Research Map_0910
Design Questions
Refined Research Questions from last week:
What's the impact brought by online information explosion/fragmentation?
How does Internet-based media influence our perception of text-based information?
How can I use natural language generation by machines to convey/enhance/add uncertainties to my initial ideas?
Design Questions:
What are the negative impacts brought by Internet-based media that influence our perception and judgement of text-based information? (For example, it makes us get used to scan and skim short contents, and lose the ability to express or read convoluted prose at the same time.)
How can I create an experience that can demonstrate this issue / phenomenon, and provoke people’s awareness / thoughts about it?
How can I use natural language generation by machines to convey/enhance/add uncertainties to my initial ideas?
Precedents from DT Community
1. All in Pieces (Shuangshuang Huo, MFADT 15')
Thesis paper: http://digitalarchives.library.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/PC020402_2015_huos845
“All in Pieces” is a projection installation with optical manipulation, web access and data sonification. It creates an immersive environment for audiences to resonate from their daily experience of information fragmentation, which is caused by the explosion of information on the Internet and the expanding of social media.
This precedent almost has the same domains as mine. I’m also interested in information fragmentation on social media, and want to provoke people’s awareness in some artistic form. I like it that “All in Pieces” creates an immersive environment by using physical materials such as glass, and inputting data from real time Tweets into it to generate contents. By combining physical installation with web-based data, it
However, the contents from Twitter in this projection installation is not legible enough during the whole experience. The audience can only have an emotional feel about the whole phenomenon. What I want differently is to include legible text-based contents and focus more on the misunderstanding process of online communication.
2. lostmounta.in (Evander Batson, MFADT 15')
Thesis paper:
http://digitalarchives.library.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/PC020402_2015_batse087
Lostmounta.in is a landscape artwork built out of geospatial data and social media assets. Named after a site of Mountaintop Removal coal mining in Kentucky, it is an art website that meditates on the connection between the seemingly ethereal engagements of a social media post and the macro-scale alteration of the physical landscape for its fossil fuels in order to power those online engagements.
“When a social media user casually posts an image of a beautiful and pristine landscape to a sharing platform, the electricity powering this online interaction is derived from and contributes to a cycle that levels mountain ranges in the most immense way imaginable. ” wrote in the introduction by Batson.
It is impressive that Batson demonstrate the connection between human behavior on social media, online data, and the natural landscape in a visually compelling way.
3. Words (Jing Sun, MFADT 18')
Thesis paper: http://digitalarchives.library.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/PC020402_2018_sunj648
Intended as a fresh perspective for poetry lovers, Words is an interactive spatial installation that utilizes projection. Guided by the organized yet dynamic words on the floor, a user walks in the space and subsequently creates a pattern with their choice of words which then generate a poem. Visual and audio effects, along with the user’s movement in the space, are to enhance the experience of creating a poem.
As an installation with text-based contents, Words gives the audience a chance to take part in the generating process by inputting their own choices into it, instead of just watching or listening. On the other hand, the importance of text-based content generation is legibility. If I’m considering to demonstrate the negative impacts from online media, legibility will definitely be a core feature in the whole project.
Draft of my first prototype
My idea of the first prototype would be a “telephone game”.
By dividing people into groups of 5, I’ll give the first one of each group a convoluted story / report, they will have 3 minutes to read through. When they finish reading, they will be asked to summary the story within 20 words, then give the summary to next person of the group. Each of the following 3 people will have 1 minute to convey the main idea of the message to next one. When it comes to the last person, he will be asked to give a comment of this story. All the conveying process will base on screens: volunteers are required to use their phones or computers as media.
By testing this game, I want to simulate text-based information communication process among online media. There may be a large gap between what the first witness understand and what the receivers get. Information is being reconstructed, invented, planned, crafted, selected, or adopted by each communicator.
Reference: Em Griffin, The First Look at Communication
Related Communities
Draft questions:
What was your initial intent / motivation / insight of making such project?
What’s your opinion on information fragmentation now?
Do you think your final project matched your initial design questions?
What was the most difficult part during the process?
What was the most impressive comment by your audience?
Do you think social media is making people more “lazy and stupid” in critical thinking?
What’s your attitude towards text-based information on social media?
Future steps in next 2 weeks:
week 4 (9.17 - 9.23)
Looking for precedents about fine art games / independent games
Define and narrow down the audience
Choose one certain impact brought by information fragmentation/explosion as the theme for prototype 1
Interview some the the most related people
week 5 (9.24 - 9.30)
Refine game mechanism of my Major Major piece
Refine the website
Continue doing interviews and readings