Research:
This past week or so, I have spent some time catching up on Digital Art Events. The lectures from Eyeo worked well to reinvigorate some of the community building aspects I would like to eventually start incorporating into my work. The lecture ECOSYSTEMS OF CARE by Salome Asega showed the multitude of ways that one can work to build community and preserve culture (https://vimeo.com/772227147). Since my work has been in the space of deconstructing ideologies, I am wondering if there is a way I can partner or conceptualize a system or organization that help to do this. As well as pair this system to my art.
Progress:
Since have shifted directions into transforming this piece into a interactive projection I decided to spend my time to quickly prep the piece for that:
First, I was able incorporate some of the smaller elements. Like the looping eye videos, the arm swinging, and the other two arms on the right side of the projection.
I also spent a couple hours creating a second more developed version of the soundtrack for the project. I layered some synths in and played them while recording a live session on my guitar. It took a little bit to get the industrial sound that I was looking for.
This week was experimenting with how I might display my project as well. It took some figuring out on how to layer the game part of the projection over the video background because I found that when you activate Fullscreen in mac, it “creates” another desktop to play the video where no other open windows will follow. So, I had to download a window mover to make everything borderless and display quickly.
With regards to the interactive part of the projection. I put in walls so the player could not exit the screen. As with everything else I have experienced with game design, this took much longer than I planned. A simple 5-minute task that I thought I understood, took more like 30 minutes to work properly.
The project is finally ready to go.
Reflection:
This project has been a roller coaster. Despite it failing in a multitude of ways technically, and the concept changing radically, it has been a way to communicate things that have been on my mind. I feel like this is one of my more vulnerable pieces that deconstruct traumatic events in my life. I have had a creative block for a couple months and this project finally helped me get over that.
Websites:
1. Design I/O: The best way to sum up this site is that is trying very hard to let the artwork speak for itself. The simple fonts, very limited number of top-level navigation (two pages), and image focused posts are why I think this. One minor frustration I have with the site is that it just seems like a long list. There really is not a way for me to find if they have worked with specific client or if they have tackled a particular genre of work. Maybe if they had a smaller body of work a page like this could work.
Their “About” page is comprehensive. It contains bios, locations, and other contact info. This consolidation of information makes sense. I do not see why this information would need to be split up among different pages.
Link: design-io.com
2. John Keston: John Keston has a large body of work — from podcasts, to synthesizers, to music and other forms of sonic art. What works on his site is that he offers three ways to sort through his art. He offers a “Recent” page, a “Selected Work” page, and a “Discography” page which curates his work to appeal to potential clients, other artists, or people coming for archival reasons. If he just had the “discography” page, it may not show his full capabilities as an artist because it would be not an immediate curated variety of his work. The user would need to keep scrolling to find the project they want to see to see if he has that skill.
His biography page is well laid out, but I think that he could incorporate his contact info here instead of having it follow the user on every page. The large social media logos conflict with images like the album covers.
Finally, not all his extra sites connect seamlessly with one another. The Audiocookbook site does not have an easy way back to Keston’s home site.
Link: https://johnkeston.com/
3. Shirley Wu: Shirley Wu presents her work in a noticeably intentional manner. She wants her viewers to experience her site in homogenously. First, she shows her strongest and most complex work up front. Whether this all of it or just what she presents is unclear. Then she shows more of her work, talks, bio and contact. I think this is a great idea to put the user experience at the fore front. What falls short however is navigating through it more than once. There is no navigation, so I find myself lost in scrolling through her site. Her site just needs navigation, and already seems partially incorporated by the site being divided into sections.
Link: https://shirleywu.studio/
4. Tabita Rezaire: This website is unconventional compared to the rest. Considering that part of her intent an artist is to use the internet as place for reclaiming spirituality and countering colonial, this website might be an extension of that. The functionality of the site is clunky at first because of the break in design conventions. Overall, the uniqueness and how is an extension of the artists intent make it stand out. Link: https://tabitarezaire.com/
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