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body/object/code » archive for March, 2005
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There are a lot more than this, but these are what are relvant, really to this more applied process than spiritual awakening. Hers are very very text/writing/thinking lifestyle assesment that I’ve decided to move away from this round.
Chapter 1 - Basic Tools
- Morning Pages
- Artist Date
- Sign the Contract (commit)
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Excerpeted from http://stage.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/nature/ Daniel Schiffman’s Nature of Code Class for Spring of 2005
PART I: Motion
Class Overview
Processing review
Object Oriented Programming review
Vectors — motion basics (velocity / acceleration).
Assignment
- Sign up for the class mailing list.
- Sign up for a presentation slot.
- Read through the source code from the above examples and examine the object oriented structure and syntax. Where are the class definitions? Where are the object instances declared? When does the constructor get called and what arguments are required? Write down and bring to class any questions related to OOP.
- Get up and running with the new version of processing (instructions on class e-mail list). Run one of the above examples and post it online as an applet
- Optional: Develop your own Processing example based on this week’s material.
- (Choose one or more of the following…or create your own.) Extend one of the examples into 3 dimensions.
- Apply the concepts of velocity and acceleration to something other than the usual 2D motion. (what else changes in a digital world — rotation, color, etc.)
- Using a single primitive shape only (square, ellipse, etc.), create a "personality" for your object by affecting its velocity & acceleration. Can you make it appear to be "alive" and/or have intelligence?
- Extend one of the above examples to include multiple objects using an array or ArrayList. Can these objects interact with each other somehow?
Week 2 — Jan 26
Forces
Attraction/Repulsion, Friction/Drag
Assignment
- If you haven’t already, sign up for the class mailing list.
- If you haven’t already, sign up for a presentation slot.
- Develop your own Processing example based on this week’s material.
- (Choose one or more of the following…or create your own.) Extend one of the examples into 3 dimensions.
- Examine the first example which implements a "drag" force. Can you make a liquid class (moving the code out of the main program)? Can you create a system of multiple objects moving through multiple "liquids"? (click here for an example of one solution.)
- Can the concept of "force" be used as a metaphor for some other situation? What other forces are there in the digital worlds you create?
- Research and implement another type of force not covered above.
- Can you use the notion of gravity to create a "repulsive" force, rather than "attractive"? Taking the last example above, can you develop some tricks to keep the system stable enough stay within the realm of the window?
Probability Basics
Distributions of Random Numbers (Uniform, Non-Uniform, Normal)
Perlin Noise
Assignment
(Choose one or more of the following…or create your own.)
- Create a visual system that is built entirely by random numbers (random shapes, random locations, random sizes, random colors, etc.). Then, using the concepts outlined above, recreate this same system without any purely random input. Can you design some new methods for "controlled" randomness?
- Take one of your previous assignments involving forces and vectors. Add elements of probability and Perlin noise to your system.
- Use object oriented programming to create a "random walker", i.e. an object that moves around the window randomly (see below for an example). Use the techniques above to move the walker around the screen in a more interesting way. Can you expand the walker to have more advanced physics (the example below it only moves one pixel at at time)?
Trigonometry
Oscillations, Pendulum
Graphing waves (perlin noise waves)
2D trig equation graphing ("graphing inequalities")
Assignment
- Develop an idea for a two week assignment. Divide the work for this assignment into two parts. For next week, post your progress with part I (as well as a written description, a few sentences is ok). Everyone will present their progress through "part II" on Feb 23rd.
- For example: Using the techniques we’ve seen up until now (velocity, acceleration, random number generation, oscillation) design a virtual creature that moves according to various rules. For part II, extend that single creature into a particle system of many creatures.
- Take one of the existing systems we’ve looked at (gravitational bodies, sine wave, etc.) and leaving the algorithm intact, develop an entirely new way of visualizing the system. In other words, change only the drawing code.
- Combine linear motion with oscillation, i.e. consider a point with velocity and acceleration that moves about a space. Make that moving point the center of origin for an oscillating body
Advanced Object Oriented Programming — Inheritance and Polymorphism
Week 6-
Review
PART II: Life
Recursion and Fractals
1D Cellular Automata — Wolfram
2D Cellular Automata — Conway’s Game of Life
Assignment
- Develop your own recursive system to generate complex, fractal-like shapes. What are the parameters of your system? Can you make the recursive drawing an object with instance variables associated with those parameters?
- Read through the chapter 6 discussion of L-Systems. Can you develop code that generates strings from an Axiom and Ruleset? (Step 2 is to draw to the screen based on the generated Strings, but feel free to stick with just the text for now).
- Redo the Game of Life example with object oriented programming. Create a class for each individual cell as well as one for the whole system itself.
- What types of systems can you model with Cellular Automata? Consider allowing cells to have more than 2 states and develop your own rules for changing states.
- Examine the Predator/Prey System described on p. 191 of Computational Beauty of Nature. Can you use the principle of cellular automata to model and visualize it?
- Consider the state of a cell to be its color. What types of image processing filters can you create using the principles of Cellular Automata?
Steering
Craig Reynolds’ Boids — Alignment, Cohesion, Separation
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- Assignment 1:In class, we have seen how an abstract object-oriented structure could be visualized in a tree-stucture diagram. Each diagram holds limitations as it can only represent limited aspects of the real programmatic environment. It is up to us to decide which aspects of the structure we choose to depict, as we visualize an abstract environment. For this assignment, create your own visual interpretation to the concept of Symbol-Instances (Class-Instances).
- Assignment 2: Create a Flash program that depicts a particular one-many relationship.
- Assignment 3: Either continue Assignment 2 or begin a new one. For this purpose, learn and use five new functions in Flash. Do so by using the Actionscript Dictionary. The goal of this assignment is to encourage and develop your ability to learn new aspects of a programming language through a general language reference guide.
- Assignment 4a: In PROCE55ING, use the various values that a Clock provides (h:m:s:ms) towards an animated visual composition.
- Assignment 4b: In FLASH, create an animated visual composition that is affected by at least one slider.
- Assignment 5: Using Flash or Proce55ing, create work that is meant to be censored by third party.
- Assignment 6: Using Flash, create an system in which a square-object reacts to the mouse x/y. Use this interaction to convey a ‘relationship’ between the square and the mouse cursor. For example, you may try to convey the concept of ‘fear’, ‘love’, or perhaps a behavior of a dog (square) to its owner (mouse).
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Projects and exercise division. Clearly about learning to use a medium more effectively for beginner to advanced intermediate?
Realism
Color
- Exercise: Palette Layout
- Exercise: Combine Colors
- Project: Still life w/ pure Primaries
- Project: Still life w/ alternate Primaries
- Exercise: Tertiary mixes from complimentary pairs (3 pigment colors)
- Project: Still life using blue and orange (painters work to color schemes)
- Exercise: Color recognition (can you tell what is primary or secondary)
- Exercise: Mix and Match strips from master works (can you make the colors, then apply them to a drawing or BW photo)
Drawing
- Project: Drawing a still life on mirror tiles (benchmark)
- Exercise: Drawing a silhouette
- Project: Drawing a silhouette of buildings (skyline)
- Exercise: Measuring with pencil and thumb
- Exercise: Drawing a bottle using the box-ing up method
- Exercise: Assessing angles
- Exercise: Working with silhouettes/proportions and angles together
- Plumb lines/ Spirit levels
- Project: Painting a still life
- Gadgets and gizmos – Grid behind object, grid in front of object, view finders, angle measures
- Exercise: Drawing on Clingfilm (compare drawing to trace on window)
Negative Shapes
- Exercise: Stack of chairs
- Exercise: Potted Plant
- Exercise: Face in mirror
- Project: Still life – draw the negative spaces, use view finder to complete them
- Exercise: Checking compositions (with L shaped cut outs, are you using whole space)
- Exercise: Drawing and painting the negative space of leaves (arrange and trace)
- Project: Painting a landscape using the layer on method (thinking in terms of color washes)
3-D Form
- Exercise: Drawing the basic forms
- Project: Painting a white still life in monochrome washes
- Project: Using color tone to create form (edges are not a line)
- Project: Using brush marks to create form in landscape (lines, dots, circular, flat washes, dots of paint, curved brush marks)
Illusion of Space
- Exercise: making a tonal study (higher contrast in foreground)
- Project: Painting a monochromatic landscape
- Project: Creating the illusion of space using color alone (temperature: blue distance/warm-pure foreground, more variety in foreground… START W/COLOR STRIP)
- Exercise: Use degree of detail and definition to enhance spatial illusion
- Project: Painting a landscape that includes water
- Project: Painting a landscape demonstrating the illusion of form and space (how to pick what rule to use – i.e. color or detail or both depending on desired mood)
Beauty
Composition
- Exercise: Composing abstract shapes (Use rectilinear, curvilinear, mixed)
- Project: Producing a painting from a paper collage (use paper in 3-4 tones to create scene and then paint it)
- Exercise: Copy a master-work (you can trace it first…)
- Project: ‘Nother still life. Make tonal sketch, pick theme unity arrangement… etc)
- Project: Landscape (do tonal study, line study, detail sketch,, think about Golden Section)
- Project: Paint landscape with Artistic License (adding clouds, changing angles)
Creative Color
- Project: Using color creatively in backgrounds (picking the best foil)
- Project: Using color to create mood (or season.. or time of day)
- Project: Painting a still life using the cool family of colors
- Project: Painting a still life using the warm family of colors
- Project: Painting a landscape using the cool family of colors
- Project: Painting a landscape using the warm family of colors
- Project: Intensifying realistic Color
- Project: Reversing Intensifying realistic Color (inverting color field)
Celebrate Medium
- Exercise: Exploring the qualities of paint. () dribble big brushes, wet/dry… explore
- Examples of Experimental Techniques: Wet on wet washes, Lifting off, back runs (blotchy), Salt, spattering, wax resist, textures paper, plastic wrap presses, indents on the paper,.
- Project: Using Special Effects
- Exercise: Abstract beginnings using the imagination (start with abstract color washes, pick on and then sketch on it, then roughly finish painting)
- Project: Developing images from abstract beginnings same as before, bigger.
- Project: Producing a preconceived image from abstract beginning
- Project: Adding defination to an abstract or semi-abstract beginning (pencil, richer paint. pen etc)
Personal Vision
Change Subject
- Exercise: Build up a visual resource collection (she uses a loose leaf photo album)
- Following an interest or theme
- Project: Painting a close up view (a series of close up view studies, macro- lens)
- Project: Painting a view through a window/door (including the frame)
- Project: Working in parks, garden and other special places (take studies do paintings)
- Project: Working from your imagination (using non-visual inspiration – like illustrating a story book. Can find visual resources after find idea)
- Project: Painting a special occasion (from memory sketches, etc.)
Change Approach
- Picking a format that is suitable is fun or changes conceptions
- Project: Try an elongated format (panorama,)
- Project: try a square
- Project: try a vertical landscape
- Project: make a small painting (miniature)
- Project: make a large painting (larger than life)
- Project: Go fast
- Project: Go slow
- Project: Paint a landscape in situ
- Project: Paint landscape in studio
- Project: Make a drawing first
- Project: Experimenting with different surface
- Project: Combining water color w/ colored pencils
- Project: Rescue Operation (crayons/pastels)
- Project: Rescue Operation (crayons/acrylics)
- Project: Painting assessing changing or keeping (how to cull)
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Could be titled as problem-solving with drawing techniques. Kept going back to using the “analog drawings” and interpreting them like teas leaves.
Benchmark Drawings (pg 15)
INSIGHT
Drawing Upsidedown (pg 25)
Chrysanthemum (pg 44)
Signature (telling lines)
- Signature
- Signature with other hand
- Signature with usual hand but backwards
- Other hand without looking
Draw Lines
- First fast
- Second more slowly
- 3rd very slowly
Can tell which is fastest “time becomes and embedded quality”
- Draw a second set of lines very fast
- Try to duplicate them (you can’t)
Drawing out insight
- Fold paper in 6
- Anger, Joy, Peacefulness, Depression, Human Energy, Femininity, Illness, Your choice
- NO PICTURES
Drawing on Intuition
- Pick a person
- Draw a frame
- Draw them (nothing figurative as before)
Drawing on Insight (pg 103)
- Pick something in current situation, don’t name it
- Draw boundary
- No figures again
FCB Grid (pg 110)
Take these analog drawing and turn them around
SATURATION – (learning how to see in your own media)
Basic Strategies (pg 127)
- Percieve the edges
- Percieve the negative space
- The relation ships
- Lights and shadows
- The Gestalt
Gesutre Drawings (pg 139)
- 15 sheets of paper/magazine/ pen magazine
- 15 drawing in 15 minutes
- in 1 minute draw what you see. (the first picture you lay you eyes on, start with border…)
Gesture Drawings… return to Insight exercise (pg 143)
Drawing at a snails pace (pg 146)
- Draw one wrinkle, then the next… then the next… then the next
- Paper is taped down and you aren’t looking
- For 10 minutes
Drawing analogies from perceptual thought
10 minute slow draw… in what way is the problem I’m dealing with like this object
Negative space
Draw the outside of your hand
Negative space 2
Put hand down on piece of paper that is the same as the one you are going to draw on… if get to spot that is too difficult, draw the space around it.
What do you really see???
The flag thing
Spyglass
Look at things through a tube to see actually shape size and references
Then try to see that w/o the tube (how to build THAT into tool??)
The picture Plane
Grid in fron of your face… pg 185
Establishing A SINGLE POINT OF VIEW (drawing vs. object)
Draw a grid on window glass, then draw on grid
Use a plastic grid to draw a corner
Now just you (imagine grid)
Now use viewfinder
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Excercise:
Pick a software application that you use commonly, for example, Adobe Photoshop. Looking at the drop down menus pick around 6 commands and invent gestures for them. Start with hand gestures, move to arm gestures and then try to use your whole body. Try to do this quickly. Use at least one down a level. Record your gestures as video, photographs or drawings.
Study Questions:
- What kind of application did you pick? Was it a text editor, a video editor, a graphics program? How do you think it would have been different if you had picked something else?
- Which was the hardest to do, limit the movement to your hand or spread it to your whole body?
- What did you use to record your gestures and why? Did you learn anything from the process? Did you revise your motion?
Concept Level:
Secondary, Body/Code
My Questions:
Should I standardize the commands to get cross-participant comparisons or since this is “for them” does it matter?
Why This:
This is a code/body interaction exercise designed to help people draw keyboard shortcuts and menu commands off a monitor/mouse/keyboard system and back into actual behaviors. Cut, copy and paste are 3 commands based on real world concepts, but what about “Filter > Sketch > Graphic Pen” The reason to have them record the gesture rather than just perform it in a class or in front of a mirror is to have them think about how gesture can be recorded, looked at or interpreted. This will help with designing machine vision algorithms… or deciding to use something else!
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http://www.flylady.net/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlyLadyMentors/
What - Marla Cilley founded a yahoogroup in 1999 as a way helping herself and others follow the “Side-tracked Home Executive” System. Several reminders are sent out daily to check in and remind people to do certain task. There are weekly reminders and monthly reminders, too. It is not a open list in that Cilley is basically the only one who can post to it, although she frequently share testimonials. It is however quite a community… 256,809 subscribers listed March 13. She has written a book, has an online store and makes regular radio guest appearances.
Why - I wanted to look at this system for several reasons. Firstly, because it started as a small personal endeavor and people simply started responded very strongly. It had natural resonance. Secondly because the community it addresses isn’t a techie one. Third, and most importantly, because its whole function is to create habits.
Differences - This system isn’t specifically educational, in fact Cilley specifically declines to give specific cleaning how-to’s because she doesn’t want to encourage perfectionism. The demographic is clearly married-stay-at-home-mothers… which is not what I’m going for.
Ideas - I like that most of the engagement is via e-mail, push. You don’t have to remember to go check the website for the “message of the day.” I like that the voices from the community are there, but the list doesn’t sink into off-topic banter… the peer-to-peer communication is off the list and home grown. Also, I kind of like that she didn’t build it (the news groups software) herself… she appropraited what existed. It is all about spending time on the core idea… not on the admin…
Excerpts & Notes
” Pam Young and Peggy Jones are the founders of the Sidetracked Home Executives (SHEs). They began this journey in 1977 with the book, “Sidetracked Home Executives from Pigpen to Paradise”. In this book, they tell the story of how they searched for organization in their homes and found it in the form of a 3x5 card system… ”
- http://www.flylady.net/pages/About_PamPeggy.asp
Daily Reminders:
7:00 AM EST GRAB YOUR CONTROL JOURNAL: CHECK YOUR MORNING ROUTINE
8:00AM EST WHERE IS YOUR LAUNDRY?
8:15AM EST IT IS TIME TO MOVE: BLESS YOUR HEART!
9:00AM SPEND 15 MINUTES IN YOUR ZONE (see zone section)
9:00AM EST 5 MINUTE ROOM RESCUE
9:00AM EST HOT SPOT FIRE PREVENTION (2 minutes)
10:00AM EST WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES?
10:15AM EST 27 FLING BOOGIE: READY SET GO!
11:00AM EST INCOME TAX PROCRASTINATION CHALLENGE
2:30PM EST AFTERNOON CONTROL JOURNAL CHECK
7:15PM EST START YOUR EVENING ROUTINE NOW
9:00PM EST HOT SPOT FIRE PREVENTION
10:00PM EST GO SHINE YOUR SINK!
11:45PM EST PLEASE GO TO BED:YOU NEED YOUR REST!
Weekly Reminders:
Monday - Weekly Home Blessing
Tuesday - 9:00PM EST TOMORROW IS ANTI-PROCRASTINATION DAY
Wednesday - 8:00AM EST REFRIGERATOR BOOGIE
Wednesday - Zone Clean and Partial Desk Time
Thursday - 10:00AM EST THE MOM SHOW: Please Call In!
Thursday - Grocery and Errand Day
Friday - Paperwork and Misc.
Friday - 11:00AM EST BOOGIE YOUR PURSES, BACK PACKS, BRIEF CASES AND DIAPER BAGS
Friday - 1:00PM EST CLEAN CAR BOOGIE
Friday - 5:00PM EST FRIDAY DATE NIGHT: PLAN SOMETHING SPECIAL
Saturday - 8:00AM EST FAMILY FUN DAY
Sunday - Renew Your Spirit Day
Monthly:
2nd Friday? - TIME TO CHECK THE GIRLS: Monthly Breast Exam
Zones Reminders:
http://www.flylady.net/pages/FlightPlan.asp
Zone work: first declutter, then do “Zone Assignments”, then detailed cleaning (beginer/intermed./advanced)
Zone 1: The Entrance, Front Porch and Dining Room
Zone 2: The Kitchen
Zone 3: The Bathroom and One Extra Room
Zone 4: The Master Bedroom
Zone 5: The Living Room
Routines
- http://www.flylady.net/pages/FLYingLessons_Routines.asp
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What did you accomplished last week?
- Attitude Adjustment - I’ve been kind of bummed and pissy and overwhelmed. I couldn’t even meet a lousy goal of 30 minutes a day thinking about it. It was touching too many nerves. But in the same school yard way my older sister never let anyone else insult me but her I’ve begun feeling very protective and growly… in a good way.
- New Blog - Websites are just too annoying. I can write them from scratch, but why should I? I installed Wordpress on my own server and now have an easier way to prove I’m not lazy. Wordpress is also flexible enough that if I do decide to create a web-presence for my thesis, a bunch of the work will be done already because it is based on mySQL. More importantly to me it has permissioning built in so I can keep everything in one place, invite everyone to the same place, and yet control the experience. It is still very very raw and I need to collect more of my work there, but there is a bucket.
- Continued Research - This week I’ve been looking at on-line curriculum/processes/journals. This was kind of a reaction to the "so what are you making" question so I can answer that with something comfortingly tangible.
- 1272 Words - An assignment done, and done on Thursday. Kinda the minimum, I know but baby steps. Maybe I’ll even make it to class on time, too. It also represents some progress in thought which doesn’t suck either.
What do you intend to do next week?
- Experience Flowchart - NOT use case scenarios exactly although they may come into play. If I’m talking about pedagogy I need to create a chart for what information people are exposed to, have access to when. Its the Information Architecture, really. This will help decide the delivery format.
- Format blog - make the bucket better. May seem silly but especially if I’m going to let other people engage with the exercises in this format I need to make sure their experience is clear, too… goes with the next one.
- Post some exercises- as of yet, nobody knows what I’m talking about when I talk about these things. I’ve got to get them up and accessible. Also, it is easier to fill things in than create from scratch, so that will help with going forward and doing them myself. I would like the way they are posted to be good enough to share them with Tom I. for feedback on the caliber of their content (not delivery).
- Over 80 % on freewrite/freedraw - So, with everyone itching to see "my work" you would think that DOING and posting the RESULTS to some of these exercises might be more important than the stuff that no one is going to see. Nope. I still might do that, but for my top 4 engaging with my thesis project every day, cornerstone 1, has got to be there still. Maybe I will post some of the drawing, though…
Any recent concerns or unexpected obstacles?
- Split focus - People do need an artifact to relate to. I need to spend more time on the final presentation of the format of the System than on researching what exercises or practices should be included.
- Daily attention - some days I just don’t care. I need to get better at engaging anyway.
- Where’s waldo - People keep thinking that what I make is the point. They keep wanting to see "my work." This is my work… isn’t it? I do want to get down and start having messy fun myself, but how do I convince people that coming up with the exercises is an accomplishment, too?
- Tool vs. Tool Kit vs. Medium - Most painters don’t use just one brush. They’ll uses many brushes, palette knives… a finger even. And then, they can choose between oil and acrylic and gauche, etc… Are they going to make their own paint? What colors do they use? What about Airbrushes? What about a painted ceramics? Is that painting or ceramics? It is really really muddy water and I think as the exercises progress I’m not sure if it will become an easier issue or worse because technologies inherant flexibility.
Any recent insights or surprises?
- Curriculum is a good word for what I’m doing in some ways. Christina Goodness came up with it.
- All of the above!
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What is your Need?
I am not making an object. If I could banish one question it would be “so, what’s the tool you’re making.” I don’t know. I don’t think it matters right now because I’m not expecting anyone else to know when they start, either (see section on audience). So, as for my need, it is to not be bored. My need is to have constant challenge. My need is to balance my own ability to generate one thousands thing to do today with creative constraints that will ensure one that one of them actually does. That is my need, and that is why I am “building” a system. I will succeed on this axis if I have a series of exercises and readings that I think are fun and useful and interesting for people who want to make their own creative tools. I might not have done them all by the end of the semester, but I should have critical justifications for all of them.
My other need is to reflect on the human condition, my condition. How do we think? How do we interact with stuff? What happens when we have more power over the world? This is arena that I care about and why I’ve picked a pedagogical framework. In the most disgusting, self referential, meta sort of way, the system itself is my best answer to “so, what’s the tool you’re making.”
What are people going to be able to see when you are done?
No matter how barefoot in the park I want to leave things, I do admit that I need to be clearer about how I, and others, will engage with the resulting process going forward. I was hoping that that would have been where I could have gotten help from the critics, but I did not present enough for that to be part of the conversation. Part of the difficulty is the usual schism for the ITP program, how to create engaging documentation for things that are part software, part hardware, part model airplane kit. Here are some options… not all of which are exclusive.
- A syllabus/Pitch for a class – I could collect from different universities, community centers what they ask for if someone wanted to tech a new class and tailor my documentation to outlines and talks and readings, etc.
- A basic DIY website – A website that doesn’t take in feedback. Like a book with interactive exercises. Question here would be: is it all up at once or is the idea to keep publishing new exercises? (oreillynet.com, marthastewart.com… hackaday.com)
- A book manuscript/proposal – Different than a website (for many many reasons) but partially because the whole idea really must be fully formed with a beginning middle and end of the experience decided rather than a more updateable “magazine-like” potential of a website.
- A community website – This would allow others to post their results to the different exercises, comments on their experience… or maybe even add their own excercises?
- A gallery website – curated examples of some of the results from exercises. Like the book “An Animated Alphabet” or as a personal documentary.
- A gallery exhibit – Why not show the objects off? Put the tools on a pedestal?
- A “blogging” Software – A software that others can use to create their own documented online journey using exercises.
- Software – who really likes working on the Web? A desktop application because it is a private journey, with maybe the ability to publish certain exercises to a community website? To their own Blog?
- An moderated email newsletter with the new exercise and related materials delivered to your inbox.
- Newsletter/Kit-of-the-Month club where eventually people would not only get the exercise but a box of all the parts or certificates or whatever they need to do it.
Who is this for and how will they interact with it?
The format issue can’t be resolved until I answer the audience question, at least in part. I do know I’d like to think of my results as being more Leonardo di Vinci Journal than Creativity for Dummies, and yet I want it to be accessible.
Skill level: I don’t know if I have solved my lowest common denominator issue, but for now I am going to work with the idea that my target would be people with skill level equal to a minimum of a second semester-itp student skill level. Still very broad, but I’m choosing that level because for right now I do not want to get into very basic programming 101, but I am okay with the idea that people might not be super comfortable with it already. I don’t want to explain how to use an EPIC programmer, either. These are areas I feel can be beefed up later, supplemented or “out sourced” if need be. Likewise I expect to the audience to have been to a gym once or twice in their life or maybe have gone out dancing instead.
Why: I think the people who would be interested in engaging with the process would do so because they intrigued with the idea of making their own–perhaps purely symbolic–creative tool. If that were all, however, a simple collection of pick-and-choose exercises would suffice. My audience is people whose current process is failing them some how. No one follows someone else’s plan if they know what to do. I think there needs to be more of a sense of a guided journey–a friends highlighted, annotated, copy of Lonely Planet to travel with? In the end it should feel like their trip, but never like they were at a loss to pick what to do that day.
Venue and Duration: This is something people have to be able to have in their own territory. It belongs to them and they have to be able relate to it and own it over a period of months. I would be hesitant to incorporate formalized result sharing over the web in the thesis itself because I think that is contrary to the spirit of private dialog. What specifically I’m worried about in the case of open-to-all forums on the web is that they very quickly seem to become more about status than learning. I don’t want anyone to feel like their process is less valid because SuperKid39 has already posted 100 versions of what she did for Exercise 19. It is totally different to borrow a friends written in book than to buy your own travel journal to discover that someone has marked up all the pages. I think it is important and valuable to have engagement with fellow travelers, but that needs to be balanced with preserving the feeling of walking on your own patch of untrodden snow.
Do you have any guinea pigs other than yourself? How soon do I expect to bring in other people?
Really good questions. Can I and should I have other people try certain exercises? Absolutely. What I can do is get the exercises up, whether or not I’VE done them, somewhere other people, first years and professors and alumnae can look at them, try them out and give me feedback when and where they can. This won’t be the same as having them follow “The Program” but it would be a start. After all, these are kind of the point.
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http://www.designboom.com/aerobics/transformer.html
http://www.designboom.com/aerobics/
Italian eZine on design with online classes. They have articles and competitions and these classes…
Why: Ethos here is that design is process that must be kept up. Must keep your hand in the game or it wears out. I can but that… my drawing these days SUCKS ASS…. I’m sorry, was I shouting?
Differences: Series of classes. Charging for it … 59.00 for 2 month course. In the context of bigger publication. Theme is “keeping your hand in” Instructors
Ideas: How much history/context/back up are you really going to do? Is each week a mini site? 35 excercises of 2 months… wonder how they decided that? SO the past 2 have had interaction with people in either a public posting/moderated kind of way, or with instructors. Books don’t have that…. the importance of the final format once again rears its ugly head.
Excerpts & Notes
Transformer Chair Lesson Plan (40 Lessons)
http://www.designboom.com/aerobics/transformer.html
- history part (10 lessons)
context
- basic design exercises (10 lessons)
training practise
- points of view (10 lessons)
*design theory / comments by well known designers
selected on the basis of their professional credentials and practical experience.
- final design / individual project (10 lessons)
the fun of designing a transformer chair !
Urban Lighting Plan(Newer format, 35 Lessons)
http://www.designboom.com/aerobics/easy.html
basic lessons
(15 lessons)
please read and practise at your own pace !
- context (7 lessons)
- design + society (4 lessons)
- creativity skills / general training practise (4 lessons)
specific lessons
(20 lessons)
work on progress, please respect deadlines of homework !
- aerobics exercises (6 lessons)
- words of… (3 lessons)
*design theory / comments by well known designers
selected on the basis of their professional credentials and practical experience.
- case histories (7 lessons)
*design products by well known designers and newcomers
- results / participants work (4 lessons)
*** final design / the fun of designing an urban lamp !