Colour

FINAL VISUAL RESULT

Graphical (see FIGS 1 - 3)
• The main colour you see is the mood most users were established as having
(blue-energetic, red-confident, purple-controlling, yellow-shy, green-erratic).

The first choice here was to have similar colours and shapes to the moodcapture program to convey each mood. for efficiency (only a limited number of sprites could be called in director to allow a fast enough visual), screen shots of the moodcpture mood areas where taken and used as the main ‘fader’ backgrounds for each mood representation. Various scripts where written and applied to make this still blur and slowly move, but in the end, this was deemed to be too similar and was unable to successfully blend with the other graphics.

A more graphical approach was taken using the colours associated with each mood as horizontal bars of different shades being randomly scattered over the stage. Extra script was added to stop the bars being drawn over the vertical age bars - mentioned below.

• The bars going horizontally in a vertical manner define the age group who most used moodproject.

The age group graphic and positioning was based upon the questionnaire results that indicated young was thought of as being at the bottom, while old at the top of the screen. So, the bars start at the bottom of the screen for the youngest age group - 5 to 12yr - , while being produced from member calls of sprites with bright primary colours and a small set width of 5 pixels. The randomly scattered graphic constrained to one fifth of the screen then moves up the stage, increases in size and saturates as the data collected reflects older age groups (the research and questionnaire statistics can be found in the research area of moodproject).

• Scattered over the visual are either circles or squares depending on the gender of most users. The size and colour of these shapes depend on the overall user total of mood project.

The main purpose of this visual element is to convey the total user count of mood project. The greater the use of the moodcapture program, the smaller and darker this visual becomes. This also softens the overall image if the greater user was female by applying circles of different blends instead of squares..

• The changing shape/pattern at the centre of the visual shows the gender of most users and how many of this gender used moodproject
(square-male, circle-female).

Again based on the questionnaire and other research, the centre graphic is either a dark shimmering square shape for males or a pulsating pink/red/white circle for females. This graphic expands across the stage depending on the amount of use by the highest use gender.

FIGS 1-3

MOODCAPTURE

Black :Indicates hatred, negativity, depression and miserly.

Red :Can indicate fear or anger.

Yellow :Joy, freedom, non-attachment, freeing or releasing vital forces.

Green :Restful, modifying energy, natural healing and neutralising

Blue :Balanced existence, sustaining life, eased nerve system

Purple:Heightened spiritual awareness, self-esteem, and high ideals.

White :Indicates purity and/or protection.

Orange:Confidence, ambition, pride.

Brown :Selfishness, deception, confusion or discouragement.

and that:

I had to gather all my research and start constructing the program that would make my environment possible. I had some considerations on how this would work. Firstly, the program would be designed to respond to user input via web cam and be programmed in Macromedia Director, which allowed certain creativity. Secondly, I had to decide how to construct the on screen graphics and thirdly, for the overall audio, I wanted to include more than just the colour tones, so to heighten the mood effect.

The simplest and most efficient way available to me to capture a users mood via webcam was to somehow capture ‘emotions’ based on body gestures and activities to convey mood, e.g. if someone was energetic, confident, shy, controlling or erratic they would have a certain universal body language to convey it. This would involve writing script in macromedia director to track the pixels on screen to tell how close someone was and where they are in relation to the webcam. Researching into body language techniques, I found the most used ‘gestures’ that show your attitude or moods are:

Combining the information that I had gathered so far I was able to construct this model of for my environment basis:

Mood Areas

Start screen
Beginning interface where u can control the on screen colours and colour audio tones with movement.

Depending on user’s activity/body language/mood, sends them to below areas…

Blue – Calm
Soothing circled blue graphics - was too energetic on start screen, needs calming

Red – Fear
Dark angled red graphics - was too confident/happy and to close and fast moving on start screen, needs to be made fearful or anxious, so move away

Yellow – Confidence
Bright yellow graphical ‘sunshine rays’ - too quiet and removed or disengaged from environment start screen, needs energising and bringing closer

Purple – No Control
Purple/indigo circle graphics – was too controlling from start screen. Time in this area is set randomly, user has no control until time lapses

Green Healing
Green ‘first aid’ and natural ‘bamboo’ graphics – was too erratic on start screen, needs neutralising and healing.

I believe I have constructed a close to initial conception ‘artistic installation’ that has followed my learning agreement criteria. This included the fact that it was to be seen as an ‘art piece’ that has no real instruction for use for the user. Instead, they are to explore the interface and discover the meaning and mood of the artwork themselves. The difference from traditional art (where an artist’s mood is conveyed) is that although I have programmed ‘mood’ into my ‘art environment’, it is ultimately the user who controls what mood they feel, knowingly or not. The ‘canvas’ is alive to their mood, moodbydesign.