Today (Thursday), we presented our videos in the morning, and were then given the main brief. The shear number of videos that contained someone dying in a violent-but-humorous sequence made me consider just how numb we seem to be as a culture to violence. Admittedly humanity appears to be mostly immune to the sanctity of life through out history, the Romans threw (real) people to lions for mass entertainment, so it's not a new thing. It still strikes me as slightly weird and to a degree connected to the plots of lots of TV and video games that trivialise life. Crikey, I sound like some concerned parent... But if I think that commercial music and brain dead TV/Blockbuster films are brain rot, then perhaps so are overly violent plots/themes on some level. Moving on. We were given our main project brief.

Essentially we are to use our character or generate a new one if we're not happy with our current one and combine it with skills we have learnt so far such as MaxMSP, Processing, and any other skills we may have including Flash, 3D programs or whatever else we may know. We are to make the character interact with a participant (user) as part of an art installation. Concepts that we will explore during this include the methodology of Play and study of Semiotics.

Well, it seemed a bit intimidating. We were given the option to work alone or in groups of up to 4 people. I opted to work alone as I usually find groups quite frustrating. There were a couple of parts that I found mildly daunting, coming up with a character mainly. I was starting to consider that the snail was potentially a good and challenging character to use as I analysed it's behaviour in the two videos so far. It is mildly interested in checking out new things, and when it gets board it takes off. Literally. I could produce a work that reacts to a user, but if the user doesn't to much, it leaves. Writing that just now I realise that it's stepping dangerously close to having game elements which we are to avoid. Play is (as best I can define right now, I'll become more familiar as the project goes on) a meaningful but not "serious" activity but without some sort of object to it unlike a game which is play (I guess) but with a quantifiable outcome.

Another thing I considered was doing something a bit different, I'm thinking most projects will be on-screen interactions. I considered animatronics. We have made robots, and those robots I'm pretty sure could be controlled directly from the computer by Processing instead of Lego MindStorms software.

While considering this 2 people I have not talked to before approached me and said they were looking for a 3rd person to form a group. I politely declined but minutes later decided to ask them if they had any ideas. This is my weakest point, initial ideas. We had a small conversation and I decided to join. One of the problems I have with groups in the course is the same people seem to be gravitating toward each other now. I think it would be wise and interesting for people to branch out and mix up, not just stick with their mates. Well that's one thing, the other is I don't want bad ideas that miss the point of the brief messing up anything that I have to put my name to. But I think this will work. A 4th person joined a bit later, and I think I quite like the progress we made. We came up with ideas that were pretty good, mainly because they are actually demonstrating what we need to demonstrate. I think anyway.

At the moment we have a little Aztec character with a large head, small body and a mask on (which appears to be his face as it will show expression) who reacts to various gestures. While considering various elements of this idea we decided that the character happens to be a real person, with a normal body, but we are interacting with him in his dream. This opens up the possibility that we don't just have to control his reactions, but we can control his environment by changing his mood.

It feels nice to have a basic idea down. We currently have don't have solid plans for the execution but some basic ideas. MaxMSP and possibly processing to detect motion of the participant and 3D software to make the character.

Tomorrow we will develop the character more.