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?