Lab 18: Project Prototyping + Interaction Design

Outline

In this lab you will:

1. continue implementing your prototype
2. explore interaction design in the context of your prototype

Introduction

Welcome everyone! This week you will continue working on your prototypes. You will have to do a little research about interaction design for your blog post. This is intended to guide and shape the realisation of your project and strengthen the connection to the theme/provocation.

Blog post: What to include in your blog post?

do: Find some sources of inspiration of dynamic interactive visuals or music related to the prototype/project theme which communicate a certain emotion or evolve over time in interesting way. Your blog post should discuss how you might apply the techniques of these artists and musicians in your own work and put your own spin on it.

think: What are the affordances (hooks/hails)? (hails) What are the actions required of the viewer/listener? What are the rewards for engaging? What will the viewer/listener invest/emotionally experience from this artwork? How could you create these types of interaction in p5.js?

Your blog post is due at 11:59pm this Friday.

A reminder that we are not assessing the “quality” of the work you present in the blog post. This blog post is designed to help you design an engaging viewer experience through engaging with your prototype/project. We are looking for understanding of interaction design and reflections on your design process. The important thing is that you talk about what you tried/discovered and how you will use this in your project.

Screenshots and/or screen recordings

We want to see the thing! Include at least one hand-drawn sketch or brainstorm about your interpretation of the theme. Reference at least one image or video of your sources of inspiration (sonic/visual) - look far and wide for this (photos, nature, videos, installations, film scores, music, instruments etc.).

Discussions/Contexts

We want to read the thing! Write a short paragraph which covers the following discussion points:

1. Briefly discuss your interpretation of the theme for the prototype.
2. Discuss any sources of inspiration you want to include. Include the names of the artists/musicians and the names of their works (if you can find them).
3. What are the affordances? The actions required of the viewer? The rewards for engaging?
4. Discuss the emotional investment required of the viewer by the artwork: Do the works make you feel a certain way and why? What do you find interesting and why?
5. How might you incorporate some concepts or techniques from the works above when creating your prototype in p5.js?

Summary

Congratulations! In this lab you:

• continued implementing your prototype
• explored interaction design in the context of your prototype

Ways of Being

The Project Provocation/Theme for this year’s project is “Ways of Being”, as envisaged by author James Bridle in his book _“Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence”. ¹ The following quotes are from this book:

“What would it mean to build artificial intelligences and other machines that were more like octopuses, more like fungi, or more like forests?”

“All these behaviors—as well as many more observed in the wild—suggest that octopuses learn, remember, know, think, consider, and act based on their intelligence. This changes everything we think we know about “higher order” animals, because cephalopods, unlike apes, are very, very different to us.”

“Where we start to move forward is when we learn to ask questions which are less concerned with ‘Are you like us?’, and more interested in ‘What is it like to be you?”