Hey friends,

Just had my 3rd meeting with Sarah. Great discussion as always and she helped me think of ways to reframe my main thesis question, and pointed out some assumptions that I was making that could use evidence through something like interviews. Something I thought was fun that she brought up was a general “thesis breakdown”:

10-15% pure research
75% making things and doing some research along side it
10% chunk that is just production
1-5% to research again

Made me think a little bit about if and how this reflected my process.

Toodles till next time!
Ai

Met with Hakani and my peer group. I enjoyed seeing the development of my classmates topics and got good feedback on my work. I had gone through it last night in Nun’s group, so I had a better sense of what to focus on (which was the questions, and the 3 electropsychedelic experience types I’ve had).

Hakani encouraged me see what was my Artist Statement (I think it’s the history I wrote out, including the experiences when I was younger and the influences / inspirations dating back to undergrad) and what was the art (researching and testing a specific thing, for example, the buffer in conscious and can that be detected when sonifying brain activity in a deep meditation).

I visited Nun’s peer group because after hearing everyone’s topics in the big group meeting, I wanted to follow and hear more about projects in her group (as well as Beth’s and Danni’s). Perhaps it’ll take too much time to keep up, but it’s worth a try.

I planned to just be an observer but Nun wanted me to present my work first. I shared, asked if people were understanding or had questions, but didn’t get much feedback or it didn’t seem to spark much conversation. I’m not sure if its because its too specialized, or its a topic only interesting to me. I’ll see what the response is in my group with Hakani tomorrow.

After the second meeting with Sarah, she gave me a lot of insightful suggestion. I noticed some contents I missed and some thought should be articulated. The key missing part for my thesis is what is the impact of my project, and why it is matter. She still ask me to think about “Does interactive media allow for different ways of engaging with the core Buddhist philosophies in ways newly relevant for today? ” For the research, it should answer my thesis question and focus on measuring the impact. Last, she suggest me to draw storyboard before actually doing the project. It will help me envision the form of my thesis. 

After, this meeting and her feedback of my proposal, I will think about more about the meaning of the thesis and do more research. The thesis should not be only an experimental or technical challenge for me to visualize personality, I need to think about the influence it might have.

Talked about my new thesis idea with Sarah about body language, emotion and machine learning.

Sarah gave me lots of suggestions and ideas about it and I listed them below:

1. Try to think as a documentary filmmaker which means I should gather more information about body language and emotion.
2. Go through my thesis draft again, what would people take after they encountering my project? People change their mood or they will know how powerful AI is?
3. We also found that the same body language means totally different between different countries. Learning about body language cues without knowing how to apply them may skew your opinions about others for the worse, rather than improving them for the better.

Notes on Gesture

Martine Syms, 2015 (still).

It serves as an effective reminder of how popular media can influence and become part of a collective gesturing and vernacular – and vice versa.

Notes On Gesture | Video Data Bank

Acting Out: The Visibility of Blackness in the Work of Martine Syms – Momus

Training Poses (Installation)

2019 · installation – Sam Lavigne

An installation in which audience members attempt to match their poses to subjects in the Microsoft COCO image dataset.

Training Poses (Installation)

Sam Lavigne

Very Nervous System

Interactive Installations (1986-1990) – David Rokeby

“In these systems, I use video cameras, image processors, computers, synthesizers and a sound system to create a space in which the movements of one’s body create sound and/or music. It has been primarily presented as an installation in galleries but has also been installed in public outdoor spaces, and has been used in a number of performances.”

David Rokeby : Very Nervous System

Replika

Replika, the “AI companion who cares,” has undergone some abrupt changes to its erotic roleplay features, leaving many users confused and heartbroken.

“Replika’s sexually-charged conversations are part of a $70-per-year paid tier, and its ads portray users as being lonely or unable to form connections in the real world; they imply that to find sexual fulfillment, they should pay to access erotic roleplay or “spicy selfies” from the app.”

‘It’s Hurting Like Hell’: AI Companion Users Are In Crisis, Reporting Sudden Sexual Rejection

Replika

Atlas of AI

The Amazon Echo as an anatomical map of human labor, data and planetary resources

Anatomy of an AI System

Teachable Machine

Teachable Machine

Homework:

1. Use teachable machine
2. Go through the thesis draft again

https://www.notion.so/Zoe-s-Proposal-Draft-2-21-2023-f7a2ec6ff06f4bd7b8a6bd4dc441e961

I had a good meeting with Sarah on my Friday night.

I explained my topic development from “open source community” to “representing the open source code”. Because the term “community” is too abstract for me to make a project. But I also wanted to know what if I want to make a project about the open source community.

Sarah gave an angle to consider it: using more specific words to describe the project. For example, the project describes/explains/creates/visualizes open source communities.

At present, I am considering developing a machine to depict the underlying code of software. However, I am concerned that this idea may be too narrow in scope for a thesis. Then we delved deeper into this topic during our discussion.

When coding, I have a mental model that resembles crafting a handicraft. I shared this idea with Sarah, who found it intriguing and suggested that I consult other programmers about their mental models. I believe this is a valuable approach as I haven’t come across any discussions on programming at this level before. I can also consider which mental models I can provide to best represent open source projects.

Additionally, we started considering other possible angles, such as extractive economy versus circular economy/regenerative economy, which I hadn’t previously considered.

This is for the meeting a week before. I should write down it sooner next time ; ) Now let me just jot down something to reflect the development of my topic.

My initial idea of the topic “open source” was focusing on the community. However it was too broad as a thesis. As a result, I did not have a clear form plan and could not find similar projects.

During the peer meeting, I threw the question out and received a lot of useful feedback.

The most thoughtful one is “What if there’s no open source”.

With the question in my mind, I was thinking back to why I chose this topic.

Obviously, as a coder, I have different feelings about software compared to non-coders. I want to express that feeling. This is the starting point.

In addition, the feeling comes from the code works behind the software. There are infinite possibilities with the source open. Without it, these software makes no difference to other goods.

So here was a narrowing of my topic, or a little change: from “open source” to “express my feeling of open source.”

 

• 2023-02-21: in class activity
• 2023-02-23: I went to a local art show/meetup on Thursday, Enlightened Insulation – which was all about artists coming together to share about what winter meant to them. The organizers also put a lot of thought and care into giving the space some vibes of coziness, darkness, also a little spooky. A lot of the vibes were created with lighting, which was cool to think about how much light effects our perspective of a space. They even had a fireless bonfire.
  
• 2023-02-25: brainstorming & brainorganizing