#ReflectiveBlog

[superanjventure]

Q&A With Myself — On Life, Writing, Nursing & Everything In Between

A slow sit-down with my own soul, and maybe with yours, too. Sometimes we need to be asked the right questions to find the answers we’ve been carrying all along.This isn’t an interview. It’s a quiet confession.A journal entry in the shape of questions.A coffee date with my own shadow and light. Let’s begin. ✨ Q: How are you, really? A: Honestly? A little tired. A little tender. A little…

[jonesy2821-blog]

Reflective Blog

This blog post is about my MDD 410 Emerging Multimedia Technology class.  It will discuss my experience, what I hoped to have learned, what I did learn, and what I can/will apply to my future studies or career.   Before I started this class, I did not know what an emerging technologies class would entail.  I assumed we would be learning about new and current media trends.  I figured that we would expand on the knowledge more of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and add what new technology was introduced.  Also, I figured we would learn about new technology that we could incorporate into the design process of these websites.  I will say, in going into this class, I kept my expectations low, but was pleasantly surprised on the knowledge I gained. So, what did I learn?  Well starting in week 1, I learned how to make a map in Google Maps.  I never knew that anybody with a Gmail account could do this and publicly share it.  Another first for me was QR Codes and 3D printing. I have always seen QR codes but never actually knew why and how it was created.  I didn’t even know there was a website that generated the code for you.  3D printing was pretty cool, and I would really love to explore that aspect some more.  It was interesting to read and see all what a 3D printer could do and help the world as well.  In week 5, I made my first online game of Tic Tac Toe with Google Drive.  We worked a lot with Google as I always used this interface daily, but I was taught how much more I could do with it.  We also discussed about AR (augmented reality) which is an emerging technology that continues to expand and grow and will most likely be 85% of our future.  With each week, I gained more knowledge of new and exciting technology around us. What helped me learn everything in this class was mostly being hands on.  I am a hands-on person, so having our weekly discussions helped me understand what were going to create and from there my creative side of my brain came out.  Each weekly project that we created helped me understand why we used certain technologies and what we could do with it.   In conclusion, class MDD410 Emerging Technologies was a huge success.  I was a first timer on many of the projects, but it helped me explore different avenues in technology.  This class showed me an expanded path I could take with my degree.  From week 1 to 8, all those lessons will be used and passed on to future classes and my career.  As I mentioned earlier, I would like to revisit 3D printing sometime here in the near future as this is another technology that has piqued my interest and seems to continue to advance each year.  All in all, I had fun in this class and learned a lot.

[bingxin-f-blog]

My mind map of the week 2 reading material Gillespie, Tarleton. “Algorithm [draft][# digitalkeyword].” Culture Digitally (2014) Proper writing WIP.

[reflectingturtle]

Blog 1 - Could I live without Digital and Communication Technologies?

In this week’s blog post I will be discussing the week 1 driving question, about whether or not I believe I could live without Digital and Communication Technologies. Throughout the lecture and tutorial for week 1, we mainly had an introduction to the course, learnt about what the assignments will be, and what is expected of us as students in completing the course. However, in the tutorial we were asked the question “could you live without digital and communication technologies?”

Before I start saying more on the topic, I feel like it would be useful to specify what “digital and communication technologies” really means. My tutorial class defined it as multiple things, the ones that stood out being; a way to communicate with people from all around the world, an online community, and pieces of technology that are used in our day to day lives.

As a whole, my tutorial class were certain that we would be able to live without digital and communication technologies, however as we discussed this more, we realised that most of us barely remember a time where we have not been surrounded by some kind of technology allowing us to communicate with the wider world. I know personally, that although I have always done lots of sport and had younger sisters to play with for most of my life, my family has always had a TV, phone and even one of those huge box-like computers that my sisters and I could never quite figure out. We would nowadays be described as “Digital Natives” (Prensky, 2001), and it is true. Although I’d like to believe that I could live without digital and communication technologies, unless I was forced, I don’t believe that experience would go down very well.

Until next time,

Brigette

[go-thebloglesstraveled]

Simple Presence.

Being present is the latest catchphrase in a world living for the rush but dying for some peace. Being present is about entering into each moment and living it fully without the inhibiting contemplations of past and future. The past is gone and the future has no guarantee. But how does simple presence look? In what ways can it manifest for every person? For my practice, I monitor simple presence with physicality. If I am walking, I will take a moment to notice the flexing of my feet on the ground, the rush of air past my palms, the pace and gait of my step. If I am sitting at my desk staring into my computer, I will take a moment to pull off my glasses, blink my eyes, flex my wrists, and move my body. In these actions, I am taking stock of my body’s present position in my life and in the greater scape of the world. I am taking a moment to realize every detail of the physical objects of my life, including my own body. It may seem crazy to imagine your body in the span of the universe, but these real moments of awareness help to propel your mind into this reality. In these moments, I am forced to consider exactly what my body is doing and this helps me to refocus my mind. While meditation is an important part of my development, I think of these actions as small meditations throughout the day that center me in my world. Gaining simple presence is just a matter of choosing to stop and take a moment to collect and reflect. Choosing to focus on physical elements of the present is something I do to counter the concept of total metaphysical reality. While it is vital to understand the human body and soul in these two realms, centering the physical body in the physical landscape can help to feed the mind in ways I never expected.

[zoehargraves-blog]

Final Reflective Post

Looking back through the process of recording this blog I have found it an extremely effective way to tangibly articulate my thought processes and analyse my progress. Commenting on activities and practices has enabled me to gauge their validity and plan my future approaches more productively. Assessing my strengths and weaknesses as recorded in the blog has successfully led me to be a much more reflective learner. Whilst posting I was acutely aware of the need to go beyond mere description but ask myself questions such as “Why?, Is this successful? and What next?”.

Within the blog I strived to create a balance between documenting academic research and work from leading practitioners at the forefront of my specialism. I was extremely mindful not just to document this but add informed opinion of the work.

The blog has also been a useful way to document resources and organise my research and I have often found myself revisiting it to access sources I have referred to.  

In approaching the blog I was aware that I should only add carefully constructed, relevant posts and favoured quality over quantity. I researched numerous academic blogs and found that many employing the approach to blog much and often were seldom that successful in evidencing their process effectively. In completing two modules simultaneously time management was critical, therefore I had to restrict the time I spent on each activity in order to not only complete all unit work, but to do so at a level I felt was demonstrative that my practice is of Master’s level. I did feel I wanted to devote more time to the blog as I was enjoying the process and the results it was yielding but had to prioritise my time efficiently.

Varying the content of my blog was highly important to me and I posted a mixture of examples of my work and that of others, video content and academic models. I also found documenting my development work a constructive task that aided my development in the Practice 1: Art and Design module.  

One area I struggled to grasp initially was how to make sure this was an academic blog with correct Harvard referencing. Many of my sources were web based and the referencing convention for this was unknown to me. After some careful research I resolved the issue and feel more confident with the structure.

In reflecting further on my methodologies, I have found the use of case studies extremely useful in the Research and Practice module, I was hoping to add further methodologies to this such as surveys but as time was limited I opted to use it to dedicate to the coursework in hand. It is certainly a task to be explored in future modules.

In summary I have found the whole process to be extremely valuable in informing my practice, improving my reflective writing skills and leading me to investigate alternative sources. If I was to redo the activity I would perhaps set myself more rigid time slots to blog in, but feel my approach of creating posts at what I found were relevant junctures to reflect upon an extremely effective approach.

(525 words)

[ctechno-blog]

CTEC502 Reflective(10)

SUMMARY

In summary I would fail this assignment if it was marked solely on APA referencing.. I will definitely go back and take the proper precautions next time but with all my other workload at the moment and probably my less than exceptional time management, I did the best I could. with that out in the open: Let the show go on. Introduction to creative technologies has been a bit of a ride for me, many new concepts. wrapping my head around new ways of thinking. Not always knowing what all it was building up to. It’s been a bitter-sweet relationship to put it bluntly. Now that we aren’t too far from the end I think It’s all sinking in however , like I can now see the collection of lectures as a whole  and connect some dots; maybe not all the dots but about 98%. The lectures we’ve had made me realize how out of the loop I’ve been on new technologies and the directions we are heading as mankind. They’ve opened up many cans of worms which I feel good about exploring. I feel however I’ll need to put in much more effort and manage my time better in order to do better.  I’m still stuck in familiar territories which I’ll try harder to step out of in the future. That, I guess ,concludes my reflective blogs for now.

[madmaxkapow]

Peer review

Wrong Tree

A review by Max Kapoh

A game not yet ripe

Wrong Tree is a 2-week personal game by Connor Mackay. It is a 2D sidescrolling platformer in which the player controls a green apple that falls from a tree that grows red apples. The objective is to roll up a hill where there is a tree that grows green apples. In addition the game is meant to act as conduit for the author to spread a personal opinion/message. So while the designer needs to employ proper game design, they also need to manage telling the audience something.

When the game begins it instructs me to move up the hill. Through text signs on the level geometry, I am quickly taught I can jump and bruise. So far the basic elements of game design are being applied appropriately. The rest of the game, however, only executes the simplest of 2D platformers; jumping from platform to platform to get from point A to point B. Even though crude green arrows tell me which direction to go, there are times where I’m expected to jump off of a platform with the destination platform being more than a screen away. Conventionally games like these progress from left to right, and you usually know this means jumping off the right side. However, there are situations in this game where this is not the case, and there is no feedback to suggest that.

The game ends with the player being shown the developer’s message through walls of text. In saying that I’ll conclude there is no connection between the game’s systems and the intended message. So as far as the game goes it falls short on what it set out to deliver. This seems to be due to the fact that the game seems unfinished. In its current state I can’t write a review in terms of the game relative to its pitch. That’d be like comparing apples to oranges. However, since I know what the original design pitch was, I will write a paragraph to talk about what the developer’s intent through the game’s systems were going to be.

The player was meant to be challenged while traversing up the grand hill to the point where the apple was so bruised it was practically red. This means that upon arriving at the other tree, the player would be red, and the other apples green. I understand the design choices here would have conveyed the struggles of feeling alienated. I could already guess this when it was being pitched. The origin of the apple in addition to its bruising and the rather ironic arrival symbolize internal alienation; the struggles of living in a body where one does not feel at home. It is a shame to see this game in an unfinished state, as the original design bore a distinct, powerful, and personal message. I hope some day we’ll see it come to fruition.

Out of all games by our peers, this one might have been the apple of my eye, but on top of the failure to communicate the intended message through an unfinished game, there were also several bugs. Some graphical bugs in the level geometry, a sound bug when you’re fully bruised, and another graphical bug when the apple falls a long distance (background turns black.) There was also a lack of audio where I think audio could have greatly supported the message through communicating pain/struggles.

In conclusion, I’m rather dejected that this project didn’t reach its full potential, and I hope for the next brief we see Connor Mackay’s great design in a game where we can all enjoy the fruits of his labor.

[dsgn-ed]

SPARK LABS // SPACES TO PLAY - CREATIVE EVENT 3

I haven't always enjoyed skating. I liked the idea of it but I wasn’t really that good at it. But now I skate a lot on my longboard as its a fun way to get around...in summer the current weather situation in Auckland is not that conducive to long boarding at the moment. 

Spark Labs “Spaces to Play” talk at Seafarers Britomart was all about skate parks and skateboarding. Travis Wooler (architect) and Chey Atarai (Well known NZ skater) spoke about their roles in the building of skate parks all around NZ and their past experiences in working on these parks and how much work goes into them.

Chey presented a timeline slideshow showing how skateparks progressed and developed in time; he showed how they changed from being simply concrete poured into a bowl but how as skating evolved so did the parks; albeit at a slow and painful pace. He talked about how often they were poorly built and designed and placed in fringe areas to keep “troubling” youth outside of the main population areas. 

Travis and Chey aim now to work together with councils to build new skate parks which work better; have proper design and function. It has specific ways for traffic to work in the skatepark, design to make it part of the landscape its in and most of all to design a skatepark people want to come and use and encourages people of all ages and backgrounds to use it. 

This was an incredibly interesting talk and I definitely felt like this was an important event to go to. This showed the very thing we are learning to do. Create solutions for problems through the use of multiple disciplines, ideas and technologies. Travis and Chey have worked hard to combine peoples opinions, materials and technologies in the construction of the park to make it safer and better for everyone involved in it. This is exactly what my end goal in this degree is; to work in fields not usually conventionally combined. It really showed me the incredible diversity someone could have working as a creative technologist in the field and I felt a little inspired to one day work on a project like this.

http://www.sparkboroughs.co.nz/#/

This project run by Spark is all about building basketball courts all around Auckland and I would have loved to be involved in a project like this and have emailed the head of marketing about maybe shooting some of the openings of the courts and I can't wait to see where and how they find solutions for the problems that may eventuate.

Would I go to something like this again?

Yes...that might be a little biased as I ended up winning some really cool clothing at the event; but nevertheless it was an inspiring and eye opening event and it taught me a lot about what work as a creative technologist could look like. It was a very real explanation of what the work I do one day could look like or involve if I worked as a creative technologist and I can't wait to see where this degree takes me. 

[up722760]

ERPD Reflective Blog Post

          As I expected from the career portfolio, these first learning log activities would enable me to develop my professional skills and attitude towards applying for a job and/or placement. 

          The first task, the BrandMe poster, was originally perceived to be difficult, as I had never encountered such a poster before, nor knew how to write a BrandMe (personal) statement. However, after researching how to write an effective statement, I could then create my own.           The content allowed me to explore my own strengths and weaknesses, which I might not have done otherwise. It was important for me to carry out a SWOT analysis in order to accurately create my own personal brand. -- Employers want to know that applicants are authentic, genuine people; self-awareness is an essential skill to develop.            Presenting to a class is easy for me when I am in a group, however this task required individual presentations, which made me feel uncomfortable and nervous. I had written notes down on paper, but forgot to use them. -- An obvious mistake. In retrospect, I can ensure that this doesn’t happen again and should practice the presentation beforehand, as this would help to build my confidence when presenting alone.

          The second task was to write a CV and covering letter for a company of my choice; I chose to apply for Bosch’s Corporate Communications Assistant.  Although I had written a CV before, it had been years since I had done so. I felt worried at first, in case I didn’t have enough experiences to write about, but used the example CV and checklist from Purple Door to extract all relevant skills from my volunteering experience, as well as extra-curricular activities.            The covering letter was far more challenging. I felt very concerned about this final part of the career portfolio; I had no idea where to start. I looked online, searching for sources to aid me in such an unfamiliar area. In the end, I tried my best, as I knew I would be getting feedback before the final submission.

          The feedback, as mentioned above, was from a review meeting at Purple Door with Jacqui Adams and my ‘study buddy’ from my seminar group. This was by far the most useful part of the career portfolio, as it allowed me to get feedback and reflect on what I had done right and wrong, prior to this blog post. It was also interesting to see another person’s CV, and I was also able to take advice given to them, such as optimising the use of space and layout of each section.           Jacqui suggested to use more interesting ways to make our CVs stand out from other candidates by using different colours and formats; to demonstrate our skills of graphic design. This is definitely something that I wish to implement in the future, now that my CV is fully updated.

             Ultimately, I now feel more prepared to apply for placements, and know that I can receive guidance from Purple Door. It is reassuring to know that the University will always support and encourage my professional development.

[bingxin-f-blog]

Week 2_Responding to Algorithm [draft] [#digitalkeywords] by Tarleton Gillespie

My mind map of the week 2 reading material Gillespie, Tarleton. "Algorithm [draft][# digitalkeyword]." Culture Digitally (2014)

What is Algorithm? Tarleton shown us the definitions of Algorithm in four different aspects:

Algorithm as a technical solution to a technical problem - a logical series of steps for organising data to achieve a desired outcome quickly.

Algorithm as synecdoche - in a more sociological angle, it’s a kind of socio-technical ensemble, part of a family of authoritative systems for knowledge production or decision-making.

Algorithm as talisman - it’s like a trick for information industries, to persuade the audience that the product, or saying the designer/corporate owner makes objective, legitimate decisions.

Algorithmic as committed to a procedure - In general, everything that is driven by and committed to algorithmic systems is algorithm.

To be honest, this reading made me feel like everything in our society could be algorithmic: products we use daily like Facebook, Spotify, Tinder, Instagram etc. Everything related to statistical data is algorithmic. And we can’t really run away from those “number facts”, even when we made decisions by ourselves, we consider the social norm that generated ethnographically, as well as the one generated by algorithm.

When something is algorithmic, it’s a formalization of social facts: make them into “measurable data”, and make the social phenomena “clarifiable”. So there would be always problem and solution. Like certain conditions leads to certain result, like the "if/then" logic in the technically defined algorithm.

But is everything measurable? Does every problem have its corresponding solution? When we think about something organic, something emotional. Algorithm seems a bit stark and inhuman. Like nowadays some people would like to see their body (organ) data to estimate their health situation. When we say ‘you’re out of shape because your body fat percentage is too high’, it still sounds reasonable. But when we say ’you’re angry because your epinephrine/heart rate number is raising too fast’, it sounds not communicating anything at all. (‘You’re angry because your friend didn’t answer your phone’ sounds a bit more communicable.) So seems generally, algorithm is not very useful for something organic and emotional.

(However, if via algorithm, we applied those organ data to generate visual/audio/something people can sense with, it’d actually function well in these emotional communications.)

To prevent people from falling into a confusion that everything is algorithmic, Tarleton also talked about what is not algorithmic:

something done subjectively,

something done by hand,

something can only be accomplished with persistent human oversight,

something is limited by context, etc.

So I started to think about the examples. The first few things I came up with is photography, painting, telling stories. Traditionally, these are very subjective and creative behavior. They are more about personal experience, personal aesthetic, intuition, and perception, rather than logic and statistical numbers.

However, another extremely contradictory example crossed my mind: Botnik, a community of writers, artists and developers using machines to create things, fed the seven Harry Potter novels through their predictive text keyboard, then it came up with a chapter from a new Harry Potter story: Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash

Then following this clue, I found another AI writing example: Director Oscar Sharp and AI researcher Ross Goodwin used a recurrent neural network called long short-term memory, or LSTM for short to write a film script, and made the film Sunspring, for Sci-Fi London, an annual film festival that includes the 48-Hour Film Challenge. The process was quite similar with Botnik’s Harry Potter. They fed the LSTM thousands of sci-fi film scripts, some random seeds from a sci-fi filmmaking contest including a title (sunspring), a piece of dialogue, a prop and an action, and an optional science idea, then the AI started writing the play.

Although such ‘AI writing’ are just reflecting on and simulating the human-written texts we’ve fed them, there’s actually nothing ‘creative’. But I have to admit that I found some of those contents are unpredictable interesting, or even ineffably poetic to me. So I guess the random composition created by the algorithmic could be organic, emotional as well (depends on different people’s different interpretations).

In summary, as Tarleton said in his Algorithm [draft], the advantage of algorithm is its democracy, systemisation, and we also concern that it might be an extension of Taylorism, it might be too stark and inhuman. But from some computational art works/ practices, I saw the ineffable human side of algorithm, and I think that’s what we are working for, breaking the boundaries, collaborating with the machine, and showing better humanity.

Reading materials:

Algorithm [draft] [#digitalkeywords] by Tarleton Gillespie

Harry Potter: Written by Artificial Intelligence

Movie written by algorithm turns out to be hilarious and intense by Annalee Newitz

Illustrations from Megan Nicole Dong

[firstpersonretrospective]

Critics, Reviewers, and Journalists

Critics make the world of art go round. From fine art to video games, literature to television, stage theatre to film, the artistic world is at the mercy of those with a journalistic high ground. Creators of art rely on critics - academic analysts and reviewers alike - to provide feedback, insight, and publicity for their works.

It’s a symbiotic relationship. Critics thrive on the work of artists, which they consume and analyse. Artists depend on critics to reflect on their work, interpret it, deconstruct it, rip it apart and judge it for the world to see. Whether dripping with negativity or wrought with praise, a critic’s careful analysis of a piece of work can be just as important as the piece of work itself. Thus, as artists, it is important to maintain a good relationship with those in a position to define our work in the eye of the public.

Reviewers, the media, and the industry of journalistic critique is one of your most important keys to success as a member of the creative world. Reviewers will experience your piece of work - be it a game, an animation, a film, a song, anything - in the way it was intended to be experienced, and give a judgement on its artistic merit so that their audience (which is also your audience) can decide if it is worth their time and money to invest in your product, whatever it may be. These people are known as “opinion leaders”, whose thoughts on certain works can help guide public perception of the thing you have created, and play a huge part in determining whether your piece will be a memorable hit, or if it will be destined for the bargain bin at a supermarket. It is important to understand and respect the power your reviewers hold, and be sure to maintain a professional relationship so that they can be aware of your products and give timely reviews before their release. This means sending review copies of your products out to reviewers so they can experience it without needing to pay for it, and publish a story about it so that their audience might become your audience. This means keeping in touch with reviewers, making sure they know how to contact you and in the case of game development, perhaps even give them previews of early builds and access to exclusive news about your game. This is an honest way to drive media attention to your product, which results in improved audience anticipation. Provided the end product turns out at the level of quality promised in the press, your work should become successful as a result.

However, it is also important to understand that negative feedback happens. Sometimes, your product launches and despite all your best efforts, it is panned by critics. This is bound to happen in everyone’s career at least once. Something in the production misses the mark and you don’t quite capture your vision the way you had intended. In this case, it would be unwise to lash out at critics and claim that they “don’t understand the game” or “misinterpreted the film”, or try to claim that “this music isn’t for you anyway”. This kind of damage control is dangerous and can quickly result in the public ridiculing you not just as an artist, but as a person. When facing negative criticism, the best way to react would be to simply learn from the experience, take the feedback on board and try to improve on it next time. Audiences and reviewers alike relish in the artist whom actually takes feedback on board and improves their work; “It’s as if the developers heard every criticism we had for the first game, went back to the drawing table and improved the experience from the ground up in every way possible.” The moment a reviewer gets the chance to say something like that is the moment the audience flocks to your product, desperate to drink in all those improvements.

Finally, there are the critiques. These pieces will deconstruct your work in ways you thought impossible, breaking it apart and interpreting it in whole new ways you never dreamed of. Usually, if your work is critiqued and analysed on this kind of level, it is an utmost form of flattery. It means your work has become so culturally significant, such an important part of the period in which it was released, or such an interesting work in general, that someone decided it was worth their time to pick and prod at it and truly understand what makes it just so good. In other cases, it may be to discover what makes it so bad, and that’s okay, too. You should pay attention to critiques, but never try to correct them, as a person’s interpretation is their own, and even as a creator, you usually have no right to try to adjust those views. Offer insight when it is needed, and answer questions as honestly as possible when asked, but never expect someone’s interpretation of your work to completely line up with your own. This is one of the trickiest parts of accepting the public perception of your work, and where a lot of artists truly fumble. If you can work to appreciate everyone’s views on what you make, you will only evolve as an artist.

Criticism is a tricky business for both the critic and the artist. It’s something we will all have to deal with, both on the positive and negative sides, and some of us will have a harder time with it than others. But the best we can do is take all feedback for what it is, take it onboard, and approach our subsequent work appropriately. Critics will criticise, and artists will art.

[madmaxkapow]

Postmortem: Third Culture Kid, a personal game

Third Culture Kid is the product of a project in which I was required to design and develop a personal game in the span of a single week. Through design, a personalized message was supposed to emerge from the (ludo)narrative of this game. Rapid prototyping usually only produces proof of concept models to convey ideas in a physicalized form and usually only take a few days to a week to produce. However, due to extraneous events an extra week was given for this project.

It can be downloaded for free here or here:

What went wrong

1. Design The concept for this game quickly came to mind, but in the following week it became evident through the feedback I received that conveying the struggles of the 'Third Culture' was not as recognizable a problem as I had thought it to be. In addition to that, I was adamant to keep it as abstract as possible, which I feel exponentially added to the problem.

2. Production As can be seen from the screenshots on the download page of the game, soft colors and round shapes had been used for an approachable and friendly first impression. After completing what was even an alpha build to a prototype than anything, I received constant feedback on how I could improve the message I was trying to send. It was too abstract and there wasn't enough clarity or player feedback to support what I was trying to convey.

This was when it became known I would have an extra week to complete this project.

So a week goes by and none of the ideas I had come up with resonated with the abstract design I had set out to create. Then, two days before the deadline I received some very strong critique that really made me take a step back and rethink some of the design choices that I had made. In my quest to keep the implementation as abstract as possible, I had also abandoned a few chief design rules in teaching the player the rules of the game. (In the final version/first release I had exactly forgotten to implement teaching the player about one of the core mechanics though, which I later received as feedback.)

What went right

1. Production I took that afternoon to really re-design my main menu (the first impression) and the first 10 seconds in-game (where I set the scene and taught the players how to play my game.) I spent the next day and entire night (until early morning) to re-implement the new design and polish it as best I could. While I sacrificed a lot of the abstract mood of the game it gained overall quality.

But in the end it paid off.

2. First reception So the first release exhibition of the game was that same day. It was exhibited to my peers and mentors, and I received a lot of useful feedback. I processed that feedback in next 2 days and updated the game on itch.io accordingly.

What was learned from the experience

What I ultimately learned was more a general skill than anything specific. While it's true that I learned to remember design values, I feel a much more important lesson was the reviewing and processing of feedback in terms of a prototype. I feel like it was immensely productive to have a steady flow of subjective and objective feedback.That, and. . . trying to convey very specific ideas through abstract means, tends to be an easy trap for dissonance between game design and design intent.This ultimately boils down to honing my skills as a rapid prototyping designer.

[dsgn-ed]

THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON - CREATIVE EVENT #4

A MOVIE...FOR AN ASSIGMENT. This was a little bit different to the usual sort of work you'd expect to do but I absolutely loved watching an action packed Marvel Movie for an assignment. 

Film is something which interests me greatly; I do a huge amount of photography but there is something about creating a film that I love just as much if not occasionally more than photography because in a few frames or seconds it captures movement or stirs an emotion as it literally shows something happening...and Avengers sure had a lot of things happening.

Avengers Age of Ultron is the second instalment of the Marvel movie series; based on the Marvel Comic universe a band of superheroes must battle together to stop a mechanical artificial intelligence from wiping out human life on earth. 

But why did I go watch this film as a creative event?

Animation, special effects, design, cgi. These are all literally “Creative Technology” - the use technology to create new imagery or effects and animation. We are currently involved in a huge amount of coding work; most of to animate objects in a window. The movie is that very concept except on a scale thousands of times more intricate the a few balls bouncing around in a window.

I watched these two clips from documentaries and behind the scenes videos about the way in which the CGI, animation and special effects work was done in the film and it absolutely blew my mind. The amount of time and effort that has to go in to get something like this working is incredible and I can see why some of these films need such huge budgets to employ the number of people they do. 

They have to create an entire digital plane for the characters and objects to work in and translate real camera footage and CGI into one sequence and I cannot imagine how hard that has to be but I think that Id love to sit and watch them work on it; however painstaking it may be.

The animators work with the filmmakers and directors to turn the vision inside all these creative individuals heads into a realty...a computer generated one. Whilst watching the movie you knew it was all fake but it looked so real; from the buildings and explosions to the characters when they wearing being animated, it all looked like the actual actors even when they were in CGI.  As wee learnt on our very first introduction to the degree during our tour, this was in fact the magic of the MoCap lab. 

Would I go to something like this again?

Is that a serious question; of course I would. I love film and watching these action packed movies with huge amounts of special effects and camera work because it involves almost every single one of the fields I enjoy. Film, photography, animation, music, design, acting, the list goes on.

I learnt a lot doing my research into what goes on being the scene of these films and now I definitely have another thing I’d like to add to my bucket list: work on a big budget film in some shape or form and hopefully it'll be sometime soon.

[bingxin-f-blog]

Week 1_Responding to ‘A Fish can’t Judge the Water’ by Femke Snelting

What’s the relationship between us, the user, and software? Is a software just a tool that we create, and we control it to solve certain problem? How deep do we and the software interlace together? How does software choreographs our life? Do we use software to think?

In ‘A Fish Can’t Judge the Water’, Femke claims that when we use software, we practice it until we in-corporate its choreography. We make it disappear in the background. It becomes a seamless experience. We become one with our extensions.

I couldn’t agree more with her points. We are one with the software. Of course I’m not saying like the half-artificial human creature in cyberpunk films like Ghost in the Shell. But sometimes, it’s hard to tell which parts of our thoughts are spontaneous, and which parts are influenced by the information from the software’s calculation.  

For example, everyone types on smartphone, or types on computer, must have used IME (Input Method Editor). No matter it’s in English or Chinese, or other languages, when you type through the keyboard, the IME will automatically predict and recommend some related words for you to use next. But where are these words from? - One on hand, the software analyses your texting history, and finds out what words combinations you mostly used. Like it ‘remembers’ your habits and preference. On the other hands, the software also analyses the other general users data, and finds out what words are used very frequently by the majority. Then it would push some buzzwords for you when you typing.

That is, in the process of considering how to express your thoughts, the software is unconsciously affecting you. It’s quite ambiguous that the reason you chose this word it’s you really thought so, or it’s you just told by the software. And when you used a buzzword, you increased this word’s ‘popularity’ in the software data. Then this word will be more likely to be recommended to an other similar user next time. This also explains the other point in ‘A Fish Can’t Judge the Water’: Software produces culture at the same time as it is produced by culture.

Instagram (IG) Story is an other perfect example related to these points. When you posted a IG Story, everyone can see it in 24 hours, and you can see who have watched your story. And in story, you could add in any time, location, hash tag information, and even set questions in it. Your audience could fill in the answer in your story, then you could respond to them in your next story, an so on. So is the same when you watched the others stories.

I think these functions in the software are designed because of the culture of open and equal communication/expression. And obviously, people are getting more open and equal to express when they use these software functions. So software produced by culture, and it produces culture at the same time.

And I think this extremely two-way communication/expression really blur the boarder between performer and audience, or like Femke saying, typist and reader. We have fun with things like IG Story is because we are interested in the tension between those two position. (Can’t really explain why people enjoy this kind of tension here. Hopefully I can find some theory about it later.)

To summarise, I really like what Femke says in the end of ‘A Fish Can’t Judge the Water’: We like to cross boundaries, but we don’t want to erase them. We traverse different worlds, we do not make them the same. In fact, we are interested in everything that shows up in the cracks.

Boundaries are definitely necessary. If there’s no boundary, there’s no diversity and possibility. Like I’m interested in arts/design that about the boundary between virtual and reality. But I know I would never enjoy doing something totally digital/virtual. In fact, the beauty is that I clearly know the virtual and the reality is different, but it’s hard to tell when I experience it.

[firstpersonretrospective]

Income, Employment and Art

Sometimes we have to face harsh realities in life. Death. Taxes. The Tooth Fairy isn't real. Firefly was cancelled after one season. Winter is coming. Candy Crush is successful. The Kardashians remain popular. These are facts of life, and unfortunately they are unavoidable. All we can do is accept them for what they are, and try our best to live our lives as best we can despite them.

Another such fact of life is that employment is hard. Sure, it may be easy enough for some of us to land a part-time job to earn some extra money for video games or drinks while studying, but I’m talking about actual, post-uni full-time entry into the “workforce”. Statistics suggest that as of 2015, Australia has hit an unemployment rate of 6.4% - the highest it has been for 12 years (ABC News, 2015). One can only imagine how those in the art industry might struggle to find work with figures like that.

While as a game designer/developer the dream may be to start a small independent studio, create a little game about mining, building, and crafting, sell thirteen million copies over the next few years and then finish up by selling the property to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, but really, how often does that happen? The reality of it is that there are thousands of other aspiring game makers out there with the very same dream, each of them as sure as the next that their creations will be the next big thing. Not every game can be the next big thing, though, so unfortunately that dream won’t come true for the vast majority of us.

If we are going to make a living out of our fields in art, we need to make some compromises. Chances are that we will each need to bite the bullet and just accept the facts of life. We will likely need to look for jobs working for “the man”. If we're lucky, we might get a chance to take a job with a big company like Ubisoft or Activision. “Lucky?! But won’t that mean I’ll end up working on a single gun for 12 months for a game I’m not allowed to know the name of?” I hear you ask. Yes, that may be the case, but at least you might have a decent wage and a taste of job security, and although you seem to be working on something menial, you just might find yourself gaining some valuable experience from those who work around you, right? And in the meantime, you should be earning enough money to support yourself and your Magic the Gathering addiction, and in your spare time you should have the opportunity to work on a project you really care about. 

Of course, this doesn't just apply to those in game development. Animators dream of landing that job for Pixar, Graphic Designers want to land contracts for ad campaigns with big, prolific companies, musicians want to write or produce the next Triple J Hottest 100 chart topper. But while working on their portfolio for that future Pixar interview, or spending long nights finding those perfect tunes for your debut album, you might need to take whatever small jobs you can find just to keep yourself fed. Maybe eventually, you could even produce a successful Kickstarter campaign to get that first, dream project off the ground for real.

Art is not an easy industry, and not everyone can be the next Notch or Marc Ronson or John Lasseter. Not right away, anyway. In the meantime, we need to take those small jobs, working our way up to living that dream. Maybe one day, who knows - we might produce an iOS game that outsells Kim Kardashian’s, afterall.

Jenda, M. (2015, 13 Feb) Unemployment surges to 12-year high of 6.4 per cent; 12,200 jobs shed - retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-12/unemployment-data-january-abs-jobs/6088070

Minecraft Wiki, (2015) Timeline of Events - retrieved from http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Timeline_of_events#December_5

Owen. (2014, 15 Sep) Yes, we’re being bought by Microsoft - retrieved from https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/