Assignments

Due: November 5

Final Project Presentation for Group Critique

Each student will prepare a brief 5 minute overview of their final project for group critique, showing specific elements of the work. See the Final Project in Project Assignments for additional information. Be prepared to present from your Project Page, even if it is not completed (see below), as well as any of the Project Hyperessays as needed.

Project Page

Everyone will create a Project Page on their site: not a post, but a page that will also be linked from your site’s main menu. The Project Page should be very clear: visual element(s), a brief description of the work, instructions for viewer participation, and/or links to additional sites such as a Tumblr page, etc., if you are using one. Here is an example by Prakash Haridas, which takes you to his Home Page, where you will find a link on the main menu to the Project Page called “Welcome to the Subzone.” Note that you create a page as as standalone static document that does not get included in your posts feed, nor does it get aggregated on the class site.

NOTE: The Project Page does not need to be 100% complete until the opening of the exhibition (November 11th), but should be far enough along to provide the basis for a presentation next week.

Logo Graphic for Exhibition Site

Provide a logo graphic in .jpeg, .gif, or .png (depending on transparency). This logo or graphical button will be incorporated into the main exhibition interface. It is possible to provide a static image, or a gif animation. The buttons do not need to conform to any particular shape, however, if you want to use a non-rectangular shape, you will need to give me a transparent gif animation or .png file. Be sure the graphic is sufficient resolution, minimum 640 pixels wide. I will collect all the graphics in class next week and work on the page during class.

Outline

Teaching Evaluations

Remember to submit.

Discussion of Internet Bridge project

Opening up a dialogue between China and the rest of the world via the Internet is a challenging task. In China, the Internet is highly restricted: most social media is regional, thus making it difficult for the Chinese to participate in the global information culture. Furthermore, bandwidth is not as plentiful as it is in Singapore, making it difficult to access Websites, let alone author sites with extensive media content. Finally, there is the language barrier: most Chinese do not speak English setting up yet another constraint to communicating with the rest of the world, in which English is often used as the common language.

So the Internet Bridge project explores these constraints, with the goal to establish a dialogue between TAFA and NTU via the Open Source Studio project. Currently, I am authoring the student sites, but gradually we hope that TAFA students can use the system (possibly using VPN) in order to converse and share our study and discussion of cultural similarities and differences. We have been using Google Translate to convert English into simplified Chinese, and the TAFA students have been doing the reverse.

As a result, the Internet Bridge is beginning to allow a dialogue based on posts with photographs and text describing a cultural condition or situation in either country. Based on these cultural elements, we are commenting and building a cross-cultural dialogue.  So far, one post has involved interesting dialogue surrounding a Korean restaurant in Singapore’s Universal Studio that is a “fake.” The post, entitled Imitating Culture, was uploaded by Shar, which has drawn commentary from both NTU and TAFA students.

What are the implications of this project? What does the project reveal about how individuals, in this case art students, can establish an open dialogue between China and the outside world through communications media via the Internet? What are the challenges? And what can be gained from this discourse?

Open Source Studio Online Exhibition

Since we are unable to schedule an on-site exhibition (the ADM lobby is occupied during the last week of school), we will use the online medium as our space, which in many ways is the appropriate venue for our show. Some of you have ideas for physical components so we will have to rethink those projects so they can either be presented virtually, or in another location.

Here is a plan for creating our on online exhibition:

• Dates, etc.: On Tuesday, November 11th, we will open our online exhibition. We need to come up with a title for the show. I will some descriptive text that will accompany the exhibition Main Menu (see below). Since the show is online, we don’t need to take it down, it can stay up indefinitely.
• Exhibition Interface: An interface with graphics/text representing each work will link to each project page (see below for details). I am prepared to work on this this interface, but I am interested in having one or two students volunteer to help. My idea is to create the interface in Adobe Edge Animate, which will give us design flexibility. The interface will be linked from both our class site, as well as the main Open Source Studio site.
• Logo: Each of you will create a “logo” or graphical button that will be incorporated into the exhibition interface. It is possible to provide a static image, or a gif animation, or even a short looping video (no sound). The buttons do not need to conform to any particular shape, however, if you want to use a non-rectangular shape, you will need to give me a transparent gif animation or .png file.
• Project Page: Everyone will create a Project Page on their site: not a post, but a page that will also be linked from your site’s main menu. The Project Page should be very clear: a brief description of the work, content, instructions for viewer participation, and/or links to additional sites such as a Tumblr page, etc., if you are using one. Here is an example by Prakash Haridas, which takes you to his Home Page, where you will find a link on the main menu to the Project Page called “Welcome to the Subzone.” Note that you create a page as as standalone, static document that does not get included in your posts feed, nor does it get aggregate on the class site.
• Bio Page: I would also like everyone to create a “Bio” page on your site. This means that each OSS site will have a Main Menu with the following menu items: Home, Project Page (title of project), and Bio.
• Publicity: We will rely primarily on social media to publicize the exhibition. This will involve creating an event page in Facebook, and then sharing it out to all of our friends. Between the eight of us, this should be a considerable number of people. We will also share it to any Facebook groups we belong to, particularly those at ADM. I will send out an email announcement to all ADM students and faculty. I will also investigate whether or not it is possible to create a printed poster for the show.
• Project Support: Juan and I will be available over the next two weeks to help everyone complete their projects. Please notify us in advance to setup appointments. Next Wednesday (November 12), we will devote part of the class to short project presentations for critique, as well as a working session. Do not wait until the last minute! Everyone should demonstrate progress by next week.

Project Work

The majority of class time will be spent working on projects.