Week 5
Refining Direction
This week, I managed to add in the distance sensor. However, I couldn’t improve the animation very much just yet. The distance sensor works the same as the first iteration, where it opens when closer and closes when further away. While it does work, the animation is still very choppy at the moment.
I’ve also prepared a moodboard for today’s consultation. I’m still going for something that feels a bit more uncanny, more wires, more “device art” kind of look.
I also did a sketch of how I imagine these objects to exist, placed in a small-scale room where they are the only things present to be observed and interacted with. I imagine this more as an exhibition piece.
Consultation Notes
Objects need a certain level of intelligence if people are to interact with them. The project is also shifting from a design object into more of a media art piece. Design and media art have different reasons to exist. Design has a function, while media art often exists to express meaning through technology. Media art has a long history, some say 80 years, some say 200 years, and became more influential from the 80s to 2000s. It often deals with technological mayhem and acts as a kind of warning about future conditions. At the time, media art can seem strange, distorted, or even pointless, but looking back 10–20 years later, people often realise that these artists were pointing towards real societal shifts.
It also touches on topics like post-humanism, which is something my project is starting to move towards as well. There’s a lot to learn from media art, but it’s important to recognise that my work is moving away from a design context into a media art context. One concern raised was that my idea might be too ambitious. While the concept sounds interesting, the challenge is in actually bringing it together and making it work.
The way I’m using animated eyes also affects the persona. Animated eyes feel more like a character, whereas using real eyes might bring in themes of humanity or post-humanism. The intention sounds like these objects are meant to create conversations, both between themselves and with the viewer, but that’s actually quite difficult to achieve in practice. The distance sensor might not be the best way to enable this kind of interaction.
Another important point was that I may have moved away from the idea of discomfort. The project is starting to feel much bigger than that initial intention. I need to consider what kind of discomfort I actually want to create, and whether this should exist as an exhibition piece or as something within an everyday environment. It was also suggested to look into media artists like Nam June Paik, Louis-Philippe Demers, Stelarc, and Yehwan Song, especially in relation to robotics, interactivity, and how we perceive machines.
Not gonna lie, things are not looking too good for me right now. Just when I thought I finally had a hold on what I’m making, it kind of slips through my fingers again. I think sometimes I forget that the gap between how I envision things in my head and how I present them to others can be quite big.
That’s probably something I need to work on: not getting overly ambitious, and making sure that if I do have a vision, I present it clearly so others can see the roadmap too. I completely understand the feedback, and I do see how I’m deviating from what I originally set out to do.
So what do I do? I’m going to reel it back and take a proper step back. Next week, I’ll need to focus on dissertation writing, so going back to my research should help ground me again and remind me what I’m actually trying to achieve.