Sharren’s Documentation Blog

LOLLIPOPS FROM THE CANDY SHOP

The second mini project that is about interactive drawing is very interesting and fun to explore. This project focuses on using variables, if-statements, mouse and keyboard interactions. In this mini project, what first came into my mind was about what will children be attracted to. Candies and lollipops came into my mind. So I wanted to make a story line on which, first the candy shop was shown in the first frame. To get some lollipop, users need to cover the house using the mouse which created a rainbow colored mouse. After that, you can see the lollipop and color the lollipop by moving the mouse. From there you get the lollipop and more lollipops. 

In the first frame, I applied mini project 1 assignment into this assignment by drawing the candy shop with codes. The next frame I applied the movement of our mouse where it will draw a circle similar to sprinkles which are colored rainbow. Next, the lollipop will appear and when you drag the mouse inwards the lollipop will give color to it.  After the lollipop appears and you have colored it, meaning you have the lollipop already. Another colorful circles will appear and it changes color in the last frame. On the last frame, you can draw more circles with color pink, green orange. This happened with the if (keyIsPressed) conditionals.

In this project, the variables are used to make coding easier . You can add, subtract, multiply, divide, and perform other mathematical or logical operations using variables. For instance, consider the rainbow mouse, which gracefully glides with “circle(mouseX – 10, mouseY – 10, 7),” all made possible through variable manipulation.

The conditionals I use in this programme is if(counter< x) which means if the frame changes the object inside the stated frame rate will appear. Also with the if (d < 105 && d > 90).

Which color the lollipop according to the if statements. Other than that I also use the true false stat

ements or boolean variables with “start1,” “start2,” “start3,” and “start4”. The reason for this is that the programme will only run the background once and not cover the previous sketch. 

Keycode refers to the keys for example up shift left and represents the numeric value While key represent  represents the alphabetic letters for a -z

<iframe src=”https://editor.p5js.org/Sharren-tanuwijaya/full/hnYsKdCoD”></iframe>

REFLECTION 

In my own understanding generative art is a creative process through the boundaries set by the rules you have created. It often involves randomness, interactivity, and the manipulation of parameters to generate unique and dynamic visual experiences. 

In the context of  Mini project 1, for the computer to run and display the results on the screen  we should follow the rules and references that p5.js has to make shapes. According to the article, this is called PSEUDO RANDOM art because it involves the manual input of background sizes, shape specifications and coordinates

On the other hand, Mini Project 2 is similar to creating a simulated ecosystem, where we have the freedom to select any object and develop it with different shapes and lines with the coding script. For example you can make flowers when you draw lines with the mouse. Both of the mini projects are code-based to generate an artistic expression in and it aligns with the meaning of generative art. Where the code defines the rules and parameters that guide the creation of visuals, similarly, in Mini Projects 1 and 2, code was used to manipulate and create digital art.

The contrast of both mini project 1 and 2 to generative art is that generative art sometimes uses algorithms and usually it’s more into experimenting  and exploration. While the project isn’t using algorithms but using the references that p5 provides and we manipulate the numbers. Which is more simple. Moreover, the mini project 1 specifically isn’t an exploration because we need to code based on the picture and draw that we did previously. The mini project 2, it depends on the student whether they code first and try to draw it on the screen, and this will be called exploration. But if they have the drawing in their mind and code it, it is not exploration. 

RULES

-Start with 10 different perfect circles with different sizes in the paper, draw it randomly 

–Second, draw perfect lines connecting each circle, the circles can be connected more than once

-The line can overlap the circles and other lines.

 

During the process of setting the rules, the first rule is randomness. After the first rules, I visualize it  and continue the rules with what can be nice to continue the first rules. Then, when i’m done with the set of rules i’ll try to visualize it in my head and if it gives me an interesting drawing in my head then the rules are ready. Yes, the drawing is generative, the rules are made to make a certain art. This is also random since the artist will follow the rules which produce different output depending on the different sizes of the circles the drawers create and the amount of line.

CODING THE BUND 

<iframe width=”500px” height=”500px” src=”https://editor.p5js.org/Sharren-tanuwijaya/full/EWVYy7Av_”></iframe>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

外滩 or The bund has been my favorite place for me to have a break from daunting school days. Each and every side of it is very  unique and a captivating beauty. One particular moment stood out to me when the Bund turned purple, I captured it and its radiant colors harmoniously juxtaposed with the architectural elegance to the right. This image inspired me to transform it into a symphony of shapes and colors in this mini project 1. My vision is to make the Pearl Tower to be the centerpiece of the drawing with a vibrant color of purple. As for the buildings on the left I put complementary tones ,so it doesn’t steal the Pearl Tower’s spotlight. I opted the color yellow for the building on the right side, to add a touch of vibrancy and also to prevent the drawing from becoming too monotonous. The brighter appearance of the building in the photograph gives me this idea. Importantly, this choice ensures that the Pearl Tower remains the main character and undisturbed in its spotlight

In this project I mainly look at the references. When I have something on my mind that I want to insert into the canvas, I look at the references. After knowing the script, I change and modify the numbers. I want to do exploratory programming when I fully understand and master the basics. Exploratory programming fosters creativity and innovation, and I might use this during the initial stages of a project to brainstorm ideas

Drawing in a paper it’s much easier for me as you can change the coordinates without approximating and write into codes. Also, if you have any other additional element you want to add, you don’t need to look up the reference or the rules for coding. You just need an eraser and a pencil for it. 

Last, shoutout to Linxi cc who helped my project and gives me the idea that coding is fun!!

THIS OR THAT 

by: Sharren and Ellen 

Indecisiveness is a personality trait that many of us have. In this project, I decided “indecisiveness” as our topic and explained how to be indecisive. Throughout the video we give examples of how indecisiveness dominated one person’s life and depicted how she feels unmotivated and finally finds motivation to get up. During brainstorming, my partner and I wanted our video to be about usual problems that we go through in our daily life. This gives us being unmotivated to be the topic at first. But we changed it to being indecisive as the main topic as it affects our daily lives more often. 

We want our video to be a modern style video as the topic is a problem that we undergo today. So it signifies it happens in the present-day not in the past. The storyboard is really helpful because during the making of it, we can understand our topic in detail by thinking about the scenes. The storyboard also helped us in determining whether the scenes are coherent to each other and not out of topic. During the process from brainstorming to filming, the problem we encountered was the time difference as we both live in different countries with a 12 hour time difference. To overcome this problem, we choose the time that we are both free and available. Another problem is making the narration as it should be a visual metaphor, the narration and the video should not be the same and obvious. At first, our narration clearly described the word indecisiveness, after critique 1, we changed our narration into a poetic type with a range of vocabularies. The next problem is during the filming, as we live in a different place we should film things individually. To overcome this, we divide the scenes and assign which scenes we should do. We also have our own google drive folder to upload the videos and ideas we have. During the editing process, some of  the clips we filmed turned out to be overexposed. So I play around the brightness and contrast during editing. I also learned how to use the white balance effects.  

In this project, mostly we did everything together and divided the task. The narration, Ellen wrote it first and I edited it if something didn’t work out. I also made the storyboard draft. However, we didn’t use the initial storyboard as we changed a lot of things in the narration. In the final storyboard we also divide it into two. Same with the filming process, we filmed the scenes and uploaded it into the google drive folder. We put some extra shots of our own ideas there to have it as a backup. I am really glad to have Ellen as my partner, even though we just met and talked in this course, things went really well with her. She contributed a lot and had creative ideas. 

Since I want the video to be modern, I use titles with playful fonts to make it attractive. The color of the video is also vibrant and not black and white, to make the video alive not gloomy. In this video we mainly use close up shots and medium shots. Some of the clips are also screen recorded. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zce65Q8HkjkMFEiqCS3Y-nIuiEJ2mNpW/view?usp=sharing

TIME FOR BREAKFAST 

For my concept, I decided to choose a playful and fun theme. I want to make breakfast a fun thing for children. This is why I chose Fruit Loops for the cereal. Back to my initial project theme, playful, the addition of Fruit Loops will create a more colorful and vibrant picture. So, the picture can also be eye-catching for children and fun for them to enjoy breakfast. The paint bottle also makes it colorful and replaces the bottle of milk. I want to show the colors of the cereal that comes from the bottle of milk. 

I took the pictures of the cereal with the help of my friends, since I want to make some motion from the milk so it doesn’t look boring and steady. The process took a bit of time, since I want the milk to be straight and not messy with other drips on the right or left. At first, I didn’t have any idea on how to manipulate the picture. I looked around my room and as I saw the paint bottle on my drawer, I immediately had the idea to include it in my project. I change the bottle of milk into a bottle of paint. I think further on how to manipulate the pictures. I then change each of the colors of the cereal according to the colors put on top of the milk. 

If I had more time, I want to improve my photoshop skills first, and make this diptych project more creative and more risky. As the current result is too simple. The colors on the result also are not that vibrant, I want to make it more vibrant. 

 

I. Project Title:  This or That ?

II. Team Members:  Ellen and Sharren 

III.  Concept | Storyline:

       1) Who are you going to interview? Or What is the piece (article, poem, story) for the narrative voice over?  

We will write our own narration, 

  2). What’s the story about?  

The story is about a person who is indecisive and how indecisiveness has dominated her whole entire life. She feels unmotivated and is trying to search for a solution. 

 3). Which part of the story are you going to focus on? 

The way she battles with her indecisiveness. 

4). What kind of style/aesthetics are you going to pursue?

Modern, everyday life, simple

IV. Execution Plan: 

       1). What equipment are you going to use when shooting the movie? (cell phone, DSLR camera, sound recorder, stabilizer..)

Cell phone and tripods 

       2). Which locations will it be shot at? When is it? time/night/unknown? Why? 

The setting of our video will be inside the house. We can also shoot some scenery to fit our narration. It can be shot during the day and night. 

       3). What are some challenges you might encounter and how will you prepare?

Our time zones are completely different so we need to arrange times for us to work together that are convenient for the both of us. Another challenge may be the way we film because we both are filming by ourselves and we have to take lighting into consideration so the final clips don’t look too different from each other. 

       4). How will you collaborate? How will you divide work? (Gantt Chart)

V.  Storyboard Draft

VI. Gantt Chart*

Task	Owner	Start Date	Due Date	Duration	PCT of Task Complete
Write narration.	Ellen + Sharren	4/26	5/3	1 Day	100%
Storyboard (Draft)	Sharren	4/26	4/27	1 Day	100%
Final Storyboard	Sharren +Ellen	4/27	4/28	1 Day	0%
Shooting without character	Ellen	4/30	5/7	8 days	0%
Shooting with character	Sharren	4/30	5/7	8 days	0%
Editing Draft 1	Sharren + Ellen	5/8	5/10	2 days	0%
Final Editing	Sharren + Ellen	5/10	18/12	2 days	0%

 

LINK: 

*starts 0:19*

*ends 0:36*

 

The concept for my memory soundscape project is about being late for school. But at last, after being in a hurry, everything was right on time. Ended with a deep breath, and sat down on my chair. A relief. I wanted the audience to feel the hustle of getting ready for school and panic knowing it’s late. 

Before I started recording all of the sounds, I listed all of the sounds needed on this project. The sounds I recorded took place in various places. Such as the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, in the neighborhood and inside the car. One of the sounds was taken during a morning walk in the neighborhood. Also, I asked my friend to help in making the footsteps that sound from afar and it gets closer. I recorded 2 different kinds of footsteps to make it more real and not boring. Along the process of recording the sound, I always make sure that it has a clear sound. The challenges I faced during the editing process is, I wanted to make it continuous and with no gaps between the sounds. I also try my best in using the features provided. 

During the critique, I got feedback from the Professors that I was able to make the soundscape feel like a large area, since there are various distances that the sound was taken; close and far to the ear. The sounds are also from various locations. If I had more time, I would take the Professors feedback to explore more on the features in Adobe Audition to make the soundscape more continuous and with no random cuts in it. Additionally to make the project better, I would have recorded the sounds properly to reduce background noise. 

Steyerl talks about how the “unbroken belief” of the documentary form is challenged. What does Steyerl mean by this? Certain movies and films are based on a true story. How does truth inform the fiction? How might fiction inform the truth?

According to steyerl, there will always be uncertainties as documentary forms create false intimacy and even false presence. The original authenticity can’t be distinguished from documentaries. Steyerl mentions, “it no longer asks whether documentary images correspond to reality or not.” This vagueness can be depicted with the example of the CNN broadcast that shows a low resolution picture, the only things in sight were green and brown blotches, slowly moving across the screen.

Fiction informs the truth through our perception and emotions. Reading sad stories makes us feel sad. I feel happy. The happy story isn’t something happening in my real life, but the happiness I feel reading it is real. We know that the story isn’t real but we feel the atmosphere that’s going on in the story. 

What is the significance of the authenticity and representation of the truth in the media that you consume on a daily basis? What is the role of a live broadcast?

The media is an important part of our lives, it revolves around us. Information is being passed to one another through media platforms. It provides citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments. For me, getting the authenticity is essential for the information in this type of media since I can be updated with the events happening around. Because if it is not authenticated, arguments can happen in the society which bring disadvantages too. 

Live streaming technology lets you watch, create and share videos in real time, a bit like live TV. So, it provides viewers with more authentic and trustworthy information. It is also. Even though it can be considered as the most effective way to show the truth, it still can be manipulated through different ways. For example, they can change they’re angle and a different point of view, they can put filters in live (Instagram live and Tiktok live have the filter feature), what came in and out in the frame can be set up first outside the frame. So we can’t consider live broadcasting a platform that is 100% trustworthy. 

 

Waking up early has been the biggest struggle I’ve ever had to overcome. Back then, I had to be in class by 7:15am. my conscious self the night before set an alarm to 6am, which rang on time, but as it rang i heedlessly pressed the snooze button. I went back to what I thought was nirvana, the realm of dreams at which everything was calm and under my control. 10 minutes later the alarm rang again. However, I dreamt off being late to school. As I woke up, my mind wasn’t clear enough to see the time on my phone, so I immediately ran to the bathroom; still having the thought that I was late for school. I brushed my teeth in no more than a minute. After I finished taking a shower, I opened my closet and grabbed my uniform. I put on my socks and shoes. Not looking at my class schedule, I grasped every one of my school books and tossed them into my backpack. I ran down the stairs, from afar the fragrance and the sizzling sound of eggs and toast was coming on my way. In a hurry, I took my breakfast that mom had prepared for me at the dining table. I directly sprinted to the car, heard mom grumbling in the kitchen  and told my driver to hurry. With a confused face, he drove me anyway. The radio just kept on playing unknowingly of the situation. The sky outside was crying. As I stepped into the school gate, only a few students were there. I ran to the classroom, seeing left and right, only some of my friends were there. As I looked at the clock in front of the classroom, the clock showed 7am. After all,  the thought of being late was just from my dream. I took a deep breath, and sat down on my chair. It was such a relief.