Seth Keen

David Wolf has made his MA exegesis available online as a pdf download. It is titled Vidgets: The Development and Use of Interactive, Network Based Video Works.

Terry Rosenberg in his recent article ‘Designs on Critical Practice?’ from the Reflections on Creativity Conference held at the University of Dundee provides an accessible framework to consider as part of formulating and contextualising critical practice. Quote, p 12:

1. Critical engagement (stimulus): with the world and its
discourses as active ground for practice.

2. Critical process: considering critical reflexes in practice and
critical reflection in and on practice (à la Schön).

3. Critical re-engagement (reception): delivered in the critical
programme of the practice (what it means and what it influences and
how it is used/consumed).

One must appreciate that these slices overlap each other in practice.

Terry Rosenberg, Designs on Critical Practice?’ Reflections on Creativity: Exploring the Role of Theory in Creative Practices, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, 2006

I went back for another look at the excellent Homo Faber: Modelling Architecture show at the Melbourne Museum.

The Terrior stand was interesting for ideas on models, process and an upcoming video conversation with SH next week. They write:

Terrior began as a conversation the model engaged as a tool for giving material ideas emerging from that discussion…the model is understood as a conceptual tool…bound by the project constraints such as site and scale…Terrior rarely produce presentation models relying instead on models that communicate conceptual issues for the presentation of projects…At time of crisis in a project, the family of models that precedes the current hiatus is exhumed, studied, broken apart, re-rejected, re-formed and from this swapping of body parts a new conceptual understanding of the project often emerges to provide new direction.

A model that seemed ready-made for conducting a videoblog conversation as I try to resist planning **”grimace (pre-production). On Peter Downton’s stand:

Sometimes drawing was banned

I am banning pre-prod.

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.”

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

I did it again (too much information), you start with one thing a look at the definition of time-based media at Cofa in a fine arts context…and ended up with a great resources link which of course led to many other web sites. But one of particular interest in relation to media research is theory.org.uk and artlab. A read of the introduction then led to the notion of constructionist learning. Useful background for the section on project-based research in my literature review.

Again the book Design Research sums up what is expected at the Graduate Research Conference (GRC):

Normally candidates draw attention to the most significant pieces aspects of their work at their presentation and endeavour to shape the manner in which the panel views their work. Discussion and debate between candidates and examiners require candidates to to find a set of languages to enable communications about designing. We might see these languages as visual, physical and word-based. Exams involve showing and telling. Candidates whether presenting for criticism or examination all tell similarly structured stories about what they did and why they did it. They tell about what was successful and sometimes why a path was not pursued. They say and show and tell what they found through their inquiries.

Peter Downton, ‘Reflections on reflective practices’, Design Research, RMIT University Press, 2003. p.128

We also discussed the approach that I had taken in applying Rosenberg’s ‘poetic model’ onto my own research practice. He used the example of a table being designed for use in a cafe to explain the parts of the ‘reservoir’. My understanding of our conversation is the order of the parts look like this from the bottom up.

the project
(the fit)
the programme
the triggers

From the article:

The project – “…what it is, who it is for…how it works etc.” (p.9)

The programme – “…the conceptual and creative base…which contextualises socio-cultural debates and environmental concerns.” (p.9)

In conversation the ‘programme’ is the discourse around the design – for example the social theory around the design of the table, the cafe as a social environment etc. His argument in the article is that traditionally the designer moves from the project to the programme. His model reverses that process. ‘The triggers’ used to invigorate the conceptualsing in the programme may cross varying disciplines and points of interest, as a means to explore possibilities beyond the restraints of the pragmatic questions and answers surrounding the project objectives. Why? Returning to the article Rosenberg states: “The poetic reaches for the un-configured and the unusual expression of thought.” (p.7) In choosing the three triggers, he mentioned, for example, two of them may have a tentative connection with the theorising in the programme, the third may be totally left of centre, have a completely nebulous connection. Overall, the aim is to maintain a “tension” in the process and critically evaluate a position that maintains a connection with the main objective, while at the same time is flirting with as he described in the discussion the “un-knowing”.

In my own project, the three triggers are influenced by Sean Cubitt’s post, Sean Cubitt, ‘a note on content’. In hindsight, the conceptual choices I made for these nodes where not dis-connected or radically separated enough from the project question. The key project question in the context of an experimental practice would be to generate alternative modes of articulating and disseminating online video content. The next step was testing a trigger as part of as Rosenberg states: “definition, de-definition, re-definition”. (p. 10) After testing trigger 3, “new modes of network”, I then jumped straight into using that experience/process to re-define the overall research rationale, rather than waiting to test the other triggers. In my mind this is jumping back to making things linear and safe in line with a traditional research approach. Then, I presumed that the other trigger tests would be separate from test 1.0 but as TR pointed out why not fold those into the first test as extensions of that test – an idea I like. Now, on reflection I see what has happened the trigger 3., is to close to my original research rationale, hence the move to re-define the overall research. If it had been more removed this may not have occurred – all in the balance between as Rosenberg discusses, “grounding” and “open water”.

Where to now? Well as we discussed the model is a model that is open for interpretation and how it is used. The main aim here is to invigorate alternative approaches towards online audiovisual media. Having experienced the process, I aim to take a playful stance with that line – swimming (with the sharks) but not drowning.

References:

Terence Rosenberg, ‘The Reservoir: Towards a Poetic Model of Research in Design’, Working papers in Art and Design, Vol 1, The foundations of practice-based research, http://www.herts.ac.uk/artdes1/research/papers/wpades/vol1/rosenberg2.html
p 7. (accessed April, 2006)

Sean Cubitt, ‘a note on content’, fibreculture mailing list, 17 September 2005
http://fibreculture.org/myspinach/fibreculture/2005-September/004673.html (accessed September, 2005)

I just meet with Terence Rosenberg who is out here from Goldsmiths (Design), UK. We discussed his article:

‘The Reservoir: Towards a Poetic Model of Research in Design’, Working papers in Art and Design, Vol 1, The foundations of practice-based research, 2000.

I have been applying some of the ideas from this article onto my creative practice, so I was interested in meeting the author in the flesh and getting some background. A number of books came out of the discussion. Around poetic tropes: William Empson,Seven types of Ambiguities, New Directions Publishing Corporation (June 1966). A wikipedia entry on the author and the book. The book by Bill Gaver, Book of Forms which refers to Empson’s text, who is a collegue at RCA, London who specialise in interaction design along with Tony Dunne at Goldsmiths. Gaver is working with what Rosenberg described as social probes described in this paper Design, Cultural Probes, which has a direct interest in relation to a soci-political documentary approach. Other books Jean Luc Nancy, Being Singular, Plural, Stanford University Press (November 2000), and Gaston Bachelard on “resonance, reverberation, repercussion” connected with this abstract by Rosenberg, ‘Resisting Procrustes’.
Around the topic of epistemology, the position of the academy on ‘knowledge’ and the evaluation of creative practice in terms of contribution, he provides a hypothetical approach:

I believe that Bachelard’s idea of validating work according to its resonance, reverberation and repercussion marks a starting point for evolving these new validity criteria. We may also consider other praxis sensitive ideas of validity including catalytic and constructive validity. Lather’s transgressive validity criteria – voluptuous, ironic, rhizomatic and paralogic – may also provide criteria that are sensitive to the “logic of sense” of creative practice and its objects.

I went to a presentation today given by Bill Gaver at the IT centre at Melbourne University. From the email brief describing the presentation:

As digital devices pervade our everyday lives, the scope of issues addressed by Human-Computer Interaction is growing and changing. We need to understand people’s attitudes and emotions as well as their needs and goals; we need to consider how to make technology delightful and desirable as well as useful and usable; and we need to investigate how technology can help us explore and reflect as well as solve problems and perform tasks. Design and the arts suggest new approaches for HCI that can address these issues, complementing more traditional, science and engineering-based approaches. In this talk, I describe new paradigms for HCI with examples of innovative information appliances and ubiquitous computing systems we have built.

It was great to be able to follow up Terence Rosenberg’s earlier reference to Gaver’s work with ‘cultural probes’. These two are colleagues at in the design department at Goldsmiths. Gaver is involved with the equator IRC initiative.

Gaver provided in the presentation a insight into the process behind the ‘cultural probes’. Following, is my own notes of the talk. The important underlying concept that Gaver covered in the introduction is the pursuit of ambiguity in interaction design. I note the reference to these books in relation to ambiguity again provided by Rosenberg.

1. The design team produces a kit of tasks that are designed to engage individuals within varying communities. Adverts are placed to invite participants. Some care goes into the kit items, like for example the use of high quality crafted materials that make the tasks intriguing and of interest. Alongside, introducing these kits into the chosen community ‘design documentaries’ are also carried out as part of gathering ideas mainly from an ethnographic perspective. An example shown was the video documentation of eastern european strawberry pickers, including both observations and interviews.

2. The next phase is ‘sketches’, the generation of design ideas. These seem to loosely involve taking disconnected ideas from the probes, in other words the connection between the probes and the design is not direct or literal. In fact often other ideas seemed to be thrown into the mix like influences from artists for example, but the starting point in the example discussed seemed to come from a probe outcome.

3. Next, a design prototype is developed as part of exploring the chosen sketch. In the first example shown a terabyte of aerial imagery recorded from a low flying airplane is made available to the viewer through a porthole in the top of a table. This prototype involved a lot of computerised gadgetry packed into the body of the table.

4. The final phase involved taking the table back out to community where the original ideas came from – letting in this instance, individuals of a household engage with the table over time. An objective is to allow plenty of time for the user to ‘play’ with the prototype. The engagement is again documented through a number of different processes involving differing people from varied fields. A ethnographic note taker, a video documentary-maker. The HCI design is also made ambiguous in this prototype, where the use of the table is not made clear with the aim to see what may occur. In the mapping table for the user to navigate through the aerial footage, the table top is set up like a bevelled nautical compass. Weighted objects have to be placed on the table to move over the landscape. The participant shown in the video documentation used rocks of varying sizes and weights, along with reference maps to navigate the footage. Over time this person developed some subtle interaction techniques of their own as part of engaging with the prototype.

In conclusion, a practice-led design process that employs a very open, poetic approach as part of producing user-generated interaction design outcomes.