Flip lecture. – Generation Like (social media documentary)
What you need to do as part of the Portfolio task:
1. Watch the documentary ‘Generation Like’ on PBS online.
From summary web page:
In the digital world, whether you’re on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, there’s a truism that’s both uplifting and scary…”You are what you like.”
Reflect on this documentary in a blog post and make connections with online video practices and the focus of this studio.
Session A
These are the things that are required from the Friday discussion.
1. One group email sent to me which contains a link/URL to a blog entry that finalises a draft of theprobe you will use to guide your Project Three sketches. Included in this blog entry is an additional link to your 3 things of interest that you produced in week 6. (please note all these requested blog entries are part of your Portfolio task).
2. With time short until Project Three is due for presentation and assessment – Friday April 24, 10.30 am. By Monday your group should have devised list of sketches to make.
Ideally your group would have started to make some sketches to explore the viability of your probe and whether your probe provides the scope you need to make multiple sketches. I encourage you to bring any developments you have to the studio for feedback and critique.
It is crucial at this point that you check that you are on track with your understanding of Project Three and what is required for assessment.
The upcoming presentation criteria for week 7 & 8 will be workshopped and clarified.
Session B
The main focus of Session B in wk 7 is the submission and presentation of your Project Three outcomes, for preliminary assessment.
Also, this studio session will be used to prepare material for the mid-semester panel review in Session A, wk 8.
The Project Three presentation criteria is available in this blog entry. The presentation has been designed around what is required for the wk 8 mid-semester critique. The idea is to use this session and these presentations to prepare to get the most out of the panel critique.
The plan is to use the first assessment presentation to draft and finalise what will be presented later in the mid-semsester critique. Below is two sets of criteria for:
1. The Project Three presentation in week 7
2. The mid-semester critique presentation in wk 8.
Week 7, Project Three presentation
In this context, the main aim of this presentation is to share with the studio group what you have done.
In this 3 hour studio session, these presentations will be longer. It is useful to use this time to hear as a group what was sketched and what will be focused on project 4 in some detail. Think of this presentation as a long draft that will be edited down into a shorter presentation for the mid-semester critique.
It is crucial that each group meet the maximum duration so we can get through all the groups.
Presentation time 10-12 minutes.
1500 words takes around 11 minutes. (time converter for speeches)
I suggest you create a shared google doc and write your presentation to the 1500 word length. Have a good understanding of how the presentation will be shared in terms of the durations and what will be covered.
Structure is a follows:
a. Give your hybrid inquiry a title. Make this title work for you in regards to communicating your research inquiry.
b. Context – Briefly remind us of your original case study, the genre/type of online video practice you are working with.
c. Context – Tell us what your probe is and how you got there if necessary. Make sure your audience are provided with a very clear picture of what your probe is looking to explore. Think of using two different ways to communicate this… i.e repeat it in two different ways using different visual material to illustrate it clearly
d. Show your sketches. However, you will not have time to show them all. I suggest providing an overview of what you did and then focus on the ones that you want the most feedback on. Focus on a discovery or discoveries you made – things that you think are special or unique that potentially warrant further investigation in your major project/prototype.
e. Future directions – put forward what you plan to take on into Project Four for further investigation.
f. Raise any issues, problems and questions you want considered for feedback, and critique.
Week 8, Mid-semester critique presentation
In this mid-semester critique session we are working with a 2 hour time slot. I would like there to be time for discussion and feedback. Therefore each group will have a strict 5 minutes to present their material, with 5 minutes for feedback.
I suggest following the same structure above only now you have to cut your talk down by over a half. Therefore you will need to tighten everything up.
The main objective of this presentation is to treat it like a pitch to your client (i.e. the panel). You want to help them understand as clearly and succinctly as possible what you are doing, and what you have discovered and plan to explore in Project Four.
The key aim is to utilise this opportunity to get feedback on your idea and what you plan to do for Project 4.
Please note I will provide some context beforehand to the panel, mainly on the process we have gone through so far and the key objectives of the studio. i.e. to create hybrid narrative/non-narrative forms of online video practice.
Resources:
Nice example of sketches being converted into models.
"On the Run" Creative Process – Part One from The Rusted Pixel on Vimeo.
This is the process from sketches through to modelling, uv mapping and the final models. Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive throughout the process. I love you and can't wait to start animating part two!
Please visit my Behance for the full project https://www.behance.net/gallery/24036033/On-the-Run-Part-One
(Revised previous post which makes these a guide rather that mandatory) This means these criteria are not mandatory – instead they may used to inform the creation of some sketches or none of them, it is up to each group to decide…
Ideas that may be useful to inform some of your sketches in PROJECT THREE.
TWO sketches that explore the concept of “non-narrative” in relation to the (Bordwell and Thompson reading), i.e. “categorical, rhetorical, abstract and associational”.
ONE sketch (Working from Bassets’s “Anti-narrative” reading) that uses an “(…algorithm) to select/order certain assets”.
ONE sketch that works with the notion of sampling as means to form relations between parts and create a non-narrative or anti-narrative form. (This may involve using services or tools that utilise sampling as a process). i.e The work of Jonathan Harris shown in the studio.
ONE sketch that aims to integrate different “genres” of online video practice. i.e video reviews with game videos etc.
TWO sketches that work with online video services or tools as a means to explore a hybrid form.
7 Group criteria:
Each group is expected to devise 7 of their own criteria and document this on their blog. The URL to this blog entry will need to be sent to your teacher for feedback.
This pdf on ‘The concept of form in film’ – taken from the old 1993 edition of the book Film Art: An Introduction is useful in relation to how we are exploring form in the OVE studio.
Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin. (1993). Film Art: An Introduction. (4th Edition). University of Wisconsin. McGraw-Hill is useful.
The updated version of this discussion in the 2010 edition would be more useful if using this as a source in discussions in PROJECT FOUR (as provided in the readings).
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art : An Introduction. 9th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.
This is a useful quote from this reading in relation to the experiments in this studio:
…A highly innovative work can at first seem odd because it refuses to conform to the norms we expect. Cubist painting, twelve-tone music, and the French “New Novel” of the 1950s seemed difficult initially because of their refusal to adhere to conventions. But a closer look may show that unusual artwork has its own rules, creating an unorthodox formal system, which we can learn to recognize and respond to. Eventually, the new systems offered by such unusual works may themselves furnish conventions and thus create new expectations.
(1993, p.47)
Complete Project Two presentations and assessment.
Project Three questions in regards to the brief, teacher sketching criteria and the recent supporting blog post.
Workshop Project Three in groups and plan delivery by week 7.
Discussion on Blog writing entry.
Video Theory
Online Video Aesthetics or the Afterlife of Video
by Andreas Treske
Video is a part of everyday life, comparable to driving a car or taking a shower. It is nearly omnipresent, available on demand and attached to nearby anything, anywhere. Online Video became something vital and independent. With all the video created by the cameras around us, constantly uploading, sharing, linking, and relating, a blue ocean is covering our planet, an ocean of video. What might look as bluish noise and dust from the far outside, might embed beautiful and fascinating living scapes of moving images, objects constantly changing, re-arranging, assembling, evolving, collapsing, but never disappearing, a real cinema. Andreas Treske describes and theorizes these objects formerly named video, their forms, behaviours and properties.
Quoted from the article – Why Starting a “Blog” is a Terrible Idea
I’m biased — I think we should all participate in this new form of community space, this digital world where we can place our creations. If you’re wavering about creating something, let me be clear: I think it’s time for you to join in.
To make it easy on yourself, start small. Pick one topic or project that you’re interested in, and make a small commitment to create a collection of pieces–drawings, ideas, words, notes, stories, essays, paintings, photos, or other–around this topic.
This blog entry is to support the design and production of the PROJECT THREE sketches.
Working from the hypothetical example ‘concept statement’ blog entry that I used earlier to explain the process for producing the sketches in PROJECT TWO.
If I was continuing iteratively with what I learnt from the @555uhz project . I would have completed multiple sketches that deconstructed this work. These sketches would help me get a good sense of the ‘form’ of this work. These sketches would have also raised some interesting ideas in relation to what could be explored in PROJECT THREE.
An ‘idea’ or ‘ideas’ in this context is something that I discovered through the sketching process that could be examined further, or in other words extended into a practice-led inquiry that leads to the development of a more substantial ‘prototype’ in THE 40% PROJECT FOUR.
A prototype in this context is a major step on from a sketch.
…a prototype can vary in terms of scale and quality, depending on how it is developed to meet a design brief, but even in an under–developed phase a prototype serves a different purpose to a sketch. A prototype is more pragmatic and defined, with the specific intention to model and test an idea, whereas a sketch is exploratory and disposable.
References:
Keen, Seth. “Netvideo Nonvideo Newvideo Designing a Multilinear Nonnarrative Form for Interactive Documentary.” Doctorate. RMIT University Print.
Dunbar, Michael. “Beyond Skin Deep: Exploring the Contribution of Communicaition Design within Interaction Design Projects.” Doctorate. RMIT University, 2009. Print.
Also refer to the Buxton sketch reading.
Speculative Sketching:
So, in regards to nominating an idea/s to put through the next stage of sketching, I am aware: firstly of the approach taken towards this phase of the sketching (which is all about experimentation, trying things out to make discoveries…), and secondly that the end point is a ‘prototype’ – an example of a hybrid form of narrative/non-narrative online video practice, thirdly I am thinking about form (or materiality) over content (more on form soon in another blog entry).
If I was visualising what that might be in regards to presenting it to my peers in the studio and other studios at the end of semester) it would be something that boldly explores new territory…it could even not work properly or fail, but most importantly it demonstrates that I have an understanding of specific types of online video practice and what potentially could be conceptualised.
Here are some hypothetical ‘ideas’ that are made up, as I have not actually gone through the process of making sketches in PROJECT TWO – they are taken from the hypothetical example ‘concept statement’ blog entry.
First I would make up a list of things of interest (this may involve asking myself some questions):
1. Service/tool hack – In the @55uhz project the programmer/artist works with a social media (new media) service in a way that it was not intended to be used. How could I use a service or tool in a different way from what was intended?
2. Historical/New Media hybrid – The @55uhz project reduces a moving-image work down to still frames and takes a historical approach towards the creation of moving-image, through the use of a flipbook technique. What examples of early moving-imagery technology or techniques could I integrate with contemporary examples of (digital) new media practice? Could I work in reverse and take the digital to analogue – off the computer entirely?
3. Granular Extremes – The @55uhz project reduces video content down to a highly granular form (1 film frame). If I was taking micro-video like Vine to an extreme – What would happen if I work with video at a 1-2 second duration? What online video service or tool could be used to support this type of experiment? Is it already happening elsewhere?
My hypothetical is situated within what I call the ‘experimental genre’, so the prototype I envision will be an experimental form of online video practice. Your prototype will potentially (in most cases) be experimenting in the first instance with the genre you chose to examine in your case studies (i.e video review, skate video, game videos, cooking shows, comedy etc) – your aim will be to create a hybrid form of narrative/non-narrative within these genres or even mix them up.
Next process:
This is enough ideas for the moment. The next step is to decide what to explore. You may do some research and thinking before making this decision – but the important thing is to (I would suggest) pick one idea and work on it extensively.
So, say I chose no. 2 for example. The next stage is to put it through the speculative sketching process. The aim using this process is to see what I can discover using the questions I have put forward – What examples of early moving-imagery technology or techniques could I integrate with contemporary examples of (digital) new media practice? Could I work in reverse and take the digital to analogue – off the computer entirely?
Please note depending on your idea these phases could be reversed?
Phase 1
To do this I would devise a number of criteria to inform my sketches (this is the groups own criteria that is used to inform the creation of seven sketches, as the first phase of the sketching):
1. Make 3 sketches that refer to historical developments connected to the invention of the moving-image or cinema as we know it today? Use research into theory and practice to inform these sketches. ie in this case the camera obscura, the phenakistiscope (zootrope), the magic lantern).
2. Take one of these explorations and apply it to three different tools and services – to produce 3 sketches.
3. Reverse the @555uhz project concept by taking film frames (a digital images) into a hardcopy flipbook, or better still, work with one of the examples above in this case the camera obscura, the phenakistiscope (zootrope), the magic lantern).
