Bunnymedia

After 6 months of hard work my dissertation has been handed in, All that is left to do now is re work my web site which need major updating so I can showcase all my projects.

Here is a link to the dissertation

Dissertation

Scent is the most emotionally powerful sense a human has, so why has it been neglected for so long in the development of new media technologies?

I am currently going through loads of GPS mapping programs on the internet to find the one that will best suit my project. I have been looking at GPS 2 GE which works with Google Earth which was very successful, but I still want to experiment further with create a scape and other software that allows me to create the map myself.

I was looking back at some of my intial research and it lead me to some interesting articles documenting the following projects

Sceintient beings – Jenny Tillotson
Clothing which emits scent according to the persons mood.
Scentimantal Space utalised her emotional clothing, the user would wear an item from her collection which reacts with wellpaper in the surrounding space producing sounds, amoras, colour and touch.

Aroma Jets – Pinoke
A device worn by gamers to enhance their game playing experiences by emitting smells that correspond with the action.

K Opti Produced Koari a system that allows users to smell products on the internet, Telewest have also been working on a scent dome technology allowing users to smell their emails.

Scents Of Space – Usman Haque
3D placement of smell to create scent collages using fans and diffusion screens

AIR – Hilda Kozari
This installation consists of 3 bubbles each containing a perfume which was specially created by a perfumer to represent her olfactory experience of three cities (Paris, Helsinki & Budapest.)

The university of Southern California have developed a system for the army where smells can be used to give commands and increase stealth.

Japan gets way more than its fair share or weird gadgets and gizmos and if they aren’t designed to keep your warm the seem to be centered on smell. Sony Ericsson is introducing a new phone in Japan only called the S0703i that has a scent slot. The phone will have 11 avaliable scents though they havent said what they will be yet.

I have just about survived the holiday with minimal internet access, and hav managed to do a surprising amount of work. I am particularly excited about filming my 4D this Sunday, my brother and I have been working on a film project over the holidays and it seems to have furthered my passion for film making. I have made sure all my costumes are the right size and made all my amends and packed them up already to take them back to Plymouth. I have been looking into different peripherals i could use for my sound project so I can do some decent testing of my idea without hemeraging cash for batteries. My project idea is going well I just have to talk to Dan and the guys in the electronics lab about the possibilties of making the thing (I do have a simple back up plan if this proves to not be possible) The dissertation is going well I am making great progress i have collected all my information and have nearly completed the sample chapter ready for its deadline. As crazy as it sounds I am really looking forwards this term where all my ideas from the first term are  finally becomning reality!

I went to the Lab Friday night to see if my creation would work. After a huge struggle getting it from a top floor flat and squeezing it into the car (It only just fitted in) I managed to get it to the lab in one piece.
Now the moment of truth.

I connected all my sensors up turn on all the lasers and ran the patch and everything works. I videoed it just incase there was a problem on tuesday. However that mac didnt have additional just the internal one which was a bit quite so I am going to have to get some speakers attched on tuesday.

A few other things I need to sort
Need to buy more batteries as the ones I have are pretty much dead now :S
Also some of my lasers died not sure if it is the battery or the lasers but I have bought two more lasers and am going hunting for batteries tommorrow morning before heading to the lab to make a few spare sensors.
It was a bit fiddle aligning the lasers with the light sensor as the light sensors are so small but once I have secured the sensors properly it should be ok.

I have just finished writting version 3 of my patch with the capability of pitch changing with 2 additional lasers. Now all that is left is to do is collect all my documentation together, the research behind the ideas, the sketches of my objects, my problem list and my patch deisgns.

Fingers crossed everything will go fine on Tuesday ^^

I can’t believe what I found when browsing the net, there soon will be a device avaliable for £250 that will allow you to add scents to your emails :S

Area of Interest:
The evolution of my idea has led me to investigate ways in which we can experience emotional interation through technology via tactile devices.
There are several ways to produce tactile interaction the three easiest of these interations are touch, sound and vision. You might wonder how vision is a tactile interaction?! As light touches your eyes it is processed by the cells in your eyes sending messages via your optic nerves to your brain where the signal turns into imagery. The same is true for the ears, sound waves move the bones in your ears allowing you to hear sounds. But a sense that is very much neglected by technology is smell. Traditionally technology is with out scent.
I think this quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayre sums up my project idea quite well. (I had totally forgotten about it until I was thinking about sense and technologies ^^)
Giles: Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is…it has no texture, no context. It’s there and then it’s gone. If it’s to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, um, smelly.
I, Robot – You, Jane

Project Aim:
At this evolutionary stage of my project I see it as a device used along side visual or aural communication.
The easiest way of describing this is with an example:
Guy x & Girl Y are married but Guy X travels alot on business so they communicate through emails/texts/phone. When GuyX calls/texts Girl Y there is a despenser attached to the communication device which will release Guy X’s scent (aftershave) and vice versa when she calls him her perfume will be released by the despenser at his end.

Ideas of how I might achieve this:
Hacking time dispense air freshners and extracting the trigger mechanism then filling and combining it with a bluetooth arduino board. Though I am not totally sure the best thing to do yet, I am having electronic lesson for my sound module so i hope through that it will help me to realise the technology I will use.