Archive for the ‘confusion’ Category

Data Visualisation

Friday, February 6th, 2009

I haven’t blogged for ages. In fact I’ve barely blogged so far this unit. This is because I found myself having fun down the rabbit hole we call the internet. I set up an RSS reader for the first time and have been reading design blogs and other interesting things. So, I have things to write about.

I think we still don’t really understand what the internet is. It’s seen almost as a magazine or newspaper. The design of most web pages doesn’t really take in to account the changing sense of space online. The information visualisation potential of a web page moving from one state to another is incredible. I’m often slightly bemused by the fact that this isn’t explored further. I guess these things take time, money, research and are a nightmare to bring into standards compliance.

Click here for the rest of the post…

The big bang and what came after

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

One thing about this project that I’m really pleased about is the fact that I read ‘A Briefer History of Time’ by Stephen Hawking and thoroughly enjoyed it. It made my head go a bit funny. It had never really occurred to me but apparently space and time began with the big bang. They’re both entirely relative. That fact in itself is pretty mad. Time moves more slowly when closer to a strong gravitational force. This is part of how a hypothetical astronaut who travelled through the universe at light speed would be younger than their twin on their return to earth.

Click here for the rest of the post…

March 3rd 2008

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

I’ve been chewing over what folks said at the group crit. One thing Andy said was that I should think about the opposite of all. Many people would say that would be none. I’ve talked about this a little bit in my first post for this blog, when talking about Derrida and the concept of the trace. You could easily say that none is included in all, because all is all. As none or nothing is an idea, it exists, and is part of all. That absence, that nothingness, is an entity of sorts, perhaps even without referring to its being an idea.

Click here for the rest of the post…

January 17th 2008

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

So i’ve been writing my proposal essay. Which has been fun. It’s been a challenge too, in a weird way. in the past i’ve just made stuff. I decided I was going to make something and then thought of things i’d do for it then i did them. I’d kind of plan on an ad hoc basis as i went along but didn’t challenge the process that much. Which is ludicrous, really.

Writing the proposal has helped me realise a few things:

1 – I need to spend some quality time looking at immersive installations. By immersive installations, i mean installations that include the viewer in some way. They spill out of the ordinary framework given to art and make the viewer a part of the creative process, not only by dint of their looking and thinking but also in subtle, or perhaps not so subtle ways, their interaction with the work. An early example of this is the Max Ernst painting of the nightingale featuring two children running away from said bird.

Max Ernst - Two children are threatened by a nightingale

Click here for the rest of the post…

January 8th 2008

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

I haven’t blogged for a while again but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking. Clearly. Had a tutorial with Andy. We agreed that the way to go for the time being was to investigate several of the possible avenues open to me. And there are quite a few.

The more I look at the academic end of this project the more I think I need to have a big element that deals with it in what you might call a more romantic way. I say romantic for want of a better word. The most inspiring things I’ve seen for this have been fairy tales (slightly bizarrely, perhaps) and Anselm Kiefer’s book project, where he has big pages with layered up paint that could be showing everything and nothing. It’s like all meaning has been condensed into this space and turned into mulch. i like that. With this in mind I have been doing similar things of late.

Click here for the rest of the post…

November 18th 2007

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

Okay, so this has been far too long in coming. But I have been busy. I feel mildly embarrassed, like I’m letting the course down or something. Anyway, the time is surely nigh to begin writing this blog in earnest and ordering thoughts properly for this project.

At this stage I have many thoughts. They need ordering.

1 – What my project is about

My initial proposal was to make a history of one word. The word I have been favouring most is ‘all’. It’s a simple word; the kind of word you hear every day. It’s short and unpretentious. It’s also loaded with meaning without being too sentimental. Hopefully I’ll uncover all sorts of odd historical details about it. In fact i’m set on all. It’s a good word. I want to make the project in a few media. I think meaning and language have undergone an interesting process (particularly in the past few years) and the more slippery areas of this enquiry will be well served by using a variety of media to mirror the different purposes and forms language can take. Theoretically, though, the whole thing will be well under the shadow of digital media. though I can see it’s going to be interesting to say the least discovering just what that means.

Click here for the rest of the post…