Week 7/8 - The Construction of the Machine and Half-Time Reflection

Easter break marks the half-way point on this module, so it's probably a good time to have a reflection on what this collaboration has so far lead to and my thoughts going forward. It certainly has been eye opening for myself and my peers. But first, our final online meeting for this module (hopefully!)...

Online Meeting 4 - 7th April 11:00am-12:00pm

Here is a summary of the main points covered with some after-thoughts:

• I wasn't late this time - Good.
• A brief message exchange on Facebook a few days before this meeting concluded that we would experiment the sensor set on a Level 1 marble-run. This was a cheap and risk-free strategy to see whether our idea could potentially work before scaling up to a potentially bigger marble run.
• After our meeting with Dr T, we started discussing about how we could further fuse mine and Peer A's compentencies into the project. It was good to see that all of us were aware of this - rather than it being a private thought I had compared to earlier in the project. It meant there was a sense of openness and honesty which was developing in the group. It was either going for a performance based approach where mine and Peer A's performance skills would be fused into the electronics or go for the installation station approach. It was the first time that I actually started leaning towards the performance approach over the installation, probably because it lead to a simpler solution of using everyone's competancies without too much trouble. Although I was aware of Peer B's insecurity of performing instruments live, so that was something to consider as well. Given that we decided last meeting to hold face to face sessions starting in the 2nd half of this semester, I held back my comments on my preferences as to avoid any 'closing doors' at this rather early stage of the project.
• The discussion lead into topics that I wasn't entirely familar with. First, Peer B was very excited to show his sensor kit that apparently 'worked like a charm' in Ableton. I didn't want to dampen his excitement, despite half of the technical language he used was almost foreign to me, so I didn't really say much. This was a similar situation later on when Peer A started talking about guitar pedals, again another topic I'm vaguely familar with but not an expert on. I'm glad they were both naturally enthusiastic, as that was one of my key criteria for selecting group members - but it did make me feel a bit out of place! It's probably because I'm not used to taking a backseat approach in a collaboration and it felt uneasy for me. It's not an issue at the moment, I usually see myself as a kinestetic learner so when people show me ideas physically than verbally, I tend to understand better. I will await the face to face meetings to hopefully understand their technical language better rather than disrupt the flow of the meeting!
• One thing I did manage to understand was the problem of sensing the marbles on the marble-run. The click button that comes with the sensor kit requires a good amount of pressure applied to it in order to sense a movement. The question now on the groups mind was whether the marbles would be detected or not, given the speed they would be going at on the track? Peer A came up with a potentially epiphanic solution of using light-based sensors to pickup the movement - a good work-around to the problem at hand and Peer B agreed to explore this case further by talking to relevant lecturers.

At this stage of the project, it seems that Peer B had all the physical materials for the project and myself and Peer A don't really have much apart from our instruments. After the meeting concluded, I had a reminiscent feeling to a few weeks ago where I felt that we have given Peer B all the responsibility for the project and mine and Peer A's contribution was perhaps limiting. However, after giving it some thought and looking back through previous blog posts, it wasn't entirely a bad thing. 

Although I havn't created music yet or created a physical product, I had been a very strong creator of ideas which usually drove the direction of the general themes discussed in the project. This shouldn't be underestimated as that forms the bed in which other collaborators can explore new concepts (like linking sensors to Ableton). I feel that both myself and Peer A's contribution will become more noticeable in the face to face sessions when we can play our instruments live and respond to sounds and Peer B's will be more evident now and over this break as he explores the technological potential of the kit he has got. 

There's still a long way to go in this project - no notes have been written, just ideas and 'playing'. But starting from our next meeting, I feel that dynamic will change as we get closer to our performance week.