CNC Milling

Solidworks render of surface being printed on the cnc routed.

Anatomy, body systems and sweat research so far

Ok so this is a brief summary of the reading I've been doing this past week on body systems and sweat excretion etc etc. I have looked at sweat abit but more about the body systems that create and deliver sweat in terms of what they do and how it might be adapted to produce the growth that we are talking about.

Sweat, as an excretion, is predominantly made up of water (more than 99%) but contains many other minerals, mainly Sodium, Potassium, Calcium, and Magnesium.

All of these minerals are considering essential "quantity elements" for bodily function, meaning we must ingest a certain amount of these to survive.

The body systems that create sweat are split into two main systems, The Eccrine system of sweat glands, and the Apocrine glands which form part of the Exocrine system.

The Eccrine glands are found all over the body, for the purpose of thermo-regulation or cooling the body. These glands are tiny coils of cells in the Dermis layer of the skin that turn into a straight duct of cells leading to the skin surface.

The Apocrine glands are found around the armpits, genitalia, anus and the areola of the nipples.

Their secretion is slightly different to normal sweat, and decomposition of the cells in this excretion is the main cause of body odour.

These glands form part of the Exocrine system, glands which deliver hormonal secretion directly to the external body or the skin.

The counter to this system is the Endocrine system which delivers hormonal secretion directly to the blood stream.

The human body is sweating all the time whether we notice it or not. If the body is in a positive mental state, free of stress or physical exertion, the rate of sweat is almost unnoticeable, this is because while the sweat travels up the straight part of the duct in an eccrine sweat gland the essential minerals (sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium) can be reabsorbed back into the body, leaving only water which can in turn be reabsorbed.

When the body is stressed, whether mentally physically or from heat, the rate of sweating increases. Because of the large increase in flow rate, sweat molecules are not in the straight duct of the eccrine gland long enough to be reabsorbed, resulting in mineral and water loss, which explains the increased need for hydration after large amounts of sweating.

Because we are talking about illustrating mental state through growth and taste, it seems viable to suggest that whilst in a positive mental state, our growth will be healthier, as the body has more nutrient content to work with, and as such we could have more growth to share with someone in more of a negative mental state where normally heavier sweating would be caused their growth would be less healthy and less desirable to eat. The odor caused by decomposition of these cells could also add another level of sensory development to the growth, not only taste but through smell it can tell us when someone is in a bad mental position and therefore less desirable to eat from, or more in need of help from people in positive mental states.

Scientific discussion of body odor is not all negative however.

Androstadienone is a chemical compound found in male sweat, which can influence the endocrine systems secretion of hormones into the blood of the opposite sex. Its odor has also been found to induce pheromonal activity in humans, and can 'significantly affect' the mood of the heterosexual woman and homosexual male. A pheromone is defined as a chemical excretion that triggers a social response in members of the same species, they are very often talked about in the breeding patterns of animals, less so in humans, supposedly because of the development of the human brain and our ability to consider other external factors? This branch of science could be much more relevant to our project however because we are talking more about reproduction and evolution, as well as the rather animalistic nature of cannibalism that loosely ties into the project.

Also important to point out that the female ovaries and the male testes are part of the Endocrine system, which could relate to Meredith's research on food, specifically fruit as the ovary of a plant.

Research applied to different social situations we are considering:

Male - Female sexual partnership

based more around the apocrine glands and compounds like androstadienone, this is where we could really push the erotic side of the project.

Male or Female - Peers or group

the Eccrine glands and growth based on mental state, healthy or not healthy, working in a similar method to the change in flow of sweat.

Male or Female - Child

less based on mental state more on development, as a child, there need for sourcing compounds such as calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium are much greater to aid there development, as such the interaction between these people could be more about healthy growth from the elder being passed down to the younger.

I think it could be really interesting to look at colour and texture for differentiating healthy from unhealthy growth based on mental state, or we could look at how the gelatin breaks down on the skin similar to the decomposition of cells in sweat and odor.

In terms of the upcoming handin I'll work on some visuals of body systems to accompany the physical models and images were doing this week. Would also potentially like to start a basis for the workbook to cover the research and development of the project that we'll have to write in full for the final handin.

so i have made the file ready for routing. will get phil to do this either today or monday so the slugs will be ready for shooting thrusday. have been working with Kev to make a head piece that will fit into the top of the slug.

ways that our slugs could become modular, trying to be deliberate with how we place the slugs in relation to each other

What is Fruit

So essentially, a fruit is a plants ovary. The ovary wall or pericarp is what forms the skin of the fruit.

is a part of a flowing plant that derives from specific tissues of the flower, mainly one or more ovaries

result from the maturing of a flower.

Inside the ovary/ovaries are one or more ovules where the megagametophyte contains the mega gamete or egg cell.  After double fertalisation, these ovules will become seeds.

Have a couple of good readings on this. Ill bring one in tomorrow

Film.

Ive kind of changed my mind.  I want to focus in on the material qualities of our growth too.  It makes the film more of an abstract doco, and will take away from the narrative.  But we have just talked about how we are communicating narrative through the photos, and i dont think its a bad thing.  It would take away from narrative, but add to quality of what we are proposing.  make it beautiful as a medium, or surface, not just having the interaction be what makes this growth appealing.

What are we all doing?

Meredith - Audio and Video planning.  Research into taste pallet and how this develops.  Research into fruit.

Scott - Sweat excretion research. Anatomy research.  Talking to our experts.

Cam - Material experiments and refining.

Kev - Material experiments and refining. Advertising for and organizing models

Byron M - 3D modeling and fluid simulations.

Byron W - Material experiments and refining.

Ben - Website! Make cool pretty stuff

If its all good i can have this flyer to be sent out to the mailing list of the victoria university theatre department. We should probably build our timeline soon so we can know for sure when we'll need the models/actors time

Film Breakdown.

Purpose:
To set a provocative mood.  To show growing and then sharing of the food.  To show communication.

Shot sequence -

1 - REM, sleeping, twitching with futuristic music. - show 'alivness' in the virtual world without us having to define this visually.  Close up and mid shots at this point.  quicker frames, limited camera movement.

2 - gowth.  slow camera.  show detail of renders.  emergent developing music into something more natural sounding.  camera still moves slowly, shots get longer, slow pans of the body + growth.

3 - sharing.  characters 'wake up' and share their growth with each other. shorter shots. limited or no movement from camera. or we could experiment with really sporadic camera... like it was live or something.  will discuss with group.

New Actors/Models

Have just been up to Toi Whakaari, the drama school to ask about actors or models. The acting department of the school is still on their break this week so the receptionist gave me the phone number for their head of school to get in contact with him next week about giving a brief presentation of what we are doing to some students. I will sus out a powerpoint or something (I know, lame, but easy to present to a random group with), we will need to figure out what sort of people we want, and how many (at this stage I'm thinking around 8-10?). With the offer of a well crafted portfolio piece and potentially even a short film produced by Weta it should be a pretty lucrative offer to them I don't imagine we'll have too much trouble finding people. What are everyone's thoughts?

Team Meeting

Thursday after hand in.

Final Presentation - looking at video and stills -

• video of a traditional couple, looking at communication and honesty, but also needs to be to the extreme, of emotion and expression.
• Integrated first person experience through the website
• Series of stills of intergenerational communication, and communication between non-social norms

Ross liked the leeches.  we need to know what we want to compose.  look at how we pull it off the skin.  CRAFT - with material, and people.

Website shots

Here are some screens of the website, firstly is the main view.

The two rows are top: picture galleries and the bottom row is videos.

the following is the picture gallery view, the previews are laid out generatively so the layout is different every time :)



and finally the video view. (click the flesh logo to go back);

Website!

I've just finished the website. I've made it as idiotproof as possible to add images (even Scott can do it :P) , just put a new folder of images on the server with a 100px by 100px image named "preview.jpg" for the gallery preview.

www.flesh2090.com

Final Video

Link to final Vid : http://www.vimeo.com/11016364
Feedback NOW if anyone wants anything changed.

Associated Experts

Paul Hillier - Photography; Technical Staff, School of Architecture

We had three meetings with Paul Hillier to consult him about tone and lighting our photography. He granted us access to his camera and studio and we shot the majority of our photos over three days. He helped us with the camera settings, and spatial and technical set up to shoot skin tones.



Anne Galloway – Anthropology; Senior Lecturer, School of Design

Anne Galloway gave us some avenues to explore how different cultures interpret the different parts of the body, and cannibalism. We had initial email contact and then verbal discussion a couple of times for this project.



Celine Reisser - Marine Biologist/Geneticist, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Sciences

We have talked to Celine about the wider implications of changing human eating patterns and the possibility of editing our genes to grow extra features.



Aaron Williamson - Chef de partie, Martin Bosley's Restaurant

Has provided expertise on chemical reactions used to create different mediums to present foods on the body.

Literature Reviews

Lundqvist, Lars-Olov Lundqvist, Fredrik Carlsson, Per Hilmersson. “Emotional responses to music: experience, expression, and physiology”. Psychology of Music, vol 37(1): 61–90. Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research, 2009.

This book, while reasonably scientific gave insight into the power of music. It encouraged a ‘less is more’ approach when combined with another media. Recently music and emotion has been looked at specifically in terms of whether music provokes genuine emotional responses in listeners or whether listeners simply perceive the emotions the music is expressing. One of the most common reasons for listening to music is that it induces strong emotions and can be used as a means of mood induction in music therapy.




D. Västfjäll. “Emotion induction through music: A review of the musical mood induction procedure”. Musicae Scientiae, Special issue: pages 173–211. (2001–2002)

Because this is a review, it was very scientific. This writing was probably less helpful the previous because it did not leave very much room for artistic development, beyond the basic rules and understandings of music therapy. Lars-Olov Lundqvist believes that: “Music is a potent elicitor of emotions in listeners.”



Blackman. Lisa. “The Body: The Key Concepts” (New York: Berg Publishers, 2008)

The Body as a text highlights the importance of perceptions of the body to societies understanding of power, ideology and social and cultural process. It is paramount to our project to understand how individuals interact with physical understanding currently, so we can expand on this for the future. This text looks at the body as communication, sexuality, health, the senses, and other social and cultural variables. The chapter titled the feeling body is interesting to our work, looking at the bodies capacity to affect and be affected, and 'the intelligence of the flesh.'



Reeves Sanday, Peggy. “Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a cultural system”. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)

This book was the main reference point for research on cannibalism and the surrounding issues concerning the body. The text seeks to understand the views and values behind cannibalism in different cultural contexts, beyond the common western viewpoint of barbaric gruesomeness. The most effective research coming from this book which has driven the theory behind our anatomical concepts is around the study of cannibalism in Fijian and ancient Aztec cultures. This was very helpful for understanding the different areas of the body and their potential purposes beyond the purely physical elements of our body. This has helped to look at the growth we can create on our bodies anatomically whilst still maintaining a strong poetic element.

brief description of experiments

Experiment trace

The trace of an introduced, digitally engineered mirco organism reacts chemically to the bodies surface. The substance created enhances communication through a sensory experience.
Electrical signals from the brain determine the movement of the organism through the feelings experienced while in the virtual world.

Experiment leech

A biologically engineered skeletal structure that attaches itself to the body and using the bodies nutrients, grows a flesh to be consumed by others.

Experiment texture

Exploration of digitally created surface textures that reflect topographies of the human skin. The textures look to express a specific relationship to the human body, growing out of the persons skin pores.

Cam and Ron's experiments

More photos of Cam and Byron's Experiments, some of the shots taken this morning will need to be done again but heres a start.

top 3 photos are Byron W's work, bottom 3 photos are Cameron's work. Photography done by Scott.

First Vid

http://www.vimeo.com/10996275

Link to the first iteration of the video, I haven't done any colour correcting, and im improving the quality of the stills, but you get the idea,


Send me any feedback.

OK MY FAIL! had to delete the link. long nerdy digi story. show u guys tomorrow.

Contribution to Second Crit

Video:

Houdini L-system tracking from Byron Mallett on Vimeo.

Still images:

http://flesh2090.com/Pictures/ByronM/