Documenta

This has 2 interlinked sections:

1. You will design and produce a personal documenta which must be accessible on-line. This should be a professional digital presence representing you, your skills and productions to an external audience. This will be the first level of a dynamic and growing personal documenta, which you must maintain throughout the next 4 years will continue to update and use.The project must have a navigational interface and each individual should start to develop a consistent design style and identity. Be innovative, but remember functionality and usability. Consider notions of branding and identity. How do you want to portray yourself to external visitors (future employees, fellow digital producers, artists, your mum…)?
   It should incorporate documentation from the Ergodynamic activities, (this could include sound, video, animation, text, live footage and reconstruction/rehearsal footage and/or workbook). It can also incorporate other academic and non-academic projects. (Remember to considerate limitations on bandwidth).
2. The workbook is a vital component of the module. You are expected to keep a personal workbook which should be brought to all tutorials and timetabled sessions.Workbooks should contain: Screen architectures; Plans and diagrams of project; Selection of images used; annotated to indicate; your decision making; Timelines etc; Scripts; sources/bibliography; critical analysis; etc. The workbook will be the meeting point of your practical production design and planning, and the theoretical research activity for the essay/reconstruction element of the module. Your ergodynamic activities will be documented in the workbook (see above). The workbook should be used to present your research during seminars. You are unlikely to pass the module if you cannot effectively demonstrate a commited and critical design process informed by your own research.

No workbook, no discussion!

Deadline: 20 March. Online/Server.

Individual Work – 30%

Interstices

The Interstices Project requires you to explore, analyse and design an ‘interface’. The outcome of this activity will be to develop a ‘representation’ of a specific technology operating in a social environment. This representation may take the form of an T.V./multimedia ‘advert’ or sales promotion for the ‘product/activity’, a short documentary about the ‘product/activity’ (e.g. News footage/report), a simulation that provides a real experience of the ‘product/activity’. A full blown project is not required, an animatic of slide show will suffice.

 

There are many possibilities, however your project must be based on an extrapolation of current technology/social practice/cultural phenomena/documented hypothesis, and not just whimsical speculation, i.e. the end of Western Civilisation following a bacterial infection which turns out to be microscopic Chinese following the self-miniaturisation of the entire Chinese population…. (see “Slapstick or Lonesome no more’ Kurt Vonnegut)…

Produced in Pairs. 20%

Artefact

artefact or artifact (’a:tI,faekt) n. 1. Something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp. an object or archaeological interest. 2. Cytology. a structure seen in tissue after death, fixation, staining, etc., that is not normally present in the living tissue.
[C19: from Latin phrase arte factum from ars skill + facere to make]

After reading the Borges short story you are required to research an ‘artefact’ and its maker/manufacturer. The exact nature of that artefact will be negotiated during the tutorial sessions. It is important that you are able to gain access to information concerning its production, such as: biographical details of the maker; construction material; construction process; details of the environment it was produced in…

You are required to immerse yourself in research surrounding the artefact and its maker. As far as possible you should experience the same/similar investigative process undertaken by the artefacts manufacturer.

“… artefacts do not exist in a space of their own, transmitting meaning to the spectator, but, on the contrary, are susceptible to a multiform construction of meaning which is dependent on the design, the context of other objects, the visual and historical representation, the whole environment; … artefacts can change their meaning not just over the years as different histriographical and institutional currents pick them out and transform their significance, but from day to day as different people view them and subject them to their own interpretation.”
(Saumarez Smith, C. Museums, Artefacts, and Meanings. The New Museology. Vergo, P, ed. pp19. Reaktion Books Ltd, London, 1989.)

Requirements:
A: Diary/logbook/workbook, an account of the production representing the investigative research process, which should include a short critical account of the process (Approx 1000 words).
B: Documentary evidence representing the reconstructed artefact. The format and presentation of this material will be negotiated with your tutor.
C: All of this material must be formatted as a discreet section of the Portfolio.

Deadline: 19 March. Online/Presentation.
20% Individual

Telematic Performance

[Telematic Performance] (10% Group Work)
Working in groups select an image (A4). Devise a system for transferring the image from one location to another. Each person will mark a stage in the transfer which will require the image to be coded and decoded. Each stage will be different from any other stage in the process. The process should last approximately 5 minutes.

Look at: FAX machines/Modems/T.V./Film & slide projectors. You can’t use any of these. (A slide projector may be used as a light source but not for projecting slides). Semaphore/Morse code/shadows/grids. You might want to use some of these.

Think about: Your audience, presentation, genre, style, timing…..

Requirements:
A: It should last 5 minutes,
B: be performed live with audience interaction.
C: You should also provide a ‘script/score’.

Deadline: Week beginning 04 Dec Location TBA.

The London Trip

Our Trip To London!

The Narrative Map Project

The Mapping project requires your group to explore multidimensional mappings of time and space. This project should/could explore issues of scoring, traces, narrative structures, temporal mappings, notation and choreography. The requirements for this project will be made clear through the lecture programme.

Requirements:
A: Negotiated with each group.

Deadline: 15 January. Presentation.

20% Group Work.

The Workbook

[ Strategies for Art & Technology | IDAT101 | CREDITS: 20 | 100% Coursework]

[Module Descriptor]

This module introduces students to the practical and creative processes required for the production of interactive multimedia. Activities foster experimentation and conceptual understanding of interactive design processes, establishing ‘Ergodynamic’ design strategies and critical conceptual skills, combined with technical production skills.

 

[Aims]

To deliver ergodynamic design strategies for group and individual interactive media production work.

To encourage an experimental and speculative approach to the creation of interactive media production work.

To develop technical and creative production skills in interactive media authoring.

To develop skills in researching and planning interactive media productions.

 

[Learning Outcomes]

At the end of the module students will be able to:

1. demonstrate a creative, experimental and speculative approach to interactive media production.

2. develop technical skills for the production of interactive media.

3. demonstrate an understanding of ergodynamic design strategies.

4. demonstrate group production skills.

 

[Indicative Syllabus]

Practical Ergodynamic skills and methods that enable a working competence with interactive media communication technologies.

Methods of audio visual research and active information acquisition using a range of media and its organisation for communication and expression.

A range of manipulative skills for processing and generating text, images and sound through experiment and speculatively investigation.

Processes of individual and group production, the generation of ideas and the planning/structuring of ideas and projects.

Practical use of computers for the authoring of interactive multi-media productions, including: animation, image processing, collection of assets, sound recording and processing, hyper linking, basic scripting.

Develops a critical and historical understanding of the role and responsibilities of the designer/author of interactive multimedia, including: aims, objectives, design, planning, researching, source material, review, production, testing, user acceptability, visual amenity, refinement, productivity, interaction.

 

[Delivery]

Lectures: Lectures will be devoted to the introduction of concepts behind multimedia design, historical perspectives, and design strategies.

Workshops: Creative (Ergodynamic) workshops will encourage group design activity, exploring the necessary conceptual and haptic skills required for multimedia production

Studio Workshops: Studio based practical workshops introducing work practices and technical skills necessary for the production of multimedia.

Workbooks: Students will be introduced to the practice of keeping a workbook for noting ideas, processes and techniques. This will also be used to monitor their progress throughout the module and subsequent practical modules.

 

[Theory|Practice]

At the end of the module students will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of:

Presentation and Documentation Skills l Professionalism | Group Dynamics | Performance | Presentation of idea | Design Techniques | Workbook Design Skills | Handling of design elements: image/text/interaction/time/etc.

Page 35 – Mapping Project (4)

[Page 35]

• Photos of us walking to the pub and inside the Skiving Scholar.

Page 34 – Mapping Project (3)

[Page 34]

• Photos of us in the Ice Rink and walking to the pub.

Page 33 – Mapping Project (2)

[Page 33]

• Photos of our walk from Subway to the Ice Rink