This update is long overdue, but, here it is. After much inspiration sourcing, brainstorming, and experimenting, I have the beginnings of the process and product of my project. Below are some screenshots of an animation on thoughts: reoccurring, tangential, rare, and what may fall into "etc." Like always, my eyes are bigger than my stomach; my idea may take more time than the semester allows. I was hoping to design an interactive website with video, sound, and photographic content. This first animation is still in its drafting stage, so I'm thinking I may have to focus on condensing the website into the video. In that case, the animation will turn into a mixed media video, teetering between the photographic and graphic.
It's often difficult for me to talk about process because 'what exactly am I thinking about right now?' I rely on reading about what others have to say, but never fully comprehend how my own process operates. Everything is a work in progress, I guess. Michael Bierut, an experienced designer and writer, offers this in his article, This is My Process, "They are careful to identify the defining characteristics of this kind of work: allowing solutions to emerge in a process of iteration, rather than trying to get everything right the first time; accepting the lack of control in the process, and letting the improvisation engendered by uncertainty help drive the process; and creating a work environment that sets clear enough limits that people can play securely within them." I should make a more organized list of my scrambled thoughts. Compulsively making to-do lists is really just another form of procrastination. I'm certainly guilty of doing this. In a way, this video is a process of process, or the visualization of the work towards some semblance of a product.
I want my video to be interactive, similar to how some websites have the ability to do more than visually engage. The viewer isn't a passive observer, or merely a consumer. The music video for Arcade Fire's The Suburbs is an example of this interactivity. The interactive video personalizes the experience of a music video by setting the video in the viewer's childhood neighborhood, after having the viewer enter the address. The video further exceeds a sense of containment by launching multiple browser windows. no small feat, this production is the result of cross-disciplinary collaboration, crediting an impressive team of musicians, designers, programmers, filmmakers and more. How do you have a conversation with a thing? How can I engage people in the way we work through our own thoughts? Inspiration can be so intimidating! Any words of advice?
"Process" indeed is tricky! --I "wholeheartedly" agree! Hoe to provide navigation without determining (and/or "over-determining) sets of "limiting factors: (http://movingpoems.com/poet/thylias-moss/) --of course, you can't accompany "your" work at all forms of "time" in every location where "your" work might be experienced, so "experiencers" will need to be able to guide themselves, and makers will also need an ability to become satisfied with whatever makers do! Presumably, "limiting Factors" can help "direct" what "experiencers" might need help, but questions about "communicating" with forms of "things" remains --especially if there's "need" and/pr "desire" for things to respond in ways "makers" might easily understand. Will this work be accompanied by a set of instructions? --or any insights at all related to making this work? Will experiencers be given ideas for what makers would like as feedback from interactions with this work? --Just asking, and wondering outcomes that might come next.
ReplyDeleteThe Wilderness Machine
ReplyDeleteA postcard is created by an analog signal: you. This site takes that postcard and converts it to digital. The Wilderness Machine brings it back to analog. Look for it on tour with the band in North America. If you're lucky enough to get someone's postcard from it, plant it. A tree will grow out of it.
--I like making a postcard within "limiting Factors" of process used to interact.
Your visual-animation-puddles of your explosive, inspired thoughts are great!! I'm looking forward to see where you are going to go from here. Inspiration can, indeed, be very intimidating. But, I adore what you said about simply letting the process occur without being to hung up on mistake (or even clarity). Maybe your project will grow and change as you do, right alongside you. Perhaps the openness and accessibility of your project by the end of this semester will be the first petal of your interactive undertaking unfolding. And, in time, the complete and open website will unfold.
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