Idat 205: Introduction

We have had our introduction with Hugo, I must say I am looking forward to this module, and  the acting part! As we are pretending to be a company, we can really put our imagination to this project.  I have always said how I want to actually learn skills on how to make a website look eye catching and well persented, and I this module is definitely going to help me gain these skills.

It will be the famous four working together on this project:   Kat

Vicky

Ollie

And myself

We are a very strong team with loads of ideas between us and I am very confident that will produce a very excellent high quality website, which will persuade any customer to use our service!

Now to this of what our product or service can be!

Idat 203:introduction to module

Well so far we have had the introduction lecture and seminar, where we learnt what the lectures would involve and be about, and in the seminar we went other the structure of how to write an essay and what should go in the introduction and what different types of arguments we could write about. This was very helpful, as it gives you the guide on how to write an good essay.

Idat 204: Introduction

Had our first session with Chris today, he was just going through the modules and how we are not spoon fed information this year like we was lst year, and how the briefs are going to be open and don’t really tell you what to do. For our first project with Chris we have to create an organism in an interactive media form.  It is pair work and I believe that it will be Kat and myself working together for this project.

As Chris is on training on Thursday we are having ten minute sessions on Monday to discuss any ideas we have came up with. now to get them thinking caps on.

Idat 201: The introduction

We had our first lecture today, where we were told the basics of the module and what is expected from us.  Katina Hazelden will present our lecture, where she will discuss the history of art, thee way people perceive things and how this has shifted the way design is being thought about.  They will also cover the core concepts of simulation and simulacra.    Katina, will also take our tutorials where we will discuss our ideas for our 90 second film and give us technical developing sessions.

The first two practical sessions will be used for teaching 3D Studio Max in 3 hour session, this will be taught with Vladimir Geroimenko.

To end the introduction lecture we were shown some expamels of last years work.  They all vaired and most of them used mix media and only sinpetts with thier 3d model.  I think with my end piece i would like to include my model alot more than what we sure today.

overall i am really excited about this module!!!

Idat 203: whats the load down

 [Critical Contexts – Digital Art| IDAT 203 | CREDITS: 20 | 100% Coursework]

So for this module we are going to have to write and essay which has a pretty open brief but the basic to it is to write about an artpiece or technique and how it has changed throughout the years.

In the second term we are doing more of an art critical way of learning. We will go off four five weeks and start to plan and prepare for our final project and then we will have to present our final projects in an half an hour presentation.

For this module we will have one lecture on a Monday and every two week we will have a two hour session in the dome of people talking to us about their own experiences. Also we will have seminars every other Tuesday.

Lets hope for a good module!

Idat 201: Trans-Spatial Design: The Load down

[Module Descriptor] CREDITS: 10 | 100% Coursework

This module provides students with an introduction to three-dimensional software applications and the design process as a whole from conception through development, to realisation. Supported by critical examination of cultural artefacts, the module demands students synthesise the design of a digital three-dimensional object with an understanding of its historical background.

[Brief]

Simulacrum (70%)

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.

Through the lecture series you will develop an understanding of what ‘object’ may represent and your simulacrum will be the vessel in which you present it.Whatever your chosen object is, it’s design, soundtrack, visual presentation and physical packaging of your project should all be derived from the properties held within your object and its history.

Hand in deadline: Friday 30th November @ 2pm to the faculty Office

Idat 205: The Load Down

[Creative Industries| IDAT205 | MLA/MPT| CREDITS: 20 | 70% Coursework 30% Exam]

[Module Descriptor]

This module explores the dynamic changes that are sweeping through traditional media and communications industries, brought about by the impact of new technologies such as (digital interactive) terrestrial, cable, and satellite TV, the internet, tele-communications and computer networks. It explores, through group production projects, the practical issues underpinning the management of distributed organisations.

Brief]

AUTUMN TERM: GROUP MARKETING PROJECT (35%) The brief will be delivered in detail during the Week 2 lecture on Monday 1 October. 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 SPRING TERM: GROUP MULTIMEDIA PROJECT (35%) This will involve the group development in real time of a project (to be confirmed) for a local charity organisation based in the South West. Projects in recent years were for the Eden Project, Rame Conservation Trust and Surfers Against Sewage. The project brief will be delivered in the first two weeks of the spring term. SUMMER TERM: EXAMINATION (30%) The individual examination is based on the lectures (including guest lectures from representatives of the media industry) covering key phases and changes in the media industry.

Idat 204: The Load Down

[Workshop 2| IDAT204 | CREDITS: 20 | 100% Coursework]

[Module Descriptor]

This module provides students with opportunities to further develop their multimedia design and
production skills, placing an equal importance on a critical understanding of the relationship of their work to other forms of cultural production, and experimental and creative production work. Emphasis is placed on developing creative skills and strategies to deliver professional quality projects.

[Brief]

This module has been designed to provide a framework to develop your individual practice.

Part 1 – Organism 25% Delivered by Chris Speed

organism n. 1. any living animal or plant including any bacterium or virus. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations
2. anything resembling a living creature in structure, behavior, etc —-, organ’ismal or,organ’ismic adj. organ’ismally adv.
‘The artificial purification of all milieus, atmospheres, and environments will supplant the failing internal immune systems. If these systems are breaking down it is because an irreversible tendency called progress pushes the human body and spirit into relinquishing its systems of defense and self-determination, only to replace them with technical artifacts. Divested of his defenses, man becomes eminently vulnerable to science. Divested of his phantasies, he becomes eminently vulnerable to psychology. Freed of his germs, he becomes eminently vulnerable to medicine.

It would not be too far-fetched to say that the extermination of mankind begins with the extermination of germs.’ [ Jean Baudrillard ]

‘We are becoming like cats, slyly parasitic, enjoying an indifferent domesticity. Nice and snug in the social, our historic passions have withdrawn into the glow of an artificial coziness, and our half-closed eyes now seek little other than the peaceful parade of television pictures. Perhaps our eyes are merely a blank film which is taken from us after our deaths to be developed elsewhere and screened as our life story in some infernal cinema or dispatched as microfilm into the sidereal void.’ [Jean Baudrillard ]

‘Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.’ [Bill Bulko]

Working in pairs generate “a living creature in structure, behavior, etc…”. The final organism should be a form of interactive media, able to work on any platform from mobile, desktop, internet, ipod etc. The intention is to make the organisms accessible on a web site so the shockwave movie should be embedded in its own web page. This will have a dramatic effect on the size of your organism, be realistic.
The rational behind this exercise?:

A: to generate a problem which is not technology driven, i.e. the idea drives the project. You should not start working on the computer until the ‘life forms’ spec is generated. You will then have to find ways of realising it within the limits of the technology.

B: to force you to consider a truly timebased, multidimensional, interactive problem. A life form needs to feed and be fed, sleep, move, multiply, expel waste etc. It will be sensitive to certain conditions and have a life expectancy. Do not use buttons, instead concentrate on a process of interactions. In defining a life form do not fall into the trap of using cartoon characters, question existing models, redefine and innovate! What is digital life?

Part 2 – Killer Applications for the Semantic Web 25% Delivered by Vladimir Geroimenko

Semantic Web The emerging Second-Generation Web that is an extension of the current, FIRST-GENERATION WEB. The concept of the Semantic Web was produced by Tim BERNERS-LEE, who has also coined the term. The main idea of the Semantic Web is to delegate many current human-specific Web activities to computers. This will be possible if Web data are expressed in a machine-readable format suitable for completely automate transactions. It can be achieved by adding several hierarchical levels of METADATA to Web data and using specialist technologies that can make use of these metadata. ’ [Vladimir Geroimenko. Dictionary of XML Technologies and the Semantic Web. New York, 2004]

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]

Working in pairs, students are required:

– to investigate the most interesting and promising directions in the development of the Second Generation Web (also known as the Semantic Web or the XML-based Web);

– to propose a possible scenario for the future of the Web that can lead to creating a killer application for the Semantic Web;

– to simulate or implement the scenario and/or the killer application in a multimedia form using Flash XML (or any other relevant technologies, such as Shockwave/Director, DHTML/JavaScript or Java).

Part 3 – Elective options

a) Mixed Reality Platforms (50%) Delivered by Chris Speed

‘Experience is a system and consequently the objective world is constructed through the imposition of cultural categories on reality. Perception thus takes place through a mediating value-framework which differentiates the facticity of the environment in which one lives’, (Shields, 1991:32).

This is a site based project with that will be involve students working together in small groups, participants will design collaborative projects that share mixed reality platforms combining both physical (non-digital) and virtual (digital) materials.

It is anticipated that through an analysis of the site that the teams are given you will be expected to develop work in response to its environmental, technical, architectural and social properties. Students will be encouraged to use mobile and locative media where relevant to extend the potential dialogue with the geographical context.

The work represents the DAT 2nd Year Show for 2007/8, and teams will have to work together to ensure that a show team is able to put together appropriate organising and marketing to support such an event.

In the past this option has involved a collaboration with students from Dartington College for Arts and you can see the nature of this collaboration here…

b) Augmented Reality Environments (50%) Delivered by Vladimir Geroimenko

In the original publication (Wellner et al., 1993) which coined the term, (Computer-) Augmented Reality (abbreviated AR) was introduced as the opposite of virtual reality: instead of diving the user into a synthesized, purely informational environment, the goal of AR is to augment the real world with information handling capabilities. Additionally, augmented reality is itself a special case of the more general concept of mediated reality (med-R), in the sense that mediated reality allows for the perception of reality to be augmented, deliberately diminished, or otherwise modified. ’ [Wikipedia.org]

Working individually participants are required:

– to investigates the ways in which the real world can be augmented with different forms of digital information;

– to set the problem;

– to provide a solution.

Module Leader: Chris Speed

Workshop Tutors: Chris Speed, Vladimir Geroimenko