Monday 24 May 2010
New Frome 'Pages'
I've added two new pages (above) : Pervasive Thoughts is my concluding response to the Frome Maiden's project and pervasive/locative practice in general. Frome MScape Testing summarises the results of last week's Scape-testing at Riverside Park.
Thursday 20 May 2010
The Real Frome Maidens
Thank you to Paula, Alba, Rhea and Amy for their time yesterday. Our intrepid testers produced lots of useful feedback -which I'll be writing-up just as soon as I can.
Monday 17 May 2010
'Natural Enemies'?
Are Database and Narrative 'natural enemies' or can they reach a peaceful co-existance? The interactive documentary, Gaza-Sderot, explores two neighbouring cities at war. In doing so, I argue that it negotiates (successfully) the tensions between these competing forms. See my essay at the Gaza-Sderot page above.
Monday 10 May 2010
Brain Farts
'Brain Fart': Noun; colloquial; advertising industry; meaning 'inspired idea'. Usage; eg 'The Creative Director badly needed a brain fart or he would soon lose his job'.
In the Brain Farts page above you'll find all the ideas that I desperately hope will one day make me rich - including GPS-based commuter 'radio' stations and smutty 'touchy-feely' books for adults.
In the Brain Farts page above you'll find all the ideas that I desperately hope will one day make me rich - including GPS-based commuter 'radio' stations and smutty 'touchy-feely' books for adults.
Stickybits 2
And another thing.....couldn't this also be used for public service information: e.g: health information about products, calorie counters, safety warnings etc?
And will instruction manuals become a thing of the past? Product information, rather than being printed, could be attached to the barcode -saving paper and money.
And will instruction manuals become a thing of the past? Product information, rather than being printed, could be attached to the barcode -saving paper and money.
Stickybits -the barcode revolution
Take a look at http://www.stickybits.com/ : a company offering a free app that will allow users to attach any digital information (text, video, audio) to any barcode. The same has been done for RFID tages and QR codes but this is compelling because the bog-standard barcode is so ubiquitous. Here are a number of possibilities I can think of:
1/ To subvert the marketing of big brands. The barcode can tell a quite different story to the one on the label of which it is a part. Anti-Apartheid campaigners would have had a field day with this during the campaign against South African goods!
2/ Equally, it has potential as a marketing tool, attaching addituional information about the product. We won't be collecting coupons or looking for the ring-pull with the £10,000 first prize; we'll be scanning the products. And I wonder how long it will be before manufacturers start selling this advertising space to other companies: Feta cheese carrying Greek tourism information on its barcode, for example?
3/ For social networking?: think message on a bottle! (the barcode can retain a history of material attached to it -it leaves a trail)
4/ Games? Treasure hunts??
These are just first thought........I'll be thinking a lot more about this one.
1/ To subvert the marketing of big brands. The barcode can tell a quite different story to the one on the label of which it is a part. Anti-Apartheid campaigners would have had a field day with this during the campaign against South African goods!
2/ Equally, it has potential as a marketing tool, attaching addituional information about the product. We won't be collecting coupons or looking for the ring-pull with the £10,000 first prize; we'll be scanning the products. And I wonder how long it will be before manufacturers start selling this advertising space to other companies: Feta cheese carrying Greek tourism information on its barcode, for example?
3/ For social networking?: think message on a bottle! (the barcode can retain a history of material attached to it -it leaves a trail)
4/ Games? Treasure hunts??
These are just first thought........I'll be thinking a lot more about this one.
Riverside Park MScape
Phill has been working on an MScape for Riverside Park, St.Pauls (I should have been helping him but was sick last Friday). Screenshots and Notes are in the Frome MScapes Development page. Looks good to me. Looking forward to trying it out.
Four Men Not in a Boat
A quick update on last week's trip along the Frome to reccy locations and select those suitable for Mediascapes. All of them had potential but what favoured the selected sites was that they were fairly self contained and defined, also that they had interesting features (a mix of trees, slopes, focal points etc), and ,finally, that they represented a cross section of the Frome (from rural to parkland to urban). The selected sites: the source of the Frome at Doddington Park, Jubilee Park in Chipping Sodbury, and Riverside Park in St. Pauls, Bristol.
Phill and I had previously produced a Mscape for Jubilee Park, which we were also able to test. The corridor of 'nuts' worked particularly well, producing a nice 'stereo' effect. Generally, it all worked, though Ralph is going to do some tweaking. One problem was that the Mscape wasn't fitting to the area exactly as it should, even though we had a strong GPS link and the Scape wasn't shifting around as it had in Queen's Square the previous week. Phill will try to realign the map to resove this.
Phill and I had previously produced a Mscape for Jubilee Park, which we were also able to test. The corridor of 'nuts' worked particularly well, producing a nice 'stereo' effect. Generally, it all worked, though Ralph is going to do some tweaking. One problem was that the Mscape wasn't fitting to the area exactly as it should, even though we had a strong GPS link and the Scape wasn't shifting around as it had in Queen's Square the previous week. Phill will try to realign the map to resove this.
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