User:Chrissy/T4 Assessment

1̽s̽t̽ Y̽E̽A̽R̽

SI27: ༘Experimenting with the fabric of time𓂃⊹ ִֶָ

"Time perception and reception with a sensor connected to a microcontroller through GIF sequences created in the terminal. There are also memes."

Full description on my wiki project page: .. ༘Experimenting with the fabric of time𓂃⊹ ִֶָ *

During reading texts in class about the Industrial Revolution, I decided on working thematically around the topic of (wage) labor. In the first year in prototyping class, we got introduced to ImageMagick, a free and open source software suite for converting, editing and manipulating digital images and can be operated in the terminal. For this Special Issue I wanted to work again more visually and avoid using Adobe software completely, so I rediscovered ImageMagick and decided to dive deeper into its functions and use it to generate a GIF animation with found memes, images and quotes of texts I researched around my topic of (wage) labor. This content I manipulated and edited with scripts I rewrote and remixed and found anywhere online. This approach helped me in using the terminal itself more deeply and the software as an alternative graphic design tool for image editing.

Besides the poetry project, this one also introduced me more to some kind of semi-randomisation in coding. So I exchanged partly scripts, numbers and color codes with semi-random values and "uncontrolled" the outcome. The process itself was accompanied by allowing and using errors and glitches.

The GIF itself I connected to an Arduino board (microcontroller) with an ultrasonic sensor through TouchDesigner. The sensor detected the distance of the viewer and played the speed animation of the animation accordingly. If the sensor detected a further distance, it played slower; with reaching it more closer it played faster, which made it in both ways rather impossible to read its texts completely.

With the result, I wanted to point out the perception of time, if we're looking more closely to things – how time flies and also stands still in different situations. How we're losing time easier when we try to hold more onto it. To questioning the prioritization of wage labor vs. free time.

the GIFExhibition Telecommuseum

write poetry

This project, besides the Special Issues was more or less the starting point of my interest in randomized scripts.

In Manetta's prototyping class, we used a Python script for automated poetry based on A House of Dust by Allison Knowles from 1968.

I fed it with a bunch of verbs, adjectives, nouns, locations (as where), prepositions, articles, pronouns, emotions as smileys & emojis and ASCII sparkles as decorative end elements. All the words and elements are generated randomly.

Full description on my wiki project page: write poetry

In total I made four different scripts and the fifth together with Eleni and Sevgi for Valentine's Day.

The first one, Do absolutely nothing was meant as an anti-productive poem or act, with a suggestion of doing absolutely nothing somewhere with something while doing something (not).

...

const poetry = ${randomPrepositions} a ${randomAdjective} ${randomWhere}, ${randomVerb} with ${randomAdjective} ${randomNoun}s and ${randomAdjective2} ${randomNoun2}s, while ${randomVerb2} to ${randomNoun3}s ${randomEmotion} ${randomSparkles}${randomSparkles2}${randomSparkles3}${randomSparkles4}`;

statement out of three words, including an adjective, a noun and a verb.

...

const poetry = `${randomAdjective} ${randomNoun} ${randomVerb2} ${randomSparkles}${randomSparkles2}`;

recommendation included  a verb plus an adjective and a noun to get a result as an emoji or emotion.

...

const poetry = `${randomVerb} + ${randomAdjective} ${randomNoun} = ${randomEmotion}${randomSparkles}${randomSparkles2}${randomSparkles3}`;

a poem is more like a "coherent" poem or text with pronouns, verbs, nouns, and adjectives.

...

const poetry = `${randomVerb} + ${randomAdjective} ${randomNoun} = ${randomEmotion} ${randomSparkles}${randomSparkles2}${randomSparkles3}`;

love letter used another array of words, like "term of endearment", all XPUB1 names + tutors, excitements, machines,  feelings, other machines, typical XPUB/WDKA stuff and letter endings.

...

`My ${randomDear}, You ${randomExcite} me more than ${randomPlotters}... When I see you my heart ${randomPeeps} like a ${randomPrinters}. This valentines day, hug me as tight as ${randomSomething}.

This script I wanted to transfer into JavaScript to use it on a webpage as a poem generator: write poetry generator

The sections, except for the love letter, are still a work in progress because the sentences have many grammatical errors. But since I work on it, I kind of embrace the errors, because it shows that it’s generated and let's stumble over the text.

t00ls

My interest in using alternative tools also started way before XPUB, (also during my graduation) but exclusively with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) engines and tools. Using paged.js for the SuperVisual HyperZine for the Special Issue 26 and the Self-Evaluation Publication for the Piet Zwart Institute gave me an entry into generated graphic design engines. This starting point connected to my interest in randomness and its limits, brought me to my graduation idea and project.

2̽n̽d̽ Y̽E̽A̽R̽

⚹Prototypes⚹

I want to investigate the possibilities (and strategies) of randomness to be anti-system/counter-system and its limits in graphic design/making.

* Randomness in the use of free and open source software/engines. This examination is more a process project with open ends to embrace the practice itself by collecting and presenting scripts, observations and generated image graphics in an online playful (educational) logbook.

** as act of taking out control of designing. Automate and question the process and unpredictable outcome. Basically: setting elements in random positions

Project Proposal

• situatedness of power user Adobe software over a decade; avoidance of comforting tools and traditional graphic design background

• collecting and presenting experiments in online logbook. ➜ Trying out different ways of documenting and presenting.
  • no step-by-step tutorial, more library for scraping, sharing and reusing.

• scripts of alternative engines: rewrote, mixed and implemented randomization/noise as starting point.

• discover and automatize ways of generating layouts/graphics in sake of randomization and means of randomizing algorithms
  • eventually finding ways to generate printed matter as well and ways to connect engines/layering different techniques and approaches

• conflict I will question and explore: contradicts to intention of lack of control by feeding with precise algorithms, binaries, scripts and inputs?

• alternative tools as counter-practice against established and not often questioned systems in graphic design practices

• investigate, if randomness contradicts for me the given status quo.

• Motivation: finding anti-capitalist strategies in graphic design practice, sharing these as form of alternative tools and sharing openness in trying out even without deep knowledge

Thesis Outline

• strategies and connected unpredictability, chaos and relinquishing control in use of creative computing/coding.
  • ➜ rejection and resistance of historical principles/rules of traditional graphic design.

• interest designing more unintentionally and against rigid design rules emerged from experience as graphic designer and disappointment of lack of freedom and creativeness

• 1st chapter: short explanation illusion of graphic design in general as sacred “cult” in its visuality, theory, and practice and my situateness

• Perpetuating and upholding glory rules, norms, and principles (by white cis men) contribute to stabilizing capitalism and consumption.

• 2nd chapter: Anti-Design as an alternative/counter-practice in the use of alternative tools:
  • reactivate term in my own terms (mostly used aesthetics)
    • rejects supposed design rules/norms; embraces chaos, asymmetry, and noise
  • compare the aesthetics with today's consumer culture and misused trend

• 3rd chapter: examinations of the practice of Anti-Design and randomness, uncontrol, unpredictability through experiments, observations, documentation and logbook

• process into alternative practices
• embrace the practice and the work itself

• “unproductiveness” and togetherness as a tool against capitalist systems

Workshop

On the 24.11. I was giving a workshop for XPUB2 including a little 5-min writing session, introducing and working with WeasyPrint as a poster-making and layout engine. At the end I was asking to fill out a little survey with Excalidraw, a free software layout tool, about questions I am asking myself during my graduation process.

Try Out Night

Based on my Prototypes I was working on, I wanted to bring them as a first draft into a logbook in printed form.

"I am trying to experiment with possibilities of randomness in free and open source software to be anti-system and its limits in graphic design/making. This examination is more a process project with open ends to embrace the practice itself by collecting and presenting scripts, observations and generated image graphics in an online playful (educational) logbook, which is presented today as a very first sampled printed form. 🛼"

Here you can find a video of

my first logbook

I was using a similar survey at my workshop for the Try Out Night, to ask visitors in which practices they position themselves and what kind of tools they're using. Later on I want to ask other (befriended) artists and graphic designers similar questions and want to learn from their practices and tools for my graduation. This survey I wanted to use as a first try to build upon.