Final Communications Lab Project Proposal
Taylah Bland
The Concept
In the world today we are often presented with a number of phenomenons that transcend national borders and become examples of international problems that affect each and everyone of us in some capacity. Such a problem was brought up in conversation between Julia and myself. Julia presented the idea of creating an internet art project central to the concept of “catcalling”.
Catcalling is typically defined as “rude sexual remarks made by men passing women on the street” (Adapted from Urban Dictionary) although typically expressed in the situation above, these remarks can be made to any person at anytime. This phenomena is nondiscriminatory as it affects all people in all places in some form, thus, raising awareness about this issue is important.
The concept of our project is to present an infographic website on catcalling whilst using elements such as audio and visual to create interjections/distractions whilst the reader is reading. This is done to position the reader in a position of experiencing what it’s like to be catcalled and in the process losing focus of what they’re doing (reading the information) due to external factors beyond their control. The goal is to incite a level of discomfort in order to encourage reflection and subsequently a review of individual actions towards this issue.
Sources
One artist of significance in this project is the creators of the “Carbon Budget” by World Resource Institute. This is an example of an infograph that is clear, concise and informative. It presents relevant information in an easily readable format with a color display that is calming for the reader. This relates to the desired format of the website to provide information to the readers about Catcalling in a simple, easy to follow format. This also allows us to manipulate the remainder of the space (next to the infographic) to include distractions.
Another artist of significance in this project is Professor Leon Eckert’s. I appreciated the thought and creativity that went into the checkbox elements on the left hand side of his website that utilised P5. In our internet art project we wish to emulate a similar concept and utilize similar elements but not have the user be able to choose. In this way we maintain the interruptions aspect that we striving for. The interactions on Professor Eckert’s website are cleverly designed and inspired the disruptive elements of our project.
Production
In order to complete this project, there are a lot of mediums that will be used. In order to create a disorientating but dynamic experience for the users, both audio and video will be used. The website will feature information about catcalling such as prevalence, types, and responses. Interjections will use audio and video of catcalling examples to catch the interactior off guard. In regards to the technical execution of the project, we wish to draw upon all of the skills we have already learnt especially in HTML, Javascript and P5.
The web page itself will be relatively simplistic to focus the intention on the information. Embedded into the webpage through links, alerts and other onclicks will be distractions such as audio and visual elements and repetitive alerts to distract the user. The user will navigate the website as they would any other website just with the obstacles of distractions to interfere with how easily this process is. This methodology is appropriate as it mimics a real life situation in which someone could be walking down the street and be disrupted in a “catcalling way”.