Design Journal #1 Getty images

Using March Chignell’s 4 criteria for usability to evaluate the getty images website. I’m looking for royalty-free images.

First impressions and a log:

Appears to be a fairly easy to use site, especially for an experienced/ web literate user. Simple bar menu at the top with pop-up menu made getting to the royalty free images quick and easy, at first. Hover on Image button, float down to”royalty free” images and click. New window. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, I’ll just browse – click on “see some of our top RF photos”. New window, slideshow or see all. slideshow is fast, click for detail doesn’t seem to bring anything up until I realise I have umpteen getty tabs open on the browser behind.

The pop-up “we’re here to help you chat with a specialist now” appears helpful at first, but it appears on each new tab of getty images that i’ve opened. I realise later that i don’t have to close this popup to close the tab. Still, seems like a lot of unnecessary clicking.

After browsing the “best of”, I think, oh, there’s a lot of straight men in these photos, I wanna look for the queers. Close window, return to main window, didn’t actually see the search bar at the top, scroll down to collections, pick a house collection at random.

Using various combinations of dyke, lesbian, queer, camp resulted in lots of photos near dams, some mono-gendered couples. “Camp” prompted a clarification window, which seemed useful, except the options (did you mean “camp” outdoors or “camp” summer camp? Neither!) were unsatisfactory.

However, first searches proved really unfruitful until i realised that the right sidebar had the rights-ready box ticked, instead of the royalty-free box which I was expecting. I think this is a major fault.

Chignell’s criteria:

Usefulness: I’m not sure if I’m asking if the design is useful or the website is useful? The front page is clean and attractive, the top menu bar with it’s drop downs contains at a glance most of the likely information one might be looking for. The coloured boxes in the main body of the page represent links to features that getty images wants to highlight.

Effectiveness: I think a website has to appear useful to be effective. Getty have recently changed their licenscing options and created simple presentations to explain this, in short grab boxes, an extended FAQ. Their information sends the user towards rights managed images if it’s for competitive advertising business or towards royalty free for creative types who just want to play around with images.

Learnability: Once I realised I had to check my search options before searching, I had better results. I discovered that royalty free had a more diverse range of images, which was what I was looking for, althought they weren’t as high quality as the rights-managed.

Likeability: I think I turned on getty images when I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Also, it’s a very smooth and slick design, it looks like a North American magazine, so I am a little distrustful of it’s usefulness for me, however advertising types selling brand packages for business in a tight deadline/ budget might find this an excellent site.

reorientation//reintroduction

This time I’m actually gonna use this blog! I have two new subjects this semester, and my major overarching goal this year is to keep my study under control, not let it blow out and take over my life. To do this, I’m gonna use endnote to organise my reading lists as well as references, I’ll have a weekly planner with regular slots for reading, revising and working on assignments. Each subject also has a journal type assessment, which I’ll keep on this blog.

First subject: information architecture and design.Woo! Lots of user-centred design process stuff, for print and online ‘publications’. I expect to get quite critical about relations between things and the people who use them. Keeping a design journal for this one.

Second subject: discovering and accessing information. Otherwise known as information retrieval, I expect this class to be an intense ramping up of online search skills and getting my head around librarian systems of organising information. Keeping a portfolio of learning activities for this one.

Ok. down to work!

flatworld

Our books are free online. We offer convenient, low-cost choices for students – print, audio, by-the-chapter, and more. Our books are open for instructors to mix, mash, and make their own. Our books are the hub of a social learning network where students learn from the book and each other.

reblogged from Harold Jarche

Starting afresh

And wondering how i can ever explain this recent absence, and sudden about-turn.

Nevermind. I’m getting all vocational and turning towards the libraries for some kind of career-like thing. And currently boggling at the reading lists. It’s funny how these subjects in information management have such long and intense readings, yet seem to require such a different way of reading them. No more the read and savour, thrill and inspire of old performance and gender studies! It seems to be all about skim reading looong e-readings. And it will take a few more weeks of learning what not to print too. The combined effect of the subjects I’m studying seem to place books (as opposed to journals and online content) on the very bottom of the reliable sources of information.

Hopefully it will encourage me back into the writing.

reconsidering project number two

this is so boring. this is so stressful. i should be enjoying it. this should be an opportunity to play. why am i so serious about it. i have a limited amount of time – the rest of tonight, some late night on thursday (unlikely) and some friday morning, actually, all day friday. but things will probably go wrong.
all i can think of is how much i don’t want to do this installation, and i’m stalling on putting up my crap videos on youtube.
idea stands at:
upload little vids to youtube of alice cooper rooster love domestic rehearsals. they’re performances of common youtube domestic interiors, complete with echoey sound.
do a search on domestic space, personal space, rehearsal.
cut whatever i find together, and …..
a) put it back up on youtube
b) give students a list of terms to search for and find it themselves
c) not cut whatever i find together, but list it, or catalogue it
d) its paradoxical that i have to be here in this computer lab to do anything, and yet i’m so disinterested in presenting or installing this video project here at this lonely, isolated campus with pseudo-fantastic resources that I’m almost at the point of giving up.

So i just don’t want to be here to finish (or start again and complete) it.
I feel like i’ve hit a wall because i just can’t work out an appropriate mode of installation/ presentation to the class.

I’d almost prefer to run a microphone along a keyboard and just listen to the amplified sound of scratching piano keys or hammers, sliding the mic along the black keys – because pianos are such percussive instruments. The work of art will be called ‘the sound of an upright piano’, with a dry wit and monotone voice. But that’s not really video art, although it is mediatised performance.

1 step forward, two steps back. about 9 hours available to solve this problem.

video project

I am trying to consider a place for these videos. 

Perhaps I should just make them and put them up on youtube – and once I’ve collated the videos from yourvid then there’ll be something interesting to do with them next. 

I’m working with Cary Peppermint’s idea of network art: 

“Network art forces new models upon the idea of static archive through allowing the real-time, continued performance of the document – works can be further disseminated, re-formatted, and given dynamic, immediate, live-site, vitality through the use of digital applications for the browsing, authoring, and editing multiple recombinant versions.” 

I am trying to make a comment about intimate and personal spaces involved in performance and rehearsal. so much of youtube is about making the personal public. 

So is zine making – it’s about a heart pasted on a page – intimate and personal. 

A performance made tonight live on stage…can I have a projection of my rehearsal space on stage and perform in front of it? Isn’t that a bit boring?

 

“…before I got all panicky about creating real and proper art, art that pushed boundaries and was interesting and the creation of which made me feel like I was really engaging with what it means to be alive and human in this culture in this society righte here and now…”

This installation part is hard to work out. 

Space context video sound.

I could perform the rehearsal in a room. i could take out all references to youtube, and project the different videos on each wall. then I could set up a mic and speakers, and whisper the lyrics while the class walked around the room, looking at the images. 

I want somethign live to happen – that I’m sure of.   

development

Developing the new idea:

New tangent/ set of parameters

Create a set of atmospheres to improvise with in a bodyweather aesthetic.

Typically, groundwork exercises are broken up into focus points of 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. These aren’t set in stone, but the practice of exploring a exercise for a set amount of time can create the space for developing new material.

This will be a set of atmospheres of various durations – 0.5, 1, 2 minutes, that can be put on random for a training session

The atmospheres I’ve created have largely started from sound samples of my own voice. One of the first things I tried with midi was to use samplero and detune my voice till it reached a rumble that sounded like a lion’s roar. Not very ‘atmospheric’, but what happens after 2 or 5 mins of this?

A series of atmospheres for bodyweather improvisation

Points of consideration:

To consider the dynamics of sound: pitch, volume, velocity, and spatial awareness and how it relates to the concept of atmosphere.

how do I create an atmosphere using my voice?

Or rather, how can I organise a series of sound events that create an experience of hearing the same voice from a number of different ‘perspectives’.

How can I modify a recorded voice over time for different experiences of aural perception?

What kind of structures can I use? A series of durations? Eg 30 seconds, a minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes?

Should elements of these atmospheres change during each duration? Should there be 30 seconds of faint whirring that gradually increases, or should I (for example) begin with 30 seconds of faint whirring at a constant volume that increases at another time?

I am limited by time, and so pressure perhaps is related to frequency rates?

Structure idea:

30 sec 30 sec 2 mins 1 min 30 sec 1 min 2 mins 2 mins 

Final structure: 

1 min 30 sec 1 min 30 sec 30 sec

 

wednesday night progress…(a debatable concept)

listening to:

sarah peebles insect groove. hey – her cd includes the max/msp patches that she used! Nice. [odd thing, macquarie library has started shelving new CDs <i>inside video cases</i>!!! New, clear plastic modern looking things. Videotapes may be a dying technology, but their cases live on, housing their replacements!]

reading:

undercurrents (a bunch of essays from the wire) 2002

haunted weather; music, silence and memory, david toop, 2004

thinking:

I’m in a bit of a panic vacuum, ie feeling a lot of pressure to produce something that is interesting, and shows some development of an idea. (and that i’ve learnt stuff this semester, and that i can attempt processes beyond my usual comfort zone.)

Where do I say my idea went? I actually just want to produce some sound that I wouldn’t mind hearing again. That I could perform to – bodyweather this time, rather than a rustle-up cabaret number.

New tangent/ set of parameters

Create a set of atmospheres to improvise with in a bodyweather aesthetic.

Typically, groundwork exercises are broken up into focus points of 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. These aren’t set in stone, but the practice of exploring a exercise for a set amount of time can create the space for developing new material.

This will be a set of atmospheres of various durations – 0.5, 1, 2 minutes, that can be put on random for a training session.

That’s much better. Now let’s see what I can create in an hour!

Lunchtime notes

atmosphere
sound
weather
temperature
space

drones
breath
continuous sound

lucky to be eating hot red mea
one wall I reserve for dead end
common paths to the cafeteria, the resource centre, to lab F115

before, what did I learn when I was lonely
Aree these thoughts distractions or useful?
Its my own battle now, an expectation unmet.

Basic structure to build up expectations
compare with silence or some opposite /unexpected noise

Thought about: contexts of different sounds & emotional response

Pronouns – definite meaning, emotional reaction

-take out of context, hide behind sound/s.

————

The original idea didn’t seem to take off, I’d hit a wall in trying to tell an aural narrative about a visual conundrum. Working now, conscious that sounds are events that happen, rather than aural cues for (visual) objects.  Try to set a limit for 3 hours. And then do something else.

sound project work

Listening to NthNth/SthSth, LP from Release the Bats (Sweden).  half/theory website.

Starts off barely audible, a whistling like a noodling on a recorder, or a machine whirring like an old tape recorder or airconditioner. Some guitar drones sound, single strings, tending towards distortion which becomes the main drive of the piece. Becomes increasingly jangly, increase on the overdrive, drums or something percussive comes in halfway through, and the whistling tends towards overblown, and then fades out. A snare drum hit any which way, loosely… Guitar drones fade back, left with the echo of this drum.

Mapping this:

(1)Whistling recorder sound…………(4)faster, higher frequencies, shorter notes…(8)overblown…(9)fade into highest nothing…
(2)guitar jangles…..(3)distorted, repeated……..(5)layered…….(6)crescendo…………………………………………………(11)climax/peak…(12)less layers, intensity subsides….
(7)random percussive sounds……(10)loose rhythm……………………………………………..(13)left with a slack snare slightly variable rhythm.

Also: Seht – ‘Dead Bees ((the((quiet)earth))suite)’.

Simple and subtle drones, smooth and clear quality, like pure sounds…almost quite sentimental in the end, picking out a tonic chord, i think… drones like synthesizers with big waves or changing low frequencies, and the ever present wash of waves in the background.

And listened to some early australian electronic music from shame file music. And a bit from the unnameable, clifton green.

So I’ve decided that I want to simplify my project, and just make the aim to create an atmospheres, or series of atmospheres, rather than illustrate a narrative based on visual objects.
I guess I was interested in taking a gesture – some speech, spoken words, for example, and exploring what could happen if I just treated these things as sound events, rather than representations of objects.
what can one do with an atmosphere of voices?But if these are sound events, then they are not voices. Perhaps I am asking what I can turn a voice into? What kind of an event can I create with the recorded sound event of my voice?

Timetable:
11.40 Try 6 things for 10 mins each
1) layer lots of voice samples together (20 mins – bounced to 11sec of “chorus”)
2) try a granular synthesiser on some voice (30 mins – werd plugin on chorus.wav)
3) a relationship between voice and harmonics (ended up with some distorted wind on a microphone sound, under water)
4) try doing a loop in realtime midi track, low frequencies rumbling pure sound

Break for lunch.