time lapse dartmoor...

A time lapse i made of adventure and expo members climbing at sheepstor on the free weekend a short while back:

T shirt design...

I have designed the t shirts for this year in adventure and expedition club.....


After much deliberation in the pub, we finally came up with a slogan... very true!

catch up...

i havent posted anything for a short while... i have a job now working for Plymouth university, which im pretty chuffed with- working in the planetarium creating immersive media -media that is displayed on the inside of the dome via a 180 degree projector alowing the viewer to see media content all around them- hense the word "immersive".

Summers over, although i hate to admit it, theres been no jumping in the sea or bbq in a little while, i need my bbq and sea fix pretty soon i think!

This year ive joined the saling club, and will hopefully be out next saturday sailing, this year i want to get away at the weekends as much as possible with adventure and expo and maybe a few random trips to europe etc...

Collaborative project...

Back home in Essex i agreed to do a collaborative project with a friend Jon, where by he could learn a bit of flash and I could extend my portfolio with experimental art work.

We decided (eventually) on a game of hangman, taking the traditional game and making it an online experience that would allow the user to play against the computer or set words themselves. The keys on the keyboard would be pressed and the user would see a response on screen...this follows on from the negotiated project idea.

We spent a while taking photos in the woods, and making a basic version of the hangman game in flash using action script...

Although the game could easily be finished in an hour as it stands, we are making it a highly visual piece...with much more emphasis on the graphic design and illustration...below are a few ideas so far that we will hopefully work into some more:

Moving Out and the last week

above(left to right): 1.the midnight sky in plymouh 2.last few nights on the terrace doing fire poi
It seemed to take several days to completley empty my house in greenbank of everything in it; this involved a large amount of stress and hard work...Being as my things are stored at two friends houses, the landlord more or less a resident at the end of the week (what with turning up at random first thing in the morning and seeing him every day), and not knowing quite where i should/would be living full stop...

Despite all this all is well as i decided to come back to essex for a while and stay with my nan...


Since being here i have caught up with friends in london and at Toms bbq party (cheers Tom if your reading this by the way).

July nights

July has been an odd month, plymouth is a little more quite than it is normally. The weather is up and down, with alot of rain but sunny days and good evenings too. In between doing some work on my portfolio and job hunting i have been lucky enough to get out on dartmoor or plymouth hoe and do a fair bit of climbing...

The last picture is from last nights climbing seesion at mount batten- bolted routes that are open for public use every tuesday night.

Day at the driving range...

Turns out that I'm fairly bad at golf, but fun none the less and a little different to my usual activities. I have brought a new camera and have been out taking alot of photos with it... a lumix dmc-fz50 (its a bridge camera, with a 12x optical zoom and leica lense).

CLICK HERE for more photos!!

The lastest greece photos...

I am now back in plymouth and looking through some of my photos from greece, this is a selection of the more interesting shots...

Sailing in greece...

After what seemed like a quite long flight, I arrived in Athens airport and boarded a bus to Markopulu....following my nans instructions I was intending to get off at leofereeo, however it turned out that a leofereeo is the Greek word for bus. The phone call that my mum and my Nan had about getting to Porto rafti had been all slightly lost in translation...never the less I arrived at marco pulu and met my dad....

We had a cycle from Marco pulu to Porto rafti (where the boat was) it made a nice change to being sat down all day on trains, planes and busses... and as I hoped the night air was warm, and looked very promising for the rest of the trip weather wise.

With a 2 hour time difference and parents generally getting up allot earlier than me and going to bed earlier to, I have had to do some adjusting... the last few days I have spent sailing around the cyclades with my parents- island hopping, going from bay to bay and doing a large amount of swimming and sunbathing...

I have got in 1 day of windsurfing so far, im probably a little rusty what with not doing it since last summer, still good fun...with any luck some windy days ahead of me, for some fast sailing and exciting windsurfing...

We arrived last night in siros (one of the islands in the cyclades) and spent last night looking around the town and getting some food by the quay side... defiantly the most developed of the islands vie been to so far. It’s a nice change from sleepy villeges, that said the other quieter islands have alot of character too- nice to get away from it all.

I think that’s quite enough for now, hopefully ill get some more photos up soon!

Carpe Diem....

"The author of genius does keep till his last breath the spontaneity, the ready sensitiveness, of a child, the "innocence of eye" that means so much to the painter, the ability to respond freshly and quickly to new scenes, and to old scenes as though they were new; to see traits and characteristics as though each were new-minted from the hand of God instead of sorting them quickly into dusty categories and pigeon-holing them without wonder or surprise; to feel situations so immediately and keenly that the word "trite" has hardly any meaning for him; and always to see "the correspondences between things" of which Aristotle spoke two thousand years ago."
{Dorothea Brande}

Being spontaneous is a big part of life and important for creative thought and fresh thinking...too easily we can fall into a mundane routine. This quote is important in summarising my view on open mindedness and taking a risk if need be...

its important to have goals, ambition and work hard... but life is a step by step process that may turn out very differently to how we envisioned it originally...

"You will never be able to discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore"
{Hannah Whitall Smith}

This is a quote i have used alot before in conversation and feel that it is important to remember. I only hope that in life i take the right opportunities that are presented to me... i think i have so far...and its worked out very well so far...

I have been inspired to write this entry due to last nights slightly drunken debate on life and how we choose to live it...

I came across a bible quote a while back on this topic that interested me:

"A miserable heart means a miserable life; a cheerful heart fills that day with song..."
{proverbs 15:15, The Message}

I interpret this to be another way of saying "don't worry be happy"... dwell on whats good and be thankful rather than getting to bogged down or being bound by the 'what-ifs?', 'buts' and 'maybes'.

I will stop writing at this point...as it could turn into an essay at this rate....too many opinions quotes and views....

Its sunday...

Quite sunny outside, however with exams approaching its time to knuckle down and get some revision done... I am in the library now reading up on creative industries, seems to be going well, although i need to read through a lot more over the next few days....

First exam on Thursday! wish me luck!

1000 word write up....

Originally we were set the task of setting a problem and providing an answer to it using digital art. My original idea was one with music and radio. However, I changed this idea in favour of something more within the scope of my abilities.

I was inspired by Dadaism, and the ‘cut-up technique’. The cut up technique is something used to inspire creative thoughts. A series of meaningful or meaningless sentences would be written down on paper; then cutup and rearranged to make a poem or lyrics. This was used by the likes of David Bowie and Kurt Cobain.

Writer's Block, as it has sometimes been called is a common problem, as is lack of inspiration towards art. This is still a problem today, and people still use the cutup technique. However, no longer does this need physical paper and scissors. The application and I have created is a combination of traditional poetry and modern day song lyrics; when please press at random (or indeed, sequentially). It will rearrange the lyrics and words on the screen.

So using Flash action script. I have mapped out the letters of the keyboard to correspond with snippets of poetry. It is because of this that no user will ever get the same result, unless they type exactly the same sentence or word.

I have tried to make this process more visually pleasing also. It has been said that a picture paints a thousand words, and for good reason. When the eye sees a picture or an image that there are enough connotations associated with it to spark off sentence after sentence. Hopefully, when people are using my programme, they may have ideas generated of their own

I have also researched art movements, contemporary arts, “ the art object”, authorship and post-modernism.

With the increasing use of computers and current technology is paper and pen is almost a thing of the past. When we copy and paste something in a Word document, this is only a metaphor from the standing the process involved -- they want complex task can be made very simple. What I have tried to do is to think about the resources available to me, my technical abilities, current media in contrast to old media. I have also included is visualisations in this application that correspond with the words of the poem. I have also included a sound, some meaningful and relevant and some at random… I have done this because a man unstructured, unconventional approach/way of thinking is good for people's creativity. Hopefully this project will inspire other people in terms of the use of Flash and what I've done with the technology, and possibly a different approach to writing.
.

After deciding on my idea the first thing to look at was ASCII characters and mapping the letters of the keyboard. Every letter of the keyboard, already has binary code, associated with it and ASCII code, this is an example of encoding and decoding. I have tried to replicate this process even further, and utilise and every day peripheral by turning it into something different.

I managed to get to the p letters of the keyboard to correspond with going to a different frame in a movie clip. It would highlight a letter that was in that movie clip. After successfully doing that, I went on to work on the display the message. To do this, I needed an editable array that would hold be lyrics or poem. And a dynamic text display box to display this information. Using an empty array I used the push feature of action script to attach items onto the end of the array. I encountered some problems with this, as it would delete be information that was stored in the array and replace it by and new keys push element.

When this was working, I added scrollable arrows, as the information that was being put into the array was far too long to fit on one small screen.

I experimented with duplicating movies and attaching movies onto the stage, and creating different effects using code. This application uses several different features to achieve the end result, which is a combine a collage of graphics on-screen and a text. This is a generative art piece and individual to each user.

I was interested in, with the idea that art may be seen by different people in a different way (after subjective). Traditionally, arts was interactive in a way that he may look at a painting and interpret different form elements within it, and appreciate it for the skill and creativity that has gone into it.

With new media art is interactive; this brings up the issue of authorship. That is to say is the user technically responsible for creating a piece of art or part of that art piece? Perhaps whatever medium the arts was made with, the inventor of that played a role in the authorship. At the time of the Dadaism Marcel Duchamp, produced several ‘ready- mades’. The post-modernist view is that it is. It is fine to use other peoples creations within your own work to create something new.

Very much an issue with today's digital art, as a lot is made with computer coding (there has been made by someone else originally)… I have tried to draw implants from this issue and address it within my work, I have used the work of ‘William Wordsworth’ - an 18th-century poet. I used his poem “ written while sailing in a boat at evening” and the modern day song lyrics “ the sea” by ‘Morcheeba’. I have also a few words from myself in the poem, so it all generates a source remix of old and new.

In conclusion, the programme that I have made is entirely unique to the user. And in to the use of resources, as well as a creative look at conceptual art. Many people have the problem of not being able to think of a creative idea, or be able to write a meaningful poem.

I have achieved what I set out to do originally, as different sounds played, therefore altering audio track. Different graphics are displayed, therefore altering be the look of the application. And I suppose, most importantly, the poem itself is different every time, depending on what is typed.

One possible progression of this idea is that the user would be able to change the letters of the Keys to their own sentences, or words. I experimented little with this idea, however, I found it to interfere with my current application, and finally deciding to abandon it. A further progression of that idea would be to have the server side coding. Therefore it would retain that be poem of one person and be able to expand on this idea.

The first re-mixed, generated poem

Below you can see the copied results from my application, it is a cut up poem of William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) called "written while sailing a boat at evening" and the modern day lyrics of 'Morcheeba - The Sea'...Both similar ideas however individual and made for a different purpose. Both have good imagery.

I have also added a few lines of my own in there. I have added movie clips, as i think that this adds to the user experience:

Fishing boats sail past the shore,Some get stung it's worth the cost , A little moment past so smiling!..,No singing may-day any more, The sun is shining, facing thus the crimson west ,More hassles fuss and lies on the phone,Just you and I walk along the pier,

I left my soul there,I,tinged with evening hues,Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?,The Water's clear, And see how dark the backward stream!,Langston failed to inspire..., perhaps, with faithless gleam,Some other loiterers beguiling.

Such views the youthful Bard allure;,But, heedless of the following gloom ,He deems their colours shall endure Till peace go with him to the tomb., --And let him nurse his fond deceit,I left my soul there,I'd love to stay, The city calls me home,1789, The boat her silent course pursues!..,

A cool breeze flows but mind the wasp,HOW richly glows the water's breast Before us,Flocking to the sea ,Sea gulls scavenge ,Steal ice cream ,Worries vanish Within my dream ,I lost control with you, And living...,Down by the sea, living ,And I, living,by the sea, --And let him nurse his fond deceit

its coming along....

Yet still a lot to get done, i need more sound effects and ambient music, the message displays now from an array which i'm happy with- so the earlier problem is now solved.

I want to attach movie clips to the key presses also- as its a visual effects and animations count for alot it terms of the connotations involved.

hopefully i can make it an inspirational visual tool for people to access and use online. This will solve the problem of writers block for instance.

The project so far...

At the moment quite basic, and will display information from the array.

ASCII characters...

Binary	Oct	Dec		Glyph
010 0000	040	32		SP
010 0001	041	33		!
010 0010	042	34		"
010 0011	043	35		#
010 0100	044	36		$
010 0101	045	37		%
010 0110	046	38		&
010 0111	047	39		'
010 1000	050	40		(
010 1001	051	41		)
010 1010	052	42		*
010 1011	053	43		+
010 1100	054	44		,
010 1101	055	45		-
010 1110	056	46		.
010 1111	057	47		/
011 0000	060	48		0
011 0001	061	49		1
011 0010	062	50		2
011 0011	063	51		3
011 0100	064	52		4
011 0101	065	53		5
011 0110	066	54		6
011 0111	067	55		7
011 1000	070	56		8
011 1001	071	57		9
011 1010	072	58		:
011 1011	073	59		;
011 1100	074	60		<
011 1101	075	61		=
011 1110	076	62		>
011 1111	077	63		?

Binary	Oct	Dec		Glyph
100 0000	100	64		@
100 0001	101	65		A
100 0010	102	66		B
100 0011	103	67		C
100 0100	104	68		D
100 0101	105	69		E
100 0110	106	70		F
100 0111	107	71		G
100 1000	110	72		H
100 1001	111	73		I
100 1010	112	74		J
100 1011	113	75		K
100 1100	114	76		L
100 1101	115	77		M
100 1110	116	78		N
100 1111	117	79		O
101 0000	120	80		P
101 0001	121	81		Q
101 0010	122	82		R
101 0011	123	83		S
101 0100	124	84		T
101 0101	125	85		U
101 0110	126	86		V
101 0111	127	87		W
101 1000	130	88		X
101 1001	131	89		Y
101 1010	132	90		Z
101 1011	133	91		[
101 1100	134	92		\
101 1101	135	93		]
101 1110	136	94		^
101 1111	137	95		_

Binary	Oct	Dec		Glyph
110 0000	140	96		`
110 0001	141	97		a
110 0010	142	98		b
110 0011	143	99		c
110 0100	144	100		d
110 0101	145	101		e
110 0110	146	102		f
110 0111	147	103		g
110 1000	150	104		h
110 1001	151	105		i
110 1010	152	106		j
110 1011	153	107		k
110 1100	154	108		l
110 1101	155	109		m
110 1110	156	110		n
110 1111	157	111		o
111 0000	160	112		p
111 0001	161	113		q
111 0010	162	114		r
111 0011	163	115		s
111 0100	164	116		t
111 0101	165	117		u
111 0110	166	118		v
111 0111	167	119		w
111 1000	170	120		x
111 1001	171	121		y
111 1010	172	122		z
111 1011	173	123		{
111 1100	174	124		|
111 1101	175	125		}
111 1110	176	126		~

(source- wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#ASCII_printable_characters)



ASCII characters are what i will be using in this project to map out the letters of the keyboard using action script, so far i have got my program to react to letters of the keyboard by playing a sound and high lighting a letter...

In my action script im using on key listeners. I have it displaying messages depending on what key is pressed, and displaying information from an array.

I am currently having difficulty displaying correct messages, im using if statements and editable arrays...but arrays don't seem to store the information in between the key presses.

Dada-ism and the cut up technique...

I have decided to go ahead with the idea of cut up poems and changing the letters of the key board. The cut up technique and fold in technique are writing styles that aim to break the linearity of writing and make it more random.

During the 70's David Bowie used the cut up technique this later came to influence Curt Cobain in his song writing.

I have been looking at tutorials to turn the key board into more than just a tool for writing linear text...

The problem I am solving is a human one not a technical issue. It is an application that will aid creative thought and randomise words to create a song, poem, or piece of music. It gives the user a chance to make different pieces of music each time.

The experience will be hopefully different from everyone as they will type different things that will in turn be connected with several words or sentences as well as music. It could be added to by a lot of people therefore a piece of generative art.

Idat 204, Mixed reality marks

66% which im happy about, although my name is written as 'Jason Veale' and not James Veale on the marks, and i sent my critique 3 times...

never mind :)

Isad 223 Essay on Human Computer interaction...

We now have are marks back for the isad essay...the marks were split into:

i: Review, analysis and evaluation of existing relevant systems (20%)
ii: Consideration, explanation and justification of user-centric methodology (20%)
iii: Richness, clarity and usefulness of design representations (20%)
iv: Validity and depth of technical and psychological explanations (20%)
v: Evaluation & reflection of design process and subsequent conclusions (20%)

below are my marks break up (out of 20%) for each thing:

i: 19
ii: 13
iii: 8
iv: 14
v: 10


final mark: 64%

The finished game...

This is the finished piece of work for e-learning, the children who use it will have to drag and drop words onto the bunnys belly, he will then animate...

It now has sound effects and a soundtrack, that make viewing more fun.