IDAT 205-GROUP MARKETING PROJECT (35%)

"Each group will present itself via a live website as an independent media company or digital arts agency/organisation. Whatever form it takes, each group must ‘sell’ its products or services by demonstrating its professionalism and excellence through superior web content and effective marketing, such that it will immediately attract and impress any potential client or visitor to the site. The information presented must be based as far as possible upon actuality, so that you are really demonstrating the combined skills of the members of your group.

You should research as many existing sites as possible, in order to find inspiration and guidance for your own site. You will be expected to reference these sources and any other books/journals/materials and incorporate them in a webography to accompany your site, with annotations explaining why you were drawn to these sites.

You should include the following elements on your website:

Original idea for company/agency/organisation

Description of same (mission statement)

Products/services offered

Profiles of individual members

Selection of best work (based on course projects) with annotation

Compelling images/sound/text

Content and form appropriate to such a company/agency/organisation"

(student portal idat 205)

IDAT 201- simulacra continued

Part of our brief was to find an object and then think about how to explore its form and function through re-modelling using 3d max. I got thinking about what simulacra actually is; perhaps what I had in mind originally was to produce a more basic version of “walking with dinosaurs”, but instead of dinosaurs have something else as the focus of attention. Maybe have 3d cars or trains in the background, super imposed into real footage. Perhaps it could be quite dark to confuse the audience as to what was real and what wasn't...still this maybe didn’t quite fit the brief like I’d hope.

Some examples that have been mentioned in lectures or on the student portal include toy story...The way that some of the toy soldiers still have joined bits of plastic, this is un-necessary- but adds a certain reality to it... it’s a good example of an object that has been designed to look a certain way.

I thought about the idea of one object merging into another...in the film "terminator 2" the bad guy turns into liquid metal and then takes another shape, I think that this is one way to re-construct an object with 3D. Although this could look very conventional...

With technology today it changes and adapts to surprise us, so I would perhaps like the idea of something quite organic to be compared to that which is purely man made. Genetically modified food and experiments in science produce will change objects composition- the form, dimensions, tactility, weight etc.

The way that you peel a banana is familiar to everyone and they expect to see a banana inside when they peel back the skin. What if it was not banana inside, but instead something different.

Everything is not always as it seems and I want this to be the primary focus of this project...so taking the object (for example) of a banana, modelling this in 3d max and then recreating the object so that underneath the skin is something else completely different.

Id like the animation to look as if the banana is actually being peeled rather than merging into a different form, as it is more natural, all be it harder to make in 3d.


So the idea that everything is not as it first appears will be the basis for my simulacrum. However I may change between several different objects. During the animation.

organism marks, idat 204

im pretty happy at that :)

IDAT201 -Trans-Spatial Design

The brief:

"1. Choose an object.

2. Research your chosen object heavily to develop a full understanding of the social contexts in which it has and does exist. This includes its form, historical development, practical and social function.

3. Explore the form and function of the object through a process of remodelling and experimental redesign.

4. Construct a three-dimensional model of the redesigned object.5. Produce a simulacrum for the object that conveys all aspects of your redesign including history, dimensions, tactility, weight, sound and social context.

The simulacrum is an individually produced presentation that encapsulates a reinterpretation or innovatory development of an object. The presentation of the object should be in the form of a 90 second animation / video."

(idat 201- module decriptor)

We have started doing 3D studio max in tutorials, learning basic techniques of 3d modelling and 3d animation. We started of by making a wine glass as this is one of the simplest things to model in 3d max, also looking at spines, modelling with primitives, texturing and rendering.

In lectures and tutorials I have been finding out more about what simulacrum actually is.

Idat 204- the new project

Killer Applications for the Semantic Web

"A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is a computer program that is so useful that people will buy a particular computer hardware, gaming console, and/or an operating system simply to run that program… There have been a number of new uses of the term. For instance the usefulness of e-mail drew many people to use the Internet, while the Mosaic web browser is generally credited with the initial rapid popularity of the World Wide Web. The term has also been applied to video games that cause consumers to buy a particular video game console to play them. " [Wikipedia.org]

We are required to investigate the development of the Second Generation Web (also known as the Semantic Web or the XML-based Web).

Then to come up with an idea for a killer application that would be possible using the technology that is developing on the semantic web...and then to simulate or implement this idea using flash xml.

idat 203- negotaited project proposal

Description:

“This project requires you to set a problem and provide a unique, innovative, creative, informed and culturally aware solution. Projects are to be negotiated with your tutor through an initial proposal written up in your workbook. It is essential that the production work is informed by critical debate underway in seminars and lectures”

More music options are available to people these days through the power of technology, use of bit torrent and “lime wire” are popular internet resources for downloading music. Websites like “amazon” will record your recently viewed items and suggest recommendations. There is an increase in digital radio and as before people were restricted by the area they live in, now they can tune into London radio stations like “XFM” in Plymouth. Again the internet opens up even more options with internet radio taking off, listeners can listen to radio stations the other side of the world through their computer, it is now cheaper to broadcast music from the net. Till now it has been possible to ring up a radio station to request a song.

So….

I propose that you could do exactly the same online, using a website with a simple interface where by users could log on and submit their own audio tracks, be it music by there band or latest chart topper, or any audio file that they wanted to be played. It would enter a play list, and eventually get played. Everybody could go to the website and listen.

Research:

I started first of all by looking on search engines for online radio, and online juke box; however found this to be a waste of my time, as there wasn’t really anything about it.

In terms of generative art regarding audio there doesn’t seem a vast amount out there. For a while I looked into musical algorithms- this is a set of rules that the computer is given to compose music using procedures, without much need for user interaction. Karlheinz Essl is known for the creation of the “real time composition library”- software that would allow the user to produce music, based on functions within its library using a simple interface, rather than having to program operations. Karlheinz Essl has done a lot of work with musical algorithms and generative art in term of audio

There is now more work being done with customized internet radio, where software will filter the content to suit the user, much like amazon will give recommendations, they will automatically play you content that you will like.

One example of the above is jukebox alive, where as an artist or a listener you can log in and search for different types of music based on genre, artist, track or album and it will filter through all sorts of music to find music to suit your taste.

So my idea will be to effectively have a radio station where the public is the DJ- therefore a piece of media that may be changed to a large degree depending what songs or tracks people upload…the order and logic of conventional radio stations even customized radio stations will be replaced by interactive and random audio and left to the listeners to control it.



Technical solutions:

I will use a database to store the tracks that people upload, and use query strings to call each track from the data base play it, then move to the next track until end of file.

At the moment I think that I will try to use asp (active server pages), as sql can be used to find files in a data base.

I have also looked at shout cast- a web site that “permits anyone on the internet to broadcast audio from their PC to listeners across the Internet or any other IP-based network”

I will create the website interface using adobe Photoshop and dream weaver; this will be simple and easy to use.



Proposed production timetable:

Now > 01.01.07
Research into more technical solutions, find help with coding and how to implement this idea

07.01.07
Start writing code, testing it


14.01.07
Finish writing code, have it working

28.02.07
work on the Gui

15.03.07
Finish working on Gui


23.04.07
hand in date



Netography:

http://www.essl.at/works/rtc.html

http://www.amazon.co.uk/

http://runme.org/

http://shoutcast.com

http://www.jukeboxalive.com/music.php

http://www.google.com

the organism project (idat 204)

I decided to be in Darrel’s group for the organism project, Darrel already had an idea, although we discussed possible alternatives, and tried hard to think about what an organism actually is. The ideas that I thought of such as animations or a type of film weren’t really digital enough.

We decided to stick with Darrel’s idea of programming something in flash. In the English oxford dictionary it says that

“an organism is a living complex adaptive system of organs that influence each other in such a way that they function in some way as a stable whole”

Therefore as long as we make it adaptive, complex and independent then we are keeping to the right guide lines in terms of making the organism.

We came up with a sample version, which would follow the mouse around the page. The next step was getting it to blow bubbles. Once this was done, we had to think about further ideas to change it.

I got talking to Darrel about what everyone else was doing, and whether it needed to be more dynamic, perhaps by using rss feeds or something as with last years flash project. The idea that it could be made generative, and potentially never stop changing is quite appealing. We talked of the idea of a forum or large screen where people could add there own orb to a chain of existing orbs, and they could feed it…or perhaps that the persons message left on a forum would affect how big the organism would get, ending up in a snake of orb/ball organism things.

The next step was coming up with our own spec; a list of things that It should be able to do and in keeping with being adaptive, complex and independent; in a way that would represent real organisms. If the organism was fed then it should change size accordingly and if you didn’t feed it enough then it would eventually die, hence making it adaptive and complex.

It would duplicate and each organism would have its own identity, therefore independent, also that the organism you clicked on would display name and follow the mouse, the program would only feed one organism at a time. It environment would be a square box, coloured blue and when duplicating the cell in a different colour background the organism would be a different colour, green for example instead of white.

In the end after a struggle with adding new organisms that were independent and using procedural coding instead of object orientated (which may have made things easier), and debating what sort of soundtrack should be in the background (maybe massive attack if the back ground was red and aphex twin for green) the project got finished and looking pretty nice in my opinion.





View organism project

• Click feed to increase size,

• Select the organism by clicking on it,

• Hovering mouse over will let you know its identity (cell01 for example)

• Duplicate to reproduce organism

• Click red, green, blue to change the colour of the background (try duplicating cells within different backgrounds)