Colony at Life.lab

stewarthaines.com / colony / app_design_process.html

Brief

The starting point for my involvement in the project was the idea of using the iPod touch to interact with the sound/light installation over a WiFi connection. Possibly as a sequencer, maybe live - providing immediate feedback to touch gestures.

Troy Innocent (artist and designer)
Casey Rice (max/msp sequencer and video processing)
Liz Hughes (producer)
Stewart Haines (iPod touch app and misc web)
assorted manufacturers and technicians

Project Architecture

The Colony app prompts the user to join the colony open network. This is a local WiFi network on-site which is connected to a MacPro running a MAX/MSP patch. The patch controls the light levels on 36 totem sculptures in the landscaping around the Life.lab building at Digital Harbour.

DMX controller (addressable LEDs)
3x WiFi access points
36x internally LED-lit totem sculptures
6x stereo output
2x webcam (video input to MAX/MSP)
MacPro running MAX/MSP signal processing software
iPod touches supplied by audience

(The software solution involves the MAX/MSP patch advertising a bonjour service, which the iPod application discovers with no pre-configuration. The iPod and MAX communicate with OSC (Open Sound Control) messages sent over UDP.)

Early Colony.app concept sketches

Typical usage profile for iphone apps; short bursts of activity, single-task oriented. Apple calls it 'Fast Launch, Short Use'. The WiFi connection is quite a drain on battery life.

Low expectations; my project goal; keep a user entertained for 60 seconds as they pass through the space.

Some early thoughts on interaction possibilities;

flick to navigate between hexagonal tiles
double-tap to zoom in/out
tilt to affect colour gradient
tap to set rhythm

I hadn't done any Objective-C development. I wasn't familiar with the Cocoa APIs. I had only been playing with the iPod touch for a couple of weeks. There was no official SDK available at the start of the project. Initial development was with the opensource toolchain - very limited documentation, sample code. Unfamiliar with OSC, lack of an obvious choice for formatting and sending OSC formate data.

I was 'accepted' to the iPhone Developer Program at the start of May which allowed me access to the official build tools and documentation, though it was still in beta for a couple of months.