Week 10: Media Controller by Theresa Lin

For the exercise, I used a potentiometer to try to control the speed of this video. The idea was to make it so that the users can make the video go in slow motion whenever they wanted and speed it up whenever. After I edited the code for one variable, I spent a while playing around with the speed() function to see how the video would react. In the code, I set it so that if the values from Arduino was over 40 the video would play twice as fast, and if the value is under 30 it would play at a fourth of the original speed. I also increased the frame rate to 60fps so when it’s in slow motion, the video quality wouldn’t be too blurry. I think because my computer lagged so much, it was really hard to tell if the video was actually slow or fast when I turned the potentiometer. The values that Processing was receiving kept jumping from 10-13 to 48 or the other way around so sometimes the video would end up speeding up or slowing down when it’s not supposed to. I’m not sure if there was something wrong with the potentiometer or it could be that my computer made it lag. It’s a bit hard to tell in this video.

As mentioned in “Computer Vision for Artists and Designers” because of how computer algorithms are so widely available for anyone to learn, computer vision is being incorporated more and more into not just ‘practical’ designs but also interactive art. It broadens the scope of ways people can experience art. I think using Arduino and Processing is a really good way of interaction that tunes into humans’ physical senses while people experiencing computer-based artworks. It creates a bridge between the physical and digital world.

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