Project Description and Evolving focus

The display ended up looking like a set of lungs, so I began to think about ways in which the project could represent a human being. 

The project's concept initially, for my Russel Grant application, was to create a project that allowed a viewer to examine their perceptions of personal space. As the viewer would get closer to the project it would breathe faster, indicating excitement or fear.

In order to revise the concept I am mulling over in my head some ideas that I have been thinking about for a while, since reading Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud. He states that the less detailed and more basic a comic image looks the more that a human can connect personally with the subject of a comic. Basically that one can see themselves in the comic if the representation of the character becomes more generic. His example is of a smile face versus a highly detailed face of a male human. For my new focus I want to explore this concept into the physical realm by examining whether a person can feel more connected to a electronic representation of some form of a human being. The lungs will be mounted on a wall and from a distance I feel it will be easier to understand their purpose, especially with the auditory and visual cues of breath and "air" moving through the lungs. As the viewer gets closer the breathing will either speed up, become erratic, or change in some nature that makes it less "human-like" and more electronic. The breathing will also change from a natural sounding breath to a more digital form. This will be accomplished by using a bit crushing patch in processing's minim v 2.01 beta on the sound patch that creates the breath.

I still have some work on the electronics, all the programming, and some concept before the final presentation.