Camerami Mockup
by adrianpark on May 21, 2012
Here’s a mockup of my final project. It’s called Camerami. No, it’s not a camera. Yes it will teach you how to use a camera. And perhaps even make you a better photographer (whatever that is).
A 90 degree change of course
by adrianpark on March 16, 2012
I’ve decided to change the nature of my research a little and my proposed output completely. Which is an interesting decision when you’re 75% of the way through!
But I guess that’s the nature of research, particularly when I didn’t come to the course with a particular research topic in mind, nor any experience with practice-lead research. Most of my work on the course so far has arguably been figuring out what practice-lead research means to me and, more importantly, how it relates to my career post-Masters. I’ve found two things particularly challenging through the course – identifying the common thread through my broad interests (if any), and distilling from those broad interests a topic of research that is small and focussed enough to be covered adequately in the context of a part time research Masters. I think I am close to achieving an 80% proof single malt topic now (though, I’d be happy with 60-70% proof, drinkable glass of single malt Scotch right now!).
I’ve just had the necessity to provide in an email a concise summary of what I am proposing as my final research topic. I’m quite satisfied with this as a summary, or at least a snapshot of where my thinking is currently.
The aspect of my research so far that I am going to take forward is the focus on Photography as an act of enquiry rather than the Photograph as an output of the process. The important implication for me being that, if you examine Photography as an act of enquiry and the camera as the primary tool in that act, then changing the tool necessarily changes the nature of the act and enquiry. I find that quite fascinating and the argument leads directly to topics in the domain of HCI, Interaction Design, User Experience Design e.t.c – all topics in which I have a deep interest. So what I’m proposing as a core part of my research is to record the different ways in which different photographers with different cameras explore the same space. I’ll then take the data gathered, examine it and visualise it in a way that, hopefully, reveals interesting insights into the relationship between camera and operator, how the camera affects the nature of the enquiry and how that affects the outcome of the process.
I have also done a lot of thinking of late around what I want to do post-Masters. I’m going to return, with re-ignited passion, to my interests in User Experience and Information Design and what, in the web development domain, would be called Front End Development. I hesitate to label my interest as that since my interest is actually broader. It may be better described as some combination of motion and graphical programming, programmatic data visualisation and application development. The best label I have that wraps up the whole lot concisely is “Creative Coder”. I’ve also set my sights on applying these skills in the area of eLearning. I think there is untapped potential in the application of these skills to the production of digital learning materials and I plan to explore that potential.
So, I might describe myself as a User Experience Designer and Creative Coder specialising in eLearning.
So, bringing this back round to my practice, I’m proposing to investigate what opportunities the combination of Apple’s iBooks and Creative Coding using HTML+CSS+Javascript based technologies may offer for eLearning content and tools (think Processing.js, Paper.js in iBook form).
And finally, tying the research and practice together, my final submission will be an iBook that combines the results of my research with theory of technology and photography, using interactive digital media in iBook form to create a hybrid photobook and photography guide that contrasts strongly with the majority of derivative photography books to be found on most high street bookstore shelves.
The futility of looking
by adrianpark on February 10, 2012
In my continuing effort to understand this thing we call Photography, I’ve been researching visual perception in the hope of better understanding our relationship with photographs. I’ve so far read two interesting books related to the subject: An Anatomy of Thought by Ian Glynn and The Object Stares Back : on the Nature of Seeing by James Elkins. I discuss the first in this post and the second in a later post.
Processing JS + Multitouch = magic finger tips
by adrianpark on February 7, 2012
We held our inaugural Tinker Tuesday today. The idea is that all the Digital Media Masters students get together on a Tuesday to tinker.
Ben Holden asked me about HTML5 and we got to discussing the relative merits of HTML5+JavaScript compared to Flash+ActionsScript and Java applets compiled from Processing. This led to the topic of Processing JS and Ben asked how one goes about porting a Processing app to Processing JS. As I hadn’t yet played with Processing JS, I set about finding out.
Turns out it’s dead simple: with the processing.js file downloaded and included with the sketch files, all that’s needed is a simple HTML file that includes processing.js and has a canvas element with a property called ‘data-processing-sources’ with its value being a list of all the .pde files separated by spaces.
Check out the example produced in the session.
When I got home I decided to test it in Safari on the iPad. The experience of using a finger rather than the mouse was strangely satisfying and engaging. I was inspired to try and enable multitouch so that more than one finger could be used to spawn sparks. Turns out that is also very straightforward – simply write in a touchMove() method to respond to multitouch events and you’re good to go! I also took the liberty of tweaking the aesthetics and physics.
Check out the multitouch version (it will work in a standard browser but multitouch will only work on an IPad and any multitouch enabled device. Obviously).
Update 10/02/2012: Loren asked about modifying this so it can be loaded from the file system without the need for a web server. I found that including the Processing code as inline code rather than linking to the .pde files solves the issue. I’ve updated the source code zip with an extra file called index-inline.html which demonstrates this working (tested in Chrome, Firefox and Safari on OS X Lion).
Final Project: A Schizophrenic Camera?
by adrianpark on September 27, 2011
[The progress of the project so far has been documented extensively in Evernote. This series of posts pulls together this documentation in a more coherent form and provides an account of the progress so far rather than the documentation itself]
I have recently become interested in the relationship between mental disorder – specifically schizophrenia – and creativity and have discovered some interesting parallels with my thinking around the Poetic Camera.
I am conscious that the relationship between mental disorder and creativity is topical, particularly in the realm of pop psychology. A quick review of literature on the topic is all that is required to reveal that this is a contentious, and sensitive, issue. I don’t intend to use my research to draw any conclusions nor make comment on the matter, but only to consider how current thinking may inform the development of the camera.
Final Project: Pinhole Photography
by adrianpark on September 24, 2011
Image by Flickr user thoburn (http://www.flickr.com/photos/thoburn/)
[The progress of the project so far has been documented extensively in Evernote. This series of posts pulls together this documentation in a more coherent form and provides an account of the progress so far rather than the documentation itself]
In the course of my research for the essay mentioned in the previous post I discovered Renée Creager O’Brien’s PHD dissertation entitled The Post-Romantic Vision of Pinhole Photographery. I am not a pinhole photographer myself so upon reading her dissertation I discovered an approach and philosophy of photography that seemed to correlate very closely with what I was (or am) trying to achieve with the Poetic Camera.
Read the rest of this entry »
Final Project: A Theoretical Perspective
by adrianpark on September 21, 2011
[The progress of the project so far has been documented extensively in Evernote. This series of posts pulls together this documentation in a more coherent form and provides an account of the progress so far rather than the documentation itself]
After building and experimenting with the Poetic Camera, and liking the results, I felt that I had stumbled across something interesting. But I figured that if I wanted to develop it further, I had to get to the bottom of exactly what it is I liked about it, what makes the device unique and what attributes of the device should be investigated and developed further. So, as mentioned in the previous post, I shelved the device and started thinking about these questions from a theoretical perspective, trying to pick apart the device.
Final Project: Background
by adrianpark on September 20, 2011
[The progress of the project so far has been documented extensively in Evernote. This series of posts pulls together this documentation in a more coherent form and provides an account of the progress so far rather than the documentation itself]
For my final project I’m proposing to develop my Poetic Camera project further (previous documentation may be found here, here and here).
Max Assignment: Fragmentation – technical implementation (part 2)
by adrianpark on June 23, 2011
Max Assignment: Fragmentation – technical implementation (part 1)
by adrianpark on June 23, 2011
