week 10: MAC + Proposals

Mac Study

When visiting the Museum of Modern Art I noticed that most of the art was abstract, or just non
representative of anything real. The mediums used the most were oil, acrylic, collage, and
watercolor. I find many of the works very appealing, and was surprised many times by the year they
were made in. Some of them confirmed by theory of "the past repeats itself". That said, it was
difficult to choose only three works, but it is also more than enough for the project.


The first piece I will discuss is "Small Drama", by the artist Raymond Lavoie. It was created in
1983. The artist used watercolor and collage. I chose this piece because I enjoyed the composition.
It had a bright fresh exterior, but in the middle it was like a dark cave, with it's odd walls. It also
had a nice blue tone in it. The linear structure and the colors may end up influencing my final
project.


The second piece I found interesting was "After Picabia", which was done by Sherrie Levine, in
1984. It is a stylized profile of someone, with their foot sitting on a wheel. This piece had a
representation of a body posing a certain way, and with an object, and I will be doing something
similar to this, so I thought it would be a good inspiration. This work was in the same group at the
example above, and was made with the same materials.


The third artwork I chose was "Hommes Rugby", by Alfred Pellan, in 1935. This is an example of
the kind of art I find difficult to believe it was made back then, because it is the kind of art being
used now, over again. I found it interesting, because of the composition and shapes used. The
colors also mixed and matched in a unique way. But the main inspiration from this piece will be the
forms used, into my interface.

I will try to incorporate from each one different element into my interface and the illustrations.



Proposal for Final

The goal of the project is to create an interface for the future. Concentrating on what we
want from machines, how the influence us, etc. The interface I am creating is a device which will
be used for humans to "fly", or float. The goal is to make a compact, user-friendly device that will
facilitate moving from one place to another. This interface will also benefit those with certain
disabilities. What the object does is basically remove, or reverse the effect of gravity on your living
body.


The object will be small in size, roughly 3 or 4 inches long. It's color will be in tones of white, light
blue. It will able to be tied to the waist by a belt, or attached to a pocket. A circular button will
control the intensity and gravity settings, which will vary from low (floating), medium (3-6 feet
from the ground), or high (up to 30 000 feet), with degrees in between.


The interface will be displayed using 2 panels, or illustrations. They will emphasize movement and
at the same time give a "demo" of how the object should be used, and visually exemplify it. The
goal is to do this, and also give a good idea of how it looks like, shape, size, weight, etc. As for the
materials used to create the images, it will be a matter of testing. The surface chosen for now is a
canvas, and will be layered with acrylic, possibly modeling paste or some sort of texture, collage,
pastels, "frottage", and any other material I judge to be appropriate.


The theme of the images will be light and "breezy". The interface is about making life easy, and the
visual representation should have the same feeling to it. The composition created will attempt to
create this also, by using perhaps line, color, and shapes. The work will be inspired by such pieces
as "Small Drama", "After Picabia", and "Hommes Rugby".

week 9 in-class assignement

blue to yellow
red to white

a bit sloppy, but this isn't illustration anymore!

week 8

poster/book

folded in one of the most complicated ways I've ever seen.

(handed in, no picture) I used a big sheet of paper and string to create a linear composition, also using bits of tape, and blue paper. Random, just like my previous idea.

week 7 project

one word: Randomness

(handed in, no picture)
A variation of lines and shapes with no defined rythym or pattern.

week 6 assignment for week after

very basic skteches. I think I was sick that week or something. I can draw, really I can!

week 5 in class

using icons and symbols to tell a story: a "finger", next to ie. No picture available.

I basically wanted to express my disagreement and displeasure towards the Microsoft Browser Internet Explorer.

Long time no post

Well, partially because my latest assignements were suppost to be handed in.

I get a museum trip today.

I did my colours.


Hungry:


first one I find the best.



Melancholy:


I like the first one best.



Angry:

First one



Happy:


last one.



Posting images with blogger is a pain.





That is all.

"Human Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies" 5 different "interface metaphors"

From the CS Seminar “Instrumented Spaces” SS 2003 A. Butz, C. Endres, W. Wahlster.

Original location: http://w5.cs.uni-sb.de/%7Ebutz/teaching/ie-ss03/papers/HCIinSF/

Written by Micheal Schmitz, the paper surveys numerous types of interaction designs found in movies, over the years. The author mentions that most of the movie scenes are set in future times, "Most of these movies have in common that they expose their own vision of the future, with new technologies commonly being the most noticeable change in these hypothetical worlds." (Michael Schmitz, 1) But they are all unique, and use inovative and creative approaches. I will discuss the five interactions I personally found the most interesting.

Neuro technology is all about human + computer interaction. The first example the author gives is from the movie “Johnny Mnemonic”, it is unique because it incorporates the technology into more or less everyday life. The main character, "Johnny" (Keanu Reeves) is an agent who delivers sensitive information, using his own brain as a storage device! Probably would never happen, since we all seem to have our brains full most of the time, right?

Identification technology is practical, especially at this time. If we could do half the things done in the movies mentioned, many problems wouldn't even exist. In the movies, they emphasize also on the safety aspect, "the privacy / security issues are the main aspects that the directors try to bring in into their work" (Schmitz, 2). The oddest and most far-fetched example was the breath-ID test, from “Alien IV”. The author claims that the technique will never be used, and it sounds like a good answer to me, but who knows really. Science is broad and I believe there is room for types of possibilities.

Speech recognition is a technology that is being used in our age in time. It has of course also been mentioned in the films. The author of the paper says it's one of the easy effects, "Besides that it is very easy to realize this for the director, no special effects are needed, just actors imitating the dialog with the computer." Some films have tried to spice up the idea, like in "Space Odyssey", made in 2001. In it, the computer was in charge of the spaceship, and "It could interpret their lip movements and understand their conversation" (Schmitz, 4). Although they come up with new ideas, how far can it go?

I/O technology involves virtual reality type interfaces. One of the examples was, yet again, from "Johnny Mnemonic", where the character does movements and moves around to surf the Internet. This idea bored me a little, because many people are always trying to reinvent the way we go on the Internet, and it gets repetitive. I did however enjoy the example from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy”, from 1981. In it, there is an actually Babel Fish translator. Believe it or not, the translator "is a fish that will translate all languages such that you will be able to understand them, by plugging it into your ear". I found this interesting, because it does not involve robots, or computers, thought the author says, "Here the device/fish is actually supposed to contain all the technology, but for us it would be conceptually more interesting if the fish would be an object in an intelligent space". I am not sure I agree with his statement, I do however think the exact opposite. Why complicate a system when it can be simple.

My fifth interface design isn't one at all, it is more of a humourous remark. At the very end, they speak of part of an episode of "Futurama", "The scene shows a group of people talking about a person called “Fry” and the computer listened and assisted by downloading a movie about this person and opening the owners calendar on Friday and ordering some french fries."(Schmitz, 5) This example clearly shows a big fault in computers today, often, they cannot determine the contexts we speak in. They are too logical to complete a command the right way, and it somewhat proves that they cannot be perfect.

In conclusion, I believe Michael Schmitz's paper proved many interesting points, about our future technology, about the possibilities we have. It also shows how creative the human mind can be, and how in a way, it is more effective than a computer, in a few ways. It may replace many of our daily tasks, and may aid immeasurably, but it still isn't perfect.

El Collage

Happiness


Self Portrait with lines


34 greater than 12


Melancholy


Hunger


Anger


I want to Fly



Monkey


*nods* I like them.

Procrastination

I'm trying to kill, step 1, get these thingies up. This is my attempt number one at creating motion.

Blind contour hand and object

The three perspectives.

I was actually surprised by everyone's projects today, I made mine as straight as I can get it, and thats not what everyone else did. But seriously, my technical drawing teatcher would fail me terribly, ah well. Here are the links to my digital versions:

Close up
A bit far back
Far away

Ok, and yeah, I'm tired of looking at posters, FYI!

First official post

Hello world!

In this lovely first post I get to post horrible, horrible pictures of myself. (Class activity!) As well as incredibly random questions I was destined to answer:


1) what pets do you have?
answer: a dog, Nick!

2) would you like to have a pet what kind?
answer: See above question.

3)what holds a family album?
answer: Your ancesters, the story of your family, I suppose.

Thats about it. If you are really that bored, just check out my fan site. I will post more links in the moments ahead. Ciao!