Posted: May 12th, 2010 | Author: greg | Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »
For my thesis I want to explore ways to move film off the screen and into the physical world. Looking at theater, automata, and site specific work such as Walt Disney’s Carousal of Progress, the Pixar Toy Story zoetrope installation, and the McCoy’s work for inspiration I will be exploring how modern technology (including 3D modeling, micro projectors, interactive programming such as MaxMSP, etc) can be combined with physical world objects to bring the cinema experience to the physical world.
Obviously theater moved to screen is film, so when you reverse it you have theater again. I’m interested in how what we have learned on screen can change it into something else. I suppose to analogy would be translating English to Chinese to English again…the first and last are similar but not the same. So by doing this exploration, how can I provide insight into theater as well as create something new.
I am putting together a group of people to consult. The top of the list right now is Marcos Stafne at the Rubin Museum. He does a lot of work with object theater and would be insightful into what has been done before and why it was done. his work with museum installations and theater make him invaluable for this project.
Other resource people will be added to the list!
Posted: March 2nd, 2010 | Author: greg | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: interactive10, shape_of_change | No Comments »
Response to the questions posed by Melanie Crean for Shape of Change project.
1. How do you define change over time? How do you see it manifest in your personal life and work?
Change is a simple concept to define: its when things go from one state to another. But this definition is overly simplistic since it is without adjectives. Change is a word with a lot of positive attributes because we associate it with change for the better. When we strive to change, we strive to improve. The words are not interchangeable but we use them as if they are because we always hope that change will be improvement. The need to change is a result of the status quo being insufficient, so we use the words as if they were the same.
I constantly strive to improve myself and my situation. My life is a journey and any travel requires the situation to constantly be in flux. I hope that by striving to better myself I always find myself in better situations; situations where I am pressured into growing, given challenges that are exciting and new views to spark new ideas. Knowing the end point of my change is irrelevant to the process because as I evolve, so will my desired outcome.
2. What do you feel would constitute meaningful political change in your country? What is the potential for individuals to affect political change where you are?
Meaningful political change in my country would entail an entire overhaul of the system. It is a severely broken because individuals have found ways to halt process and are putting their private agendas before the needs of the system as a whole.
The individuals effecting our system are powerful people who have worked hard to gain this control. So the second part of this question is not referring to them, but rather to the every day individual. I think these “normal” people have great potential to wrangle control from the system.
Ideas a viral and a valid one will spread. People with energy and nerve have the ability to change the system.
3. How do you define freedom? Where do you feel most free?
Freedom is the ability to make and implement your own choices. I don’t feel more free in one place than in another. This might be a result of living the life I chose to live. I have adopted a very unapologetic attitude toward the world as a result of having been hindered in my freedom by my own fear and then overcoming this fear. I’m free to do and be whatever I please.
4. How would you define your own potential utopia, meaning a utopia you think might be possible to create?
I think a utopia would be a world without irrational fear. Sadly I have found most fear is a result of religious views. The idea of a God is a positive one yet most religions ask us to deny ourselves of desires, to judge those around us, and to fear judgment from others. These are all negative things that could be abolished.
Utopia would be a society that finds a way to be guiltless and non-judgmental. One simple law: do not destroy. Life’s sole purpose is to continue onward. To destroy is to impede the purpose. That is the reason why we do not destroy.
When people break that law, the punishment should not be to destroy them as well. An eye for an eye is a lame excuse for humanity. We should be (and can be) better than this.
5. Where were you born, and where do you live now (country, state, city)?
I was born in Orlando, FL, USA and now live in Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Part 3
Does the current state of content and interactivity support the goals of the project? What are the successes and failures?
The project does succeed! There are definitely flaws and confusions with the interactivity right now. They are minor but effect the over all goal of the project.
The rings are difficult to click on. I had to try three times on average to get a ring to click. I found it easier to use a real mouse than a finger pad when using the rings. If the clickable space included some transparent space around the ring it would allow for easier access to the information.
Once on screen the quotes feel small. This is great with the short pieces but when the writer really gave a wonderful, long answer it is frustrating to read. I did go through the effort of scrolling (which is always a hassle in flash because you cannot click anywhere on the scroll bar, you must grab the arrow or the slider itself) but I only did this once. It is easier to just click to a new quote a quit reading the current one. So that’s what I found myself doing.
How does the sites aesthetic relate to the project goal and overall success of the site?
The site aesthetic feels very neutral and stays in the background. I like that it is not intrusive since this is a text based project. I appreciate the black with white writing because it is easy on the eyes. I also appreciate the very simple borders around each section. They feel modular and contained. The site has different aspects and it is easier to see those aspects when they are not blending together and blurring boundaries.
What is the navigation like throughout the site? Are there adequate cues? Does the site have flow?
The navigation is good with one exception: the about link.
When I click on the “about” in the horizontal bar I am lead to a list of projects. By clicking on those projects I am not lead to the projects themselves. I cannot find the music for Shiloh project anywhere. The text does not give any reference to it being published in the future so I expect to see something here now.
When I click on project one, I do not go to the project. But when I click on ABOUT on the left hand column, I go to the project. This is confusing since the horizontal about takes me to a different page. These two links should both lead to the about page.
One great navigation moment is the date and location menus in the blank spaces of the four button navigation ring. Its so clever in its placement but easy to use and obvious to understand. It’s a very nice moment when aesthetics and functionality merge.
How would you critique the functionality of the individual tools, and their relationship to one another?
The map never would work for my browser so I cannot comment very much on this. I use firefox 3.5.8 with adblocker plus running. I disabled adblocker for this site but that did not affect the map’s ability to function. It seems to be disabled right now.
Does project assets (in this case, the tools) have adequate context and information to explain them?
The map function feels tertiary. The use of a keyword in relation to geography seems like an arbitrary connection. The keywords we are searching for are not regional terms, they are words directly linked to this project. If there is a way to explain why this is valuable in its introduction, which would be helpful.
My first thought is to have keywords linked that are regional. Whatever words you have found that make this map fascinating. However by highlighting those words they would probably seep into everyone’s answers and consequently ruin the purpose of highlighting them.
Make any recommendations for future iterations that you feel are essential?
The minor changes I outlined above are the only recommendations I have. This project is interesting and well done. At first I was not too interested because I tend to shy away from screen based projects and unedited user generated content but this did draw me in. I spent some time going thru the various writings and enjoying the diversity of them.
Posted: March 2nd, 2010 | Author: greg | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: interactive10, readings_salem | No Comments »
This piece just feels a little over wrought to me. I’m left wondering if Katie Salem can actually play or if every time fun starts to happen she analyzes what is going on and forgets to just live in the moment.*
I’m reminded of Victorian science: lets see what the spleen does by cutting it out. I learned something from this article but I don’t think I could sit down and recreate play. I feel like we’re searching for some secret ingredient that we all already know. You know fun when you have it. When you design a game the only way to know if its fun is to test it. So no laundry list of ingredients will determine if its going to be fun.
Its totally awesome we have this great catalog of what makes fun but in the process of cataloging it, we kill it.
It reminds me of Paul Ekman’s work with facial expressions and emotions. He discovered that surprise is completely falsifiable. He could identify exactly which muscles moved in what sequence and what timing but was never able to train himself or any subject to force that emotion. All the other emotions were falsifiable. I feel like no amount of research will ever make play playful.
The second piece is more about the basic concept of cause and effect. Actions have reactions, this is just a basic principle that we know from early science classes but also from observing the world around us.
This piece was just a reminder that since virtual worlds don’t have to follow the laws of physics we need to install this basic concept into the world or the user will be confused.
Its kind of funny how so many of the design principles we learn and so much of our feedback we receive is really just someone saying “don’t forget common sense.” The things we intuit about the world around us and take for granted have to be thought about in created realities.
*I’m sure many of you will confirm that Katie can, indeed, have fun. I have not met her yet so all I’ve got is this essay.
Posted: March 2nd, 2010 | Author: greg | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: interactive10, reading_costikyan, reading_huizinga | No Comments »
I enjoyed the Houtzinger article because it made me think about play in a way I had not prior. The idea of ritual and play being linked struck me as important. It stood out from the rest of the article because I was able to identify with it.
The feelings of release and transport that come with playing are the same as the feelings from performing rituals that matter to you. Both require a complete acceptance of the moment for them to release those emotions inside us.
I was raised a Catholic and grew to love the ritual of the church. Something that has always fascinated me was that the less I believed in the ideas of the church the more I appreciated being there. High holy days, when they broke out the serious bells and smells, were my favorite days. The actions could feel robotic and stiff but other times they felt transportive. As we went through these stylized gestures and performed these archaic rituals I felt a connection through time to every one else who performs these same rituals. I was not convinced that God loved me more or even that sin exists but I was convinced that rituals can release us from time and allow us to connect to our past and future. The actions are simultaneous through history.
This transportive feeling is exactly what we feel when we play. When you are the cowboy or the Indian, you are multiple things at the same time. Houtzinger is spot on with this assessment. Since so many adults lose that ability to play, perhaps this is why they cling to rituals so strongly.
The costikyan article made me laugh when he said a light switch is interactive. One of my major gripes with our current usage of interactive is that sitting perfectly still and occasionally clicking your index finger on a mouse is interactive but standing in a museum transfixed by a painting and your mind firing a thousand thoughts a second is not interactive.
He goes on to better define these terms and give them more context, which is something that we need. We throw around the words game and interactive all the time but I don’t think they have ever been clearly defined for us. I like that he differentiates between a game and a puzzle and a toy. They all compliment each other and most items will contain elements of all three but its nice to have a separate word for each concept.
Posted: February 17th, 2010 | Author: greg | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: interactive_10, reading_iaa, reading_sant | No Comments »
Sant’s “Redefining the Basemap” was a quick little reminder of what a map is. A map is an edit of information to show us only what the cartographer wants. If we tried to see all the information available we would have a 1:1 scale of the world. It’d be nonsense.
She reminds us that geography is not often what we want. The London underground being the perfect example of this.
She also reminds us that usefulness is not often what we want, the Situationists being the perfect example.
The note at the end of this paper that a shorter version was available made me laugh because this paper was so short. It felt like a introduction to an idea more than a really great exploration of ideas.
“Tactical Cartographies” picked up where Sant left off. This piece gave us wonderful examples of the possibilities of real dynamic data and uses both politic and artistic. The surveillance camera map is such a fascinating project because it is both conceptually interest as well as actually interesting but also because it requires to commitment of every user to report and catalog CCTV around th city. It’s a project that could only exist in this very modern world and comments on the very technologies that allow it to exist.
Posted: February 16th, 2010 | Author: greg | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: interactive10, writing_critique | No Comments »
I went to see the Daniel Rozin exhibit at bitforms. I was already familiar with his work and chose to go see it because I always get such joy from his work. The show consists of 3 pieces. Two of them are his mirrors and the third is a piece called X and Y which slowly moves on it own but is not interactive.
The mirror pieces are nothing new for Rozin, they are the exact same format as his many other mirror pieces: a grid of some substance, a camera, and set up in a controlled lighting situation. The first one is a mirror made of rusted tiles. When you stand in a long pit of gravel the rust tiles move to create your silhouette in the “mirror.” It is a fun silly piece, not as a fascinating as some of the earlier works (specifically the wooden mirrors) but still magical. I liked the addition of the gravel to the mix because it covered up the sound of the tiles moving. The clicking noise they typically make is beautiful but they are also very mechanical. The rust mirror is set up with the gravel and the rust so it feels very natural. The mechanics are hidden and the gravel helps hide the mechanical sound.
I have been reading a lot about mirrors lately and reflections. One author commented that our fascination with mirrors comes from the fact that reflective objects are an entire universe contained in a portable object. The inside is larger than the outside. They are devices of wonder for that very reason. Not being able to travel back to a point in life when I had not seen a mirror I think of Rozin’s work as being the closest to recreating that wonder of first encountering a mirror. These pieces look like blank walls but they actually contain whole universes that can be accessed by the user.
The playful experience of looking into them, of trying to peer around the corner and seeing just how fast you can move in them is probably similar to what my 1 year old mind thought when I first encountered a mirror.
The other piece is a mirror that is reflecting a wall lit in various pastel colors. It also changes the mirrors to reflect your shadow, instead of you. The effect is interesting but not as exciting. I felt like I had seen this piece before, that it was something he had done in the past. I actually didn’t look at the dates on the piece, so its quite possible I have seen this exact piece. I don’t know. I just didn’t care about this piece enough. I played with it for a bit but I lost interest.
The shtick of shadow in the mirror is identical to the rust mirror. Its creating a silhouette. It was probably the exact same code running the two. But where this one felt so overly slick and techno, the rust one felt magical and wonderful. The contrast between the two made me happy. I’m naturally drawn to work that hides its technology or work that flaunts the technology to an extreme level. This piece was not either, it was not magically happening since we could see the techno aspects (even if that was nothing more than a lot of shiny materials and very futuristic lighting, etc) and it was not pushing the technology out into the open either (the motors and wires are all carefully contained in a box in the back. You can sort of see them if you want but they don’t show themselves off.)
As a whole, the show was nothing new for Rozin. It was rehashing his same idea in different forms. I don’t know if this bothers me or not. If the pieces were saying something new then I suppose I would look at it as mirrors and motors are his mediums. Just like Warhol used silkscreen as his medium but Campbell’s soup was a wildly different show from electric chairs. This felt like Bitforms was just selling some old pieces they had packed away in storage because the pieces were so similar to his past work.