Final Computer Art 2 Project Focus

/ 14 November 2013

Over the past week or so I’ve narrowed the scope of my final project down quite a bit. I’ll be aiming for about 15 images, which will be broken up into 4-6 (or more) segments (more on that shortly) covering just the conflict aspect of community. Not coincidentally, this refined content focus comes out of the work I did recently for the workshop I facilitated this past Monday.

The segments I will split my images into are images based on phrases from the academic literature we used as the basis of our workshop. I have a whole list of these phrases to draw the segments out of:

  • You are, by definition, a disputant
  • What If they are more powerful?
  • What if they won't play?
  • What if they use dirty tricks?
  • Either I get what is in dispute or you do
  • Solving their problem is their problem
  • Deal with the people problem
  • Conflict lies in people's heads
  • Put yourself in their shoes
  • Use symbolic gestures
  • Listen actively
  • Speak to be understood
  • Speak for a purpose
  • Build a working relationship
  • Face the problem, not the people
  • Shared and compatible interests
  • Basic human needs are easy to overlook
  • Make your interests come alive
  • Look forward, not back
  • Agreements of different strengths
  • Look for mutual gain
  • Ask for their preferences
  • Make their decision easy
  • Decide on objective criteria instead of will
  • Fair standards and procedures
  • Never yield to pressure
  • Make the most of your assets

Each segment will be listed in some as-of-yet undetermined order by an image that is pure text (somewhat like our first projects this semester) on the front webpage of my final project. Clicking these images will take you into that segment’s page, which will have 1-3 images representing the different sections of the phrase. For example, the first phrase will have three images, but the second, third, and fourth, only need one (making two total for the segment). Most of the phrases will be at least two inner images, it is only the three questions for which I see there being just one inner image based on work I have already done.

The segment pages will each have a short paragraph discussing the segment, and the front page will have a larger artist statement-like introduction/description of the project’s focus. Most likely I will include the “index” images (those used to enter each segment) on the segment pages as well to enable the viewer to look at the full-size image by clicking on the smaller display of it that will be on the segment pages.

The final display of this project will be in a web gallery I design for all my digital artwork. Initially this will just have one or two projects from earlier years, but ultimately I intend to move all my projects into this gallery I’m building. That means that the display of this final project has a far larger goal than will be met as part of my academic experience in the computer art class. Likewise, though I’m only aiming for 4-6 (or more) segments within the scope of this semester, I may later on create the rest as a way of completing this project. In the scope of this semester the project I’m setting out on cannot be fully completed. Therefore what I complete by mid-December is what is for class, but the project itself still will not be completed.

The link above goes to the real web gallery I’m building. Though the section of it that I build for this project is not yet there (it will be by the end of this weekend with the first segment fully added in) and won’t be in final form until mid-December, if then, please feel free to take a look. Especially with it as a work-in-progress (quite visibly in places) your feedback on it is welcome.

Now that the final focus for my final project is figured out I now just need to dive into working on the web gallery and images side-by-side.

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