Short Projects, Weeks 1-9

Documentation for these projects is crucial. Photograph & write about each stage of your creation process.  Be sure to highlight & write about your decisions as you work through these assignments. We want to know what worked, and how you got to where you wanted to get, but also (and maybe more importantly) what did not work. 

Reflection questions to answer as you are working and to include in your process website text. 

  • What is the theme of the work? What is it you aim to express?
  • How is that theme particularly expressed through the modality of the week? 
  • Which elements of the work are beautifully/wonderfully/perfectly expressed through the modality?
  • Which elements are lost or inexpressible through the modality of the week?
  • Who does this project exclude? Who would not be able to interact with this work ? Who is this modality not accessible for?
    • Now that you’ve identified who is excluded, what is one way you could remix this piece to include another population? (You don’t have to make this part, but think about it and write about it) 
  • For the remixes: what is lost and what is gained in this remix? What did you have to leave behind and what could you take with you?

For each of these assignments, you will be graded on the following criteria:

  • The project (50%)
  • Documentation of the project (25%)
    • photos & videos of each stage of the creation process
    • explanatory text accompanying the images and videos (what are we looking at or listening to)
    • tell the story of how you made this 
  • Reflection questions (25%)

Post the link to each assignment documentation & writing reflections in our shared google chat, here and also to the Assignments tab in Brightspace. Thank you! 

 #1. Captions

  • Text describes sound
  • Assignment Description:
  • Assignment Specific Question: Where do the text and image rub up against each other in your assignment? Where do you find tension or curiosity? 

#2. Tactile Graphics (lo-fi or hi-fi) 

  • Touch for still image (2D to 2.5D) 
  • Class Slides are here 
  • Assignment Description: 
    •  Create a tactile graphic from a photograph (found or your own) or make a drawing and make it 2.5D  (laser cut, 3d print, swellform, emboss, textiles, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, tape – anything you can touch ) OR make a tactile graphic of something unavailable, too small, too large, too hard to explain, or cannot be touched. For this assignment, we don’t have to adhere exactly to an absolutely faithful representation of the original photograph or drawing. Let’s focus on the tactile part of it, remembering that a tactile graphic or drawing is almost always accompanied by an image description.  It’s not a guessing game. Let’s think about what can be tactilely interesting or expressive. 
    • Fabrication Resources:
    • Assignment Specific Question: What affordances you gain by rendering an image tactile? 

#3. remix: Captions of Tactile Graphics

  • Text describes sound of tactile still image 
  • Assignment Description:
    • Return to your tactile graphics project.  How can you now express this same idea, theme or image using time-based media that can be captioned? Do more than record yourself describing the image 🙂 

#4. Audio Descriptions 

  • Spoken text for moving image, describing moving images
  • Assignment Description:
    • Shoot a short video of your walk to class or work or home from a place.  Incorporate audio description in to this in a way that creates additional layers of meaning. 
    • OR, as with the captions piece, find an existing scene and add audio description to it. Think about our discussion about objectivity/subjectivity. What conventions can you create some friction with? Consider some of the ideas Kleege has about the future of audio description, like customizing listening experiences, multiple tracks of audio description, each with their own subjectivity, etc. 

#5. Remix: Audio Descriptions of captions

  • Spoken text for written text describing sound 
  • Assignment Description:
    • Return to your captions piece! Create an piece generated (literally or figuratively) by some aspect of the captioned creation. Play “telephone” with yourself. Isolate the text from your captions piece and use that text to inform your new video piece. Integrate Audio Description from the inception of the piece. Think and write about how working this way with images and sound changes your approach. 

•••• Touch object assignment notes! ••••

  • Choose either #6 or #7 below, and it will be due in TWO weeks (3/14).  However, please bring a prototype or sketches to class next week (3/7).  You can use your digital fabrication skills to 3D print or laser cut something, or you can find an already existing object and embellish or transform it, as long as it is either
    • a) a tactile, tangible expression of something that is intangible or not easily touched, or
    • b) relates to your Audio Description video (an example we discussed was a coffee cup embellished with sticky goopy material – like hot glue – to evoke the maple syrup from Seun’s music video project). 

#6. Touch Objects

  • Touch for vision, intangible for tangible 
  • Assignment Description:
    • Find something intangible or often un-touchable (a breeze, ice cubes, yogurt, a jellyfish) and make it into a touch object in some way – it doesn’t have to be a replica, but it could be.

#7. Remix: Touch Objects of Audio Descriptions

  • Touch for spoken text of moving image
  • Assignment Description:
    • Return to your audio description piece.  Create a touch object as an iteration of some aspect of the audio description.