User:Ssstephen/Final presentation: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Thesis-conclusion2.png|thumb|right|Communicating | [[File:Thesis-conclusion2.png|thumb|right|Communicating complexities can be confusing.]] | ||
The results of my thesis were always going to be blurry and gradiated, that was the intention. I have communicated this clearly at several points in the text, explaining why it was useful to be vague in the context of design where everything is made clear and communicable. Hemingway app tells me to be more bold and not use phrases like "we feel". In presenting the thesis as a series of fragments and conluding it with open letters and dreams, I have asked questions instead of answering them. "I'm more confused than ever" and I hope I have stood in front of the cliff with the reader and said with them "wow, big cliff, cool, a bit scary". | The results of my thesis were always going to be blurry and gradiated, that was the intention. I have communicated this clearly at several points in the text, explaining why it was useful to be vague in the context of design where everything is made clear and communicable. Hemingway app tells me to be more bold and not use phrases like "we feel". In presenting the thesis as a series of fragments and conluding it with open letters and dreams, I have asked questions instead of answering them. "I'm more confused than ever" and I hope I have stood in front of the cliff with the reader and said with them "wow, big cliff, cool, a bit scary". | ||
Revision as of 14:21, 15 June 2024
My graduation project has resulted in this presentation of new work, that combined with the thesis demonstrates my attainment of the agreed learning outcomes (as laid out in the Course hand book Section 3.2).
https://vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/stephen/
Creative ability
I have developed the independent learning ability required to create innovative, challenging, significant, and coherent projects that are based on clearly articulated approaches and intention.
my contributions to the special issues
my reading/writing practice across the 2 years
my prototyping practice across the 2 years
my thesis
As both a piece of research and writing, coherence was a challenge in my thesis. I pushed myself to create methodologies that are both innovative and challenging, while ending up with a format that is significant and coherent. All the while refusing definition. The methodologies included unusual interview questions, group interviews, autoethnographic data-gathering and a heaping pile of self reflection. The introduction of the thesis clearly articulates the intention of these approaches.
https://stephenkerrdesign.com/theeeeesis/
my final work and research
My final work is practice-led artistic research into the 21st century phenomenon of the graphic designer. I held graphic design in my hands using ethnography, toolmaking and performance as research methods. I examined how designers spend their time in everyday life, this designer, me, as well as you, what are we doing? What are our worldviews, belief systems, mythologies and ideologies?
https://vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/stephen/
my plans for final publication and grad show
For the graduation show, Vulnerable Interfaces, I will contribute in two formats on the subject of people's dreams about work and labour. Firstly I will have an installation of a customised Apple Magic Keyboard and Apple 2022 Retina 5K iMac on which visitors can type to explore the dreams that have been shared with me throughout the year, mostly those of graphic designers. Secondly I will facilitate group re-enactments of work dreams as I have done several times this year, creating a space where people can share stories about their work and the emotions and struggles associated with them.
Capacity to conduct self-directed research
I can identify relevant subject matter, questions, and formulate distinct areas of research.
my contributions to the special issues
my reading/writing practice across the 2 years
my prototyping practice across the 2 years
my thesis
my final work and research
It makes me cringe so hard now but I have continued on a path of combining these areas that I work within. I'm not so much into the holistic Gesamtkunstwerk thing any more thankfully, but I am happy that the work I have made is a distinct area of research, relevant to other practitioners in the field (Ruben Pater, Silvio Lorusso), and asking it's own questions.
my plans for final publication and grad show
Research methodologies
I can harness skills of research, analysis and synthesis to the development of creative projects.
my contributions to the special issues
my reading/writing practice across the 2 years
There are so many things to read in the world and so much to say, and the list has just gotten longer through my time in xpub. But while writing the thesis, I learnt how to focus the inputs and outputs in developing research, synthesising relevant ideas into a creative project. All the thousands of words written and stripped away, and tangents that weren't weird enough, thanks for being patient with them Marloes :)
my prototyping practice across the 2 years
my thesis
Some parts of my thesis involved reading design theorists as you might comparatively read religious texts. What were or are the beliefs of the authors and their audiences? I analysed these texts outside their usual context and compared them to broader social narratives of order vs chaos, rationality and efficiency. I tried to make visible the functional, materialist narratives we have today, for example by talking about the spiritual beliefs of early modernists.
my final work and research
my plans for final publication and grad show
Technical fluency
I can demonstrate an analytical grasp of the underlying technical and conceptual principles of practices relevant to my field and work.
my contributions to the special issues
In Special Issue 21 we unfolded the many cultural and technical layers that we found stratified in a particular machine, a TeleType Model 33, reading them as questions to our contemporary involvements with computing and with networks. It's just one example of how I've learnt here to question the world through its artefacts.
my reading/writing practice across the 2 years
my prototyping practice across the 2 years
my thesis
my final work and research
my plans for final publication and grad show
For the Vulnerable Interfaces publication, we are yet again using the paged.js web2print xpub-tastic git-book workflow. Using Julie Blanc's marginNotes.js plugin feels different because she showed it to me herself when she visited last year. Code is made by people and communities. Maybe when we resolve this issue of the overlapping margin notes we can send an updated version back to Julie, as it's a feature she has been interested in too. There is always an idea underneath a piece of software and I like how in open source communities like PrePostPrint these ideas are more clearly revealed and shared.
https://vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/print/
Organisational skills
I have the capacity to design, manage and execute effectively, complex and creative projects on my own and in collaboration with others, which bring together original combinations of media forms.
my contributions to the special issues
Special issue XX was a complex and creative project which brought together some original combinations of media forms and collaboration methods. Using a git repository, we created a book and website in a seam-full process. We lumpily blended traditional publication roles: authors, editors, designers, readers, each emerging from different people and groups at different points in different forms. Using a distributed version control system as a technical tool reflected the social organisation that we ended up with: six confused and eager ducklings pushing and pulling, committed.
https://git.xpub.nl/XPUB/SI20/commits/branch/main
my reading/writing practice across the 2 years
my prototyping practice across the 2 years
my thesis
my final work and research
Bringing our work to AMRO (Art Meets Radical Openness) festival in Linz involved once again combining seperate projects and media into an effective and creative whole, literally under a single roof. It was an opportunity to test out my work in the context of other related research and art projects, and it was really nice to be able to talk about our work with practitioners with similar thematic interests from around the world.
my plans for final publication and grad show https://git.xpub.nl/XPUB/gradshow24
Capacity for innovation
I have developed flexible work practices that can be employed in a wide variety of production contexts and have the technical conceptual skills for dealing with new forms and unforeseen challenges.
my contributions to the special issues
Special Issue 21 involved experimenting with communal production contexts. It was an on-going publishing arrangement, constantly re-considered and escaping definition at every point in spacetime, a sort of Exquisite Corpse Network. It evaded naming, location, and explanation; the Briki, the Breadbrick, the Worm Blob. A plan to release weekly bricks was wattled by a shared understanding of time into something more complex in structure, less structured in complexity.
https://hub.xpub.nl/breadcube/breadbrick/tarecaker-cocktail-shaker/
my reading/writing practice across the 2 years
my prototyping practice across the 2 years
Prototyping has helped me to understand the value in making experiments and tests to explore new forms and unforeseen challenges. This test print came from an arduino module I made for connecting eurorack modular synthesisers to a penplotter. Learning to be more flexible in my work practices here helped me innovate harder.
https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Ssstephen
my thesis
my final work and research
my plans for final publication and grad show
Critical reflection and awareness of context
I can critically reflect on relevant issues related to a larger social context and make informed decisions about the positioning of my work and methods of production. This critical reflection is expressed through both practice, and verbal analysis of intention: reflections on process and creative output.
my contributions to the special issues
my reading/writing practice across the 2 years
It was great to have the time over these two years to read. In my first place in Rotterdam I had a little nook above the stairs that I could sit in an read and drink tea. The wiki has beed a great tool for reading for me, using the notation and reading methods learnt from Steve, Marloes and Simon I find my reading much more useful than it's been before. I now read critically and contextually: what I need to read, how I need to read it.
https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Ssstephen/Reading
my prototyping practice across the 2 years
One great moment of practice and theory overlapping was when breadcube broke during special issue 21. While we were already having conversations about data, memory, and binary, this gave us a chance to look at and question how our own methods and server were functioning and designed.
my thesis
my final work and research
my plans for final publication and grad show
Communication skills
I can communicate my intention, context, process and perceived results– with clear written and oral descriptions to both experts and general audiences.
my contributions to the special issues
my reading/writing practice across the 2 years
my prototyping practice across the 2 years
my thesis
The results of my thesis were always going to be blurry and gradiated, that was the intention. I have communicated this clearly at several points in the text, explaining why it was useful to be vague in the context of design where everything is made clear and communicable. Hemingway app tells me to be more bold and not use phrases like "we feel". In presenting the thesis as a series of fragments and conluding it with open letters and dreams, I have asked questions instead of answering them. "I'm more confused than ever" and I hope I have stood in front of the cliff with the reader and said with them "wow, big cliff, cool, a bit scary".
my final work and research
my plans for final publication and grad show
How do I present this mess to a general audience? How do I explain what I've been doing to my Mom when she comes to the grad show? Through writing about my work in special issues, prototyping, and methods class, I've learnt how to communicate my intention, context, process and perceived results. Joseph taught me to stop using big words and confusing sentences. In the vulnerable interfaces publication and show I will summarise what I have been doing for the year in performances, storytooling and written descriptions. And I will talk about it if you want to chat 27-30th June in slash gallery :)