Tom Swift's Memory Cabinet - My Curiosity Cabinet
In the future, we'll keep moments in time in cabinets just like we keep other stuff. This box is based on a design drawn on a cocktail napkin for me by a drunken Tom Swift himself!
Concept: A self-contained memory box that when armed records audio and video whenever the cabinet is opened. A switch moves it to playback mode, which plays back the entire history of recordings placed in the cabinet whenever the door is opened. It's a time capsule for moments, pure and simple. And it comes in a retro future box!
A little history:
Here's my desk on Monday night:
I had a lot of issues with defective hardware. Stuff I bought turned out to be junk, which was actually a huge problem because for a long time I assumed I was just not hooking it up right.
We also had a lot of issues with not really having a workspace that was ours and undisturbed. Still, I think it got pulled off okay. I'm just so glad it worked and went well... my heart's not really in any kind of bitching.
Here's how it looked ten minutes before doors opened:
Chester, my be-goggled daemon and moral support, sits proudly on the top.
When you open her, she looks like this:
And here's a few samples of the video it took:
Me Showing Our Esteemed Department Head
Download file
I got it running again for Max:
Download file
I may keep working on this... it needs to not run off my laptop and I need a new LCD display since the one used is Perry's... still... it was fun.
Comments
Perhaps overly ambitious for a one week project and it almost didn't work, but under the right circumstances a poetic sci-fi peekaboo box...
Posted by: Marientina Gotsis | March 29, 2007 8:01 PM
But it DID work.
And overly ambitious is my middle name lately. Often it doesn't pay off, but I was glad it all went according to plan last night.
Posted by: Jesse | March 29, 2007 9:42 PM
Good job! I'm sure you've got several HJs for it, so I'll jump into my initial reaction (areas of opportunity, I call them)...
So, I'm an Aesthetic and into a more minimal look, but did you have to make it look like a Star Trek tricorder / Alienware LE fragbox / Saved By The Bell promo graphic? I love my HotRod culture and love customization, but as for function over form, the appearance of the box may distract me from the memory / though I'm trying to log.
Is the doorlight for ethereal glow? it seems like the strips would be better placed flanking the camera than the viewscreen.
There are many mac applications that utilize the isight that this is reminicent of - one that activates when the computer is touched to take a series of snaps of the person who is trying to access the computer, another that does stop-motion of you as you sleep (you place your MBP bedside) and when you wake you hit a hotkey and record a video of what your dream was about so that you can examine you sleeping pattern in relation to the dream.
Good idea, though I'm a bit sensitive to the wording (in that Joseph Kosuth way) - this is not a time-capsule for moments but rather one for a persons recollection of moments. Memories are strange and beautiful things, and as such they elude verbal description (okay, unless your Selby or Thompson!)... this is a single person's telling of a recollection. Semantics i know...
There are plenty of spy cam options of course, but you may want to check out a VJ video-mixer/sampler option - you could trigger the capture to a and send to a specific bank and then on playback either have a sequence pad (like a drum machine) or a random playback. Also MAX Jitter is candy for stuff like this.
Good idea though (did marcellus wallace have anything to do with this?)
Posted by: steazie | March 30, 2007 10:59 AM
PS - it looks like Steve Aoki and all of Spaceland puked on your shirt (is that mario with racoon tail?)
Posted by: steazie | March 30, 2007 11:01 AM