User:Eleanorg/2.1/Prototypes

Making things. Small things. Planning for presentation here.

Graduate Prototypes

(most recent first)

• Placard Generator

> Aim: apply Beautiful Soup love in a completed simple speed-project.

• More Beautiful Soup scraping

• Parsing RSS feeds with BeautifulSoup

> Aim: learn how to extract useful info from html tags

• Image extraction with urllib and sgml

> Aim: learn how to grab images from other websites using urllib

• Image ring

>Aim: See what happens when logic of Dissolute Image is changed so that participants can alter the image file which is displayed on others' websites. Explore possibilities for the use of embedded images.

• Transcribing tedium

> Aim: (using myself as a guinea pig for a change) Find out what happens in my head when I have to transcribe the same sentence 100 times.

• text filtering through 3 people

> Aim: Utilize texts from prev exercise; see how ppl react and what effects created when asked to repeat back transcriptions to a large group

>Outcome: Two performances, in which volunteer had their words dictated back to them from transcription in an earpiece and spoke them to live group.

> Assessment:

Fascinating confusion between subjects occurred: whose words were being spoken and by whom? Was person speaking in agreement with what they were saying aloud?

How could this exercise be extended so that the filtering is taken to a greater extreme without becoming simply Chinese Whispers? (Q is not: 'will msg arrive intact', but: 'if not, why not?')

• 'active listening' - transcribing & repeating

> Aim: Try out counseling techniques in an art context, to generate text based on 'channeling' another person and see how non-counselors respond

> Outcome: Intimate exchanges (told that counseling techniques 'tamed' tendency to give own opinions); 15 differing texts

> Assessment:

Participants enjoyed the exercise, shared openly. Potential for 'abuse' of technique to manipulate didn't materialize in this particular group

Texts were intimate & revealing but what to do with them?

Need to adapt exercise to explore the experience of those transcribing - their dilemmas of editing, filtering, getting bored? etc.

• Mic-check writing

> Aim: See if 'mic check' technique could be used to produce texts (transcription), and how it might affect/reveal group dynamics

> Outcome: 15 mostly identical hand-written texts and drawings, with minor variations based on individual hearing/judgement

> Assessment:

Interesting confusion created as group doubted what to write down; highlighted how more dominant personalities dictated content of the text

Some used it as a space to make announcements, others poetic gestures/summaries, in absence of a formal group meeting or process

Would be interesting to treat it like a Bohm dialogue and carry on for longer, challenging group to confront silences/boredom/deeper sharing

• Transcribers

> Aim: See how ppl respond to the chance to deviate when asked explicitly to transcribe verbatim, as a favor

> Outcome: Some did as asked, some made minor alterations, some used as a formal experiment with the medium

> Assessment:

More interesting result as each member of group asked to contribute to a greater whole, before seeing it and w/out being held accountable

Introduction of potentially controversial content provoked more engagement with content - e.g., specific words were changed

Participants limited to reacting against content chosen by me, rather than by each other.

• Photocopied editions

> Aim: See how ppl respond to the chance to deviate when asked to make a copy of a document

> Outcome: ppl made harmless remixes, heavily influenced by the tool suggested

> Assessment:

Need to introduce some motivation to preserve original vs motivation to change it - controversy/conflict.

Not so interested in resulting proliferation of 'remixes' - avoids the difficulty of forming consensus.

Other projects

• Dissolute Image