Final Project!

Thinking about the Final Project

1. what do I want to remember from the conversations I just had?
I think that at this point everyone is sort of at the same point with this project of just trying to get going, so the main thing that I would like to take out of the thoughts from others is the idea that the piece should be somewhat interactive and should not just show viewers something but make them feel something and THINK!
2. How will my final piece be?
At this point I am only entertaining ideas for the project and I am not set in stone on any particular idea but I would like to use the idea of allowing people interact with my piece and to really end up thinking about the piece for some time to come. I would like to use a great deal of words-a possibly long poem or fragmented poem and some use of decorative, yet meaningful backdrops/pictures to add to the overall theme of the piece.

3. How will your writing not be the illustration of my words?
I am currently processing the idea of my piece being a sort of reflection on society and being a piece that is inspired by others and the lives of people I may or may not know.  I think that I may be able to sort of create a piece that moves and that is sort of fractured in the sense that I can begin the piece, put it down and pick it back up again many times while adding knew phrases and thoughts each time that are connected through the animating options of flash but are also somewhat fractured because they are all inspired from different people and events that I cross over a period of time.

Lastly, I would really like to make a piece that forms itself and that makes viewers think about their lives and their thoughts and writing.

analysis for short project

1. WHat did I learn? about the possibilities of animated writing.
I would say that i learned a lot about my opportunities to create something artistic and lovely through flash without being an artistic genius. I have also learned a great deal about what sort of poetic and meaningful messages can be transmitted through the use of animated writing and flash from other projects and my own piece on my love for starbucks. I think that this project has opened new windows for my knowledge and confidence in working with flash to create pieces that mean something to me and also to everyone else who views the piece.

2. What would you polish/change if you had a few more days to work on the piece?
I think that if I had a few more days to polish up the piece and enhance it's meaning and quality I would love to incorporate a picture of actual coffee/espresso beans and to possibly have the spilling cup do more for the overall meaning of the piece. I my project were to be longer I think that it would need to have more meaning and influence on the observers to keep them interested and intrigued. Other than that, I am very pleased with my simple, sweet Starbucks loving piece.

3. If you were to start over from scratch what would be done differently?
If I were to start this process over and create a new draft of a short project I would again, try to incorporate coffee beans and more pictures into the piece. I would also have the phrases and ingredients pop out to the readers a little bit more for a stronger and more infuential piece.  Really driving home the passion for coffee and lattes and Starbucks in particular, because I am sure many people have similar coffee passions as I do, whether for caffeine, substance or for pure pleasure of enjoying to aromas, people LOVE coffee and I love Starbucks!

Short Starbucks animation completed

Confusion in Simmon Biggs....................................................

I am still lost in translation with Biggs article but pulling from the two short paragraphs as instructed, I can sort of begin to understand what he is getting at. I think that art is in existence for expression and passion to be displayed for the world around us. I do sort of agree that art is basically a disjointing of regularity and of the common way. There are more than a handful of genres and forms of art but really they all seem to be for the same underlying purpose. THis posting is not art-it is not set to emotionally or theoretically move anyone. I think that art is really the process of stepping outside of the regular boudaries, and showing the world what we know and how we feel. All processes of art are with intentions to step away from the norm and to put a disjointed blurt into the regularity of the society that people know so well.

Further, people often become different and sprout from differentiation in the world because of outside forces like art and commnication and literature. I think that creativity and art very well set people apart from each other in that people are really just so different and unique in their own manners.There are many forces that push and pull individuals to become who they are and I think that society would be very well different and terribly jointed if these differentiations were not made in clear ways.

My short project-Starbucks!!!!!!!!!

My project is entirely not what I originally envisioned it to become when we had to develop a plan for it-but I love what it is turning into. Through the feedback I recieved today, I think that most people understood the basic idea behind the project but a few people were hoping for a deeper meaning. Because of the simplicity of this peice and the drive to make something delightful this project, for me, does not have a deep meaning or poetic drive-it is simply a representation of my love for Starbucks coffee and my creative choice to have everything that starbucks offers spilling from a coffee cup itself. I plan to, with Anne's help, have the words look even more like they are coming from the inside of the cup and not from behind or in front of the cup. i was also thinking of streaming the words together to have them pile together on the screen from the cup, as the actual full titles of espresso/coffee drinks.

The challenges of digital creations

This article put a strong emphasis on the transformation digital poetry has made over time and how detailed experimental writing and creating can be. I would like to pull a quote from the beginning of the article that really exemplifies the work that we are doing in this course and the struggles of animated writings in general. Glazier notes, “If this struggle between transparency an materiality is at issue in print poetry, then it is of even greater importance in electronic literature,” (171). This idea is bringing forth the struggles of transparency-what is seen but can be missed and the materiality of something-the content and the core of the piece, and how problems like these are even more challenging when they concern digital works. Ultimately there will always be a struggle for writers to express exactly what they want to say and to say it appropriately, but such a struggle can be overcome. Authors often seem to struggle, understandably with expressing their creative work in just the right manner, but the real challenge is to overcome this challenge of producing work that is transparent and has no meaning or significance or even depth but creating pieces of materiality, in which they do have meaning, depth and importance is very challenging, but to be praised. I can easily see how this challenge in and of itself can often seem even more of a challenge when ‘creating’ digital or animated works because, as with my experience in this course with flash and animations, authors need to create pieces of poetry or digital designs of experimentation, one must create something that is interesting and draws readers/viewers to the experience. Beyond just creating appealing pieces of work, which can be seen as simply transparent, I have found it difficult to also create pieces of digital writing that do have depth and as much emotion as they may serve up on a piece on paper.

This article as a whole really expresses, in my opinion, my struggles in creating well-developed and fascinating pieces of work for this course. I have learned a lot about the act of digital animation and digital poetry in general and I have learned a great deal about flash itself, so ultimately I have grown through this course thus far, but I have some more learning and developing to do to overstep some of the challenges that digital writing and animation serve up. I think that it really takes a great deal of patience and practice to overcome such challenges such as the battle of transparency vs. materiality. The best projects seem actually to encompass both of these traits in the right equivalencies. As Glazier also hi-lites, every creation is made more difficult and every challenge stooped higher when done digitally because there is much more manipulation and drive to achieve what you desire than with the standard way of writing with pen and paper. Every challenge in writing can be overstepped, such barriers concerning digital writing just take more work and patience.