Processing images

Here are two images I made with processing using basic shapes.

size(600,600);
background(255);
fill(255,0,0,128);
triangle(300,300,300,450,400,570);
triangle(300,300,450,300,570,200);
triangle(300,300,300,150,200,30);
triangle(300,300,150,300,30,400);
ellipse(300,300,300,300);

 

size(400, 400);
stroke(255);
background(192, 64, 0);
ellipse(100,200,100,100);
fill(52, 95, 300);
ellipse(200,200,100,100);
fill(255);
ellipse(300,200,100,100);
ellipse(200,100,100,100);
ellipse(200,300,100,100);

Nothing fancy here, just basic shapes.

Non-linear website critique

On this website, my instructor didn't like that some items are based on photography and others are illustration. Personally, I don't have a problem with that. I thought this is supposed to be like the psychogeography type of traveling where you don't know what to expect. Obviously, the way I did it was not what was expected. I suppose if I'm going to mix things up maybe every page should have a mixture of photography and illustration. That would make it clear that this is what I intended. Although it wouldn't be something that would make people think about what they expect when surfing the web.
Another problem was the size of some things was smaller than others. Again using the whole screen was mentioned. I discussed what I think about that in the post on the critique of my website.
Someone mentioned that she found the animated gif of the running cat distracting on the pages with videos. I can understand where that could be distracting. Too many things competing for attention on the same page.
I guess my navigation wasn't clear, although every page linked to at least two others. I didn't think it was required that I put the navigation in only small spots. It makes sense to increase the difficulty in a linear project such as a video game, but who wants to start out with easy navigation, progress to something more difficult and then go back to the easier one since this is non-linear. I guess I didn't do what was expected here either.

Website Critique

I should have posted this a while back. The feedback on my website was that I need more content and need to make it more visually interesting. A photo or other content on the homepage would help. More text would also help. Right now no one would be interested once they got to my homepage because there isn't much there. I agree with that feedback.
Also I have a link at the bottom of some pages that doesn't have enough contrast to show up well. I really put that there for myself because I didn't want to have to go all the way back to the portfolio page to check out the different content under drawings or photos, etc. I'd want to list it so that when you look at portfolio there would be the plus sign to open up and then have the links show for the various content under portfolio, but we haven't covered that yet in class.
I'm not sure what to do with it to make it more interesting to look at. Another thing that was mentioned was to make items larger on the page, to use more of the page. I do have one problem with that. The problem is that most people viewing web sites at home don't have the large screens that are in the classroom. I know I don't. To even see the entire picture for any of the works I had there, I have to scroll down and then they almost fit on the screen. I think it is better to make something that will fit on the screen of someone who doesn't have as large of a screen as an organization like the University.

Project 2

Project 2

Psychogeography

I found the reading about psychogeography on Wikipedia to be difficult to understand.  I agree with the issues listed at the top of the article about it being too technical and lacking a single coherent topic.  After reading the article, I also read the article “A New Way of Walking” by Joseph Hart from the July/August 2004 issue of Utne Reader and viewed some blogs with photos of what may have been encountered using a psychogeographic way of exploring the world. Viewing some other pages relating to this topic helped my understanding of just what psychogeography is.

My understanding is that psychogeography is exploring the environment especially in the city in a way in which you are not certain what you may find. It is not wandering aimlessly, but following an algorithm like take the first right, then the second left, then the first left and repeat this pattern as many times as wanted. The idea is that since you don’t know what you will find, whatever you find will be more interesting.  It is meant to be both playful and a way of observing one’s reaction to whatever one finds. It makes one more aware of the environment in which one is in. This type of a walk or travel is quite different from what we normally do which is going to the same places over and over. This purposeful  method of travel gets us from place to place, but we tend to ignore what we are passing because it is the same every time (with perhaps only slow or minor changes). My normal travels through Toledo consist of going to work, to the museum for class, going back home, to the grocery store and to my parents’ apartment. I travel the same routes over and over and can drive them even if my mind is on something else completely.

Traveling according to a pattern such as the one above that was suggested in Joseph Hart’s article makes one aware of everything everywhere that one goes because one does not know what will be encountered on this journey. This type of travel has no function other than to see what is encountered and how one reacts to it as one travels.

This type of travel relates to the project we are working on in class. After visiting one page of our projects visitors will have choices in which they do not know what they will encounter next. The projects may contain a surprise and people can also observe their reactions to these pages. Traveling from page to page any number of things may be found. This project is about exploring what is there and seeing how one reacts to it more than about trying to convey a specific message. There are many artists’ works that are about expressing something that the artist or patron feels. Some of the more modern forms of art such as performance art are more about seeing what happens and observing the result.