Author: Jacqueline Yang

Week 1

The tool I chose to explore for this brief is Spark AR Studio, an application for designing filters that can be used while taking a picture or during a video call. I found filters contradictory because the original goal of the camera is to capture the moment in the most accurate and realistic way possible. While the technology for clarity and accuracy continues to develop, the creation of filters acts as an oxymoron.

As Spark AR is new to me, I began my exploration by learning how to use the software and getting familiar with its assets and assigned goals for each iteration, while trying to explore the possibilities and limits of the application.

Cinema 4D was another software I began to learn from the project as it is needed for face distortion. 

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Week 3

From week 2’s critique, I decided to push forward with creating skin as it was the most unsettling when used. Additionally, it questions the concept of robotics and avatars looking more human while we look more artificial. How putting real skin texture on filters will contrarily make us look more uncanny.

I experimented with color, shading, and hair to create the most believable skin. The final filter I created is a combination of smile distortion and skin texture.

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Draft 1

In our current society, and especially within recent years, we are constantly trying to blur the line between artificial concepts and reality. This observation fascinates me but also raises concerns for where this movement, in the future, will lead us as a community. The loss of self identity is another concern I have regarding the shift towards digital profiles. 

The tool I chose to explore for this brief is Spark AR Studio, an application for designing filters that can be used while taking a picture or during a video call. I found filters contradictory because the original goal of the camera is to capture the moment in the most accurate and realistic way possible. While the technology for clarity and accuracy continues to develop, the creation of filters acts as an oxymoron.

I began my exploration by learning how to use the software, getting familiar with its assets and assigned goals for each iteration 

Draft 2

In our current society, and especially within recent years, we are constantly trying to blur the line between artificial concepts and reality. This observation fascinates me but also raises concerns for where this movement, in the future, will lead us as a community. The loss of self identity is another concern I have regarding the shift towards digital profiles. 

The tool I chose to explore for this brief is Spark AR Studio, an application for designing filters that can be used while taking a picture or during a video call. I found filters, whether for enhancement or decoration purpose, contradictory because the original goal of the camera is to capture the moment in the most accurate and realistic way possible. While the technology for clarity and accuracy continues to develop, the creation of filters acts as an oxymoron. Discussed in The Digital Image in Photographic Culture, when software and image collide the result is no longer a simple image but also a shift has been made within the link between representation, memory, time and identity.

We keep pushing the boundaries that we are over artifializing ourselves through technology, leading us to the uncanny valley. This term is often used to describe avatars, cartoon characters, and robotics, whereas now we are striving to look like them as if they are the ideal appearance. Why are we pushing robotics and avatars to be more “human” while we push ourselves to be more like them?

Reference:

The Photographic Image in Digital Culture, edited by Martin Lister, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=1415807.Created from ual on 2022-01-26 22:41:23.

Draft 3

In our current society, and especially within recent years, we are constantly trying to blur the line between artificial concepts and reality. This observation fascinates me but also raises concerns for where this movement, in the future, will lead us as a community. The loss of self identity is another concern I have regarding the shift towards digital profiles. 

The tool I chose to explore for this brief is Spark AR Studio, an application for designing filters that can be used while taking a picture or during a video call. I found filters, whether for enhancement or decoration purpose, contradictory because the original goal of the camera is to capture the moment in the most accurate and realistic way possible. While the technology for resolution and accuracy continues to improve, the creation of camera filters acts as an oxymoron. Discussed in The Digital Image in Photographic Culture, when software and image collide the result is no longer a simple image but also a shift has been made within the link between representation, memory, time and identity. Filter adds another layer of complication into the image, further manipulating, or even replacing, its representation, memory, time and identity. The outcome is a distorted reality. 

We keep pushing the boundaries that we are over artifializing ourselves through technology, leading us to the uncanny valley. This term is often used to describe avatars, cartoon characters, and robotics, who look extremely realistic to a point that makes us feel uneasy or even disgusted. Whereas now, we are using filters to create a flawless yet artificial face, drawing us closer to resemble these man made characters. The progression of robotics and avatars becoming more “human” while we push ourselves to be more like them is unsettling. However, I found it interesting that both are leading themselves to this perfect being whether human or robots but are all falling into the uncanny valley- lifelike but not quite human. Through different iterations of the project, I mimicked the humanness of the face through filters. The most common objective with filters is creating a flawless skin so I used skin as my entry point. My process was to create a filter using real skin textures, with the imperfections, and make them as realistic as possible. With each iterations, I tested how far and exaggerated the deformation needs to be to create the slight unsettledness that “is realistic enough to almost fool you into thinking it is alive, but it falls short of reality just enough that it clashes with your expectations of how a real living person would behave.” (Cherry, 2020)

Reference:

Cherry, K., 2020. The Uncanny Valley: Why Realistic Robots Are Creepy. [online] Verywell Mind. Available at: <https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-uncanny-valley4846247#:~:text=The%20uncanny%20valley%20is%20a,robots%20that%20are%20highly%20realistic.> [Accessed 30 January 2022].

The Photographic Image in Digital Culture, edited by Martin Lister, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=1415807.Created from ual on 2022-01-26 22:41:23.

Not working

when you talk through this section of project; not sure how much you got out of it.

you sort in different category 

but not clear what things stand out to you

the pattern? the grammar? what’s interested for you

Go Further 

the form in some of the button stand out in ur collection(non-circle ones)

How shape of the pin affect the content and meaning of the content

find the actual slogans; statements about someone or other, linguistic techniques; faces are translated into just shadow.

small subtle details in the design; a way of translating

looking more closely on the detail of your material. 

what do you find interesting from sorting?

what’s the purpose here? emphasis the slogan- is this enough; what can you do more that emphasis the slogan?

exaggeration? formally (scale, text, color)

take the content and represent it.

rearrange the texts; cut out; reprint; 

how scale, images, text, overplay,

the president pin – they look similar but what additionally you want us to look at? their smile, the form?

collection book/ scrab book (good idea) : layering of images and notations, newspaper cutting, not bound properly, collecting fragments, own caption system, handmade 

isolate- reconfiguring  

What’s not working about last method?

don’t know what you trying to say

whats the purpose 

how it connects to the pervious experiment

speak more to making order and compositions 

not critically engaged 

I chose a dance excerpt, The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, from The Nutcracker. I have always found ballet very powerful yet delicate. The smoothness of their movement joint by the interweaving pauses creates a rhythm within the dance itself.

Method 1 : Reconfiguration of foot movement through abstracted graphic symbols to transmitt a rhythm and visual graphic

Method 2: Reconfiguration of the dance postures through botanic illustrations to analyse the body language and how the controlled and rigorous poses are formed organicalled in naturev

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Method 3: Paraphrasing the movement of the dancer to mathmatic formula that creates 3D graphs; reconfigure the meaning through value to accomplish

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I chose Political Button as my set from the Harvard Digital Collection. I limited the content using the following filters: metal materials, created in 1974, with a political campaign subject. 

What are the different components? 

Each political button is composed of the shape of the button the words on it, some had portraits or illustration and the color the design is in

In Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Georges Perec, talks about practices and examples of looking at the streets and town in detail. Through these closer observations, Perec looks to find a system, a rhythm within the streets. The verb Perec used often to describe his action is “decipher”, which I found interesting as it shows he is not only looking but he is reflecting and translating his observation into additional information; like a process of decoding the behavior of the streets. A common theme between the reading and my study is finding a site’s circuit. Many questions that were raised in the reading parallel with the question I had for my investigation of Harrods Food Hall. Why do the buses go from this place to that? Who chooses the routes, and by what criteria? Where are they coming from? Where are they going? Are they in a hurry or moving slowly? These are some of the questions I asked myself as well while I was doing my investigation at the Food Hall. I collected datas and information through observation and deciphered these statistics to answer the question I had for myself.

Perec, G. (1999) ‘Species of Spaces’ Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London:Penguin, pp. 50 – 55

Visualisation and Cognition: Drawing Things Together looks into how inscription effectively simplifies dense data and information for them to be easily understood. The inscription approach discussed is similar to what I have experimented with in my research for Methods of Investigation. An example provided in the reading is economic statistics. The economy is, by sight, non-existent but could only be comprehended when the information is put in charts and lists. Description of human fossils is another example discussed as it was originally through drawing but now they are replaced through mechanical diagrams. Astronomers no longer study photographs of the skies, which are “too rich and confusing” (Latour 1986, p.16), but use a computer and a laser to read and simplify them. Similar to my method of investigation, my research aims to simplify the richness of the site to allow my research subject to show through. My research looks into the consumer flow within the Harrods Food Hall. Instead of using videos to record the movement of the consumers or journaling the number of people coming each way, I transformed the information I collected into an animated map, abstracting the counters and paths into a gridded layout and abstracting the people to dots. The number of consumers has also been reduced, as “redrawing and extracting is necessary to provide a … neat diagram”(Latour 1986, p.15). To keep the authenticity of the research, the ratio of people travelling to and from each direction has stayed the same. However, the result still reflects which area is more crowded and which routes people prefer to use. The “simplified inscriptions… allow harder facts to be produced” (Latour 1986, p.16) and to be easily comprehended with a glance. 

Latour, B. (1986) ‘Visualisation and Cognition:Drawing Things Together’, in Kuklick, H. (ed.) Knowledge and Society Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present. Jai Press vol. 6, pp. 1-40.