Who is this for?

Well, it is most defiantly for those with imagination, some people that might view this work might think it's just junk laying around, even though I have tried very hard to create a device that inspires and creates imagination.

For me as a kid, well actually even now I do this, but most of my childhood (from what I still remember) I always pretended I was not in our world, I guess this brings me back to hyper reality.
Actually, gonna find a good paper on it.

Ok, a quick search gave no good papers.
But an explanation

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hyperreality.htm (<---Actually a good description)

Anyway as a kid I'd imagine that the locations I was in were related to those of films or games, or just a fusion of things I liked at the time, as for why? well there are a bunch of psychological factors involved.
mostly with a desire to lose your attachment yourself from your current world, and I'd guess if you are unhappy with something you'd want to change it.
If you were happy with your existence you would not have the desire to remove yourself from our present reality to engulf yourself in another.

I'd often pretend I was a lab worker creating weird machines to help me with my bigger experiments, so I guess this device was just an extension of my fascination of hyper reality.

People evolve over the years and lose there sense of adventure and imagination because life, as we all know, throws restraints on us.
Our jobs, social life, love life, money issues and not to mention the growing responsibility's we all face hinder our progress to great imaginations and the natural thirst for exploration.
People often, more so these days, hope for a holiday or events so that they themselves can break away form reality.
A music festival, golf match, sport on television and of course the most popular of all, video games, can all be considered as methods of breaking away and sub versing from reality.
I guess most of us would rather connect to a new reality and enjoy something a little less than our mundane lives.
For most of us its, wake up, get ready for work(usually a job you hate), a little interaction with friends then home (see wife if applicable) eat, sleep and repeat.
It's no wonder why humans seek alternate reality's and live a little excitement.
It's probably why fantasy films do so well in the box office, when watching a film you become attached to that enviroment and almost feel in place there.
An audience with no imagination or curiosity will get no pleasure from this piece, but for those that like to believe and those that like disconnecting from reality should hopefully find this appealing.

A piece by Eric Dodson, is relevant.

http://www.westga.edu/~psydept/dodson/nonlectu.html

Busy, busy, busy day.

Today Was horrendously busy.

After little more than 3 hours sleep (been the average a day for the last week) I woke up and headed to my friends to gather resources.

I basically had to set up, film, drive to Norwich 35miles then edit the footage, all before 5pm.

Was very difficult as editing alone takes up a huge chunk, luckily i have good knowledge in editing.

Pulled it off anyway, only problem was, I forgot to film an item for the video, quite inportant in my opinion.
The camera that takes images of the sky, I set it up, but because it had to be away from the tree and the stress of getting all this done in a day, i forgot to film it, and even forgot to pick it up after the shoot, I just hope it's there tomorrow :(

Some links I have been looking at...#2

Well this is an image not a link.. but hey it is relevant.
This is really accurate, science of systems (my device), created and studied by observers (myself) who construct models that increase understanding, and loop.

Some links I have been looking at...#1

http://www.pangaro.com/published/cyber-macmillan.html

I like this quote:

"The term itself began its rise to popularity in 1947 when Norbert Wiener used it to name a discipline apart from, but touching upon, such established disciplines as electrical engineering, mathematics, biology, neurophysiology, anthropology, and psychology"

I especially agree with the psychological aspect that cybernetics implements.
Creating an appearance will determine the effect and response from its viewer, I originally wanted to have a humanoid figure as the device, but after many different debates with myself I came to the conclusion that the enviroment was going to be a key aspect in this devices appeal.
So I focused on the objects design provoking curiosity.
Anyway, its a good read, the link that is.





Next link:
http://www.ibiblio.org/nmediac/summer2003/simone.htm
The Simone Controversy:
The End of Reality?
- Thomas Cooper, Ph.D., Emerson College

Basically a paper on hyper reality, covered this subject in games design and I actually think it is totally relevant in my project, because this fantasy device is itself in its own hyper reality created by me, and only those that know everything I know about the project will become part of its reality, thats kinda cool when you think about it, creating your own reality.

The story behind the "not so handy handycam"

The last three days I have been stressing (more so than a normal) over the camera, If you can remember a post I put up earlier, I had borrowed a camcorder from university, a Sony handycam.
turned out not to be so handy, oh the irony.
When I borrowed it I was asked if I wanted one that was SD, obviousley I heard wrong, as its "DV" that was probably actually said as thats what the camera is, I thought oh yeah, I got loads of SD cards at home, mega.

Well I got it home and then realized its pro duo cards, I thought this was a blessing as I had larger capacity versions of those cards, so I grabbed my 2GB one and inserted it, life went downhill from there on.
It was saying, "movie recording on memory stick is not supported" GAH! So I thought maybe i need to reformat it, reformatted it a thousand times and still nothing, so I thought ill see if I can take pictures on it.
WOW presto it did, now I was confused, it will take pictures, and for some reason won't record, I phoned a friend and asked him about his, well turns out, to his knowledge all the Sony cams he has used recently have inbuilt hard drive, and I assumed that this camera might be a little older (what do I know) anyway.
still nothing, So I phoned, emailed etc to Shaun.

at this point I am in panic mode, only a few days left and need to film this, so I try a multitude of useless methods to maybe get this to work.


So I get an idea, download the PDF of the camera and read it, sounds simple, but ended up causing more confusion.

here is the confusion.
This means, from what I could make of it, that it CAN record, says so itself.
But meant i needed a different card maybe?
This is all getting very confusing very quickly.

Today, I decided enoughs enough, and headed into Norwich, which was a last resort as it will use £10 fuel, £5 parking, eating £5-10 anyway works out very bad for keeping up with rent if I make more trips than need be and with the looming tuition charges around the corner I rarely make this decision to go to Norwich on "hunches" .
First stop "WHERE IN THE WORLD PC WORLD" More like WHERE IN THE WORLD IS A PRO DUO THATS NOT A MAGICGATE TYPE?!?!" I'll tell you, it can't exist, they sent me next door to Curry's, who told me to try Maplins, who told me they don't exist (but the user manual thinks they do) but don't worry, they sent me to the SONY center in Chapelfeild shopping center, I parked, and headed into the mall, the SONY center was amazing, they too could not work this out, I told them to check the user guide, and after about a hour of them talking rubbish they came to the conclusion that there might be a chance that a smaller card, put in an adapter thats not magicgate might work. anyway, this was unless, so I phoned Phil, my backup, and asked if he could txt Shaun's number, maybe I was ringing the wrong one?
well he sent me the text and i had the right number, so I figured if anyone could help he's the man.
I rung it 3-4 times, nothing, I was alone, So I went to see Phil in person, the other side of the main shopping section of the city, found him, borrowed his swipe card and hoped I could find either Shaun or Marcus, went to see Shaun first, gate is closed, crap I forgot the University was closed today, but maybe the DV suite is open? no its not.
So one last ring, before I head home broken and defeated, and he picked up, turns out, regardless of disorientating manuals they just can't record onto memorysticks, i'd have to buy DV tapes £12 more cost -_- and then have to go home and film it, oh wait, did I mention i can't edit it at home now, because the tapes are HD and it would be a slow process, which means another load of expense as I have to go in tomorrow, the same day of filming, and edit it, then travelle in thursday again to hand everything in, I will be officially poor by the end of this, anyway, wanted to get my point across.



The link to the Page for the User manual for the "HDR-HC3 HDV1080i/miniDV" which Is the camcorder in question.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=HDRHC3

The Story Of The Device.

*WARNING, UNLESS YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE DEVICE WAS, DON'T READ AHEAD*



*IF YOU HAVE WATCHED THE VIDEO THEN YOU CAN READ AHEAD*















"The Device"

A Long time back a young scientist traveled the world in search of a specific set of conditions.
After years of long and tedious research the aging man discovered such conditions, they were only found in north Norfolk, more specifically a single tree situated near the coast.
This tree, in the scientist's opinion, commanded a strange relationship with the earth and the sky. He believed that this single tree was responsible for a lot of natures forces.
He also believed that this tree's relationship with the enviroment also can directly effect peoples moods and even dreams!

Of course, with little evidence to prove this, he was laughed out of the scientific community.

Bitter and twisted, the man conducted various experiments to try and unlock the powers of this tree, after many years the man descended into a complete obsessive over the tree, he protected it from being cut down many times and tried his hardest to save this tree.

Then, about 20 years later,100 years ago, he realized that the trees ability's can only work when certain weather conditions are met, and the sign of the tree working was in fact the frequent figures and monster's he would see in the clouds, these clouds were a product of the trees imagination and these figures would often be the factor to influence peoples dreams.
With this knowledge he could now go about researching the effects needed to operate the tree, but another problem had arisen, a local development planned to make a whole new section of wells next the sea, that would itself build over where the tree stood.
Furious the man worked tirelessly to recreate the conditions.
But luck was again not with him, he feel ill and spent his last few days trying to recreate the conditions.
The irony, he died the day worked out the conditions, but his hatred somehow managed to effect the tree, and the next day, the land in every direction for a mile, turned slick and wet.
By the end of the week all that land was reduced to rotten marshland, this marshland cut the tree off from the town and destroyed any possibility of building near it.
This marsh is still there today, effected by the tide a quay is now formed.
Since this incident, a buzzword has evolved out of the fallout from the situation, "global warming" scientist's like to believe that there theory on our human pollution may be the key factor but it is not, yes its not helping but since the old man died, the tree has been feeding off his bitterness.

Kikichumonji, A young professor has recently been going over his grandfathers paperwork, he has also decided to study the tree, but with todays technology he hopes to be able to recreate each aspect of the conditions needed.
Last thing anyone heard is that he had created a multitude of devices to help together, to recreate the conditions, and then somehow influence the trees effect.

The discovery video is the device that kikichumonji had been using, but did it work?



Thats the gist of it.

SONY Handycam, and why the lord hates me...

The dude upstairs is really unhappy with me.

I borrowed a camcorder from uni, I was asked if I wanted an SD card one, I said "yeah!" (I have like 4-5 SD cards at home from 32MB to 2GB, so it made perfect sense to get that cam)

BUT WAIT!!

for some reason I can only take still images with it!

After finally getting internet access (taking my PC to my friends) I downloaded the instruction manual PDF as a last resort. (I emailed shaun, phoned his mobile, left a message on his office phone, but he must have been busy for a good 3 days...)


Turns out none of my cards will work for recording because of two words "Magic gate", this is basically a term givin to new SD cards and it means they store data and encrypt it. So thus rendering the "Sony" SD magic gate cards unusable for the "Sony" handy cam, its ridiculous, what else will be thrown in my way?
Getting irritated with things always going wrong for me.