UOW: day 5

For a Monday, i had a pretty good day. 

I spent most of it on the main campus in Building 25 - i started off sorting out some problems with my computer and setting up insurance, which was very adult of me. 

-I did some other application/admin-type things;

-Uploaded the documentation from Thursday's Listening Project and

-Emailed around a call-out for participants in another one, planned for 4pm.

I caught up with Jo Law,  one of the Media Arts lecturers, and whose students i'll was booked in to talk to the next day and we sorted out what I might discuss.

Then i met Robyn Douglass, the TA in the textile studio, with whom I'd booked a textile screen-printing session. I had been trying to print the lists from Listening and Being for ages - having little success at CIA. 

And now i know why - i had too heavy a hand and too narrow a squeegee. Philosophy for life, really.

It was excellent to get a print refresh - i hadn't done any emulsion exposing for ages and my process was a little rusty. Now i feel like i could do it again really easily (and may do, if i get some time).

Mostly i printed tests, albeit nice-looking tests. Red ink on calico and curtain backing fabric, with varying degrees of success. 

The ultimate plan one day is to print some large, long scrolls of the sounds heard on listening projects - replicating old public documents, or manifestos, or creeds. That will require a much larger screen and a large-format printer, but it can be done.

documentation from Day 3

At 4pm, I started my listening project, then had a student from third-year, Jess Millman, join me. 

We listened (in stereo) for 30 minutes, to the same site I did on Thursday. It was great for me to revisit the site and note the differences in the time of day and the quality of headphones i was using as a prop. In the comparison afterwards, it was quite validated to realise we heard similar sounds (the overwhelming sound of scuffing shoes) and had similar difficulties discerning large volumes of conversation. I'll upload some documentation for that later today, hopefully.

Overall, it was a good day. I had booked into a serviced apartment for the night and perhaps because i knew that i didn't have to rush back to Sydney that night, i was a lot calmer.

I set up the apartment as a mini-studio, paid the overpriced internet connection (a future rant on that later) and did a bit of work, made dinner being as resourceful as i could (boiled pasta in a salad bowl full of boiling water in the microwave) and worked on a presentation for the students.

Annoyingly, when it came time to sit down and start working on my arduino, i realised that i left the main board back at the University! Aaargh! so annoying… especially as i've been carrying it around with me for the last 4 days, working on it on the train (and maybe trying to become one with it so that i understand it better).

I really couldn't do anything more, so i did some more research, trying to find code that might fit what i want to do: use flex sensor (input) to create sound with the wave shield (output), use lilypad accelerometer (input) with arduino shield (it included an extra 4051 chip, though), and simple code for flex sensors.

When i knew that i had enough, i did what any self-respecting girl would do in such circumstances: 

I went to the spa and sauna.