The semester is over after this week.
We have finals and then summer break. It is going to feel so weird not having projects and deadlines for a few months. I tried to watch and comment on my classmates’ final video projects and the AT conference posts. I still have a few I really want to see.
I used AI in Canva and asked it for a stencil of a house. IT gave me a great house. I then downloaded it and put it in Photoshop and took half the house away. I then cleaned it up by getting rid of some of the sketch line the AI had put in. I then put it in Illustrator and reverted the colors from black on white to white on black. I copied the image and put it in the paint program that comes with windows. There I played with the colors.
It is hopefully the start of a logo for a friend. Words will be placed across the house.
I am not happy with the placement of DS 106. I wanted to give you an idea of what it could look like. 15 weeks ago I would have not been so comfortable with creating like I am now. It had been years since I had done anything art on the computer. Now I do it every day.
I gave a lot of thought on how I wanted to do the short video for my last DS 106 assignment. We were asked to pretend we were giving a short speech at a conference. There were some points we were asked to hit. Could not be longer then 2 mins or we would fail! Just kidding about failing. I realized Aggressive Technologies needs us, the consumer and the worker.
I put some of my favorite things I have made for a slide show to watch while you listen to me drone on and on and on. If you paid close attention, I threw a picture of myself in there. I mentioned the creation of characters for the class and the radio show. Those were some of my favorite things we/ I did. I am also very proud of my fake 911 call about a skunk in a house. Ravioli Radio was a joy to create. The whole team was amazingly creative. I thoroughly enjoy listening to our show. Ravioli team don’t let anyone steal your joy from your creative work. Art is subjective not everyone is going to like it. Remember Jesus was perfect, and they murdered him. Not everyone is going to like what you like or even like you. In DS 106 it truly is the weird and the wonderful. Aggressive Technologies is just jealous of us.
Saturday I finally had success with giving an evil brick a voice!
laughing bricks are creepy…
The final project for DS 106. I came to this class scared of failure. I have not done much with computers and felt I was starting behind where most of the students in the class were. I was probably wrong. I have pushed myself to try something new every week or attempt to succeed at something I had previously failed at. In the final project I wanted to finally make my evil brick creation speak. I also wanted to try to recreate the magic of working in a group like in the radio project. I think I reached both of those goals.
My group all came through with great content. Everyone put in great effort to make content for the news broadcast. Destiny Sunrisen – destiny’s lil blog 
Was the editor for the first half of the news show and I put together the second half. It felt good to trust someone else with a hunk of the work and not be a control freak. I have checked out Destiny’s work throughout the semester and in Ravioli Radio and knew they could handle it. They do excellent work. Greta According to Greta – WordPress site (gretahammen.com) did the news anchor to tie everybody’s work together. It was also an important bit to make the whole piece feel connected and together.
. I am not good at delegating and trusting people to do things. I have think I have successfully done that this time. Marisol Sol’s Wrld – Bright like the Sun (mjuarez.com) came through as always with the great idea and video of the Ring Door Bell. Last but not least we got a new to use group member Leila Leila’s Corner – Her interlude (the-comeup.com). She created some fantastic news segments on self-driving cars and vending machines going after us. Everyone in the group did more than what I mentioned here. If you want to hear more about them, please click on the links to their blogs.
I created the chat in discord and a google doc for us all to stay organized. I put up a sample outline in the google doc for us to start with and content idea list. Everyone could add or change things at any time. I found videos of stuff I thought fit the AI uprising theme and put links to it on the google doc. The news show Idea gave everyone the opportunity to make different types of digital media. I was dead set on animating that brick if it killed me, so I didn’t use any of the video I found. (One video was an ad for a movie about a car tire that came alive. https://youtu.be/hVKgY1ilx0Y?si=LWg6bjTOq4ETqEf4) I also made some ridiculous posts on Facebook about AI. I then changed my profile picture and took a screen shot on my phone of the post a few days later. I then put the posts into photoshop and changed the name from mine (Sarah Bradshaw) to whatever moved me. I came up with the names a few different ways. Sally was what I named a favored doll as a child. Some of the names were picked for their amusing initials. And others you can just guess. I then cropped the image to size to be placed on a slide for the news segment. I added graphics and a voice over. The voice is AI from AI Voice Generator & Text to Speech | ElevenLabs name Matilda. I came up with all the writing and dialog myself. I did not use a chat bot. For the Dr Oblivion segment, he is a chat bot. I asked him a question twice and spliced both of his answers together and lip synced it to a video of him. I added the graphics in Priemer Rush to make it look more like a news segment.
I think the things I made really show what I learned to do this semester in class. I learned how to edit sound and video. I learned how to use generative ai to make things for me to use in my art. I made a brick laugh. What once was scary no longer is. Except for maybe an AI uprising.
Everyone in the group has different strengths and skills so I have no idea who spent the most time on this project. I do know we all came together with great work and put it together. Since it is an online class, I wouldn’t recognize anyone on campus if I sat next to them. I will miss them I am sure, when I have to do another group project especially. They were great to work with.
If you wish to know more about the evil brick segment Evil Bricks and Final Update – HURKLE-DURKLING Thoughts for DS106 (hurkledurkling.com) Final project update – laughing bricks are creepy. – HURKLE-DURKLING Thoughts for DS106 (hurkledurkling.com)
My children have informed me that the laughing brick is just plain creepy, and I have been looking at bricks for too long. I then went back to the drawing board and tried making a short animation of the original evil brick. I used adobe photo shop ai generative fill to give the brick some mouths. The mouths were all varying in opening size. I created 8 of these frames. I then put them in Priemer Rush and made a short video clip of a brick opening and closing its mouth. I tried to use this clip I made in 2 different lip sync programs. (wav2lip and gooey ai) It would not sync. Then I decided to old school animation it. I tried to quickly match the movements of the mouth to the audio I recorded. While it isn’t perfect I have made it speak. The voice of the evil brick is my 7-year-old Tabitha. I think it really fits. I spent numerous hours on like 20 seconds of video. I am not sure the creepy laughing brick that my nearly 17-year-old says is the stuff of nightmares will make the cut for the final project.
The group as a whole is communicating through discord and a google doc. The google doc has been great with organizing what everyone is working on and what still need to be done. The idea of the news broadcast was an effort to give everyone the space to make what they wanted and tie it together in a cohesive way.
I saw another student used a website gooey AI to lip sync. I thought I book marked their post but once again I did not. internet search for the win! After much trial and error, I figured out how to get my Evil Brick to laugh. I made frames of a brick with a mouth slowly disappear and reappear. I made 8 frames in all. Then I took these and put them in Adobe Premier Rush and copied them and looped them. I then had a silent video of a brick opening and closing its mouth crudely. I them went to Gooey AI and uploaded the very short video and a sound of laughing from free sound. The program worked! it even improved my brick’s weird mouth. I now have to see if I can get it to say something other than laugh now.
I also have been having trouble with YouTube. It worked when I switched browsers.
I really enjoyed the daily create for Monday.
Alright after the sculpture business I got to messaging my group. Ravioli Radio is not doing a second production. Those that wanted to work in a group again got most of the band back together. Just like any reunion we even grabbed a new member. We discussed some ideas on discord and came up with an idea. A news broadcast. We can all make what we like to do and what we feel we are best at. It will start with a news anchor starting the nightly news. The different segments will be made by different group members. Destiny and I want to do the final edit and put everyone’s work together. I want the broadcast to highlight the starting of the AI uprising. Everyone in the group gets to make their content with their own slant and ideas. It will have variety. We have a google doc with our outline of the show, content ideas, and what people are working on. Destiny and I want to start putting it together Thursday and the project is due Friday. I am excited to see what everyone makes. I am working with some creative people again so it should be great. It is a busy time at the end of the semester and one team member is getting over the flu. Curve balls are already being thrown. I will try to check back in with progress in a few days.
#tdc4476 #ds106 #ds106 Make a Small Sculpture
Create a small sculpture with random items you have around your home or workplace. Give it a title and share your creation.
I decided small is relative. I also decided to share a collaborative work. Some of you may remember that I was displaced from my home for much of 2023. We were not able to move back home until January of 2024. This piece is an ever-growing sculpture of items that have lost their home in the upheaval. While I am the main artist there have been some other contributors. Some items have lost their place here and will be rehomed. It is a monument to change, seasons of life, growth, and loss.
Or maybe I am just being lazy and calling my clutter art?
Some truth is these things have lost their place. Somethings are leaving the house.
My 7-year-old for some reasons loves to build dirty sock sculptures around the house.
Busy week with the kids’ school and my schoolwork. So, I started off the weekend with a daily create.
By Thursday I had found some videos to try and edit for my project and gotten some good audio from Dr. Oblivion to play with. I also had viewed the eclipse with the family, chaperoned a field trip, Wednesday was no school day. Thursday appointment at the elementary school.
Thursday I also did a 3rd daily create.
Friday another thing at the elementary school. I also have had a terrible headache all day. It is a migraine headache. the double vision has been the worst. I quickly through together some of the material I have for more project so I could show I have collected some things and put it on the video project post. It is only about 8 pm but I have given up hope of salvaging my day and putting my video together. crying and going to sleep sounds more likely. My kids are fed, alive, and in bed. that is today’s win.