Topic 2 Final Reflection

What did you learn?

From this course, I learned how to do a deep research on a topic and how efficiently filter useful message from a bunch of words. Also, I learned how to use different tones to express idea so that the target audience can be better accept my information. Lastly, interview and user test are also important part for doing a project as they provide different perspectives from public or counter public. Their voices will be helpful for improving the project’s contents and presentation. For the final guide, I also learned a lot about different buddha figures and the meaning behind them.

What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

From what Sarah said, my intentional critique sounds like have different tones with guide’s form. This is also what I tried to solve. In a way, I want to have an educational or serious tone which user can have more insightful knowing on Buddhism, however, my guide showed more on material design and contemporary art, which weakens the element of Buddhism even though I used the key features of buddha figures when user DIY Buddha. 

What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

I will not do too much differently eventually. However, I will clear what my tone is and have more changeable elements on the website.

What was inspiring? What parts?

The precess of designing guide form and doing research is inspiring cause they are the most difficult part of this course. To find an appropriate guide for a topic need a lot of research. This need to spent time and be patient.

Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc…

My project has clear target audience(younger generation) and the tone is humour and ironic. It also has strong intention. However, the critical lens is a little bit off.

How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from

For my understanding, research is necessary before doing an experimentation because it will make your target or thesis clearer and has strong support. Experimentation is easy for me as I don’t like reading research although it is significant. By solving the issue, I will try to cultivate good reading English texts habits. 

• What did you learn?
  Disco Diffusion, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are three pieces of open source software that generate images in response to a language prompt. A prompt, which is a series of words, is a key to tuning the tools to translate your thoughts into images.

  Here at the gallery, the three installations with user interfaces using local GPUs aim to make the creation process more accessible and more efficient. We encourage you to explore these three different tools and to learn to talk to these text-to-image models, we first start with “prompt engineering”. A helpful analogy to understand this process is to think of a prompt as a search query just like how we use the Google search engine. Similarly, we give these image generators a search query to search among a structured representation of all the images it was trained on. We then evaluate the result, and refine the input text until the output image is the closest to our expectations among all possible outputs.

  For example, if you use “/imagine prompt: colorful butterfly”, the AI will generate an image of what it thinks a colorful butterfly is. However, using one adjective like “colorful” is usually not sufficient. If you use one adjective, the AI will usually generate something simple. Hence, it’s recommended that you use multiple adjectives and descriptions for the AI to generate an accurate image. Instead of “colorful butterfly”, you can use “a rainbow-colored butterfly flying across a field of flowers during a sunset”. The more descriptive you are, the better the results.

  Also, the copyright of who owns the AI-Generated art still need to be discussed, So once you’ve created your AI-generated masterpiece, what’s stopping you from claiming it as your own, using it commercially or preventing others from using it? On top of existentially threatening the very concept of artists and creatives, Ryan says that AI-generated content raises many new legal issues.

• What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?
  The topic doesn’t have a certain answer, people would love to see the debate between humans and AI. I also received feedback on my website, which can provide a better user experience and make the copyright problem prominent. 
• What might you do differently in terms of process or content?
  I might create an interactive artwork using different kinds of digital software and AI-Generated art platforms instead of creating a website.
• What was inspiring? What parts?
  Trying to use different creative tools is inspiring, I can experience the differences between these popular AI-Generated Art platforms such as Disco Diffusion, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, and also I have learned a lot about the training data, data biases, terms of use, policy, rules, and even The US Copyright Office.
• Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc…
  Because my audiences are those people who haven’t used AI-generated art before, which may have some contradiction that if someone hasn’t used it so far, they probably don’t have an interest to use these kinds of tools, so my project may not drive people’s awareness to fulfill my goal.
• How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from
  I do like the daily practice part, which forced me to dig deeper every day, and also because of that I can narrow down my topic and find my critical lens. 

What did you learn?

I  learned how both research and experimentation could help me develop the project, especially for daily practice. Also, the research process is something I’ve got a deep understanding of. In the beginning, I was still confused about what a critical lens is. For now, I know that it can be a point that I want to audience to see through and see what I see.

What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on the critique itself?

The user’s main experience is not clear, and the instruction is too much. Interestingly, I believe that part of the reason I got this feedback is that due to the time limitation, I didn’t show what my project was well. I agree that the project might need some simplification or a more readable instruction to reduce the study cost. Besides this, the project has a clear experience for my target audience.  However, as a physical project designed for Mandarin speakers, I face difficulties presenting online to non-Mandarin speakers.

What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

I would set my audiences differently and include my classmates. I would struggle less to balance the content and focus more on the project. Also, I can get more feedback during discussions.

What was inspiring? What parts?

As I mentioned above, daily practice and janky prototypes are super inspiring.  They pushed me to try different directions and forms and bring out other possibilities under the same topic.

How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from

Research is easy to start but hard to get helpful information when narrowing it down. Experimentation is hard to find a beginning point, but once I begin to test something, it always gives me a surprise. I would say the experiment is more straightforward for me, and I need more practice in research. I believe doing some long-term projects with deep research required can help me improve my research skill.

Reflection for my project Memory vs. History

Final Project Documentation 

What did you learn?

I learned the process of historical revisionism and how it is impacted by societal systems such as economic, cultural, and political, and the criteria of what makes a historical narrative different than a memory/story/journal entry.

What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on the critique itself?

I received feedback to have led with the form and flip the order of my presentation to allow for more direct engagement with the project form, as well as provide more clarity in the intention of the work.

What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

I would have further fleshed out how the journal could be used as a larger institutional initiative and parameters around how outreach and timeline would be managed to ensure diverse populations and communities are included and that the timeline for how long they should journal/document their experiences.

Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc… 

I had followed the project prompts to set up my presentation on process and research to ensure my presentation was concise and incorporated the necessary project information. I believe if I flipped the order of presentation per the feedback, it would’ve given more opportunity to discuss the critical lens via walking through the work itself.

How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from?

I believe I balanced both research and experimentation. I really dove into the Janky Prototype exercises, creating prototypes with cardboard. While I shied away from executing the prototypes and sketches created in those exercises, the ideation process led to the lower-tech guided journal, which informed the research not only on the topic but how similar guided/prompt-type forms were set up, and what was most effective.

What did you find inspiring?

Working through the publics/counter publics and IAE exercises felt like a cross between social justice design thinking. I enjoyed the process of identifying these groups and how they intertwine with each other. Additionally, when I decided to shift to a guided journal, I found that to be an empowering stance, giving authorship to the user both from their personal narratives but also the power to revise so it would be considered s historical account that would be legitimized and catalogued through a library or historical society.

For my second project, here are links to the google slides that I shared, and my blog post with updates.

I thoroughly enjoyed digging deeper into the topic of “rewilding” and continuing to research some of the things that I had started in the first project, because the topic was so deep, complicated, and generative for me. It was helpful for me to start thinking about the plants in more of a systems way — something that I don’t think I fully dug into the first time around. I found it really fruitful to think about the communities that surround the plants — who their stakeholders are, who and what they influence, and the roles that they play. It is so interesting to me how deeply layered this topic became.

A big unlocker for me was finally figuring out a metaphor that worked with what I was researching. Again, I don’t think I fully got to the metaphor stage the first time around, so having the chance to think about this again from a metaphor perspective was validating. I had been thinking about the ways in which different plants are valued by people, and that eventually led me to thinking about the different ways that labor and work are valued in society. If I were to continue working on this topic, I would want to dig more deeply into the valuation of labor, “invisible” labor, essential work, women’s work, emotional labor, etc, as I think that is an area where even more parallels could be made. I am honestly still very poorly versed in some of these categories.

The other place I didn’t quite get to in some of the research I was doing is what we do about it. How we turn the corner from noticing it to how we can respond to it. What are other artists doing? What are entire governments doing? Where is the problem handled the best — or the worst? These are things that I want to dig into as they relate both to the plant world and the human world.

All of that said, I did a much better job this time around of balancing the research and the making, starting with the making much sooner. Creating the prototypes was fun, even though they were very different from where I ended up.

One realization that dawned on me too late in the process is that the direction I was going — objects made from nature that call attention to thier labor — was more generative for me as a process than as an outcome. I would have very much liked to run a workshop or hosted an event where people made things out of leaves or plants, as I think that would have been a much more experiential outcome. I had hoped that interacting with the objects themselves would be enough. But I think for me, the most generative part is the materiality of the plants and the process of working with them. That is something that helps me think, and I would like to share that experience with others. I tried t address that with the guided walk that I added, but I wish that I had been able to do one in person.

I was grateful for Monica and Marina’s feedback. Both were insightful and accurately articulated that I am still very much at the beginning of this journey and not so much at the end. Most of all, I appreciated Marina’s push around how I can connect these ideas to the IMA program. I think that is fair, and I don’t have a clear vision. Some of the artists that are working with sensors in order to “communicate” with plants are really resonant with me, and are something I’m thinking about. I also wonder how we might learn from plants and apply the best of what they do to how we can do things. How might we support each other the way that plants support bees? How might we communicate with each other to warn of danger in similar ways that plants warn others in their species? There is a lot to think about, and I don’t have a clear path at present.

What did you learn?

Since I started researching the topic I chose. I had a quilt difficult time narrowing it down because people are the most complicated thing, it is the hardest part to brief in such short words. However I found a little exit by each roll people are playing every day, so the first thing I have learned is to be serious to chose your topic, it is very important to continue your program. And the second thing is when u research your topic try to write down every detail related to your topic, and link them to narrow down your program. The third thing I have learned is to keep sharing unfinished work with someone who doesn’t know your work and ask for feedback from audiences, they will give the most direct idea of your program, then you can match it to the goal that you set up and try to delivery to audiences.

What feedback did you receive? Any reflection on the critique itself?

Most feedback I have got is your work is beautiful, and most people agree with my critique experience, but I have to be very careful to use the word, and when I choose pictures to match my topic, have to think about diversity and make all kind people feel comfortable after reading my work.

What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

I will change the pictures I have used in my book, and also talk a little more about why, and how I made this project, and some parts of my interview into my project will make it more complete. Also before presenting day, I will go to the tutorial center to make words more smoothly. 

After I got the feedback from out class, I already made some changes to my Final post.

 

 

-What did you learn?

User Testing is really helpful and important in developing an experience. More importantly, a more random testing body other than family and friends is going to be a lot more helpful. I was able to spot a lot of issue through user tests, but I think I could have done better if I was brave enough to reach out to more strangers about it.

 

-What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

Marina Zurkow, the visiting artist brought up the important question of fostering a space for conversation, discussion. I agreed a lot with it, and felt it was something I planned in the project’s “results” section, but failed to deliver during the actual presentation due to nervousness. I wish I could make it a lot more clear in the presentation.

 

-What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

I will shorten the actual experience part, do 2 questions instead of 5, and make sure I spend more time in explaining the entire experience if possible. I did rehearse my presentation slides, however, I only did it in my head. I really should start rehearsing out loud even though it feels odd at first. That is probably the only way I can get the true or at least a lot more accurate estimate about how things and time might run.

Another big mistake I realized I did, was not having the Poll’s QR Code on slides after the initial introduction. I later found out in chat that some classmates missed the first opportunity to scan the QR code, and thus was not able to participate throughout the entire exercise. I have already made a quick change by including a tiny QR code to the poll on each slides after the initial instruction slide.

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Ideally, I wish I can create a tool that I can automatically turned all the polls into instant pie charts for the result section. I was doing everything manually on spot using 2 laptops and a phone during the live presentation: count the vote, generate the pie charts, and put them into the slides. I was not able to multitask as great as I thought I would, so only ended up finishing the first poll on time. I hope I can make this part smoother in future, and thus have time for actual conversation and discussion about the question with the participants.

 

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I also really wish I present and explain the form, inspirations, and research process more in my presentation. I had 5 slides of curated bibliography that I planned to briefly talk about, hoping to share some of the uncommon knowledge with the audiences.

 

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-What was inspiring? What parts?

I am not sure how I did with content warning, and how it foreshadow my project experiment. I was inspired in doing it this way by couple of the standup comedies I’ve seen recently. However, I think I can do better with it, and finding a balance in the wording as well as presenting it is tricky.

 

In addition, I was inspired by many other classmates’ works, especially resonate with Elizebeth’s Sunscreen Project, and Nicole’s through and clear walkthrough of her project development.

 

 

-Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc… 

I think I stay pretty close with the assignment prompts, and especially feel my project does aim to provide an alternative, or hidden history that shifts power structures; as well as facilitated the formation of a new community arising out of an identified need. Hopefully through the simple poll, I can plant the seeds in some people the desire to make a material change, or maybe at least think about history in a broader sense with other cultures in consideration.

 

-How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from?

Balancing research and experimentation is probably the most difficult part to me as always, I have the tendency and desire to lecture, or maybe even set up doctrine. I needed to constantly reminding myself that “show, don’t tell”, as well as the idea that nothing will be digested by audiences if the food is being forced into their mouths. Subscribing to the concept of having PowerPoint Presentation/Lecture as a form of performance art might be a way for me to blur the line between research and experimentation, but can also feel like cheating, I am not sure (lol).