Dissertation Summary

I really enjoyed my dissertation!
I enjoyed researching it, thinking about it, writing it, editing it, formatting it and even referencing it.

The subject I explored was anthropomorhism. And no, I did not look at animals dressed up as humans!
What I did look at was how humanizing technology helps us to get to grips with how to use it and makes user experience more efficiant and enjoyable. I explored and learnt so many interesting facts about anthropomorhism that I had not known before, and considered social, religious and design perspectives on it's use in digital media. I think it's emergence in technology design is a truly exciting field, and really found the psychology between human-computer relations fascinating.

Based on my research, I developed the opinion that Interactive technology is inherently anthropomorphic in its existence due to the roots of its invention and its purpose of improving relationships between humans and technology.

Triggering anthropomorphic thinking is a key way of increasing understanding of new technological artefacts and soliciting interest in them, which can be of benefit to a wide range of people. Therefore, consideration of anthropomorphic forms ( which can present themselves both obviously or extremly subtley) when designing and developing interactive technologies is an important factor in ensuring that they are designed in the most functional and user-friendly way possible. These forms should be considered whether they are being purposefully implemented or not, as it is almost dangerously natural for humans to cognitively apply mental models and stereotypes to new situation, including new technologies in order to develop an understanding of them.

Not all cultures view the world in the same way. Different groups of people have conflicting positive or negative opinions regarding both anthropomorphism and the development of new technologies, and there are also many religous groups that can be offended by the use of anthropomorhism (though this was an area I tried to touch on as minimally as possible, as it is such a complex area in itself and begs the introduction of theomorphism which is a seperate are from what I wanted to discuss).

Anyhow, I think it is important for designers to consider their target audience when developing interactive technological designs, to ensure that they will be used in the most functional way possible, and therefore be well received by their target audiences, and considering anthropomorhic form is a great way to help with this.

Spectacular Time and Comfort Thesis

For todays session on Guy Deboards 'The Spectacle' I read chapter 6- 'Spectacular Time'. Upon reading over it for the first time, my reaction was a mental image of a cartoon question mark, and a very confused facial expression. Reading it over for the second time in more detail, I began to understand that he was discussing different 'categories' of time and their relation to human existence. From the second reading I extracted the impression that he was discusssing time as being a commodified, non human entity, and that humans are divided into workers and producers. The producers control the time of the workers, and rather than paying them with money for labour, they are rewarded with recreational time when they are not working. He talks about holidays and annual events as being false, periods of time that mark nothing other than human publicity of them. This ties in with his idea that only the present exists, and the past cannot live on in our memories, therefore memories do not exist in time.

Moving on to the class discussion, and gaining an understanding of the essence of the text as a whole, I still do not feel able to analyze the chapter in definite detail, however I did extract a better grasp of the meaning of the chapter I read, and began to interpret what Deboard is saying as the following:

Time is something that both exists and doesn't exist at the same time. It is a natural passage that cannot be denied, yet it is not human, and the 'boundries' that humans apply to define it are false. By boundries I refer to dates, monthes, years and public holidays. I think what he is saying is that these are all just names that humans apply to the concept of time as a way of trying to define, as it is something so vast and undefineable that humans cannot fully comprehend it.

From what Deboard says, time is an ever changing and developing 'present', and I have gained a better understanding of this by relating it to theories I have been reading about Guthries comfort thesis and familiarity thesis. Roughly summerized- both terms refer to anthropomorphism as the act of humans applying humanized mental models of the world to interpret unfamiliar concepts / objects / events. Comfort thesis suggests that the reason for this is that it's a way to make humans feel better about themselves, and more secure in our environment. It helps stoke our egos as a species. Familiarity thesis suggests the reason for this is to comprehend and control things we don't understand, or fear, to try and find some sense in them and make outrselves feel more secure in our existance.

I think these ideas can be used to interpret what Deboard is saying as the idea that the word time is a label which refers to a humanized understanding of something undefinable. This label is an attempt to understand the concept of time better, from a humanized perspective. The reason he refers to it as a 'spectacle', is because we as humans have no real control over it, and though we make a show of measuring it, using it, labelling it and talking about it, we can never fully control it.

In conclusion..... the text was very heavy in terms of comprehendability, and though I did extract some ideas from it as described above. I'm completely willing to admit my interpretation does not fully address everything he says, and may even miss the point he was trying to make entirely. Never the less, it was my interpretation, and I think the idea that humans try to define time in order to control it is an interesting one. Perhaps it stems from fear of death.

Exam Project

Progressing well with the exam project. Really got into this afternoon and found a lot of inspiring research. I'm letting myself be flexible with my ideas this week and will commit to one to develop next week. At the moment I'm interested in stereotypes of technology and how they are a result of mental models that affect long term use.

Thoughts on exam brief

It's been a while since I last used this blog, which is a shame as I do enjoy using it. I find it helps me focus my thoughts and ideas before I writre them up in my sketchbook. However, I've been really busy with lot's of 'extras' recently, mostly work experience opportunites( I was personally requested for for two of them, which was nice. It's great to feel that all the work experience I've been doing so far has given me a good reputation) and job hunting research for this summer, so I haven't had much time to post. However, that is not a reflection on my attention to the project. I've been quite firm with myself about making choices, and very introspective regarding what I would enjoy to do most/ what would benefit me the most / what fits in with my years work the most / what inspires me.... and I am keen on the idea of creating an animation that examins human / computer relationships in some way, possibly looking into peoples first impressions with each other, and applying that to first impressions of technology and the effect it has on userability in the long term. I don't want to be too specific in the brief though, as I would like the ability to develop and explore my research further with regards to the 'angle' I will have and the treatment I will write myself.

Regarding the dissertation, I feel it is finished now, and just needs grammer checking and a bit of fine tuning. I spent five hours harvard referencing and citing...I'm a bit worried I'm going to need to re-do that now after Wednesday!

Summery of current priorities

Back at uni now after having been away for two weeks. Over that time I have spent alot of time working on an animation for SNS/SLN, and have been working on my dissertation. I also taught myself how to send an invoice and have been doing research into career paths and possible future employment.

My commitments for this final semester are university are:

- Completion of the client proposal project (evaluating my research)
- Finishing the dissertation and getting it bound
- Referencing and evaluating all my research for the dissertation
- The exam project
- Doing work experience with Wired Sussex (one day a week throughout April)
- Continuing to do work for Student Network Sussex
- Going to a college in Lancing to give a talk about my experience of Foundation Degrees with Aim Higher Sussex
- Going to Lewes College to take photographs of a foundation degree conference with Sussex Learning Network
- Re-doing / updating my online portfolio website
- Updating my CV and beginning to apply for work for after graduation

Easter Break Update

Have been working every day of the reak so far. I got the D & A D parcel sent off, though I made some alterations first to improve the print quality. Since then I have been working on the animated information screen I proposed to my client for the client proposal project, which will be used in schools and colleges at career events being held by SNS/SLN later this year. I have also nearly finished the dissertation. I need to add a little bit here and there, and format it properly with creditied quotes, and write the conclusion, which will be about 800 words, as I have written 6000 so far, and I need 200 for loose ends within the essay. I will look into places to print and bind it over the break. Also, I taught myself to and wrote my first ever invoice, and have been doing alot of careers research as part of the client proposal project, so, very busy, despite it being the Easter break.

By the way, if anyone is interested in exchanging dissertations with me to proof read and get a fresh perspective on each others work please let me know.

Creative Catapult Review

This was a wonderful experience. I'm really glad I signed up for it.

To re-cap, it was set up by Wired Sussex in conjunction with Kanoti, and held at the Lighthouse. Briefs were given by the BBC in January, and we, the attendees (students and graduates interested in aniation and illustration) were divided into four groups of four and given two months to work toegther on a pitch for the BBC.

Yesterday we had the final workshop, in which we all pitched to the BBC, and then given an evening seminar aimed to guide us in building confidence and start building our careers, whether or not we knew what we wanted to do.

The experience of working in a team and pitching to the BBC was not only a rewarding one, but an enjoyable one, and it was great to meet such a diverse range of professional practitioners and other students and graduates.

I left the event feeling truely inspired, enabled and empowered, and am very glad to have attended.

Status report

Am confident about meeting the deadline. Have finsihed animation but still need to mount boards and tie up loose ends with my sketchbook and workbook. Have been very busy this past week balancing the project with the client proposal, and tomorrow am attending workshop two of Creative Catapult, so have not been ablt to blog as much as I would have liked. Will update more soon!

Boards and final preparations

So, to update, I have finished my animation, but am having trouble exporting sound. It shouldn't be too hard to fix this, it's a problem I have had many times. I usually get around it by exporting the visual, and then matching it with the sound in i-movie. It is a nusiance though. I think it's a technical fault with the program, as my version of After Effects is rather old.

As for boards, I have nearly finished laying them out digitally (there are three), and will print them at the start of next week, to carefully mount and package. I'm not too worried about mounting as I have done it hundreds of times on previous courses, and will be using ready cut board so it won't take more than a quarter of an hour at most, packaging will be fine, although I am concerned over the sending of the package, as I have been warned it will be costly.

Regarding this, I will package the foam board between to rigid sheets of firmer cardboard, to protect them, make sure the CD is in a hardcase rather than a softslip, and then wrap all in bubble wrap, then brown paper, all tied up with string.

I aim to get this finished by the Thursday, as I am keeping next Friday free to meet with my client over client proposal, and I have a monumentus amount of work I need to get done for her over the next couple of weeks, alongside the client proposal, which is for a differet piece of work, that I will be working on later in the Spring.

My dissertation has not developed much beyond more research, as I am waiting to hear back from John who is reading over my draft.

How I will organise my boards:

I have just written out for myself a summary of how I developed my character, 'Jitters', and evaluated what is relevant for the boards and what is not. Based on this, I have decided it will be appropriate to create three boards in the followiung order:

1 Development of personality
2 Development of appearance
3 Development/description of mannerisms and emotions

My next step is to create some rough storyboards of what text and images I will use in the boards. From there I can play around with layout, using pencil and paper, in preparation for creating the final artefacts. At the minute I am thinking A2, but it will depend on how much content there is.

Development of Character Boards

As the requirements for the brief are quite strict, and I can only use certain sizes, I have decided to plan out exactly what I want to show on them, before I start selecting sizes or experimenting visually.

To do this, I will take my lead from the quote requesting them:

‘Creation: storyboards succinctly showing the process of how you created the character’

So, from this, I can make three important observations about what the content should be:

1: I need to be very detailed, and included each stage of

2: my character development processes, as opposed to the storyboard of the animation

3: I should make the boards specific to my own development process, and highlight how I approached the task of creating a character personality, as opposed to just highlighting the different stages of the characters appearance.

Though I can’t find any past winners boards on the site to look at, I remember being shown some in class last year, on the FdA, and they were all very visually eye catching and pristine. I think it important to remember that this could be the first visual taste of my work that they will see, as the animation will be on disc. So, I think I should strive to find a balance between making it eye-catching (not just using squares on white), consistent with the design of my character and animation, and also ensure it looks professional and not too over the top of cluttered. A couple of ideas I have had regarding this are to have lots of images of my character in different positions holding up pieces of paper, or to use a background consistent with that of my animation (parchment), and sequined pattern from the characters body around the edges as a border. I will decide first however, what the content will be.

So, I think it important now to summarise what that process was for myself, now, in writing, and work from there to develop possible layouts, roughly planned out on paper, that I can begin work on the finished artefacts.

Summary of workload

Must be hasty here, as I have alot of work to get done.

Just to summerize my current working situation-

I think I may have taken on a bit more than I can handle, and am finding it a challenge to meet all my commitments and still sleep/eat/function like a human.

I will manage to meet all my deadlines, and all work will be of perfect quality, however this is a challenege that I am only coping with due to careful and rigid time planning, and a lot of late nights. Once my current workload has subsided, I shall learn from this and in future not take so much on at any given time.

At the minute I am:

- working on the dandad project

- working on a largescale poster and postcard campign for my client(v.timeconsuming!)

- working on the brief requirement of a proposal for my client, which is a project I will then be doing in full, though the work itself will not be finished at the date of hand on, as it is for an event in late April. The proposal will be finished though.

- working on a careers file to use next year when searching for employment, and also developing my CV

-working on the dissertation

-working with a team on a pitch for the BBC (Creative Catapult)

- doing work experience for wired sussex in the form pf photography. I need to ring up lot's of companies and organisations and travel about to them at certain times to do this. Next week this will include digital media companies that are involved in the Brighton Internship Programme. (BIP)

I'm also balancing this with a weekend job.

I feel quite proud of myself though that I have managed to balance all of this without harming quality of work. I feel that each project is being given 100% of attention required to it.

Client Proposal

I have been focussing today on the client proposal project. As the brief is quite open, I have been tailoring the project to my own interests, to get the most out of it I can. This relates mostly to the research side of the project, which I am carrying out beyond the requirements of teh brief, and also to the proposal and work itself, which I have divided into two stages. The first stage is preparation work for teh project proposal. I proposed some work very informally to a current employer and it developed into a poster/postcard campign for a series of careers events. After this is completed the client would like me to work on an information screen for the event, that is animated and in keeping with the poster identity. For this reason, I am not producing a proposal fpor that until teh posters have been completed. So, stage one of my project is documented correspondance including an informal proposal and client written brief, and progression of the poster work . Stage two will be doing some rrsearch into event screen, and producing a more formal, costed proposal for the animation information screen.

What I plan to do/am doing for the project regarding work for the client is as follows:

HAS BEEN DONE

- I made an evaluative choice about which client to go with and why
- I wrote out exactly what my relationship has been with the client prior to start of the project, as she is my current employer, and some working relationship practices are already ion place.
- I made a brief proposition of work that I though could be beneficial to the client
- I corresponded and met with the client to determine what work could be done
- The client and I together agreed on a poster and flyer campaign consisting of 8 of each, the client then asked about an animated information screen for an upcoaming event that the posters will be used in.

AM DOING NOW
- I am now working on the poster campign rather than a proposal for it, whic did not seem nessecary as we discussed and wrote out a brief for teh work together

WILL BE DONE
- I am going to complete the print based work, and then have a meeting with the client about the animated information screen.
-I will then create the proposal requested by this brief for the animation screen, BASED on the identioty of the print based work I am undertaking for the client at the moment. When I do this I will use some of the resources on moodle that have been used in previous years, which includesa guide to what the proposal should consist of.

Regarding research and personal development in this project, as I am more interested in finding a job, perhaps with on the job trianing, at graducation, rather than freelancing, I am creating a research folder looking at jobs types within my chosen industry, interactive design, and rates of pay / locations / tips for finding work, interviews ect, and also looking at standard paratices for interacting with clients in any given situation. That section will feed into my project directly in the way I interact with my own client.

Reading Week Summary

I've had a productive week since my last post. On Sunday I applied for the work experience opportunity at Wired Sussex, and then the next morning received an e-mail from the events manager there (who I've met now on several occasions, at Creative Catapult and the digital media job fair) who asked me to come in for an interview, and also wanted to offer me some other work, in the form of taking photographs for a conference. I went in on Thursday, and will hear back about the work experience I applied for at a later date, and in the meantime am going back on Tuesday to discuss times/locations for the photographs.

I've also done a lot of work on the client proposal project this week. I'm developing a poster/post card campaign for SNS, that will consist of 8 colour coded posters and 8 colour coded postcards, to be put up in colleges across Sussex and used at events. When this is done, I will write up my proposal part of the project for a 3 minute animation using the same identity as the campaign, to be used at the events as an information screen.

Finally, my character project is going well, and I'm on track with times, although I did change my storyboard due to time concerns and technical difficulties.

This coming week I plan to get the animation finished so I can work on the 'storyboards of how you created the character' which I assume is not referring to storyboards of the animation, but images and descriptions of the characters development throughout the project. I will check this though. Also this week I will be meeting with my Creative Catapult team, and need to prepare some work in advance of that re: our pitch. Finally I aim to have the rough poster layouts completed and fonts chosen with my client for the client proposal project, so that I can begin work on the final artifacts the week following.

AHEAD OF MY OWN SCHEDULE! (For this project at least)

After a few days of worrying that I won’t be able to come up with an animation idea that would express my characters personality in full whilst still being a unique idea, and worrying about what sound to use, how to create the sound, and generally getting off track by starting to research into ways to ‘express the self’ via ballet, mime and music, and re-thinking my whole character personality to mould it around a ‘theme’ for the animation (such as mime, ballet or music) , I’ve finally come up with a full treatment and mental storyboard (several days before the schedule I set myself!!!) that I will spend the day getting down on paper.

I did this by keeping in mind the brief’s requirements, comments Angie and Michael made in class on Thursday about being strict with deadlines for yourself, leaving time to create a high quality final piece, and being self aware of when valid research becomes procrastination, as well as, most importantly, a belief in my character idea.

The brief requires that a character personality be developed, and animation be used to express this. It is not asking for an animation idea or plot for the character to be servant to, but the other way around. The animation is servant to the characters identity. Keeping that in mind, I decided to stay firm in my belief that I have created a good character. He is realistic, visually attractive and will be engaging of the audience in a way that triggers anthropomorphic thinking and a sense of believability that he has an off screen life and daily routine. My animation will be true to this, it will highlight the characters most common emotions and aspects of his daily routine, and use a sense of humour that I will try to spark with my characters facial expressions at certain events. I feel that the ‘script’/treatment I have written for the animation fully expresses the key points of the characters profile and will allow me to focus on using his emotions and behavioural mannerisms to bring him to life rather than plot events. As for being original, I am going to achieve this through my visual look. I have in mind an exact way I want the animation to appear visually, which will be in keeping with the personality of the character. I will be using After Effects to create the animation and will make use of 3d Space but with 2d objects, in a environment. All the elements that are important will be highly detailed and of excellent quality. I have already created all the components that form my character, and so will now create a detailed storyboard to work on using photographs and materials I plan to use in the animation.

Regarding sound, I will leave time to create this at the end, and will try and compose something myself in Garage Band. I will also record the diagetic sounds I need in the locations I am storyboarding to add a sense of realism to the soundtrack.

Character Development Update

I feel that I am nearly complete in familiarizing myself with the character I’m developing now. The character is a cat, named Jitters. He pities humans because he thinks cat’s are the superior species, but he has a soft spot for them. He likes his own space, and when other encroach on it he slowly and subtly stretches his body our really far to claim space. He likes to sleep a lot and gets annoyed at being woken. He doesn’t like to be stroked without permission and hates water. He has an enemy in the form of the cat across the street and is generally quite secluded and un-social. He’s a bit of a snob and thinks a lot of himself. He hates water, loves flowers, and sees humans as his ‘servants’. I have been observing my own cat all week and taking photos, and then developing them into still cartoon like images just to brainstorm ideas of liked activities and places, and yesterday I fully created each body component. The brief stresses the importance of personality rather than appearance, but I plan to show personality mainly through postures and facial expressions. Now I am researching some classic body postures and expressions of humans and what they indicate for cats and humans, and am merging the two to create a ‘language board’ for my character that I can reference when storyboarding my animation. I have been thinking of ideas for the animation all week but have not decided yet, as I have felt it more important to develop the character’s personality, style and ‘language’. I will finish this by Monday and then give myself a day to write a treatment for the animation itself, which should be easy to do now that the characters personality and style has been determined, and another day to produce a storyboard, and then I will begin to create the components and think about how to produce the sound. I hope to be ready to start production of the animation itself, with all components ready and set up in after effects by Friday, and then will begin to animate next week. (This week I will be doing a lot of work for Client Proposal Project)

Angie Taylor Session - notes

Firstly, I just want to say I really got alot from this session, I found it really interesting. Some of the points she made I already picked up from previous tutors / people I've worked with / Creative Catapult (at which she is one of the tutors). These were things like time planning, professional practices, the golden section, parenting, alpha channels ect, but I picked up a lot of really useful tips for stroyboarding, something I have done for previous courses but never really learnt specific ways to indicate things, and I found it really useful. Also, some of the software tricks she showed us were great. I really want to try out 'puppet' in After Effects, and I discovered a lot about Bridge, which I have but haven't ever actually used. (until after the session when I tried out angies tutorials)

For this project I will definately be using some of Angies storyboarding techniques, and I'll also be using some of her photography tips for doing panoramas for other projects.

DIGITAL MEDIA JOBS FAIR

I attended the jobs fair today and found it to be worthwhile. It was very busy and not many companies were present, but I found it informative and did some networking. I also met a recruitment advisor that I had previously met at portfolio clinic, and I am really keen on working for that company. I gave an updated CV, and the advisor said it would definitely be worthwhile getting in touch a month or so before graduation. I noted down the contact details of people I did not get to speak to, and will aim to start researching what’s out there and applying for jobs after the current project ends, over the Easter break. I was also quite pleased at the event that one of the Wired Sussex organisers knew me my name- she is the person who also organised creative catapult, and the whole experience has made me feel more confident about networking.

CREATIVE CATAPULT

Though this is not a course project, I feel it worth blogging a little about Creative Catapult, as I am finding the experience really positive. I am group leader for my team and yesterday we had our first meeting. In preparation for this I took initiative and went to Wired Sussex to get our materials from the workshop, and prepared a document detailing what we needed to discuss in the meeting. At the meeting itself one member could not make it, but the rest of us all worked well together and agreed 100% on a plan of action, and we are meeting again in two weeks time to finalise details for our pitch to the BBC. I took it upon myself as team leader to write up minutes from the meeting and a clear plan of what tasks each of us will achieve by the next meeting. I am really looking forward to the next workshop in itself too, as we will be pitching to the BBC face to face.

DEVELOPMENT OF MY CHARACTER

The design of the characters personality rather than visual appearance is strongly emphasised in the brief, and I have been focussing on this in my research, looking at acting techniques for familiarizing yourself with characters, writing tips for developing characters (one of these is to leave naming a character until the end so you don’t have any name association limiting your creativity, I experimented with this in idea generation and found it works better for me to not have a name. The character is based on my cat however, who is called Pepper, and this has been a working title to avoid confusion when discussing different characters), and non-verbal ways of communication for expressing personality traits. Based on my research, I have come up with the following ideas of redeveloping my characters personality:


* I am going to research iconic cat characters and study what makes them unique and what they all have in common. This is to ensure that my character does all the right things, and also to make me aware of what has been done that is unique to each character, so I can strive to do something a little different and give my own character a sense of unique identity. I will start out looking at silent cartoon cats, and this will allow me to also pay attention to ways of communicating without dialogue.

• I will observe my pet Pepper and making notes and images that portray unique mannerisms and ideas for characterization.

• I will come up with a new name, based on the character personality.


• I will develop a visual style for the characters appearance, based not solely on the personality, but also on a comment made in the brief; ‘styles that will work within the commercial and music industry’

• I will keep a scrapbook of images of the characters life that will depict rough images of the characters habitat, friends, belongings and lifestyle.

• FINALLY, I will fill out the character questionnaire I composed previously and also include a list of bodily mannerisms and postures, as a sort of reference profile that sums up who my character is, and be referred to when considering how the character would behave in certain situations. This will aid me in developing a treatment for the animation and storyboard.

• Once the character has been developed, I will familiarize myself with it by adopting the personality in second life and seeing if it offers any inspiration for animation ideas.

Development of D&AD project

I am progressing well with the project. I have set myself the goal of being firm with myself over making key decisions quickly and not ‘umming’ and ‘arring’ about them for long. This has worked well so far. I developed 3 ideas as required by the brief and logically drew up a pro con list, and did some research into actor movement theories, character design, character theories and writing tips for character development, and then made the final choice based on which idea fitted in well most with the brief.

My final choice of character is a cat which views humans as servants (name unconfirmed) which was inspired by my own cat, and I am going to develop the personality this week in a number of ways (See next post)

As the timescale is quite tight for this project, and there is also the client proposal project to consider, I have developed a colour coded cross project time plan, in which I am recording all meetings dates and major events I need to consider when time planning, and letting me see how much time I have for each project comparatively. It has been really helpful so far, as I can refer to it when time planning each project individually, and then plan which weeks will be more productive for a particular project and which weeks will be more focussed on other projects, so that I can plan out my work load realistically. This has prompted me to set rigid goals in this project, and the main milestones are as follows:

WEEK 18: This week I will be focussing on developing the personality of my character (See next post), and then the appearance. I will at the end of the week draw up a document that has a complete profile of my characters mental state (i.e likes, dislikes, habits, environmental preferences ect) and a list of behavioural mannerisms and personal postures that I can refer to when storyboarding, and also when creating boards to show how the character was created.

WEEK 19: During this week, reading week I am going to be working a lot on the client project, but will ensure I write a treatment for the final animation, produce a detailed storyboard, and begn to make all needed components for the animation, which I will do in After Effects.

WEEK 20: This week will be dedicated to the actual production of the animation

WEEK 21: This week will be focussed on creation of the boards and rendering of the animation

WEEK 22: I will be ensuring my sketchbook is bound and finishing off loose ends.

D&AD Project - Chosen Brief

I have chosen to work to the brief of character animation for this project, because I think it is important for me to choose one brief at the start, fairly quickly and then get started on developing ideas as soon as possible to make my concept and standard of completion stronger and more professional. In the last couple of projects I have become self aware of the fact that I can at time be pretty indecisive, and in this project I am going to start out rigid about making decisions. There were several briefs that interested me, and I will describe why in my sketchbook, but ultimately, now that I have returned from Berlin, I am going to choose one and stick to it. I have chosen character animation because the brief talks about the spirit of a character and attention to bringing it to life. I think that the research I am doing for my dissertation on anthropomorphism will feed into this well. I enjoy using After Effects and feel confident in creating an animation to a good standard with this piece of software, and the challenge of creating a character will require a lot of attention to detail that will help me in future projects and working with clients. Starting inspiration for me is 'Buddy Bears'(see previous post), that I saw in Berlin, because although they are inanimate objects, they seemed to me to have a full, rich life to them that spoke out with emotion about the origins of the city and it's views to the future, whilst also displaying symbols and messages from other countries around the world.

Buddy Bears

Buddy Bears are fibreglass, 6ft tall statues that were created in 2001 and painted with the colours and symbols of different countries world wide, and placed for a short period of time in a circle around the Brandenburg gate before being redistributed around the city, so that spotting them becomes an interactive game in itself. The form of the Bear is a symbol of Berlin, and the colour represents a tolerance of other cultures and the ideas of unification and peace between nations. They tie in the old with the new. The old being the form of the Berlin Bear and their placement around d the Brandenburg Gate (which itself has also been the spot of Nazi Rallies), and the new being the modern colours and the material. They seemed to capture the spirit of the City today, a harmonious look to the future with an acceptance and remorse for the past.

I myself spotted them in fish tanks, fountains, street corners, museums, animal cages, and restaurants.

See image here

Tiffany's Cafe

Tiffany’s café was another highlight for me, it was built so that the seating area was the centre of a fountain, and the edges were lined with plants and the water full of metal sculptures of lily pads. Unfortunately I never managed to have breakfast there, just ice cream. To get to teh cafe you have to walk along wooden bridges over the water. Will post image soon.

The Aqua Dom

“The AquaDom is a 25 meter tall cylindrical acrylic glass aquarium with built-in transparent elevator. The Aquadom is the largest acrylic glass cylinder in the world, with a diameter of over 11 meters, built on a 9 meters tall concrete foundation. Filled with about 900,000 liters of seawater, it contains some 2600 fish of 56 species. The feeding of the fish and the cleaning of the fish tank is performed daily by a pair of full-time divers.” - Wikipedia

Visiting the Aqua Dom and taking a ride in the lift was an amazing experience, it felt quite magical, as if I was travelling on Willie Wonkas Glass Elevator, or had gone through Alice’s Looking Glass. The design of the lift was also unique, as it was the only lift with a staircase I have ever seen.

Take a look here

Berlin

I learnt a lot in Berlin. Not from the festival alone, but from the trip and the city itself as a whole. In my time there I attended several events at Transmediale (see post Transmediale’) and also visited the Cathedral, old Berlin, Charlottensburg Palace, the TV Tower, the Aquarium and the Aqua Dom, took a boat ride, went to the Zoo (the famous one, not the new one), walked around beautifully built buildings with unique architecture, explored several markets, went to the Reichstag twice, the Brandenburg Gate, the Sony Center, Checkpoint Charlie, La Fayette, William Echhart Memorial Church, the Europe Center, The Jewish museum, the Jewish Memorial, took a walk from Alexandraplatz through to Tiergarden station along Unter Den Linden, and generated over an hour and a half of film and 785 photographs.

I found the city itself to be breathtaking and ever so interesting. Walking through Mitte I thought it was so unique to be able to really see what existed pre war, what had survived the war, and how the city itself has been re-developed to still present it’s past whilst making way for a more unified and culturally excepting culture. Buddy Bears were a great symbol of this, and were to me extremely inspiring products of design. The Berlin Wall itself (the postcards and remaining slab on Unter Den Linden illustrated) I thought was also remarkable in the sense that although the wall itself was a badly formed and ugly construct, it had been repainted over the years by the public, and really expressed the city’s dislike for it. To see these postcards lining the streets of Unter Den Lindin, and to see the way that the whole City has been re-developed since it’s demise, I could really get a taste for the feeling and the spirit of the city, and the strong emotions the city has been privy to over the past century were so strongly present in it’s design. Walking along the river near the Cathedral I stumbled upon old cobbled streets and the original monument of the Berlin Bear, a beautiful statue that looked so lifelike, and as if it were real, and weary of the past. The Sony Centre at Potsdam was another amazing example of this. To see the way it has been developed from an urban wasteland in the 1960’s, to the eye-catching new commercial haven was astonishing to me, and I left the city with the feeling that it is an undiscovered gem that will continue to develop further until it receives as much tourist attention as places like Rome or New York. I could write about so much, but am picking out just three highlights to post about that have all inspired me and however I can see myself creating work this year that is influenced by so much of what I saw on the trip.

Transmediale

I did not feel that this festival was quite as good as it could have been. I found the exhibition quite dry, and the videos in the main hall rather dull. Below is a list of some of the things I saw and my thoughts on them:

Chop-Bot

I could not find a link between this machine and the theme Conspire. I did however think it seemed to be a bit of a health and safety issue.


Breeding Fear

This talk started out well, it was about the affect that the internet and terrorism has had on fear personal identity, and I thought that some of the points one of the speakers made about airport security being performance art to be interesting. The idea of the worker going through the motions of making things look secure, and the traveller going through the motions of trying to look innocent was quite interesting to me. However, I did feel that this talk centred to much on just the idea of terrorism, when the whole ideas of ‘conspire’ and ‘breeding fear’ could have also gone into a discussion about intent filtering and counties that censor areas of the internet for control and to breed fear of stepping over the lines in totalitarian countries.

Faceless

This was a talk by an artist about her inspiration from Busby Berkley, the pioneer of top-shots, and her attempts to create similar works with CCTV footage. She focussed a lot on her research and the legislation that allows people to use CCTV footage within certain boundaries, leading to the facelessness of her characters. The legislation ruined the result of her work really, and I think she did not fully think out ways to get around this or making the piece as artistic as Berkley’s. I really liked her influences, but not her work. I think it would have been interesting to place a CCTV camera directly above rather than at an angle, and control the lighting to play with the shadows of people, rather than the people themselves.

The Cubic Viewing Stations In The Exhibition

I did not think these were very disabled people friendly, not very interactive. I would have liked to see more interactive installations in the gallery rather than just static objects and computer screens.

Lots and lots and lots to do!!!

Okay, so to briefly summerize my progress for the past tw days- I have now finalised all the details of my installation, and created a proposal/guide to work from. I have also created the Flash interface, but need to get the timeout function to work correctly. I have pushed myself really hard to research as much technical set-up ifo as possible, going as far as to research average user heights for the screen display, floor panel size and overall material sizes required, how to dismantle a keyboard, how to map a keyboard encoder, how the installation will function ect, and I am happy that I have applied enough consideration to these issues. I now want to create illustrations depicting this, and translate my written info into a flash based slideshow. It will include these categories:

SYNOPSIS OF IDEA
AIMS BEHIND THE IDEA
CONCEPT IMAGES
LAYOUT OF THE INSTALLATION SPACE
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SAMPLE INTERFACE BEING HANDED IN, AND THE INTERFACE AS IT WOULD BE IN A GALLERY
TECHNICAL SETUP AND SAFETY
CONNECTING THE PRESSURE SENSORS TO THE KEYBOARD
RIGGING THE PRESSURE MATS TO THE FLOOR TILES AND ENCASING THE WIRES
USERABILITY AND DISABILITY CONCERNS
REQUIRED EQUIPMENT AND COST OF SELECTED COMPONENTS OF THE INSTALLATION

I also had plans on a 3d animation of the space, but I am now not sure if this is needed, since my concept images will display this perfecty well, and I would rather devote my time to perfecting the flash interface.

I also need to log my construction progress into my work book, print and bind it, and write source pages for each item of research in my workbook detailing why it is relevent.

AND, I need to write the 500 words required by the brief

AND, I need to print out my blog enrtires from this project

AND, write a self evaluation and a contents page

EVALUATION OF CHRSITMAS PERIOD AND GOALS FOR WEEK FIVE

I have not been able to achieve quite as much as I had hoped deliverable wise over the break, but am really pleased with the state of clarity I have reached regarding my dissertation, and this project. I know exactly what I want to achieve, and how to do so. I also think it conveys very important considerations regarding interaction, and will be a successful and appropriate realization of my research and ideas/thoughts. I still need to clarify a little regarding the visual style of my final outcome, but I know what needs doing and will be able to get right into it. With that in mind, my goals for the new week are:



- Brainstorm ‘visual themes’ for installation space- pick one

- Create the Flash interface (5 - 10 screens, time dependant: quality will be more important than quantity)

- Create the space in After Effects as an animation, or as an interactive space that can be navigated via DVD.

- Create the document detailing the way the installation will work technically.

AIMS OF MY FINAL OUTCOME (in order of importance)

• To use digital media as a tool to encourage good communicative interaction between humans. They will need to work together to complete the task (this is human – human interaction, and human-computer interaction)

• To produce mental interaction with one user and physical interaction with the other.

• To encourage trust. One user will need to do as the other user instructs, and show complete trust in order for them both to win the game. The other user will need to rely on their partner to follow instruction in order for them both to win the game. A balance of power will be installed in this way. (This trust is mainly human/human, but will mirror my ideas about balance of power being important with regards to interactive media.)

• To get across the idea that interaction is not just sitting at a computer screen- it is psychical, mental, and human.

Opinions I have formed about interactivity that I want to convey in my final outcome

I think that in order to create a meaning full final outcome, I need to be clear about my aims. These will be to show what I have learnt and opinions formed that I consider most important about interactivity. So, in a nutshell:

Interactivity is something we engage in within every aspect of our lives, it is often perceived as computer/person relations, but in actual fact can be created in simple mundane tasks such as turning a tap on. It is not just physical either, enjoyable mental interaction is crucial to a satisfying interactive experience, and sometimes the user is not even aware of this. Computer games are hugely interactive mentally, and yet they are mostly seen as interactive because of the technology that they are created with. A physical game such as football is not really regarded as an interactive game in the same way, yet in actual fact it requires much more physical interaction, human interaction and possibly just as much if not more mental interaction.

People can interact with each other simply by having a conversation, and this is a very important part of human / human interaction. Early interactive machines that have led to digital media were created for the goal of aiding humans, not replacing them, and so perhaps we should see digital media as a tool for human/human interaction to improve, rather than try desperately to humanize the machine itself.

Control is also a big issue in terms of computer interaction. Many people see interactive applications as threats of manipulation, or cleverly disguised ploys to control people’s thoughts. True, interactive media is a tool can easily manipulated and abused, but it can also be liberating and unique in the experiences it offers. To me, the essence of good digital interaction is a balance of control between the author and the user, much like the shared power in a human-human conversation.

These are thoughts that I want to convey in my final piece, and so having now explained them as simply as possible, I will draw up a list of AIMS.

Choice of idea

After much consideration, I have decided to go with the idea I previously wrote of at the end of term, about a two person installation puzzle game. The deliverables will be:

1. An instruction manual on how to technically set the installation up, including price projections
2. An animation/interactive 3D area of how it might look
3. The flash game interface, but working with regular mouse or keyboard clicks for presentation purposes
4. And maybe a demo of a sensor activating a button to show I am capable of creating this, price/time dependant.

I have chosen this idea despite earlier doubts and dilemmas because in the time I have had over the past 2 weeks to step back from the project and come at it again from a fresh perspective, I have found myself able to visualize the creation of this one a lot more excitedly. A comment I read in ‘Simplicity: The art of Complexity’ about simplicity being not about simple processes or meanings, but more about the simplest way to get across a complex meaning, inspired me to think that this is something I should be applying to my own work. I have been in quandary somewhat recently about trying to decide exactly how complex or simple my final outcome, and have found re-evaluation my idea of ‘simple’ very useful. I need a clear meaning and a piece of work that tailors itself to this directive. I think that this is an idea that can do that, even if I am unable to fully create the installation. It is how well that my ideas shine through in the final outcome of my work that is important, not the complex simplicity of my practical deliverables. With that in mind, I think what is in order to do first is assess exactly what my most important discoveries about interactivity have been in this project, and list them as clearly and simply as possible. The aims of my piece will to be to convey these as simply as possible, in the most appropriate way.

Hurrah! Completion of Dissertation plan

So, I have spent the day researching and reading and going over all my ideas and notes thus far, and have managed to hammer out a well structured ( I hope!) essay plan that I feel extremely able of following and getting into. It's quite a few pages long, and so I won't post it, but below is a general outline of what y dissertation will be about:

“What are the key themes and ideas connected to anthropomorphism, and how important is their relation to interactive media, looking at modern interactive examples?”

My aims will be to illustrate that anthropomorphism is a multi layered subject rather than one simple way of thinking. The dissertation will identify what areas within the subject can be related to the development of interactive media regarding the way it functions and the ways it is still developing, looking at both positive and negative impacts that it has had.

My main argument will be that anthropomorphic ideas regarding the way humans relate to technology are important considerations in every aspect of interactive design development because they are crucial to the understanding of it’s practical use and therefore it’s success and development.

I will look at not only the dictionary definition of anthropomorphicism as the idea that the act of humanizing inanimate objects or animals, but at the idea that it is a subject area which relates to thoughts, emotions, psychical acts and religious beliefs in a way that has a profound impact on the way we develop our media technologies. It is not enough to say that humans try and make machines more lifelike inb their apperance or by giving them names. Actions themselves within a human/computer relationship are results of design decisions based on anthropomorphic thinking. Just the way a website works can be asscoiated with the studies of anthropomorphism because of the way in which it was designed. The author puts a level of human thought into it's structure, and creates if to appeal to a humans way of thinking, rather than a computers. This is avery raw comment, as I'm still researching and have not yet fully formed my argument, but I am going to look into various areas within interactive design, and at how they can be realted to theories that I will be presenting as anthropomorphic themes/theories, including form, interaction, social studies, psychological studies, theory of the mind, primitive categorization, ANT and the theory of social construction of technology.


My time plan is as follows:

21st of January:

Completion of note making from all research so far regarding section one

Research visual examples for use in section two

Research visual examples for use in section three

Plan out which theories can be related to which examples to best support my argument

Creation of a 4000 word draft for submission at end of January (I will include a completed introduction, completed conclusion, and each other section will be half completed)

20th of February:

Further research based on feedback

Creation of a full second draft

31st of March:

Further research based on feedback

Creation of a final draft

14th of April:

Completion of final dissertation
Binding of dissertation
Research to be organized and bound

21st of April:

Hand in date. Any loose ends tied up

Current Project and the Dissertation.

I am finding the dissertation difficult to get into. I love writing, and I can easily form opinions on most subjects, and get very verbal about things I am passionate about. I loved the essay projects for the last two years, and am really looking forward to writing the dissertation. MY problem is that I have been doing so much theoretical research, and am feeling so involved with my interaction project, that all research I do in prep for my dissertation ends up becoming research for the interactive project. In a way this is fine, I can use it for both subjects, howevcer this leaves me feeling like my dissertation is created from crumbs and leftovers of thoughts regarding my interaction project, which is bad. It needs it's own 'spirit' I suppose, to inspire me.

With that in mind, there are a couple of links to recent news that I have been considering in relation to interaction, and skirting around in the ideas of my dissertation:

1. BERMA -

It recently came to my attention that Burma is a country that does not have free internet access. The authorities there have put impossible resrictions on it's use, because it sees the internet as a weapon. It does not want it's inhabitents to educate themselves on the ways of Westurn free will and democracy, because it wants to keep control over the population. I thought this interesting in terms of our class debate on free will on the internet, because this is an exampe not of manipulation and false ideas of free will through site design, but of actual eradicated free will regarding the internet. Further research led me to discover that in total, 45 countries have similar restrictions on it's use. I think this is a subject that could easily be give alot of consideratin for this project, and gives alot more food for thought on the ideas of how the internet is perceived from other cultures aside from our own perspective.

Twenty Enemies
Internet Filtering


2.

Someone recently infromed me that the Popes Christmas message was about how he wants to start training up a team of excorsists to get rid of evil spirits that were being encouraged by rock music and the internet, which gives people to much oppurtunity to think for themselves.

This angered me greatly, I think the internet is an amazingly powerful tool, that can do as much if not more good than it does bad. ( See post on control/freedom ) However, I did some research and discovered this information was not entirely true in the way it was presented. I have not found any evidence of him saying that we should not think for ourselves, and I am not going to research the subject further because it would be too off subject for the project in the limited time left, I need to focus on production and directly relvent research now, however below is the actual quote from the paper:

"The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet. Quote taken from the Daily Mail