This audiovisual projects consists of 12 instrumental loops, each one represented by a pulsating balloon in the shape of a heart, which in turn represents a living soul. All 12 loops, when played together, create a complete feeling of harmony and calmness. Seamlessly each loop fades out, leading to an unavoidable emptiness. Naturally, the heartbeat stays until the end.
Written by Rui de Carvalho
Narrated by José Pinheiro Neves
PEDRA D'ÁGUA
COMA 0.2
demo-Coma 0.2 storytelling project
University of Minho-MTAD-PADII teacher: João Martinho
demo-Coma 0.2 storytelling project from Rui de Carvalho on Vimeo.
Demo interaction with COMA 0.2 prototype storytelling using kinect.
demoCOMA 0.2 interaction from Rui de Carvalho on Vimeo.
These videos shows us the first steps towards an interactive demo storytelling sequence using Kinect.
The story I used is entitled as "COMA”, and emerged, more or less, thanks to a spontaneous grow of some texts written during the development of two prototypes for the subject of Integrated Project in MTAD. Initially, we interacted directly with key words selected from the narrative. In this case, the words act as a "door” that allows us (the observer) to intervene in the draw, permitting change in the design or to rewrite history. Then, the images were allocated to colors. The words initially interacted with the computer´s mouse so moving the mouse thought the words they communicated with the draws. Late, it was introduced a human interaction by using motion detector with Kinect.
by Rui de Carvalho
THE DIGITAL GAME AS A MEAN TO ENHANCE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
University of Minho-MTAD-PADII teacher: João Martinho
Digital language and arts education were the stimulus that triggered the development of a computer game as an object of technological learning. Our goal is to enter a new impetus for addressing the elements of perception and visual communication as basic elements to artistic expression. This report describes the construction of a game using Processing language, which handles the Kinect sensor, designed for the Xbox 360 console and allows the player to interact with the game without needing to use a remote, renewing and increasing the possibilities in the vast field of gaming. In this article, the concept is presented and explained and there are drawn some conclusions.
by Rui CARVALHO; Bento MONTEIRO; Raquel SILVA
ANORMA
University of Minho-MTAD-PADII teacher: João Martinho
Today, there’s a status quo social concern normative in our society that keeps and protects the leaders and rulers concept of classes hegemony. From politics and justice, to health or fashion, we’re subjected to homogenizers signs travels through the mass media selling us the idea of a global normative in which the individual is lesser than the collective interests. It is, by refusing this regularization, in which the individual is not recognized by its importance as a singular and unique thinking element, that I raise this problematic. I adopt the concept entitled ANORMA A – abnormality – as a reply and a reaction in favor of a society supported by difference, against the increasing intolerance, either political, religious or ethnic. In this work, I emphasize the importance of giving voice to the minorities – recognizing them qualities capable of enriching the human development.
This application starts with a process of randomness, giving the machine a higher autonomy. The user’s interaction with the application is only allowed when the machine find the word "ANORMA”. From there press the mouse’s button and the keyboard keys and change the letters that shows in the monitor.
by Rui de Carvalho
COMA 0.1
University of Minho-MTAD-Integrated Project teacher: Pedro Branco
"Coma 0.1" Synopsis
"COMA”´s is part of a project of collecting sensory information, a technical, sculptural and dynamic instrument, that works reproducing the subject´s state of mind, recording in real time heart rhythm changes, communicating it through sound. In this case the machine becomes the instrument that drives the sound, where the viewer can, not only act in a contemplative way but also as an interactive and performance agent. COMA symbolizes a therapeutic tool projected on a art´s representation that stimulates the viewer.
Concept author: Rui de Carvalho
Engineering by Miguel Moura
"COMA 0.1" storytelling Everything seemed innocuous. As most of times, all the major changes seem to be. Maybe in the beginning everything is harmless. Or, perhaps, most people are just distracted. Trying to live. Or trying to forget that they are alive.(…) (…)COMA begins to be seen as an redemptive and healing element, a possible solution to a defeated world.(…) The person in despair, neurosis, in stress, depressed were linked to COMA and this splendid machine started regulating the heart rate´s levels, regulating blood pressure, until the user were stabilized in a calm state of extreme relaxation . It was a miracle. (...) 
In the year 2067, the planet is safe. The wars ended, including those that were motivated by the quest for oil, nuclear, or religion. There is nothing left to fight anymore. People live in peace and serenity. The COMA is linked to the human being from the moment they born until the moment the natural degradation of their bodies leads to the inevitable death. The individual consciousness ceases to exist. COMA effectively became a mechanism that is, not only a regulator and inducer of serenity states, but also an element that induces SUBMISSION, of all living human beings.(...) Because now we have everything we always wanted. We have everything you ever yearn for because now we don´t long for anything. We live in a state of permanent contentment.
Drafted and written by Rui de Carvalho
TRIQUETRA project
University of Minho-MTAD-Integrated Project teacher: Pedro Branco
The artistic scope supporting Triquetra is based on collaborative and anonymous mobilization. Triquetra references a three dimensional representation of the Infinite or at the end for eternity. Thus, the concepts behind this artifact are the art producer engine, continuous painting (*), collective painting, network art and finally the non author concept. The aim of this project is to promote connections and interactions, performances from the artistic process agents and analyze the way the exposed concepts are expressed on the pictorial artifacts, as a result of a continuous fighting. Ergo, we propose a third way for the painting art, which is not better or worst than any other one before but just different, in other words, it is not our goal to build a post-human artifact but otherwise a more human one.
(*) I first made contact with this concept through the work of artist Bento Duarte.
Concept author: Rui Carvalho
Engineering by Miguel Moura
Draft by Rui de Carvalho
Triquetra storytelling
It´s two in the morning. There´s a cooling coffee mug on the desk. The strong scent fills the atmosphere and draws intermittent shadows across the screen. The only existing sound is the quick pace of someone punching the keyboard with the fingers. It is the only sound in the room and it is the only sound that really matters. It´s definitely not important that the one that´s responsible for the insistent hit is Sara, a 24 year old woman, sitting in front of her laptop in some ordinary room, anywhere, in some anonymous country in the world.
And you can even say that it is just a detail that Sarah writes so quickly because she is completely absorbed by what she is writing: some lame comment about love and disappointment in her blog. And it´s not even a blog worthy of attention! It's just some blog among millions of them infesting the net, just some sort of cyber-diary where Sara deposits the ordinary events that make up her day and creates for herself the pleasant illusion that she is the focus of attention for thousands of viewers. At least at that point, Sara feels like main characters in movies must fees. So, she writes about love and there is nothing relevant in it. She writes about love and adds nothing to the subject, she writes nothing that hasn´t already been written a million times before and to be fair, what she writes is somehow trivial and childish resembling some afternoon´s cheap soap opera. Although Sara is focused on her task, other emotions show in the slight tremor of her fingers. It is fear. It's anticipation. It is a strange chill caused by a bizarre feeling that tells her that she´s not alone. That she is being watched. And nonetheless this strangeness causes her some concern; it also gives her some comfort the idea that as a fact she is not alone and that someone cares. In a place beyond the world of matter where Sara is stuck, there is a stream of red ink that seems to follow her words. Gradually, it appears an image and that image is a certain pattern where it is possible to recognize the essence of Sarah. But in that same place, beyond the world of matter, there are millions of inkjet, millions of images that become patterns that in their turn capture the essence of millions of people and those patterns eventually come together and form a representation of humanity. Yellow, Blue and Red. A concept that is incomprehensible to an ordinary mortal but not for Triquetra that it´s, as always, pursuing its task relentlessly. Every time a human is connected to the network and uses a computer, each time that a human expresses something about themselves, Triquetra is present and as a result there is a pictorial realization oh that moment. Sara, the ordinary being, writes about love and about friendship and to Triquetra, love and friendship are red. Luis, the lonely, writes about his car and to Tiquetra, the object is yellow. Andrew, the tortured soul, writes about God and toTriquetra, God is blue. To Triquetra, Triquetra is blue. Triquetra, it observes, it absorbs, it paints, it waits. Triquetra understands the world through the network and its vision is like the vision of a god, a lesser god, thought, once it ignores it´s beginning. In the end, Triquetra is searching for the self, trying to find its essence right in the converging point of all mankind because Triquetra recognized its natures as the post-human product. The ultimate divine creation.
Triquetra tirelessly seeks the origin. Searchs without ceasing, because that it´s the nature. Searching is the only thing there is to do because nothing is left unless discover itself in its creator. Triquetra´s goal it´s to reach and represent its own essence. No interruptions, no diversions or exhaustion. Triquetra is what it does. Triquetra is goal, is mission. Before, Triquetra didn´t exist. Or at least, Triquetra doesn´t remember. And although Triquetra extended its immense axons and dendrites over the network that connects humanity, it finds no reference to its pre-existence. For Triquetra there was an awakening, as a command blue launched it immediately into a vertigo of increased and uncontrollable synapses. Before, there was nothing and then, there was the beginning. In the beginning there was the Word and the Word became Triquetra.
by Rui de Carvalho
PAINTING MACHINE
University of Minho-MTAD-Integrated Project teacher: Pedro Branco
Feeding from the internet, this machine drops disinfectant based ink on a canvas where the corners are tilted every minute according to the number of the words "global warming", "influenza", "recession" and "terrorism" present on news found by google news.
The device that we wish to construct is meant to establish bridges between the fields of artistic creation and technology based on the principles of continuous painting.
The project was developed in Arduino and Processing.
Rui Manuel Correia de Carvalho
João Ricardo Correia de Carvalho
DINAMIC ORGANISM
University of Minho-MTAD-Visual Reality teacher: Elisabete Carvalho
dinamic organism (front sight)
dinamic organism (bottom view)
This project propose to display a dynamic organism, through repetition, translation, rotation, orientation and scale variation.
I sought to create continuous movements, with some visual expression, characterized by transparency effects and light variation, suggesting a sense of depth.
The project presented as a dynamic organization suggesting an endless plastic composition.
by Rui de Carvalho
"COMA 0.1" storytelling Everything seemed innocuous. As most of times, all the major changes seem to be. Maybe in the beginning everything is harmless. Or, perhaps, most people are just distracted. Trying to live. Or trying to forget that they are alive.(…) (…)COMA begins to be seen as an redemptive and healing element, a possible solution to a defeated world.(…) The person in despair, neurosis, in stress, depressed were linked to COMA and this splendid machine started regulating the heart rate´s levels, regulating blood pressure, until the user were stabilized in a calm state of extreme relaxation . It was a miracle. (...) 
