Jack Hollands - GRD 1006Creativity and Play

Challenge A PencilThe Pencil Brief was set to challenge us to explore what a pencil is, what it does and anything else you can think of using it for.

We set out the first half of the day exploring and playing with pencils, coming up with ideas and uses. We then had to move around in the group four places to our left and push their ideas further on our own. We weren’t allowed to ask them what they were attempting to achieve or what their goals were.

We simply had to interperet their work in our own way and then progress from there.

It belonged to Shak, I had seen him burning the pencils with a lighter and cutting them with a stanley knife.He had spent the whole morning destroying the pencils. Instead of trying to use his pencils for anything useful, I decided to go and buy more pencils to destroy.

This is the work I had to develop.

Tescos pack of 50 pencisl were just £1That’s just 2p a pencil...

...So at what cost to the environment comes with the price of 2p a pencil?

My final outcome was to use the pencils to make a statement about deforestation and 2p pencils.

A view from above of the forrest set.

Shot to exaggerate density of forrest setup.

Deforestation.

Paper FontThis brief involved exploring paper, with the end outcome to be a font created entirely out of paper.

Day one we were challenged to experiment with the different properties of paper, given quick fire tasks; like creating the letter A without any tears in a single sheet of paper.

Some examples of Fonts made from paper: resource, Google images.

I started off by advancing designs cutting out and folding paper, using light in different angles to reveal lettering.

I was inpired by this video from the website www.humansince1982.com.

A quick replicated experiment of the shadowplay font.

Shining light through cutout letters in paper.

Cutout letters upside down to create a correct reading drop shadow.

Origami folded strips of paper to create type.

Cutout type standing up.

Half standing letters where reflection creates the rest of the letter.

Raw photo of the shadows on paper.

Word relating to the use of the paper in the font (part of the brief)

My font is all capitals, it is a very bold font that I find easily legible. I like the elongating effect the shadow has to the base of each letter. If i were to make these again i would setup the lighting even better and get a big tripod for the camera so that shadows are even more even and symmetrical.

Pinhole CameraFor this brief we learnt how to make a pinhole camera. We then had to do some info graphics describing the process. The next stage of this brief was to take photographs using the camera and compare the shots with identically shot digital camera versions.

Cloudy - 6 second exposure Table lamp and Natural lighting - 16 second exposure

50w Bulb Dim - 1 second exposure 50w Bulb Full Power - 1 second exposure

Cloudy - 5 second exposure

Cloudy From Shaded Area - 8 second exposure Side on Sunshine, Cloudy - 5 second exposure

Direct Sun - 1 second exposure

This is reel of film is the result of my first pinhole camera attempt. Unfortunately it came out completely blank. This made me try really hard not to mess up my second attempt. I am pleased that I overcame my failings from the first try and the perseverance paid off.

I shot all of these images after a group discussion about everyones attempts and results. From this talk I got advice from other people on how long to expose the shots for. I made sure not to let light into any cracks in the matchbox; a common mistake amoung the class, resulting in images covered in unwanted lines of light.

Cloudy - 10 second exposure

Cloudy - 6 second exposure Indoors, Natural Light - 5 second exposure

Cloudy - 12 second exposure Natural Lighting - 12 second exposure

Inside a Washing Machine - 25 second exposure Cloudy - 1 second exposure

Natural light - 7 second exposure

I had predicted that colours would be extremely vivid from the pinhole camera, but on occasions the exposure must have been off. An example is the shot of yellow and white lines on tarmac. I took this photo wanting to get an extreme example of yellow in the print out. But the yellow turned out to be strongest from the digital camera.

An example of a happy accident when taking the pictures is the shot of the windmill. I was curious to see how something spinning would be exposed. I attempted to just capture the spinning windmill, but the end result is a great composition of its placement in the garden. There is also an unplanned effect of the light and colour extruding from the colourful windmill, with the furthest edge of the picture failing to pick up much light at all.

ContrastDesign a logo style image in three stages using the given word : Contrast.

Stage 1: Explore initial ideas within a strict time-limit.

Stage 2: Draw up in Adobe illustrator 6 or more ideas in black and white only, approximately 20mm x 20mm.

Stage 3: After recieving feedback from peers reveiwing our progress at stage 2 I chose one logo to finalise and mock up in a few colour options for a potential client.

RGB

CMYK

BnW

BnW Inverted

Time and MotionTime and motion brief set us out to explore the simple concept of time and motion, by any means we feel appropriate.

Initial ideas for this brief seemed very cliché:

• Slow motion video.v• Repetitive frame photography to capture places and scenes changing slowly e.g. clouds in the sky.

• Motor Racing.

• Evolution and Migration.

When I was researching for this brief, I found myself getting a bit too serious and frustrated running into well used ideas. So I went off to bed to have a read and relax. That’s when I had a good Idea, that as far as I was aware, hadn’t been used before. Using the power of new technology I decided to go on the world trip I’ve always wanted... through Google maps and their Street View feature.

I have to say, this trip was FUN, and interesting. It feels like I’ve travelled in some kind of physical way to each place. Passing through this snapshot of the world in its virtual presentation is a very surreal experience. I reccommend setting off on your own virtual world trip.

In order of appearance, Top to Bottom, Left to Right: Paris, Singapore, Niagra Falls, Paris, Japanese small town Street, Japanese power lines, Japanese city Street, Loch Ness, New York, Monte Carlos, Niagra Falls, Las Vegas, New Malden, Washington DC, Mexico City, Mexico, Hanoi, Dubai, Cairo.

Old vs NewOur chosen topic was Actual Experience v Virtual Experience, we decided to work in a group of 3.We had a session that day where we basically threw ideas at each other and noted down all of our ideas no matter how off topic.

These included:Tour of London v Google StreetPaint balling v Shooter gamesSkype conversation v Face to face conversationPaintings online v Gallery visitSounds of an environment v Sounds from films or gamesFireworks v Footage of fireworks

Once we had a lot of ideas on paper we started to home in on a select few that we would develop further. We eventually chose to take the path of shooting games such as Call of Duty.We wanted to compare the experience of real warfare against Call of Duty. The mere uttering of Call of Duty scared Louise from our group and 3 became 2.

An example of the game, call of duty, being reconstructed in real life for a television show.

This branched off in to other mediums of virtual reality such as movies (Inception, Matrix, Vanilla Sky) and where simulations might one day take us.

Could it get to a point where the virtual experience is indistinguishable from reality?

We then considered to set up an installation where people could experience virtual reality immersively.We drew inspiration from Maurice Benayoun’s art installation, titled - “World Skin”

We wanted people to be able to experience Call of Duty in a similar way in order to create the comparison, our way of thinking was that not everyone had really tried the virtual experience.

After this we had a conversation about the installation and how if people weren’t used to gaming then perhaps putting them in to this environment wouldn’t be effective.

This led Jack to talk about how his Granddad (an unlikely gamer) enjoys playing Rome: Total War (a simulation war game, allowing you to control real armies with real military strategies).Despite his interests in games, he hadn’t played many others as he struggled to interact with them. This was down to the lack of ability to adapt to the controls.

Tristan then recalled the television programme “Time Commanders” which featured everyday contestants playing the game, working out the strategies for the battles (using the Rome: Total War platform).

The genius behind the programme was that although they were in control of the tactics; there were pro-gamers who input the commands. This filled the gap between the tactics of the game and average people not being able to manipulate the games interface effectively.

The next logical step for research was to look at interactivity first hand. To do this we visited the Science Museum.We managed to capture lots of video and photos of people interacting with the installations, we actually found a neat comparison between children and adults reactions.

Installations involving cameras detecting full body movement and then displaying the participants in an abstract way on a digital screen infront of them. The above pictures show people interacting in a passive way by just passing infront of the installation. It is clear that their movements are mirrored by what they see, this caused excitement and curiosity in both adults and children.

Interactive virtual Fishpond. Touching the virtual fishpond caused ripples and the moving fish to move away from where you touch. This seemed to keep children and adults highly entertained because of the ‘realism’ of the experience. The pond also included sound effects.

Interactive drawing device, the participant touches the screen. After selecting chosen colours, and lines of symmetry to create patterns.This was good for even very young kids that would just tap the screen randomly, and the patterns created looked sophisticated still.

Childrens Installation Adult Installation

These pictures are fundamentally showing us how both children and adults are engaging in the same activity but with aesthetic polishing on the adults device.

After the day at the Science Museum, we felt that interactivity was a must in our work.

This led us to experiment with direct comparisons of virtual and actual experience of games, focusing on interactivity and fun.

We decided to compare the virtual versions of existing board games with the physical version.

Some of these included, chess vs iphone chess, teeter (home made) vs teeter android, connect 4 vs connect 4 iphone, Jenga vs Jenga iphone.

We played through both versions of each game and got participants to do the same. Both us and the participants took part in a questionnaire after each experience . this was in order to identify the pros, cons and other thoughts. We were generally trying to gain a deeper insight into the audiences opinions.

Some questionnaires that were filled out.

Examples of some of the games played in real life and virtually.

Using the information that we had collected we decided to enhance one of the existing actual games, so that it is no longer superseeded by its virtual counterpart, we chose teeter.

So far we have rough designs and thought out concepts of our teeter game.

Plans and a handmade version of the new game prototype.