"Texture 2"

Project #5 Explanation

Project #5 may not be very long. It may not be very exciting. It took a lot of work, however. Getting three others to collaborate with myself was kind of tough... and then came the algorithm. I did decide to expand on Project #4, which I thought, although adhering to the prompt, was a little drawn out.

For this project, I took the everyday, the real events, and turned them into a kind of poem. The algorithm follows as such: myself, along with three others, sat own with our cellular phones. Starting with me, and my most ancient "out" text message, I scrolled up three. And wrote that. The person to my left scrolled up three from their oldest "in" message. If it was a response, it took. If not, up through until it was. I wrote that. And then, they took the action and scrolled three more to their oldest "out". I wrote that. And on and on through the collaborators, until I came up with this.

Like I said, it isn't very exciting. I took the really neat juxtaposition of thought, word, and added to it. Through a short series of visual messages and the "typing" audio, and the visual "TV snow" and audio static, my project was born. At first, it is all purposefully aligned. As you move through the piece, however, it purposefully becomes chaotic. This echoes the actual collaboration. We had a great time, and a lot of laughs, forming the foundation for the project. It became more and more hectic and loose.

I created a sort of movie that started out with a visual and audial match up and then let it flow, much as the feelings I had when gathering the information. This project deals with the everyday, the banal, the real event. It mixes it up in a way that is not real, at least for the participants. All of the participants knew their own question or statement, and knew their own answer. After awhile, I allowed the audio and visual to blend together in an unexpected way.

I personally appreciate how this turned out. Although not obvious to the viewer, it is really "mixed up."

Plans for Project #5

For the past several days I have been trying to decide between expanding Project #4 into Project #5, or starting something all together new for Project #5. I believe that I will use Project #4 as a springboard. The project showed a series of texts, sent and received by me, in a sort of movie presentation. I have asked some people to "lend" me their text messages, between them and others (and sometimes me), to expand on this concept. I am not exactly sure of details yet, but I will again present this in a movie form, this time adding images. My other project had no images, just text, audio, typography manipulation and some "special effects" from Movie Maker. I plan to (somehow) take a lot of information and condense it, as it can be really lengthy. I have some ideas for doing this. This project should successfully combine "real events" with "mixed-reality." (I plan to post it on my blog.)

Thoughts on Project #5

I have been thinking about mapping something (a specific geographical area, or similar components in a larger area) using photos, text, sound. I thought a little about something like this for project #4, but couldn't really come up with anything to fit the prompt. I also love the "bird's eye view" idea of looking at maps. I was addicted to Microsoft World for a while, just "flying around," and noticing how very different geographical placement really is, compared to how I think it is while on the ground, using roads. I also might just do something like "a day in my life." I have a lot of different ideas, I just need to focus on one and come up with a plan!

Blogs...

Start class on your blog, responding to the following: It is common to speak of the "blogosphere" or the collective space of all blogs and their interconnections. Time magazine named "user-generated content" (such as blogging) as the 2006 "person of the year." Political and journalistic blogs supposedly influence the direction of policy and opinion. Do you read blogs? Why are blogs so important today? Why are people excited about them as a form of writing? Is there something new, different, and specific about blogs? Are blogs in any way more cooperative or democratic or open or participatory? As you think about this, you might look at blog art for alternative uses of blogs (i.e. must blogs inherently be about reporting/content/commentary?). If you want, extend your thoughts to the web in general - is it really open and participatory?

I personally have not spoken much about the "blogosphere" or the collective space of all blogs and their interconnections. Before this semester, I only browsed a few blogs. A lot of blogs out there seem to be too "cutesy" or personal, and do not interest me. I have looked at blogs for the past few months for a political science class that I am taking, and have really enoyed the more political ones that I have come across.

Have to wrap it up per Dr. Baldwin... more to come!

Project #4 Metatext

For project #4, I have used the required “everyday” and “personal”, and have involved other people. I have used a series of text messages from a six week period. They are both sent and received messages between my family and friends and me. They show the everyday, sometimes mundane and utilitarian, the emotional, sometimes touching, and also the humorous and absurd.

The involvement with others is apparent, but I have decided to blur the line between different people and different chunks of conversation by using a consistent design throughout. This adds a mysterious element, and makes for some strange juxtaposition between different messages and ideas.

My project turns the uncreative (text messages from my phone) into something creative, presented in a multimedia fashion. With Windows Movie Maker, I have incorporated the text, with is inherently a modern and highly digitalized way of communicating, into a simple, “reminiscent of the past” type of presentation. I have used a simple, traditional font, grayscale colors and a grainy texture, along with the sound of typing, to purposefully clash with the contemporary idea of text messaging.

My project presents the identities of my correspondents and me, which may, or may not be, difficult to determine. The “chatter” is streamed into one big conversation, with some conversation boundaries clear, and others not.

I enjoyed this project a lot. It was fun to try and creatively express the everyday in a new way. It involves the reader in way that makes them wonder, perhaps bores them a bit, but hopefully entertains them in some small way!

Project #4 Final Draft (FINALLY!!)