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This Weeks’ Notes!

Hi class!

How was Show-A-Thing?! I hope helpful, insightful, and energizing!

Just a few notes for this week:

  • Please post a reflection about Show-A-Thing! It will help you consolidate your ideas (and it will help me know where you’re at as a result!). Specifically think through: did anything change about your project by going through this process?

  • If you haven’t already: IMA Low Res Thesis: Final Dates + Check in, by Friday please!

  • Keep up the momentum! Our next all-together meeting is April 18. In the meantime, you should be meeting with your peer-group + resident, each other, your mentor.

  • I’ve posted a few new appointments for coming weeks on my OH calendar – but remember you can always email me if you want to meet and no listed times work.

Also – this may not be relevant for all of you, but if you find yourself wondering “Is my project IMA enough?” I’ve written something about that in the Project Guidelines – which I’ll also paste below.

Warmly,

Sarah

Is My Project “IMA” Enough?

Some of you might find that you’ve landed on a project that doesn’t really seem to involve much technology at all – and of course the last thing you want to do is “add technology” just for its own sake. That said, this is an “Interactive Media” program, so in order for your thesis to be appropriate for this context and reflect what you’re learning here, you may want to think through what ways you might involve… interactive media! There are more ways to do that than adding a technology for its own sake, so consider contextualizing this as an IMA project through …

  • Research / Input (for instance, using a novel method to gather data to inform your work)

  • Process (for instance, using a new tool to create, or creating a new tool)

  • Interactivity in the project itself (any combo of input, process, and output)

  • Topic – is your work informed by, commenting on, or otherwise connected to our contemporary media landscape (does this work address something about emerging technology?)

  • Documentation – (can you capture this work in a way that leverages emerging media? for instance 3d scanning…?)

  • Distribution (how does the work get out there? for instance, through a novel use of social media?)

 

And, if all else fails, ask yourself: what gave you the idea to do this work right now? Are you connecting with some approach you learned at IMA? Is it something in response to the present-day state of technology? Lean into those questions, and you may find the answer was there all along – you just needed to emphasize it!

Show A Thing – Takeaways

Can’t believe show a thing is over! (Mostly at least) I met with 4 people, the 5th is scheduled for later next week. Had different takeaways from each person but adding some notes here:

Creating empathy in games WITHIN the context of the game? Research on this

– like a natural disaster happening to everyone
– noticed that in my playtest players will more skill were able to avoid “disasters”

Need to clearly explain why I made each design decision and where it came from

– ie why start players in the same place? have this gem collection stuff? open world inspiration?

A story will be more compelling, especially for non- gamers

– maybe tie it to an altruistic act that I’ve experienced?

I might need to make some sort of “complimentary design”

– how far until it becomes necessary cooperation vs just non-competitive design?

Looking at team building exercises and how doing something first will build a relationship

Thinking about cost-benefit analysis in terms of the player

– is doing this nice thing at any cost to me?
– the higher the cost, the lower likelihood of it happening (unless there is an existing relationship)

Show-A-Thing Reflection! (04/04/2023) :)

Hi All!

So I had all five of my Show-A-Thing meetings today! I had a blast!

The feedback was so helpful and really helped me to finalize and generate solutions to a few problems! I had the pleasure of speaking with Adam Colestock, Cindy Jeffers, Heidi Brant, Patrick Warren, and Maria Maciak! All of the feedback given was positive and helpful! I finally locked in on my audience and am ready to sail full speed ahead!

I also am 100% locked in on my venue as of now and am happy to say that I’ll be presenting this at my old high school Mt. Carmel High School in San Diego! I’m excited to take this thesis back to the place where it all started and hopefully, educate, inspire and gain some valuable feedback from the faculty, staff and students! 🙂

Here are my summed up notes from each person below!

Adam: Great Job! Immersive Gallery, Size Graphics, text, synergy, connection. Reminded him of children’s museum shadow walls. What role will the footsteps play? What role will shadows play? 

Cindy: Loved the writing! Incorporate myself into it which I plan to do! Empathetic, StoryCore, NPR, Great projections. Keep her posted so she can come see it! 

Heidi: Stage the footsteps like theater blocking. So engaging, possibly selfie wall for people to take pictures with. I thought about how many people I would want in the exhibit at a time. Heidi mentioned that the person’s shadow is as if they’re immersing themselves into the work!” 

Patrick: Visually impressive, love that I’m going back to my old high school to present this thesis! Taking something that matters to a previous place that matters! Mad Mapper could help with the warping of imaging. Would be great to end hearing my grandpa’s take on my initial question of  “is color everything?”

Maria: Powerful! Fragmenting the drawings really work! Footsteps symbolize relearning after learning, continuing the legacy! Beautiful, and Love!

Until next time! 🙂

Show a Thing notes

Met with 5 reviewers this morning (afternoon Berlin time) so presented back to back 4 times, short break, then a fourth. I’m used to intensity in performance and presentation (I’ve also done 2 NYU incubators this semester with a lot of pitching). I recorded each session and took pertinent notes. I’ll record some of the poignant insights from each.

Gottfried Haider, idea: Iteration where each person with a sensor has their own speaker, like each person in a corner, and see if their hearts sync up. Need a very responsive heart rate sensor with short ms delay to that when the heart beats, it comes out of the speaker and the other people’s ears, brains, and bodies feel that beat and have a chance to sync up.

Enrique Garcia, explore MQTT vs WebRTC for transmission speed of brainwave data. Felt community projects had more impact than an individual experience.

Heidi Brant, Helped me realize that the only event where I spiraled up into ecstasy was the only show that I performed outdoors.

Tiri Kananuruk, if I did spatialized signals in the 50 speaker room, would I need several stations, several headsets? Have different stations with EEGs in different places? Or one computer in the middle with 2 EEG’s connecting to it, rendering spatially? Would I need multiple computers?

Adam Colestock, 1) When you scale up the size of a crowd or group, you lose responsivity 2) If you have multiple hearts being sonified, you’ll lose the trance effect, but could quantize the beats 3) Steven Strogaz about synchronicity

When practicing my pitch over and over, I saw what was out of order or irrelevant, so I was able to edit my deck to have a better flow this evening. I also switched from Google Slides to XD so I can have a more professional looking deck.

4th one-on-one w/ Sarah (April 3)

Met Sarah the day before the Show-A-Thing event. I presented my newest pivoted direction into using Miro Board, with a specific research focus on the formation of our cohort in the Low Res program.

Here are some takeaways from the conversation:

-The experience is about looking at how to start conversations on difficult topics.

-The provocation nature of my project(s); is it trolling? or is it an actual question?

-My relationship with my audiences (reach out to Roopa later in the project, maybe)

-Question on contextualizing this current project – connection to previous projects (graduation stunt, the swastika poll…any more), what is this project going to take form outside of the Low Res, or maybe during the summer?

-Figure out how to express my ideas and this project through the show-a-thing

 

Sarah also wants me to continue developing the prototype and test it with as many students as possible. And if needed, maybe at the end of April 18’s class, I can do a small experiment at the end of the class (but only with students who volunteer to participate).

Mentor Meeting 1

Had a 30-min talk with Jon, but due to his wifi problems, we will continue our talk this Friday. This initial talk was an introduction of my past work and my thesis topic & progress.

He sent a lot of helpful feedback through email,

  • Regarding the Aging Lab participants, it might be interesting if you could have separate 1:1 interviews with children of the parents you’re interviewing. The Lab might have a roster of family contacts who have shown interest in participating at all. Worth asking them.
  • Also, I almost always ask people to tell me what apps they have on their phone, particularly on the home screen. It can tell you a lot about their priorities, tech aptitude, and unmet needs.

Peer Meeting 3 (1-1 with Brian)

Mar 31st I scheduled another 1-1 with Brian, since I haven’t been attending the Thursday night peer meetings recently due to busy schedule. He provided detailed feedback on my production schedule, storyboard, as well as my survey questions (reframed some of my questions).

  • production schedule: have a set of goals for each week
  • storyboard: make 2~3 more scenes before my current scene 1
  • survey: always try to remember what kind of data you want to get out of this survey; the form/tech is not the most important part but always keep in mind the main goal

Also I will try to attend all (but most if not all) of the remaining peer meetings, and maybe attend other sessions too:)

Peer Meeting with Nun and Co

Met with Nun, Dora, and Nichole today. It was great talking to them, catching up on their projects and going over our show a thing presentation. Main insight is to narrow down what we want to get out of show a thing, and to keep talking to people/ attending the peer meetings because they’re super helpful!

6th Meeting with Sarah! (04/03/2023) :)

Hi All!

So I just wrapped up my sixth meeting with Sarah today and all went really well! We discussed my projection progress, along with advice on how to approach tomorrows hectic Show-A-Thing 1-1 Meetings! Sarah also helped generate some new ideas on how to possibly approach my grandfathers portrait that would differentiate it from the rest! I am 99.9% locked in on a venue which will be my old high school! I figured this would be a wonderful opportunity to go back to the place where it all started and share this experience with the faculty and students in hopes to inspire, educate, and most importantly gain valuable feedback! 🙂 I am extremely excited to keep working on this and can’t wait to present this labor of love to the public! 🙂

Until next time! 🙂