##0 Proposition: Indexical drawing ###Brief Working in pairs, use analogue methods to create or record an index of some element of the environment. Come to class ready to present the results and documentation of your process. You should note, location, why you selected this place or thing, what was your method of documentation or intervention and why you chose this method.
Due: Tuesday morning.
###Inspiration:
Check out the links in the resources page of the repository under environmental observation. Read this article on data visualization without data. Also the examples in the Sensing lecture.
Consider the following prompts:
- How would you use an ephemeral substance like chalk to mark a change in the environment over time?
- How can you use your body to measure an environment or dynamic process within it?
- Is your observation to be a momentary recording, a trace left over time, or a comparative observation.
##1 Proposition: Anthropomorphising a datastream ###Brief Using the p5js examples, take one of the published datastreams from either the Smart Citizen Sensor Kit or from a custom sensor of your choosing and anthropomorphise the data stream in some way. How can you transform it from being a series of numbers to being more experiential or sensual to a human? Can you translate it into a relevant social or cultural form eg. images, jokes, puns, music etc etc?
Due: Wednesday morning.
##2 Project Prompt ###Brief: Choose an environmental matter of concern, this could be a species, ecological issue, or environmental infrastructure that you are interested in working with. It should relate to you and be something that others are concerned with, such public perception of an urban species, an exploration of a dynamic natural/built system in the local area. By reflecting on your chosen issue, identify key everyday objects, practices, habits, devices, built environmental features or designed interfaces that define or limit or control or suggest how people think, feel, and act around the issue. Develop a creative work in response to this research, your project might aim to explicate and reveal some aspects of and tensions within your chosen matter of concern, or it might suggest or structure another way for your audience to interact with it.
Due: Friday afternoon.
To start:
- What are the questions that inform your inquiry? Why are you interested in this matter? What don't you know?
- Are you aiming to make your audience/user uncomfortable / inspired / aware / curious / in awe / active / engaged / confused / amused, etc.
####Stuck for inspiration? Brainstorm responses for the following questions.
- Fulfill an ecosystem service. Promote/document your service in some way.
- Write a guide for how to carry out an ecosystem service.
- Collaborate with a non-human life form. Take a photo.
- Design a data visualization/viceralization project of a natural system and then try to flip who is being sensed and who is doing the sensing.
- Create an interactive interface that makes it harder to get information not easier. Make your interface seamful.
- Devise a way for a natural system to participate in a political action or process.