Discuss readings
VR Headsets and vision problems:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52992675
https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/are-virtual-reality-headsets-safe-eyes
Sand Tables and Interaction:
Sand Noise Device – please watch
A History of Sand Tables – this is long, but if you’re interested in how to visualize things in 3D this is a good starting point.
A brief aside on visual skeuomorphism
A skeuomorph is a object derived from past objects and contains past visual cues that have no meaning in current culture. Ex: the “phone” icon on my Android looks like the physical handsets we stopped using in the 90s.
Think of a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were inherent to the original. Examples include pottery embellished with imitation rivets reminiscent of similar pots made of metal and a software calendar that imitates the appearance of binding on a paper desk calendar. Or the “save” icon that looks like a floppy drive, that a Japanese student thought looked like a drink dispenser:
“Why is the Excel save mark a vending machine? “
When you are creating visual representations, are you using your culture’s history of symbolism?
States of being, replacing sound with visuals
ASL replaces a word with a motion while Braille replaces each letter with a pattern with a shape similar to the letter. Before Braille, books for the blind used large raised letters that you would trace by hand.
Early experiments with live animation and MIDI inputs with devices manipulated by the audience.
Console displays in video games are a different way to display information. This is metadata about your status. health, money, power, speed.
Wipeout series brought commercial racing context to a SF racing game. Music for Wipeout XL was mostly bands who were played or performed in rave spaces. There were in-game billboards for real products. The visuals were designed by The Designers Republic, a well-known design firm.
Rez was a completely different video game and hard to explain. The controls are simple, but as you play you dynamically create new visual and audio structures.
Cultural Contexts
What colors mean in US culture vs. Asiatic, Arabic, African countries
ex: white wedding dress or white funeral dress?
colors important because they show wealth: purple for royalty, gold. There were “dyer guilds” that kept secret their methods for creating a dye.
Color of money — the US is one of the few countries where all denominations are the same size and same color.
Color of food: In the south we eat “dirty” rice, or ask for “debris” on our po-boy.
Reading/Viewing assignment while you plan your crit project
Walk This Way navigational guidance
How quickly can you change your appearance in public? Same retired-CIA agent comments on disguise in movies. The second one is a good guide for understanding what you’re seeing in entertainment.
Reading body language.