MEDI 323: Individual Practise: I had a Dream about Orca...

No really. I had this crazy dream about Orca. The basics of this dream was that I was swimming with Orca, in a kind of semi ruined underwater city, I say semi ruined because bits of it were and bits of it were like New York city at night... all high tech and glowing like something from Tron. So it was kind of like a futeristic Ecco game with Orca's instead of dolphins although I am sure there were some dolphin in the background and I verry much remember a crab on the ocean floor. It was a sort of underwater atlantis but the topside of the city was full of skyscrapers. I remember it being very pretty.

So you may be wondering why on earth I have written down a dream. Well it inspired me. How could I photograph the dream and keep a memory of it? I can't so I thought I would do the next best thing and make a Dreamscape. Obviously it will never be exactly what I saw in my dream but it pretty much sums it up.

None of the stock used is mine owing to the rather obscure nature of my dream. However the stock photos are only what I could find using google search.

I am increadibly pleased with this Dreamscape since it sums up an experiance that I would have otherwise very quickly been forgotten. Also visually I think it is very pleasing!

MEDI 317: Extended Dissertation: Internet Research Experiment

Having been part of an internet community since the age of thirteen I thought that I would have a go at creating a topic in the subforum 'Internet Culture and Memes' and see what the actuall inhabitance of the internet thought about it so to speak.

Here are the results:  I ran this poll for ten days so that It would be more controlled. I aim to run more of these polls and collect the data. 

 

MEDI322: Collaborative Practice: Mood Maps

I thought that mood maps would be a good place to start with the collaboration. I have produced a general mood map for the website covering themes and colours and I aim to discuss it and make notes on it with the person I am collaborating.  I made it in word so that I could combine text and images easily. I have tried to make it engaging and pictoral so that the person I am doing this project with will find it easy to use and also so that they can see where I think their website is comming from. Making this was easier in some respects due to the fact that we know eachouther however she did give me a few ideas of what inspired her; this being the 1950's style and colourings, pastels and obviously cakes. Also since she makes bespoke 'baby towers' I thought I would include something baby related as it may be a good idea to theme the page they are on.

I have also made a mood map more focused on the websites and the actuall design and layout side of things I have pre-catagorised the examples I have found due to the fact that we went though a few examples breifly together and largely agreed on what makes a website good and bad. However I intend to have a discussion about it and have notes of specifically what works and what doesn't.

I have also inculded a table of colours that I can use with the colour wheels on the general mood map for pinpointing the best colours for the theme of the website. This will also enable  me to get the hex codes.

I will email the word documents to the person I am collaborating with or if she prefers I will copy or print her ones. Also if she requests a copy of them after we have annotated them then I shall give her a copy aswell. I will be scanning them in once annotated.

MEDI 323: Individual Practise: Unreal Estate Dreamscapes Test Image

I have included in the image things that make me think of both winter and the holiday season in general. Some additional images are actually mine from stock however most of the additions are images either from web based communities or games I personally play (and thus feel I have some degree of ownership over) or things from games or films that equally are not technically 'real'.

I have used all the same method more or less (with the new addition of the luiquify tool to make the edges of things more dream like) keeping it still a fairly simple and organic process.

Honestly I am not sure weather or not I am happy with the image as art but it definately does paint how I personally see winter and the holidays so I am happy it serves its function for me.

Also even though the original image had an entierly different purpose (being to illustrate memory in terms of place and season) I do feel that it was still valid to use it as an original image because the original memories conveyed are still an important part of my memories of the holiday season. 

MEDI 323: Individual Practise: Unreal Estate Dreamscapes...

Basiclly my idea's have evolved out of my secound year project the Dreamscapes. I thought the project had more scope and very much enjoyed it.

To take it to the next level I want to combine the idea of the pictures painted by our thoughts, memories and dreams and add to this the notion I have of Unrealestate. Basically what this is is my idea that although something may not be phiscally real (My World of Warcraft charicter for example) we still feel we 'own' them and they can become integral parts of our lives and our personality. In essence these collections of Simulacra (things that are not in anyway tangeble) can have a huge impact on who we are as a person in the real world.

I thought these two ideas (the notions of both a Dreamscape and Unrealestate) are more and more interlinked today than ever before. I suppose a part of this process came about when I mentally stumbled on a shocking revilation about myself, I have been part of a specific online commmunity since the age of thirteen. I know in this day and age that would mostly eveoke a 'so what' kind of responce but that is entirely my point! I have effectivly 'grown up' online in a community. It has shaped who I am as person. Something compeletly untangeable, something almost not real. However to people of my generation and even more so the subsequent generations this stark fact is overlooked as part of everyday life, this would have been totally unheard of a few generations prior to mine, before the world wide web took its place as central to our daily lives.

Putting the argument of weather this a good thing or a bad thing completely aside (since it is just the way it is and that is really all there is to it) I wanted to show in images what life in the real world is like when you mix in the unreal. In my opinion it paints a more complete map of my thoughts, feelings, memories and dreams.

MEDI322: Collaborative Practice: Initial Proposal

For my Collaborative Practice module I intend to work with a friend of mine that is aiming to start up a commission based business centering on bespoke cakes and gifts. I will be the ongoing site content editor in collaboration of course with my friend. Also her photographer and maybe will be required to produce other promotional or marketing material.
The main context of the idea is to help my friend with her commission based business as she would like a website and professional photos of her cakes. She needs someone with a design background and computing skills to aid her in putting together a really cohesive and eye-catching site to be the front of her upcoming business.

Since we know each other she is happy for me to be working course deadlines. This provides a unique opportunity to be both professional yet relaxed which I feel will make the collaborative process a lot smoother and more beneficial. The actual technical aspect of this project will be collaborating to get the best photos and website possible. She will obviously want and expect certain things and also I have certain ideas of what would look best. I will have to work to what she wants and also ensure that I have a degree of creative control. I feel that this will be a very creative and flexible process as she needs a website and photos for a very creative business and as such is very artistic herself, this I feel gives the project a lot of scope for collaboration.

I feel that this project will be very beneficial since I am very interested in website design as a career, also it gives me more opportunity to hone my skills as a photographer to a much more professional and business standard. I also have an interesting in advertising and marketing and feel that this project will very much call on these skills, so I can both use what I know and also develop a more focused approach in this particular area.

MEDI 317: Extended Dissertation: The Root of Meme

Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in his 1976 book, "The Selfish Gene." As conceived by Dawkins, a meme is a unit of cultural meaning, such as an idea or a value, that is passed from one generation to another. A meme is the cultural counterpart to the unit of physical heredity, the gene.

• A Relevant Talk 

A meme spread online could be just about anything that is voluntarily shared, including phrases, images, rumors and audio or video files. An Internet meme might originate and stay online. However, frequently memes cross over and may spread from the offline world to online or vice-versa.

According to Lauren Ancel Meyers, a biology professor at the University of Texas, memes spread through online social networks similarly to the way diseases do through offline populations. Fittingly, viral marketing campaigns often attempt to create a meme.

MEDI 317: Meme Research

What is a meme? Basicaly an idea or a concept that spreads like wildfire through the net and becomes popular. They are sort of like inside jokes for masses. Memes can take the form of pictures, text, video etc but they all often become popular slogans, recognisable very easily by a word or a picture.

This Video by Weezer is FULL of memes:

Some Examples of memes:

Creepypasta: A scary form of Copypasta. These stories are posted over and over again on the internet. The intent is to scare the reader. Some of the most popular creepypastas are infact Pokemon ones, with possibly the most notable being the Lavender Tower Music.

Lol Cats: Probably one of the most poular memes on the net are started by or are in some way involved with Lol Cats. Some people herald lol cats as the start of a new internet subculture, which may be fairly acurate since lol cats has a following its own devoted website and lots of message boards now have subforums for it. It started with a few simple pictures with (it is believed) the so called 'cheezburger cat' being the first. The craze hit the internet like wildfire and in its wake inspired its followers to create 'Caturday' (which entails the posting of lots of cat pictures and lolcat pictures on forums and message boards on Saturdays) and has also spawned its own language known as Lolcat speak or Lolspeak. There is also a project to translate the bible into lolcat.

The lol cat craze has also started other funny animal related stuff in the same sort of format. Such as loldogs and also funny bunny pictures with Sunday being declared 'Bunday' on many forums and message boards.

The core of these memes are the same they mainly consist of a picture of an animal and then a caption typically written in 'lolspeak' to effect humour.

There are also a series of 'Face Memes' that are drawn faces tagged with a catchphrase like "Forever Alone" and "Me Gusta"

Also another popular meme on message boards is "haters gonna hate" which has and can be adapted to almost anything that a fan accepts some people may not like but of which the fan doesn't care. It is typically used to defend someone from or as a retort to 'flaming' or 'trolling' on their sites or message board posts.

MEDI 317: Extended Dissertation: Speed/Free Writing

Free Writing:

3 Minuets:

The internet has been growing and evolving since its birth to become one of the most used and valued commodities of the twenty-first century. It is now integral to way we learn, teach, research and spend our leisure time. As a result of its importance in daily life we are becoming more dependant upon it and are opting to spend time in the Internet as opposed to the real world.

MEDI 317: Extended Dissertation: Planning