7 / 11 / Bel

[711bel]

Week 1 - 2

Week 1 - There wasn't much to say about this week since there was an unexpected lock down, so we had to swap to virtual last minute which wasn't too bad but these sessions were more of a catch up and whats to come of the next few weeks.

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Week 2 - we were able to get in to studio finally. For me this week was basically scrambling to find a group. Much to my surprise, A lot of people were deciding to work alone this year, at least the people that I talked with. I managed to get with Sam, who I had previously worked with for KIP, since he didn't want to work alone either. A few hours went by and Shel came to join us as well. We didn't manage to come up with a solid idea during this time, but the important thing was that I managed to get a group. According to the studio timetables and expectations we were on time anyways!

[711bel]

Panic, Disturbance, and Happy moments. - Week 12

This week has been very full on for both uni work as well as within my own life. All of my assessments were due this week so in order to get some breathing room I as well as my team applied for the Special Consideration. 

Given that I applied for the SCA for my other class, Tech Culture and Digital Practice, a few days beforehand and was much closer in deadline that studio I mainly did work on that this week. I finished it with two days to spare. 

Over the long weekend I was mainly out given that my significant other was up for Armageddon. 

Not much to say about this week. 

In my opinion we didn’t really need the extra few days, as it’s only general tidying up of the pdf submission that’s needed, but It’s good to allow for breathing room. 

[711bel]

-----------Mid week update-----------

Our group did uninamously decide to apply for the extension with everything being due within one week! 

[711bel]

Relevant picture to my project! 

[711bel]

BRANDING - Week 11

We officially settled on the name “Menial.” It was a placeholder but it was too good of a name to pass up on. It’s a double entendre as well as a play on the word. The word itself is synonymous with the words lowly, low-grade, inferior, , unworthy, and degrading. It also had the word Men in it and this is the whole basis of our project; Male mental health as well as societal expectations. Over the last week or so I was also doing some work for another class because I wanted to get out of the way. I did however find some time after having done the said work. I managed to draft an iteration for the website as well as another for a poster. 

I came up with a very playful, yet meaningful design that I liked a lot. I made it through some basic Adobe Illustrator application, which was surprisingly easy. 

[711bel]

Slow struggle - Week 10

Today was more or less the same as last week. I delegated tasks on to the timeline to be done by next week. This week however I was more adamant about getting tasks done, because I felt like we were falling behind in our work. Especially on the physical computing end, but this was quickly resolved by Marc’s initiative to engage. 

Tre’s been very initiative this week and actually did the 3D Model in advance  before I got around to putting it up as a task. 

We got in to a video call for an hour an half to get some research work done together before splitting off as we all had stuff in our lives we had planned. Tre and I worked collaboratively to get some concepts done as well as just general research to add more substance on to our project. Marc on the other end was doing some research on LDR’s Light Dependent Sensor, as well as how to work it on a small circuit. 

[711bel]

Taking charge - Week 9

With the amount of interruptions going on especially on my end, I decided to actually take lead and draft up the timeline and list the tasks that need to be done by the week. 

I kept the tasks vague enough that the other team members have freedom within the set task to choose their own interpretation of it. What I mainly did for that day specifically was just to weigh out our options as well as just to think up of alternatives for the project going forward as I expect more interruptions. 

This is what I got to before I eventually realized that it would be more time efficient if I just did this in to our PDF, which Tre had already been working on and had done a considerable amount of work. 

Collaboratively we got half the PDF submission finished now just on to adding pictures and citing sources, as well as general tidying up. 

[711bel]

Getting in to it - Week 8

At the beginning of this week, Tre and I, had a chat about our project and our options moving forward. Given the time constraints as well as other factors such as transport, and other assessments from different classes, we decided to change our project slightly. We decided to move from a physical art installation to a digital one, that is accompanied by a website, 3D model of what we think it’s gonna look like as well as a diorama of it. 

We made this move to ensure that we have at least something to show come showcase time as well as considering the topic that we are bringing to light. We wanted to reach a wider audience. 

Quite recently on social media apps such as TikTok, and Twitter, it has become commonplace to bash males. On the social media platform Twitter, they degrade males by calling them “wallets.” This is in reference to how males within relationships cover most of the costs for things such as dinners. This could also be seen as a way for women to gain some power over men, however for the sake of my argument they are the bad ones in this situation. 

 A very interesting video that I watched a while back was “Normalization of Abuse towards Males” by youtube creator Roma Army. 

Within the video she goes in depth the lengths that some females have gone to spite their ex-partners, with some messages being borderline, if not, illegal. With this new wave of feminism it doesn’t seem like they want females to be equal, it seems that they want to completely keep men under. 

Attached below are some website design prototypes that we have done throughout the week.

As well as some posters that we’d ideally put had we actually made the installation. 

POSTERS.

[711bel]

MORE INTERRUPTIONS - Week 7

Over the semester break Auckland was brought down from level 3 to alert level 2. This made me very excited for the coming semester. I was sooo ready to finally create something physical and tangible. However... the Harbour Bridge was destroyed overnight (hyperbole). This prevented me from coming in to studio and with time slowly running out it made me worry for our project. The bridge was significantly damaged and with one lane closed during the day it caused for significantly longer bus rides. 

While my other members were at studio, we hopped on a call and did some work together. 

We drafted up the remaining weeks and slowly filled it up with tasks that need to be done weekly in order to assure that we are slowly but surely heading towards the end of the semester. 

At around 12, the other members had left campus because they had other things to do for other classes and this is what ended with on that day. 

I went on to do some more concept refinement as well as just considering our options and how feasible it was given our situation and remaining time. 

[711bel]

Halfway there. Week 6.

Ooh weee!! Half of the semester gone and with little to show for it. This week we added final touches to our PDF before everyone made their own versions of the file for submission as well as including their individual contribution. 

Looking at it right now at it’s current stage, I don’t think we’re gonna be able to get a fairly good grade for it. To make it a little more impressive I cited more sources to show that we have the research that we needed, but weren’t able to execute the physical part, although it was out of our hand. However I’m hopeful for the coming half semester, and that we’ll be back in studio in no time creating our art installation. 

For my individual contribution, I mentioned how our concept came to fruition from me, as well as the whole research on how historically Men were relied on to be the breadwinner. I also cited the others sources properly as well as just made the whole document more professional, because there really wasn’t a lot to show. 

[711bel]

Reinitializing. - Week 5

I don’t remember much happening in this specific week. This week was just a lot of transitioning for both the students and lectures within CoLab. Just a lot of self reflection as well as getting everything ready for the week 6 submission. 

My group in general was really struggling to cope with the sudden change from face to face, to back to digital/ online learning. We were really adamant on creating something physical because of our shared horrible experience following up from the last semester. 

Struggling to make ends meet 

With what we had planned for our project and our projected timeline, we really struggled with creating our PDF for submission, because of our lack of prototyping, as well as just everything we had worked on was left behind within the studio. 

So this week was a lot of recreating what we had done within studio to include within our submission. 

[711bel]

Interruption - Week 4

New semester, New lockdown period. Much like last semester this one has also been interrupted on the fourth week. This week not much happened as it was another transition period back in to lock down days. It was just lots of waiting news from the government as to how long this lockdown period was gonna last. Lots and lots of outrage not just from the people of Auckland but throughout at the country. The 100 day streak broken all because they opened the borders to overseas NZ citizens. 

Not much to say here. 

[711bel]

Summation of the three weeks before the second coming of COVID-19.  Weeks 1-3

This is just everything that I remember doing within those few weeks of freedom within BCT. 

NEW BEGINNINGS. 

Coming in the new semester fresh from a horrible experience with online learning as well as the struggles of finding motivation to work by myself, I was really adamant on creating something physical as well as trying to find new people to work with. 

I vaguely remember there being a lump some of exercises to help groups be formed through similar interests. Quite a lot of them were entirely digitally based which was something that I wasn’t too keen on, since I sought out people that I was friendly with and had a sense as to what they were doing this semester. Most if not all of them said that they wanted to further improve their projects from last semester, which I thought was pretty admirable, because I for one was very glad that I was no longer working on it. 

I then got talking to Tre, who I previously worked with the year before on a projection based installation. He was chatting with another guy Marc who lived within the same area that he had grown up in, and they were just chatting about similar people within each others friend groups. At the end of that day neither of us had no projects which really peaked our interests so we decided to sit down as a group and figure out similarities as well as things that we were fairly passionate about. 

UNCERTAINTY. 

This week for me was more to concrete myself within my group. Within week 1 we agreed that if it came down to it and we had nothing, then we would go our separate ways and join different groups but remain buds. At the start of this we had to find our own spot within the year 2 area, and that took a while since a majority of the tables had already been taken, and since we were a three man group we didn’t have priority. blah blah blah. 

Feeling uncertain about the group I went around the room to talk to people about their project. Kavi was someone that I was initially in a group last semester but since covid came we were unable to. Anyways, she knew that I wanted to work with something in fashion and this semester that was what she was working on, and asked me if I didn’t have a group then I could join her. Not gonna lie I WAS SO TEMPTED TO WORK WITH THEM, and in hindsight I probably should’ve joined them, but I felt really bad for wanting to join another group when we already became close. Ultimately I decided to stick with Tre and Marc. 

IDEATION

Week 3 came around, and we got to idea crafting. We got nowhere. We went around in circles and even tried out a multitude of exercises to help us flesh out literally anything. We did manage to find the strengths of the group tho. We found out that Marc had a pretty good background regarding coding and programming, with Tre and I, with backgrounds and experience on the creative side of things. It wasn’t until Claudine came around and told us about her interactive tree project. It was huge. Absolutely amazing and you could tell it was one of those projects that just attracted large amounts of people on open days, but what made it amazing was the concept and meaning behind it. I can’t quite remember the exact thing at this moment but it was something along the lines of unnoticed actions, I think. 

This got me thinking about something that I was pretty passionate about; Male expectations. As a society it’s still well expected for a male to act, think, speak, and just in general be a specific type of person, and if they were to stray from that then they would get backlash from society. For me personally I’ve recently come out to close friends as gay, and have been met with love and positivity from them and I’ll be eternally grateful for having such a supportive group of people behind me. However that grey area of “what if” and the societal expectations that men are met with, and failing to meet such expectations has caused me to live in constant anguish for a large portion of my life, and it and still does suck. 

Anyways back to idea... ahaha

The idea was to create some sort of creative installation with the emphasis of a sweet spot, which represented the ideal male. Once the subject enters that said sweet spot, if they attempt to leave they would be bombarded with large sounds and flashing lights. 

[711bel]

3 important/ present objects of my daily routine?

1. Coffee mug - The absolute first thing I do when I wake up in the mornings is to make a hot cup of coffee. I have one for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Coffee doesn’t really affect but me, but it’s a habit and something that warms my soul, and makes me feel good :) 

2. Phone - My phone is something that I have on me at all times throughout the day. It’s a security thing - it makes me feel connected and in touch. Having my phone with me allows me to be present and connected with friends and loved ones. 

3. Desktop Computer - My desktop computer is for dedicated for every aspect of my life. It’s part uni study, part leisure, and part gaming. My laptop is purely for taking to uni and when I get home I switch over to my desktop, and get any and all urgent uni items out of the way and just lax. 

[711bel]

Week 11 - Covid Challenge

During last weeks Wednesday meeting we were put in to crit groups to allow our peers to give us constructive criticism and help other out. While I was presenting I had realized something about my project that stood out that really bothered me from that point on. The colors together were clashing and it made the project feel very confusing.

After this I had a separate meeting with Rachel to further discuss my project further. I told her that I hate how it felt very game-y. She then suggested to take it in a more professional direction. This made perfect sense. Most people who are doing creative ventures usually want to pursue it in to a career. 

I altered it so that it had a more professional feel. I also found the driving force that the project was missing. I changed the goal of the app from being a past time activity to keep creatives busy to something that could be very beneficial in helping them further their creative career. This is all theoretical of course, as I don’t think I can get much further than a working prototype, but the picture below is how I envision it would work. 

I envision it to be something that creatives could attach on to their linked in accounts to show that they are adaptable, have community engagement, and are competitive and are really after it. I also added other tabs at the home hub of the application to make it more multi-faceted and more interactive. After having clicked the Fridge  button it’ll take the user to these screens in descending order per tap. 

I decided on the different shades of blue as the main color asset as it was associated with intellectual emotions. The icons for the circles were all sourced from the Noun Project, a free to use website that provides little icons. 

The icon’s border colors correspond with the little colors at the top to add a little element of playfulness within the app. 

[711bel]

Week 10 - Covid challenge

This week I focused mainly on realising what I had envisioned for the community art board that I had been developing thus far. I worked on it using Adobe XD as I realised that it was accessible to AUT students for free including most of the applications on Adobe cloud. I settled on the name “Fridge”  for the community art board. My thought process was, when we are young and draw something that we are really proud of, our parents put it up on the fridge. I thought that this was a cute little concept and backstory of the name and something that gives the application character. The images attached are a draft prototype of what the application might look like. 

I got the color theme by looking up which colors induce which emotions. Yellow induces emotions, working in tandem with blue, I wanted it to feel welcoming yet child-like and engaging. At the moment I feel that beyond pure entertainment I feel that it may be lacking an element. A driving force that’ll actually push creatives using this application to keep using it. Something to encourage the average consumers longevity on the app. 

[711bel]

Week 9 - Covid Challenge

Fridge prologue 

This week I mainly focused on fully fleshing out that idea of a community art board idea that Charles offhandedly proposed. The picture attached below are some thoughts that I had dumped on to a word doc to help me get my thoughts in order. 

I wanted to make something that allowed creatives in isolation to keep their creative juices flowing. The initial idea was that every few days a challenge theme would be up for creatives to interpret in their own creative vices be it, song, sculpting, painting, interpretive dance, etc. They would then amass points from other individuals upvoting their interpretation and then the creative with the most points for that challenge would then be featured in a curated art display to show off their works.