Lab 21: Ideation Phase and Fractals

Outline

In this lab you will:

investigate (briefly) the concept of fractals
brainstorm additional interpretations of the theme
find more examples of images/code art/music/interactions to use as inspiration
articulate your interpretation of the theme and form an early plan for the final project
ensure you understand the spec for your final project

Introduction

We will continue working on your Final Project!

You can find all the details about the final project assessment task by visiting the final project deliverables page.

You can find the template repository for your final project submission here.

The theme for the final project this year is “… endings … beginnings …“.

But first, let’s have a quick look at Fractals!

Part 1: Fractals

First up - what is a Fractal? Where did this name come from? What does it mean?

In Lab 8 one option for investigating shaders was:

Self Similarity: Fractal objects are self-similar across a range of scales. The “similarity” means that there are differences — and this different/same nature gives rise to incredible complexity and beauty. Many natural objects have a fractal aspect.

Take a few minutes to explore the definitions of fractals. What does the term mean? Where did it come from? What types of fractal are there?

As an example we can look at the Mandelbrot Set (watch this amazing zoom)

DO: Fork and clone the lab template repo.

We will look at:

how you can code a visualisation of the Mandelbrot set
how to use layers (and what this means for interfaces)
how to set the cursor (and how this is useful in interfaces)

Follow the live demonstration and Q&A session with your instructor.

Part 2: Generating Ideas

This will be completed offline following your instructors prompts. For those who are not physically present in class, here’s a run-through of what we will do:

disconnect from all internet connected devices and all electronic user interfaces
grab a notepad and pencil (yes, pencil is preferred)
answer the questions:
- what does an ending look like, feel like, taste like?
- are endings final, or part of a cycle?
- subnote: in our universe matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed
- subquestion: was the beginning of our universe an exception to that rule? - in which ways might endings be connected to beginnings? - antithesis: in which ways are endings final, or beginnings isolated/enduring - write examples of important, significant or dramatic endings (you can make this personal) - can these been seen as connected to new beginnings? examples please! - how might this be represented in a digital art work?

OK – Great work. Now we can go back online.

If you haven’t already, fork and clone the final project repo.

You will see that the template repo for this week has a folder called assets\ with a powerpoint file brainstorm.ppt in it.

While you do not need to write any code in this lab, you can do so after completing your initial brainstorming. Right now, you should open up the powerpoint file. You will see that there are several slides already in there, each with a heading. These headings are there to help you interpret the theme from different perspectives.

We will work in 15 minutes sprints. For each slide, spend 15 minutes working individually to come up with as many interpretations of the theme as possible. There are prompts on each slide which will give you a better idea of what to write about.

Be sure to commit and push your work to git after each sprint.

After each sprint, either with someone next to you or in small groups, spend 5 minutes discussing what your interpretations, ideas and associations were.

Part 3: Finding Sources of Inspiration

At this stage, the slide deck looks pretty boring—it’s mainly got text in there. During this activity, you will have some time to scour the internet for examples of images, music, interactions, code art and code music to include in your slide. You can just add the images directly into the slide deck. For music or code art where you can’t include images, just include a reference; the title of the code art or music and a link to the source website in your slides. The process of adding sources of inspiration to your slide deck doesn’t have to be done neatly, we just want you to put together a palette of examples of how others have conveyed the ideas you wrote down through various visual, audio and interactive media.

Part 4: Interpretation

Now that you have done some brainstorming, and even potentially discussed some ideas with your classmates, it’s time to consolidate your ideas and write down your interpretation of the theme. Your interpretation of the theme will serve as the “guiding light” as you develop your project. It should include the main message you wish to communicate to an audience member who will interact with or experience your artefact.

In the fourth slide of your PowerPoint deck, you will find some space to write down your interpretation of the theme. You should also discuss how you want to express your interpretation by thinking about how the audience should feel in response to visuals/sounds/interactions. Lastly, we want you to write down two ideas for an artefact which you will begin roughly implementing in next weeks class. You should think through how the artefact will change over time and whether it will have a specific narrative.

Part 5: Final Project Documentation

For the Final Project you do not have to create multiple versions of your your artefact nor explore different alternative interpretations (hooray), but you may of course do this if you desire.

There are, instead, requirements for documentation.

The spec for the final project asks for an Interpretation.md and a README.md

README.md should be completed later (you need to describe how it works and how to interact with your artefact).
Interpretation.md will contain the information which might be presented on a little card beside your artwork. It must include a brief [400 words] explanation of your interpretation of the theme and how your creative code artefact expresses this. Include the artist name, the title of the work (does not have to be the same as the theme), year, theme, interpretation [400 words], and credits (if you incorporate additional material generated by others including AI)

You also are required to generate a PDf project-documentation.pdf which contains thorough documentation of your project.

Project documentation may include:

Statement of project goals, objectives or outputs
Declaration of start and end times
Project inputs and required resources
Scope of work (what is included and what is excluded)
Plan of work and delivery schedule
Critical or influential decisions and decision points
Designs, sketches, brain-storming, doodles
Screen shots of work-in-progress
Reflections on project progress, changes and outcomes
Your GitLab commit history

Part 6: Planning

We have 9 weeks to build our project. Today you should have developed an interpretation of the theme.

What else do you need to do?
What do you need in order to do it?
When will you do each thing you just identified?

Take some time to define your schedule. Pay attention to commitments at College, home, work, sport, and any other activities which cannot be changed by you.

We have another 7 weeks of class time (14 hours) remaining. You need to use your time effectively.

It is time to make some decisions about which aspects of our coding journey you will incorporate into your artefact.

You may wish to also draw some designs or plans for:

look and feel
modes and systems of interaction
evolution
dynamic transformation

Summary

Congratulations! In this lab you:

read through the final project deliverables page
did some in-depth brainstorming to set you up for implementing your final project artefact
formed an interpretation of the theme and an early plan for your final project

Before you leave class today, make sure you commit and push your work to GitLab.