Posters in situation

Here is my poster series displayed in context when arranged on a wall.

The Final Poster Series

Here are the final jpg versions of my 9 piece poster series for the 'if/else' programming function.

300 word description of my project

Looking and analysing the if/else programming term, I began to understand that a real life metaphor for this particular concept hinged and was essentially focused all around making one, or a series of decisions.

My exhibition piece looks at this concept through my chosen medium of a poster series, which visually tries to capture the catalogue of decisions we have to make in order to reach a final outcome. I chose to look at a ‘decision making topic’ that most people at the design school who would be viewing the exhibition would easily be able to relate to and understand, and that was the subject of looking through the Victoria University course guide book, and having to make the slightly painstaking and labouring decisions on which courses one should take.

I attempted to portray a series of decisions in a way that would appear visually striking and catch the viewers eye, with the poster series coming to a powerful metaphorical climax in terms of decision making that we all had to come to. And that was the challenge of choosing and making the decision of whether we wanted to become industrial, media or culture and context designers.

‘If’ DSDN 104 is chosen for example, that leads to pursuing Industrial Design. ‘Else’, DSDN 142 gets chosen, hence going along the lines of Media Design. A simple coding breakdown of the process.

It’s almost like the layering of decisions, some more important than others, to lead to a final outcome, something that still involves a decision to be made and I felt that this poster series would be a powerful way of showing the if/else coding metaphor in a real life situation.

Inspiration for the poster series

Here were a series of posters that provided the inspiration for creating a progressional poster series.

I also found this poster that was the kind of aesthetic style that I wanted to go for throughout my poster series, focusing on that explosion of other images from a focal centre point.

Another idea change

After looking into my idea of using projectors/a lighting system to portray graphics that get prompted by a user, I researched the possibility of actually obtaining such equipment that I would require for the project. It soon became apparent that the cost of getting the required equipment was just too much to be reasonable, so this prompted yet another change of idea and plans.


I looked through the first 3 ideas that I had come up with, and I felt that my idea 1, the poster series, was the most reasonable idea that I could attempt in the time that I had available to complete this project. 


I made some alterations to this original idea though. Instead of the singular figure that remains the same in the series of posters, I decided to make a more relevant and fitting 'if/else' metaphor by using the Vic course and subject choice book, focusing more particularly on the school of design and choosing the option between industrial design or media design, in particular showing a more distinct, 'if I choose these courses, I will do industrial design, else, I'll do media design instead. I felt the subject of course choices at the design school would be quite fitting and relevant for people, as they would have had to go through the same decision.


  

An idea rethink

I thought that my third idea was far too similar to my idea 2, so I came up with a new concept and here it is.


New concept for Idea 3:

An interactive exhibition using projectors/projections of images onto a particular medium such as screens or a sculpture of some sort like layered cubes. The interaction of this display would come through how people react with a certain set of buttons maybe? Different buttons will trigger different images that the projectors will display. Maybe a mood sensor if that's possible? Having a camera that the user will look into and based on the shape of their face, a corresponding image gets displayed.

Possible interaction ideas

• virtual dice
• heat sensor
• face shape sensor
• distance sensor
• microphone? Audio capability - image changes depending on how loud you clap for instance. 

Project 3: Planning and ideas for the exhibition

 Right. Here we are onto project 3, the biggest and last project for creative coding. The coding function that I intend to take and form a metaphor out of is the 'if/else' function.


The if/else function is basically categorized into making decisions in the application based on information given to it. It's a conditional. It relies on other variables to function.


Essentially, the if/else function is like a metaphor for decision making or something along the lines of choosing your path. A crossroads in a way. However, the if/else function or metaphor isn't only related to a 2 pronged decision - "Should I do this or should I do that?" Instead, it is able to present itself with many different courses of action, much like real life situations where decisions are required.


Possible project ideas. Visual metaphors.


Idea 1
Poster series trying to highlight how different decisions will lead to different outcomes and scenarios for the same person.
So have person standing there in the same pose, looking over their shoulder maybe? But the location/scenario in every poster is different, however the person in each poster in always performing the exact same pose, so there is a sense of continuity.


Idea 2
Short movie clip. First person clip. Attach a camera to an individual's head, and track progress throughout the day or something like that. But then replay, and maybe animate it like a video game so that each decision making moment, list options or buttons appear showing all the different possibilities that this protagonist could take and then 'pressing' the desired chosen option.
Inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uUyHwoVPFA


Idea 3
An interactive idea of idea 2 maybe? Where users are offered the opportunity to select choices and the clip re-enacts those options that are chosen... So almost like a visual interactive piece.

Project 2: The final transformation

So here it is. After a fair bit of aesthetic changing, but not too much physical code changing, I've been able to come up with my final piece of work for the Project 2: Transformation. 


The link to it on open processing is: http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=27965

Slight changes

Because I had a lot of trouble with my previous version and my inability to get the balls to bounce of the rectangles and make sounds as they did so, I decided to change my idea slightly. After having a listen to the sounds that I was using, the mysteriousness and eeriness of them made me feel that, instead of a neon theme to my transformation project, I would go for more of a space/depth vibe to it. And that way, I would be able to incorporate my sound properly, as I knew how to code sound to play for when the balls pass through different parts of the screen, instead of my inability to code sound for bouncing balls.

Some pretty awe-inspiring nebulae

Progress over the holidays

The 2 week easter break was a perfect time to be able to fix up all the issues that I had surrounding my current work. Seeing as the batch of problems that I was having with my code seemed to be very numerous, I decided to re-write my code from the start again, therefore hopefully being able to come up with a fully working final piece of code that would be clean, and properly functioning!