22nd February
22/02/09 14:26
Starting with thoughts about what I am trying to do with this blog, the technicalities and ideas behind it - Going on to describe the Mediascape project that I am planning to do as the main element of this extended practice.
This is the start of my audio diary for extended practice. I tried experimenting with this this time last year, and I’m going to do it again. The format is very simple, I take a mobile phone with me each morning well three times a week when I walk the dog. I do three quarter of an hour walk up the local hill, and I listen to music until I get to the first gate, which is here, and then walking up the steep bit which is now, I record whatever thoughts come into my head targeted at the MA project until I reach the second gate at the top. I can think whatever I want but the basic idea of this audio blog is to try and empty my head of thoughts so that surprising stuff comes in from the periphery, and I find that it does, I find that this works extremely well.
And also in relation to doing an MA in interactive media it clicks a lot of buttons. The system that I am using is very simple it is just a ‘Skype in’ telephone number. I simply phone and leave an audio message on the machine which I can then pick up when I get home. What would be terrific if I could use a bit of software to translate that message straight into type but sadly the technology isn’t good enough yet, it’s getting there. Mac dictate which is the one I’m currently using for dictation doesn’t yet have a transcription feature, and I don’t know if the quality of this would be good enough to transcribe anyway. So the painful bit is listening to the recording when I get home and typing it out, because there is no way that I’m going to go back through an awful lot of audio recording, but if it is types I can scan it much more quickly particularly as I teach myself how to speed read. But I guess that typing it out also has the benefit of speeding up my typing.
But mostly I feel it fits in, partly on the level of blogging, which is a phenomenon of the Internet, lots and lots of quick little thoughts, almost like a twittering which is a new element to how we communicate, and how we use the Internet. Using an iphone to taking these recordings is another feature that links in. And the fact that it is a telephone number that I can phone into sort of fits with the ideas of using telephone audio recording to get ideas and comments from people. So all that fits into the project.
Halfway up
So this is the project that I’m thinking of this part of the course. It would be working alongside the Holborn Museum in Bath they invite a group in in the May half term, these are teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19. These are a group of very difficult teenagers, drugs, low attention span, ADHD, trouble with the law, all sorts of things. They will each have their own personal mentor, they are being drawn from two or three different organisations, and the idea is to do something with them in the May half term that involves computer technology, tries to get them involved, includes the Sydney Gardens, while the Holburne museum itself is closed. They did a project with these teenagers last year in the summer, in August, when they took some famous characters from the museum and they painted them as boards that you could stick your face through and photograph, and had been positioned around the gardens. So there is a publicity element to this, there is working with disaffected youth, there is a budget of some sort, and they are very excited by the possibility of mediascape, so I think mediascape is what it is going to be. I shall be very happy when mediascape is on the iphone. because the iPAQ that I have got is really pretty dire. But my idea is to trial it with my upper 4th, year nine, over the next few weeks, tried to do the bulk of the work over the Easter holiday, and then present it is to these teenagers in the May half term which will give me a week or two after that to write the project up and evaluate it. So we have basically got to do something in mediascape around the gardens, possibly bringing in the history of the gardens, possibly bringing in something to do with photography. Something that is going to engage these teenagers. And being the mediascape that makes me think that it has got to be interesting to them it has got to be I think probably audio based and basically they are going to be producing the mediascape itself that they can then present the visitors to the park. so I think that it has got to be games based, so task one is to do lots of research.
Second gate...
And also in relation to doing an MA in interactive media it clicks a lot of buttons. The system that I am using is very simple it is just a ‘Skype in’ telephone number. I simply phone and leave an audio message on the machine which I can then pick up when I get home. What would be terrific if I could use a bit of software to translate that message straight into type but sadly the technology isn’t good enough yet, it’s getting there. Mac dictate which is the one I’m currently using for dictation doesn’t yet have a transcription feature, and I don’t know if the quality of this would be good enough to transcribe anyway. So the painful bit is listening to the recording when I get home and typing it out, because there is no way that I’m going to go back through an awful lot of audio recording, but if it is types I can scan it much more quickly particularly as I teach myself how to speed read. But I guess that typing it out also has the benefit of speeding up my typing.
But mostly I feel it fits in, partly on the level of blogging, which is a phenomenon of the Internet, lots and lots of quick little thoughts, almost like a twittering which is a new element to how we communicate, and how we use the Internet. Using an iphone to taking these recordings is another feature that links in. And the fact that it is a telephone number that I can phone into sort of fits with the ideas of using telephone audio recording to get ideas and comments from people. So all that fits into the project.
Halfway up
So this is the project that I’m thinking of this part of the course. It would be working alongside the Holborn Museum in Bath they invite a group in in the May half term, these are teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19. These are a group of very difficult teenagers, drugs, low attention span, ADHD, trouble with the law, all sorts of things. They will each have their own personal mentor, they are being drawn from two or three different organisations, and the idea is to do something with them in the May half term that involves computer technology, tries to get them involved, includes the Sydney Gardens, while the Holburne museum itself is closed. They did a project with these teenagers last year in the summer, in August, when they took some famous characters from the museum and they painted them as boards that you could stick your face through and photograph, and had been positioned around the gardens. So there is a publicity element to this, there is working with disaffected youth, there is a budget of some sort, and they are very excited by the possibility of mediascape, so I think mediascape is what it is going to be. I shall be very happy when mediascape is on the iphone. because the iPAQ that I have got is really pretty dire. But my idea is to trial it with my upper 4th, year nine, over the next few weeks, tried to do the bulk of the work over the Easter holiday, and then present it is to these teenagers in the May half term which will give me a week or two after that to write the project up and evaluate it. So we have basically got to do something in mediascape around the gardens, possibly bringing in the history of the gardens, possibly bringing in something to do with photography. Something that is going to engage these teenagers. And being the mediascape that makes me think that it has got to be interesting to them it has got to be I think probably audio based and basically they are going to be producing the mediascape itself that they can then present the visitors to the park. so I think that it has got to be games based, so task one is to do lots of research.
Second gate...