Creative Interactivity

Final Project development

2007-11-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

For my final project I am intending to present (mock) an installation that explores the concepts of social status and cultural identity through tattoo art.

My initial idea is to use the torso of a mannequin and project different types of tattooed images onto it with another projector showing images relevant to the culture that the tattoos are associated with.

Problem so far is that it is not particularly interactive or engaging...

Project 2

2007-11-08T16:03:00.000-08:00

Can be found here

After some pretty thorough research and investigation into the technical aspects of the important and relevance of radio in 20th and 21st century media, I was ultimately let down by the fact that I had much more trouble dispersing my essay than I had ever intended.

Every forum I tried to sign up to would require verification and authorisation periods, and most of the time when I got through these my posts would be deleted fairly quickly by the moderators because honestly, it looked like (and pretty much was) just spam.

I was hoping to comment on webstores under product reviews as a large chunk of my dispersal method, but much to my dismay found that many sites would only let me comment once I had actually purchased the item from their store...a position I had neither enough time or money to commit to.

In the end I learnt a bit about the development of radio broadcasts that I didn't before, and was surprised to find that some new technologies were embracing the convenience of radio in ways I had never thought of (interactive radio on mobile phones), but I fear the essay itself verges on the boring side.

First Assignment - reflections

2007-10-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that my assignment eventually came together in some form, it's eventual form was quite different from my original intentions.

My first plan was to take pictures derived entirely from perspectives inside of other inanimate objects; fridges, cupboards, cars etc. A story would be happening outside the object and the glimpses of the time line would be derived from the small glimpses of the world taken when a person opens up one of these inanimate objects.

Problems began to arise because of several factors;

1. There wasn't enough places in my house to put a camera inside that would legitimately be opened during day-to-day living.

2. The story (although pretty straightforward) required pictures to be taken from other perspectives

3. Although possibly telling of the object itself, looking at something from the same perspective is boring...especially when you are a fridge

So I decided to take pictures from different perspectives, and base it around single rooms, rather than objects. The story went through several rooms over the course of an entire day but photographs were taken of every room even during times that the action or story was not progressing within in.

To break up the story, and create a less-linear view of what is essentially a pretty straightforward story, I used a 3d image viewer that presented the images in a way that was not essentially the way stories in western culture are read: front to bottom, left to right. The images were scrolling across the page in an apparently random manner and it was left to the user to navigate through the rooms, view the story as it unfolded in different parts of the house at different times, and put the pieces together.

The worst part about this project was the tediousness of framing, editing, re-sizing and presenting such a large number of pictures that were all essentially unique...which was especially hard when nothing was happening in the room for a significant number of the total pictures taken..there's only so many times you can put a new spin on an empty room.

I had a friend hand draw the house of the front page and I coloured and edited it using photoshop to give it a bit more colour and make it more menacing.

Apart from the repetitive-ness and same-ish nature of all the images and rooms, the story went together well and the gallery and site worked fine.

Assessment 1: Statement

2007-09-03T22:57:00.002-07:00

Michael Job

2559594

Creative Interactivity

2803ART

Assessment Item 1.

The premise for this project was based on the idea of creating a narrative without the use of conventional timelines or presentation. Taking pieces of a story and presenting them in a way that requires the audience to engage with both the website and the content in order to fully comprehend the story being told.

It began with the concept of taking images from the perspective of the refrigerator, the bathroom cupboard, the wardrobe. A place where only tiny glances of reality seep in and the rest of the story has to be assumed. The actual idea of taking photographs entirely from inside these places was scrapped fairly early on because the view from those locations would get particularly boring after several viewings. How much exciting stuff happens when the fridge is open, anyway?

I began by writing a simple script that I thought would still be understandable when not presented fully and in a chronological order. The story was then disjointed into rooms that I felt would hold the most value for this story. Again, the story was broken apart, but by time, choosing to present snapshots of the narrative at 4 hour intervals. I decided that the interface would be the house itself, with the viewer choosing which room to view. They would then be shown a series of images in no particular order, with the intention to stray away from presenting the images, right to left, top to bottom, in the hopes that the story timeline would become more blurred.

I chose to use a 3D DHTML image gallery, found on http://www.dhteumeuleu.com, called Prometeus. This particular image displaying interface was chosen because it presents the images flying towards the screen in an apparently random fashion (it actually shows them in order, but not in any consecutive line), but still gives the option for captions to be added to the images so that the time of day they were taken at can be added, making the narrative slightly less confusing. It also works adequately on both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers.

The narrative to the story was simple, potentially too simple; a couple in the midst of relationship problems, the details of which are not shown, and not particularly important. The woman seems to be plotting to leave her husband. The husband who loses it, takes the life of his wife, and immediately after is stricken with remorse. The details of the story are not particularly clear, or even necessary. The haziness of the presentation of the timeline means that to make the story any more intricate would only result in confusing the audience. I also avoided showing any actual violence as I felt to show something so blatant would negatively reflect on the way the entire story is presented.

I chose to present the interface as a drawing, rather than an image, so that the contents beyond the main page would not be so evident at face value. I had a friend draw the outline for the house (I possess absolutely no free drawing skills) and scanned the image into photoshop, where I coloured and edited the image to present an almost comical, but subtlety menacing abode.

The site seems to operate better in Mozilla Firefox, rather than Internet Explorer; as the back buttons in each room seem to have an error on the first click when using Internet Explorer, but work fine on the second click.

Much of this narrative is told by assumptions and guesses about what actually happens between the pictures. You could imagine that every single picture, even those with the most apparent meanings, are completely innocent situations that, when captured in a single frame, build ideas of a much more sinister reality. The lack of uniform direction in the storytelling and presentation of the entire narrative leave the audience with the power to build the narrative themselves from the images presented, making it a suitably interactive, non-linear narrative.

topic

2007-09-03T22:57:00.001-07:00

Interface, in your face.

2007-08-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

Some of the possibilities I am looking at for using as the interface for my first project are found at http://www.dhteumeuleu.com

The first is called Prometeus and is simply a 3d image gallery.

[code here]

The second is a more standard looking image gallery called Not in Vein

[code here]

The things that I like about both galleries is that they give the opportunity for a small piece of text to be added below each image that comes up when the image is rolled-over.

I haven't decided yet whether I will be using still images or a series of images created into gif's for the assignment yet, so this may have an effect on the gallery I end up using (whether gif's can be used in the gallery, I am yet to test)

Assignment 1

2007-08-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

The idea that immediately struck me for the first project was derived directly from class discussion. When talking about taking glimpses of stories from cabs, money etc. the idea of judging a person by the contents of their fridge arose.

My idea stems from the concept of a photograph, a single-framed glimpse of a larger story. You might go on holidays and take a thousand photographs, each of which will in turn 'say a thousand words'. But if you were to film (with video) the entirety of your trip, the frame-count would be immeasurable (not really, but it would be a most ridiculous number).

Then the idea comes back to the fridge, but from the opposite perspective. What glimpses of stories does a fridge bear witness to? What little pieces of reality seep in as the fridge door opens, only to close again moments later?

Sordid affairs,
drug addictions,
food addictions,
boredom?

And what other inanimate objects catch glimpses (or possibly more) of our lives that could tell interesting stories?

The diary of a fridge? The memoirs of a painting?

I'm taken with novelty.

2007-08-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

An old, iron doorhandle, found at long abandoned dump in rural England;

Heavy
Rusted
Entry
Exit
No longer attached to a door
Falling off, trapped
Old
Abandoned
Used as a weapon

Exit

Flickering exit signs in a long, abandoned hallway cast a strange contrast to the old redwood doors and long, cast-iron doorhandles. Countless doors with countless doorhandles, each leading to different offices; lawyers, doctors, businessmen, young professionals. A building twice as old as the sum age of its inhabitants.

12 years at school to spend three years at university. Getting a degree to gain internship. Internship to gain employment. Employment to pay for food, petrol, rent. Half a life spent chasing a climax, preparing for the eventual decline.

Falling off, trapped

The doorhandle is the best means of escape from a room. The only means of escape from a windowless room. Without a doorhandle exiting the room is made significantly more difficult, sometimes impossible.

A doorhandle once fell off the door of a room I was in; maybe a toilet or bathroom. The kind of room where the windows are high up and almost inaccessible. You feel a new kind of helplessness when your general means of exit from a room is denied. You start to deconstruct your actions leading up to that point and try to figure out what you could have done to change the situation you are now in. After failing to re-attach it, you just start hitting the door and yelling for help.

No longer attached to a door

A doorhandle not attached to a door raises a series of questions; what kind of door was it attached to? Where did it lead? Why is it no longer attached to the door? Where is the door now? Any number of events could lead to the extraction of a handle from a door, some of which could have actually been caused by the handle itself. Drug bust? Demolition? Decomposition? Someone stealing handles with the intention to melt them down and create a sculpture, only to find that the melting point of iron is really hot, and with access to only a gas stove, eventually giving up on the project?

Rusted

Rust on a doorhandle is akin to wrinkles on a human. Wrinkles are a superficial sign of age that often denotes wisdom.

More and more as we progress technologically, and medically, people are delaying the body’s natural progression to deny the connotations that being an old person brings. What makes the wrath and disconcerting looks of young, wrinkle-less people more important than that of the old, wrinkled people?

Used as a weapon

A pillowcase full of doorhandles can be a dangerous thing.

Flickering

Somewhere between on and off. Light and dark. Good and evil. Lights that cannot decide if they want to go on, or give up. Minds that struggle with the same concept.

Escape

Which attributes of a person’s exit from a place or room are considered when defining it an ‘escape’? Does a situation have to be inherently dangerous before opting out of it is considered an escape? Is it the haste with which the exit takes place? If you crawl away from imminent danger is your escape considered less viable than if you fly away in a helicopter? Is it the belief that for some reason this particular exit is more important than others?