week 5 - digital art history

This week we were shown a brief history of digital art and all its wonder creations. A few stood out for me that i could possibly link with my chosen objects.

Jeffrey Shaw's "The Legible City" was an interactive piece, which included a bike that the public would ride around a city made of words. This idea that the public could choose how fast or slow they wanted things to go can kinda link with the idea of pausing and rewinding live tv.

Project Fatal?

Project Natel is seeming to be the next big thing for Microsoft's xbox but me along with a few others have doubts over this technology and whether or not it is. After watching all the self praising videos on youtube, we see that the technology can recognise emotions, voices and sophisticated human movement. Getting big names on board such as Steven Speilberg, is a rather unique move, which easily makes the public believe this product is instantly amazing. Steven even mentions at the end that " Its not about reinventing the wheel, its about no wheel at all!", even though its a carbon copy of the Nintendo Wii and Sony's eyetoy merged together. 

Now here comes the criticism, replacing the pad is too radical and not a wise move. People like to hold something, even the Nintendo Wii has a remote. Complete interaction is just not engaging enough and somewhere between the human emotion of a person and the computer reading it, something is lost, something that no software yet! can pick up on and its called the mind. I could go into a whole back history of AI but my point is that there needs to be an in-between before we can totally let go of the controller. For instance, Sony at this years e3  showed a sneak peek of their new wand style controller, which is more sophisticated than the Wii remote and can emerge the player further into the game. 

Freedom/space is the big thing with the interactive games but this comes at a price, as some people, such as teenagers, cant always be playing these games down in the living room and are forced upstairs to there tiny rooms. Take myself for example, I am currently living in Univercity halls with barely enough room for most of my crap, let along have enough room to be smashing aces past mario! When watching the trailer for Porject Natal, you notice that it is family based, which is xbox now wants to target. However, this is selfish and greedy and could pay dear for Microsoft because while they are appealing to family's, traditional gamers will find other consoles, such as the Sony's PS3.

i-bangle

  

                                       This is a concept, replacing the shuffle. Wireless Earbud Headphones 

sky player for xbox

As you can see, sky have linked up with microsoft to bring its sky player to the xbox 360 console. The is making the xbox more appealing over other competitors such as, the Ps3 and Wii.

PROJECT NATEL: XBOX 360 WAY FORWARD?

change of plan

i am going to change online shopping for xbox, as i feel this can link better with my other items!

ipod and running

The ipod is one of the most useful items for exercise, as it can motivate you, lock out the distractions around you and keep you focused, which is one of the reasons why I had chosen it.

This clever little device enables you to run with your ipod without all the fuss of wires and have it tumbling about! You use the wireless receiver to pick up a small device in the shoe, which monitors your progress while running.

 

ipod influence

allegedly the ipod's desing was influenced by the film 2001: a space odyssey and the pod. its clean white look and circular centre can easily by linked with the early generations on the ipod.

i coffee table

the design of the ipod as also inspired furniture, like this coffee table. Not only does it look appealing but it can also play music by plugging your ipod directly into it.

i-Safe

I thought this was a nice picture of all the generations. As you can see the original design is still there but modified slightly each time. I have the ipod classic, which holds up to 120gb!

ipod generations

I thought this was a nice picture of all the generations. As you can see the original design is still there but modified slightly each time. I have the ipod classic, which holds up to 120gb!

sky plus

This is a Sky Plus box

YouTube

This is the layout for Youtube. YouTube is a free online video site, which allows users to search or broadcast their own clips. This was revolutionary and was a great success with the public over night. Before YouTube, there was practically nothing in terms of video websites. Google had a rather poor version, called google video but was no were near the mainstream quality of YouTube.

However, Google eventually bought YouTube, for a very meagre sum and now makes millions through advertising. YouTube was very important for me because it gave me inspiration for many projects and helped me alot through my foundation year. In terms of animation, I was able to search all the footage I needed to help improve my skills. 

Facebook

This is the most up to date facebook layout.

As you can see it uses the most basic and user friendly set up, with the middle part containing people's statuses. Anyone's name can be clicked on, which immediately sends you to their profile page, containing there friends, biography's, thoughts, photos and much more. The thing that made Facebook unique was, that it has a handy friend finder, which rather accurately finds people that you may know. It may seem like magic but instead is based round a clever mutual friend and network system, picking the people found in the network you apply for. If you have a hotmail account you can also simply upload your contacts from that.

Notifications are messages you receive from other people, which are posted on to your profile page, which is also known as your wall. Comments are another quick way to speak to people, which means you have to comment on their status. If all this sounds too confusing, Facebook also includes a chat system, similar to messenger.

Altering my objects down to 5 and Pictures

I have decided to change the number of objects for my essay down to 5. Here are the 5 I have chosen;

1. Ipod

2. Youtube

3. Facebook

4. Sky Plus

5. Online Shopping

I have chosen these because they are the key items that have impacted on my life in a big way.

week 4 - interactive

This week we had a guest speaker Dr.Chris Hales, whose specialism was interactive films. Some of his films where really interesting, in particular the interactive painting, which needed the audience to encourage a man across the painting by shouting, in order to keep the landscape level.

The first successful internative film was made in 1967 and consisted of two alternative endings, with a inserted clip from the director himself, talking tot eh audience about what choice they should make. The clip was filmed in the past tense and was made to look like it was interacting. Cards were used as a form of voting, which is was simple and inexpensive.


Chris showed us one of the first films that was totally interactive, which was called "kinoautomat". The film was based on the audience voting to see what happens next. The film used several projectors, each synchronised together, so that it they could have each alternative ready on demand. This was very clever for its day and a major improvement on early versions.

This interaction with film links strongly with one of my choices, which is sky plus. In the same way it works by having the audience control how the story should move by either pausing, rewinding or fast forwarding. 

week 3 - art,science, magic and technology

Ross's lecture was really helpful, especially in linking some of the objects I have chosen with historical technology.

His opening quote from Winston Churchill.

"those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"

is something really important to all of my objects because without seeing what had gone before, new ways to improve them wouldn't of happened.

One of my choices was the xbox 360 console. Before that there were simpler forms of games, namely the sidescroller. This type of game can be linked back to famous pieces of work, such as the Bayeux tapestry, for its flat landscape look.

One of the people Ross showed us was a man called Arthanasius Kircher, who invented a musical playing machine back in the 1600. This early form of automatic music could also be linked with the Ipod, another of my chosen items. 

Backgrounds on my 8 items

Ipod -


Launched 23rd October 2001

19 official models

Name was inspired from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey

First mp3 device to introduce a touch friendly interface (click wheel)

Largest file capacity on the market

Has its own file management software called "itunes"



Spotify-

Developed in Sweden

Developed in 2006

Launched on 7th October 2008

Invitation only

Steams music from online data base

More than 5 million users

Playlists can be made and sent to other spotifty users

Recent hacker scare, peoples passwords may have been stolen

Sky+ -

Launched September 2001

Allows you to pause, rewind and record live TV digitally

Similar to the American device TiVo and others such as Virgin Plus

Can be activate via phone

whole box-sets can be record and watched whenever


Online Shopping


Based around 1990-95 (start)

However, first record delivery was 1984 via Tescos

Company's such as, Amazon and ebay arrived in 1994/95 and sent a crazy for online shopping

Online discounts

Online shopping inspired other fads such as, comparison websites

week 2 - history of popular music / essay question

This lecture was most certainly an entertaining one. To start off with we had a performance from a few of the lecturers and to my amazement, they were pretty decent! Steve gave us some notes on music that has influenced popular music today and I liked seeing where music today had its foundations. Tribal music from Africa was one of the key influences for the blues in America. The beats and rhythm of this tribal music was often used to keep people motivated through the working day. This type of music became very popular and influenced such famous songs as, "House of the Rising Sun".

A few of the people Steve mentioned were really interesting like Mozart, who had been a music prodigy since 3 years of age. His original style upset the system and in a way this was similar to the African blues music in America.

Steve played us Rhapsody in Blue, which I have heard before and appreciated for its unique use of blues and classical, which embellish the feel and atmosphere of New York City. Music of this style was improvised, which made it so unique and entertaining.

One of the strong links Steve showed us was Cab Calloway, whoc was a jazz artist and influenced people like little richard, prince and elvis. Being able to see the links between them meant that other links have also passed through these generations of music.

To end the lecture, we were honoured by another performance by our lecturers. This time a more recent genre, which was the clash.



Essay Questions:

Out of the questions Steve showed us, I am going to choose the one involving 8 objects and how they are important to us. In that lesson I thought of a rough 8 I would like to work with.

1. Spotify

2. Ipod

3. Xbox 360

4. Adobe Photoshop

5. Facebook

6. You Tube

7. Online Shopping

8. Sky Plus

These choices are very important and have either aided, entertained or influenced me.

Week One: Introduction

Today's lecture was an interesting one, having loads of tutors from different departments. Steve gave us our first task, which was similar to desert island discs, where we had to name our top 8 music tracks.

my list went was this!

BLOC PARTY - HELICOPTER

DEADMAU5 - STROBE

DAFT PUNK - AERODYNAMIC

THE PRODIGY - OMEN

JOSE GONZALEZ - HEARTBEATS

FRIENDLY FIRES - PARIS

PASSION PIT - SLEEPYHEAD

JOURNEY - DON'T STOP BELIEVING

We got a chance to look at other forms of work by tutors, which was really interesting and fresh. I liked Sam's concept work, some picture were really inspiring. Isaiah's animation was also really entertaining and I could see where the three months was spent! making every angle correct and the lighting almost feature film quality. Steve's film about the shipping forecasts was very surreal and entertaining. I enjoy thinking up images myself and thinking how sounds can influence the images as well!