My first and main learning experience was navigating Processing and developing a project that was driven by both data and code. It was my first time touching any code and I was struck by the learning curve, and at times felt I wasnât able to enact a vision or idea I had in my mind. This led me to do most âsketchingâ and iterating with the code itself, which helped the learning process.
Expanding my knowledge to further creative fields was another exciting piece of learning I had gotten out of this class, as the lectures often contained new artists, projects, programs, and fields that I had been unfamiliar with. Itâs also made impossible looking projects into something I feel that I can produce and dig into. Iâve now many new areas of research that I can tap into because of this class, and I feel that this aligns greatly with what I am interested in as a designer, so could see myself pursuing these areas again. A lot of trial and error, diving in head first, taking risks, and being open to endless failures.
Although I have learnt to consider my process, the structure of this class helped produce a more articulated process and forced me to diverge from typical pathways. Alternative ways of working, alongside a constant collaborative environment was really beneficial through the transparency that it produced, with everyone discussing and learning from each other. Having constant exposure to new ideas and processes was key to me being able to learn heaps in class and on my own.
Articulating rapid and iterative prototypes as a way of working was very constructive, and helped in looking clearly at my own processes. A key area I felt was a struggle to balance was technicalities vs conceptualizing, trying to inject more meaning organically into my work at times was a challenge, since I ended up deep in figuring out software. Stripping back so much of our usual tools has allowed me to work independently of the Adobe Suite for some time, and it was the same for most, creating projects from the ground up.
This class seemed to combine many of my passions and made it a tangible part of my practice. To be able to intersect art, design, philosophy, and technology, in a way that combines theory and experimentation has been very enjoyable. I look forward to applying the skills and contexts Iâve learnt in this class to my future work. Â
