MEDA 301 Project Blog

April 8th 2019

Week 6

I present to the class my proposal for final project of MEDA 301. It’s a proposal for a YouTube channel. The idea is that I use this channel as a way to explore different comedy genres. I aim to create 3 videos, one satirical one silent slapstick and one sketch comedy. The difficulty would be in coming up with 3 topics and finding the time to film them.

 

May 13th 2019

Week 10

I’ve fallen behind in my assessments after the two week hiatus. So I’ve pivoted from my original plan of filming 3 comedic videos for your YouTube channel. Now I’ve proposed an idea to Matt. Last year I created a 30 second animated video of my friend explaining the opening of Mad Max Fury Road. Using this idea will help me complete my project without swapping me down with too much work.

 

Because I’ve already know what’s involved, it’s  a matter of execution.

 

May 16th 2019

I went to Woolyungah Indigenous Centre (WIC) to ask some of the students around if they would allow me to record them explain a movie to me. I’ve borrowed a Zoom personal voice recorder from Innovation Campus. The first person I asked was Sam B. A student I had met last year. He was just sitting around killing time until these next class, so I just asked him if he would explain a movie in a minute. I carefully explain what I wanted him to do. First we picked a movie. He decided to do Avengers: End Game. The first take I recorded him with a timer running so he could see how long he was going. Then in the second take I would remove the timer and just let him know with a hand signal when to wrap it up. The idea was that in the first take he would work out what he would want to say, then the second take you would have a clearer vision for what to say.

 

What came out of it was ok but I felt it was missing something. After a couple of recordings with other students I decided to mix it up, to hopefully add something that I felt was missing from the formula.

 

The person I changed the full matter wave was Winnie. She decided to talk about the Hilary Duff movie A Cinderella Story. I went through the same steps that I did with the previous recordings. Keeping them short and his clothes or measured as I can get them to. But this time I asked for a third take and once you go to the end of the movie I asked her to speculate on what happened to the characters after the credits. Going back over the recordings, there was a clear shift in tone from when she was explaining the movie and when she wants speculating the events after the movie. It was a fun conversation with lots of laughs and it was the thing that I was looking for in a previous recordings.

 

I knew that the recordings were going to be animated so I was trying to get key details from the students I had recorded. But from Winnie’s recording I realised that they weren’t going to give me the key details on their own. They just needed permission to have fun with the premise. When they have the permission then I could direct them to the details, while everyone was having fun.

 

27th-31th May

Week 12

Over the week I recorded several other conversations with students from WIC. Those being Sam, Kathleen and Harry. The latter being the Inspiration for the new direction of the project. Last year I was doing a similar project but for TAFE. I asked Harry to explain Mad Max Fury Road and I did a 30 second animation of his interpretation of the movie.

 

The recordings for Other Sam, Kathleen and Harry where 3 times longer than the previous recordings. Sam’s being over 8 minutes for both takes. Also after seeing other students do the same process each preceding recording is more relaxed in willing to open up.

 

The Week of 17th of June.

I’ve waited until the last week to begin the editing process. I wanted to clear all the other assessments before beginning this. I started by editing what I felt with a 3 strongest recordings. Those being from Winnie, Other Sam and Harry. Once the audio was edited I picked which one would be as simple as to animate. Which was Harry’s version of Babe (1995). His audio with the clearest and he spoke with the most confidence. Which made things clear and simple for me to visualise leading into the animating process.

 

To animate I use the software that I was most familiar with, which was Adobe Premiere Pro. I tried for 5 minutes to do it in After Effects. but I knew we would be too time consuming because of how unfamiliar I am with the software. As I was editing the audio I would label specific sections of audio for reminders. Before gathering the images I went over the audio one more time and took notes of all the things that he mentioned. So I would have an idea of what images that I needed to search for.

 

Animating the video was a slow process. It was a second by second processor of gathering images, editing the images in Photoshop, importing the images placing them on the timeline, and then animating them. A lot of what was animated was just text. If I use too much imagery, the visuals would have been incoherent and too jarring. So I used the tax as a way to break up the imagery and to see me from looking up images and then editing them. I used Google search for the images. As Harry would say something in the audio I would look up the corresponding image online then downloaded and edited the image as needed. This was a long process, taking up to an hour to animate 20 seconds. Which is why I used the minimalist aesthetic with just a black background and using as much text as possible. The text gave the words an extra punch but also streamlined the process in a way.

 

Final Thoughts

This was an interesting process to reflect upon. They gave me insight into what it would take to make this into a YouTube channel. From just this experience I would only be able to create one video a week. But that might be enough to get a decent audience on the platform.

 

The thing I took most away from this process was that I really enjoyed doing the interviews. It was a nice distraction from the stress of Uni work. I also just really enjoyed having a conversation with people and making them laugh. It’s just nice to chat with your friends about movies and other things. That’s what a lot of content on YouTube is. People talking about things that they enjoy.

 

The conversation that came out of this didn’t have anything to do with the recording themselves. Sam B the first person I recorded came up to me and we chatted. During the conversation he talked about listening to a podcast with a bunch of comedians. And he asked me if it was possible to teach someone to be a comedian. This doesn’t have anything to do with the MEDA 301 project in itself. But it’s giving me questions to ponder over your regards to my own artistic practice, seeing how I consider myself a comedian. Is it possible to teach someone to be a comedian and what does that mean? This is something I look forward to exploring in the future.

The Creation of My Game: Bandwidth Bandits

Friday 3rd of May 2019.

We returned to our first class after 2 weeks break due to the non-teaching week and the mid-session break. Our tutor opened the class with some light conversation. Once the majority of  the class had arrived, he commenced the week 8 seminar on Game Design Experience: Individual Game Project. A dry title, but necessary information.

Once the seminar was completed, our tutor gave us an exercise to get our creative juices flowing. He handed out a sheet of paper with the numbers 1-5 listed in descending order. With the sheet of paper we had to complete a simple task. Create the titles for 5 games in two minutes. I came up with names like Allegations Against an Alligator and Cloud or Chem-trail. But the one that stood out to me the most was Bandwidth Bandits.

Once I had the title I started brainstorming story ideas in my head and penciling them down. Why would someone steal bandwidth? How would someone steal bandwidth? Where would someone steal bandwidth? In answering these questions I came up with the story of super genius who created a new  electronic storage device for the purpose of downloading and storing the entire Internet.

But to complete this task, the players must go to locations across the city to install devices known as widgets to redirect the bandwidth to their hideout. Going on with a story each player meant each player would have to travel around the city. So my next step question was – what would the board look like and how would players move around it? I don’t want a normal board that people would roll dies to move around in a circle. I took inspiration from a game that we had played earlier in the year Carcassonne. In particular, how the board is made up of smaller cards and it’s built up over time. So I came up with the idea that the board would be made up of a series of cards with city locations on them. 12 city locations plus 4 hideout card locations. The players would commence the game from the hideouts.

The locations that I came up with are:

• University.
• High School.
• Private School.
• Insuro. Corp.
• Tele. Corp.
• Tech Startup
• City Square (Public Wi-Fi).
• Stock Exchange.
• Café.
• Suburbs.
• Public Library.
• Investigation Bureau Agency.

Coming up with movement system to navigate around the board was the next step. After getting advice from my tutor, Chris, who suggested that I draw a four by four grid on an A3 sheet of paper and using that as a board to place the location cards. That sorted the layout, but how the player moved around the board was still an issue. A suggestions was to use a pair of D4 dice to move the player pieces to locations on the world. But this system relied too much on chance to engage the player. What we ultimately came up with was the player had a set number of actions that they could perform each turn. So for each turn the player could perform the three actions, either move or play a card. Doing one of these things would take up an action.

e.g. A player could move two spots then use a card and that would add up to three actions.

How to win

Once I had a movement system for the players, this helped define how a player would win. Originally the idea was that each location had a percentage of bandwidth that the player would be hacking into. Thereby motivating players to gather resources to infiltrate more valuable targets. To go with this, players would be given gadgets to access these locations, things like security cards or costumes, which will allow players a better chance of infiltrating and collecting the bandwidth. There were a number issues with this system. These include: how to keep track of how much bandwidth each player collect, how to allocate the risk and reward for each locations security system; and the resource management of the gadgets. However, because the both the assembly of the board and the players gadget cards are random, the game became too complicated, with too many moving part to keep track of. What ultimately came of this was a paring down of the scoring (bandwidth collection) in the cards as a resource system. The cards went from specific actions to one of three. A Widget card (to install a Widget at a location), +2 movement card (allows the player an extra movement on the board without losing an action), and a IBA tip off card (to tip off the Investigation Bureau Agent to location of the players choice)

The Investigation Bureau Agent is a major part of the game experience that has been part of Bandwidth Bandits from the beginning in some form. In the story Super Geniuses are sneaking into secure locations and hacking into internet all across the city. So the idea is that they would be in a antagonist force correcting the wrongs committed by the Super Geniuses. The Investigation Bureau Agent. Originally the agent would be another player in an asymmetric roll where they would be investigating locations that the geniuses had been at previously. Finding a way to make the role enjoyable for everyone was difficult to pull off, due to everyone knowing where the widgets and the players are located at all times gave the agent too much power. What became of the agents roll was turned into the function of the games system. The Agent begins the game at the Investigation Bureau Agent. Once each Genius has their first turn the Agent is activated on the board and they move to their first location. The Agents moves determined by drawing cards from the Agents deck. Each card in the Agents deck corresponds to a location on the board. Once drawn the agent moves to the location on the card, once there the Agent begins their investigation. Removing any Widgets that maybe installed, if it Genius is at the same location they are sent back to their hideout and the cards are removed. This game is designed to have up to 4 players at the same time. The Agent as an extra degree of strategy to how the player moves, plays cards and please is the Widgets.

Critical Analysis: Iteration Approach to My Comedy

 

I take inspiration from the comedic works of Andy Zaltzman. I discovered his work in 2015 by chance while on YouTube. There was a segment from his podcast The Bugle I found hilarious. It was a interview that he and his co-host John Oliver had with a character known as “The American” (2011). “The ask an American” segment was so interesting I sort out the full podcast. When I did I discovered a library of satirical comedy that have been going on since October of 2007. I started listening to each podcast one by one over a month a long period. As I listened I became more attuned to the comedic style of  the two hosts, in particular Andy Zaltzman’s ability to create absurd sketches to illustrate his satirical criticisms. I find doing satire to be a difficult task, but listening to Zaltzman’s sketches made me realize that I can use absurdity to create my own comedic voice. I don’t like to talk about myself when performing comedy, but if I use a small detail about myself as a jumping off point for an observation sketch. Create a connection with my audience and be able to talk about anything I find absurd and humorous.

What I found difficult when developing my own comedy style was creating a method that I could plug ideas into. What I found was that this is a common issue that many comedians face when crafting jokes.

From ‘[T]his is eating your greens, this is doing your homework’: writing and rehearsing a full-length stand-up show (2017). By Oliver Double

“…stand-up comedians rarely generate a fixed, verbatim script. The notes they generate tend to lack the clarity and completeness of a play text, and it may be that only the comedian himself/herself will be able to fully interpret them.” p.138

This helped put in perspective my own approach to comedy. For myself knowing that other comedians take a similar approach to what I do has been inspiring. When writing a joke I usually start off with an end or a punchline, and work backwards from there. Slowly whittling away at the set up until the full joke is complete. Once that is done it’s a matter of saying it out loud until I find the natural flow. Again and again, refining it down to its essential parts. Even then the joke is incomplete until you’re on the stage speaking to the audience live.

Comedy isn’t a thing that comes naturally to everyone. It’s one thing to joke around with your friends, it’s another thing to be navigate a new social situation where you no longer have the crutch of shared context that comes with “inside jokes”. Being able to recognise what expectations your audience has and will have love you as a performer gives you a large advantage when it comes to subverting said expectations. When I walk on stage people will begin to create an idea of who I am and what I’m about to say before I even open my mouth. Being that I’m a tall, handsome, Aboriginal man. I can only imagine what the audience think. These preconceived expectations are what I referred to as the ‘Asterix’. The ‘Asterix’  symbolises the assumptions that an individual may have of you based on your appearance or how you may present yourself. Things like your sex, age, race, gender, the clothes you wear, hair style, if you have an accent, etc. Some of these things you can control, but understanding the assumptions people make based on the attributes of my ‘Asterix’ gives me an advantage in subverting them.

Understanding what my ‘Asterix’ attributes are is an exercise in self awareness, honesty, and introspection. What I intend to do is under cut the audience’s expectations with my own. When I’m about to perform, I’m always nervous when I have to perform in front of a crowd. So I use the nerves to create a new persona. Using the personal to create the expectations that I want them to have, one of a nervous performer trying to find his courage. Once they have accepted the persona I can then start to subvert it. Starting with nervous stammering half sentences. Evolving into long free flowing monologues into absurdity. From husband purchasing his family’s first PC devolve into the straw that broke the camel’s back of their failing marriage. To the bizarre digestive and mating habits of pandas. These are unexpected things let the audience has no idea would be installed for them, given that the person saying them appears to be a nervous wreck on the verge of an emotional breakdown (Partly because performing in front of  a room full of strangers is an exercise in emotional masochism).

When I think we’re most comedians fail is in creating the right context for the audience. Creating the right context for the audience is the difference between comedy and controversy. Siobhan Hegarty wrote an article for the ABC entitled When the lines between offensive comedy and off-limits jokes are blurred (2019). One of the points that the article brings up in this context of jokes. It’s a question I think about the most when I’m writing comedy. What should the appropriate amount of setup for a joke is the process of trial and error. It’s one thing to write a joke down on a piece of paper, then saying it out loud to yourself in front of the mirror, and it’s completely different when you feel the heat of the stage lights beaming down appoint you. Getting there for myself is series of calculated guess of what I find funny and what the audience would find funny.

For example, I find that the names of cities in North Korea remind me of the noises that ricocheting bullets make. Places like Pyongyang and Chongjin. This is a small thing that I find funny. It’s something I think about whenever North Korea is in the news. Presenting this to an audience is something you can get away with just as. But you run the risk of being seen as being lazy or a hack for saying funny words, instead of jokes. So when it came to presenting these observation to a general audience, my first step was placing it in the appropriate context. Firstly with the setup. Drawing attention to the rumblings of nuclear weapons test, missile test over Japan and the fact that North Korea has had a hostile relationship with The West and South Korea since the Korean war in the 50s. “Maybe it’s all this historical context that’s making them so on edge? Or it could that their cities sound like the noise that a ricocheting bullet makes?” Then listing off City after City until it becomes absurd. All the while pretending to dodge bullets like I was in The Matrix. Ending with holding my side pantomiming being shot while making a final request to the audience to “Delete my browser history”. This process turns what was an inside joke to myself, followed by introspection on how to present this idea to strangers. Culminating in a performance that engages with the audience on a new level then where it began.

‘This tacit knowledge only becomes explicit through critical reflection… thus allowing know-how to be transformed into know-what.’ p.139.

 

 

 

Bibliography

Double, O 2017, ‘[T]his is eating your greens, this is doing your homework’: writing and rehearsing a full-length stand-up show, Comedy Studies, vol 8, no. 2, pp 137-153.

Hegarty, S 2019, ‘When the lines between offensive comedy and off-limits jokes are blurred,’ ABC Life, 13 May, viewed 13 May, <https://www.abc.net.au/life/knowing-when-comedy-crosses-a-line/11090890>.

Provero5 2011, The Bugles’ The American (2008), online video, January 31, The Bugle, viewed May 12, 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ_pW7R-JSw>.

Making Stealing Starfish

Friday March 29th 2019. Location Wollongong University, main campus building 25, room 150. Subject BCM 300. Game Making.The gang was back together. But this time we weren’t playing games, we were making them.

8:30am. The day begins as normal, with Chris’s subject lecture. Themes and Mechanics. After which we split up into our usual groups to begin the next stage in the assignment, game development. Louis, Dylan, Shania and myself we’re handed by Chris a bag of assorted goodies, to use as a jumping off point for our ideas.

In the bag were a deck of cards, a set of 10 sided dice with larger values on each one, two regular six-sided die, a bag full of colourful Meeple, and a set of tokens from a different game. The tokens we’re still untouched, waiting to be pulled away from there cardboard casing.

One by one we pulled each item out of the bag, placing them in the centre of the table. We slowly started to play with each item. Stacking the Meeple by colour, rolling the dice, shuffling the cards and sorting the tokens. Feeling our way through to find an idea to develop. Discussing previous experiences with the games that we played leading up to the point. From Carcassonne to Azul breaking down our likes and dislikes.

 

We started this fit out ideas from role playing, too a game like snakes and ladders. When Shania  made the remark that the Meeple resemble starfish. That’s when we came up with the title and concept Stealing Starfish. From there we had a base to build upon. What’s the story? Who are we playing as? What does it mean to Steal Starfish ? With items they were provided we started to chip away at the mechanics story of the game.

I suggested that we were playing as marine biologist who have discovered new rare Starfish that they needed for their research. From there it was my role to create the rules and mechanics for the game. Going from what we had done in class, they decided to go with collecting Starfish is the mean goal of the game. At the end of each round the person with the most Starfish would win the round. Whoever won 3 rounds first would the game.  

We had two issues lingering from the initial conception of the game. The first being how does someone and the game, which I end up making the decision on. The second issue being nailing down what exactly the action cards functions are. We came up with a rough draught during the initial brainstorming of ideas. We were using them as a template, but by this period the cards needed updating. I brought this up with the group in our meeting. So we play tested the rules that we had at the beginning in as we played. Changing the rules accordingly to make sure the game moved at a fast pace, to get the attention of the audience. This led to the changes that we have now which incentives the player to collect the Starfish from the ocean soon, thus necessitating the need to Steal Starfish.

My Personal Experience With Carcassonne

 

Friday March 15th 2019. Location Wollongong University, main campus building 25, room 150. Subject BCM 300. Game Making.

8:30am start. We all slowly enter the room one by one. As I enter I  look for a desk by the window. It was a good morning and I wished to enjoy it as much as I could. The other members of my group entered finding the first seat they could, located on the opposite side to mine. Dylan, Shania and Louis all fellow members of the Bachelor of Digital Media. We’ve studied in the same classes for the last 2 years, and now we go into 2019. This is our last year to complete this degree.

After the first hour our tutor Chris Moore completes his seminar, giving us an insight plus ideas for the upcoming assessments. After the presentation the class splits up into our groups, along with selecting a board game to play for the remaining 2 hours. Louie selected the board game as Dylan and myself rearranged the desks to accommodate our group. As we finished Louie returned with a game we all were unfamiliar with, Carcassonne (2000).  By a German designer, Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Rio Grande Games. He took inspiration from Southern French countryside that has barely changed in the last four centuries. (Insert photo)

We read the rules and assemble the pieces. Carcassonne is a tile based game, for 2-5 players. Each player chooses a tile at random from a bag and places it on the board to build up the countryside. After placing their tile down the player that has an option to place a token known as a Meeple on the board. When a section of the board is complete the person with the most Meeples on that section collect points. So if a 4×4 city is completed and there are 2 red, 1 blue and 3 green Meeple. The green Meeple would take the points.

There are 4 types of tile.

• The first are grassland
• The second roads.
• The third Chapels.
• The fourth Cities.

Once we started the place more and more tiles on the board the landscape started to create a story of the city surrounded by roads and farms, a countryside littered with chapels next to chapels and one man tower swiftly erected for quick points.

Animist all this excitement and gameplay the truth dawned on me. I’ve spent the last two years studying alongside these people but this has been the longest that I’ve interacted with them. I may not have a deeper understanding of my peers after playing this game then before. What is true is that if it wasn’t for Carcassonne I wouldn’t have made the same connection between them that I have now. That is a valuable thing to take away from this experience.

 

Meda 202 Prototype Blog

In particular, my prototype is inspired by Ian Burns work . I started by going to op shops to gather any little nick-nacks that I found interesting or caught my eye. The idea was to find a bunch of objects and Voltron them together into a single artwork. On one of my visits to the op shops I found an old children’s wind up television toy. Once I gathered all of my things together the one that stood out the most was the television toy. My first idea was to take apart the toy and replace the paper ribbon with an LCD screen, manipulating the movement digitally. But I came to the decision that replacing a fake screen with a real screen misses the point of the toy. So my goal now is create my own ribbon and animations in an analogous manner, in order to retain the original aesthetic of the wind up toy.

The wind up toy itself remind me of my childhood. I would always stumble upon one of them wherever other kids were around. When I was looking for other toys like this I went into toy stores but they have all been replaced with toys that resemble phones and iPads, which is a sign of the times. But the wind up toy that I have in my possession is a remnant of age before the internet. It also reminds me of how much childhood is shaped by screens and the stories they tell.

 

The working title for this project is Play (Empathy Prototype). By using a childhood toy to tell stories from my childhood I draw a link between events that happened as a child that shape the person you are and become as an adult. By using seminal moments from my own life and infusing them with my present sensibilities.

 

In  particular Vaporwave has been conceptually important. Vaporwave is an art movement that originated on the internet in the early 2010s, but doesn’t really have an exact origin. It’s defined by its status as both a music movement and visual arts movement. It goes back to the aesthetics of retro eighties and nineties graphics that create landscapes that are both surreal as well as familiar. When I think about vaporwave it reminds me of nostalgia of early 2000 computing, as well as how the internet has accumulated such digital artifacts to create a new way of expression via a collage processes that references to early stages of computing and the internet.

VaporWave Redux 3.7, By Floyd C. Stewart

MEDA 201: Assessment 1

 

This was one of the most interesting assessments I’ve done in my whole time at UOW. Using the physical film strips themselves without a camera, put me in a position where I had to think outside the box.

I started by seeing happens when the film is scratched away, of which can be seen in the first shot of the video. After that attempt had the desired effect, but as I was scratched away at the celluloid found the process to be tedious and a lot of effort for 1-2 seconds of footage. From scratching away I moved to adding to the film. I used a gel pen on clear celluloid, because the gel had the most consistent lines.

When it came to edit I had a rhythm of 5 seconds for the pinwheels and 3 seconds for the lines, the only exception is the opening.

MEDA 102 Assessment 2: Digital Coding

My Code

int offsetx = 0;//Black triangle for loop
int offsety = 0;
int cols = 15;
int rows = 9;

int newsetx = 0;//Yellow triangle for loop
int newsety = 0;
float f1 = offsetx+random(25,35); float f2 = offsety+random(70,80);//my attempt to simplify the Black Triangles
float f3 = offsetx+random(53,63); float f4 = offsety+random(15,25);
float f5 = offsetx+random(81,91); float f6 = offsety+random(70,80);

float t1 = newsetx+random(25,35); float t2 = newsety+random(70,80);//my attempt to simplify the Yellow Triangles
float t3 = newsetx+random(53,63); float t4 = newsety+random(15,25);
float t5 = newsetx+random(81,91); float t6 = newsety+random(70,80);//everyone was the same

void setup(){
size (1200, 700);
background (255,240,10);
noLoop();
//noFill();//from before the quad
noStroke();
fill(0);
quad(1,1,900,height*1.5,600,width/9,1200, 700);//I tried to make it scalable, I just have to change the last numbers

//triangle(4*75,4*30,4*20,4*58,4*75,4*86); //I was going to uses these triangles before the quad
//triangle(8*75,8*30,8*20,8*58,8*75,8*86);
//triangle(16*75,16*30,16*20,16*58,16*75,16*86);
}

void draw(){
for (int y=0; y<rows; y=y+1 ){
offsety = y* (height/(rows+1));
for (int x=0; x<cols; x=x+1){
offsetx = x*(width/(cols+1));
trypod(offsetx, offsety);

 

newsety = y* (height/(rows+1));

newsetx = x*(width/(cols+1));
repod(offsetx, offsety);

}}
}
void trypod(int xoffset, int yoffset){//the void for my balck triangles
fill(0);
noStroke();

triangle //before i added the f1-6 floats
(xoffset+random(25,35)//each offset has a range of 10 pixles to randomly pick
,yoffset+random(70,80)
,xoffset+random(53,63)
,yoffset+random(15,25)
,xoffset+random(81,91)
,yoffset+random(70,80) );

 

//triangle //this does’t randomiz every triangle like the code above
//(xoffset+f1
//,yoffset+f2
//,xoffset+f3
//,yoffset+f4
//,xoffset+f5
//,yoffset+f6 );

}

void repod(int xnewset, int ynewset){//The void for my yellow triangles
fill(255,240,10);{//My Yellow

noStroke();
//triangle
//(xnewset+75,ynewset+30,xnewset+20,ynewset+58,xnewset+75,ynewset+86);} this triange points to the side
//triangle(xnewset+(30),ynewset+(75),xnewset+(58),ynewset+(20),xnewset+(86),ynewset+(75));} this triangle poitns up. before i added a random range

triangle//now it has a random range and covers the triangles behide them
(xnewset+random(25,35)
,ynewset+random(70,80)
,xnewset+random(53,63)
,ynewset+random(15,25)
,xnewset+random(81,91)
,ynewset+random(70,80)
);}

 

//triangle //this does’t randomiz every triangle like the code above
//(xnewset+t1,ynewset+t2 //it is simpleifed but does’t randomiz every triangle
//,xnewset+t3,ynewset+t4
//,xnewset+t5,ynewset+t6);}

}
//void quad(){ // A failed attempt of a Quad like shape in the background.
//fill(255,0,0);// an old
// triangle(newsetx+(2*75),newsety+(2*30)
//,newsetx+(2*20),newsety+(2*58)
//,newsetx+(2*75),newsety+(2*86));

My Statement

I started by looking up minimalist posters of games to get inspiration for my code. I found a poster for ‘Deus Ex: Human Revolution’. It had lots of triangles and sharp shapes, as well as a striking black and yellow aesthetic. I wanted to use of the triangles and the colours of the poster, but also make something that its complexity is shown in its simplicity. When I was coding my image the most efficient form of aesthetic complexity I had in mind was to place one set of triangles on top of another set to create ‘negative space’.  I coded two sets of triangles with the same pixel coordinates that have a random range of 10 on each axis. Every time program runs  it’s a new image with some of the negative spaces creating lines that remind me of brush strokes from the bamboo paintings we did earlier.

Assessment 1: Analogue Coding

Meda 102

The artwork that I got my initial inspiration from was the 2.5D, side-scrolling, puzzle video game Fez (Polytron 2012). Fez got me thinking in Three-dimensional space. To help solve the puzzle I made paper cubes. I wanted to make a puzzle of my own, with my own cube.

To begin, I wrote my own instructions to make a cube and then I was going to make the puzzle. My instructions on my page were as follow:

 

• One a3 paper sheet, roll of clear tape, scissors, pen

 

1. Orientate the paper portrait format.
2. In the center of the page and 2cm from the bottom, draw a 1 X 4 vertical column of squares. Each square should be 5cm X 5cm.
3. On the third square up from the bottom, add one 5cm X 5cm square to both side of the column.
4. From the top of the column label the squares A-D, in descending order. Label the left square with E and the right square with F.
5. Cut a round the outline of the shape.
6. After cutting the paper, save the off cut of the sheet for later.
7. Fold and un-fold along the lines of the shape, to make a crease.
8. Fold panel E and C in-ward, so that the edges meet. Then tape them together.
9. Repeat for panels A and E.
10. Repeat for panels A and F.
11. Repeat for panels F and C.
12. Tape panel D to A.

I tested the instructions to see if they would create a cube. The first tester failed. Step 6 confused them;  they created it with the cube still attached to the A3 sheet of paper. 7 people did the original instructions, 2 failed and 5 completed the cube. But they all had the letters on the outside.

My cube had the letters on the inside and I wanted to know why they had made their’s different to mine. So I changed only step 6 to “Everything is wrong”. The first 4 people with the new instructions made the cube with the letters on the inside. From then on the letters were on the outside. 11 people did the new instruction set, 3 failed and 8 completed the cube.

I asked the people who put letters on the outside why they did. The answer came down to it begin easier to read the panels when taping, thus they changed the aesthetics of the final result. The 4 who had the letters on the inside, they all said it looked better like that.

The new instruction 6 also introduced an emotional response from some of the testers. After reading instruction 6: ” Everything is wrong”, they began to question if they were following the instructions correctly, even after completing the cube. The new instruction 6 gave them a feeling of anxiety even though in both sets of instructions, step 6 didn’t add to the construction of the cube. I thought it might result in the cubes having letters on the inside. Whether the letters were on the inside or the outside there was no explicit instructions saying were they should be. That came down to aesthetic choice.

 

 

 

Bibliography

Polytron 2012, Fez, video game, Xbox 360, Trapdoor, Canada

MEDA 101: Moving Image Project

For the third assessment my idea was to do a surreal comedy about how I lost my mind, but form the perspective of certain aspects of my psyche.

In the short film follows my Logic as he is given the news that the part of my psyche that he represents (logic and reason) will no longer be needed because I had been diagnosed as bonker

I play as every character, interacting with one another as well as having conversations, with two main characters being Logic and Super Ego. The way I depicted this was to place one video over the other and crop it. The concept had used before, from The Social Network by David Fincher (2010) to the special effects works of George Melies (TubbsMedia 2014).

The comedy was inspired by the work of Andy Zaltzman and in particular his performances at the Annual Great Debate (2017). Where he had a conversation with a 3d printed copy of President Donald Trump’s brain.

Reference List:

TheMelbComedyFest 2017, Andy Zaltzman – 2017 Annual Great Debate, online video, 23 April, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Viewed May 31, 2017, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45EXFN21_wQ >

 

The Social Network 2010, motion picture, Columbia Pictures, Cambridge MA, directed by David Fincher.

 

TubbsMedia 2014, George Melies: The Grandfather of Special Effects (2013), online video, 9 April, Tubbs Media Productions, Viewed May 31, 2017, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jxQMX00dcI >.