Tag Archive for 'PhD'

GRC feedback notes

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seth.keen
on November 1, 2009
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wall shot homestead

Following is notes from the verbal feedback given by the GRC panel of Laurene Vaughan, Adrian Miles, Jeremy Yuille and Linda Daley. The quotes are taken from the panel and an audio record of the feedback and have not been assigned to any particular person.

Theory with a small ‘t’ and propositions

My understanding of the theory with a capital ‘T’ and looking at propositions.

‘What propositions are [the projects/practice] making about documentary, networked practice…they might be making propositions that are not theoretical…how do I understand and contextualise these propositions…?’

Scrutiny of the projects and propositions in relation to the projects/practice that eventuates…are used to ‘create an understanding’ that becomes the contribution to knowledge (the field)… Avoid using theory in this instance to write a theoretical essay (in the conventional sense).

‘…this is the proposition…this is what they are…this is how I contextualise these propositions…this is why they matter’

‘…your work is not about making theories it is about making propositions about practice…’

Theory as a concept is changed to knowledge (an epistemology) were knowledge is created through an engagement with practice. This approach avoids folding the analysis back into abstract theoretical concepts. ‘Scrutinising the practice internally and positioning it externally…’

This type of analysis considers the implications for documentary practice and how it may be changed and improved in some way.

The propositions come from the practice and theory with a (small ‘t’) is used to explore and test those propositions. In comparison to theory with a (capital ‘T’) being used to fit and shape the theorising of the practice. Instead the idea is to use the practice to create propositions and concepts. Theory/multiple theories are then used to clarify the proposition that has been raised in the practice. This means you are using theory on your terms, ‘ to make sense of what’ you have raised. The work (the thinking) lies in the process of synthesis how a number of theories are brought together to explore a proposition. A process that requires being clear about the proposition as a starting point and then managing that synthesis.

‘Think of it as commentary…rather than hegemonic big’T’ theory. How have I come up with [the proposition]…how could it be better explained? Better understood more clearly articulated by making references out to others…for the purpose of solidifying and creating nuances with your own ideas’

Propositions are there to ‘agitate to tweak…disrupt’ assumptions in relation to documentary practice.

The methodological readings can be used for this as well.

In relation to the concept of propositions references include Dunne and Raby and Richard Buchanan’s ideas on ‘placements’.

Interface and closed systems

Other notes included thinking about the analysis of interface as an entity on its own. This is where the mistake is to collapse the interface into the network and see the concept of working with the affordances of the network as being totally utilised.

The issue of closed networks or types of networks in terms of how these works as discrete media objects as closed systems operate compared to open systems on the Internet. Thinking about the content and how it operates outside the works that are being produced. (quote) ‘It is not network art’. What does it mean to close WordPress off? This is along with using existing products to do other things or for other purposes.

Documentary knowledge

The term ‘documentary knowledge’ as mentioned in the review notes needs to be framed in terms of how it will be applied in this context.

‘Knowledge gained from the documentary? Knowledge about documentary practice? claims to knowledge that documentary practice makes? is it all three?’ This just needs to be stated were there is no necessity to read countless books on this field to create that framework.

‘Shifting the frames of how people understand documentary’ Work from previous industry experience and state this up front in the exegesis.

Locative Painting

The panel struggled to make a connection between the previous projects and this final project. Interface was seen as being a significant part of this difference. Spatial montage is lost in this iteration were in the current version at this point returns to one frame of video.

Writing up creative research

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on June 3, 2009
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This morning after my phd supervision meeting this week, I took time out to reflect on where things are heading with the approach being taken towards writing up theory on the key WVA project. I returned to Paul Carter’s book Material Thinking for some guidance. An issue that is emerging in the current writing is a tendency towards being descriptive. This is not that surprising, as I have been working off interviews as a way to understand the perspective of the other collaborators involved in the project and also learn more about the process that took place. But, on top of this, what has emerged is a lack of focus in terms of what the key research inquiry objectives are overall, which means this writing/chapter for the moment lacks a key argument. In other words, it is exploratory like pre-production research to determine what a documentary might become. Caught up in the detail of the process I have also lost sight of the underlying theoretical influences which are needed to support the theorising of the completed projects.

Looking at Material Thinking (p.10), he writes about an issue that occurs in a lot of writing that examines in this context, art:

The language of creative research is related to the goal of material thinking and both look beyond the making process to the local reinvention of social relations. This is not achieved by more poetic writing about art, which merely perpetuates the process/study split identified by Feyerabend. Writing of drawings of Rodin, the German poet Rilke observed, ‘As always when I fall into the error of writing about art, it was valid more as personal and provisional insight than as a fact objectively derived form the presence of pictures.’ This is a typical error of artists and plastic-makers generally: called upon too talk about what they do, they rationalise its internal logic instead of gauging its social effect. Rather than account for the work as a structure for reinventing human relations, they explain the ideas behind the work. As a result they dematerialise the process that produced it, creating a two-dimensional text so self-explanatory, so easy to interpret’ as Rilke found that one is ‘limited precisely by what ordinarily seemed to open up all sorts of vistas’.

…to document the making of a new social relation through a concomitant act of production

Then I went onto look at how Carter approaches writing up a project which has a reasonably set framework across the number of varying projects discussed in the book. The unifying thread across all these projects no matter how varied is an inquiry into a specific type of ‘social relation’, namely his concept of ‘place-making’.

Reflecting back over my own trajectory of practice a reoccuring theme that I would identify in connection with the concept of ‘social relations’ is gravitating towards documenting people in a way that reveals simplistically, how they are effected by where they live and what they do. This ties in with the environmental portraiture theme that I have taken up. ‘Place-making’ in this instance becomes ‘environmental portraiture’, a term that could easily be named something else. For example, I do not think this term has to necessarily be defined in relation to ‘environmental portraiture’ as a practice/genre. Instead like ‘place-making’ it becomes a concept to explore and define this specific creative research and the projects that are produced.

Another thought when thinking about ‘…than as a fact objectively derived form the presence of pictures’ is Roland Barthes’ pivotal work Camera Lucida.

References:

Carter, Paul, Material Thinking, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004. p. 10

Rilke, Ranier Maria, Letters on Cezanne, trans J Agee, Jonathan Cape, London, 1988.

Notes on stories related to locations

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on May 27, 2009
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I found this article ‘Linking geographical facts with cartographic artifacts” by Bill Cartwright really useful when I first started thinking about issues around to many talking heads in the Real Vision: Colombia prototype developed with World Vision and the final Bogota:Colombia online version. The age-old documentary problem of there being to many expert opinions (as talking heads) was one aspect that I thought could be developed in a new direction online.

This lead to developing the Locative Painting project to explore how online video could be fused with mapping technologies, to create supporting information alongside video content on the web. This approach ties in with the concept of tagging and using text in the form of titles, tags and categories to accompany video content. I realise across both of these approaches there is a core element of what I am looking at in this research , the ability to explore in a networked infrastructure, the combination of video with other media forms. This reminds me of Miles’ vogs and the way text sound graphics and video can be brought together in varying combinations within the video frame. The difference is I am for the moment exploring this within the frame of the browser.

In a NGO context pinpointing locations and where people live can be problematic due to privacy issues, but in another context like cultural history in the Locative Painting project, geographical positions can provide additional information that both supports and extends video content captured at a specific location.

Thinking this through, in an NGO context what is potentially valuable is statistical type information, the types of background that an expert can talk about in detail provided in a graphic form. This saves the user from the process of listening through the duration of a video and also gets around the issue of granularity with interviews. A process that some people are critical of with video comments in tools like seesmic.

Maps (or more likely information visualisation type mapping – data visualisation) in this instance would not point to individuals but be used to show things like water issues, crime problems, transportation issues, in a way that can be taken in very quickly with graphic visuals. Locative Painting for me is a project that enables me to explore this idea and google maps is a dynamic form of graphic visual that can be altered by the user with differing map views (roads, satellite etc) and variation in scale.

In Cartwright’s article which is situated in cartographic research, he refers to the potential of new media, “rich media” being utilised for what he calls “geographical storytelling”. In setting up this exploration, there is a really useful reference to the idea of what constitutes information and knowledge when thinking about the creation of online systems and content. (p. 332):

Today has been dubbed ‘‘The Age of Access’’, where connectivity drives towards the access of everyone to everyone, everything to everything, and everything to everyone. Knowledge has been promoted as one of the
benefits of new technology and mapping. Cartographic products and systems need to be knowledge based. Dr Samuel Johnson (London 1775 in Boswell 2004) said about knowledge and information that ‘‘Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information.’’

Contemporary cartographic products can provide information that enables expert users to enhance their knowledge of a particular subject. But, in the hands of an inexpert or novice user, such systems may only provide a ‘‘basket’’ of data and information, with no real way for understanding of what is contained within that basket or its relevance. T. S. Eliot has said that knowledge should not be confused with information – there is a need for New Media-enhanced cartographic products to provide the means of acquiring knowledge and not just voluminous amounts of information.

Similarly when online video and more broadly documentary is being used to document an aid program at a specific location there is considerations to be made in regards to how a user needs to be directed in terms of them comprehending the data that has been collected and archived. Cartwright in this article provides storytelling as a framework to address this type of issue. This leads me to another extract from this informative argument, which reviews the way that stories are captured and told in relation to providing a sense of place.

Stories can just provide statements of facts, where no embellishment is required and the user only wants to know ‘‘the facts.’’ These facts can be stand-alone, or supported by ‘‘on-line’’ experts who are able to give expert opinions on the geographical space being explored. It may be a narrative, where a documentary-type video, supported by a comprehensive, and interactive, narrative can ‘‘walk’’ a user through ‘‘unknown territory.’’ Users may construct their own story, or be ‘‘talked’’ through an area, where they construct a story using programme support materials and aural navigation aids. Finally, they may decide that they wish to experience a landscape by investigating a ‘‘literate landscape’’ by being told a story.

These approaches provide ‘food for thought’ for my next field trip and recording video content that relates to historic landscape paintings. The Bogota documentation tapped into some of these approaches with an emphasis on people compared to Locative Painting which has an focuses on location.

References:

Cartwright, W. E., 2005, “Linking geographical facts with cartographic artifacts”, Cybercartography, Taylor, D. R. F. (ed.), Elsevier Science Ltd., pp. 331 – 338.

Boswell, J. (2004) The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D., Adelaide, eBooks@Adelaide
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/boswell/james/b74l/index.html

Cartwright, W. E., B. Williams and C. Pettit (2003) ‘‘Realizing the ‘Literate Traveller’ ’’, Spatial Sciences Institute Conference Proceedings 2003, Spatial Sciences Institute, Canberra

Further to this I need to look at other narrative and place-based connections in the article USING/DESIGNING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES OF
REPRESENTATION IN ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIAN KNOWLEDGE PRACTICES.

facing the bleeding obvious

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seth.keen
on November 24, 2008
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In my last GRC, my revised summary of my research took a nose-dive into the trash as what I seem to have been avoiding came back and bit me on the behind. Now, as I look at the 40-odd thousand words ahead and writing up the projects I have been cooking for the last few years it is time to dig deep into what my practice is all about. But, for some reason and I am not sure why? – this seems like hitting the couch for a quack session. So, I stand poised ready to tip tap with mixed feelings of sarcasm and excitement. With the enthusiasm weighing in on top off the procrastination. I think part of this shake down is accepting that for me the good sh** lies in the doing and always has rather than as a late entry to academia in the theorising from theory. Here we go then the next bit of the journey into practice-led research and the practice generating theory…and a photo from a recent field trip that says it all – only half the time being so close to it I am the last to see it (it being what I seem to want to do when it comes to making stuff)

field

…the parrots have gone (no not more birds) or wombats or other wildlife.. this time mountains and lakes

http://www.sethkeen.net/vg_one.gmap/index.html

NGO-VD prototype (notes 1#)

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seth.keen
on November 9, 2008
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Following are the varying themes and aspects of the NGO project:

Narrative
classification; taxonomy; folksonomy; ontologies; annotation
archives
granularity; fragmentation
multilinear; spatial montage

Temporality
singular shots – temporal montage; no edits adds to reality
multiple windows – spatial montage; repetition; multiple perspectives
short duration

Technologies
open source
licenses
Internet – semantic web?
online video – players; video scenes

Design
user experience
iteration
experience design
design notes – subtitles multi-language; loops; visited clips; random bundles; thumbnail annotation; audio indication;

Production Process
low cost; accessible; real-life documentation
observational
scripting – colloborative, consultative, non-linear; themes; questions FAQ;
AV editing becomes classification/folksonomy

Other
Mapping – Ground truthing (combining web 2.0 characterisitics with mapping technologies)
Adding context through other means in addition to interviews or instead of…could be maps, graphic information i.e. employment statistics; crime; water etc.
Environmental portraiture
Thick description

Analytical Methodology
art and technology
design for social use – Bauhaus

GRC November 2008

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seth.keen
on November 5, 2008
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I have not written much about a project that myself and the VD collective have been working on for the last few months with an International NGO. Mainly because it involves the applied commercial development of the VD system. But with another School Graduate Research Conference (GRC) looming in a week, I think it is time to break the drought. Funnily enough, without reflection on my blog I have also been slipping behind in the documentation of this project.

Last semester my June, GRC panel provided the following feedback to consider for this GRC:

“…who is the audience of your research and what is the contribution you are making to them.”

“Your work touches on a lot of technology issues that are here or on the near horizon, yet this is only one aspect. You also engage with different forms of narrative construction, temporality and user experience as well. What is the priority and how will you work with all of these?”

These are key points that I am now considering amongst a busy time of marking and more project production within the next couple of weeks. This is a new project on top of the NGO gig. I have been reflecting on these pointers and recently revised the research summary as one step towards beginning the process of writing up this research towards submission. Taking into consideration the development of the projects, particulary VD the following evolved:

//non-video/new-video/net-video Online video is a growing phenomenon on the Internet that has predominately involved the distribution of televisual and cinematic content on this system. I would argue that this is an approach that fails to respond to the materialities of the Internet as a media form. A practice-led, poetic research model is used to determine how online video can be utilised to articulate and disseminate knowledge on the Internet. Design is used to invent online video systems that explore the affordances of the Internet and Social Media technologies. These systems are developed collaboratively through an iterative process of content production and evaluation. Situated within the field of Media, I examine both the formal and cultural issues that the Internet poses for independent online video practitioners.

I think this is moving in the right direction with another 1-2 steps to go to finalise this towards being an abstract for the exegesis. Supervision work with Labsome Honours students really helped me clarify more and more, the practice-led research process and introduced me to some of AM’s notes on poetic research. Nothing like thinking through a process when you are teaching it to others. The poetic research concept started for me with Terrance Rosenberg’s article. A concept I plan to tease out more in my exegesis for this research.

Another phase of re-writing this summary is also revising the research questions. It was interesting to work hard on the clarfication of some research questions with the Honours students this semester. In such a short timeframe this helped us both understand what was being undertaken, on the premise that they could be revised and tweaked towards the end of the research.

Picking up on the point of how I plan to work with all of the themes mentioned above I picked up on the need to locate a framework that brings all these themes together around one point of inquiry. Something I noted in an earlier post around an mcd presentation. It is not really an issues addressing all these themes as long as they are handled from one unifying perspective. I also picked up or reminded myself that the theory, this framework and the dominating themes being explored emerge from the practice. This is all about reflecting on projects which brings me back to the current NGO project. I have been thinking about what this project is bringing to the surface and what a number of blog posts would cover.

A quote form Rosneberg’s article on poetic research.

In the case of the “poetic” the focal territory is found through a process. It is iterative, working in the space between substantiation and deviation. Backgrounding and foregrounding happen in a dynamic process and this produces a research context. Poetic enquiry evolves its field of focus whereas conventional research sets in advance its focal channel. (See figures 3 and 4). The focal territory in poetic research is established in open water.

MCD feedback

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Today, I presented the ‘Glasshouse Birdman’ prototype in a MCD studio postgraduate session. Many people present where not aware of my research topic. I decided not to provide any context to see what people thought I was researching. Initially there seemed to be some frustration with how the prototype was presented, especially if as I described the plan was to present VD for use in real-life scenarios. People suggested that the prototype looked to polished and finished rather than being a work-in-progress. A version that looked more like a sketch (drawn in crayon) with other supporting visual diagrams was the suggested alternative. Something that showed the process and behind the skin structure.

With the floor open for what this specific practice was researching there was some discussion about exploring non-linear narrative with a point made that this was not necessarily a new area of research. Therefore, where was the research going to be taken? A question that instigated some ideas on what the practice was exploring in terms of new territories. Classification, Tagging, Folksonomy emerged as one tangent – social media. The semantic web another. The idea of looking at how narrative is being compressed led to thinking about new types of audiovisual literacies. I mentioned that one thing I found myself doing is comparing production processes. These are the differences between how I would have recorded and post-produced a work like this for a linear montage edit. There was a suggestion to look at how this content would be structured in a linear version which I have been planning.

I pointed out the difficulty of working with so many new fields of study like interaction design, design research, software development and how none of these fields are where I come from in terms of prior knowledge. One idea was to find a specific theoretical model to bring all these together as way of critiquing and theorising the research. Experience Design was one suggestion. The session was useful particulary in terms of thinking about a revision of the research focus and questions. The original research topic is very broad but has influenced the resulting practice as a form of critique on online video practice. But, the topic could be revised along with the research questions in terms of shifting the focus at this stage to a focus on a new emerging territory.

Reference: Bill Buxton, Sketching User Experiences,: Getting the design right and the right design, San Francisco, Morgan and Kaufmann, 2007.

Hitting vlogging with a hammer

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seth.keen
on January 5, 2008
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I have been organising a vlogging workshop/presentation at Montevideo in Amsterdam. A summary of the workshop came together today.

Videodefunct and Showinabox: Hitting vlogging with a hammer
date: Thursday Jan 17 from 12.00 – 17.00
place: Workspace in the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Keizersgracht 264 Amsterdam

A workshop presented in two parts that looks at knocking vlogging into shape and bashing it into oblivion. The videodefunct collective focus on poetic approaches towards the way video is presented and curated by inverting the blog interface. Showinthebox aim to improve vlogging accessibility and aesthetic control with a user-friendly toolkit. Both projects use the open source blogging application WordPress and question whether vlogs need to move beyond the constraints of blogs.

1200 – 1400 Videodefunct (Keith Deverell and Seth Keen)
1400 – 1600 Showinthebox (Jay Dedman & Ryanne Hodson)
1600 – 1700 Vlogging panel discussion

links

http://greyspace.com.au/blog/
http://keithdeverell.net
http://www.videodefunct.net/
http://www.videodefunct.net/pedestrian/player/
http://www.videodefunct.net/theInvertedPedestrian/
http://www.videodefunct.net/banter
http://www.videodefunct.net/theDrunkenTruth/

exegesis output

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on October 5, 2007
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Notes from Laurene’s exegesis presentation for a project-based PhD. I learnt that:

  • The exegesis can be an amalgamation of the durable record and written theory, or remain in separate parts.
  • The exegesis can be chronological, thematic or project by project in form – as long as the methodology carries the argument within that structure.
  • An exegesis is about what has been learnt, along with the critical engagement with the process followed…
  • The exegesis theorises the practice and should provide some links out to other theory and the broader field of study.
  • In the exegesis there should be discussion on the changes that have occurred in the practice – in terms of a contribution towards new knowledge.
  • The approach towards the project/practice and the exegesis can be in different orders. The project may come first then the exegesis, or the other way around. Also, they may occur at the same time, in parallel.
  • The oral presentation needs to have some type of connection with the argument in the exegesis: a description of the findings and arguments; the changes in practice.

Laurene’ s response to the post “…you might like to add to your list that an exegesis can be in any medium and it can include sound, image etc. it does have to have words but they aren’t the only thing.”

Expand the lexicon

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on October 5, 2007
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The Bruce Mau Incomplete Manifesto for Growth is being used to inspire ideas in Integrated Media at the moment. I noted no. 28:

28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

And, have been thinking how it might apply to the title of my research. The answer may be a working title until that new word emerges. i.e. project: networking video