Design of software intensive installation art

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Design of software intensive installation art

• Letizia Jaccheri
• Department of Computer and Information Science,
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  (NTNU)
• letizia_at_idi.ntnu.no

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Outline

• About me
• Briefly software engineering and art
• About you, your study program and this course
• Software engineering issues in interactive
  installation art
• Architecture A case study
• Other examples
• Conclusions

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About me (education and positions)

• Master in Computer Science 1988 from the
  University of Pisa
• Programmer from 1988 to 1990, C, C, e-mail
  system
• PhD 1994 from Politecnico di Torino, Software
  process modelling
• In Norway since 1997,
• professor since 2002

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About me (research, teaching, and interests)

• Software engineering
• Process, quality, object orientation
• Multidisciplinary
• Software engineering issues in Art
• Software engineering Education
• Dissemination
• Cuore Computer Mondadori 2004
• Kjærelighet og Computer Tapir 2006
• www.letiziajaccheri.splinder.com and other blogs

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Outline

• About me
• Briefly software engineering and art

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Outline

• About me
• Briefly software engineering and art
• About you, your study program and this course

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About you

• Use 15 min. to discuss the following issues with
  your mate
• What has this topic to do with
• Q1. This course Advanced Topics in Software
  Design?
• Q2. other courses, like Software engineering?
• Q3. New media art and installation art in
  Amsterdam and Nederlands
• write down some words for each question

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Outline

• About me
• Briefly software engineering and art
• About you, your study program and this course
• Software engineering issues in interactive
  installation art

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An art installation as a software system (1)
software system
output
input
Business goals -more money -more efficient
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An art installation as a software system (2)
Art installation
output
input
Artistic goals -reflection -emotion
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Software is used in Interactive Installation Art

1. for controlling the numerous sensors that are
   capturing environmental parameters
2. for incorporating the captured parameters into
   music/light that is played by the sculpture
3. for maintaining an archive of the music generated
   in the past
4. for presenting online of the artwork, the artist,
   the music archive and the software itself

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SE issues

• Requirements
• Architecture
• Validation
• Process
• Tools
• Open source software
• SART TOWARDS INNOVATION AT THE INTERSECTION OF
  SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND ART, paper available at
  http//prosjekt.idi.ntnu.no/sart/

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Requirements

• Commercial (general purpose) software does not
  always satisfy artists needs
• custom software development is needed
• In Art projects, requirements are often difficult
  to capture, vague and frequently changing

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Software architecture

• Artists often require freedom to experiment
  without the need to learn programming in depth
• additional software level or domain specific
  languages and tools might be a good solution
• Reuse of software/components is often preferred

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Validation

• Evaluation with final users is sometimes possible
  only in final stage (i.e. when the artworks is
  deployed)
• User interactions in unexpected/unpredicted ways
  is not always considered a bad thing by the
  artists

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Process

• A multidisciplinary team can involve artists
  (painters, composers, sculptors, etc.),
  constructors, hardware designers, electrical
  engineers, software engineers, programmers, art
  curators, etc.
• Process models and project management
• Agile method, human-centered design and
  evolutionary prototyping are reported to be
  successful
• Risk assessment is important (emergent
  technologies)

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Tools

• Development environments and tools
• CASE tools are rarely used by artists
• Max/MSP, Flash (e.g. to make storyboards) are
  preferred

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OSS and open source ideology

• Roles in OSS projects
• Communities of interest and practice
• Continuation of support

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Case study Improsculpt architecture

• Improscultp started in the late 90s by artist
  Øyvind Brandtsegg
• At NTNU 4 student projects (1 x 250 hours 3 x
  500 hours 1 x 1000 hours)
• Thor Arne Gald Semb and Audun Småge (2006)
  Software Architecture of the Algorithmic Music
  System ImproSculpt. Software Engineering Master
  Thesis

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Research method action research
solutions new knowledge
Practice Improsculpt
Research
Theory SE QAs ATAM 41 views MVC PAC Python
Csound Etc. Music Algor. Comp, etc.
knowledge
needs
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Flyndre Artists Øyvind Brandtsegg and Nils Aas
Location StraumenInderøy, Norway
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Improsculpt (1)

• Brandtseggs original system, as was handed to us
  in March 2006, consisted of a single directory of
  numerous files of Python source code, Csound
  effects and instruments, MIDI files, and audio
  files.

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Improsculpt (requirements)

• The system must handle audio input, processing
  and output with very low latency.
• The system must run well on todays market
  mid-range computers.

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Improsculpt (requirements)

• The system must have a modular object-oriented
  design that is easy to understand.
• Changes made to the system should be as local as
  possible (little to no ramifications for other
  parts of the system).
• The system must be easily expandable with new
  processing modules.
• Csound changes should not affect ImproSculpt
  drastically, or vice versa

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Improsculpt (requirements)

• As the system will be used in live performances,
  it is of great importance that the system
  produces no fatal errors of such nature that the
  program halts or crashes (i.e. failures).
• The system must be able to handle wrong or
  illogical usage. That is, it must be able to
  handle unexpected input from the user without
  crashing.
• The system must be able to catch internal errors
  in the software in such a manner that the system
  never terminates because of these.
• The system must have an error rate of under 1 per
  100 time units, where one time unit corresponds
  to 10 seconds interaction with the system. An
  error is an action from the system that differs
  from the expected behavior. The errors mentioned
  here are non-critical, in that they do not cause
  the system to halt, but may produce wrong or
  unexpected output.

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Quality attributes

• 1. Performance
• 2. Modifiability
• 3. Availability
• 4. Usability
• 5. Testability
• 6. Security
• 7. Safety

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Exercise (15 min.)

• Which are the important quality attributes for
  Improscultp?
• Choose 1 QA and specify it

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Improsculpt (performance)

• The system must handle audio input, processing
  and output with very low latency.
• The system must run well on todays market
  mid-range computers.

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Improsculpt (modifiability)

• The system must have a modular object-oriented
  design that is easy to understand.
• Changes made to the system should be as local as
  possible (little to no ramifications for other
  parts of the system).
• The system must be easily expandable with new
  processing modules.
• Csound changes should not affect ImproSculpt
  drastically, or vice versa

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Improsculpt (availability)

• As the system will be used in live performances,
  it is of great importance that the system
  produces no fatal errors of such nature that the
  program halts or crashes (i.e. failures).
• The system must be able to handle wrong or
  illogical usage. That is, it must be able to
  handle unexpected input from the user without
  crashing.
• The system must be able to catch internal errors
  in the software in such a manner that the system
  never terminates because of these.
• The system must have an error rate of under 1 per
  100 time units, where one time unit corresponds
  to 10 seconds interaction with the system. An
  error is an action from the system that differs
  from the expected behavior. The errors mentioned
  here are non-critical, in that they do not cause
  the system to halt, but may produce wrong or
  unexpected output.

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Tests at the end of each iteration

• Numer of imports
• 1. iteration 73
• 2. iteration 59
• 3. iteration 46
• 4. iteration 42
• Max number files in a package
• 19, 15, 10, 8
• File rename ramifications

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Location Blussvoll skole,Trondheim, Norway
Sonic Onyx Artist Samir Mkadmi
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Sonic Onyx

• The goal of the project is the creation of an
  interactive 3D sculpture that is placed in the
  court yard of a Secondary School in Trondheim
  (Norway). The sculpture is about four meters high
  and the diameter of the space is about seven
  meters. The globe on the top is 1.75 m. The
  legs are metal and static, while the globe is
  changing its color and intensity. The color
  depends on the surrounding temperature. The
  intensity of the light changes according to the
  speed of the wind. In this way the sculpture
  varies constantly its appearance.

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Sonic Onyx

• Additionally, sound is played all the time, which
  attracts the pupils (12-14 years old) and other
  spectators. Although the sculptures appearance
  itself is very important in its aesthetical
  manifestation it provides another important
  functionality the possibility to interact with
  its sound system. The spectators are able to go
  inside the sculpture to experience the
  3-dimensional sound. While near the space the
  spectators are able to interact with the system
  through their mobile phones.

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Sonic Onyx

• The communication is via Bluetooth technology and
  accepts messages and different files sent by the
  pupils. In real-time the sent content are
  processed by the software system and the
  interaction influences the sound produced by the
  sculpture . This includes conversion of images
  and text into sound and combining it with the
  background music. Additionally, the sound is
  played by speakers integrated in the sculpture.
  The documents that are played are archived and
  played again in a random way when there is no
  traffic.

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Sonic Onyx

• Several issues have to be faced for the creation
  of the sculpture. Apart from the physical
  creation of the space, the hardware and software
  have to be designed and developed. The work
  includes the planning and programming of the
  communication technology, evaluation of the
  equipment that is needed and planning of the
  sound part.

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Software engineering and Art

• New
• Other interdisciplinary fields (e.g. health,
  automotive) have been addressed in SE research,
  we focus on Art
• Relevant
• Contemporary Art is often highly software
  dependent (e.g. new media art, interactive art
  installations)
• Emerging industries (e.g. Entertainment - game
  industry, music, web) often bring artists and
  software developers together

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Software engineering and Art

• Useful
• In Education raising awareness, increasing the
  tolerance, etc.
• Foster Innovation and Creativity Artists tend
  to use newest technologies in innovative ways
• Rigor
• Use existing SE theories and methods, including
  empirical studies
• Identify particularities of the domain -gt tailor
  the existing SE theories, methods and tools to
  the specific needs of Art

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Important issues in SArt

• Documentation
• Architecture and Design
• Maintenance
• Testing
• Open source and Intellectual property rights

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THANK YOU!

• Letizia Jaccheri
• with Anna Trifonova, Salah U. Ahmed and
• Department of Computer and Information Science,
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• trifonova, salah, letizia_at_idi.ntnu.no

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Installations and music (acknowledges)

• Installations
• Artist Øyvind Brandtsegg
• Artist Samir Mkadmi
• Music from
• SuperCollider http//www.audiosynth.com/
• Csound http//csounds.com/
• Illustrations
• Processing http//www.processing.org/