I took a number of photos of the various exhibitions at the Kinetica Museum.

What I should be doing…

Creating a PhotoGallery in ASP
Editing mapping video
Making throwies
Thinking of ideas for database cinema
Working on flash game
Drawing in my workbook
Updating my blog (Aha!)

What I’m doing…

Learning how to make music on my gameboy.

We’ve finally decided on what my technology will be for this project. There is always the issue of how we will be monitored in the public domain, including all of the privacy issues and how this recorded data will be used. Being a resident of England, a good case study would be the fact of the large amount of CCTV cameras we have in the country and the opinions of the residents of how they feel about this. Is it a privacy invasion, or is it for our own safety? Personally I feel it is an invasion of privacy and recently, a lot of people feel the same way.

For the future, I can only imagine public surveillance to get worse. There are already systems ready to be in place such as the one that will monitor every car journey made in the UK. This made me think about how many people do not approve of this regardless if their actions are illegal or not, there should be ways that ‘block’ these monitoring devices.

I researched ways people have tried to block already existing monitoring devices such as using laser pointers to hide people from CCTV cameras and there are methods of avoiding speed cameras by covering your number plate in cling film or hairspray or even blocking TV License detector vans with lead boxes. These are rather traditional methods, but with futuristic technologies will come along with anti-futuristic technology technology.

Going on current trends of surveillance based technology, it seems it won’t be very long before it will be a legal requirement that we will have to be monitored by biochips implanted in our body and there will be certain systems in place that will pick up the data given off by these chips.
Our technology would be in the form of a watch that using targeted electromagnetic pulses could block these devices that read data from the chip. Therefore, as the user wears this watch wherever he/she goes in public, they do not have to worry about their actions being tracked whether it being what car they are in, what they have bought, who they have visited or simply where they are.
We will present this technology in two forms; an online news report and some sort of promotional image whether it be a poster of packaging or something else I’m not sure yet.

I need a haircut.

Synopsis

Your task is to write a small arcade‐style game using Flash and ActionScript, making use of the
object‐oriented design techniques you have met in the workshops. The game will demonstrate your
knowledge of the following concepts:

o Using multimedia symbols (images) in the library and accessing them with ActionScript.
o Attaching instances of symbols to the Stage using ActionScript.
o Attaching custom properties and methods/event handlers to instances on the Stage.
o Designing and constructing your own classes to manage symbol instances on the Stage.
o Wrapping custom Classes around symbols in the library.
o Detecting and reacting to user input from both the mouse and keyboard.
o Detecting and reacting to collisions between instances on the Stage.
o Loading and parsing external XML data
o Using the Flash timeline to represent game states, such as Game Start, Game Won, Game
Over.
o Using Flash and ActionScript to develop a substantial application.

Your game will be based on the classic asteroids arcade game. The player pilots a ship around the
screen (Stage) between floating asteroids. On shooting a large asteroid, that asteroid splits into two
smaller asteroids. When a small asteroid is hit, it is destroyed.
The aim of the game is to clear the screen of asteroids, without crashing into any asteroids or other
space‐junk!

The deadline for this coursework is Friday March 30th at 2pm.
Handins should be made to the Faculty Office (Smeaton Building)

A working demonstration of how the final game might look is provided online at
http://www.chrisblunt.com/idat102/assignment/
A copy of this brief and any additional resources is also available at this location.

The Task

This task provides you with a restricted, yet infinitely open interpretation of
the brief. Place emphasis on using the assets in radical ways- you may
want to completely re-cut a video clip to manipulate it to say what you
want. Where as with another asset, you may want to mask out elements or
loop it or duplicate it to create the effect that best presents your treatment
and concept.

1: Acquire footage from at least two mediums, TV/ Video / Camera /
Web / CCTV / Camera Phone.
2: Look at your Assets in terms of semantics
3: Conceptualise how the could be cut composite or montage together.
4: Rationalise this process down to a ’Treatment.
5: Produce a 20 sec piece of video work, based on your treatment.
6: For group work add 20 secs per person.

The video requirements are:
320 x 240 frame size
25 f.p.s
Effective compression (choose a codec that suits your video)
Burned to a CD / DVD
Hand In 29.03.06
Technical proficiency at using Adobe Premiere / Final cut
New or ingenious approaches to using assets
The effectiveness of students video work to present a coherent idea.
Correct use of formats and compression.

At first, I had no idea. The whole concept of it just didn’t seem right. Cinema and film is (usually) based on a narrative, one action leads to another; using a database to create a piece of film seemed stupid.

Now after getting into the coursework I kind of understand it more. We are using the footage from the film archives of various space missions in order to create our own narrative using the footage provided. I’m starting to enjoy it now that it isn’t as complicated as it seems.
Chris, Matt, Andy and I met up today and got started on the editing. We were going to use Final Cut but we couldn’t figure out how to change the sequence frame size, so just stuck with Sony Vegas instead. It isn’t too much of a problem because the project mostly relies on the cutting and positioning of sections of the film.

Deadline is for the 19th, just like everything else!

The project combines critical conceptualization and practical media production skills. It is a group project to be delivered in Term 2 and it will be developed in collaboration with Regional Film and Television Archive in Plymouth. The project will be developed using Archive resources and a detailed brief will be provided in term 1.

Can’t believe it got featured! Wooster being the best site for street art, and they featured the piece Pete and I did early last year.

Click here to see it on WoosterCollective.com

The fact that this technology has to be part of a social experience is quite attractive to me because I’d like to draw inspiration from all forms of street art, being an ‘open exhibition’ can easily become more socially active because it’s already out there, in public.
Also, as the technology is going to be part of the future, there will have to be some sort of aspects about it that the average connotation of ‘the future’ has.
I will be working with Dave Joy on this project.
One idea we had was to have some sort ‘open music’ feature where people can use their Ipods, Zens, Zunes or other portable mp3 player and openly broadcast their songs, sharing their music with other people in the area. There is already existing technology such as the Itrip which allows people to broadcast music from their mp3 player as an FM frequency which is mainly used for when they are in their car. As this is quite a feasible idea, it doesn’t seem very futuristic although it would make a good invention for this project because it would then enter into the already controversial issues of copyright infringement.

I have brainstormed (can still say that right?) some ideas in my workbook and will work on them another day.

For my mapping project I had the idea of using the shape of the streets of a city to spell out a word. After looking at the map of Plymouth, I thought further into the idea and decided that I could go onto these streets and draw a line up them, where the lines on the map would be that would spell out the word. Also, another good thing about this idea is that it can be done on any city, with any word which opens it up to advancing on the original idea.
Essentially, if you were to see these lines on the ground, they would mean nothing to a naive person, although when you get the bigger picture from above, you can see what they mean.
I quite like this idea because instead of having a project that is based and created in your hands, you’re out on the street, using the city as a canvas and although it isn’t clear at first, you get the idea when you see the bigger picture.

I hope to start the filming on Saturday.