Brooks' Blog

I created a blog for my project. All the process and installation pictures are up on there. Go check it out!

Maraya Paths:

Under Perspective

Blue Blue Blue

The People

As I showed in class, here are some of my drafts for my final project. A lot of them are just experimental and seeing what I could do with the images and what kind of reactions they may evoke. After getting some feedback from the class, it seems as if simple is the best way to go. The implication of a silhouette seems to carry the message across without the need of “Mind the Gap” or any other accessories.

False Creek has been both the poster child and the ground zero of Vancouver’s acclaimed ‘urban renaissance’ – the transformation of the city from resource town to world-class metropolis.  However, this transformation comes with a hefty price and as time goes on, the result becomes increasingly obvious.  As one walks down False Creek, the two sides of the shore stands in stark comparison. One side is filled with high rise towers while the other is filled with construction cranes. When photographed for events such as the Olympics or even simple postcards, it isn’t difficult to guess which side is neglected. For this project, I became inspired by the construction side of False Creek and have decided to combine the two sides. I will place construction and warning signs along False Creek. However, these signs will be modified to comment on the segregation of the creek.  These signs are meant to mimic real signs and blend in with the environment. Upon closer inspection, the viewer will realize its displace. This is a commentary on how most people remain unaware of the differences between the two sides of False Creek as it seemingly blends in and will only become conscious upon inspection.

Today, Simon brought in a large variety of props for us to experiment and play around with. First, we chose the blind fold because it seemed the most amusing. I was the one that was blind folded while my partner walked me around the South Building. It was very disorienting because even though the images I’m “seeing”/remembering in my head seemed correct, when I took off the blind fold, I was in an entirely different place than I had imagined. This reminded me of one of our class discussions where someone brought up the study of how people walk around in a circle if their senses were blocked off. This fact really makes me question space and the way roads and cities are built. If the natural path of humans are circular, why are our cities built like this?

The second prop we played with was this block of metal. Simon said it was meant for us to kick around and see what it stuck to. This activity felt a bit violent and childish. After kicking it around in the hallways and getting strange looks from people, we decided to go around and just try to stick it on random objects like the bulletin board or the wooden poles around our school. In the end, we found a pin from one of Simon’s props hanging onto an installation and decided to add on to it by sticking our block of metal on it as well.

Here are some of my photos from the False Creek walk. I also took some videos from our Ferry ride but I won’t be uploading them. Today, Simon talked about his Maraya project and the seawalls of Vancouver and Dubai. It surprised me that somewhere across the world, there are similar architecture designs as Vancouver. In a humorous way, it reminds me of Las Vegas and how they have replicas of unique architectural aspects of certain countries.

The project I did last semester is a community-based project that explores the idea of alternate identity we often see in today’s social media sites.
http://superme-nation.tumblr.com/

The project I am interested in is Masterpiece 2.0. It’s a social media project by Baschz and Selfcontrolfreak.  ”In the summer and fall of 2009 a multilayered canvas and animation was created which could be influenced and followed by website visitors online 24 hours a day. Six weeks long and through actions like Introduce Object, Shirt ‘Em and Cameo Appearance website visitors could interact with leading character Selfcontrolfreak. Each sent in gesture added a new animated interaction as they were painted layer-by-layer into the growing animating canvas by Baschz”

The whole coming-of-art process could be followed live through a webcam and Twitter feed, on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Fotolog, etc.

http://masterpiece20.com/

This project was honestly a lot of fun. The first thing that popped up in mind when thinking of an interactive narrative was…SCARY STORIES. !!  I remember I use to play these games a lot when I was young and it was a lot of fun.

However…when we actually started to do the project, it got a LOT more complicated. Writing the script was no doubt, the most difficult part. Each option branched off into another three options which branched off into ANOTHER three options. The options became too much and it was hard to hold the story together. Luckily, this is a scary story so when the options got too much, we just make the main character die.

The coding wasn’t that hard for us because our group had a bit DW experience. It was fun scaring ourselves with what could happen and thinking of ways to kill off our classmates….heh Just kidding.

Our story is actually a bunch of scary movies put together. The death scenes are always from the scariest part in the movie aka the Ring girl climbing out or the Grudge grabbing your head in the shower….freaky stuff. The awesome and interesting plot though, is 99% original

Here’s the link~ Go play it and freak yourself out!

http://www.ecuad.ca/~klam3179/pages/title.html

Google Earth…the bane of my existence. It was actually a fun project because of the topic that I decided to do (if it wasn’t for the DIFFICULT technicalities >:( ) I had a lot of fun going through old photo albums with my mom – although we seem to do this once a year, it never gets boring. I always enjoy seeing what my parents looked like when they were younger and it’s always interesting to see the places that I apparently went to. The theme for my project was a sort of like a projection of my mother’s memories through me. I was so young that I never remember any of the trips before I was 7 but because my mom tells me about them so much, it feels like it’s my own memories now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DybPGz6juaE

^This was the song I used during the tour. I’m glad everyone liked it ^^ I chose the guitar version because I felt like it gave it more of a nostalgic kind of feel which was I was aiming for in these pictures. I also photoshopped all the pictures and added a bit of a old photo kind of feeling. The colours are more neutral and less vibrant which is meant to show how these memories are fading away for us

This article was definitely the most interesting one yet.  I’m a “gamer” as well so I can relate a lot to it. Although I still can’t play hardcore”guy” games, I like myself a bit of mmorpg now and then. I can see why it seems like girls don’t like to play typical ‘boy’ type games because there’s usually no plot line behind it or it’s just really violent but for me personally, I never really care about the story. I always find it annoying when I have to read through pages and pages of dialog just to get to my next destination (honestly, I just play because I think the graphics are pretty and that means my character will be pretty too).  I think it has a lot to do with graphics – I like more cartoon-y or animated graphics. I enjoy playing Street Fighter and other mindless fighting games but when it comes to games like Counter Strike or basketball where they use super realistic renderings, I lose interest completely. I think it has a lot to do with the fairytale complex a lot of girls have.

Game designers are tricky people. I only realize that I’ve been learning business after doing a lot of trades with the buy low sell high technique. Laurel makes a good point when he says that these games are only fun when it’s (secretly) subtly teaching you. I never liked those learning “games” I had to do in French class where they made me guess a word – it wasn’t fun at all. Game design is getting better and better and a lot of games aren’t just geared towards one gender anymore. I honestly think pokemon is the best game ever invented because both sexes can proudly admit they play it without feeling awkward/questioning themselves.