I. Situate:
1. What is a Site of Practice (Week 29 Lecture)
Over the next week, pick case studies and identify their sites of practice. Examine details of culture, community (human and/or more-than-human), beliefs, legacies, external factors of time, resources, material agencies, current activities which all add to the shape, characteristics and continued potential of the sites of practice.
Site of Practice
- a sphere of activity, interest, etc., especially within a particular business or profession: the field of teaching; the field of Shakespearean scholarship – dictionary.com
- “a space demarcated by individuals and their actions, institutions & debates” – Pierre Bourdieu (1977)
Milieu
noun, French
- the conditions, scenery, etc, around a person, place, or thing; environment – dictionary.com
- “milieu has neither beginning nor end, but is surrounded by other middles, in a field of connections, relationships, extensions and potentials.” – James Corner (1999) ‘The Agency of Mapping’ in D.Cosgrove (ed.) Mapping
Situatedness
- Confronts conventions of history
- Is subject to change
- Challenges the idea of “normal”
- Demands that knowledge (and data) is responsible
- Have no beginning or end, but are connected to other middles (milieu)
- Are spheres of activity and interest, informed by discourses, institutions and debates (field)
- Find new possibilities in sometimes seemingly exhausted grounds
- Engage with publics
- What makes the behaviours of that site unique?
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Could the re.veil environment / site of practice be described as:
- a video game?
- a digital environment?
- a shared digital environment?
- childhood bedroom?
Where/how/when? The project is to be staged somewhere (culture/history/events)
2. Site of Practice : Immersion Tasks (Week 29 Task)
Surprisingly This Rather Works and situatedness:
- Challenges and even breaks the conventions of an exhibition
- Brings a new possibility to exhibition
- Is placed in a virtual extension/iteration of a historical site
- Brings forth new means of engagement and interaction
- Contrasts old knowledge to new knowledge by pairing up new technology (VR) with a historical site
3. Position your Practice (Week 30 Lecture)
The group session started with a show and tell of our Unit 2 portfolios. the discussions
Research team outcomes:
Despite occupying varying grounds, common attributes between projects could be found – they are highlighted on the above document.
Two-line scenario project exchange outcome:
Unit 2 Feedback Tutorial Notes:
- Pleasantly surprised
- Sequentially building up
- All really positive
- Parameters could open up and be taken further
- =/= therapeutic methods to make sure it’s authentic and rigorous
- Graphically confident
- Looks like it could work IRL
- How to go deeper
- RS w/ contributors
- The ideas found a natural home
- The objects only relate to you
- Skilled up – where can this go?
- Staging project – thinking of audience
- Very good body of work
- Specificity of what these things do / what they add
- Technical competency
- Potential options could have been shown
II. Perform:
1. Perform Lecture 1 (Week 31 Lecture)
- Work with partners
- Think of how the project manifests itself ‘outside’ (i.e. outside the university context)
- Unit 3 work is outwards facing through sites, networks and communities
- How to connect project
- Don’t hold back / try things out
- Connections between physical and virtual space?
- =/= parameters, what can I do with these?
- Site – resources – dig them out and bring them to foreground
- What new possibilities of the project have emerged?
- What are the resources/characteristics/culture/
- How to open up the possibilities to the next stage.
- Does it collaborate with something that exists already?
- Design is mutable, reacts to its surroundings, site of practice (it doesn’t just live in it) / liable to change / varying
- Design is never static, it updates and fluctuates
- As designers, we are charged with bringing new ideas forward
- World; constant multiplicity
Prototype:
- Original / primitive form / an individual type that exhibits the essential features of a later
- “Proto” (first in time)
- Suggests there’s a sequence
- Gives the opportunity to generate/share new knowledge
Paratypes
- We’ve separated utility from everyday living
- “Para” (side by side)
- Several objects placed side by side with one another
Situatedness of the Site
- Ideate: implement research into practice, scenario making, modalities of engagement
- Show evidence of something you’ve observed + how it affects the practice
How is the project evolving?
Tutorial notes
- Game – could it be configurable?
- Generational divides / deeper connection
- More capacity as a culture to expand
- Tech facilitations
- Radio vs phone: =/= capacities within the game
- Facilitating examining one childhood
- Childhood: identity formation
- General audience
- Fixed in a moment of time
- Want people to feel like it’s their bedroom
- Reconfigure environment
- Identity building
- Childhood bedroom: microcausm
- Confess in public
Initial prototype (notes)
re.veil is expanding. it’s taking on expansive forms and is relating itself to personal experiences.
VR is a way that re.veil could transpose itself into various locations, particularly those that house marginalised populations. it could push the project into a more personal and immersive direction.
- Multiverse
- 1st person POV game
- Experience several places at the same time
While the Unit 2 project focused on the re-visited childhood bedroom, this Unit’s project will be less ‘private’ (website) and will be taken out in the open; this will give it more humanity. In a way or another, people will get to visit each others’ bedrooms.
Framework:
- Let it out
- Find sustainable solutions
- Build a community
2. Perform Lecture 2 (Week 32 Lecture)
- What is it? What does it mean?
- How does your performance perform?
- Performance art =/= Happening
- Performance art: artworks that are created through actions performed by the artist/other participants, may be live, recorded, or scripted
- Happening: forerunners of performance art environment, something new, with the intention of performing something, breaking down the 4th wall between performer and spectator
K.P.I : Set of quantifiable measurements to gauge a company’s overall long term performance
Build a trusted system you can go back to.
Gives a framework to evaluate if you’re meeting certain goals
Performance : Identity – if anything, re.veiling is halting that performance.
3. User Effects (Week 33 Meeting and Tasks)
- Shared values
- Commonalities between projects
- Prospects of exhibition
- =/= parts of the world
- =/= formats
- =/= places
- Transnational theory
- How does design move?
III. Curate:
4.a. Prototype Progress (Presentation Stage)
5. Studio Feedback (Week 35 Tutorial)
In order to fulfil the project’s needs:
- The website has to be developed (could be in the form of a forum where individuals input their answers)
- One must consider the way in which the answers are captured: much like the first iteration of re.veil could they serve as, both, a point of reflection in the moment, as well as a repository for other means?
- The project must be prototyped and tested further
- Relevant practitioners must be researched
(For section 6)
7. Question Bank
The initial bank of questions was developed over the span of a few months. Upon further deliberation it seemed that cards would be a fitting format for the game and that the deck would have around 150 cards – setting those numbers helped narrow down the amount of questions per basic emotion.
Updated bank of questions:
8. Visual Language Experimentation
re.veil 2 will take on a more retro-futuristic look; its futuristic elements will aim to represent forward thinking.
Over the years, holograms have managed to maintain a futuristic feel while simultaneously being reminiscent of the early 2000s, a time when their mystique took the world (and cinema productions) by storm.
Interested in their potential implementation in the project, they were digitally created using Blender.
Wanting to create a visual language that maintains re.veil’s flare and that further reflects introspection, a Blender model of a face was combined with the holographic screen:
That animation, in itself, greatly informed the visual language of the cards.
Interested in using a typeface that reflects retro-futurism, I relied on the CondorWide font in black italics. While the mix of thin and thick lines amplify the retro feel by giving it an art-deco look, the all-caps italics lettering offers the typeface its futuristic counterpart.
The name (and logo) was conceived by layering two words: de.code and re.code. de.coding is the idea of decrypting one’s emotional phenomenology and understanding it in order to re.code it in a way that enhances one’s lived experience.
The colour palette was quickly decided to contain the holography blue.
9.a. Makers Meeting (Eddie Niles)
This meeting with Eddie entailed finding ways to get a card game printed. After a thorough presentation of the project and its precedents, Eddie confirmed that the making would be possible and redirected me to the relevant resources.
9.b. Tutorial (Week 37)
After showing an update of the bank of questions and rules, the questions that proceeded the tutorial were as follows:
- What will the wildcards do?
- How will the win/lose be framed as an act of generosity instead of a personal gain?
- Would a more minimalist aesthetic be more fitting for a theme surrounding mental health?
- Could this design language be justified?
- How will the wildcards be differentiated from the question cards?
- What are the questions that you can ask people after the experience?
I was then advised to print out several card and instruction prototypes and test them out.
10. Group Presentation & Feedback (Week 37 Tutorial)
Interested in maintaining the nostalgic feel of a classic playing card, the design included some decorative elements that are reminiscent of those classic decks. The black and white colours were chosen to represent the good and the bad, as were the symbols that dwell by the corners of the cards in the very first iteration.
The figures are covered by a see-through screen which represents the distance between the individual and their true self.
While the back of the card depicts a front-facing figure that’s overlapped by a holographic skin, the back of the cards represent a back-facing figure.
The week 37 workshop asked us to bring the final prototypes of our work. My display included two iterations of the cards:
The feedback:
- “Horizontal cards are very appealing & innovative. I would definitely play it with people I want to get to know better. Will be a cathartic experience.”
- “The visual languages are pretty cool as I can see a bit of the futurism (?) and creativity. But in terms of the colours, I would say that you can use the fluorescent green as the main colour for the card game. It’s easy to rad and I like the way of expressing different emotions with the card games, which is lovely and effective.”
- Visual language is compelling. I could also see it being stripped back + simpler? Do you ned the human figures? Pragmatically I think the (portrait cards) > (landscape cards). I would play you for sure, I think the idea is great. Just think about whether introspection requires a human face – does it have colour? 3D? 2D?
11. Website developments and production
Much like its predecessor, de.code/re.code needs to maintain its Internet presence. Interested in creating an environment that’s as interactive as it is inviting, I knew that animations and visuals would be important components of the website. That’s when the Forum section of the re-veil.net website was born. Further visual and typographical experiments took part.
After reaching out to several technicians within and outside of the university, the experts at Tadberry Everdale that Eddie had suggested had gotten back to me and confirmed that they were able to print the cards. That’s when the conversation regarding the production started; hundreds of back and forths had yet to be exchanged.
12. Card Iterations (Week 39 CRP submission and tutorial)
Wildcards accompany the question cards and create further engagements between the players. They are split between two genres: +cards and in-game cards. Whilst +cards (pronounced ‘plus cards’) are given in addition to a question card, in-game cards are standalone wildcards that are given to another player on their own.
The cards have witnessed a progression–here’s the journey:
The latest iteration of the cards include three kinds of visuals that differentiate the deck’s components.
The question cards‘ visual changed to a human figure that is reaching out and looking at its hand. Its figure is outlined with a holographic skin which symbolises self-discovery.
The setting cards (then called in-game cards) affect the physical setting in which a round is played. They are represented by a visual of two faces that are connected at the head by a holographic skin. The “@” symbol was chosen as those interactions bring the players back to the space in which they’re playing in and prompt them to task one another.
The +cards are represented by a phone as they usually call for the use of phones to further communicate and connect with others.
The revised cards were proposed in the tutorial. The feedback was the following:
- The text needs to be centered
- The typeface might be too wide – the vertical height is not used. Playing with leadings or fonts with more heights might be useful.
13. Further developments, printing and group presentations (Week 40)
In terms of card dimensions, I decided to choose a size that was similar to that of a classic playing card: 89x64mm
The cards had to adopt a new form that would aid in differentiating them from one another.
An array of bold 3D renders of each of the cards’ respective symbols overlap the existing visuals. Some of the decorative elements were stripped back, revealing a simpler, bolder and more concise card.
The wildcards were also worked on for the production.
After some back and forths with the experts at Tadberry Everdale, the document set up was agreed upon. 16 PDFs each containing 20 artboards were sent to the technicians.
Simple paper prototypes were printed for the group presentation using those PDFs and constituted the most physical iteration of the game to date:
A couple of rounds were played and some interesting conversation was sparked between some classmates and I.
14. Finalising productions (Week 41)
The workload this week was focused towards getting the production completed. After receiving the cards, I asked the technicians if they were capable of providing me with a box as well as a brochure for my game.
After some conversation, I was shown a fold-out brochure that they had completed for another client – I then knew that the format would work best for my project.
I was given one of those samples home and I morphed it to fit the brochure’s format and content:
As for the box, we agreed that we could conceptualise a box that was similar to one I had on hand – that of a classic playing card deck. The de.code/re.code card box would however have a much larger capacity.
Creating a filter was another way to share the questions to a wider audience. Distributing the filter to Meta apps required several preliminary steps:
- Learning how to create a random selection filter on Spark AR
- Modelling the card on Blender with correct dimensions
- Creating the fronts and backs of the cards and optimising them as much as possible
- Creating a UV shader in the required shape on Blender
- Exporting the UV shader to Adobe Photoshop and reshaping the optimised images following the shader’s dimensions
- Exporting those images back to Blender and using the Node system to shade the modelled cards with the images
- Setting up the scene and rendering the images
- Importing the images of the 3D cards to Spark AR and using the nodes system to generate the filter
Around two dozen cards were modelled using some of the key questions from the bank. Meta had to approve the filter prior to its distribution and I was asked to submit three items:
- A video of myself trying the filter (using a temporary Instagram link that allowed me to use the filter prior to its release)
- A square icon with imagery relating to the filter
- The effect as an .arexport file
The filter was approved very quickly and has since been viewed over 4k times at the time of writing.
The brochure was completed following the prototype:
Creating the 3D cards for the Meta filter inspired me to create another Blender animation. The demo entailed playing with scale, rotation and location as well as the Blender camera. The background music was created using Logic Pro and offers the short video a catchy tune.
The brochure and the box were completed prior to when I had expected it. I headed to the photography space to photograph them.
15. Graduate Experience and final touches (Week 42)
The de.code/re.code website was among the last few components that was pending completion. The website serves as a space that
- Explains the premise of the game
- Hosts a demo video of the instructions
- Offer the players a space to share their experiences with gameplay in the form of a forum
The website contains a number of visuals, interactions and sections:
A website navigation video can be accessed via YouTube here and thee Demo can be accessed on YouTube here.
Interested in implementing NFC chips and getting ahold of a pack prior to the summer break, I found a way to incorporate them in my project. Guided by Eddie, I create a sheet of stickers that would be a couple of mm larger in diameter than the NFC chips and that could be used to easily access the website.
In terms of the graduate showcase, the key images of my project images have been uploaded in the respective spaces within the Web Showcase Drive.