Final Project Proposal: When the Mind Meets the Eye
Our project, When the Mind Meets the Eye, attempts to address the significant topic of how one interprets and views a painting, as well as an issue regarding the famous painting of the Mona Lisa itself. Throughout the research I conducted on this painting, a reoccurring theme that I could not ignore was that people were generally unimpressed with the Mona Lisa and their interactions with the painting. They felt that the painting was generally dull and difficult to see and in order to improve their experience with the painting, they take selfies and other photos with it, yet this does little to satisfy their appetites. Our project allows the user to interact with a drawing of the Mona Lisa but edit her expression and make it more fitting to what they perceive or enjoy. We provided the user with a choice of a number of expressions with the intention of not only allowing them to create what their mind envisions, but also become more engaged with the famous painting than they would if they visited it in the Louvre.
In order to successfully create a project that satisfies these conditions, an extensive amount of planning needs to take place before we start constructing anything physical. We first need to create a base drawing or image of the Mona Lisa in Adobe Illustrator and then make multiple different copies of that drawing. The reason for this is that we need to be able to manipulate her facial expressions to reflect certain emotions. We cannot do so as easily if we merely import a photo or image of the painting into processing. From this Mona Lisa sketch, we are making some subtle changes to her face in order for her to evoke different emotions within the viewer. Once we make a select number of possible portraits that each contain a clear emotional feature, then we can begin designing the console that the user will manipulate to edit their drawings in processing. The number of buttons will correspond to the number of emotion options we decide to have, while we will also have potentiometers adjusting the shading and brightness of the image. It is important that we reserve enough time for designing this console because digitally fabricating it from wood will take time. Most of our time will most likely be used coding the buttons and switches to establish communication between Arduino and Processing.
I believe that our project idea is a product of the research I conducted previously on defining interaction, as well as research on processing projects similar to what we want to accomplish. My definition of interaction is “a continued conversation between two or more persons or things that convert different forms of energy into the physical and virtual worlds”. Not only do I think our final project satisfies this definition through its use of a physical console, which allows people to press and turn things with their hands in order to affect change is happening on the screen, but I also believe that it evokes much of the same user communication that is referenced in our reading, “Physical Computing” and “The Art of Interactive Design.” The users will be watching, thinking, and acting with the technology that receives inputs, processes things, and has outputs. That being said, the two Processing projects I regarded, “Splat Paint”and “Painting With Pixels” are both simplified versions of what we want to create. The first of the two merely just allows the user to continue putting different colored ellipses on the screen but with no guidance or purpose. The second project allows the user to slowly unveil the image on the screen by painting it with their mouse, but each time the same apple logo appears. Our project will give users more options and has a purpose of allowing the user to create something unique to themselves with the expression given.
Links to the projects references in the text
“Splat Paint”
“Painting With Pixels
Links to articles about general Mona Lisa painting interactions
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/oct/19/art.france
https://www.nytimes.com?2018/04/27/arts/design/mona-lisa-instagram-art.html