I keep writing these blogs. Not for critical acclaim, because most of the posts I do compose are pretty boring, but just for my own production and movement, to record it in a very linear way.

Since the prototype presentations I have been frozen in a period of not working, which I have only identified properly now. I have been doing the classic of ‘thinking’ and now I want to out pour this thinking out now before I have a tutorial and I get drawn lots of diagrams to show how I’ve been working, or not as the case maybe.

I ended my prototype presentation by deciding that what I was working with was physical communication. I thought this was the paramount factor of my project and I had worked it out what it was that I needed to do, and how everything linked that I had done before.

I had a tutorial straight after presentations, and also after a pretty intense gin-cident, so my heart really wasn’t really in design at the time. My notes from this said I needed to take 1-3 things I’d done before are refine them, the idea of the handmade and the mechanical coming together, and the context of what I needed to do.

I had a weekend of running away to Nottingham and then my world was rocked by this baby

I wish this was my project! I was shown this by a tutor and completely fell in love with the project and the design.

To get all analytical on this bad boy, the reasons I like it are because I like the way this is presented. I keep thinking of the future of my project and how it will appear in my show, and I keep returning to the idea of a prop within a narrative, which is what these phones appear as.

Also there is an aspect of ‘physical communication’. I love the traditional touch of the ‘knocking’ in a ring tone and the ‘hummm!’ of conversation.

I keep coming back to the idea of humour in this project. Partly as I like arsing around a lot of the time, and partly because another vision I have of my project at the show is the interactive level and the opportunity for entertainment and involvement in, not only viewing but also feeling/hearing/moving…

So what am I designing for?

The interaction of the mundane conversations, although I don’t think they are mundane, they are rather intriguing.

I don’t want to make people have more conversations, but instead have an intervention in the existing ones, a new language, a way of decoding the interactions we have….stimulating the reaction.

Why am I doing this? I want people to cherish conversations, have more emotive conversations- not that they will be more important, but more interesting.

The currency of conversation is the defaced coin that we pass between us.

If all else fails I’ll just design stuff like this…

Pictionary

Following my experiments with the double sided screen, I decided to try with the power of the 'digital interface'- Skype.

I had the two computers set up with a Skype conversation and one with the 'double sided whiteboard' i had made and increased the opacity with the high tech system of a sheet of tracing paper.

The task I set was the powerful game of pictionary
This is just one of the interactions



(Thanks Chris, Liz, Anisha and Esme)

Good fun!!!

The quality of this is film is not a good as it could be, as it was just trying it as an experiment, but it does bring up some ideas of what can be achieved in an interaction.

I keep getting to really debased qualities of my project where I want to just arse around and make people laugh. One of the exciting things about doing this experiment was that someone said 'ah this is fun'. Maybe thats what communication needs. I've been focusing on the traditional methods of letter writing, but maybe what I need to do is infiltrate these new methods with the old..

NEW AGE FUN WITH A VINTAGE FEEL!!!

Envelopes

At the start of this project, we were advised to have a mini project which we could do something with or for everyday that would add to our way of working, or that we'd get so good at that we'd be able to be experts of making it.

I've tried with different envelopes. I started my project with these and they've tailed off a little over the months, but I want to try and get back into them.

Rebus puzzle

The Posted Camera

Another experiment was posting a disposable camera

Good, not clean fun, as it turn out grown men still find taking photos of their willies funny.

but other than that, my thoughts on this experiment was something along the ideas of creativity being open sourced, the ability for creativity to be in every situation... the idea of cultural/creative probes...

click on flikr link on the right to see the developed photos

Emotacons

Here is a small video- an experimental if you will.




With this, I was trying to play around with the ideas of 2D and 3D communication- how does a simple 'smiley' translate into the physical expressions that we would use naturally in a conversation.

Tutorial Thurday

Lennart: (explaining to Joey, who nods fervently) 
No, no, no. It's that you're not connected with anything in your body. There's no urgency. The scene is a struggle, uhm, it's a race. Also, what you did was horizontal. Don't be afraid to explore the vertical. And don't learn the words. Let the words learn you. 


later...


Joey: 
Well, he said I wasn't urgent enough, you know, and that everything I did was horizontal and I should be more vertical. Oh, and he said that I should think less. 






Moral of the tutorial, apparently I'm jumping around, need to map what I'm doing.
in the midst of life we are in death etc

Stop Writing

Instead do really naive drawings

Man alive I'm tired

Black Swan freaked me out and I can't stop watching Grandmas House to counteract it.