EXPERIMENTATION LOG — Theatre x poetry

Aim

How might I work the generated poetry translations into the interaction? How does the audience fit into it, what role to they play? 

Editing the poetry bits. Do they need a narrative? 

Precedents / context

Previous experiment with camera and speech recognition — cyborg witch theatre. Previous experiment in machine learning generated Chinese poetry.

Did some research into traditional Chinese poetry, particularly the work of Li Qingzhao, one of their most well known female poets. Just going off the English translations, it's looser in narrative than I had assumed. The poems in Chinese I imagine are a lot more rigid in how they are constructed, because the line lengths are always the same number of characters. 

Also did some research into queerness in ancient China through their art/literature, similarly building more of a grounded foundation to experiment from. 

Process / methods

• Went through google doc of inputs/outputs and the translations, some of them didn't fully translate — the odd word or two, so tried picking those apart and choosing words based on their individual translation/other translation sites/my own preferences. 

• I've been exclusively using google translate, decide to test another translation service. I was really surprised to find that the outputs were very, very different. I much preferred the google outputs — they were surprisingly much more poetic and also flowed better. Of course, without being able to speak to the qualities of the untranslated versions from runway. https://www.systransoft.com/lp/chinese-translation/

• To edit the outputs together, I copied my favourite lines and sections, and tried to group them by line length, to try and emulate the consistent forms of the examples I had found with research. Mostly a process of replacing words, filling in gaps, rearranging lines, etc. 

• Started thinking more about how to use the poems as part of the interactive experience. Would I be the voice reading them out? Can the audience do that instead. Thought about the theatre setup and tried using the idea of a 'script' to invite users to speak in the space, with the poems as suggested lines or a starting point. 
  
  Could be a pop-up box, perhaps the speech recognition writes into the script too? 

• When I uploaded to github, it wasn't working as well as the live preview — there's a significant lag with the webcam, and the type takes on this glitchy effect, which is cool but not good for legibility. The type is not a huge problem — I imagine I could use pngs instead, or it might be an issue with webfonts? 

POEM SNIPPETS:

Fly through grass

playing like Summer

The moon worm is 

in the rice mountain

Mould your love book

Piece by piece

The broken drink 

of our young day

Wild fields rising

Drifting, leaves falling, 

sometimes fragrant

Summer is waking

Rain Dance the bodies

Mouth is in the edge, 

in the incense, 

the butterfly is double, 

The mouth is in the fate, 

there is no love, no love, 

a flower blooms

Listen to gold

We are swimming in flowers

Peach leaves with love

Our joyous meeting

Poems do not understand

Don't listen

Oblique season 

of wind and rain

It loves in its way

Love puppets 

from it in the moon

cloud in a day

• Github link: https://cyborgwitch.github.io/CyborgWitchTheatre/p5_cyborgWitch5/empty-example/

Reflection on action

• I think having the user read out the poetry and use speech recognition for themselves is really engaging and exciting. The speaking of the poetry I think is powerful in and of itself, and seeing our (voice) output feed back into writing on your screen is super fun and satisfying. Will have to ask if there are solutions to the lag, I think it really inhibits the experience. 
  
  I still have big unanswered questions around who the stage should be for, and what it means for people who aren't Chinese and /or queer to occupy the space and speak these words, so I think I should do some user mapping to work out how this might play out. 

• I think the poetry snippets are really beautiful. I was scared to touch them and really work them into something for my purposes, but it was a really enjoyable process and less daunting than I had anticipated. I'm not sure if they get enough focus as it is in the interaction now — not sure if the "script" box is actually successful in inviting users to speak and activate the speech recognition. And would they be inclined to read the text there, or speak randomly? 
  
  I think they also subtly bring in a sense of sexuality/queerness through the language, e.g. 'mould your love book', 'the mouth is in the fate, there is no love, no love' creating these lovely, atmospheric scenes.

• I still don't know if the webcam feed here is necessary/appropriate? If I should apply some sort of tint or effect to it? What it means to have, literally, people who are not part of these communities, to occupy the space. And visually it's a bit strange? Hanging off the bottom edge like that, I don't know. 

Reflection for action

• Listen back to and critique the feedback from Friday's testing. 
• Post this link up on slack and summarise insights/issues. 
• Think about how I might invite the audience to speak... what affords that. What affords taking on the performative role. 

References

http://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/20025/1118

https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/521404

https://www.makingqueerhistory.com/articles/2016/12/20/the-bitten-peach-and-the-cut-sleeve

CRITIQUE SUMMARY — Wk 5 Studio

26/08/2020

Andrew:

• Think of the theatre as a space of play. And WORK WITH YOUR EXPERIMENTS IN THE SAME WAY. Really use the theatre metaphor as a device, interactions --> scenes, stage directions, etc. It's the central idea, so build it into everything. And especially the BODY in the THEATRE.
• More effective and interesting to explore aspects of identity together, don't separate them otherwise it becomes reductive and not . 
• Possibly too big as it is in this map, looking at doing two scenes instead of 4. But depends on how much depth you build into each, could run experiments in all of them. 
• Fourth audience input space could be brought in to the other spaces. (?)
• The structuring of the experience — also about experimenting, give yourself lots of room for that, especially at this stage. You've BEEN doing this so far, just keep making and testing
• The 2nd stage — exploring queerness, the body/movement idea I had vaguely put down is interesting in the potential reference and use of gesture in spellwork, which also does have queer significance. (RESEARCH THIS) Would be great to try motion capture through ML5 (they have good documentation/how-tos), poseNet(). 
• Documentation — again, keeping up with critical framework and documentation. Could be a more traditional website, or other process document e.g. a ZINE? (!) speaks back to this space and research nicely? For now, collect and continue the documentation process. 
• Interaction in the setup. Start building this in sooner rather than later. Especially to test! How people react and navigate the experience. Definitely put them up online. 

Adrian:

• Look into Adobe Audition for sound experimenting? Best to build it into the audio file instead of applying effects through the code, in the browser. 
• Questions around audience — user mapping is really helpful! Make personas based on all potential audiences and map out their navigation of the experience. 

Zoe:

• Crucial to be immersed into the making and process at this point in time. Come PREPARED for studio/feedback sessions, they are really valuable so set them up so you can get the best feedback. 
• Use the slack group! Post stuff up, give each other feedback throughout the week. 

Critique of critique

• The motion capture/gestural interaction is very cool. I think that's what I was imagining without fully realising it/articulating it? I think looking into that technically and doing the research around gesture will go a long way in rounding out this project; getting in these touchpoints and experiences that I want to speak to. 

• I agree that I should focus on this and the poetry scene, I think I was a bit lost last week and panicked about it — I don't really want to do a another half-baked interaction around women and coding/weaving. In terms of another interaction that is more dependent on audience input, I like it as an idea but I'm not sure how that might work — what actually happens, what is the input, what is the interaction? And I think probably dependent on time.

• This was really helpful, I feel less panicked about what I don't know/have yet. Documentation doesn't need to be a pressing concern right now, just continue with the experiments but confining it for now to 2 scenes and the entry setup gives you really good boundaries to work within. 

ACTION LIST

• Research into gesture — queer theory, spell/code work. 
• Put stuff on slack — new iteration of poetry scene, setup code.
• Sketch out gesture interaction/stage. Gather references — hands? etc.
• USER MAPPING for different audiences — who gets to play on this stage?

EXPERIMENTATION LOG — Setup redux

 Aim

Have another go at the setup — play with p5 voice, layering, editing the poem. 

Work out the errors and problems with the first iteration. 

How might I tighten up the words and build more metaphor/depth to it?

How might I experiment further with sound?

Precedents / context

My last experiment, setting up the theatre with voice and poetry. Feedback from Andrew and the studio group on it.

'Lungs' by Graham Harwood and Matsuko Yokokoji (2005), digital prints of code incorporating illustration and typesetting, referencing poet and painter William Blake. I like code poetry and like what it's trying to do, but a lot of the time it doesn't feel very accessible — in how it's presented and the content. I think this work navigates this well, by typesetting the code in the format and conventions of how it's actually written — the numbers down the side, the indents and alignment. Of course, the illustration and typography is also very evocative and gives you an idea of the tone, content, etc. I think it's also smart in how it frames the code — almost like a hand written/painted manuscript. 

As per Andrew's feedback, I had a look at the witches in Macbeth, in different stage/film adaptations. The collective speaking, or speaking in turn, is 

Process / methods

• Editing the invitation-entry poem. I knew it could be a lot tighter, while building depth into the metaphors around code, spell and theatre. 

Fiends, deviants, mysteries, wretched ones,
Enter softly into the Cyborg Witch Theatre. 
Parse into the dimension of thresholds 
inbetween flesh and screen, input and output

This is a theatre is for 
Reimagining recasting recalibrating 
Our stories, our bodies, our words
Let us gather in the woods of the web. 

We call forth this space and stage. 
We invite them to occupy and hold intersections
Intersections of the Cyborg and the Witch. 
Intersections of gender, race, sexuality. 

Fiends, mysteries, wretched ones.

Enter, this Cyborg Witch Theatre

Parse the thresholds in-between

Flesh and screen, input and output

Code walls, witch speak. 

Setup and draw our bodies

Into a cyborg witch becoming

Into the wilds of the web. 

We call forth this stage

Where dimensions multiply

becoming becomes viral

Gender x race x sexuality

• I tried to solve some of the errors and problems with p5 sound that I had last week, without much luck. Also tried experimenting further with applying effects and layers with p5 sound, without much progress either, apart from adding a 'reverb' effect which is kind of cool. 
• But I re-recorded the speaking, with this new version, again in audacity (also applying directional? sound — left-right speakers)
• Inspired by the Harwood/Yokokoji work, I thought it would be more interesting to bring that typesetting/commenting into the actual setup, instead of separate prints/images like I had imagined directly off the precedent. 

• Link on github: 
  https://cyborgwitch.github.io/CyborgWitchTheatre/p5_CyborgWitch%207/empty-example/

Reflection on action

• I think the words this time around are more effective, it says more with less, and is more specific in the language. 'Code walls, witch speak' more explicitly speaks to the experience of the theatre as defined as a space involving speech, or performance. The calling of a 'setup and draw' is a clear call to coding processes and explicitly frames the entire experience (the website) as coded and constructed. 
  
  I think this could be iterated upon more, continuing to layer in richer language. The line length is slightly annoying — maybe it could be tightened up more, so it's consistent across each stanza. Other things to consider and test/iterate: the tone of voice, and inflections in the speech. The previous iteration was angrier? More powerful and commanding, which I do enjoy. I'm not sure how dramatic to go??? This version feels softer and more mystical, especially with the reverb effect. On the reverb though, I think it is effective. It's not super experimental in playing with the voice and "character" — if it's more cyborgian, etc. but it really creates a sense of space, almost a empty stage/theatre. 

• The typesetting as code comments extend this messaging — should test on people who are not familiar with code (!!!). Even though there's no functional code to read and understand, I think it is immediately more inviting to engage with because of the colour, size of text, typography — having it presented in a more designerly manner. 
  
  It is also more thought out and immediately more specific than having the words just in the middle, as a click through. Now I'm wanting to extend this idea even further and actually write in code so it is like some sort of ritual where there's a process to it, different elements and a progression/result in the more interactive "scenes". There might also be more scope within functional code to play with voice and sound, with added distortion.
• 
  

Reflection for action

• Start building in the interaction-as-commands e.g. call in the perspective grid/plane, call in the walls of the stage so you also start to understand what the "code" / "spell" is doing, like a real-live (but faked) materialising. 

• Test code conventions and how it reads to people who are familiar with code and who aren't. Write out the pseudocode as a follow-on from this poem and get feedback before recording? 

References

https://anthology.rhizome.org/lungs

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/macbeth.4.1.html

https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/character-analysis-the-witches-in-macbeth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWyegNZOqQE

EXPERIMENTATION LOG — Setting up the theatre

 Aim

To set up the theatre as a constructed space / experience for a specific (reclaiming, performing, occupying) purpose. Create a threshold device, invitation in. 

Experiment with sound and voice through code. 

Experiment with the commenting and setting up the set up. 

Precedents / context

Feedback from project pitch, feedback from Andrew from the past few weeks. 

Process / methods

• Wrote an intro: 
  
  Fiends, deviants, mysteries, wretched ones
  Enter softly into the Cyborg Witch Theatre
  Parse into the dimension of thresholds
  Inbetween flesh and screen, input and output
  
  This is a theatre for
  Reimagining, recasting, recalibrating
  Our stories, our bodies, our words.
  Let us gather in the woods of the web. 
  
  We call forth our code into this space and stage. 
  We invite them to hold and occupy intersections
  Intersections of the cyborg and the witch
  Intersections of gender, race, sexuality.
  
  
  
  

• Started doing voice recordings, and layering them as separate files, but they weren't syncing up very well and it was super distracting, so I went in to audacity to cut it together. Just exported as single, compressed tracks so they would be easier to manage in code. 
• Thought it would be good to start testing a web-based output, so uploaded the files and code onto github and made it into a webpage. It doesn't work perfectly, and I don't really know what I'm doing in gitbhub but it's here! https://cyborgwitch.github.io/CyborgWitchTheatre/p5_CyborgWitch%206%20%E2%80%94%20setup/empty-example/

Reflection on action

• I think the voices, layered, are super powerful. They're really effective in tapping into a sort of collective force, power, knowledge. Like Andrew said, also bringing in this historic/mystic understanding of the witch as a speaker. 

• The code was frustrating, and I still don't understand why some it's not working the way I want it to. Same with github. I don't understand how long it takes to update? Just keep coming up against learning curves but I'm really glad that I started testing it as a potential outcome. I imagine there's also lots more that is possible with p5 sound, so I'm sitting with the uncertainty and frustration of figuring it out. But it's exciting! It was super gratifying to hear the audio files loaded in, and have that sitting on a actual website!!!! It makes it less of a final, mysterious object and more of a workable process, and I am leaning towards a website for the actual outcome because I can visualise doing it. 

• Regarding the words and actual content, keep going. I think I need to be more loose with it. I feel as though I'm half-assing it, or doing it and then not going back to rigorously unpack it and edit and make it better? I enjoy the process of writing and designing from words, but I think I need to trust my judgement and the PROCESS more instead of just ignoring it? This applies to the setup-invitation here, and the generative Chinese translations from runway, but I also want to have a proper crack at COMMENTING the code, especially with the setup of the theatre. 

Reflection for action

• Really test the shit out of p5 sound
• Commit to the editing process of the poetry. 
• Revisit this poem not as the content, but the commenting — maybe try modelling it off the Graham Harwood/Matsuko Yokokoji piece? 

CRITIQUE SUMMARY — Week 4

19/8/20 — Wednesday group critique

Andrew:

• The typeset code poem is referencing William Blake — 18th Century English poet/painter/printmaker. Religious/mystical tones and themes. 
• Voice experiment — evocative of witches from Macbeth, peripheral power and omniscient knowing. Taps into the historical knowledge of the witch as a speaker. 
• Navigate the poetry through archetypes/characters e.g. looking at the major arcana and picking 3 "voices" to explore and represent a different facet of this (your) intersection. 
• Also consider my voice(?) / the voice of the narrator, in the theatre space but also in the commenting and setup of the code
• Github is good because it allows you to update and see results pretty quickly. 
• Not knowing the conventions of web design is probably good, has a retro feel before we settled into this idea of what a website is now. \
• Sound — more interesting to play with the sound library in p5, rather than editing them together in audacity — the code/performers as live mixers, another generative process. 

Adrian:

• Would be interesting to play with the musicality more... draw upon mystical figures and knowledge — three muses from greek mythology, the three faced goddess in druidic stories / triple deities across many cultures. How might I add cyborg elements through sound, and the layering of it? 
• With poems/content, think about bringing characters into direct the narrative and interaction. 

Navira:

• Content: the intersection of incantation-cyborg-magic is coming through, but play with the metaphors and word choice more. Complexify!

CRITIQUE of CRITIQUE

• It was really cool doing the experiment, especially the effect that sound-based work can have, but I'm not sure if I want to kind of basically do sound design? 
• Having characters in mind to weave together the poetry/intersectionality/an overarching narrative makes a lot of sense, I'd be keen to start on that especially as everything feels really piecey at the moment. Would also help me lot at the poetry/approach from a perspective that is less determined by what I think is good/bad, therefore hopefully less pressure and I can actually make good progress with it. 
• I think it's worth exploring p5 sound more to figure out what's possible, also I will need to troubleshoot even just this current experiment to get it to work fully. 

ACTION LIST

• Look at — research — potential archetypes
• Do a deep dive into p5 sound
• Don't forget about documentation, do those exercises and look for precedents. 
• Map out experience, have outline for Wednesday. 

CRITIQUE SUMMARY — Task 1 Pitch

12/8/20

Anne Burdick, Ali Chalmers, Andrew Burrell

PRESENTATION SUMMARY

• Pitching a Cyborg Witch Theatre — code space-stage for a cyborg-witch becoming
• Parts — creative code, code 'casting', generative poetry, image-making
• Asking for feedback: how to better tackle the task of representation, how to build performativity into the actual outcome? 

FEEDBACK

Representation

• Sitting well as a personal project AND as something that speaks to a broader audience — feels really specific to me, while acknowledging other identities and without coming across as prescriptive.

• SO much material, don't think about it as a single project but the beginning of a body of work / research trajectory. But really interesting metaphors, analogies, experiments, materials, framings. May be helpful to not think of it as a single, big thing that is supposed to represent and communicate EVERYTHING, but one of many pieces exploring some of these themes and ideas. Figure out how to make this a DOABLE project — maybe it's not a good thing to be intimidated??? 

• Refocus and try to explore one or two ideas really well, especially to have a solid foundation to build from later on, definitely scope for this to go beyond honours. But for now, work out what you can do WELL in the time frame. It's ok to set some things aside!
  
  It's worth it to take an idea as far as it can go, to play it out and explore something small really rigourously. Good learning experience, and you don't lose the other stuff either because you've tried to do too much badly. 

• I seemed most confident/interested in the poetry translations? 

Live performativity / web interactivity

• Have a record/recording of me in the experience as a closed space/separate entity? A kind of manifestation of the cyborg that performs and goes through a ritual. What about the performativity, whether I'm there or not, is interesting? Seems like a nod to the constructedness of the space and identity. 

• Answer might be in the 90s cyberfeminism space — navigating the performance of body, to traces of the performance/the body, the viewer as performer. Really researching those precedents. 
  
  Ways to be present, active in it without being there in real time. Writing interactivity off personal data, patterns of behaviour, etc. 

• What is the role of the audience, if this is a theatre? 

• Depends on what the content is? How do people engage in the experience over time? What do you want the takeaway to be? Ask yourself these questions and work out helpful boundaries — time, entry/exit points, content, to work within. This will help you answer some of the bigger questions. Right now it's super open which makes it hard to work towards and pin down. 

CRITIQUE OF CRITIQUE

• I think re: representation, if i want to do it, and if it's either queerness/chineseness/both, I know what I need to do, it's research. Finding the stories and touchpoints that I could work into the content and narrative. I don't know if I do, though? They're both BIG. I think that I could do both, with everything I pitched here, but not with the full depth and richness that they offer. I really liked what Anne said about playing these ideas out rigourously. I think that is what I would benefit from most, at this moment with the structure and support of honours. 
  

• Same with the form and how I explore performativity within it. It's doing more research, looking at cyberfeminist precedents and thinking about what I want this project to do, and how to achieve that. I think this should be the priority right now, to work out the best way forward, with purpose. 

• I think what Ali was picking up on around the theme of 'constructedness' was really pertinent. I am pointing to the theatre, and our identities as constructions as a way to invite people to look at their own identities and consider how they inhabit them. The theatre is such a sacred place of imagination, where we willingly put aside what 'is', and explore what 'could be'. If we consider our identities as constructs, are we not more equipped to understand, see and shape/reclaim our own narratives? As performers on a stage, our stories are the story, and we are in a position to play with where it goes or what that means. 
  
  I think the transparency of the theatre — the spectacle of it, but also it as this blatant illusion, is also really compelling in pointing to our agency. It's significant also, the roles of the performer and viewer in this context. For the viewer it's a suspension of disbelief, and allowing yourself to be immersed in the world and rules of the story. For the person on stage, the lines between acting/performing/living blur — whether or not there is a script I think there's a sense of control in occupying and living out this particular story. 
  
  It's pretty much a structural device in and of itself — all projects tell a story, but placing the story on a stage invites us to examine it all as a construct. I want the seams — between code and performance, text and image, words and reality, to be visible and tangible, inviting participation — interaction? In a way giving the audience the same tools to think/perform/reimagine with, in their own way. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• How you set up the theatre — in the code, in the presentation/communication, will be significant. There needs to be a threshold, to establish the bounds, rules, objective of the space, and invite people in. Isn't this your narrative? Why it's a theatre? 

• Ask yourself why something is, or what about it is interesting. That will give you a way forward, and focus the work. 

• Work out what ideas and aspects of this are the most compelling, and workable in this moment and play this out through the semester. Might be helpful to think about the project as a process, just one that is building to an outcome. What you are doing, back from week 1 to week 13, is the project. 

ACTION LIST

• Research cyberfeminism. Find interesting, relevant examples of performativity. 
• Work through the questions raised here. Map out project, map out whys, possible boundaries, experiments, and outcome. 
• I think a good next experiment might be coding/casting the theatre, playing with the commenting and language around this.  
• Rework timeline. 
• Start thinking of and designing ways to test these ideas in class sessions.
• Remember to consider documentation !!! Do the exercises and research from Gabe's workshop. 

EXPERIMENT LOG — Chinese poetry machine learning model

Aim

Experiment with machine learning and artificial intelligence processes in the generation of poetry using Runway.

Precedents / context

Following Andrew's feedback to look into these methods as a way to build on Tracery content.  

Process / methods

• Full compilation of inputs and outputs, from a machine learning model trained specifically on Chinese poetry. The outputs were a mixture of Chinese (mostly) and English, which I've put through google translate and copied into here. 
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o1vlC7w48b75XqtXz799Ql9g0PNyH8ROt_gSSRNKspk/edit?usp=sharing

Reflection on action

• I was so surprised to have come across this model. It was really exciting to have a readymade process that I could generate content with, that fit really well with the aims of my project. It never occurred to me to look into machine learning, but this was shockingly easy and the outputs are really compelling. 

• I think the google translated versions definitely read as Chinese poems, which is pretty amazing. The content, structure, and tone are all very evocative of the poems and stories I remember learning as a kid. I genuinely can't get over it. The many references to nature and days/time, colours, animals, etc. are such a feature of traditional Chinese poems. The kind of philosophical tone, circular logic/phrases and questions. This is all immediately familiar, but I would have never thought to even research actual Chinese poetry — when I was trying to bring in cultural references through specific words and objects, they were, and read as, surface-level add-ons, whereas this is completely different structurally. It's definitely not something I could've written, either by myself or even something like Tracery. 

• However, I wasn't sure what to do with it. It's not anchored to anything in the project (i.e. it's not like the Tracery stuff where I had more control over the output with specific words), and I wasn't sure if it was where I wanted to go. I think now though, after a week, and revisiting the experiment after Sharon's feedback, if I want to work with words and poetry specifically, this is SO interesting. It'll need to go through a lot of synthesising, editing and rewriting, particularly as I work out what is happening on this 'stage'. I think the key, especially here in semester two, is to work to a purpose. 

Reflection for action

• START mapping out this experience !! What purpose does the poetry serve? Will it be performed, on the screen, part of the code? Start thinking about how you might document this process too — perhaps a zine or some kind of publication? 

• Figure the bounds, and layout of the project, and then dig into, cut together these + the tracery experiments towards A PURPOSE. 

References 

EXPERIMENT LOG — Speech Recognition

Aim

Getting speech recognition to work, and writing into the sketch as text. 

Precedents / context

• Feedback from Andrew about using the voice to enact within the space, as a point of interaction, etc. Drawing from feminist art and the specific power of the female voice. 

• Worked off of The Coding Train tutorials. 

Process / methods

Reflection on action

• Getting speech recognition to work was super gratifying. The live aspect of the feedback and result is really fun to engage and play with, I think the energy and unpredictability is a significant part of the theatre experience that is appealing in the context of this project. 

• It was challenging, and I'm still not entirely sure how the code works/why it wasn't working at particular moments. I think there's also a lot more that I would like to be doing with it interactively/visually — having it write cumulatively, in separate lines, so that it is more readable. Even having it listen for specific words/commands — spells that play out with the typography. 

• I've also realised through the reading of bits of poetry, or making it up as I go, I have to actually decide what goes into this project. What the purpose is, of the theatre, to the audience, and what role they are invited to take. What is the story here, of the theatre space, across the different interactive experiments? And how is this constructed through text, image, and interaction? I really want to point to the constructed nature of identity, and how that's something for us to play with and own for ourselves. Also, code as a medium that is similarly performative, and pulling the curtain back on this to make the seams, and reality VISIBLE and "hackable", towards self-determination. 

Reflection for action

• Really really doing some research into cyberfeminism and the art/performance that came out of it. Gather ideas and solutions to things I am unsure about. 

• Again, do research on typefaces that are appropriate for this intersection. 

• I think you also need to some proper thinking about the journey of this experience, how it plays out, what specific purpose (and so, form) does the interaction take. Map it out, troubleshoot, user test. 

References

CRITIQUE SUMMARY — Week 2

 Andrew 5/8/20

• Definitely experiment with voice and speech, especially for task 1. The power of the female voice has a long history and basis in feminist work and stories, play upon that. Do more research into this too. Lots of possible applications and manipulations of voice — speech recognition, text bubbles, thinking about the voice as a enacting agent, the voice and code performing simultaneously. 

• Commenting the code, thinking about the variables and commands and functions! as part of the package. As visible, active agents? actants? components in this experience. Acknowledging them as the constructors in these worlds, by naming and calling upon them in accessible ways. "Thinking about functions as incantations of the environment" !!!

• Cyberfeminism — lots of examples centred around performance in the 90s and 00s. Spend a good day researching this! Find precedents and cool things to play with.

• Output — Is this one big cumulative thing that you're working towards, or a series of code/hybrid material experiments, functioning as little micro worlds. Is it a web-based output that supports these p5 environments, and enables performance through live feeds/interaction? A video piece that records the performance? Where am I, as a performative agent in this? Untangling/entangling the bounds of the project outcome and the documentation. 

• The idea of a theatre, and stage — think through who gets to play on that stage. Who's voice, and narratives am I amplifying/"collaborating" with? 

• Generative poetry — yes make the process more transparent! Would be good to have it as an element/process that the audience is aware of, but not privy to. Playing with the idea of 'secret knowledge' that surrounds witches, witchcraft, and cyborgs too. 

• 3D — WEBGL & p5 is working well at the moment, if things become hard/you can't do something specific look into 3.js and Aframe, for higher level support with 3D. 

Action list

• RESEARCH
• performance in Cyberfeminism beyond VNS Matrix
• performative poetry/voice projects
• Queerness and performativity... !

• MAKING 
• Consciously commenting into the code. Inserting a sort of meta awareness/another layer of agency --> construction of the world --> ontology in relating to the body? Think about it as open architecture???
  
• Experiment with voice input, get speech recognition working? 

• THINKING
• Outcome vs. documentation
• Form and boundaries — video, web, interactive??, live thing? One big outcome or a series of spaces/experiments/worlds?

• TASK 1
• Image-making?? Maybe if you need a break from code, not a priority
• Slides! Communicating clearly and concisely!
• Show experiments
• Work out timeline

EXPERIMENTATION LOG — Code spaces

Aim

How might I experiment with code so that interesting visual environments are created?

Precedents / context

Brush up on code skills in the break, try things out. Basically a continuation of image-poetry-code experiments from last semester

Process / methods

• Have always wanted to experiment with 3D visuals through code, so watched a few tutorials on WEBGL. Turned out to be a lot easier than I had feared!

Reflection on action

• The 3D element really brings something exciting visually. It was really fun to work with and see materialise. I am really enjoying working in code, and p5, it's pretty satisfying when I get the results that I set out with, and successfully apply concepts and new tools. 

• I think there's a lot more that could be done (that I would need to learn) with the type. It is very static as a set block of text, and I keep wanting to interact with it more, to create a greater sense of movement and possibility. 

• I think also think I need to do some research into typefaces and find options that make sense — visually and politically, with the project. Trickster works really well for a witch-y aesthetic, and I think it has a nice weight, but is jarring when it comes to the cultural associations. The shapes remind me of derivative, generic Asian "inspired" fonts, which is not the kind of reference I want.

• The torus, while a very cool, easily created 3D object, is totally random and has no actual significance... I'd be interested to seeing how I could push this — with custom objects, created in another software, etc. 

Reflection for action

• Have already taken action from this experiment by continuing the exploration of grids and an alternate, isometric perspective

• Following on from Andrew's feedback, it's definitely in my mind to work in performative camera/voice aspects, and familiarise myself with what's possible, in p5 at least.

• Type research. Typefaces and typographic treatment with code.