DANMite,antoine /digitalnostalgia
Digitizing souvenirs, memories and nostalgia
The idea behind the project Digital Nostalgia is to revive old(er) media that was considered new at the time and has
now reached obsolescence. One example is the Atari Joystick. The joystick’s function nowadays has shifted from
the functional to the emotional and, thus, was relegated to the role of nostalgic. As a result, this project aims to give
back a useful function to the obsolete media. In other words, to restore its mojo. To that end, the Atari joystick is turned
into a USB input device, hooked up to a computer, and via open source programming language called Processing given
a new interactive role whereby the audience used joystick as a device with which they could create digital media art.
By finding a new role for the joystick the concepts and notions related to memories, souvenirs, and nostalgia are also digitized.
As for the music, in order to evoke a sentimental nostalgia feel, minor chords and glitchy sound like retro blips, were thrown into
Max Msp, through which the motion of the graphics warped and tweaked the sound according to the coordinates of the visuals
on the screen.
The project was developed in 4 phases:
1 - writing the code for the visual
2 - turning the Atari Joystick into an USB input device and writing the code for the Arduino to communicate to Processing
3 - building and perforating the plastic box below in order to hide the Arduino board and wires inside
4 - transferring the code and visual to print
