res·​o·​nance: entry #1

I'm really excited to share something I've been quietly working on over the last few months - res·​o·​nance, the tentative name for a series of engineering art installations I'm developing!

The name res·​o·​nance is presented as if in a dictionary to symbolise the numerous different meanings it holds, thus representing the many aspects of this project and the multi-faceted approach I'm taking with it. Resonance can refer to the physics concept where there is a vibration of large amplitude due to periodic stimulus that is similar to the natural frequency of the system, or it can refer to resonance in a musical instrument, or to the idea that something is impactful and resonating with someone(s). These different aspects of one word are exactly what this project is aiming to encompass: the intersection of science, technology, art and impact through community engagement.

I briefly mentioned in my last post that I had been looking into DIY multi-touch capacitive sensors, which has since given birth to the idea of a larger interactive installation. Since that post, I started researching capacitive touch sensors and how they work, leading me to learn the difference between self- and mutual-capacitance, and I also demonstrated both of these concepts through a small sensor prototype I made from scratch (see photo below). I'll save the specifics of what I learned about capacitive touch sensors for another post since it's a lot of information; in the meantime, I'd love to talk more about my wider plans for this larger project here.

I had also mentioned in my last post that I wanted to explore the intersection of art and technology, but at the time, I was interested in seemingly random concepts without much direction to go off of. Since then, I've narrowed my focus to creating interactive and educational exhibits that explore this intersection. This narrowed scope thus freed me to start prototyping concepts I wanted to explore (such as the touch sensor) without being stuck in that familiar state of inaction! It also felt like the perfect way to explore a range of ideas, rather than having to focus on just one, which leads me to the other art installation I'm currently prototyping...

I've always been fascinated by kinetic sculptures but never had any concrete idea of how to make my own until recently. I decided to tackle creating a kinetic wave sculpture driven by a series of cams with even angle offsets around a shaft (mechanical design inspired by Engineezy on YouTube). I already have a working prototype (see video below); however, I also have the idea of incorporating portrait photographs I've taken into the sculpture. The idea here is that the photos, driven by the rods on the cams in a wave formation, will appear to be "breathing," thus representing the life that the people in the photographs breathe into Aotearoa. As a result, I intend this to be a unique take on traditional kinetic sculptures through a blend of hard (rods, 3D-printed parts, etc.) and soft (paper, photographs, etc.) materials, something that I always love exploring in art and presentation.

Overall, I'm really excited to start scaling up these prototypes and developing them further as large-scale installations for people to interact with! The ultimate goal would be to host these somewhere for people to attend for free (eg. a library or school) and to get community engagement with them, whether it be through other engineering students/professionals contributing their own installations, or through running workshops with primary school students to make their own small engineering art designs. I plan to post as regularly as possible about the concepts I'm developing so that my posts can also serve as an educational component for the projects (I essentially want everything to be open-source so that people can re-create things and build off of the works themselves!). I plan to make two separate posts as soon as possible about the two concepts I'm developing so that I can cover them in detail, so stay tuned for that :)

~ Sophia