User:Themsen/SDR-7

[TRIM1-3]Re-Assessment of Personal Evaluation

What has been done so far

• [TRIM1] Artificial Voice Expriment 1 & [TRIM3] Artificial Voice Experiment 2: Two experiments which explored the distortion of information in the transition between the digital through a process similar to 'Chinese Whispers'.
• Mushroom Sketches: Exploring visual metaphors of mushrooms and developing a new style for my drawing practice.
• My visual style is closer to Charles Avery, but my attitude towards society, hierarchy and my hermetic approach is similar to Henry Darger. Henry Darger's paintings are much like child-drawings, something I've tried to get away from in order to better fit with reality, or an alternate made world.
• Python Image Manipulation: [1]
• Python Video Manipulation 'Society of The Spectacle': [2]

Personal

When dealing with the real world I tend to make apparent the 'folly' of finding coherency in the real world, by creating small examples of this attitude's dysfunction, such as creating alternate uses for conventional media I've used in my life. I tend to center on my life, and my own understanding of my inside and outside world. My drawing style is a non-coherent mixing of lines and shapes which become something. I rarely have more than a vague idea of the result when I draw, I then fill in the details as I draw. Why I choose Mediadesign and not Fine Art is because I've been childishly interested in Media Culture since I first saw a videogame, or visited the internet. I needed a direction which centered on this interest.

Developing Interests

TRIM1

• Technically:

Trim1: In the first trimester I focused more on the play with digital media using unconventional yet simple methods for getting my message across. I was more interested in learning than doing, I nonetheless made some memorable presentations like "Skype & Cigarettes". But I felt uncomfortoble in my simple approaches to media, even though they were fun they didn't have a conceptual frame. What I made were merely manipulations on the physical sphere through the digital (for example, our perception of communication in 'Skype & Cigarettes', and our perception of space in 'Virtual Kidnapping').

• Conceptually:

There was no real cohesion between my work and the goal of finding a focus. What I made ('Skype and Cigarettes' to a lesser degree) did not feel grounded in a larger theoretical frame, which I wanted it to be. I also wanted to make a larger project where I could collect my media exercises into a coherent model, but my media experiments seemed so seperate, so far apart that I couldn't begin to imagine how I would make a collection. I found an interest in the concept of "Societies of Control" by Deleuze as it had similarities with ideas I'd investigated in my bachelor thesis (a structuring of 'free' space, feedback loops).When Annette suggested Insect Media I tied my basic interests in cybernetic theory with a darker atmosphere of unescapable control.

TRIM2

• Technically:

With the photobook exercise I began to work more with a solid narrative, literally. I found that making what was physical, a photobook, but connected to the virtual was a fresh breath of air. I had such big ideas for how I was going to do it! I wanted to create a narrative, what developed into Media Blight, which was both grounded in the physical and the digital; the photobook as printed media with a message about what the digital 'actually' was (according to the fictional Media Blight narrative).

• Conceptually:

But something kept me from doing work, I began to doubt myself; whether I could actually do this; and this doubt went from a nuisance in the middle of trimester 2 to a full-on paralysis at the end. I could not put my thoughts in text without immediately coming up with a 'better' alternative that would save me. As time went on I spent more and more time on trying to order my ideas, focusing on one thing, which was a lost cause and it consumed all my energy. The ideas were too large, and remained too vague to put into a larger context. My doubt spread to other areas of my life until I was completely cocooned in doubt. I was afraid of telling you tutors that I didn't know what I was doing, but, of course everyone noticed. I was insecure, and so I took to stubborn pride as I suppose I thought I could solve it myself.

TRIM3

• Technically:

At the beginning of Trimester 3 I was hard-pressed to regain coherency as the 'Networked Image' course had come to an end, and because of my computer (a piece of crap Windows), and my aversion to code (ironically, an aversion I wanted to overcome through Michael's classes, but I was too distracted). Now I realize that my drawing practice, and my interest in studying mycellia can only work as a support for my play with media. Traditional drawing and digital media are too far apart for me, according to what I've experienced.

• Conceptually:

Networked societies and networked mushrooms as analogies for each other might be closer, but I've found more analogies with insects and society in current literature than I have with mushrooms. And so, the analogy becomes mute. I also realize that I should depend on forming ideas which relate to my work, rather than first collecting ideas into concepts (a bad habit I took from my drawing practice), to make it easier for myself (concepts consist of ideas -right?). I was trying to focus on hobbies and I ended up banging my head against the wall. This has affected my practice and my studies, and has taken alot of energy. I have split my brain again, and my only concern is with collecting the bits again.

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What I've learned

• A bit of Python
• Terminal navigation & commands
• Video editing in Adobe After Effects & Premier
• New experiences with audio loops, manipulating images through their code
• A new drawing style & charcoal drawing
• Permormative media such as with Skype and Cigarettes
• More gritty photo manipulation through Photoshop
• The process of printing books
• To be more aware of what I want to do (still struggling with that)
• Tutors can help you alot when they want to.

Individual Research Work

The research I've done has mainly involved the attempt to cultivate and to study mushrooms, a small tour into the art and study of cybernetics & second degree cybernetics, art and studies involving evolutionary algorithms and their use, a short article on integrating human neurons onto computer chips, art pieces critical towards media- and machine culture. I will continue studying art pieces critical towards media and machine culture, and also cybernetics.

Mycology/Technology

• Neighbour-Sensing User Manual, D. Moore: [[3]]

Evolutionary Algorithms

• Evolutionary Visual Art and Design, M.Lewis: [[4]]
• Bioinspired Evolutionary Algorithm Based for Improving Network Coverage in Wireless Sensor Networks: [[5]] (not very useful)

Media

• Conways Game of Life: [[6]] (simple Evolutionary Algorithm game using 4 rules to simulate cellular life)
• Electric Sheep [[7]] (a screensaver using distributed calculation of equations to create samples for evolutionary algorithms)
• Oxidizer for Mac: [[8]] (program using rendering of fractal flames through variable values)
• The Electric Sheep and their Dreams in High Fidelity: [[9]] (goes deeper into what Electricsheep actually is.)

Biopolitics

• Insect Media, Jussi Parikka: [[10]] (politics and technology using insect metaphores to design and describe society and technology)

Biotechnology

• Researchers get neurons and silicon talking: [[11]] (seeing if I could allow mycelium to interact with machines)
• Cultivation requirements and substrate degradation of the edible mushroom Gymnopilus Pampeanus - A novel species for mushroom cultivation, M.Colavolpe, E. Alberto: [[12]] (to investigate the scientific method of studying mushrooms)

Cybernetics

• Book Review on 'The Soft Machine: Cybernetic Fiction by David Porush', Kevin. L. Cope: [[13]] (I'll look up this book)
• An Introduction to Cybernetics, W.R. Ashby: [[14]] (I'll continue with this one)

Current Projects

Problem: Form, I am good at thinking up content but putting it in a form is much harder. I lose track of the content when the form doesn't manifest.

• Big Baby Web - Monitorial Distortion: Continuing on my distortion of information from audio to text through audio amplification and Text to SPeech and Voice to Speech's inability to communicate. Also brining some of the visual metaphors of my drawing practice. [Simple, but tedious to make]

• Collection - Distortion of Transition: Curating a collection of my works on our distortion of reality between the transition of digital and real [Skype & Cigarettes, Virtual Kidnapping, Club Callcenter, etc]. [Working on improving Virtual Kidnapping, Skype & Cigarettes; perhaps my drawing practice could play a part; these cover more of my interests, it would require me to improve on my past projects and curating them to fit a larger context]

• A continuation of my drawing practice with inspiration from earlier mentioned artists [I'm not sure how to put this in a mediadesign/art form, it's a hobby, and 'Media Blight' was based upon the techniques of image manipulation I learned]