- A narrative about creating art, such as but not necessarily the story of how I made something I've already made in this class.
- Something abstract, visually interesting and changing. Initially I considered the evolution of a game of Go.
- Something showing more about computers than just their cases.
After a fair amount of thought I found what I expected might be a clean way to put these together: a video of me programing Conway's Game of Life, and a resulting session of the program running. This would be a story about creating art - the video act of programing would be exactly that. To someone unfamiliar with programing, watching me create and move text around would be abstract and, quite possibly, interesting to watch. Similarly, someone unfamiliar with Conway's Game of Life would almost certainly find the results of the program abstract and visually interesting. Finally, this would undoubtedly show my interest in computers without succumbing to yet another external shot of a computer.
My main concern was that either the video would go too long and become boring or, if shortened, have everything happen to quickly to be able to follow. To keep some interest during the potentially boring stretches, I could provide a voice-over to the video. Perhaps a poem. I could have the voice-over switch themes at the point where the video switches from programing to the program running. Ultimately, the goal of the voice-over would be to create a sense of mystery which, hopefully, the end of the video - the running session of the program - would answer.
Creating the videos of me programing and the program playing out went exactly as desired. I didn't want it to go to quickly, so I used a programming language I was not overly familiar with. This forced me to look up quite a few things while programing as well as spend a fair chunk of time debugging. Capturing these two things - Googling for answers and debugging - was very important, as in "real" programing they consume quite a large amount of the time allotted. In total it took me about forty-five minutes to create the program.
However, the voice-over did not go nearly as well has I had hoped. I made short test videos with me programing and the beginning of my still incomplete poem, and I found that the poem took to much attention away from the video. I became worried that an audience would focus more on catching me abusing slant rhymes than the real focus - the video itself. I tried again, this time purposefully breaking the rhymes and cadence of the words to make it sound like a straight speech. It still did not feel right to me.
I started to consider less attention-grabbing alternatives to the voice-over. The most obvious thing would be subdued music. I began to look through music I was familiar with that was both subdued and, hopefully, could create a sense of mystery. Eventually I found a piece I rather liked. I'm not sure either "subdued" or "mystery" really explain the feeling the music creates, but whatever the words to describe it are: it fits. It may not be what I had originally aimed for, but the feeling of watching the video to the music just works. I adjusted the speed of the video segments to fit the music and called it a victory.
The final video met all of the major original themes I had come up with while brainstorming for this project. The plan to have a voice-over ended up being detrimental and scrapped. In fact, it was unnecessary; the video, stand-alone, is more than interesting enough. It's simply different - I don't think I've never seen a work of art that really tries to do something quite like this.
Historically when I try to create something - especially art - I tend to make myself the target audience. Thus I know, if I like it, that it is probably good. Here I found I did something quite different: I am not the target audience. This work is for people who are familiar with neither programing or Conway's Game of Life. It is intended to play off an unknown. I'm not sure if I did that purposefully or not. This also leads to the second project that I'm not quite sure will work as I had intended, because I'm not really the target audience. I don't know what someone who is unfamiliar with programing will think when watching this. Last time this happened I was apprehensive; this time, I think I'd be better described as excited to find out.
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