JamBounce

The next version is going to be motion activated with a webcam... Stay tuned.

This is a experimental work for the Astro-Jam collective. Sound activated animation demonstrating how sound can be used to control computers rather than keyboards and mice.
The next step is a simple game.

AstroJAM!

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Learning Agreement Bullets

Learning Agreemen

This is the most recent proposal for my learning agreement:

• Using Photography, and design processes through animation communication solutions to briefs, group work and my own work.


• My own work: Dreams and Nightmares.


• Group Project, Astro-Jam - "To produce sticky-sweet physical interactive media."


• The emphasis is on my ability to use a number of different practises to realise an aesthetic or brief.

These are the four [vague] key principals for my learning agreement.

So far...

Nightwood

'For what is not the sleeper responsible? What converse does he hold and with whom? He lies down with his Nelly and drops off into the arms of his Gretchen. Thousands unbidden come to his bed. [...] Girls that the dreamer has not fashioned himself to want scatter their legs about him to the blows of Morpheus. [...] The sleeper is the proprietor of an unknown land. He goes about another business in the dark. And we [...] cannot afford an inch of it; because, though we would purchase it with blood, it has no counter and no till.'

An excerpt from Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

"Though we would purchase it with blood, it has no counter and no till." I think this line applies to a lot more than just dreams.

So where is my work now?



I don't think I've done any propper work for a couple of days now. I've lost momentum with the BBC brief. I've got ideas that will bring it to a close and produce the final animation. I just need to do it. I intend to make progress the moment I finish writing this post.
On monday I'm going to Liverpool to take pictures of a singer song writer. She is playing live this time but I'll be speaking with her about setting up a propper shoot. I want to take some of the aesthetics from the previous work on dreams and apply them to her. I think this would sute her music.
The question of what to apply myself to following the BBC brief is one that is weighing on my mind. I've spoken to a few different people about doing some group work. They all seem 'up for it'. I think this will help my work. I enjoy working as a team and from time to time I need that input of energy and fresh ideas. There is mention of trying to tackle the 'Obesity' brief that's floating round.
I don't cound myself as sepecificly an animator, a designer or a photographer but what I do feel is that I can bring all these skills together to answer a brief. I would class this as my skill. From time to time I get asked 'how do you do that'? I enjoy considering exactly HOW things are done and I have a well formed eye for aesthetics. What I am not is an ideas man. I honestly see myself is 10 years time as someone who is aproached by someone else who has an idea and together we can make a solution. The work Mac Monkey springs to mind but I haisten to add that this is an under-rated skill and perhaps it represents somthing that I'm already better than [hmm, self confidence. Does this claim have good foundations?]. Independantly I attempt to master mediums, skills and tricks. There IS a placefor this in industry and I am confident in this being my key skill. However, this skill doesn't seem to carry many marks within the course. So I'm going to have to do somthing different.
I intend to pick up the dream theme again. Using animation as a wrapper for my other skills I plan on producing a some animations on the subject of dreams. After all, dreams are a subject that interest me and I've already done a lot of research into the subject. I'm also going to try and get into a few of Greig and Aidens group tutorials.
Thats all I've got to say right now.
Peace

Coming Soon

Really big post coming soon... Watch This space!

It has been a week or so since I have posed anything to my blog. I have not been able to put together a paragraph or even a sentence that in summation represented what I was feeling or what I was working towards. [Were the words used in the previous sentence outside my understanding?] The reason for this is simple. As readers may have noticed, I have been working without drive and direction recently. The question is why?

I have been thinking a lot in the last fortnight.

Questions like, What is it to be on this course?

What, exactly, does a degree in 'Graphic Arts and Design' mean one has studied?

What is the purpous of the learning agreement?

And, How can I motivate myself?

I will start with the penultimate question. Sometimes it takes a while for things to sink in. I find myself considering events way after they have occured. A number of times, following a VisLEX, the day after the meaning of somthing they have said has finally dawned on me. I do this with conversations I have too. Someone may say somthing, I'll reply, thinking I have understood the posing of the question and hours later, once my brain has assimilated the event, including bodylanguage, I'll think, "Crap, what a stupid answer". [This last sentence was written on-th-fly] I don't think I'm dumb, but it takes time for things to sink in.
Anyway, moving swiftly towards the point. It now seems obvious to me why this course if different to a course that focuses more on the technical side of things or on teaching a 'house style'. The point of this course is to teach you to THINK creativly; not regurgitate somthing you've been taught. So when people ask "Why aren't we taught Flash and Photoshop?" I think I understand the answer to this question. The courses assesses us by gauging our understanding of the Graphic Arts culture through our own work. Our work becomes the vessel by which we communicate our knowledge of design. It took me a while to get my head around that one. Why doesn't it matter that we aren't taught photoshop? Well, because if we were, we would have 120 students producing the same piece of work. By not being shown technicals we develop our own methods independantly [provided we do any work].
"XML Schemas express shared vocabularies and allow machines to carry out rules made by people." *1
This is a quote I read recently that reminded me of the purpous of the learning agreement. If you replace the words 'machines' with 'examiners', 'people' with 'students' and 'XML Schemas' with 'Learning Agreements' the sentence makes a lot more sence.
[I know, that was daft, but I thought i'd put it in anyway to show I understand what the learning agreement is primerily for]
I'm going to split this post into two posts. The following post will be about my work.

*1 http://www.w3.org/XML/Schema - W3C XML Schema, 13th January 2008.