Adrian Park

In the previous post about the Totem project I mentioned that I’d used TouchOSC as the remote interface for controlling the Processing application. There is a desktop application available called TouchOSC Editor which can be used to create custom interfaces for TouchOSC. I used this to create a bespoke interface that reflects my intention for the project.

To do this I attempted to link the properties of the system that the user can control to aspects of personality. The links I created (or more accurately, imagined) are as follows:

• Sophistication – Component Forms: there is a range of forms available to sculpt with rangin from simple cubes to fractal-like recursive structures. I imagine these might reflect qualities of sophistication – how deeply the user reflects, the dimensions if the user’s personality e.t.c.
• Rationality – Orientation of forms: there are controls to alter the orientation of forms in relation to each other from ery ordered to highly chaotic (random). I imagine these reflect how rational the user perceives themselves.
• Stature – Size: the size of the form can be manipulated via dimensions of length of the Totem and the number of individual forms used to create it. I imagine these might reflect the user’s perception of their stature relative to their friends and family.
• Confidence – Colour: I imagine that colour could be used as a reflection of confidence. Bright colours might suggest high confidence, whilst muted colours might suggest introversion.
• Substance – Whole Form: the user is able to use the iPhone to sculpt the shape. A smoothing toggle is available to ensure a smooth transition between component forms or to enable more precise shape by shape sculpting. The result is a very regular form or somewhat fragmented form. I imagined this might reflect a quality of substance.

These links between attributes of personality and the parameters of the system are of course very vague and subjective. Also, the qualities of personality I’ve imagined could be seen as quite provocative. This is intentional! The idea that such an abstract form could reflect an individual’s personality is a fairly tenuous idea. My intention was to select fairly provocative personality attributes that would encourage the user to consider how the suggested attribute applies to them, how they relate that to the parameter they have control over and then to manipulate the form based on that. In this way, the user’s creation would, in a very abstract way, reflect themselves. It would be a Totem.

Below are some screenshots of the TouchOSC interface I created.