Negotiated Project
This term for the module IDAT 203 we’ve got the assignment to make this big project in 12 weeks (the amount of time before the crit)
We’ve got 6 weeks to think of possibly ideas to do our project on, as this is the critical context module we’ve obviously got to think about the context of it, why we’re doing it (that’s the difficult part I’ve got to think why do something and not just do it! lol) as well as being able to tie it in with previous work.
It’s really hard to explain, maybe because I’m not like always 100% 1) what they want and 2) what I need to do.
I’ve got 6 weeks to think of something before I have a 15 minute crit in front of Joasia’ and one other person to present my idea and to receive critical feedback from them. (All of which should be ‘constructive’ but I’m still not looking forward to it)
First Meeting with Chris
Today was the first meeting with Chris after I got the brief last week, me and Claud met up and got the technology we’re gonna be using for the project, but unfortunately neither of the phone’s were charged so we couldn’t do anything with them. We both had our own ideas and were still a bit on the edge of whether we’ll be working on separate projects or on the same project and have different blogs and marked on them. This was all cleared up, we do work on individual ideas and projects and just have meetings as a pair to get ideas etc. Not sure if I mentioned this is an earlier but my idea is more history based on the building, so I’ll be focusing more on that than anything else. I’ll be looking at the history of the French P.O.W from Dartmoor Prison who built Drakes Leet, and the reservoir that’s behind Portland Square, and then go to the second world war and look at Portland Square being an air raid shelter and that history, and finally go into the today and see students walking around going about their own business. I’m planning on having each atrium of the building be a different time in history so starting with A or C which ever one is the further up the hill and walk down a timeline to today. Of course I need to link each part of the building together with the time to prevent people from walking around aimlessly. Not too sure how I’m gonna jump from the 17th Century to the 20th Century but it’ll need to be done. For the actual idea I was thinking of having a video with characters from each time period around the atrium going about their business of that time, such as the French digging the Leet, with French being spoken and hear the digging, now in order for anyone to feel as if they are there I need to do something similar to what Janet Cardiff did in London. Last year when the course went to London we did this tour thing (I suppose you can call it that) where you listened to a pod cast of some sort by Janet Cardiff as she walked around the streets of London, you followed her path as she was talking you through it. It was really weird but at the same time really interesting as you were experiencing what you were hearing. For me to do that I need to research Binaural which can make certain noises from one ear to the next I think, well that’s what Chris told me but like I said I need to look into it more to see how I can make a binaural sound track. Before I can even begin to record or film anything I need to research the history of each time period to get the material I need to make my project.
Magic Trick
After having a group meeting, we’ve decided that for our assignment we’ll do an application that will teach the user how to do a magic trick more specifically a card trick.
We’ll make the application in flash using animations, audio and video as we feel this will be one of the best ways to teach someone a trick.
We haven’t yet decided how we’ll make it and what our roles are but at least we have a general idea of what we want to do. Before we begin though we need to hand in a proposal of what we want to do.
Portland Square Pictures
Before the next session Chris Speed wanted to see some photo’s from the area we will be working in. Today me and Claudia went around Portland Square taking random pictures from around the building. below are the pictures we took.
IDAT 204 Term Two
This morning we had the first meeting with Chris (as a whole group) to talk about the brief for this terms project…which he changed after he pitched to us his first brief. It was mainly to due to the fact that both me and Claudia looked so confused as to what we would be doing for his project. He changed it back to what it was last year which sounded a lot more interesting than the other one (I’m not even going to attempt to explain the other brief). For this brief we can chose from a range of technology which we hire out and use for a day each week, and create something to work on those technologies (basically anyway). It’s a bit out there and we can do whatever we want with it, it’s sounds pretty cool and interesting. Me and Claudia are working in the same space, not sure whether we work on separate projects or the same with different aspects of it. Either way we both have our own ideas, we got given well we chose Portland Square as our space, and the theme we were given initially is ‘Disconnected Voices’ although Chris did say that we don’t have to work with those words it’s just to give us a starting point. A Portland square has a lot of historical background i.e. with the drake resivour? which lies behind the building, and with the world war 2 air raid shelter that was bellow the building I thought about involving that in with my project. For instance you’ll in a particular area of the building and you’re listening to all the noises of voices of the space and environment noises, yet on a certain technology when held to the same area or something they see ghost like figures moving around in reality or with pre-recorded footage. It’s just a preliminary idea, with a lot work but it’s better than having nothing!
Oh No
I have another meeting with Joaisa, a chance for me to give her what I’ve got so far for her to look over and offer some tips and suggestions.
I was hoping to have something more to show her unlike last week when I just had an idea and a structure…however the books I’ve taken out of the library haven’t proved to be as helpful as I thought they’ll be.
None of them really answer the basic question of What is Sound Art…instead they jump into big complicated words and sentences that don’t really make sense to me…so they don’t really help as I can’t turn what they’re saying into anything that I can use.
I have looked online and apart from Wikipedia there haven’t really been any websites to give me much information. I can find stuff for the comparasion but then I know I’ll go more along the lines of what those art forms are rather than the Sound Art.
I have a bad feeling about this essay 
E-learning
We had an exercise we needed to do before this practical, we had to split into pairs and one person had to teach the other person something new.
We could teach them anything and teach them anyway we want to, because there were odd numbers there’s three of us in this group – Me, Claudia and Aqeel.
Claudia would teach me and Aqeel a card trick, not sure what the card trick was called though…she taught us by showing us the trick to begin with then went through the card trick stage by stage.
In the meantime we were filming the whole thing on Claudia’s phone (as mine ran out of battery) to show the others during the practical.
She did the trick on me, and then I had to show Aqeel and to check to see if both me and him got the trick he then had to practise it on Claudia.
I think it went quite well, we both were able to run through the card trick smoothly on others with no prompting and in the case of Aqeel changing the hand movements slightly which then made it harder to see what he was doing.
This was succesful as both me and Claudia thought he had done it wrong until he pointed out by doing it the way he did it it adds to the confusion so even if the person watching the trick thought they figured it out they miss it and it confuses them.
We showed the video and the trick to Katina and the others during the practical, Katina liked it and also liked how we taught each other the trick.
Us three will be doing the assignment together…just need to find out what we’ll be doing our application with.
