Category: Christopher Reid

Posted on

A9: Smell Notes | Christopher Reid

In-class

Smells were mostly faint on our walk due to the rain, which also made it difficult to make detailed drawings or take too many notes. The strongest smells were the smell of seaweed and a dead crab leg by the beach, the trees as we approached Stanley Park, and the smell of rotting wood near old, dead trees within the park itself

At Home

A “smell walk” through my laneway on garbage night. It was a wet autumn night, and so besides the smell of garbage, dominant smells were of fallen leaves and the wet pavement and gravel of the lane.
Posted on

A8: Tuning In & Windplay | Christopher Reid

In-class

At Home

For the Tuning In exercise, I decided to re-draw my “sound rose” from a previous assignment (A3: Mapping). The goal with this version was to use graphics instead of text to try and convey the same information. Here, the extent of each bar represents the frequency with which a sound was heard, and the colour saturation represents how loud it was (with dark being loudest).

 

For the Windplay assignment, I chose to make a sort of indoor wind chime driven by a rotating fan in my bedroom. A wooden cube suspended on a string from a guitar wall hanger is blown around by the fan and creates music by hitting and bouncing off of the guitar strings. One can create different moods by tuning the guitar differently. CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE/HEAR A VIDEO OF THE DEVICE IN ACTION.
Posted on

A5: Using Our Hands | Christopher Reid

In-class

Blindfolded: perspective and ‘elevation’ drawings of a mystery object.
Blindfolded: ‘plan’ drawing done by tracing around object with free hand while mirroring movement and feel with pen hand. Scribbles at bottom are of irregularities inside the smooth, cupped inner side.
With blindfold off: mystery object was a shell, drawn above in perspective and elevation. Photos of shell below.

At home

Blindfolded: various drawings of a mystery object.
With blindfold off: mystery object was a small ‘aux’ audio cable. Drawings are meant to replicate drawings done while blindfolded for comparison.

Extra

Idea for a smartphone with a display that can be ‘seen’ by the visually-impaired. Instead of squares of light and colour, pixels are rounded ‘pins’ that move up and down, allowing for the texture of the screen to change and display topographic ‘images’–or text in braille–that could be felt by running one’s fingers across it. Maximally-spaced cameras on the back can capture and combine multiple images into a 3-dimensional image that can then be displayed on the topography of the screen. One could take a photo of a landscape, or receive a photo from a loved one, and ‘see’ it by feeling it on the display. Such a display could augment existing audio and voice commands to provide a more complete smartphone experience for those with visual impairments.
Inspiration: Pin art board shows the potential of a variable-texture touch-based display.

 

Posted on

A3: Mapping | Christopher Reid

In-class

At Home

For 15 minutes took tally of sounds heard, which direction they came from, and roughly how loud they were. Site: Jericho Beach Lookout near public binoculars.
Sketched map of site surroundings, with cardinal directions colour-coded. Attempted to plot on hand-drawn compass rose below, but too complex. Ultimately made digital version (below).
“Sound rose” of sounds heard at Jericho Beach lookout. Each bar represents a different sound, with its extent representing the frequency with which it was heard, and its height representing how audible it was. Cardinal directions are colour-coded and correspond to colours on the map above. Different directions varied greatly in the sounds heard variety of sound sources.

Spam prevention powered by Akismet