umbrella when she is outside and it’s raining. This is due to the umbrella being too heavy for her to hold onto the whole time, and troublesome when it comes to controlling the wheelchair. Therefore, she desires something that will help her facilitate that process; an object that will keep her umbrella in place under any circumstance she may need. Further into details of the umbrella holder, my partner wants it to be situated in the middle of the wheelchair, that way it could cover the most area possible around her body. As well as, she wants to be able to store it in a convenient, accessible area, while it is not at use or necessary to take out. Another challenge she has, is going out at night or when it is dark, as cars cannot see her or identify her wheelchair in the dark.

c. What is your project? 

Our project idea has been redefined from the first concept that was introduced. It is a collapsable, stable umbrella holder that will be fixed onto the left side of our partner’s wheelchair. This holder is made out of steel and plastic, and contains many rotating areas so just as it provides support for the umbrella, it also adjusts according to our partner’s needs. This product will be secured with a velcro strap when not in use. When in need of use, the umbrella holder will be able to be detached from the velcro and moved towards the center of the users body, to protect as much area as possible of my partner’s body from the rain. This project is aimed to help our partner feel more comfortable when having to go out on rainy days, since she can use her hands freely, while being under her secured umbrella. In addition to the umbrella holder, we also have the idea of adding reflective stickers to her wheelchair. This part of the project is aimed towards helping our partner be visible for cars at night, so she can comfortably go out in the dark without fear of getting into an accident.

d. Development process. With photos and video(s)

Our prototype has developed through different phases based on different materials. We initiated creating a model in paper, in order to see where it has to be placed, around what size, and how the rotations will actually occur. Later on, we used the paper prototype to create a basis of how strong the tube should be, by using as an example a water pipe. This design was tested on our partner’s wheelchair, and later iterated with materials bought on Taob    ao for a steel holder.

     

  

After user testing two prototypes of steel holders, we noticed that both needed to be accommodated for our partner’s needs. Therefore, we created an iteration of the original idea, with different parts of both prototypes.

  

For this, we deconstructed the tubes, and placed them in such a way that the longer tube was aimed towards helping my partner have a more suitable umbrella height; whereas the smaller tube was used to fix the length of the product (the distance towards the middle that the umbrella would cover above my partner’s legs). We secured these new adaptations to the holder and the wheelchair through screws and hot glue.

  

Later on, my partner mentioned that she would also like the holder to be collapsable in a convenient way for her to access it at any times, as well as store it whenever not in use. For this reason we decided to situate a velcro strap on the side of the holder and chair, so she can find it more comfortable to carry around the product at all times.

  

The Final product iteration looks as following, however we further added an extra layer of reinforcement to the bottom part by drilling a hole and putting a screw to make sure it supports the weight of our partner’s umbrella.

 

 

We also added reflective stickers on the back and the side of our partner’s wheelchair. 

 

    

Final image of user with wheelchair and project.

e. What was your difficulties?

Our difficulties were mainly focused on the elaboration of the product itself, as even though we used objects preordered from Taobao, there were arrangements that needed to be made to them in order to adjust to our partner’s needs. For example, when the height of the umbrella holder had to be adjusted, we needed to make sure that while adding a new tube on the top, it would be just as stable as the rest. Another difficulty and probably the main concern  we faced was ensuring the umbrella holder would be able to hold and support the weight of our partner’s umbrella, as it was quite hard for it to stay in place at all times without moving to the sides. We fixed this problem by adding extra support to the length of the umbrella holder. However, we are still pending on our partner to give us feedback on how effective the umbrella holder is under different weather conditions.  

f. What did you learn from this 4-week workshop?

From this 4-week workshop I learned that if we set standard goals and continuously iterate ideas, then great products can be created as a mutual cooperation between users and students. I have learned that no matter how complex the technologies, whether they are interactive screens or adjustable holders, they can improve another person’s life by assisting them in their challenges. In the case of our partner, she actively engaged with us to make the best of the four weeks and indeed end up with a final product that hopefully will help her fully overcome her challenge. However, I do have to highlight that we had classmates who’s experience was not as satisfactory, as they had more challenges with their user either arriving or openly communicating with them. Therefore, based on my experience, I can state that my biggest reflection is upon open communication with the user; and how just as it can be one of the major difficulties, it can also become one of the greatest advantages, as it is key for a successful project. It is a mutual relationship/symbiosis of the students wanting to help, and the users being open, eager, and wanting to accept the help, that assistive technologies completely fulfill their aims. My partner and me delivered our project, and were very satisfied with it. We consider there is still room for improvement once a real-life testing with weather conditions is held. However, for the time being we accomplished the goal of delivering our user the product that will solve her difficulty to the best of our current abilities, and she was very happy with the outcome as well.

g. Presentation File Link

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1c8rkSclVnuvILxNL2SBONFhfhYq-gN0J-2rIKzg1IwA/edit?usp=sharing

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Week 6 Assignments #2 – Ariana Alvarez

Reflection on field trip

For this week’s field trips I was only able to attend the vocational schools and observe the kids in different classes. We first observed a semester-long course in which children with disabilities were crafting ukuleles (small guitars), and decorating them. The second class I observed was an art class that focused on the use of repetitive shapes made by paper strings. 

It was very interesting for me to observe how different children benefited in different ways from the same activity. This distinction in the learning outcome depended mostly on their disabilities, as they all enjoyed  different aspects of the same courses. For example, in the ukulele class, I observed this by seeing how arts and crafts in a small autistic girl, helped her maintain focus; whereas the same activity helped enhance motor skills in a boy with rather physical disabilities. A similar pattern seemed to occur in the paper crafting class, as there was a clear difference in children’s behaviors regarding the activity. Children with autism were enjoying and concentrated in the creation of repetitive patterns and shapes with paper; whereas another more energetic boy, was more enthusiastic by the presence of visitors, than by the nature of the class itself. 

As an overall experience, the visit to the vocational schools were very insightful, as they provided a more hands-on experience regarding how children learn. I felt like for the first time I was able to truly interact with the children in ways beyond language, but through observing them and even helping them in some way with arts and crafts. I consider that different technologies in this specific situations would be beneficial to improve children’s learning in such a way that they all maximize from each activity, regardless of their disability. For instance, in the paper making class, a certain technological device could be made so that more active children are challenged into paper making, hence engaging them into the activity so it is just as beneficial for them as for children with autism. Seeing these areas where technologies could be implemented has inspired me into taking further action and realizing how there is still a lot of work left to do, as there is a broad range of projects that can be implemented for next semester that could assist many people with disabilities.

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Week 6 Assignments #1 – Ariana Alvarez

  1. Project development 

a. Describe your partner 

My partner is a very happy, and energetic woman. She has worked before in assistive technology workshops, therefore she already knows the dynamic regarding us trying to make a product that will help her overcome her difficulties. She is very eager to collaborate with the questions we ask her, and expresses her concerns freely. Every week she has been very participative in attempting to improve the prototypes we bring in for her to try on. She is very eager about the progress we have made with her umbrella holder, and her enthusiasm inspires my other partner and me to make the best of her experience. I am very excited to see her using this product in her daily life to improve commodities while going out in the street. 

b. What are their desires/challenges/difficulties?

Since my partner uses a wheelchair, her main difficulty is carrying an umbrella when she is outside and it’s raining. This is due to the umbrella being too heavy for her to hold onto the whole time, and troublesome when it comes to controlling the wheelchair. Therefore, she desires something that will help her facilitate that process; an object that will keep her umbrella in place under any circumstance she may need. Further into details of the umbrella holder, my partner wants it to be situated in the middle of the wheelchair, that way it could cover the most area possible around her body. As well as, she wants to be able to store it in a convenient, accessible area, while it is not at use or necessary to take out.

c. What is your project? Redefine if needed 

Our project idea has been redefined from the first concept that was introduced. It is a collapsable, stable umbrella holder that will be fixed onto the left side of our partner’s wheelchair. This holder contains is made out of steel and plastic, and contains many rotating areas so just as it provides support for the umbrella, it also adjusts according to my partner’s needs. This product will be secured with a velcro strap when not in use. When in need of use, the umbrella holder will be able to be detached from the velcro and moved towards the center of the users body, to protect as much area as possible of my partner’s body from the rain. This project is aimed to help our partner feel more comfortable when having to go out on rainy days, since she can use her hands freely, while being under her secured umbrella. 

d. Development process. Include photos and video(s)

Our prototype has developed through different phases based on different materials. We initiated creating a model in paper, in order to see where it has to be placed, around what size, and how the rotations will actually occur. Later on, we used the paper prototype to create a basis of how strong the tube should be, by using as an example a water pipe. This design was tested on our partner’s wheelchair, and later iterated with materials bought on TaoBao for a steel holder.

 

After user testing two prototypes of steel holders, we noticed that both needed to be accommodated for our partner’s needs. Therefore, we created an iteration of the original idea, with different parts of both prototypes.

For this, we deconstructed the tubes, and placed them in such a way that the longer tube was aimed towards helping my partner have a more suitable umbrella height; whereas the smaller tube was used to fix the length of the product (the distance towards the middle that the umbrella would cover above my partner’s legs). We secured these new adaptations to the holder and the wheelchair through screws and hot glue. 

Later on, my partner mentioned that she would also like the holder to be collapsable in a convenient way for her to access it at any times, as well as store it whenever not in use. For this reason we decided to situate a velcro strap on the side of the holder and chair, so she can find it more comfortable to carry around the product at all times.

Final Product up to now

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Recitation 10: Workshops – Ariana Alvarez

For this week’s recitation, after the map() function workshop, I chose to attend the media manipulation workshop, as it was what aligned the most with my project. What I wanted to work on in this workshop, was to learn how to manipulate pixels in webcam. 

Initially, I attempted to change directly the RGB colors in the webcam, as during the workshop I was told that there may not be the possibility of adding a filter to it (similar with an image). As this process wasn’t being effective in creating a negative image effect,  I did some research and it was possible to add filters to webcam with cam.filter() function. 

After adding an inverse black and white filter effect on the webcam, I also attempted to make the image brighter and darker by manipulating the HSB values of the pixels. It was quite challenging, however this media manipulation workshop provided me with a better head-start towards my project and allowed me to explore further ways in which pixels could be manipulated in webcam through processing. 

The code was the following:

//int r = 50;
//int g = 50;
//int b = 50;

import processing.video.*; 
Capture cam;

//color invertColor( int r, int g, int b) {

//  return color(255 - r, 255 - g, 255 - b);
//}

void setup() {  
  size(640, 480); 
  colorMode(HSB);
  cam = new Capture(this, 640, 480);
  cam.start(); 
} 
 void draw() { 
   
   
   
  if (cam.available()) { 
   cam.read(); 
   image(cam, 0, 0); 
   cam.filter(GRAY);
   cam.filter(INVERT);
      //background(invertColor(r,g,b));
  } 

  cam.loadPixels();
       
//Pixels, code with Arduino Distance Sensor
  noStroke();
  int rectSize = 10;
  int w = cam.width;
  int h = cam.height;
  
  for (int y = 0; y < h; y+=rectSize) {
    for (int x = 0; x < w; x+=rectSize) {
      int i =  x + y * w;
      
      fill( cam.pixels[i] );     
      rect(x, y, rectSize, rectSize);
      
      
    //for (int y = 0; y < h; y++) {
    //  for (int x = 0; x < w; x++) {
    //    int i =  x + y*w; // *** IMPORTANT ***
    
        float b = brightness(cam.pixels[i]); 
        float s = saturation(cam.pixels[i]);
        float u = hue(cam.pixels[i]);
        float ch = map(mouseX, 0, 255, height, width);
        cam.pixels[i] = color(u, s, b+ch); 
     
      }
   
    cam.updatePixels();
  }
  }
 //   }
 //}